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Through a critical review of the impact of luxury international business, this study aims to contribute to an understanding of business activities that depend on an unequal distribution of income and wealth.

Drawing on a wide range of academic and practitioner literature, this study adopts a critical luxury studies approach to provide an assessment of the economic and social impact of luxury international business.

Luxury is an increasingly important sector of the economy, which contributes to the welfare of increasing numbers of people across the world. Alongside its dependence on an unequal distribution of income and wealth and the negative aspects to which this gives rise, luxury business generates significant benefits to the economy and society through promoting economic growth, innovation, cultural enrichment, improved quality of the built environment and environmentally sustainable business practices. Nevertheless, an appropriate level of regulation and taxation on the excesses of contemporary luxury consumption could improve the welfare of all. Hence, luxury international business warrants investigation by critical scholars who recognize the complexity of the benefits and dark sides arising from luxury.

This study draws on an extensive review of academic and practitioner literature. However, primary research is required to investigate further the key issues identified.

Through an exploration of the impact of the production and consumption of luxury, this study reveals how luxury businesses serving the super-rich can contribute to the welfare of society whilst also giving rise to negative outcomes.

By adopting a critical luxury studies approach, this study offers an original contribution to the field of international business and introduces avenues for future critical international business research.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

During a time of economic uncertainty does the demand for luxury or high quality goods dry up? Do the well off, the rich, and even the super rich begin to tighten their belts along with everyone else? Do luxury retailers need to trade down in order to keep their products affordable?

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to digest format.

In the last 30 years fashion has changed from an elite accessory of the super‐rich to a mass‐market product. Since the mid‐nineties the department stores that traditionally dominated this broader market have started to lose ground to specialist clothing chains offering the latest designs at competitive prices.

The authors analyze the long-term relationship between the US housing market and the concentration of high net worth individuals.

The authors apply a cointegration and causality approach on a ten years database. The database includes by US state the density of high net worth individuals, the house price index, the homeownership rate, the number of housing units, and the privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits.

The results show a limited cointegration between the concentration of US wealthy households and the housing market. Thus, the authors can partly predict the fluctuations transmission from the housing market to wealthy households.

The authors suggest that our findings could be of interest to wealthy households, real estate professionals, and public authorities.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how the socio-economic trends caused by the economic deregulation of the last four decades have led to a high-net-worth strata of individuals and families that conspicuously consumes luxury items and are the main customers in the luxury yacht market.

A selected cross-section review and discussion of relevant publications and theories within the field of tourism, social sciences, business and economic history are synthesised with relevant data to outline the factors leading to socio-economic change and conspicuous consumption.

This paper advocates for the synthesis of scholarly techniques found within the discipline of Business History to illuminate the development of a luxury yachting industry over the past four decades. Using the varieties of capitalism approach this paper demonstrates that the local characteristics of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in combination with the international globalisation and trade deregulation since 1980 has led to a new super wealthy class that engages in conspicuous consumption. Using a schema based on critical juncture theory, light has been shed on the specific factors underpinning the demand for luxury yachts as part of this conspicuous consumption.

This paper adds a new set of methodologies and theoretical tools to the student of luxury tourism that embed the practice within the context of socio-economic changes brought forth by economic globalisation since 1979, opening up new avenues of research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how “manias” in global health governance lead to health inequalities even before, during and in the aftermath of acute health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. “Manias” as used here refer to obsessive ir/rational behaviors, misguided policy/strategic choices and the exercise of power that benefit the major global health actors at the expense of stakeholders.

From post-colonial and historical perspectives, this study delineates how the major global health actors influence outcomes in global health governance and international business when they interact at the national–global level using an illustration from an emerging economy.

Power asymmetry in global health governance is constructed around the centralization of economic influence, medico-techno-scientific innovation and the geopolitical hegemony of a conglomerate of super-rich/powerful actors. They cluster these powers and resources in the core region (industrialized economies) and use them to influence the periphery (developing economies) through international NGOs, hybrid organizations, MNCs and multilateral/bilateral agreements. The power of actors to maintain manias lies in not only how they influence the periphery but also the consequences of the periphery’s “passivity” and “voluntary” renunciation of sovereignty in medical innovations and global health policies/politics.

As a quintessential feature of manias, power asymmetry makes it harder for weaker actors to actually change the institutional conditions that produce structural inequalities in global health.

This timely and multidisciplinary study calls for a novel architecture of global health governance. Thus, democratizing global health governance with sufficiently foresighted investments that prioritize equitable access by and the inclusiveness of vulnerable stakeholders will help dismantle institutionalized manias while decreasing health inequalities.

Traditionally, international luxury marketing highlights possible disparities of cultural and value perception. The context-specific nature of traditional international luxury marketing, which ranges from educational and cultural to financial and offering-based variations, delivers little guidance to managers in the field regarding how to cater best to their highest target segment. The study aims to exemplify the relevance of global consumer culture (GCC) theory for the ultra-high-net-worth-individual (UHNWI) context. The authors' research on UHNWIs maps the DNA, so to speak, of the UHNWI customer experience (CX) by determining what drives UHNWI purchasing behavior independent of background – in other words, what matters most to this exclusive consumer segment.

Interviewing 15 UHNWIs using a means-end approach and incorporating the emerging consensus technique (ECT), the authors explored the CX of UHNWIs leading to their purchasing decisions.

The authors' analysis reveals the three main constituents of the UHNWI CX: the value of time, expectation mismanagement and the utilitarian nature of luxury. The findings highlight that UHNWIs see traditional luxury as a necessity rather than a luxury and value different factors, such as time, much more highly. The findings highlight the UHNWI homogenous nature, connecting GCC to purchasing behavior.

The authors' study delivers empirical evidence of what matters most to the UHNWI segment and drives their purchasing behavior. The authors are questioning existing luxury segmentation strategies and lay out a clear guidance on how to design and deliver effective and efficient marketing, sales and communications strategies for the elusive UHNWI segment. The research highlights that it is the experience and the three main dimensions, namely expectation mismanagement, luxury as a utility and the value of time. Following UHNWI CX DNA framework will allow luxury companies to build their marketing and client acquisition efforts on a solid understanding of what matters most to the UHNWI target segment.

The study highlights the commonalities of UHNWIs in terms of what matters most to them. Based on this, the authors develop a UHNWI CX DNA. The authors propose that traditional context-specific differences upheld by international marketing researchers might not apply to the UHNWI segment. The authors deliver evidence that UHNWI are an excellent example of the applicability of GCC theory. The only difference in perception the authors noticed was between CX evaluations of self-made UHNWIs and those who inherited their wealth in an otherwise homogenous segment.

This paper aims to uncover links, overlaps and influence flows across two seemingly unrelated historical processes – the broadening of the marketing concept and the rapid rise of neoliberal ideology, and associated economic and social policies.

Historical examination of the pivotal points in marketing thought, especially since 1960s and 1970s, is juxtaposed with the historical rise of neoliberalism to uncover linkages between marketing and neoliberalism, with a particular reference to Foucault’s analysis of the neoliberal transgression of classical liberalism.

While noble intentions were behind the broadening of the concept of marketing, the implicit assumptions reinforced neoliberal ideology and policies that led to rapid rise in inequality and to disastrous financial and economic crises.

This study, relying on extensive interdisciplinary theorizing, could benefit from empirical and practical extensions.

Globally pervasive marketing practices – based on the broadening of the marketing concept – have become imbricated in contemporary spiraling crises. To escape such spirals, radical rethinking of marketing theories and practices is required.

To reorient away from serving only the interests of centralized capital and to serve the needs of people the world over, marketing thought and practice need to reorient to innovative ideas that transcend the broadened and generic marketing concepts.

The paper develops the linkages between marketing theory and practices since the late 1960s and the neoliberal ideology politics and policies, with roots in the 1920s, that rose to prominence in the 1970s. A key contribution is an exploration of, in a marketing context, Foucault’s analysis of the neoliberal eclipsing of classical liberalism.

A case study about the creation of four scenarios that were used to make sense of the fast-moving pace of COVID-19 and the consequences for New Zealand tourism.

Adapting global visitor economy scenarios, a set of New Zealand tourism scenarios were constructed using a “back of house Shell” method and were supplemented with an expert panel to test the reliability and validity of the scenarios.

The four scenarios constructed were based on two critical uncertainties, namely economic recession and the moral dilemma of the consumer. Four scenarios were portrayed using film and TV titles to help participants visualise the scenarios. Crazy Rich Asians: Recovery represented many of the attributes of tourism in New Zealand prior to COVID-19 i.e. a focus on high value tourists from Asia. Contagion: Survival of the Fittest represented the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. This Side of Paradise: ReThinking Tourism focused on rebuilding tourism based upon the principles of sustainability. The Colony: Gated Communities represented fortress destinations trying to keep COVID-19 at bay. Each scenario portrayed several features including a unique narrative, tourism, the tourist, vision, strategy and risks. The paper highlighted the trade-offs and conflicts between the scenarios as COVID-19 unfolded in different directions.

In a fluid situation, the paper reminds readers of the value of scenarios as framing devices to understand the fast-moving pace of COVID-19 when New Zealand was in unchartered waters. Thus, this study highlights how a scenario-planning process builds resilience and foresight to help stakeholders and actors make sense of crisis situations.

Drawing on the functional structural systems theory of Niklas Luhmann and the theory of colonisation of the social lifeworld advanced by Jurgen Habermas, it is argued that the Big Society project in the UK is about the creation of an alternative non-state welfare infrastructure by the linking of wealthy donors with opportunities to engage in venture philanthropy in the third sector. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper outlines key features of Luhmann's theory relating to autopoiesis and structural coupling to illustrate its conceptual strength in making the colonisation process visible.

The paper illustrates the ways in which system imperatives underpinning the colonisation process absorb and subordinate public activism to narrow market principles forcing the third sector to communicate in the language of the market rather than caritas.

The real implication of these developments for the character of the voluntary sector requires further critical examination not only because the state's enduring commitment to welfare may be in question but also for the growing significance of entrepreneurial philanthropy in shaping the character of volunteering and charitable activities and welfare relationships.

The paper applies Luhmann's theory relating to autopoiesis and structural coupling to make key features of government colonisation of the third sector visible.