A Macromarketing Prescription for Covid-19: Solidarity and Care Ethics

Contextualized in the current pandemic, this essay discusses social marketing and public policy efforts from a ‘social solidarity and care ethics’ perspective. It presents a prototypical inclusivity-based approach for managing pandemics, with adaptive and maladaptive examples to show how the ‘social solidarity and care ethics nexus’ can and should ‘travel’ within and between societal strata. It positions this perspective as a form of phronetic polysemic marketing, and thus considers the complexity of pandemic sociopsychology and stresses the need for practical wisdom

Disruptive events and associated discontinuities: a macromarketing prescription

This essay discusses social disruptions, social discontinuities, and associated interventions by social marketers and public policymakers. Prescriptive touchpoints for such interventions are (1) mitigating social disruptions via phronetic marketing, (2) foreseeing and anticipating social disruptions and discontinuities via marketing futurology

A macromarketing prescription for Covid-19: solidarity and care ethics

Contextualized in the current pandemic, this essay discusses social marketing and public policy efforts from a ‘social solidarity and care ethics’ perspective. It presents a prototypical inclusivity-based approach for managing pandemics, with adaptive and maladaptive examples to show how the ‘social solidarity and care ethics nexus’ can and should ‘travel’ within and between societal strata. It positions this perspective as a form of phronetic polysemic marketing, and thus considers the complexity of pandemic sociopsychology and stresses the need for practical wisdom

Tackling antimicrobial resistance in primary care facilities across Pakistan: Current challenges and implications for the future.

Antibiotics are gradually becoming less effective against bacteria worldwide, and this issue is of particular concern in economically-developing nations like Pakistan. We undertook a scoping review in order to review the literature on antimicrobial use, prescribing, dispensing and the challenges associated with antimicrobial resistance in primary care (PC) settings in Pakistan. Furthermore, this review aims to identify potential solutions to promote appropriate use of antimicrobials in Pakistan. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist, a comprehensive scoping review was conducted to review the literature of antimicrobials used, prescribed and dispensed in PC settings in Pakistan. Google Scholar and Pub-Med were searched for the period 2000-2023. Papers were analyzed on the basis of eligibility i.e., included antimicrobial use, prescribing and dispensing practices by general population at homes, by prescribers in outpatient departments of hospitals and by pharmacists/dispensers in community pharmacies, respectively. Two researchers analyzed the articles thoroughly and disagreements were resolved through discussion with a third reviewer. Both quantitative and qualitative research studies were eligible for inclusion. Additionally, the selected papers were grouped into different themes. We identified 4070 papers out of which 46 studies satisfied our eligibility criteria. The findings revealed limited understanding of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by physicians and community pharmacists along with inappropriate practices in prescribing and dispensing antibiotics. Moreover, a notable prevalence of self-medication with antibiotics was observed among the general population, underscoring a lack of awareness and knowledge concerning proper antibiotic usage. Given the clinical and public health implications of AMR, Pakistan must prioritize its policies in PC settings. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) need to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing and dispensing, improve their understanding of the AWaRe (access, watch and reserve antibiotics) classification and guidance, monitor current usage and resistance trends, as well as implement antimicrobial stewardship (ASP) activities starting in targeted locations

Corporate image: a service recovery perspective

This article explores direct and indirect antecedents that contribute to corporate image formation in a service recovery context. Two studies were carried out in Egypt. Study 1 comprises 29 semistructured interviews with complainants of mobile phone network service providers in Egypt. Study 2 encompasses a mail survey of another 437 complainants. Findings reveal the importance of perceived justice, namely, interactional justice, in corporate image formation, as well as the mediating role of satisfaction with service recovery in the perceived justice-corporate image relationship. Results also reveal two empirical relationships: problem solving as a determinant of distributive justice and follow-up as a driver of procedural justice. Accordingly, this study contributes to the service field by providing the first empirical evaluation of new direct and indirect antecedents of corporate image formation in a service recovery context. Managerial recommendations are provided that encourage service practitioners to emphasize perceived justice and satisfaction with a service recovery process to enhance the company’s image. Additionally, companies should invest in implementing problem solving and follow-up as service recovery strategies since both significantly enhance perceived justice

Exploring perceptions of advertising ethics: an informant-derived approach

Whilst considerable research exists on determining consumer responses to pre-determined statements within numerous ad ethics contexts, our understanding of consumer thoughts regarding ad ethics in general remains lacking. The purpose of our study therefore is to provide a first illustration of an emic and informant-based derivation of perceived ad ethics. The authors use multi-dimensional scaling as an approach enabling the emic, or locally derived deconstruction of perceived ad ethics. Given recent calls to develop our understanding of ad ethics in different cultural contexts, and in particular within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, we use Lebanon—the most ethically charged advertising environment within MENA—as an illustrative context for our study. Results confirm the multi-faceted and pluralistic nature of ad ethics as comprising a number of dimensional themes already salient in the existing literature but in addition, we also find evidence for a bipolar relationship between individual themes. The specific pattern of inductively derived relationships is culturally bound. Implications of the findings are discussed, followed by limitations of the study and recommendations for further research

Relationship quality and giving behaviour in the UK fundraising sector: Exploring the antecedent roles of religiosity and self-construal

Purpose– The current study aims to examine the extent to which donor religiosity and self-construal encourage the development of donor-perceived relationship quality and intention to give in the future. Donor-perceived relationship quality is conceptualised as a higher-order construct composed of trust, commitment, and satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach– The study employed a personally administered structured questionnaire to collect data. A total of 227 completed questionnaires was analysed. Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to assess the measurement properties of the study constructs. Structural equation modelling using a full estimation approach was performed to test the proposed research model. Findings– The study results indicate that religiosity and self-construal are important contributors of relationship quality, while religiosity and relationship quality have a direct impact on intention toward future giving. Research limitations/implications– The study findings provide practitioners in the fundraising sector in the UK with useful insights on relationship fundraising. Relationship quality should be developed in the context of an integrated charity-donor dyad, in order to enhance the likelihood of giving behaviour. Also, charities may find advantage in targeting religious and relationally interdependent self-construal individuals. Replication of this research within other settings is needed to test the external validity of the present findings. Originality/value– The main contribution of this study lies in that it investigates the impact of religiosity and self-construal on perceived relationship quality in the charity-donor context, which is largely unexplored in the extant literature

A solidarity–care ethics and human flourishing approach to the COVID-19 pandemic: a UK perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates that standard assessments of human well-being fail in the face of substantial social disruptions. To overcome this problem, we focused on two human flourishing frameworks: the Shultz et al. (Handbook of community well-being research (pp. 403–421). Springer, 2017) macromarketing framework and the Shabbir et al. (Journal of Macromarketing, 41(2), 181–193, 2021) solidarity–care framework. As these frameworks share commensurable theoretical assumptions, we fused them. We then used the fused framework to evaluate how the United Kingdom’s COVID-19 responses affected community flourishing. Specifically, we examined the effect of two competing social forces—Brexit and the Black Lives Matter movement—on pulling Britons toward a flourishing or distressed community

Converting hotels website visitors into buyers: How online hotel web assurance seals services decrease consumers? concerns and increase online booking intentions

Purpose Despite the increasing utilization of webpages for the purposes of information seeking, customers’ concerns have become a crucial impediment for online shopping. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the effectiveness of web assurance seals services (WASS) and customers’ concerns on customer’s willingness to book hotels through perceived website trust and perceived value. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire was administrated to measure the study variables. Using partial least squares–structural equation modeling approach to analyze the data collected from 860 users of online hotel websites. Findings The results indicate that WASS influence positively on perceived website trust and negatively on consumers’ concerns. As well as, perceived value and trust play a mediating role in the link between WASS and consumers’ concerns and their intentions. Finally, perceived website trust and perceived value have greater effect on intention to book hotel for low-habit consumers. Research limitations/implications This study ignored the cross-culture issue as it concentrates on the customers from developing countries, so further research may need to compare between two or more than two samples from different societies that could give a significant insights. Second, this study stresses on the WASS to predict customers booking intentions that indicates significant results, so further research may need to examine the role of online reviews as a predictor of customers purchase decision as well. Originality/value To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first empirical research that investigates and examines the influence of the effectiveness of WASS and consumers’ concerns on consumers’ intentions through perceived value and trust. This research also investigates the moderating role of habit in the link between perceived website, perceived value and consumers’ intentions