Volkswagen clients' purchase behavior in Czech Republic and Italy: an observational research

Il lavoro tratta il comportamento d'acquisto dei clienti Volkswagen in Repubblica Ceca e in Italia. Dopo l'individuazione di osservazione partecipativa come il metodo piu adatto alla ricerca, sono considerati i fattori del macro-ambiente dei due paesi per una migliore interpretazione dei risultati. I dati raccolti durante l'indagine sono analizzati per ogni paese singolarmente, per poi poter indivuduare le differenze del comportamento dei clienti spiegandole attraverso i fattori economici, sociali, legislativi e culturali propri di ogni nazione

She, Who Has the Spoon, Has the Power: Immigrant Women'S Use of Food to Negotiate Power Relations

Based on data on Romanian female immigrants to Italy and their food consumption, we argue that consumer and gender role acculturation can both be described as a network of power relations in the women's lived experience and that such power relations are negotiated by means of everyday food consumption choices. We propose a model which describes contextual situations and the power structure they imply in terms of control these women exercise over their bodies and lives, and we demonstrate how their food consumption choices are related to such "regimes of control over the self"

IMMIGRATION, GENDER AND CONSUMER ACCULTURATION: A journey into the meaningful world of food consumption practices of Romanian women in Italy.

Based on qualitative data on Romanian female immigrants to Italy and their food consumption practices, the thesis argues that these women make use of the symbolic resources originated in the marketplace, in order to re-negotiate their ascribed traditional gender identity, as well as the dominated position as immigrants in Italy. In this way, the research adds a new dimension to the postassimilationist stream of research of consumer acculturation, arguing that even low-status and low income cross-border migrants who cannot participate fully in the consumer culture can use its symbolic resources, namely the marketplace representation of the modern woman, to create hybrid gender identities. Yet, such negotiation does not happen in a completely free way, as the identity positions they can occupy are given by the power discourses in the society. Such results also add to the discussion between the postfeminist praise of the market as a site of women's liberation and the second wave feminists, who criticize this view arguing low-status women do not benefit from these effects of the market, because they cannot participate in the consumer culture. This thesis shows that although poor immigrant women do not have the resources to participate fully in the consumer culture, they can nonetheless make use of the symbolic resources it offers to resist their ascribed role

How cyber political brands emerge: a socio-material analysis of the Italian Five Star Movement and the Czech Pirate Party: .

International audienceAlthough information technology has been at the centre of attention of political branding for some time, research has traditionally focused mainly on its role in the facilitation of communication. This paper aims to unpack the role of information technology in the emergence of new cyber political brand

A Brand Culture Approach to Managing Nation-Brands

The objective of this note is to formulate conceptual links between nation brands, international relations, and politics through the development of research questions that are underpinned by a brand-culture approach. The focus is on the export of Turkey’s soap operas to diverse locations around the globe, but in particular to the Middle East and the Balkans. The note calls for: (1) forging a dialogue across international relations, political science, media, and management studies through a brand-culture lens which allows for a historical understanding; (2) focusing on historical and political discourses as resources in interpreting nation brands and cultural and creative goods; and, (3) focusing on nation branding between countries in the Global South. Forging a dialogue across disciplines and focusing on how consumers make use of historical and political discourses informs both commercial and diplomatic co-creators of nation brands