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This study examined how parental divorce during emerging adulthood gives meaning to emerging adults’ developmental stage and interpersonal relationships.

The participant sample consisted of 15 females from the Southeastern United States who were between the ages of 18 and 25 (M = 21.5). Qualitative methods were utilized, with a transcendental phenomenological research methodology specifically applied. Interviews were conducted focusing on perceptions of the divorce experience in relation to important aspects of emerging adulthood, namely developmental experiences and interpersonal relationships, primarily intimate partner and dating experiences. NVivo was used to allow a “bottom-up” design, emergent design, and interpretive inquiry for data analysis.

Two major themes emerged from the data: (1) developmental stage facilitates insight into the divorce process and (2) parental divorce leads to contemplating and reconceptualizing perceptions of self and interpersonal relationships.

Results are relevant to researchers, parents, and practitioners as divorce is examined with a developmental lens. Findings suggest that the meaning and impact of parental divorce are distinct for emerging adult children, characterized by awareness and personal reflection. Implications for parenting and practice are provided.

This study aims to investigate emerging adults’ emotional responses to a commercial with materialistic cues, and the commercial’s perceived and actual effect on materialism – taking the role of pre-existing attitudes toward advertising into account.

The paper used a mixed-method design to gauge emotions evoked by materialistic cues both qualitatively and quantitatively. Emotions were assessed using both open-ended and close-ended questions. Perceived effectiveness was also measured using close-ended questions. To establish the commercial’s actual effect, an online experiment was conducted. In total, 179 individuals between the ages of 18 and 25 years participated.

Emerging adults’ pre-existing attitudes toward advertising predicted their emotional responses toward a commercial with materialistic cues (i.e. influencing whether they are negative, neutral or positive) as well as the perceived effectiveness of materialistic cues in advertising. A one-time exposure to a commercial with materialistic cues does not increase materialism.

Emerging adults who dislike advertising, tend to also dislike advertising with materialistic cues and perceive it as less effective. However, young consumers with an interest in advertising do appreciate the use of materialistic cues and perceive them as being effective. Although no actual effect was found, this could be a reason for advertisers to use materialistic cues.

This paper is the first to investigate consumers’ emotions toward materialistic cues, and to study their perceived and actual effect. Moreover, it is the first to examine the link between advertising exposure and materialism among emerging adults.

Using the millennial cohort the purpose of this paper is to assess differences in shopping mall behaviour between three intra-cohorts groups: adolescents (13–17), emerging adults (18–23) and young adults (24–30+).

Using a self-administered questionnaire, respondents were recruited through random customer intercepts at a major shopping mall in a capital city in Australia using a team of trained research assistants. After initial descriptive between group examinations, discriminant analysis was applied to verify group membership.

Results show significant differences between groups. Attitudes based upon mall attributes varied significantly, along with expenditure and other behaviour. The study provides evidence of transitional differences within a generational cohort as mall consumers mature.

It serves as a focus for researchers to more actively consider intra-cohort segmentation relating to other generational cohorts.

Findings show that emerging adults to be moving away from attending the mall, which means, this group may be lost if retailers are not more proactive in attracting them or at least maintaining them. Coupling this with the group’s transition towards young adulthood, and the fact that these young adults are less likely to go to the mall there is a degree of urgency to develop strategies to keep this transition group engaged if financially feasible.

This research is important to ongoing theoretical perspectives of cohort theory and life cycle positions through its application to a more nuanced examination of the millennials cohort.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of peer pressure on joint consumption decisions among emerging adults. Building on prospect theory and characteristics of emerging adulthood, the authors propose that influence from peers (i.e. informational and normative influence) serves as a channel to understand how peer pressure shapes joint consumer behaviors at different levels of social capital.

An online survey is distributed to the emerging adults, aged 18 to 25, in the south, west, east and middle of the USA. Construct validity and reliability are tested by using confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation modeling is used to test the mediating and moderating effects.

The results show that social capital moderates the relationship between peer pressure and group-oriented consumer decisions, such that the relationship is positive in groups with high-level social capital but negative in groups with low-level social capital. Furthermore, such effects tend to be achieved via peer influence. And peer influence is stronger in groups with high-level social capital than those with low-level social capital.

The current literature has shown contradictory results: it is usually believed that emerging adults may conform to pressure and engage in group-oriented decisions; however, some research has reported the opposite result. To better understand this relationship, the authors aim at a group-level factor – perceived social capital – as a boundary condition. This research contributes to the young consumer decision-making literature by involving the interplay among peer pressure, perceived social capital and peer informational and normative influence.

Scholars have repeatedly concluded that heritage is a significant value driver for luxury brands (Riley et al., 2004; Fionda and Moore, 2009; Wuestefeld et al., 2012; DeFanti et al., 2014; Ardelet et al., 2015; Dion and Borraz, 2015; Dion and Mazzalovo, 2016). However, little is known on how consumers of different age group make sense of heritage luxury. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how consumers of different age groups make sense of heritage luxury brands (HLBs).

To achieve this, semi-structured, one-on-one, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 21 consumers of HLBs who fell into one of three age groups: Emerging adults (18 to 25 years), middle-aged adults (33 to 40 years) and older adults (67 to 74 years old).

The findings of this paper explored the different perceptions of the dimension of heritage in relation to luxury among consumers of different age groups. This paper focuses on the pioneering contributions of Urde, Greyser and Balmer (2007) in defining the dimensions of heritage brands. Although the dimensions of heritage brands defined by Urde et al. (2007) were useful as a starting point, differing perceptions among consumers of different age groups emerged which need to be considered. Findings of this study showed that consumers of all three age groups revealed three characteristics of HLBs. These are timelessness, quality craftsmanship and prestige. The durability and lasting appeal of HLBs was attributed to their high-quality craftsmanship. Quality craftsmanship, recognizability and price contributed to the perceived prestige value of HLBs. It was apparent throughout this study that HLB items helped participants feel connected to others, including their mothers or more remote forebears, their contemporaries and their descendants.

The author aims to understand the interplay between heritage and luxury, to understand how luxury brand consumers of different age groups are influenced by the heritage dimension. The relation between luxury and heritage becomes particularly intriguing when we consider how it affects the perceptions of consumers of different age groups.

The purpose of the paper is to build on current discussions about the need for and role of guidance in learning and teaching, as well as to theoretically develop its specifics to further advance our scholarly understanding of how to structure and enhance entrepreneurship education.

The paper takes a synthesizing conceptual approach, built on developmental psychology, instructional science, expertise research as well as the pedagogy–andragogy discussion and the role of guidance in contemporary entrepreneurship education research. In addition, a new term, odigogy, is developed.

Odigogy, from the Greek word odigós (to guide), addresses how to navigate student entrepreneurs in higher education. The term seeks to correspond both to the specifics of entrepreneurship as a subject and the characteristics of students in the classroom who are in a transitional phase between adolescence and adulthood.

The paper contributes to current entrepreneurship education discussions by offering a more balanced terminology positioned between how to teach (pedagogy) and how adults learn (andragogy). The paper provides insights for teachers when developing teaching methods and learning activities in higher education.

By introducing the term odigogy the paper seeks to contribute an enhanced understanding of the entrepreneurial learning process in higher education, which does not match pedagogical assumptions on how to teach children or adolescents, nor andragogical assumptions on how adults learn, or how to engage students in self-directed learning as presented in heutagogy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of maturation processes – personality change and reflectivity as characterized by greater awareness to self and others – during emerging adulthood in predicting career success.

A sample of 205 of Israeli emerging adults was followed over a 12-year period. Participants completed measures of self-criticism at age 23 and 29, reflectivity at the age of 29 and subjective and objective career outcomes such as satisfaction with work and level of income at the age of 35. Hierarchical regressions determined the extent that decreases in self-criticism as well as greater reflectivity that predicted future career success.

The findings of this paper indicated that greater decreases in self-criticism were longitudinally associated with less frequent negative experiences at work and lesser tendency to have doubts about one’s career. Greater reflective capacity was longitudinally associated with a future higher income, greater career satisfaction and a stronger perception of one’s career as a means to implement inner interests.

The results of this paper suggest that decreasing negative self-perception and enhancing awareness about self and others might facilitate a future career success.

This is among the first studies that demonstrate the role of personality maturation during emerging adulthood for future career success.

Emerging adult women are actively engaged in career and family explorations, amidst changing opportunities and constraints. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether such women felt they could balance a high-achieving career and a family life, or what has become known in the popular discourse as women “having it all.”

This qualitative study utilized focus groups to explore subjective perceptions of balancing career and family held by emerging adult women. The sample (n=69) comprised female university students in a large Canadian metropolitan area.

Thematic analyses unearthed six distinct yet overlapping positions on the possibility of balancing career and family: Optimism (“I can have it all.”), Pessimism (“I cannot have it all.”), Uncertainty (“I am not sure I can have it all.”), Choice (“I don’t want to have it all.”), Pragmatism (“This is what I need to do to have it all.”) and Support (“Will I access the support necessary to have it all?”).

Limitations include the potential of focus groups to elicit group polarization and to lead participants to censor opinions to conform to conversations. Still, the study reveals more nuanced positions held by women than reported earlier.

The study extends prior research by revealing the range of positions held by women toward career and family, highlighting women’s understanding of the complex issues involved and showcasing their awareness of the crucial role of social support.

Young people’s attachment to their smartphones is well-documented, with smartphones often described as prostheses. While prior studies typically assume a clear human/machine divide, this paper aims to build on posthuman perspectives, exploring intercorporeality, the blurring of human/technology boundaries, between emerging adults and their smartphones. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Drawing on assemblage theory, this interpretive study uses smartphone diaries and friendship pair/small group discussions with 27 British emerging adults.

Participants in this study are characterized as homo prostheticus, living with and through their phones, treating them as extensions of their mind and part of their selves as they navigated between their online and offline, private and social lives. Homo prostheticus was part of a broader assemblage or amalgamation of human and non-human components. As these components interacted with each other, the assemblage could be strengthened or weakened by various technological, personal and social factors.

These qualitative findings are based on a particular sample at a particular point in time, within a particular culture. Further research could explore intercorporeality in human–smartphone relationships among other groups, in other cultures.

Although other studies have used prosthetic metaphors, this paper contributes to understanding of smartphones as a prostheses in the lives of emerging adults, highlighting intercorporeality as a key feature of homo prostheticus. It also uses assemblage theory to contextualize homo prostheticus and explores factors strengthening or weakening the broader human–smartphone assemblage.

The purpose of this paper was to uncover various factors that make the young consumers in emerging Asian market devotees of brands and sacrilize brands giving rise to a phenomenon called brand sacralization where the individual consumer considers brand as sacred as religion. Another objective of this research was to investigate the acculturation process taking place among the young adult consumers in emerging Asian market.

Based on prior literature review, the concept of brand sacralization has been defined to bring theoretical sensitivity. Grounded theory method has been used to collect, analyze and interpret the data collected through semi-structured depth interviews.

Data analysis reveals various underlying dimensions of brand sacralization and various actionable antecedents and consequence of brand sacralization.

Value of the article lies in developing a grounded theory framework for brand sacralization that can guide the marketers doing business in emerging markets to build a strong brand that the consumers would sacralize.