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This paper investigates the nature of the boundaries between the extended self and possessions (including potentially extended possessions) for Hong Kong Chinese consumers. Eastern research has suggested a different set of boundaries and cultural interpretations of the concept of self and possessions compared with Western findings. Our findings showed that informants narrated stories not only about the gifts that they themselves had received as being their important possessions and thus constituting part of their extended self; but they also described objects that they had given as gifts to close others as part of their own possessions and thus these extended possessions potentially constituted part of their own extended selves.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the political functions of government-sponsored social marketing campaigns aimed at changing citizens’ behaviour and to argue for the reconsideration of the boundaries between political, public sector and social marketing. Design/methodology/approach – Critical discourse analysis of print advertisements and promotional material of a government-sponsored social marketing campaign is used. Findings – The paper identifies the discursive ways in which the campaign influences the public's views of social issues and actors and discusses the role of such campaigns in the redefinition of the relationship between the citizen and the state. Originality/value – The paper contributes to critical perspectives on the wider impact of social marketing activities on democracy by demonstrating the political impact function and effects of campaigns run by governments.

Purpose – Relationship development is presented as an optimal strategy across all sectors of economic activity, although relationships, and their appropriateness, vary by industry sector. In order to contribute to academic and managerial understanding of relationships in professional business services, this study aims to investigate the characteristics of relationship development in management consultancy. Design/methodology/approach – Data collection involved semi-structured interviews with both consultants and clients and employed a multilevel perspective for the investigation of relationships. Findings – The findings provide a more nuanced reading of relationships and relationship development. First, a distinction between within-project and between-projects relationships and the important strategic implications which flow from these two different types of relationships are identified. Second, a distinction between relationship-seekers and relationship-switchers, and the resource allocation decisions associated with managing these two different client groups are identified. Research limitations/implications – This is an exploratory study based on a qualitative methodology and thus no claims are made about generalizability. The study primarily aimed to achieve a theoretical generalization. The emerging conceptualizations could be extended to and tested by other cases in future studies. Practical implications – The study has implications for managers because of the insights it offers into the mechanisms for relationship development; the strategic value of relationships; what the clients have to say about relationships; and the elements that characterize successful long-term relationships. Originality/value – The study contributes to relationship management theory within services marketing by offering a more refined understanding of company-client relationships, compared with the more generic interpretations of relationships which often characterize studies of relati

Rejection is at the heart of anti-consumption and is therefore key to some of the central relationships in symbolic consumption. However, researchers find rejection difficult to study because of the lack of material traces. This article draws on earlier frameworks to develop a new integrated and expanded conceptualization in order to achieve a more nuanced view of how rejection operates within symbolic consumption; and also to initiate research directions for investigating and theorizing rejection in anti-consumption. The focus on anti-consumption incorporates the interaction between avoidance, aversion and abandonment, and the relationship between distastes and the undesired self (mediated by the marketing, social and individual environments). A series of interrelationships and illustrations suggest how the expanded conceptualization is useful for theorizing and investigating anti-consumption.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how consumer researchers working in the interpretivist tradition go about composing well founded theorized storylines, in order to convince audiences of the soundness of the theory-building which emanates from their studies. Design/methodology/approach – An analytical framework was derived from Golden-Biddle and Locke's study of organizational ethnographers to see how they made their accounts convincing to their audiences. Golden-Biddle and Locke's analysis revealed 3Ds – authenticity, plausibility and criticality (each with a variety of sub-dimensions) – that played key rhetorical roles in convincing readers. Findings – Using this analytical framework (summarized in three tables), examples from a variety of authors' work in Journal of Consumer Research (?JCR) were drawn upon to illustrate how interpretivist consumer behaviour authors tackled these three key dimensions: authenticity, plausibility and criticality. Research limitations/implications – Only a limited set of JCR studies out of an extensive field of qualitative research in consumer behaviour were analyzed. Originality/value – Little attention has been paid hitherto to the actual practices of writing qualitative research within the marketing field. The more basic writing techniques involved in qualitative research tend to be regarded as implicit, skills that are acquired by osmosis rather than being formally taught or made explicit. This can make it particularly difficult for less-experienced interpretivist researchers to learn the tools of their qualitative trade, which are often taken for granted by longer standing researchers. The paper seeks to make some of these writing practices more transparent and some of the rhetorical devices more explicit for authors who may wish to improve their own writing styles or strengthen their ability to use rhetoric.

Child research has been conducted 'on' rather than 'with' children, and has often used parental proxies or opinion to account for the views of the child. Due to this the voice of the child has been unheard. Once access and ethical concerns have been addressed the adult researcher then has to decide which role to take when conducting research with children. Children are largely seen in one of three ways, and each perspective has an impact on the role the adult researcher could adopt. The first claims that children are entirely different from adults, and fosters the notion that they are unreliable and contaminated data sources. The second perspective views children as being entirely the same as adults, and the third views children as being similar to adults but as having different (although not necessarily inferior) competencies. The latter perspective has received most support and is the favoured view of the child respondent.