The construction of qualitative research articles: a conversation with Eileen Fischer

Eileen Fischer, Professor of Marketing and Anne & Max Tanenbaum Chair in Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at the Schulich School of Business at York University, has published research on entrepreneurs, consumers, and markets in several leading management and marketing journals. Professor Fischer has served on the editorial review boards of Consumption Markets & Culture; Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice; Family Business Review; Journal of Business Venturing; and Journal of Small Business Management and is a current co-editor of the Journal of Consumer Research. In preparation for this conversation, the interviewers invited questions about the construction of qualitative research articles from multiple junior scholars in the field of consumer culture theory (CCT). This invitation yielded dozens of questions that were whittled down to the final questions you see here.     

Spoils from the Spoiled: Strategies for Entering Stigmatized Markets

Stigmatized markets are those where either the products/services, or the consumers, or both, have been collectively, negatively stereotyped and devalued by one or more stakeholder audiences in ways that discredit the overall market. Many stigmatized markets exist, and many flourish, yet little systematic attention has focused on entry into such markets. Our article addresses this gap by conceptualizing various strategies for entering stigmatized markets. We further present propositions regarding the market‐level factors that can influence which of these strategies firms will choose to employ. The contributions include: conceptually clarifying the nature of stigmatized markets; identifying additional types of entry strategies relevant for entering stigmatized markets; theorizing the conditions under which firms would choose one entry strategy over another; and opening up for consideration the effects that market entry may have on stigmatized actors in targeted markets.     

Assessing the sustainability of vegetable production practices in northern Ghana*

Urban vegetable production is an intensive agricultural strategy through which urban dwellers secure income and improve their livelihoods. An ethnographic study was conducted in Tamale, Northern Ghana, to understand whether vegetable gardening was a sustainable form of intensification. The study used an updated version of the Food and Agricultural Organization’s International Framework for Evaluating Sustainable Land Management. Accordingly, qualitative data were collected on the security and access to land, political acceptability and human and environmental health implications of urban patch farming. Changes between 2008 and 2014 in the spatial area of the vegetable sites were measured. Cabbage farmer incomes were quantified. The study found that urbanization has prompted an increase in the cultivation of highly profitable vegetables like cabbage. However, they are irrigated with grey and waste water while eaten raw. This, and the use of pesticides in high dosages, poses health and environmental hazards. Industrial growth has reduced the area of open space urban agriculture by 8.7% between 2008 and 2014. Farmers cope with this by cultivating on interstitial spaces and moving to periurban fringes. There, farmers develop institutional liaisons to gain access to intensification technologies and commercialize their production. This production system is dynamic but not yet sustainable.     

献给妈妈的礼物:爱的树屋

正一座浪漫的树屋,穿行在花园中,庇护在树荫下,为轮椅上的母亲,提供舒适宽敞的空间和惬意的花园式居住环境。需要依靠轮椅生活的母亲在忙碌的生活中越来越被局限在原来的砖砌小屋中。为了让这位母亲方便的接近花园中自己喜爱的葡萄藤、树木、以及花花草草,建筑师在花园里增建了一座与原有建筑无缝相连,又直接深入花园并且不破坏花园整体感的新房屋。树屋是为了一个忙碌家庭里靠轮     

Marginal Abatement Cost Curves for UK Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions

This article addresses the challenge of developing a ‘bottom‐up’ marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from UK agriculture. An MACC illustrates the costs of specific crop, soil and livestock abatement measures against a ‘business as usual’ scenario. The results indicate that in 2022 under a specific policy scenario, around 5.38 Mt CO₂ equivalent (e) could be abated at negative or zero cost. A further 17% of agricultural GHG emissions (7.85 Mt CO₂e) could be abated at a lower unit cost than the UK Government’s 2022 shadow price of carbon [£34 (tCO₂e)^?1]. The article discusses a range of methodological hurdles that complicate cost‐effectiveness appraisal of abatement in agriculture relative to other sectors.