The functional approach to creating the self

Studying consumers is at the heart of the sub-discipline of consumer behavior; to truly understand the core of said consumers however, the marketing literature has focused on studying the self. The extant literature has discussed the self from several conceptual view points. As such, this study provides a rich theoretical review reaching back into the 19th century literature and extending into more recent developments related to cognitive social psychology. James\u27 (1890) global tripartite model of the self is adopted, and the various avenues by which consumers create their `selves\u27 are then explored, with particular focus on James\u27 material self (bodily creation). The latter phase of the study reintroduces Katz\u27s (1960) functional approach to attitudes as a conceptual lens to examine how matching consumers\u27 functional profiles to advertising messages, within the context of creating a self, influences the consumers\u27 overall attitudinal and behavioral responses to the particular message/brands being promoted. A multi-method approach including grounded theoretic and experimental studies is employed, and the findings show that different functions do fuel different individuals\u27 motives to create their `selves,\u27 and that when viewing an advertisement executed with functions differing from their functional profile, individuals experience mild cognitive dissonance and thus elaborate the message content more; this results in better attitudinal and behavioral responses to stronger over weaker arguments

A Guide for Early Career Success in Academic Research

Balancing the research, teaching, and service facets is important to achieving success in academia. Doctoral programs should prepare their students to successfully navigate and balance all three of these facets. We focus on the research facet in this study and draw from the experience of a panel of accomplished researchers within the discipline, to compile a set of guidelines for doctoral students and new faculty. Analyzing the qualitative results from the panel interviews, we find that to ensure success within the research facet, one must effectively manage three emergent focal distinctions; a relationship with: oneself, others, and with the work

Building positive internal and external stakeholder perceptions through CSR storytelling

In this paper, we propose organizations can leverage the storytelling process to convey corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions and events. In doing so, organizations may mitigate the major challenges that hinder positive returns from CSR initiatives–awareness and skepticism. We propose a conceptual model that demonstrates the effects of CSR storytelling. Specifically, we propose the storytelling process yields positive impacts on internal and external stakeholder outcomes including increasing employees’ thriving and meaningful work, as well as the attitudes and trust of multiple external stakeholders. To support the proposed relationships in our model, we apply narrative transportation theory and complement it with theory and literature on brand outcomes, CSR, positive organizational psychology, and communication. We discuss our contributions and highlight the value of continued research at the intersection of storytelling, CSR, and internal and external organizational outcomes