Get real!: Cultural relevance and resistance to the mediated feminine ideal

As part of a longitudinal study that examines early and late adolescent girls' interpretations of mainstream teen magazines, this research focuses on how the African American audience's interpretive frame enables them to critique and distance themselves from selected aspects of a consumption object with which they regularly engage. The results were drawn from in‐depth interviews with 16 African American girls, ages 13–18, who are regular readers of one of the top three teen titles: Seventeen, YM, or ‘Teen. In this article, consumption is conceptualized not only as purchase, but acceptance of and aspiration to the ideals employed by the beauty industry to sell goods and services, e.g., a thin body type, European‐American facial features, and a preference for a “made‐up” appearance. Conversely, anti‐consumption is rejection, subversion or negotiation of those same ideals, although such critical stances do not preclude voluntary, regular exposure to the texts conveying these ideals. The analysis illustrates the importance of cultural relevance in promoting consumers' aspiration to mediated ideals; in particular, the article explores African American consumers' criticism of Euro‐centric feminine ideals as not real. While White girls actively sought out the magazines' alternate, improved version of reality, African American girls compared the fictional work to their real world experience and not only denied the veracity of the ideal, but preferred their reality to it. As predicted by racial identity theory, most African American girls in this study, particularly older girls, did not defer to the magazines' authority in defining their conception of femininity, which instead was strongly influenced by culture and frequently defined in direct opposition to the mediated ideal. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Advertising in the Large-Four Institutional Views

Broad assumptions about how advertising does-and should-function in society influence the thinking and actions of critics and supporters alike. Carey, Norris, Potter, and Sandage have analyzed advertising as an institution in American society. Here their “macro” perspectives are first described and then analyzed for their implications. Carey sees advertising linked with “market information,” and Norris with producers' quest for market power. Potter is wary of advertising's social control in an abundant society, while Sandage views advertising as serving the best interests of citizen and society. Their reasoning-and implications-are intriguing.     

Further insights into perceived value and consumer loyalty: A “Green” perspective

“Green consumption” is an increasingly important topic in today's society. The effect of the ecological value provided by traditionally non‐green products, such as automobiles, on their consumer's post‐purchase behavior, such as brand or model loyalty, requires further clarification. The present study provides qualitative and quantitative insights from car users on how the ecological aspect of consumption integrates into the link between perceived value and consumer loyalty intentions (value–loyalty link). In general, car usage is accompanied by perceived functional, economic, emotional, and social value. Perceived ecological value is shown to have a significant impact on these four value dimensions. The relevance of “green to have quality,” “green to save money,” “green to feel good,” and “green to be seen” in relation to loyalty intention is discussed. Results of a structural equation model and multigroup analysis provide the opportunity to derive both theoretical and applied implications. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on the expansion of China's higher education in overseas markets along the route

Due to the differences in economic and social conditions among the Belt‐and‐Road (B&R) countries, resources exchange might bring significant effect on companies and organizations in these countries. In recent years, vigorously developing university education and attracting more outstanding international students have become important means for “B&R” countries to expand education market and enhance international influence. However, there is limited research discussing the impact of “B&R” on the internationalization of higher education. Taking the sponsoring country (China) of the “B&R” strategy as an example, this article explores the impact of this strategy on Chinese universities' expansion in the education market, and further analyzes the important relevant factors from the perspectives of international competitiveness. The findings show that the B&R Initiative has a significant impact on the expansion of Chinese universities in overseas markets along the route. Furthermore, we have found “push” factors related to China's macro and micro environments, and “pull” factors associated with countries along the B&R route.     

Resisting immigrant myths: everyday consumer practices of Asian immigrants in America

Projective, depth interviews with U.S. Asian immigrants revealed their ambivalence toward the U.S. commercial sector's colonial-era representations of Asian people. These commercial representations provide polarized depictions of Asian immigrants as either threatening aliens or as model citizens. These portrayals reflect “racialized otherness,” or racial stereotyping that represent Asian immigrants as inferior. Our findings indicate that Chinese immigrants strategically use everyday consumption related to foodways to resist the reverberation of American immigrant myths. In some instances, immigrants’ consumption practices instantiate a regional Asian identity. In other instances, however, immigrants’ consumption practices reflect a separation from the past and an acceptance of a new although not exclusively American way of life. Notwithstanding immigrant consumers' resistance practices, the findings call for future research into immigrant consumers' reactions to visual representations of race, ethnicity, and gender.     

How Affirmational versus Negational Identification Frames Influence Uniqueness‐Seeking Behavior

This research tested the proposition that consumers presenting under a negational identification frame are more likely to choose unique products than when they present themselves affirmationally. Study 1 demonstrated this main effect in a real‐choice setting. Study 2 underlined temporary accessibilities to one's desired (undesired) identities when an affirmational (negational) identification frame is adopted. Study 3 further demonstrated that identity valence interacts with identification frames in driving uniqueness‐seeking tendency. Additionally, this effect was found to be mediated by self‐other distinction in Study 4. The research implications for both the “what” and the “how” aspects of identity‐driven consumption are discussed.     

Green Demarketing in Advertisements: Comparing “Buy Green” and “Buy Less” Appeals in Product and Institutional Advertising Contexts

This research compares consumer response to traditional green advertising appeals to that of less conventional, “green demarketing” (GD) appeals—messages by for-profit companies encouraging reduced category consumption for the sake of the environment. Rather than encouraging greener consumption, modern environmentalism calls for decreased consumption overall, a trend reflected in recent advertising campaigns (e.g., Patagonia's “Don't Buy This Jacket”). Despite its potential impact and unconventionality, research on GD in general is sparse, and no empirical research has examined consumer response to GD appeals relative to traditional green appeals. In three experiments, we find that, in the context of product advertising, consumers' attitudes for green ads are more favorable than those for GD ads, mediated by greater inferences of genuine environmental concern. However, we find the reverse pattern in the context of institutional ads. Further, an “anti-consumption amplifier” message embedded in the ad—espousing the potential harm of overconsumption—further boosts favorable consumer attitudes for the GD institutional ad relative to its traditional green counterpart. Importantly, we assess all effects while controlling for consumers' individual levels of green consumerism, such that implications may be applied more generally rather than to a specific segment of green consumers.     

The (missing) subjects of research on gender and global governance: Toward inquiry into the ruling relations of development

Responding to the Special Issue's call for “new thinking” on gender and governance in developing societies, we introduce our research on the social organization of development knowledge and its ethical implications. Our feminist-based approach, institutional ethnography, analyses the ruling relations of development and the standpoints represented in knowledge about development and its governance. Our paper offers an alternative to what we see as “the institutional standpoint” prevailing, but taken for granted, in business and society scholarship addressing development. Instead of theorizing development relationships between institutions and their “stakeholders,” we illustrate what can be learned about the social relations of development beginning from the experiences of local subjects. Our analysis of an environmental research and development project in Uzbekistan shows that being missed is knowledge about development subjects that could have revealed what is locally relevant and needed. Instead, we discover gender inequality being constituted, unknowingly, within this project's institutionally generated knowledge and the activities it authorizes.     

The impact of the implicit theories of social optimism and social pessimism on macro attitudes towards consumption

People have substantially differing attitudes towards consumption. Anti-consumers are negative towards consumption. In contrast, pro-consumers view consumption in a positive light. We posit that people's attitudes toward consumption at the societal (macro) level are impacted by the implicit theories they hold about whether society can solve the problems it faces. We identify two different implicit theories consumers hold regarding how solvable larger societal problems are. Social optimists believe that we will solve the problems that are emerging as we evolve at the societal level. In contrast, social pessimists believe that societal evolution is creating problems too large to be solved. We developed a macro attitudes model where social optimism and pessimism were posited to impact people's macro attitudes towards consumption. We present the results of a study that found that social optimists have more positive attitudes towards consumption and social pessimists have more negative attitudes towards consumption. We also found that this model provided a superior fit in comparison to three other plausible models relating implicit theories and attitudes towards consumption. These findings have implications for anti-consumption research, consumer research on implicit theories, and social marketing designed to address problems associated with overconsumption.     

Romancing the past: Heritage visiting and the nostalgic consumer

Over the past decade, there has been growing interest in nostalgia and consumption experiences on the part of a small group of consumer researchers. This article offers an insight into the nostalgic experiences gained through consuming history at a contemporary British “living” museum. The findings of the research focus on two types of nostalgic behavior, which are identified as existential and aesthetic. Differences in the nostalgic reaction are conceptualized in relation to such factors as the quantity and quality of the individual's role repertoire, the experience of alienation in the present, and the extent and quality of social contact. The article aims to offer a perspective that draws upon both existing work in related fields and the findings of the research in order to contextualize nostalgia as an experiential factor behind the consumption of recreated history in the living interactive museum. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Narratives of irony and failure in ethnographic work

Organizational ethnography is one of the most valued approaches to qualitative studies of organizations. Much attention has been given to the development of the research process, of which the researcher's identity is an integral part. However, we believe that the analysis of research failures has been much less developed in the discourse of ethnographic methods for the study of organizations. Therefore, we have explored some of the “slips” in ethnographic work, as described in accounts of fellow organizational anthropologists. As the study is qualitative, we have adopted a narrative research method. We have divided the “slips” (i.e., errors) into four categories important for the ethnographer's identity: (a) one's role; (b) one's project, (c) one's relation to “the Other”; and (d) the social context of the slip. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE ROLE OF SUBSTITUTION IN WICKSELL'S DURABLE CAPITAL MODEL

In this paper the author shows that the absence of a good which is used directly or indirectly for the production of other goods is a crucial feature of Wicksell's two-sector model, without which a positive relation between the value of machine stock and the consumption good output cannot be guaranteed. In fact he proves that, if that model is generalised by assuming that the capital good is used as an input also in its own production, the sign of the “marginal product of social capital” is indeterminate, even when both sectors have “well-behaved” production functions of a Cobb-Douglas type.     

Places as authentic consumption contexts

Consumers build social capital through purposeful consumer–place interactions. Airbnb claims that consumers want to “experience a place like [they] live there.” Previous research concentrates primarily on authenticity of objects, brands, and people, with limited development of place authenticity as a concept. But place authenticity represents an increasingly important marketing concept as consumers today, particularly millennials (Schulz, P. (2015, August 8). Not just millennials: Consumers want experiences, not things. Adage. Retrieved from https://adage.com/article/digitalnext/consumers-experiences-things/299994/ ), value experience over “stuff.” Authenticity provides an important place characteristic that if perceived, potentially unlocks a truly valuable consumer experience. Consequently, the research presented here develops an auxiliary theory of place authenticity (PA). The theory proposes a second‐order factor indicated by three coordinate subdimensions. Phase I of the research consists of five studies that develop PA, explore its dimensionality, and confirm the PA scale's construct validity. Phase II of the research involves a sixth study, which examines a set of hypotheses that begin to establish PA's nomological net. The results shed light on the psychology by which consumers extract value from experience and into ways marketing efforts can build effective place–value propositions.     

Just looking? Choice and constraint in practices of visual consumption at magazine newsstands

This article takes as its subject practices of looking that occur in London's newsstands (magazine retail displays). Taking an ethnographic approach inspired by the flâneur and emphasising the symbolic properties of consumption activities that take place in public retail space, it reports on an extensive participant observation of newsstands. A three-fold typology of visual consumption is put forward: “drifting,” “speed-shopping” and “free-reading.” These practices of looking are then critically analysed in the light of theoretical perspectives on visual consumption, in particular, the tension between arguments prioritising the pleasures and, conversely, the constraints that it entails. The analysis culminates in the argument that the most fruitful position is a dialectical one that acknowledges the conditional freedom of visual consumption.     

Wal-Mart Korea: Challenges of Entering a Foreign Market

Wal-Mart entered South Korea in late 1990s for its international expansion; however, IT had a major failure in this market and left Korea in 2005 as the American way of marketing did not translate well in Korea. Wal-Mart had critical shortfalls in enabling value exchange with the Korean consumers as the Korean consumers had significantly different taste and preferences compared to American consumers. Wal-Mart's Every Day Low Price (EDLP) strategy was not perceived to have the “value” in the minds of the Korean consumers, while its store locations were not strategically well positioned to create sufficient customer traffic. Wal-Mart's competitive advantage of low cost and low price was not suitable in the Korean competition and consumption context. Wal-Mart was not prepared to develop an effective localization strategy that might have stemmed from not having a clear projection of how much it was willing to invest and grow in this market. This Wal-Mart Korean case shows the importance of the compatibility of a corporate unique value proposition and strategic fit with the local market conditions.     

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: How Humanized,Retargeted Ads Intrude in Social Contexts

A great deal of past work has demonstrated that ads that “fit” or blend into their context evoke favorable responses because consumers perceive such ads as less intrusive. The current work posits that when aspects of the ad make persuasive intent salient—such as exposure to retargeted ads, which are generated based on consumers' past online browsing behavior—this relationship reverses such that fit between an ad and its context elicits higher perceptions of intrusiveness. Specifically, ads that present ad copy in a conversational style “fit” with a social media context on the dimension of social presence. Across three studies, we show that retargeted ads that “fit” the context on the dimension of social presence evoke higher levels of perceived intrusiveness, which, in turn, influence downstream responses such as attitudes toward the ad.     

The bandwagon luxury consumption in Tunisian case: The roles of independent and interdependent self concept

Using exploratory and confirmatory analyses, this study analyzes the impact of certain psychological and sociological factors (self-concept, social comparison, and materialism) on the “bandwagon” type of luxury consumption in Tunisia. We test if the two components of self-concept (interdependent and independent) have different impacts on the “bandwagon” luxury consumption behavior. In support of existing research on the “bandwagon” effect that focuses on luxury consumption, our framework provides empirical evidence on the direct and indirect effects of the abovementioned psychological and sociological factors as antecedents of the “bandwagon” luxury consumption behavior. Our findings show that the luxury goods industry has evolved, giving rise to new lifestyles and consumption behaviors, where luxury is no longer reserved to the upper class but available to the majority. This phenomenon has created the luxury democratization effect, whereby major luxury brands are favoring luxury goods that are affordable to all.     

Politicising Government Engagement with Corporate Social Responsibility: “CSR” as an Empty Signifier

Governments are widely viewed by academics and practitioners (and society more generally) as the key societal actors who are capable of compelling businesses to practice corporate social responsibility (CSR). Arguably, such government involvement could be seen as a technocratic device for encouraging ethical business behaviour. In this paper, we offer a more politicised interpretation of government engagement with CSR where “CSR” is not a desired form of business conduct but an element of discourse that governments can deploy in structuring their relationships with other social actors. We build our argument through a historical analysis of government CSR discourse in the Russian Federation. Laclau and Mouffe's (Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics, Verso Books, London, 1985) social theory of hegemony underpins our research. We find that “CSR” in the Russian government’s discourse served to legitimise its power over large businesses. Using this case, we contribute to wider academic debates by providing fresh empirical evidence that allows the development of critical evaluation tools in relation to governments’ engagement with “CSR”. We find that governments are capable of hijacking CSR for their own self-interested gain. We close the paper by reflecting on the merit of exploring the case of the Russian Federation. As a “non-core”, non-western exemplar, it provides a useful “mirror” with which to reflect on the more widely used test-bed of Western industrial democracies when scrutinising CSR. Based on our findings, we invite other scholars to adopt a more critical, politicised stance when researching the role of governments in relation to CSR in other parts of the world.

     

Economic growth with demand saturation and “endogenous” demand creation

In this article, we present a model of economic growth through “demand creation” in the face of “demand saturation,” by representing demand saturation by an S‐shaped logistic function and reckoning the firm's R&D as an activity to determine the probability of product innovation, that is, of demand creation. By defining the parameter of birth rate of a new product as the probability that a new product is derived from an existing one and identifying the time path of this parameter with the firm's R&D plan, we derive the optimal R&D plan and examine the growth rate of the firm's expected total revenue along this optimal plan. We then find that the optimal birth rate of a new product is influenced positively by the speed of diffusion of demand and the initial level of demand but negatively by the unit cost of production and the interest rate and that the growth rate of the firm converges to the optimal birth rate of a new product.     

How emotional,politically civil and local aspects affect young adults’ sustainable consumption in transition economies

Sustainable consumption manifolds and mobilizes one’s conscious choice to express a politically implied stance on environmental/cultural/social issues, to address social and/or ecological injustices, to reproduce or restore order and justice, as well as to fulfill responsibilities of a citizen consumer. Based on this premise, this paper attempts to explore what sustainable consumption means to young adults in Hong Kong. Findings from three focus groups and six follow-up interviews reveal that Hong Kong young adults’ sustainable consumption embeds their political ideals to construct collective civil power to fight against the structural inequalities, market hegemonies, imperial dominance and social/ecological injustice locally. The findings point to the need to further define and refine the unspecified concept of “reflexivity” in existing literature. The paper also unveils how the concept of “sustainable consumption” has evolved from the “individual,” “global,” “rational,” “remotely moral” and “ideological” to the “communal,” “local,” “emotional,” “politically civil” and “actional.”