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Virtual goods consumption has risen dramatically in recent years. Recognizing the benefits of virtual goods in generating revenue for online game companies, marketers strive to understand the motives behind virtual goods purchases. We investigated the direct and indirect effects of functional, emotional, and social values through player satisfaction on purchase intention toward virtual goods among online players.

In total, we surveyed 332 online game players utilizing a structured questionnaire. We employed a multi-analytic approach combining partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and necessary condition analysis (NCA) to examine the proposed relationships.

The findings show that all dimensions of value and player satisfaction significantly affect the intention to acquire virtual goods. However, social value does not exert a significant effect on player satisfaction. Moreover, we confirmed that player satisfaction mediates the relationships between functional value, emotional value, and purchase intention. Furthermore, NCA results indicated that all predictors in the model are necessary conditions of purchase intention for virtual goods.

These findings contribute to an enhanced understanding of purchase intentions among online game players from a symmetric (PLS-SEM) and asymmetric (NCA) perspective by proposing a multi-analytic approach.

This paper aims to determine the essential “collective goods” which a foreign multinational enterprise (MNE) must have before production can start in a remote area of an emerging economy, and to consider the alternative governance modes available to procure or create these goods.

This purpose is examined conceptually and theoretically. First, the concept of “collective goods” is presented, followed by a consideration of the traditional “buy, ally or make” contractual approaches available to obtain goods and services. These approaches are repositioned in the context of an “emerging economy” so that alternative “ordering systems” as well as “non-contractual” means of obtaining things have to be considered in the context of internalization and reciprocity theories.

It is difficult to obtain collective goods in remote areas of emerging economies where private ordering prevails and even succeeds but at high transaction costs and with substantial government intervention. However, the use of non-contractual modes of exchange such as reciprocity is available to facilitate exchanges between market MNEs and nonmarket state offices and civil-society associations such as non-governmental organizations with which collaboration is necessary but which cannot be acquired or controlled by MNEs. However, market firms can use philanthropy and lobbying to obtain the help of these nonmarket actors who know how to operate under private and state-ordering systems.

Theoretical implications: Internalization theory explains why MNEs are able to obtain collective goods by providing them “in-house”, while reciprocity theory exemplifies how non-contractual modes of exchange can substitute for the traditional but contractual “buy, ally and/or make”.

Managerial implications: In terms of the organizational structure of the subsidiary of an MNE operating in an emerging economy, it appears that the line functions of procurement, engineering and production may rely more on contractual exchanges with foreign suppliers, while the staff functions of public affairs, government relations and human resources may be more adept at using reciprocal exchange with local suppliers.

The provisioning of the collective goods when a firm builds its facilities in a remote and underdeveloped part of an emerging economy has hardly received any research attention nor have the non-contractual ways – such as reciprocity – available in the context of private ordering to obtain these goods.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

Doctors' labour and medicines are special necessities for human survival and evolution. Since China launched the healthcare reform, the theoretical circles' discussions have not yet clarified the respective special properties of doctors' labour and medicines as goods and the internal relations between doctors' labour and medicines at the level of the theoretical basis.

Health is a prerequisite for people's all-round development, a precondition for economic and social development and the people's common aspiration. The all-round moderately prosperous society could not be achieved without people's all-round health.

The authors believe the socialist relation between doctors' labour and medicines with Chinese characteristics should be one that is people-oriented, and the corporatization of hospitals or the capitalization of doctors' labour should be avoided.

In this paper, the authors explore the particularity of doctors' labour, particularity of medicine production, circulation, consumption and the internal relations between doctors' labour and medicines by using the analytical approach of Marxist political economy while considering the special roles of doctor's labour and medicines in the reproduction of labour power and put forward the theoretical basis for the segregation of doctor's labour and medicines.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion surrounding the definition of accounting proposed by Carnegie et al. (2021a, 2021b) and further elaborated by Carnegie et al. (2023) from/under an institutionalist political-economy (IPE) based foundation and to specifically extend this approach to the arena of social and environmental accounting (SEA).

By adopting an IPE approach to SEA, this study offers a critique of the use of the notion of capital to refer to nature and people in SEA frameworks and standards.

A SEA framework based on the capabilities approach is proposed based on the concepts of human capabilities and global commons for the purpose of preserving the commons and enabling the flourishing of present and future generations.

The proposed framework allows the engagement of accounting community, in particular SEA researchers, with and contribution to such well-established initiatives as the Planetary Boundaries framework and the human development reports initiative of the United Nations Development Programme.

Based on the capability approach, this study applies Carnegie et al.’s (2023) framework to SEA. This new approach more attuned to the pursuit of sustainable human development and the sustainable development goals, may contribute to turning accounting into a major positive force through its impacts on the world, expressly upon organisations, people and nature.

The purpose of this paper is to report about research how Society 5.0 balances Industry 4.0, responsible economic development and resolution of social problems by advancement of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in organizations.

Drawing from organization, sustainable development and social functionalism theories, the authors designed an integral model of CSR in line with goals of a forward-looking and socially responsible society. This study includes analyzing of present governing principles, multidisciplinary and multifunctional consideration and developing of integral framework for CSR in organizations.

This study’s findings suggest incorporation of technology in models of CSR, a regionally grounded solving of individuals’ social problems and changing of CSR’s environmental, social and economic dimensions according to circumstances of Society 5.0.

This study has created guidance for improvement of CSR practice in organizations through its responsible operating and behavior grounded on the governing environmental and social circumstances in modern society. It also revealed new possibilities for interest-based usage of human-centered society among individuals and organizations.

The reported study proposed an integral model of CSR for solving the main social problems with usage of advanced technologies in responsible economic growth founded on circumstances of Society 5.0, previously not considered in literature.

The market for counterfeit goods worldwide has continued to grow significantly over the years, attracting the curiosity of researchers in the marketing field. This study aimed to analyse the influence of price-quality inference and attitudes towards economic rewards of purchasing counterfeit products on the intentions to purchase non-deceptive counterfeit products.

The research adopted a quantitative methodology and utilised the cross-sectional survey method to collect data from a sample of 381 respondents comprising university students. The data was then analysed using the computer software Smart PLS 4.

The results established that the respondents’ price-quality inference of counterfeit products was positively associated with the attitudes towards economic rewards of purchasing counterfeit products and intention to purchase counterfeit products. Furthermore, the study revealed that attitudes towards economic rewards of purchasing counterfeit products partially mediated the influence of price-quality inference on customer intention to acquire non-deceptive counterfeit goods. A multigroup analysis of the proposed relationship did not find any statistically significant differences in the pattern of results concerning the gender groups.

The significance of the study findings is hampered by the singular focus on university students as a reference point for young people’s perceptions of counterfeit goods in South Africa. The study, however, presents verifiable evidence that marketers and brand managers of genuine products may utilise to develop intervention measures to sway young African consumers away from counterfeits and towards genuine brands.

This is one of the few studies in the literature that addresses young adults’ deliberate purchasing of non-deceptive counterfeits in South Africa, an important consumer market in Africa.

This paper seeks to explore the functions of Christmas mythemes for children’s consumption culture development. In addition, the purpose of this study is to provide an insight on the development of Central European Children into customers and how mythemes are associated with the wishing behaviour.

Levi-Strauss’ (1955) structural analysis was used to uncover the mythemes of the Christmas story for Austrian children. These mythemes then informed a thematic analysis of 283 Austrian children’s Christmas letters. Campbell’s (1970) functions of myths were used to reflect on the findings.

The Christmas mythemes uncovered were found to encourage materialism by linking self-enhancement (good acquirement) with self-transcendent (good behaviour) values. The role of myths to relieve the tension between the incongruent values of collective/other-oriented and materialistic values is expanded upon. Such sanctification of selfish good acquisition is aided by the mythemes related especially to the Christkind and baby Jesus. Instead, marketers should use Christmas mythemes which emphasise family and collective/other-centred values.

By first uncovering the “mythemes” related to Christmas, the authors contribute to the academic understanding of Christmas, going beyond origin or single myth understandings and acknowledging the multifaceted components of Christmas. The second contribution is in exploring mytheme’s representation in children’s Christmas letters and reflecting on their functions. This differs from previous literature because it looks at one of the main cultural vehicles for Christmas socialisation and its intersection with the mythemes that feed children’s consumption culture formation. Through the authors’ presentation of a conceptual framework that links mytheme functions with proximal processes using a socioecological viewpoint, the authors demonstrate the guidance of mythemes in children’s development. The third contribution is a reflection on the potential ethical implications for children’s formation of their consumer culture based on the functions of the mythemes. Furthermore, the authors add to the existing body of research by investigating a Central European context.

Marx suggested that it is infeasible and wrong to arrange the economic categories according to the order by which they have worked in history. Their order is determined by their interrelationship in the modern bourgeois society, which is in contrast to their natural sequence or that which is in accordance with the course of history. Sometimes, a logical sequence is precisely opposite to the historical sequence. There are many efforts to be done in the study of China’s economic and social issues with Marxist logical and historical methods. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

When reading Das Kapital, we can clearly see the historical materialism methods. Another method of Marxist political economics is the scientific abstract method.

This is based on the new development idea to carry out scientific and technological innovation and change the focus of development from quantity to quality. With regard to the supply side structural reform as the main focus, people’s ever-growing demand for a better life can be satisfied and the higher level dynamic supply–demand balance can be kept.

In fact, measures to remedy unbalanced and inadequate development of the social principal contradiction have been plainly indicated in the report delivered at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. This is based on the new development idea to carry out scientific and technological innovation and change the focus of development from quantity to quality.

The family is one of the foundations of society; its significance for societal redistribution in modern societies, though, remains particularly unclear. A major reason for this is that theoretical approaches to societal redistribution have not adequately included family either in social philosophy or in welfare state theory. As a consequence, also empirical analyses of differences and developments in societal redistribution have not included family or only in as far as family is affected by other redistributive principles. This paper contributes to filling this theoretical gap.

This paper theorises family as a redistributive principle. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, it identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution.

Approaches to redistribution are shaped by distinct concepts of equal or unequal exchange, the relevant actors they identify and by different understandings of the economy. These distinctions are central to understanding the position of family in societal redistribution. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, this paper identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution. Further investigations might draw on this typology and detect the theoretical foundations of its conceptualisations and its similarities to and deviations from the developed types.

This paper provides a theoretical groundwork for theoretical and empirical investigations of societal redistribution and for better comprehending its international variation. It aims to initiate a fundamental rethinking of the usual understanding of societal redistribution that widely ignores family as a redistributive principle of its own.