A quadripartite approach to analysing young British South Asian adults’ dual cultural identity

Adopting an acculturation perspective, this article explicates the duality of young British South Asian adults’ cultural dispositions. In so doing, it examines the complex dialectic processes that influence their acculturation strategies. By using a maximum variation sampling method, respondents from six major cities in Great Britain were interviewed for this study. The findings show that young British South Asian adults exhibit attributes of both of their ancestral and host cultures. Their dual cultural identity is constituted due to four major reasons: consonances with ancestral culture, situational constraints, contextual requirements, and conveniences. This quadripartite perspective informs a non-context specific theoretical model of acculturation. Marketing managers seeking to serve this diaspora market (and others) can utilise this theoretical framework in order to more-fully comprehend diaspora members’ religiosity, social, communal and familial bonding and other cultural dispositions and, moreover, their manifestations in their day-to-day lives

Co-creation of value at the bottom of the pyramid: Analysing Bangladeshi farmers' use of mobile telephony

Existing literature offers scant evidence of how BoP (bottom of the pyramid) consumers with limited product knowledge and interaction with product designers and marketers can co-create value. The current paper addresses this issue by analysing Bangladeshi farmers’ use of mobile telephony. The findings suggest the value-in-use is facilitated or inhibited by product features, socio-economic practices, individuals’ capabilities and the appropriation of mobile telephony. The paper demonstrates how BoP customers can co-create value with or without direct support from marketers and offers a theoretical framework for the co-creation of value and contributes to the current understanding of BoP market dynamics

Speak to the Leg : A post-Paralympic analysis and re-theorization of consumer-object relations

Peer reviewe

Financial Management in the UK Public Sector: Historical Development, Current Issues and Controversies

Purpose – The paper aims to analyse bottom of the pyramid (BoP) customers’ (e.g. Bangladeshi farmers) use and appropriation of mobile telephony and to critically identify a suitable research strategy for such investigation. Design/methodology/approach – Concentrated ethnographic immersion was combined with both methodological and investigator triangulation during a four-month period of fieldwork conducted in Bangladeshi villages to obtain more robust findings. Concentrated immersion was required to achieve relatively speedier engagement owing to the difficulty in engaging with respondents on a long-term basis. Findings – The farmers’ use of mobile telephony went beyond the initial adoption, as they appropriated it through social and institutional support, inventive means and/or changes in their own lifestyle. The paper argues that technology appropriation, being a result of the mutual shaping of technology, human skills and abilities and macro-environmental factors, enables users to achieve desired outcomes which may not always be the ones envisaged by the original designers. Research limitations/implications – The paper contributes to two major areas: first, it identifies technology appropriation as an important and emerging concept in international marketing research; second, it suggests a concentrated form of ethnographic engagement for studying technology appropriation in a developing country context. Practical implications – A good understanding of the dynamic interplay between users’ skills and abilities, social contexts and technological artefacts/applications is required in order for businesses to serve BoP customers profitably. Originality/value – The paper presents a dynamic model of technology appropriation based on findings collected through a pragmatic approach by combining concentrated ethnographic immersion with methodological and investigator triangulation

The New Marketing Myopia: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Research in Marketing

The articles presented in this special issue of EJM have been selected from those which were presented at the "Rethinking Marketing" symposium which was held at Warwick Business School in July 1993. This symposium set out to provide a participative forum for discussing new ways of thinking about marketing, both as a discipline and a profession. It also set out to bring together a group of people who share an interest in bringing novel and provocative ideas and perspectives to a wide range of marketing topics - some hoary, some heavy, some handy, but never hackneyed

Business as unusual: A business model for social innovation

Business model (BM) literature has developed considerably; however, most research takes place in large for-profit organisations in western settings, rather than small–medium enterprises with social goals. This is surprising given the drive for social innovation (SI) and alternative modes of organizing. Models for managing innovation are typically agnostic about sources of social, ecological and cultural values; yet our in-depth qualitative research demonstrates that, for SMEs practicing SI in Vietnam, these values are as inherent as economic value. As a result, a new social BM emerged and was evaluated. This paper: (i) defines a Business model for SI for sustaining the long-term growth of SI; (ii) provides a Strategic framework for SI for SMEs, to ensure that the strategy of SMEs takes into consideration the positive impact SIs can have on society; and (iii) defines mechanisms to create and capture economic, social, cultural and ecological values