Sustainability concerns in luxury supply chains: European brand strategies and French consumer expectations

Sustainability in supply chain management has become a concern in both research and practice. Although consumption and purchasing have been significantly explored in the luxury sector, a gap in supply chain studies is still evident. Therefore, the aim of this article is to examine how industry bodies and supply chain partners address sustainability concerns in the European luxury sector and how they respond to consumer expectations. In an explanatory study, we have collected data about sustainable supply chain practices in 11 European luxury good companies, by interviewing and surveying 13 managers. In a first consumer study, we held interviews with French luxury consumers in Bordeaux about their sustainability expectations (N = 170). The results show that while the distribution of attention is dependent on the respective supply chain activities, luxury goods companies address sustainability concerns and aim to take responsibility for their activities. However, the emphasis is on the dimension of economic sustainability. A comparison with sustainability expectations of French luxury goods consumers suggests that business practices are not perfectly well aligned with these expectations. Consumers put more emphasis on social and environmental sustainability dimensions. On the other hand, business activities concerning waste reduction and raw material management rather well match consumer expectations.     

Marketing avatars revisited: A commentary on facial recognition and embodied representations in consumer profiling

In this Executive Digest, we review and extend our original Business Horizons article (May 2013) addressing marketing avatars (i.e., mavatars ¹): digital embodied, biometric profiles. In the original article we offered our marketing avatar framework, which classified existing and predicted types of mavatar applications according to data collection and application domains. However, because of the quick pace of change in this domain, we must review newly introduced mavatar applications that complete the original framework. These new applications—as well as industry and regulatory actions—paint a picture of where and how mavatars will be used, and where opportunities exist for application development. For that reason, we discuss current applications and additional predictions for future use.