Search

There is a need for better evidence on how to effectively support consumer partnerships in research (CPR). This paper aims to provide a practical checklist for market researchers to plan, implement, and report research where vulnerable consumers are the target population. A vulnerable consumer is someone who, due to their circumstances, may be disadvantaged or at risk in some marketplace situations. Here, it is proposed that research conducted about vulnerable consumers must include consumer co-researchers as partners in the research process. The involvement of consumers as co-researchers addresses this methodological gap to some extent by democratizing research design and empowering vulnerable consumers. The CPR Checklist is based on an integrative realistic review method, content validation via an expert panel, and includes consumer co-researcher involvement in the research process. Considering the complexities of vulnerable consumers and market research, the CPR Checklist provides a suite of 'how and why' questions to guide rigorous and ethical project conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketing research targeting poor consumers has been developing recently. The specific characteristics of these consumers make it difficult to conduct empirical research. This difficulty has raised the question of how to adapt the methods and techniques usually used in marketing. This article provides a multidisciplinary review of the difficulties encountered in addressing people living in poverty and enables researchers to assess this population and anticipate their needs. In addition, based on a literature review of the methods used in 83 empirical marketing studies published between 1990 and 2021, our study provides researchers with a vade-mecum to guide them in their choice of research design. Concrete and detailed recommendations are provided to facilitate their involvement in the field of poor consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research note is to suggest photovoice as a methodology to enhance and vivify marginalized voices in marketing research. Specifically, the focus is on LGBTQ+ consumer perspectives during one of the most visible times for this marketing segment: Pride Month. Photovoice is an opportunity for researchers to ask for viewpoints and incorporate consumer perspectives into social marketing research. It puts the researcher in the role of a guide through the research process, while participants lead the data collection, definitions, and analysis through their own images so new voices and perspectives are centered. It is the intention of this article to be a catalyst for encouraging both scholars and practitioners to conduct future photovoice studies in international market research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article advances the methodological perspective toward studying children, articulating parent-as-researcher (PAR) and children as co-researchers to generate high levels of novel discovery, especially in sensitive subjects related to this vulnerable group. It also underscores the rich possibilities of this inquiry form in studying children, which goes beyond authenticity to reveal children's multi-layered voices. Furthermore, the insiders' approach to the PAR's inquiry and the perspective of children as co-researchers enlighten new ways to engage young consumers in research, allowing broad and deep discussion of subjects' matters in their own voices. Finally, a guideline for researchers interested in following it is provided. As the text explains, professional researchers can apply the approaches with some adjustments, and non-parent researchers can engage parent co-researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding vulnerable consumers when conducting Transformative Service Research (TSR) is essential but these consumers and their contexts are often complex and difficult to research. Despite a movement towards TSR methodologies suitable for studying vulnerable participants and their contexts, a comprehensive framework that can guide service researchers is lacking. The purpose of this paper is to investigate appropriate methods, procedures, and protocols that permit researching a wide range of vulnerable groups and exposures to vulnerable situations in TSR. This is undertaken via a review of the literature and the authors' reflections of their experiences with researching vulnerability in various configurations (e.g., disasters, refugees, healthcare, disability, and older people). Through an iterative process of personal case reflections and group discussions blended with extant literature, patterns and insights regarding appropriate research protocols, techniques, processes, and sampling are identified. These insights contribute to the development of a comprehensive TSR framework in five research method areas including 1) consideration of the context, researcher, support persons and participants, 2) recruitment considerations relating to sampling, 3) recruitment considerations in terms of ethics and set-up, 4) data collection considerations relating to research protocol and set-up, and 5) data collection considerations. The framework can guide both academics and practitioners to enhance research outcomes for both participants and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethical considerations are increasingly important because new online techniques of research such as online ethnography often have novel ethical challenges. Our research aims to help online ethnographers by providing a moral/philosophical framework to be used in making ethical decisions and guiding them to reflect on how these decisions affect and justify their methodological choices. We draw upon prior research on ethics and online ethnography, and utilize five key dimensions of moral and philosophical principles (autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, justice and trust, explicability) for our framework. Our research highlights essential ethical questions such as selecting a philosophical basis as your ethical frame and coming to terms with ambiguity, and related methodological guidelines such as avoiding personal prejudice, assumptions and bias, research site entry strategy, researcher's communication with the participants, protection of data, research site exit strategy and communicating online research findings. This paper contributes to the existing literature by identifying how moral and philosophical guidelines impact our ethical and methodological choices when engaging in online ethnography and what this means in terms of research practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the aging population, studies on the subject are scarce, notably focusing on the impotence experienced by older adults when purchasing food products. This research aims to analyze the vulnerability of older people during their food purchases. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted 17 telephone semi-structured interviews with people aged 60 or over, food buyers in person, identified as independent. The content analysis using the software IRAMUTEQ showed problematic packaging and labels; predisposition to repeat previous choices due to the wide variety of foods; excessive portions incompatible with the social changes experienced by older adults; reduction of commensality; physical elements of the supermarket excluding older adults; and the COVID-19 pandemic as an impediment to maximizing well-being due to changes in habits and alternative shopping modalities needs. As a contribution, we propose an empirical vulnerability model that considers the particularities of older people for the food market and other markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how the capture and circulation of data about social lives are enabled through digitalisation and market logics and practices. Drawing on Australia's new Consumer Data Right, a state-led initiative that creates access rights to personal data, we distinguish between market promises and the translation of market models in actually existing markets and regulatory frameworks. 'Life's work' is brought to market through promises to fix the problems of essential service markets by harnessing data. We argue that the Consumer Data Right is underpinned by a more ambitious vision to create future markets that transcend individual sectors through aggregation across the economy. These visions are silent on how the data, which cannot be owned and therefore cannot be commoditised, is capitalised. We show the Consumer Data Right's discursive, administrative, regulatory and technical aspects through which the previously hard-to-penetrate spaces of the home and everyday life become enrolled in circuits of value, both present and future. This involves technical standard setting by state agencies for accreditation, consent and approval processes; discourses of trust and calculative devices to promote consumer control; and weak de-identification and deletion requirements that grant data an afterlife beyond the original agreed use. This paper calls for greater attention to the enabling role of the state in digital markets as a counterbalance to the focus on the state's regulatory and constraining role. We argue for a more staged approach to market-making analysis to show how the state lays the market foundations that can then be deepened through practices of intermediation and capitalisation by private firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes a structural approach to understand how complex organizations, in this case public school districts in the United States, implement programs to promote greater justice for consumers. Drawing on the integrative justice model as a guide, this study uses deductive grounded theory and axial coding to understand how social programs, such as the National School Lunch Program, both orchestrate and obstruct distributive justice (DJ). Leaning on public policy and macromarketing literature and using ethnographic data as a guide, the study proposes a market orchestration model of DJ to offer guidance on how social programs can promote greater DJ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "digital divide" refers to societal-level inequalities of digital access, capabilities, and outcomes. To explore how the digital divide affects customers experiencing vulnerability, service interactions in essential service settings (health care, education, and social services) were empirically investigated and practices service system members might adopt to address vulnerability were identified. This research upframes the pillars of service inclusion framework to define human capabilities that result from service inclusion practices. Three research topics were addressed: how the digital divide affects vulnerability (RQ1), how the digital divide can be addressed through service inclusion practices (RQ2), and how service inclusion practices enable human capabilities for digital inclusion (RQ3). The findings illuminate: (1) how service employees can engage in service inclusion practices to address the digital divide (by letting go of rules and perspectives, sharing control, providing services beyond job scope, and facilitating social connections), and (2) how these service inclusion practices build human capabilities for digital inclusion (by building basic skills and capabilities for meaningful outcomes through role modeling, coaching, customer-to-customer mentoring, and expanding networks). Contributions include conceptual models of service inclusion practices and fostering digital inclusion that specify a new meso level service organization pathway for healing the digital divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the compatibility of Australia's marketised National Disability Insurance Scheme and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The author recognises that market-based disability support is largely compatible with Australia's human rights commitments but resists the idea that it is capable of serving the interests of all Australians with disabilities. Markets can and do fail, and market stewardship, the government's proposed antidote, is only a partial solution. As such, we should embrace a pluralist disability support system that sees non-market mechanisms – like block funding – as playing an important role in disability support systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the influence of business model workforce configurations on value creation and capture in a skills-based service setting, extending previous research on business model performance. We investigate workforce configurations (higher versus lower stability and skills) and value creation and appropriation in aged care organisations. More skilled and stable workforces are associated with greater value creation but not appropriation, while less skilled and less stable workforces are associated with lower value creation and higher appropriation. This informs a substantive challenge in delivering value creation while ensuring financially viable business models in a sector with significant consequences for quality failure. JEL Classification: J24 - Human Capital • Skills • Occupational Choice • Labor Productivity; L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior; M12 - Personnel Management; I11 - Analysis of Health Care Markets [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we propose the visual application of a navigation framework for a wheeled robot to disinfect surfaces. Since dynamic environments are complicated, advanced sensors are integrated into the hardware platform to enhance the navigation task. The 2D lidar UTM-30LX from Hokuyo attached to the front of the robot can cover a wide scanning area. To provide better results in laser scan matching, an inertial measurement unit was integrated into the robot's body. The output of this combination feeds into a global costmap for monitoring and navigation. Additionally, incremental encoders that obtain high-resolution position data are connected to the rear wheels. The role of the positioning sensor is to identify the existing location of the robot in a local costmap. To detect the appearance of a human, a Kinect digital camera is fixed to the top of the robot. All feedback signals are combined in the host computer to navigate the autonomous robot. For disinfection missions, the robot must carry several ultraviolet lamps to autonomously patrol in unknown environments. To visualize the robot's effectiveness, our approach was validated using both a virtual simulation and an experimental test. The contributions of this work are summarized as follows: (i) a structure for ultraviolet-based hardware was first established; (ii) the theoretical computations for the robot's localization in the 3D workspace will play a fundamental role in further developments; and (iii) data fusion from advanced sensing devices was integrated to enable navigation in uncertain environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The Bridging the Gap Between Physical and Mental Illness in Community Pharmacy (PharMIbridge) randomised controlled trial (RCT) aims to test the effectiveness of a pharmacist-led support service in improving medication adherence, and the physical and mental health of people living with severe and persistent mental illness compared to a standard medication review service. Method: Using the six-step intervention mapping (IM) framework, this paper describes the development and content of the PharMIbridge pharmacist training programme, an integral part of the RCT implementation, and continuous adaptations made to the process to keep pace with the evolving severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in Australia. A Training Working Group comprising health educators, practitioners, mental health consumers and researchers, refined the programme objectives and assisted with developing content and troubleshooting issues related to training delivery for pharmacists randomised to the RCT intervention arm. Results: A 2-day training programme was developed, which included Mental Health First Aid, simulated patient role-plays, and four pre-recorded modules using lectures, demonstration case vignettes, role-play activities and discussion. The programme, co-facilitated by project team members and mentors (pharmacist and consumer educators), aims to enhance pharmacists' mental health literacy, skills and confidence and empower them to engage with this vulnerable population using a strengths-based approach. Pre- and post-training questionnaires and interviews will be used to evaluate the impact of the PharMIbridge training programme. Conclusion: The systematic stepwise method provided by the IM framework highlights the solution-focused approach adopted by the project team and characteristics including adaptability and resilience which enabled training development and implementation across four Australian regions during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article lays the foundations for an emerging research stream introducing a new framework: transformative luxury research (TLR). The framework conceptualizes the relationship between the luxury ecosystem and people's well-being, which is affected by the interaction between luxury production and consumption entities as well as macroenvironment elements. The TLR framework lies at the intersection of luxury research, macromarketing literature, and transformative consumer research. The framework focuses on the well-being of individuals and communities involved in the luxury field. TLR provides a holistic view of how interactions between the luxury consumption sphere, including different profiles of consumers, and the entities of the luxury production sphere (e.g., employees, suppliers, organizations, and communities), are shaped by macro-level luxury stakeholders. Among them are institutions, public policymakers, academics, and technology firms. How do they all affect the individual and collective well-being at the economic, cognitive, emotional, and social levels? This framework helps scholars embrace a transformative luxury research mindset to advance the literature examining the impact luxury has on people's well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School bullying (SB) is a public health concern with significant sociopsychological risks. Marketing research has rarely directly addressed the role of consumption in its development among children and adolescents. Therefore, the main objective of this article is to provide an analytical framework for the study of SB linked to consumption motives related to the possession of products and brands, together with consumer culture. Thus, SB, its main characteristics, and the different peers' statuses (bullies, victims, and witnesses) are defined. A review of the existing literature on the consumption behavior of young people provides the background for the development of an analytical framework based on relevant individual and contextual variables that give an insight into consumption-motivated SB. The resulting research perspectives are discussed, together with their implications for marketing researchers, public policies, schools, parents, and businesses that target young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There has been an increase in consumers’ reliance on credit and rising consumer debt. The increase is especially problematic for those least able to afford debt of any kind – welfare recipients. This qualitative study reports on 120 Australian welfare recipients’ attitudes towards debt, their understanding about what constitutes acceptable debt and the debt-management strategies they adopt. The results of this research show that welfare recipients see debt as a way of life and as a means of survival in a society where a core value appears (to them) to be the acquisition of material wealth. Their status as income earners and therefore their capacity to service debt is less than others. Consequently, we could expect that their debt levels would be proportionally less; however, many participants in this research did not appear to understand the long term consequences of their level of debt. The paper concludes with a discussion as to how social marketing can be applied to potentially assist this vulnerable consumer group and the wider community. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A correction to the article "Vulnerable Consumer Special Issue Reviewers" that was published in the Special Issue on Vulnerable Consumers is presented.

Following a negative service experience, existing studies assert that consumers attribute blame either internally (self-blame) or externally (other-blame) with little indication that the attribution ever changes. This study explores blame to discover whether there are changes in attribution, specifically whether it may shift from self to other. Analysing qualitative data from borrowers in the payday lending market using I-/They-poems, this study finds firstly that blame oscillates between self and other and, secondly, that payday borrowers practice counterfactual thinking to alleviate negative emotions, which in turn prompts this blame oscillation. In revealing that blame attribution can act as a pendulum oscillating between self and other, this study makes a critical advance to existing blame research. The study also supports previous studies in I-/They-poems in uncovering novel insights into consumer theory. Evidence also emerges that the neoliberal view of the 'empowered consumer' interacts with the more traditional, organisation-oriented perspective, as from a consumer behaviour perspective, the attempts to improve psychological well-being and the oscillation of blame contribute to shifts in the perceived power in the loan market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After receiving cease and desist letters in 2018, Bird strategically developed hospitable relationships with politicians that allowed the scooter-sharing firm to continue operating. Bird acts as a regulatory entrepreneur in seeking unfair legal treatment and the politicians brokering the legal deal as political entrepreneurs. The business models for unfairly changing or applying law represents entrepreneurial arbitrage. A mixed methods approach examines the structure of relationships between regulatory and political entrepreneurs through the Bootleggers and Baptists conceptual lens. Like Bird solving traffic and pollution problems for city leaders, Baptists served as a moral cover for illegal liquor vendors. Guided by a general systems theory, it is found that the micro-level, relational exchanges both assign value to as well as uses intellectual commodities to establish expectations guiding ongoing exchanges. Therefore, a marketing system is uncovered. This research also finds relationships structured by favors in sharp contrast to political markets governed by threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capturing memories is integral to public lands visitors' consumer experiences. Today, social media allows us to share photographs and videos in the public domain, whether it be for instant gratification, economic gain, or both. The phenomenon of sharing public lands digital imagery on social media has created tensions in the public lands marketing system (PLMS) between those wanting to preserve the outdoors and those seeking to monetize it. Using the Instagram account @publiclandshateyou as a case study site, this research utilizes an interpretive "thick data" visual analysis to examine how interlinked marketing systems (e.g., travel, tourism, outdoor recreation), which includes the social media marketing system (SMMS) contribute to this conflict in the PLMS. Findings indicate that citizen-consumer oriented practices, rooted in "sense of place," attempt to bring change to the interlinked marketing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how women enact an entrepreneurial identity as a means to secure legitimacy for their entrepreneurial activity. Using a netnographic analysis of media interviews with women in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), we identify how women construct an entrepreneurial identity. Findings indicate that women highlight micro aspects of their identity, provide both personal and external sources of evidence to substantiate their claims, and adhere to potentially conflicting institutional logics. The findings contribute to knowledge of how entrepreneurship is legitimised and can disrupt institutional arrangements that constrain women. We provide both a gendered and novel contextual view, adding theoretical depth to contemporary conceptualisations of entrepreneurial legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay discusses social disruptions, social discontinuities, and associated interventions by social marketers and public policymakers. Prescriptive touchpoints for such interventions are (1) mitigating social disruptions via phronetic marketing, (2) foreseeing and anticipating social disruptions and discontinuities via marketing futurology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this conceptual article, the authors use a macro-level analysis and normative ethical theory to delineate and to explicate a doctrine of socially responsible marketing (SRM). Applying a theory-in-formation approach, we postulate a literature-informed definition of SRM. We discuss why a macro and normative-ethical rather than a micro and positive-descriptive perspective is essential to justifying the elements of SRM. We explore and explain why the roots of an authentic doctrine of SRM can be discerned from the literatures of marketing history, corporate social responsibility, institutional economics and moral philosophy. In so doing, the mandate to engage in socially responsible marketing is shown to be anchored in a social contract. This conception offers three essential elements of SRM—corporate citizenship, stakeholder orientation and social/ecological sustainability—each of which augers a pro-social rather than instrumental-financial approach to marketing practice. We recommend a specific normative-ethical standard, embodied in distributive justice, to best evaluate SRM. We counsel adopting a macromarketing perspective of constructive engagement for those seeking responsible marketing for a better society and world. Finally, we offer a short research agenda for advancing Marketing's embrace of SRM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their essays published in the Silver Anniversary Issue (SAI) of the Journal of Macromarketing (2006), George Fisk and Mark Peterson independently outlined the current state of the discipline and made a list of visionary recommendations that would help macromarketers adapt and respond to the changing markets, marketing, and societies. These recommendations ranged from repositioning the discipline around the ideas of societal development to leading the way across disciplines toward achieving a sustainable world. Based on a thorough content analysis of the articles published in the Journal of Macromarketing since the SAI, we aim to report the extent to which macromarketing scholarship has responded to the recommendations of Fisk and Peterson. Utilizing the findings, we make a list of new recommendations that can assist macromarketers in fulfilling their mission of 'saving the world'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The COVID-19 national emergency activates legislative powers that allow a proportional infringement upon individual liberties. We canvas the complex legal landscape governing mental health consumers in this climate, highlight ethical considerations in application of the law and offer a simple algorithm to navigate this space.Conclusion: In times of emergency, it is crucial that we uphold the safeguards embodied within mental health legislation to prevent prejudicial treatment of mental health consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-tracking technologies (STTs) in the form of smart devices and mobile applications enable consumers to monitor, analyze, and interpret personal performance data on health and physical or financial well-being. As a result of self-tracking, consumers are not only expected to check their personal performance more actively but also to implement service professionals' advice to improve their well-being more accurately. Despite the growing popularity of STTs, empirical evidence on the extent to which STT use enhances advice compliance remains scant. A field experiment with 538 participants in a health-care setting suggests that STT use does not increase advice compliance per se. Rather, the effectiveness of STTs depends on consumers' self-efficacy. For consumers low in self-efficacy, STT use can even undermine advice compliance. A lab experiment with 831 participants replicates and generalizes the findings to a nonmedical professional service (i.e., fitness training). As assessments of self-efficacy might be difficult in practice, service providers in health care can use consumers' body mass index as an easy-to-measure proxy to predict STT effectiveness. Finally, the lab experiment also identifies perceived empowerment and personalization as psychological mechanisms mediating the influence of STT use on advice compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyzed comedy series for food and beverage references, with particular attention to their type of presentation, along with the characteristics of actors associated with the references. Because the generally positive tone of comedy series can exert affective influence over audiences, the result that clearly unhealthy products appeared more often (food: 51.6%; beverage: 40.5%) than clearly healthy ones (food: 11.2%; beverage: 19.6%) could be especially problematic. Moreover, women (56.5%; men: 47.4%) and African American characters (62.7%; Caucasians: 51.5%; Other: 44.7%) were significantly more often associated with unhealthy foods, which could prompt stereotypes of such individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a novel index of vulnerable homes in terms of fuel poverty that is based on the analysis of different existing fuel poverty indicators and their relationship to the residential sector. The new index of vulnerable homes unifies the many indicators hitherto employed, and assesses the home vulnerability situation regardless of whether or not it is in fuel poverty by using three dimensions: monetary cost, energy and thermal comfort. The monetary dimension analyses vulnerability in relation to the available net income to face everyday life. The energy variable assesses the vulnerability related to the constructive characteristics of the dwelling. Finally, the introduction of the thermal-comfort variable enables the evaluation of the vulnerability related to the inner temperature of the dwelling and its perception by occupants. The combination of the different resulting values in each dimension and its relationship to the quality of life of occupants establishes a hierarchy of vulnerable levels. As a result, a multi-dimensional index is defined which relates technical aspects (characteristics of the dwelling) and social aspects (quality of life of households). The index of vulnerable homes provides a more complete assessment of the home situation than the existing fuel poverty indicators by identifying which variables require a greater assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, I use a revised approach of the Frankfurt School in order to critically assess a recent massively multiplayer online video game, Guild Wars 2. Starting with a brief historical overview of the Frankfurt School, I proceed by applying a revision of the school’s main contributions to analyzing Guild Wars 2. This includes an integration of processes of production and distribution, various levels of textual analysis, and audience reception. My main method of investigation is long-term participant observation, and throughout the article, I will argue for the use of such qualitative methods in the critical study of video games. Doing this, I have found that Guild Wars 2 offers a complex experience with enormous appeal and creative potential, while at other times being surprisingly restrictive, culminating in what Walter Benjamin would call a dialectical fairy scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morality related to the marketplace has been studied in interdisciplinary contexts as well as the marketing and consumer behavior domains. This research has resulted in prescriptions and proscriptions that seek to right what is perceived as wrongful marketer actions. Yet this work has had little influence on marketing theory. Thus, we seek to advance a marketplace morality theory within a consumer behavior frame, emphasizing treatment of the poor by actors who may or may not supply the goods and services necessary so that they can meet “consumption adequacy.” The article opens with a look at how this discussion has moved along a theoretical path. Implications for morality related to consumers in poverty come next, followed by blending of philosophical and consumer literatures to reveal a novel theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws upon the work of Judith Butler to explain how violence is deployed against vulnerable consumers. It examines a site in which a commercial complex including a shopping mall is to be constructed in Ejipura, Bangalore (India), by displacing the poor from their slums. It offers insights into the mechanisms of violent dispossession that inhere liberal modes of governance of consumers. Moreover, this study attends to derealization that desubjectifies vulnerable consumers. It further helps to comprehend why violence remains in the zone of ellipsis without any popular revulsion against it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article theorizes how market-focused health activism catalyses market change through revealing the ill-effects that consumers’ conformity with market-shaped expectations and ideals has on their bodies and embodied lives. An understanding of this activism is developed by analysing a vicarious form of ‘bodily dys-appearance’ which is used in Jamie Oliver’s televised documentary, Sugar Rush (2015), to narratively provoke corporeal anxieties among audiences. In our analysis, we borrow tropes from the science fiction film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, to interpret themes centred on a threat, a victim and a hero. We argue that market-focused health activism problematizes the neo-liberal logic of personal responsibility and promotes market intervention as the only means to insulate and safeguard the body from harm. Where extant theorization of consumers’ antagonism towards the market hinges mostly on politically or intellectually motivated resistance, this article demonstrates how somatically oriented concerns operate alternatively to invoke activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baker, Gentry, and Rittenburg’s (2005) model of consumer vulnerability outlines the personal, social, and structural characteristics that frame consumers’ experiences of vulnerability in the marketplace. Later applications and enhancements have expanded consumer vulnerability theory. While the theory has been applied in numerous settings, to date it has not been used to examine the ways that gender identity may intersect with market factors to produce vulnerability. Application in this setting also allows for the integration of various model enhancements, and the examination of vulnerability using a more complete formulation of the theory. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews and collages, along with examples from current marketing practice, our research shows consumer vulnerability to be a useful lens for understanding gender variant consumers’ experiences and the ways in which marketing systems can be engaged to reshape those experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread recognition of energy poverty as a distinct societal and policy challenge in the EU has resulted in a surge in the number and complexity of energy poverty metrics. Drawing from the body of white and grey literature on domestic energy deprivation indicators now available, the paper offers a review-based discussion on the risks of uncritically elaborating and reporting energy poverty statistics. It identifies key conceptual and methodological challenges including: the diversity of domestic energy services and household needs accounted for; the distinction between actual and required domestic energy expenditures; the setting of thresholds and energy poverty lines; the equivalisation of household incomes and energy expenditures; the consideration of housing costs; the stated, subjective character of responses to survey questionnaires; the measurement of the ‘depth’ of energy poverty; issues surrounding measurement units and weighted indices; and issues around the socio-demographic, spatial and temporal representativeness of data. Based on the reviewed evidence and author’s experience, the paper argues against official, single-indicator energy poverty metrics like the UK’s low income-high cost and advocates for multiple-indicator approaches that explicitly acknowledge the shortcomings of each of the methods implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeking to promote methodological innovation in fuel poverty research, this paper reflects on the use of a novel qualitative psychological approach known as interpretative phenomenological analysis. The benefits and limitations of this methodological approach are discussed within a detailed account of findings from a small-scale study undertaken in Salford, UK. Contributing to an existing gap in the existing evidence base, the research focused on the lived experience of young adult households: a demographic group identified as being disproportionately more likely to be living in fuel poverty compared to any other age group. Three emergent themes were identified: ‘establishing the independent home’, ‘threats to home comfort’ and ‘energy and coping’. Multiple references to conditions typical of fuel poverty were disclosed, such as: self-disconnection, energy debts, cold homes and unrelenting challenges with damp and laundry practices. ‘Vulnerability’ mostly consumed narratives of past experience, with participants discussing the present and future with positive affectivity. Implications for further research are explored, including the potential to more effectively target support by reframing current discourse away from one centred on ‘vulnerability’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy poverty can be understood as the inability of a household to secure a socially and materially necessitated level of energy services in the home. While the condition is widespread across Europe, its spatial and social distribution is highly uneven. In this paper, the existence of a geographical energy poverty divide in the European Union (EU) provides a starting point for conceptualizing and exploring the relationship between energy transitions – commonly described as wide-ranging processes of socio-technical change – and existing patterns of regional economic inequality. We have undertaken a comprehensive analysis of spatial and temporal trends in the national-scale patterns of energy poverty, as well as gas and electricity prices. The results of our work indicate that the classic economic development distinction between the core and periphery also holds true in the case of energy poverty, as the incidence of this phenomenon is significantly higher in Southern and Eastern European EU Member States. The paper thus aims to provide the building blocks for a novel theoretical integration of questions of path-dependency, uneven development and material deprivation in existing interpretations of energy transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the websites of two religious organizations representing opposing sides of the religious response toward environmentalism and climate change. This research seeks to understand how each side communicates with followers. Using rhetorical framing analysis, it is shown the religious right advocates a dominion stance and uses a romance genre filled with stories, contrast, spin, appeals to logic, and rhetoric of hope and fear. The religious left advocates a stewardship stance and uses a romance genre filled with stories, appeals to logic, and rhetoric of hope. Cultural cognition theory of risk perception reveals each side subscribes to opposing cultural worldviews of an ideal society. The hermeneutical analysis suggests that the debate is not a conflict over the science of climate change but instead is a conflict over cultural worldviews of an ideal society. This manuscript offers suggestions for macromarketing in confronting the conflicting views exhibited in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the marketing literature has investigated the availability and affordability of food and food stores from various angles and in many different global contexts, a recent phenomenon that has only received scant attention in the marketing literature thus far is the appearance of food deserts in urban environments. Food deserts have been observed in Western markets (e.g., in the U.K. and the U.S.) with a literature base that originates in urban planning. This article represents the first attempt to introduce the food desert phenomenon to the marketing literature overall, and to the macromarketing context specifically. A definition of a food desert is created from a marketing perspective. The impact of emerging food deserts on market segments of vulnerable consumers, such as the elderly or mobility-impaired consumers, and the ensuing public policy implications appear particularly relevant to macromarketers. This study investigates the absence of food-sources in a context that may not appear as a likely candidate for this phenomenon, a transitional economy in Southeastern Europe, Croatia. Evidence for the existence of a food desert is provided through primary and secondary data, and public policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of how consumer credit has become a part of daily life of wage earners in the age of financialization by drawing on the experience of Turkey. Given the dearth of information in this area, it draws on fieldwork conducted among metal workers. In particular, the paper analyzes how consumer credit has become a part of daily life of workers, driven by socio-economic and institutional factors. The results show that consumer debt in Turkey has become a part of the daily life of workers as a consequence of, first, growing dependence on debt to support basic reproduction of labor power, and second, of the banks’ increasing orientation towards consumer lending. These findings also signal the deepening of the already unequal power relation between banks and wage earners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Propositions underlying the theoretical tenets of the Integrative Justice Model (IJM), a normative, ethical framework for engaging in impoverished markets, are investigated for reliability in application. Santos and Laczniak provide numerous decision principles to help the marketer to evaluate fairness in the marketplace exchange, yet which are most reflective of the core tenets and most useful in application? Managerial perceptions of the extent to which the propositions reflect the core tenets of the IJM are evaluated in this critical step toward operationalizing the model. Factor analysis is implemented with a relatively small sample, a challenge particularly common in research with the impoverished or marginalized, to evaluate the decision principles most reflective of the core tenets, from the perspective of the marketer/manager. Normality is not considered a critical assumption of factor analysis where groups of like variables are clustered into underlying constructs. This work articulates a critical step in macromarketing research methods, exemplifying an approach resilient to micro samples under macro frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how alcohol brands use markers of brand community (consciousness of kind, rituals and traditions, and moral responsibility) to engage existing lifestyle consumption communities. Drawing on consumption community and ethics theory, the article examines the interface between brands and a lifestyle consumption community, and explores ethical issues and implications from this phenomenon. A mixed methods research case study examining alcohol sports sponsorship of the Australian National Rugby League (NRL) is presented to generate understanding of the live context and explore the use of markers of brand community to engage adolescent members of the NRL lifestyle consumption community. Evidence of consciousness of kind, and rituals and traditions relating to brand activity, was identified, but was less evident in relation to moral responsibility. The study also identified some important theoretical, practical, and ethical implications. This research addresses a significant gap in the current literature by identifying how community markers can be used by brands to engage existing lifestyle consumption communities, and distinguishing ethical implications that warrant attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates marketers’ new media strategies targeting the millennial generation. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with industry professionals and an assortment of business discourses, I find that this consumer demographic is routinely conceptualized as “digital natives” who exhibit a “networked hypersociality” and a “participatory exhibitionism.” A variety of innovative promotional tactics are being used to solicit self-expression and cultivate community within branded spaces and flows online. This development could reshape the advertising industry as commercialization further blurs with social and cultural content, obfuscating branding’s persuasive purpose from audiences. It also raises concerns about commercialization hijacking the political potential of an often-cited “empowering” new media environment as well as diminishing opportunity for youth identity to exist autonomous from the consumer marketplace at a time of escalating personal debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on topics related to macromarketing including the vulnerabilities of consumers, the corporate responsibilities of the garment industry and marketing failures.

The objective of this research is to highlight the importance of the concept of ‘competence’ in studies focusing on the adolescent consumer’s behavior via an empirical case. This article examines the meaning that adolescents attribute to their consumption competencies by using an interpretive analysis of 18 portraits of adolescents aged 11–15. The findings identify 11 dimensions of consumption competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subsistence consumers are disadvantaged and marginalized on many levels, including financial deprivation, poor health, lack of access to resources, and social stigmatization. The disadvantages experienced by subsistence consumers are interconnected and co-constitutive; being disadvantaged in one domain often intersects with other disadvantages, contributing to an overall vulnerability within the market system. Drawing from the intersectionality paradigm, the authors examine an overlooked low-income community that shares elements of subsistence contexts. The findings reveal multiple ways in which a trailer park community residents experience and manage intertwined disadvantages. Several overlapping identity categories (i.e., socio-economic status, health status, and type of housing) vis-à-vis structural and relational dynamics are fleshed out. Implications for research on subsistence marketplaces and the usefulness of the intersectionality approach for macromarketing research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There are thousands of journal articles that concern themselves with markets at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP).1 What is there to say that hasn’t been said already? In 2002, an article published in the Harvard Business Review (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002) brought to the forefront of business and academic attention a ‘missing market’ that was claimed to be lying dormant, ignored by international and multination corporations yet worthy of attention for its potential to contribute to both economic and social prosperity. The notion of markets at the BoP is concerned with providing the ‘poor’ in developing and emergent economies with access to markets. Prahalad and Hammond (2002) champion the needs of the ‘invisible poor’ to the marketing efforts of multinational corporations. Prahalad and Hammond’s (2002) assert that the poor as ‘consumers’ constituted a sizeable market opportunity but this view has been criticised. In this essay, we explore how BoP markets might be reconceptualising to better shape interventions that relieve poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although advertising has played a key role in bringing corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the public agenda on behalf of agency clients, little effort has been made to define what social responsibility means in advertising. A national survey of 1,045 advertising and marketing communications students from 176 colleges and universities were asked to write their own definitions of CSR. The majority of student responses fell within Carroll’s CSR categories, with the heaviest emphasis on Ethical and Legal responsibilities, a lighter emphasis on Economic responsibility, and the lightest emphasis on discretionary responsibility. Students exhibited “message myopia” in that they largely focused their comments on the creation of advertisements and to the exclusion of environmentalism; client, vendor, and employee relations; diversity or community involvement. Implications for educators of advertising and marketing communications are discussed in terms of how their efforts could help shape the advertising business/society relationship of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the critical issues facing modern businesses can be considered marketing ethics issues. It follows that as the field of business ethics has evolved, marketing has played a key role in the development of business ethics education. Despite a general trend of increasingly larger amounts of ethical content included in business curricula, prior studies have shown there are no significant numbers of courses specifically designed with a focus on marketing ethics in university business programs. This exploratory study examines the current implementation of the stand-alone marketing ethics course. Using a comparative case study method, we describe a variety of different approaches currently being used in the definition and delivery of stand-alone marketing ethics courses. We offer recommendations for the future of the marketing ethics course and discuss related research opportunities. Our goal is to inform and inspire further development and refinement of marketing curricula that incorporate marketing ethics content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are presently at a point of unique circumstantial convergence where recession, an increased emphasis on business ethics, and marketer’s reluctance to accept shifting social agendas have combined to identify the need for a new approach to marketing. Using concepts from the human resources, marketing and psychology literatures, and especially Erich Fromm’s ideas concerning economic character, this paper posits that marketers – as a professional community – are driven to promote consumerist outcomes; victims of an automaton amalgam of calling and character. The analysis suggests the vulnerability of both marketer and consumer are mutually reinforcing and that we need, somehow, to break this damaging cycle of dependence. We know little, however, about how marketers think and feel about their discipline, so this paper also promotes an agenda for marketer behaviour research, as a countervailing balance to a currently disproportionate focus on the consumer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]