A discourse analysis of pilgrimage reviews

ABSTRACT

This article is the first to provide an account of the discursive features of online consumer reviews of pilgrimage sites. Drawing from pilgrimage studies and narrativity theory in consumer research, the authors explore how consumers communicate the spiritual and material aspects of pilgrimage experiences by examining a corpus of 833 consumer reviews on TripAdvisor of the most sacred pilgrimage sites of the world’s major five faith groups. Pilgrims include analytical discursive features to communicate the material aspect of their consumption experience. They reserve narration for spiritual transformation and the experience of strong emotions. Moreover, review ratings are only reflective of the spiritual aspect of their consumption experience. As such, this research complements previous studies by highlighting the material, physical aspect of this extraordinary consumption experience.     

‘If it comes from Juazeiro,it’s blessed’! Liquid and solid attachment in systems of object itineraries of pilgrimages

ABSTRACT

Building on an interpretive approach, we employ the multi-sited ethnographic methods of ‘following the thing’ and ‘following the people’ to track the movements of consumers and objects during a Catholic pilgrimage in the Northeast region of Brazil. We find a system of object itineraries that exemplifies how pilgrims liquefy and solidify attachments to objects to relate to God and saints during movements between their home and the sacred site. We expand perceptions by showing how materiality and relevance to the self can be important even in liquidity. Our findings have implications to the understanding of consumption of the spiritual and liquid/solid attachment to sacred objects.     

From overt provider to invisible presence: discursive shifts in advertising portrayals of the father in Good Housekeeping, 1950–2010

Abstract

This article considers the link between fatherhood and masculinity and identifies some of the key discursive shifts around fatherhood based on an analysis of advertising material that appeared in Good Housekeeping magazine between 1950 and 2010. It provides a socio-historical perspective on fatherhood that reveals a discursive shift from the father as patriarchal family provider/protector to a more ambiguous and less obvious presence in the magazine advertisements. Our findings suggest that family-related advertising in women’s magazines does little to challenge the traditional models of paternal masculinity. Changes in the portrayal of fathers, when examined closely, seem to reinforce traditional gender hegemony. Yet, over time, a ‘multiplicity of possibilities’ of dominant paternal masculinities is emerging, broadening the original ‘breadwinner’ model and perhaps offering some transformative potential around how we view fathers.     

Vulnerable consumers in the ‘fourth age’: theoretical reflections upon the case of Sandra Bem

ABSTRACT

This commentary reflects upon consumer vulnerability in the ‘fourth age’ through a consideration of the case of Sandra Bem. In doing so, we focus on how Alzheimer’s disease affected Bem’s ability to make decisions and navigate the market to commit suicide. Subsequently, this article reflects upon terror management theory, ‘fourth age’ consumption and self-consciousness to suggest that future studies of degenerative illness are likely to breathe further life into the study of vulnerable consumers.     

Everyday dramas of conscience: navigating identity through creative neutralisations

ABSTRACT

The paper seeks to recuperate autonomy within debates around identity as the discursive construction of self through exploring the ‘greening’ of intensive mothering discourse and the emergence of new subject positions and practices of accountability. It argues that facets of ideologies of ethical and sustainable consumption are inscribed within this discourse, authorising identity work and furnishing everyday provisioning routines with significance and urgency; and that related social practices that are marked for ‘greening’ diligence or negligence are not merely situated and productive, but transformative of mothering identities, roles and norms. We report the findings of a study of a group of professional working mothers as they negotiate competing and conflictual spaces of doing ‘green’ mothering. This opens an analytical window on the diversity of signifying practices that characterise how informants play with boundaries and ambiguity in creative ways, using images of responsible consumption and sustainable living to negotiate appeals to social well-being while authorising claims to ‘greening’ competence. Our interviews capture discursive events that rearticulate social messages, mixing them with brand appeals and media content that situate the invention of ‘new’ mothering with regard to flows of ‘greening’ discourse. Inventive appeals and related subject positions speak of a repertoire of strategic messaging practices, themselves consistent with a heightened reflexivity shaping content and presentation through practices we understand as modes of neutralisation – forms of self-governance and accountability that seek to generate resources of resilience that help reinforce green mothering identity claims made to self and others. Through socialising ‘sustainability’ in this way, we contribute to our understanding of the social surrogacy of brands and its problematics.     

A Buddhist approach to consumption

ABSTRACT

Typically we think of consumption in terms of material objects however consumption can be understood on many levels. In the vijananavada or Mind Only school of Buddhist Psychology, which underpins much of the currently popular practice of ‘mindfulness’, consumption is considered within a much broader framework of material objects, sensory input, motivation – as well as consciousness itself. Once a basic understanding of these four aspects of consumption is achieved, we begin to notice how we nurture certain states of being within ourselves and others and become cognizant of the capacity to be able to selectively choose what to nurture. This understanding is then a concrete and transformative mindfulness method.     

An extension of the benefit segmentation base for the consumption of organic foods: A time perspective

Abstract

Benefit segmentation is a long-standing marketing approach that emphasises the ‘what’ and ‘how’ dimensions of consumer benefits; that is, what benefits consumers perceive in product/service consumption, and how such benefits are perceived. This research proposes a fresh time-based approach to benefit segmentation – namely, focusing on the ‘when’ element or when in time benefits take effect. Drawing upon a survey of UK consumers, it explains and discusses consumption motivations through examining antecedents of temporally dominated benefits in application to organic food. Specifically, the study investigates why some consumers predominantly seek present-based benefits vis-à-vis future-based benefits or vice versa in organic food purchase and consumption behaviour. Using correlation and regression analyses, the research findings establish significant associations of level of involvement, prior knowledge level, and product usage level, and some association of time orientation with the temporally emphasised consumption benefits consumers ultimately pursue. Overall, the research highlights the added contribution of a time perspective in a benefit segmentation approach which can assist marketers in understanding better and communicating more effectively with consumers through drawing up consumer profiles based on when in time their dominantly pursued benefit for an offering is perceived to take effect.     

Running wild in the marketplace: the articulation and negotiation of an alternative food network

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we examine how actors within what we conceptualise as an emerging wild food alternative network are navigating through the foodscape to find alternatives to homogenous and standardised food products. Drawing on data from different research engagements with wild food consumers and producers over the last decade in Canada, we use the context of wild foods to explore how the ‘alternative’ is being articulated and negotiated. Inspired by scholarly work exploring the pedagogical promise of food, we also explore the transformational potential of the ‘alternative’ – how bringing wild foods to the table can both inspire and teach consumers about sustainability and alternative consumption practices. We conclude with directions for future marketing research on alternative food networks.     

From pushchairs to wheelchairs: understanding tensions in family decision making through the experiences of adult children caring for ageing parents

Abstract

Within a modern family life, roles have changed significantly; however, relatively little attention has been given to the increased health and longevity of parents. This article focuses on the tensions relating to the transitional role of parent as ‘carer of the child’ to child as ‘carer of the parent’ as parents age. This article focuses on the experiences of adult children as they care for their parents and the related tensions that emerge and coping strategies that are adopted. Adopting an interpretive approach we shed light on the decision-making practices around shopping, residential arrangements and other consumer choices and how they take place in complex arenas of intricate family interactions, influence and power. Key themes that emerged were strategies adopted by both the adult child and ageing parent to attain or retain control in an increasingly sensitive environment where there is no roadmap to guide either party.     

Commentary: advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond

ABSTRACT

Shelby Hunt provides an insightful, precise essay on the nature and contribution of the field of marketing across five distinct periods and concludes with a discussion of the potential for the field of marketing, both within marketing and across allied fields of management. This ‘promise’ of marketing’s academic future is followed by a discussion of the key factors likely to play a significant role in lessening the contribution of the field. The purpose of this commentary is to focus on Hunt’s key question regarding Era V: Is the future of the marketing discipline promising or problematic? As such, this commentary addresses four issues: (1) the ‘promising’ assets that the discipline has in play; (2) the slide towards academic irrelevance and, thus, the ‘problem’; (3) Hunt’s observations on how the slide might be reversed; and (4) my viewpoint on what can be done to reverse the slide.     

Social marketing and big social change: personal social marketing insights from a complex system obesity prevention intervention

ABSTRACT

To address ‘wicked problems’ such as obesity, family violence or community safety, we need systems change interventions that reach large numbers, are scalable and can be enriched over time.

Follow the development of a social marketing platform as it became a critical component of Healthy Together Victoria; an internationally recognised, and radically different, approach to driving change for better health. Working beyond the delivery of public education campaigns, social marketing became a key pillar of this powerful movement – one that emboldened governments, business and other partners across sectors and communities – to tackle the rising tide of obesity through leadership, big thinking and joint action.     

Edging out of the nest: emerging adults’ use of smartphones in maintaining and transforming family relationships

Abstract

The transition to adulthood, often accompanied by an emptying of the family nest, has implications for family relationships, identities and consumption practices. Despite this, the voices and experiences of emerging adults are largely missing from literature on family consumption. Emerging adult families typically combine digital natives and digital immigrants, but little is known about how their interactions around digital communications technology relate to emerging adult preoccupations with affiliation and autonomy. This interpretive study explores how emerging adults’ smartphones are bound up with a complex network of family communication and consumption practices, often across household, geographic and generational boundaries. Affiliation and autonomy emerged as intertwined rather than competing dimensions of participants’ smartphone use, contributing to the distribution and development of family as the nest empties.     

Intergenerational transmissions and sharing of musical taste practices

ABSTRACT

This study explores the lived dimensions of musical taste emerging from interactions over the life-course within the nuclear family. We address this subject using intergenerational transmission as a conceptual frame of reference simultaneously highlighting the dynamic and situated nature of musical taste, thus promoting a pragmatic approach. Our aim is to identify the moments, the contents, the goals and the processes linked to intergenerational transmissions. Interpreting the data from 18 parent-young adult dyads reveals: a parental mark imprinted mainly through impregnation; age and generation structuring musical taste (more at the level of listening devices); a low level of parental malleability; heterogeneous intergenerational interactions within the nuclear family, and the transmission of ‘old devices’. Finally, in line with practice theory, we show that the processes of intergenerational transmission with different agents involved can only happen with the support of objects, ‘doings’ performed with objects, and meanings associated with objects.     

The analogue diaries of postdigital consumption

ABSTRACT

Even in a world that is saturated with the digital, we still seek out analogue objects. Drawing on concepts of postdigital aesthetics, we examine the use of analogue objects to escape the omnipresence of the digital realm. Based on consumer narratives from interview, archival, and netnographic data involving the use of analogue notebooks and film cameras, we derive the notion of postdigital consumption and analyse the ‘digital’ as a background object foregrounding the analogue. Our findings reveal ways in which consumers use these analogue objects to escape controlled consumption, to enchant their consumption with their labour, and to seek continuity and permanence, in navigating paradoxical relationships with the digital world.     

Barriers to advancing the science and practice of marketing

ABSTRACT

From focus groups to clinical interviews to cognitive, neurological and biological approaches, market research borrows heavily from the behavioural sciences. Borrowing ideas and methods from other disciplines, often with adaptations, while clearly valuable, also brings a significant risk of ‘getting it wrong’. Problems arise when researchers do not follow best practices carefully developed in the originating discipline. To maintain competitive advantage, marketing researchers often ‘black box’ the details of how they apply those procedures of method design and analysis. This lack of transparency provides little evidence that best practices are followed. This, in turn, raises questions about the validity and reliability of the resulting insights and their implications. To illustrate this issue, we examine two domains where there is strong evidence to suggest that current practices are not best (or even good) practices – implicit association testing and neuroscience.     

Practising gender: The role of banter in young men’s improvisations of masculine consumer identities

Abstract

Although consumer researchers have explored the social, cultural and consumption-related tensions involved in being and becoming masculine, prior research has tended to focus on individual men’s experiences. This paper reviews literature in this area together with theories of gender as performed, performative and social practice. Our ethnographic study of male friendship groups in central Scotland explores the gender processes involved in improvising their masculine consumer identities within and across various social settings and interactions. In particular, through consumption-related banter, they played for and played with their ideas of masculinity, thereby engaging in the practising of gender. The boundaries between ‘safe’ and ‘danger’ zones of consumption varied across social groups and contexts, highlighting the complexity and contingency of contemporary masculinities.     

Trade and Innovation in Services: Evidence from a Developing Economy

Studies on innovation and international trade have traditionally focused on manufacturing because neither was seen as important for services. Moreover, the few existing studies on services focus only on industrial countries, even though in many developing countries services are already the largest sector in the economy and an important determinant of overall productivity growth. Using a recent firm‐level innovation survey for Chile to compare the manufacturing and ‘tradable’ services sector, this paper reveals some novel patterns. First, even though services firms have on average a much lower propensity to export than manufacturing firms, services exports are less dominated by large firms and tend to be more skill intensive than manufacturing exports. Second, services firms appear to be as innovative as – and in some cases more innovative than – manufacturing firms, in terms of both inputs and outputs of ‘technological’ innovative activity, even though services innovations more often take a ‘non‐technological’ form. Third, services exporters (like manufacturing exporters) tend to be significantly more innovative than non‐exporters, with a wider gap for innovations close to the global technological frontier. These findings suggest that the growing faith in services as a source of both trade and innovative dynamism may not be misplaced.     

Governance and Globalisation

Unlike the large literature on ‘democracy and trade’, there is a much smaller literature on the effect of the level of democracy in a nation on the level of its foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow. These few studies reveal mixed empirical results, and surprisingly only one study has examined bilateral FDI flows. Moreover, few of these studies use multiple governance indicators separating the ‘pluralism’ effect of democratic institutions from the ‘good governance’ effect, there are no studies on democratic institutions’ various effects on the level of FDI relative to trade, and there are no studies of democratic institutions’ various effects on the selection of countries into FDI. We focus on three contributions. First, we examine the simultaneous effects of the World Bank's (six) Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGIs) – which allow separating the effects of pluralism from those of five other good governance measures – on bilateral trade, FDI and FDI relative to trade using state‐of‐the‐art gravity specifications. Second, we find strong evidence that – after accounting for host governments’ effectiveness in various roles of good governance – a higher level of pluralism as measured by the WGIs’ Voice and Accountability Index reduces trade levels, likely by increasing the ‘voice’ of more protectionist less‐skilled workers, but not FDI levels. Moreover, we find qualitatively different effects of other WGIs – such as political stability – on trade versus FDI flows. Third, we account for firm heterogeneity alongside a large number of zeros in bilateral FDI flows using recent advances in gravity modelling. We distinguish between the (country) intensive and extensive margins and show that pluralism affects FDI inflows negatively at the intensive margin, but positively at the extensive margin.