Luxury Retail Environments And Changing Masculine Sociocultural Norms

This article explores how luxury brands communicate with male shoppers through their retail environments in the context of changing sociocultural definitions of masculinity. While Bain and Company (2012) speak of the ‘masculinization of the luxury market’, consumer research has paid little attention to men and masculinity (Otnes and Tuncay-Zayer, 2012). Most previous studies have tackled male representations in advertising and the tensions felt by male shoppers. This article extends this limited body of knowledge to retailing issues. It compares masculine archetypes with the discursive strategies used by retailers to target new male consumers. Using a semiotic square analysis the author reveals five masculine archetypes emphasized by luxury brands in their retail environments and discusses their implications. The findings show that most brands rely on traditional utilitarian representations of masculinity in stores, missing opportunities to renew their communication to take advantage of changing masculine values

Collaborative Consumption And Sustainability: A Discursive Analysis Of Consumer Representations And Collaborative Website Narratives.

In this article, the authors analyze the collaborative consumption model and its contribution to sustainable consumption.  Indeed, collaborative consumption is considered as an alternative, ecological consumption mode (Bostman & Rogers, 2011), but previous research has no yet deeply explored to what extent it contributes the sustainable scheme and values. The study therefore investigates both the producer side (collaborative websites) and consumer side (blog participants) to decipher how sustainable ideals are shaped in this context and how consumers attend to them. Six segments of consumers have been identified which can help marketing and sustainable levers better frame their offer

Feminist academic organizations: Challenging sexism through collective mobilizing across research, support, and advocacy

This paper examines the establishment of a feminist academic organization, GENMAC (Gender, Markets, and Consumers; genmac.co), serving gender scholars in business schools and related fields. In so doing, it builds on the emerging literature of feminist academic organizations, as situated within feminist organizational studies (FOS). Through a feminist case study and by assessing the reflections of GENMAC\u27s board members, we tell the story of the emergence of GENMAC and detail the tensions the organization encountered as it formally established itself as a feminist organization within the confines of a business school setting, a patriarchal system, and a neoliberal university paradigm. We build on the FOS literature by considering how our organization counters cultures of heightened individualism and builds collective action to challenge sexism through the nexus of research, support, and advocacy pillars of our organization. We demonstrate how, through these actions, our organization challenges hierarchies of knowledge, prioritizes the care and support needed for the day-to-day survival of gender scholars in business schools, and spotlights and challenges structural inequalities and injustices in the academy

Understanding the masculine consumer behavior : a socio-cultural approach : from brand discourse on masculine appearences to male representations of men's lingerie

Ce manuscrit vise une participation à la construction de savoir sur la consommation masculine, une thématique de recherche largement délaissée au profit des représentations féminines en la matière. Inscrite dans le courant de la Théorie Culturelle de la Consommation, la thèse propose d’investiguer à la fois le discours des marques liées à l’apparence et les discours d’hommes investis dans de nouvelles pratiques de consommations connotées du féminin, la lingerie d’hommes. Dans un premier essai, le discours sur la masculinité de 20 marques issues de traditions masculines (Automobiles, High-Tech,...) et de traditions féminines (Mode, Beauté...) est investigué sur une période de 40 ans (des années 1970 à nos jours) pour comprendre les termes du changement de l’identité masculine. Une lecture sémiotique du corpus combinée à une analyse critique de l’histoire socio-culturelle masculine française permet d’interpréter et qualifier l’évolution des imaginaires masculins contenus dans les récits de marques.Dans un deuxième essai, sur la base d’une étude phénoménologique (entretiens individuels avec 21 hommes), l’auteur interroge l’expérience de consommation de lingerie pour hommes en révélant les processus de découverte, d’entrée et d’implication dans une consommation jugée « anomique » jusqu’à peu. La mise en lumière du rôle d’un réseau esthétique féminin qui supporte cette consommation ainsi que les perceptions et bénéfices retirés dans l’entre- nous du couple hétérosexuel permettent d’aborder l’évolution des représentations liées à l’apparence et à l’intime. La recherche permet d’introduire le concept de l’intime dans le champ de l’investigation du consommateur masculin comme un marqueur de l’évolution des consommations masculines. Quatre dimensions du concept d’intimité ont par ailleurs émergé du discours des répondants.7Dans un troisième essai, l’auteur combine l’approche macro et l’approche micro de la consommation masculine dans le but d’éclairer sa participation à la construction des identités masculines. D’abord, la « Maison des hommes » ou les interactions entre pairs masculins permettent de mieux cerner les stratégies d’évitement et les tensions générées par l’adoption des nouveaux codes de consommation de parure proposés par le marché. Emerge notamment une dimension largement sous-investiguée en comportement du consommateur : la question de la relation au père dans la formulation des repaires de consommation. Ensuite, l’auteur propose la notion de limite pour matérialiser les termes des tractations identitaires vécues par les hommes et matérialisées par leurs choix de consommation. Une forte dualité entre schèmes égalitaristes et différentialistes émerge des représentations de l’identité masculine. Cette opposition sert la construction d’un carré sémiotique qui permet de resituer le discours des consommateurs dans le champ idéologique des forces sociales qui structurent les comportements des répondants et d’affiner les différents positionnements masculins. L’intrication de l’identité masculine avec l’identité nationale permet enfin d’apporter le versant français à la conception de l’idéologie masculine américaine de consommation développée par Holt et Thompson (2004). Il est proposé que le concept de performance peut rapprocher les masculinités américaines et françaises bien que des différences d’imaginaires notoires persistent entre les deux cultures de consommationThis doctoral dissertation aims participating in building knowledge on the masculine consumption, a topic that was neglected in consumer research until very recently. Through the Consumer Culture Theory lens, it proposes an investigation of this phenomenon both from brand (producer) and male (consumer) perspectives. The essays progress from public to private discourses on masculinity, combining macro and micro levels of analysis to unpack evolving gender ideologies and consumption.Through a socio-historic perspective, the first essay shows how the masculine identity is evolving from monolith masculinity to contemporary masculinities. The research aims to understand if and how these new cultural values are transferred to brands communication. Using a semiotic approach, masculine archetypes, their values and relationships are underlined by using a Utilitarian vs. Aesthetic semantic axis. A corpus of twenty brands communication of masculine and feminine sectors is analyzed with a past/present perspective. The study reveals an evolution of men’s representations in brands communication. The theoretical implications of the findings are discussed, theorizing especially the metrosexual managerial phenomenon.The second essay investigates male consumers representations and rituals as regard a new and highly feminine inspired product category: men’s lingerie. The process of discovery, entrance and involvement in this consumption is deciphered, the influencers’ roles highlighted and the interactions within the heterosexual couples emphasized. Doing so, the paper participates in building knowledge on the masculine consumption by describing male engagement in “anomic” consumption. It also introduces the concept of intimacy as a marker in the shift in9the masculine identity and proposes four dimensions of this concept as they emerged from consumers’ discourses.Finally the third essay attempts to explore how a new masculine consumption – men’s lingerie- that had clear divisions between men and women, may shape and reinforce men’s socially defined gender roles/identity construction. The author focuses on new identity landmarks, which move the social frontier between the sexes. First, the interactions in- between the male peers are emphasized as a window for the masculine identity construction through consumption. Secondly, the deep contradictions and the negotiations of acceptable masculine norms as expressed by the respondents are interpreted. Finally, the results are located in a macro-level of analysis allowing accounting for the role of the social forces in shaping masculine norms and French masculine schemes compared to the American masculinities described by Holt and Thompson (2004

Domestic Space, and the Gendered Power Dynamics: Pastry Making in Algeria

International audienc

Meanings of DIY in Mediterranean non-Western Market The Case of Pastry-Making in Algeria

International audienc

The local-global interplay in a Mediterranean context: The case of soda brand Hamoud Boualem

International audienc

Global Local Dialectical Relationship in a Mediterranean Context

International audienc

The local-global interplay in a Mediterranean context: The case of soda brand Hamoud Boualem

International audienc

La consommation collaborative, le versant encore équivoque de l’économie de la fonctionnalité

Collaborative consumption is currently lauded by a number of economists and sections of the media, who extol its many social and environmental merits. It can be defined as the consumerist aspect of the functional economy, its natural extension to the Business-to-Consumer (BtoC) and Consumer-to-Consumer (CtoC) sectors. This article explores this notion of new consumption and examines how it interrelates with and can contribute to the functional economy to develop sustainability. It is based on an analysis of 27 collaborative consumption websites and blogs, together with several academic studies carried out in the field of shared use services. The article studies the reasons and motives that the literature identifies as being used to promote the use of these collaborative services to consumers, and clarifies their contribution and their limits with regard to sustainable consumption