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The economic, social and environmental benefits of doing business sustainably are now well established, with many industries fully embracing and integrating sustainable practices. However, some industries are facing greater challenges and struggling to embrace sustainable practices. For example, the issue of sustainability within the seafood industry is highly topical, with a 2014 Google search on the term “sustainable fish” scoring over 37.4 million hits. Despite a groundswell of discussion and action within the seafood industry, the current literature on seafood sustainability remains emergent. While consumers are the stakeholder group that arguably has the most potential interest, the actions of all other stakeholders within the industry affect choices available to them. Accordingly, this paper reviews the current literature and seeks to identify how each stakeholder defines and seeks to manage the issue of seafood sustainability. \ud Several sources of confusion, ambiguity and conflict in the field (including gaps in current research) are evident. Consumers are either confused or ambivalent about sustainability with respect to seafood and there is a lack of consensus on what sustainability means across the seafood supply chain, with differing perspectives across the various stakeholders involved with the industry including governments, NGOs, the seafood industry itself (producers, processors, and distributors), and consumers. The review provides an understanding of consumers and other stakeholder perspectives with respect to the sustainability of seafood and provides a basis for developing strategies to reduce ambiguity, promote clarity and shared understandings regarding sustainable seafood, and also opportunities to increase knowledge, potentially leading to more sustainably managed seafood supply chains.

This study explores attitudes towards aquaculture development as a way of providing a sustainable source of seafood through a consultative stakeholder approach. Given aquaculture is a less familiar concept within South West England, gaining insight of the views and perspectives of such a development in the region is required to facilitate stakeholder engagement. In-depth qualitative interviews investigate attitudes across five stakeholder sectors: government, fishing/marine, business/catering, tourism/leisure, environmental/charity. Findings show a mix of stakeholder attitudes, which differ by industry sector, from very negative to very positive. From this two segments are proposed (Commercially-Focused; Environmentally-Focused) to enable targeted communication and information dissemination strategies based on key areas of concern.\ud \ud

The sustainable seafood movement has the potential of reversing the current trends of seafood consumption which are leading toward a global breakdown of seafood species. A series of initiatives have been created to cultivate interest in consumption of sustainable seafood. However, research indicates that consumers’ intention to purchase sustainable seafood does not always translate into actual purchase behaviour, which creates an Ethical Purchasing Gap (EPG). The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) is used to identify affordability, lack of awareness of sustainability, lack of knowledge and confidence in cooking as key barriers and awareness of sustainability, attitudes and preferences toward fresh seafood as key drivers for consumption of sustainable seafood. Findings also reveal that a favourable attitude toward sustainable seafood can increase consumption of sustainable seafood while understanding of the ‘sustainable seafood’ concept and knowledge of sustainable seafood availability does not necessarily increase consumption of sustainable seafood.

In spite of the clear value of postgraduate business students to many providers of distance education courses, the factors affecting the retention of these students have received limited attention in the literature. In addressing this gap, this paper presents the findings of a qualitative study into the factors affecting the retention of postgraduate business students at a major Australian distance education university. The findings of this study suggest that a range of situational, dispositional and attitudinal factors impact upon student retention on this context, both as enablers of and obstacles to ongoing participation. In many cases, these factors differ to those identified in the existing literature on student retention. Based on these findings, we present a range of strategies designed to improve the retention of postgraduate business students by maximising enabling factors and minimising the impact of any identified obstacles. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research are also presented.

Food tourism is a growing phenomenon with a particular emphasis on experiencing authentic and traditional local foods (Bessière, 1998; Cianflone & Cardile, 2014). The World Food Travel Association (2015) define food tourism as “the pursuit and enjoyment of unique and memorable food and drink experiences, both far and near.” While drivers and barriers to local food consumption have been well researched (e.g. Kemp, Insch, Holdsworth, & Knight, 2010; Megicks, Memery & Angell, 2012; Selfa & Qazi, 2005), motivations for tourists consuming local foods are less well understood (Kim & Eves, 2012). In this paper, the findings of an online survey of 546 visitors to South East Queensland Australia which sought to identify future and past visitors’ beliefs and attitudes toward local food and drivers and barriers to local food consumption is reported. While positive beliefs about purchasing local food are shared by both past and future visitors, in general, past visitors held less favourable attitudes toward local food and beverage than future visitors. The most important drivers for both past and future visitors for buying local food concerned the intrinsic qualities of the product itself including freshness and taste, with future visitors being more concerned about the health aspects of the product and being free from preservatives or chemicals. Support for local producers was also an important driver for both past and future visitors, however past visitors were more concerned about support for local retailers than were past visitors. Future visitors were more likely to agree that they would buy local food due to traceability, being traditional to the area, and interesting and novel. Past visitors were less likely than future visitors to agree that local food was good value for money, widely available, branded and easily recognizable as local or that local food could be trusted. While future visitors had high intention to purchase local foods, an intention-purchase gap is evident with past visitors purchasing less than anticipated, possibly due to perceived barriers associated with inadequate marketing and distribution, lack of information on where to find local food, lack of availability, expense and perceived inconvenience. Recommendations for local food producers and suppliers include improved marketing, branding and distribution.

The commodification of many food products, combined with increasing market share of supermarkets, has increased the importance of point of sale (POS) strategies in speciality food retailers such as fishmongers. The purpose of this study is to develop strategies to improve the retailing of seafood in fishmongers, specifically oysters, a species which is currently underutilised; as although they are eaten by many consumers, purchase frequency is low. A literature review identifies the key drivers and barriers to oyster consumption and the information consumers want at the POS. Based on these findings, a retailing strategy for oysters is developed and tested in two consumer focus groups. Based on focus group results, revisions are recommended to the retail strategy, importantly including a change in collateral from a production focus to a consumption focus. This study makes a clear contribution to theory and practice by bringing together the existing literature on drivers and barriers and consumer information requirements about oysters to develop and test practical retail strategy concepts.

Shopping centres stage entertainment events (e.g. children workshops, mini concerts, and mini festivals) to add ‘entertainment value’ to the retail experience and in turn build customers’ loyalty and approach behaviours (e.g. extended stay and increased spending). Despite the relationship between delivery of entertainment value and retail entertainment events, there are gaps in the extant literature, including: i) existing definitions of entertainment value have been mostly examined in retail contexts outside of entertainment events; ii) prior studies have primarily utilised a unidimensional approach to measuring customer value. Customer value is complex in nature and the extent to which a multidimensional approach would be more relevant for understanding entertainment value within the retail entertainment event context remains unknown; and iii) shoppers have been the primary unit of analysis with other stakeholders’ perspectives (e.g. managers) about entertainment value and its dimensionality rarely being considered. To address these gaps in the extant literature, this study involved in-depth interviews with eight shopping centre marketing managers who were highly experienced with staging entertainment events. The qualitative results contribute to the extant literature in three ways: i) a multidimensional definition is proposed as more insightful and practical for examining the entertainment value within the context of shopping centre entertainment events; ii) the multidimensional definition potentially comprises affective, activity, and aesthetic dimensions (evident in extant literature), as well as, functional, social, and altruistic dimensions (emerging from this research) and iii) altruistic value identified in this study highlights the increasing use of entertainment events for cause-related purposes by retailers, reflecting the ‘selfish altruism’ phenomenon (Fairnington, 2010). Theoretical and managerial implications arising from the qualitative findings are discussed together with opportunities for future research.

Food is an essential part of our daily lives, our economy, our society and our culture. In Australia one in six people work in the food industry, yet this importance does not appear to be reflected in the higher education sector with no food marketing courses offered in any Australian Business School, despite food marketing being an emergent discipline within marketing academe globally. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the current state of food marketing education in Australia (as compared to the rest of the world) and make a case for developing food marketing offerings in Australian Business Schools. This is done by establishing the role of food in the economy, defining food marketing, highlighting what is different about food marketing, and highlighting challenges and opportunities for developing food marketing courses.

This paper presents an empirical framework for operationalizing passive versus active participation in the context of shopping mall entertainment events (e.g., school holiday events and fashion shows) and assesses the framework's utility for segmenting and profiling shopping mall entertainment audiences. Exploratory factor analysis of data collected at shopping mall events revealed two distinct dimensions, 'relax and be entertained' and 'socialize and explore,' reflecting passive and active participation, respectively. From nine activities operationalizing passive versus active participation, two distinct audience segments reporting different levels of immediate and future shopping behaviors were identified. The 'engage me' segment (active-dominant audience) was more likely to stay longer at the mall, purchase food and nonfood items, share the event experience with others, and attend similar entertainment events in the future than the 'entertain me' segment (passive-dominant audience). The activities operationalizing passive versus active participation were tested with 280 participants at two family-oriented shopping mall entertainment events. This paper extends the knowledge in the retail event marketing literature whereby it confirms passive versus active participation levels at retailing events, and verifies that passive and active participation levels can be measured and differentiated operationally. The findings provide insights on the utility of shopper participation level as a meaningful segmentation variable, pertinent to both the marketing and management of shopper experiences within a retailing entertainment event. Managerial implications and limitations of this paper are discussed.

The sustainable seafood movement has the potential of reversing the current trends of seafood consumption which are leading toward a global breakdown of seafood species. A series of initiatives have been created to cultivate interest in consumption of sustainable seafood. However, research indicates that consumers’ intention to purchase sustainable seafood does not always translate into actual purchase behaviour, which creates an Ethical Purchasing Gap (EPG). The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) is used to identify affordability, lack of awareness of sustainability, lack of knowledge and confidence in cooking as key barriers and awareness of sustainability, attitudes and preferences toward fresh seafood as key drivers for consumption of sustainable seafood. Findings also reveal that a favourable attitude toward sustainable seafood can increase consumption of sustainable seafood while understanding of the ‘sustainable seafood’ concept and knowledge of sustainable seafood availability cannot increase consumption of sustainable seafood.

The purpose of this study is threefold: i) identify the dramaturgical quality elements relevant for measuring the shopping centre entertainment event experience; ii) examine the interrelationships amongst those dramaturgical quality elements; and iii) determine the effect of those dramaturgical quality elements on shoppers' behaviours. Four dramaturgical quality elements are identified to constitute the entertainment event experience in a shopping centre and are labelled as "setting", "performer", "crowd", and "behavioural response". These four dramaturgical quality elements, albeit distinctive, are positively related. In particular, the "behavioural response" is a function of the "setting", "performer", and "crowd" and each with varied degree of relationship strength. These findings were based on a self-completion survey administered to 280 participants at two varied family-oriented entertainment events. Implications and limitations of this study are also discussed.

This paper presents an empirical framework for operationalizing passive versus active participation in the context of shopping mall entertainment events (e.g. school holiday events and fashion shows) and assesses the framework’s utility for segmenting and profiling shopping mall entertainment audiences. Exploratory factor analysis of data collected at shopping mall events revealed two distinct dimensions, “relax and be entertained” and “socialize and explore” reflecting passive and active participation respectively. Based on nine activities operationalizing passive versus active participation, two distinct audience segments reporting different levels of immediate and future shopping behaviors were identified. The “Engage Me” segment (active-dominant audience) was more likely to stay longer at the mall, purchase food and non-food items, share the event experience with others, and attend similar entertainment events in the future than the “Entertain Me” segment (passive-dominant audience). The activities operationalizing passive versus active participation were tested with 280 participants at two family-oriented shopping mall entertainment events. This paper extends the knowledge in the retail event marketing literature whereby it confirms passive versus active participation levels at retailing events, and verifies that passive and active participation levels can be measured and differentiated operationally. The findings provide insights on the utility of shopper participation level as a meaningful segmentation variable, pertinent to both the marketing and management of shopper experiences within a retailing entertainment event. Managerial implications and limitations of this paper are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of\ud food involvement as a means of understanding differences in\ud fish consumption levels. This study presents the findings of an online survey of 899 Australian consumers which investigated drivers and barriers to fish consumption among regular, light and very light fish consumers. The findings reveal that higher food involvement leading to increased fish consumption is associated with reduced perceived risk, higher perceived hedonic and symbolic value, and increased\ud product importance. Regular fish consumers are less likely to perceive risk with selecting fish and recognising if fish is fresh than lighter fish consumers. Moreover, regular fish consumers are more likely to perceive higher levels of hedonic value (liking fish and feeling satisfied after eating fish), higher symbolic value (the extent to which people consider eating fish says something about them as a person) and greater product importance (greater\ud interest in food traceability and looking for authentic foods to cook)than lighter fish consumers.Based on these findings, recommendations for increasing food involvement as a means of stimulating seafood consumption through marketing interventions such as consumer information and\ud education, promotional strategies and product development are provided.