Ambiguity of Purpose and the Politics of Failure: Sustainability as Macromarketing's Compelling Political Calling

In this commentary we provide a brief review of sustainability research in the journal since its inception. Next, we offer an opinion on macromarketing’s ambiguity to sustainability as a political project and a resultant failure to provide substantial emphasis beyond the Development School for solutions in the field. Despite macromarketing’s centrality to marketing theory, the work in the journal has not had the impact it deserves in wider sustainability discourses. As two macromarketers with a lifelong interest in sustainability, we argue for more political reflection within the journal. We contend these current times of crisis require us to better listen to and act on prior counsel from critical and political perspectives within the journal, and submit, á la George Fisk, the journal’s first editor, that the politics of the day demand a persistence to continue to ask difficult questions. From a sustainability perspective this would be to consider how best to engender future macromarketing research in the field as a political project

Beauty bloggers and YouTubers as a community of practice

Much consumption-related activity online is outside of what is understood traditionally as community and is via user-generated content (UGC), of which blogs and YouTube channels in particular dominate in the beauty sphere. Community of practice (CoP) theory from social learning and organisation studies offers an alternative way to understand these consumption-based UGC practices. This study combines data from 25 interviews with bloggers and YouTubers and their blog posts and videos. Among these UGC creators we find mutual engagement, shared repertoires and joint enterprise. This paper theorises consumption-based UGC creators as a CoP and contributes insights for mangers as to how to engage with them as practitioners and learners

‘It’s hard to be what you can’t see’ - gender representation in marketing’s academic journals

This commentary explores gender representation in marketing’s academic journals. We explore three key areas a) the gender composition of editorial boards, b) special issue celebrations and c) awards. We highlight how in 2020, 68% of editorial board positions are held by male colleagues, and consider the consequences of this both in terms of providing role models for female academics – ‘it’s hard to be what you can’t see’ (Wright Edelman, M. [2015]. Child watch® column: It’s hard to be what you can’t see. https://www.childrensdefense.org/child-watch-columns/health/2015/its-hard-to-be-what-you-cant-see/) – but also in there being less opportunities for women to avail of key indicators of esteem utilised in promotions processes. We argue for an intersectional approach to addressing injustice and inequalities within our academy. We propose a programme for change – revolving around decision-making, quotas, awards, and celebrations – for the gatekeepers in our field to conside

The Past and Future of Gender Research in Marketing:Paradigms, Stances, and Value-Based Commitments

This systematic literature review enhances paradigmatic/metaphysic analyses by examining how value-based commitments, intellectual personae, and stances impact the diversity, relevance, and consideration of ethics in gender research published by the top-tier marketing journals in the past 30 years. Theoretical contributions (1) explain how commitments to research values and practices constitute personae and particular stances toward research, (2) attribute value commitments to quantitative/positivist as well as qualitative/neohumanist research, and (3) implicate stances that favor particular theories and procedures and in turn enable the hierarchical development of gender research and its marginalization in the field. Recommendations elaborate the analytic, reflexive, and administrative training and research activities that will foster and reward more relevant, accurate, and ethical research on gender in the marketing academy and in industry. This work is of interest to persons dealing with gender identities, communities, and social issues, those working for greater gender representation and participation in firms and civic organizations, and those concerned with leveraging better marketing research for a better world.</p

Why businesses need to embrace the bioeconomy

Developing and using planet-friendly materials can yield new, more sustainable business models — and contribute to building a robust infrastructure for renewable biological resources

Floating offshore wind turbine mooring line sections health status nowcasting : from supervised shallow to weakly supervised deep learning

The global installed capacity of floating offshore wind turbines is projected to increase by at least 100 times over the next decades. Station-keeping of floating offshore renewable energy devices is achieved through the use of mooring systems. Mooring systems are exposed to a variety of environmental and operational conditions that cause corrosion, abrasion, and fatigue. Regular physical in-service inspections of mooring systems are the golden standard for monitoring their health status. This approach is often expensive, inefficient, and unsafe, and for this reason, researchers are focusing on developing tools for digital solutions for real-time monitoring. Floating offshore renewable energy devices are usually equipped with a wide range of sensors, some low-cost, low/zero maintenance, and easily deployable (e.g., accelerometers on the tower), contrary to others (e.g., direct tension mooring line measurements), producing real-time data streams. In this paper, we propose exploiting the data coming from the first type of sensors for mooring systems health status nowcasting. In particular, we will first rely on state-of-the-art supervised shallow and deep learning models for predicting the health status of the different sections of the mooring lines. Then, since these supervised models require types and amount of data that are seldom available, we will propose new shallow and deep weekly supervised models that require a very small amount of data regarding worn mooring lines. Results will show that these last models can potentially have practical applicability and impact for real-time monitoring of mooring systems in the near future. In order to support our statements, we will make use of data generated with a state-of-the-art digital twin of the mooring system, OrcaFlex 1 1 www.orcina.com . , for a floating offshore wind turbine reproducing the physical mechanism of the mooring degradation under different loads and environmental conditions. Results will show errors around 1% in the simplest scenario and errors around 4% in the most challenging one, confirming the potentiality of the proposed approaches

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

Statistical Detection of Atypical Aircraft Flights

A computational method and software to implement the method have been developed to sift through vast quantities of digital flight data to alert human analysts to aircraft flights that are statistically atypical in ways that signify that safety may be adversely affected. On a typical day, there are tens of thousands of flights in the United States and several times that number throughout the world. Depending on the specific aircraft design, the volume of data collected by sensors and flight recorders can range from a few dozen to several thousand parameters per second during a flight. Whereas these data have long been utilized in investigating crashes, the present method is oriented toward helping to prevent crashes by enabling routine monitoring of flight operations to identify portions of flights that may be of interest with respect to safety issues

The European Consumers’ Understanding and Perceptions of Organic Salmon Production

Rising consumer concern over intensive food production issues has resulted in an increase in demand for organic alternatives to a wide variety of foods including fruit and vegetables, meat and poultry. More recently, there has also been considerable interest in the marketing of more environmentally-friendly supplies of fish, including those from farmed production systems. 'Organic' salmon has featured in the forefront of this market innovation, although it is arguably more problematic to apply traditional organic principles to salmon production. The term 'organic salmon' contains at least three different components - animal welfare, chemical use and sustainability, the most controversial issue being animal welfare. Of fundamental importance is the extent to which this term can usefully be applied to salmon and, more importantly the extent to which consumers perceive animal welfare to be an important issue in salmon farming. This paper reports on some results based upon consumer focus groups in 5 countries (France, Germany, Norway, Spain and UK) and considers a number of issues relating to fish welfare and organic salmon production more generally. As the food market continues its seemingly relentless march to greener pastures it is suggested that this study may help identify some implications for future aquatic food product development decisions