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This paper aims to explore the rationale, the process and the outcomes and risks of place branding in rural China.

An in-depth case study analysis, including interviews, has been conducted.

Place branding in the case of China is practiced and dominated through administrative entities by using subsidies and regional development programs to coordinate, organize and promote local agricultural resources. Although this government-led place branding has effective effects on rural development, it is unsustainable and unstable because it lacks sufficient market and stakeholder participation.

The effectiveness of place branding in China has been examined and proved.

The government’s role in place branding in China should be adjusted. The government should position itself as a service and auxiliary role. Simultaneously, it should strengthen market-oriented operations and stakeholder participation in place branding.

This paper is one of the first contributions to examine the impact of place branding as a rural development policy tool in China, and the in-depth case study examines and proves the effectiveness of place branding in rural China.

This study aimed to the attributes, consequences and personal values that motivate the behavior of consumers of fruits and vegetables (FV) at local markets and how these elements are associated with food safety.

This is a qualitative research that used the laddering in-depth interview technique for data collection. Fifty interviews were conducted with consumers from Minas Gerais, Brazil. From the codification of the interview content, a hierarchical value map was constructed, showing the relationships between the attributes, consequences and values involved in the consumers’ purchasing decision.

Consumers value characteristics related to the origin of the product and the way it is produced and marketed. They seek particular benefits – such as satisfaction with the purchase, care for their health/well-being and safety when consuming food – and social benefits, such as the possibility of contributing to the local economy. Issues related to hygiene, organization, exposure and handling of products were some of the concerns reported by respondents with regard to food safety.

It is worth highlighting the application of the laddering technique itself. Analyzing the predictive validity of the method, there is a propensity for biases linked to possible interference by the researcher, especially in the coding stage of the elements.

This study can be used by producers, marketing professionals and public policymakers to promote FV sold at local markets and to encourage the improvement of food safety practices.

The research points to five consumer segments according to the different motivations that guide their purchase behavior for local FV. In addition, a focus is given to food safety, revealing its importance in the investigated context.

The extant literature documents the significance of nostalgia-evoking stimuli in promoting consumer behavior. Despite the prevalent use of nostalgia-evoking stimuli in restaurant service, research on nostalgia-evoking restaurants is significantly lacking. As a result, little is known about customers’ cognitive responses toward nostalgia-themed restaurant stimuli and their influences on customer loyalty behavior. Thus, grounded in an extended stimulus-organism-response model, this study aims to examine the role of nostalgia-evoking restaurant stimuli in explaining an integrated model focusing on nostalgia, in relation to local food consumption value, familiarity with nostalgia-triggering restaurants and loyalty and continued patronage.

The authors collected data from 544 Taiwanese customers at nostalgia-themed restaurants. Using PROCESS (Model 6), the direct and indirect effect of nostalgia-evoking restaurant stimuli on loyalty and continued patronage were examined.

The confirmatory factor analysis results showed that five domains of restaurant attributes (i.e., service staff, exterior and interior design, furniture and tableware, local food and atmosphere) are nostalgia-evoking stimuli. The authors also found that these nostalgia-evoking stimuli significantly affected customer loyalty indirectly, through customers’ consumption value and familiarity.

The results of this study help identify the importance of nostalgia-generating cues in nostalgia-themed restaurants and their roles in postpurchase behaviors. The outcomes contribute to an improved understanding of how to exploit nostalgic sentiments in nurturing diners’ consumption value, maintaining customer loyalty and generating greater profits.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few studies examining restaurant attributes evoking nostalgia and explaining the mechanism by which nostalgia-evoking stimuli affect consumer behavior.

A shared set of moral standards, ethical principles and behavioral norms of social structure can be referred to as culture. Many health problems are strongly influenced by one’s cultural background. The purpose of the paper is to examine the scientific explanation of indigenous norms and practice of health healing.

This qualitative study considered in-person interviews to know the Tribals’ indigenous healing practice in Bangladesh. A focus group discussion with five tribal students was conducted to form a baseline on Tribals’ norms, rituals and information-sharing behavior. Around 35 tribal students were interviewed to find out their healing practices, norms and rituals on health issues. All these practicing indigenous knowledge were documented instantly. Peer-reviewed scientific papers from renowned databases were searched to have scientific evidence on each case. All the studies having negative or positive evidence were mentioned with each case.

The findings showed more indigenous knowledge with scientific disagreements on health aspects among the Tribals’ health practice in Bangladesh. However, the positive impact of such knowledge is not negligible. Therefore, showcasing the scientific tribals’ indigenous knowledge to a global audience is a strong recommendation.

Health and health care-seeking behavior among the tribal population in Bangladesh is not a new area of research, few studies have focused on the context, reasons and choices in patterns of health care-seeking behavior; obstacles and challenges faced in accessing health-care provision in the tribal areas in the country. However, research attempts to show the relationship between ecological knowledge and scientific indication is new in nature.

A surge in demand for ethical products, including cruelty-free products, has been well documented in recent years, with direct ramifications for businesses. This trend towards ethical consumption seemed to be swiftly replicated in Eastern countries, especially in South Asian nations, as a result of westernisation. Based on the theory of planned behaviour and the concept of the attitude-behaviour gap, this study aims to investigate the impact of westernisation on the purchase intention of cruelty-free cosmetic products.

A positivist research paradigm was utilised in this study. Accordingly, an online self-administered questionnaire was shared among 242 consumers of cosmetic products in Sri Lanka in order to collect responses. The statistical techniques of correlation analysis, the Sobel test and moderator regression analysis have been utilised in this study.

It was found that there seems to be a positive impact of westernisation and the cruelty-free purchase intention of consumers. Moreover, consumer empowerment appears to mediate this relationship, while the attitude behaviour gap tends to further impact the relationship between consumer empowerment and the purchase intention of cruelty-free products.

This study seems to shed light upon the impact of westernisation on the purchase intention of consumers, especially from an ethical dimension and this study is likely to extend existing studies which have focussed on consumer empowerment, attitude-behaviour gap as well as the theory of planned behaviour, especially in the context of South Asia, where there seems to be a dearth of such investigations. Moreover, this study has attempted to contextualise the construct of “Westernisation” to the South Asian region in line with the tone set by an editorial article Dewasiri et al. (2021).

This paper aims to investigate the cultural meanings of excessive drinking in three different countries with different levels of alcohol use chosen as case studies of wider geographies representing Northern (Denmark), Southern (Italy) and Eastern (Estonia) Europe.

Data were collected according to the Reception Analytical Group Interview method, using video clips as stimuli to enhance comparability. Eight online focus groups were organized in each country for a total number of 128 participants. Symbolic boundaries defining what drinking patterns are socially acceptable were then analysed to look at cross-national variations.

Results show how different conceptualizations of excessive drinking persist, although a convergence process among drinking patterns is also observed, which suggests that differences mainly depend on meanings and values attributed to intoxication. These are both rooted in the traditional drinking cultures and affected by ongoing social and economic change processes.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability, even at country level, as there are differences also within the same drinking culture; however, addressing these differences was beyond the scope of the present study, which aimed to contribute to understanding persisting differences in European drinking culture despite different drivers seem to act for globalization of drinking habits.

The paper includes implications for the development of tailored and effective prevention messages, considering rooted attitudes and cultural values attached to drinking and drunkenness in different European geographies, which are also related to conceptualizations of risks and pleasure.

This paper fulfils an identified need to understand persisting differences in alcohol-related behaviours and outcome in different European countries emerging from quantitative data.

Analyses of cultural landscapes need to combine natural and social-cultural components to promote discussions on landscape planning and heritage management. This qualitative research explores the integrated case study of ten municipalities in the “Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato”, Italy, a UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape. The research aims to raise awareness of its aesthetic-perceptive features, the importance of effective identification of visual impacts and to promote mitigation strategies/actions for updating the current Management Plan.

Two rounds of interviews and focus groups with mayors were performed in 2015 and 2020 to identify trends and drivers of change affecting the territories. Potential mitigation strategies and actions were voted on and selected in response to five critical themes that emerged from the survey, mainly related to real estate and its supplies.

The results suggest tools and policies in the fields of landscape architecture and landscape design that could benefit planning and management at different levels. They support the design of sustainable scenarios, improving mayors' understanding of the significance of cultural landscapes and promoting them as heritage managers. Furthermore, they intend to preserve the authenticity of the landscape by supporting its attributes for long-term conservation.

The research makes an original contribution on the visual implications of anthropogenic landscape transformations in ten municipalities constituting this serial property, six years after its UNESCO nomination (2014).