Compensatory consumption and consumer compromises: a state-of-the-art review

ABSTRACT

Compensatory consumption has been an increasingly researched yet widely debated area of consumer behaviour over the last 20 years. Extant research formulates the term as overwhelmingly negative, largely due to the simplistic and fragmented conceptualisations assumed in prior work. The purpose of the current paper is to present a comprehensive review of the umbrella term of compensatory consumption, incorporating a continuum of behaviours and accounting for the pre- and post-consumption periods including both positive and negative viewpoints. In addition, expanding upon the theory of need satisfaction, the current paper introduces a novel conceptual distinction between compensation and compromise. Finally, a proposed theoretical framework is presented that differentiates between compensatory and compromisory consumption based on the extent of consumer consciousness, rationality and rationalisation. Future research directions are offered.     

Climbing Monsters: Excess and Restraint in Contemporary Rock Climbing

Abstract

The tension in rock climbing between technical aspects of performance that do not involve risk, and preparedness to put oneself in considerable and even life‐threatening danger, is explored through an analysis of extreme gritstone climbing in the late 1990s recorded in a successful ‘cult’ film Hard Grit. The film dramatises self‐imposed danger, and connects it to the history and myths of gritstone climbing, an emphasis best seen as a specific moment in the oscillation in climbing between the technical dimension (or bodily techne) and ‘bottle’ (spiritedness or thumos), but it has wider implications. The theoretical background is the Weberian theme of rationalisation qualified, however, by the social and cultural significance of imprudence, irresponsibility and deliberate transgression throughout the modern period. As late modernity reveals new consequences for societies and cultures beyond the reach of either comprehensive reason in a classical sense or a self‐imposed rational order along Enlightenment lines, the play of techne and thumos becomes potentially unlimited and thus monstrous. How, then, should climbers and their very loosely organised, minority pursuit, govern themselves? How can climbing remain authentic, true to itself? After an exploration of some theoretical aspects, the essay concludes more practically by proposing that two features of everyday rock climbing operate as ethical sources: confidence in sound judgment by the imagined future community of climbers; and a ‘phenomenological’ turn to the natural and sensory preconditions of climbing. These sources cannot, however, fully govern climbing culture but operate only in tension with fundamentally unruly impulses and drives.     

Evaluation of supplier capability and performance: A method for supply base reduction

Development of partnership with suppliers is widely recognised today as a potent tool for supply chain improvement. To develop an effective partnership, it is necessary to have a small supply base and an effort to reduce the supply base to a manageable level. Despite its overwhelming importance, models of supply base reduction are rare. Supplier sorting methods, used for pre-selection of suppliers and sometimes seen as methods for supply base reduction, have limitations ranging from (1) requirement of an exhaustive database of historical information (case-based reasoning), (2) inability to predefine the number of elements in a cluster (cluster analysis) and (3) inability to identify suppliers who are both highly capable as well as high performers (data envelopment analysis). In the present work, we develop a systematic framework for carrying out the supply base reduction process. The study assumes two important dimensions of suppliers—performance and capability. Performance of a supplier represents short-term effects on the achievement of supply chain objectives while supplier capability indicates long-term effects. Many of the performance and capability factors are imprecise in nature. In order to account for the imprecision involved in numerous subjective characteristics of suppliers, we use fuzzy set approach to measure the imprecision of these factors and rank a potential list of suppliers against their performance and capability. We then display their ranks in a ‘capability–performance matrix’ that helps a decision maker arrange the suppliers in decreasing order of preference. The desired numbers of suppliers are finally selected on the basis of this ordered list. The suggested framework will be of immense help to the practising managers in reducing the supply base—a prerequisite for building a strong supplier partnership and developing an effective supply chain.     

‘Passports to pleasure’: credit cards and contemporary travel

This paper explores the relationship between credit cards and contemporary travel. The credit card has transformed the way in which travel‐related experiences are produced and consumed. Production‐related activities within both the travel and credit card industries have, in certain ways, become rationalised, systematised and more co‐ordinated. As a result, credit cards are widely accepted by travel providers around the world. The credit card has also altered travel‐related consumption; in particular, pleasure travel and hedonism have become more accessible to a broad proportion of the population in many Western countries. This tension between rationalised production and pleasure‐driven consumption underpins the travel industry and, more broadly, contemporary economies. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changes in grain handling catchments in Australia: an historical perspective

This paper explores some of the important issues that influence the magnitude of receival site grain catchments in Australia. Changes in grain harvests, transport and grain handling technologies and costs; changes in farming systems, crop yields and harvesting capacity; investments in roads and on‐farm storage and economies of size in grain receival infrastructure are shown in combination to affect the size of grain catchments in major grain‐growing regions of Australia over the last 30 years. The size of grain catchments that minimise growers’ costs of road transport of their harvested grain and their receival point charges in various time periods are determined. Differently shaped grain catchments are considered. The main finding is that the size of grain catchments that minimise farmers’ grain transport, off‐farm storage and handling costs since the mid‐1980s has consistently increased, principally due to lessening real costs of road transport, more on‐farm storage and economies of size in grain receival, despite higher grain yields and a greater intensity of cropping. These findings are consistent with the observed reduction in the number of receival sites in many grain‐growing regions of Australia. Site rationalisation is less evident in states where the receival network is owned and operated by a grower cooperative.     

Evaluating business value of IT towards optimisation of the application portfolio

Information technology has become heavily embedded in business operations. As business needs change over time, IT applications are expected to continue providing required support. Whether the existing IT applications are still fit for the business purpose they were intended or new IT applications should be introduced is a strategic decision for business, IT and business-aligned IT. In this article, we present a method that aims to analyse business functions and IT roles and to evaluate business-aligned IT from both social and technical perspectives. The method introduces a set of techniques that systematically supports the evaluation of the existing IT applications in relation to their technical capabilities for maximising business value. Furthermore, we discuss the evaluation process and results that are illustrated and validated through a real-life case study of a UK borough council and followed by discussion on implications for researchers and practitioners.     

Can there really be ‘True’ alternatives within the food and drink markets? If so,can they survive as alternative forms?

ABSTRACT

This commentary deals with the issue of alternative food and drink from the perspective of my work on such topics as disenchantment, enchantment, McDonaldization, nothing, prosumption, rationalisation and something. The conclusion is that the interests of, and pressure from, large-scale profit-making businesses will, to a large extent, undermine efforts to produce ‘true’ alternatives in food and drink. Those alternatives will survive on the margins in the developed world, but they will be more prevalent in the less developed world which is less attractive to those businesses, and therefore, the alternatives will be allowed to survive there.