Liquid retail:cultural perspectives on marketplace transformation

Inspired by Bauman’s notion of ‘liquidity’, we problematize the socio-cultural dynamics taking place in contemporary retail. The notion of liquid retail enables reserachers to untangle marketplace transformation and to highlight developments centred around markets and market actors that jointly transform each other. This introduction underlines, as a point of departure, recent developments in retailing that have been marked by the corrosion of fixity and boundaries. We provide a short synopsis of marketplace transformation and liquid retail, from a socio-cultural perspective, and summarize the papers included in this special issue

Whence brand evaluations ? Investigating the relevance of personal and extrapersonal associations in brand attitudes

A recent conceptualization of the structure of attitudes proposes that people may hold associations that contribute to their personal attitudes about an object (personal associations) but also highly salient associations that do not contribute to their attitudes toward the object (extrapersonal associations; Olson and Fazio 2004). We conducted three studies with brands in the automobile industry to investigate the applicability of this new association typology to consumer attitude domains. Study 1 suggests the presence of extrapersonal associations for all brands investigated, by showing that some highly salient brand associations indeed contribute to brand attitudes but other similarly salient associations do not. Experimental data in Study 2 indicate that an individual difference, consumer expertise with the category, impacts the accessibility of personal associations in a brand evaluation context. Study 3 further strengthens the validity of the new typology by showing that it can meaningfully explain the different types of associations made accessible by persuasive messages. Taken together, our three studies provide strong support for Olson and Fazio’s (2004) framework and highlight its value for a better understanding of the nature of the brand associations that shape consumer brand attitudes. 2personal association; extrapersonal associations; attitudes; brand

Smartphone chronic gaming consumption and positive coping practice

Purpose: Chronic consumption practice has been greatly accelerated by mobile, interactive and smartphone gaming technology devices. This study explores how chronic consumption of smartphone gaming produces positive coping practice. Design/methodology/approach: Underpinned by cognitive framing theory, empirical insights from eleven focus groups (n=62) reveal how smartphone gaming enhances positive coping amongst gamers and non-gamers. Findings: The findings reveal how the chronic consumption of games allows technology to act with privileged agency that resolves tensions between individuals and collectives. Consumption narratives of smartphone games, even when play is limited, lead to the identification of three cognitive frames through which positive coping processes operate: (a) the market generated frame, (b) the social being frame, and (c) the citizen frame. Research limitations/implications: This paper adds to previous research by providing an understanding of positive coping practice in the smartphone chronic gaming consumption. Originality/value: In smartphone chronic gaming consumption, cognitive frames enable positive coping by fostering appraisal capacities in which individuals confront, hegemony, culture and alterity-morality concerns

Consumers' perceived value of healthier eating: A SEM analysis of the internalisation of dietary norms considering perceived usefulness, subjective norms, and intrinsic motivations in Singapore

Consumers' internalisation of social norms is at work when they make routine, healthier food choices in everyday contexts. We investigate the dynamics of this phenomenon in Singapore, where over 98% of consumer food products are imported. To study this, we propose, through a consumer perspective (n = 316) via Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), a model that establishes a positive relationship between perceived usefulness, subjective norms, and intrinsic motivations and the perceived value of healthier food. Subjective norms are themselves found to be a function of perceived barriers, facilitating conditions and personal innovativeness. Our framework contributes to establish a shift in the drivers of healthier food choices toward a more socio-culturally grounded decision-making approach that is particularly relevant to understand food consumption. We show that daily food routines (opposing the exceptional healthy food item) are encapsulated in perceived value of healthier eating. The data indicates further that to support healthier food product consumption, both policy makers and food providers must facilitate imported foods that meet quickly changing lifestyle requirements

Leveraging human-robot interaction in hospitality services: Incorporating the role of perceived value, empathy, and information sharing into visitors’ intentions to use social robots

Social robots have become pervasive in the tourism and hospitality service environments. The empirical understanding of the drivers of visitors' intentions to use robots in such services has become an urgent necessity for their sustainable deployment. Certainly, using social androids within hospitality services requires organisations' attentive commitment to value creation and fulfilling service quality expectations. In this paper, via structural equation modelling (SEM) and semi-structured interviews with managers, we conceptualise and empirically test visitors' intentions to use social robots in hospitality services. With data collected in Singapore's hospitality settings, we found visitors' intentions to use social robots stem from the effects of technology acceptance variables, service quality dimensions leading to perceived value, and two further dimensions from human robot interaction (HRI): empathy and information sharing. Analysis of these dimensions' importance provides a deeper understanding of novel opportunities managers may take advantage of to position social robot-delivered services in tourism and hospitality strategies

An exploration of B2B social media practices in an era of digital transformation: the case of the pharmaceutical industry in Thailand

Research suggests that humans’ experiences have been significantly impacted by the digitisation of communication technologies (Castell, 2001). In this digital context, marketing practices in the B2B sector have shifted towards leveraging new technologies (Goggin, 2012) and new platforms such as social media. While some studies support the view that digitalisation processes have largely produced positive impacts, in turn creating marketing opportunities especially in emerging growing markets such as Thailand (Ansari and Phillips, 2011; Gross, 2014); others point to the associated tensions that arise from that particular digital environment where technology demands challenge firms’ traditional frames of reference, stability and resources, thus threatening current strategies (Andriessen et al, 2011; Santos and Eisenhardt, 2009). Tension is defined as “clash of ideas or principles or actions and… the discomfort that may arise as a result” (Stohl et al.; 2001 pp.353, 354). As such, leveraging the power of social media in B2B (Pharmaceutical sector) is somehow under investigated especially in the context where strong legal constraints are present (Ventrataram and Nagatode, 2014; Whalen, 2012; Liu, 2011). The aim of this study is to explore how and to what extent pharmaceutical stakeholders (firm, physician and pharmacist) are starting to leverage the power of social media communication. Sale force management and social media literature is utilized together with literature on communication and innovation management in B2B. Findings from 23 in depth interviews (6 physicians, 7 pharmacists and 10 managers from a leading global pharmaceutical firm) are analysed. Themes such as content acceptance, self-efficacy, control, managerial tensions, technical issue (security and privacy) and legislation impact are found to be relevant. In addition, cultural factors appear to also mediate engagement by stakeholders. Theoretical implication of social media communication in B2B sector under strong and evolving legislative conditions are discussed together with the emerging managerial implications for the pharmaceutical industry of digital transformation in an era of accelerated culture

For a Deeper Understanding of the Sociality That Emanates From Virtual Communities of Consumption

This paper aims to improve our understanding of the sociality that emanates from virtual communities of consumption. We have collected life narratives, with a focus on agency in consumers' experiences of forums in a virtual community of video game players. Findings reveal the existence of different means of appropriation built on identified dimensions and leading to various knowledge projects. These projects are experienced throughout subject positions around which consumers build more or less salient identities. The roles that forums play in knowledge projects lead to four main interrelated consumption logics that are collectively embodied in different ways by social practices. [to cite]

A structurationist approach about ordinary consumption activity : experiences and construction of the self in online discussion forums

Cette thèse traite de la structuration issue des activités de consommation ordinaires (Gronow et Warde, 2001 ; Carù et Cova, 2003, 2007). La structuration renvoie au "procès des relations sociales qui se structurent dans le temps et dans l'espace via la dualité du structurel", c'est-à-dire que les individus et les collectifs (qui s’interpénètrent dans des systèmes sociaux) se co-construisent dans des structures. Dans cette perspective, « les systèmes sociaux sont à la fois des conditions et des résultats des activités accomplies par les agents qui font partie de ces systèmes" (Giddens, 1987). Nous proposons une étude de cas reposant sur l’intérêt d’adopter deux perspectives théoriques pour éclairer de façon inédite la structuration issue de la consommation. Notre cas est basé sur l’examen de récits de vie relatifs aux trajectoires des consommateurs sur les forums de discussion en ligne, et en particulier les forums de la communauté Jeuxvideo.com. Alors que dans la première étude, la structuration est éclairée par un examen de la construction du sens dans les expériences de consommation ordinaires qualifiées d’interactionnelles ; dans la seconde étude nous proposons un approfondissement de la connaissance relative aux mécanismes de la construction du soi appréhendée dans sa complexité. Cette thèse entend contribuer tout autant à développer une nouvelle approche de la consommation qu’à approfondir la connaissance de la structuration.This thesis deals with structuration in ordinary consumption activities (Gronow and Warde, 2001 ; Carù and Cova, 2003, 2007). Structuration is about the process of social relationships that structure in time and space through the duality of the structural. This means that individuals and collectives that interrelate in social systems, are co-created in structures. In this framework, social systems are both conditions and results of activities performed by agents who belong to these systems (Giddens, 1987). We propose a case study that builds on two different theoretical perspectives to investigate structuration in ordinary consumption. Our case is mostly built on consumers’ narratives about their trajectories in online discussion forums, and especially one of them called Jeuxvideo.com. In the first study, structuration is enlightened by revealing sensemaking processes in ordinary consumption experiences. In the second study, we focus on the mechanisms leading to the construction of the self considered in its complexity. This thesis intends to contribute both to a development of a new approach of consumption and to a better knowledge about structuration

Technologized situated partnering practice: Leveraging interobjective representations of technology in use and its transformative effects in business education

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.This paper proposes a novel form of partnering between business education tutors and students as autonomous learners, conceptualised as technologized situated partnering practice (TSPP). Relying on business students’ narratives, we explain how TSPP allows the maintenance of student engagement in an environment that is heavily saturated with technologies. We show that while being engaged with technology, business students consider tutors as learning partners which allows them to valorise lifelong learning by contextualizing, reinventing and problematising their daily activities in a situated partnering practice they co-construct with tutors. We also show that the dynamics of TSPP can be leveraged by tutors, if the latter appreciate the dynamic of students’ learning processes and leverage interobjective (i.e. shared and overarching) representations of technology in use. We discuss the implications for tutor-student partnering practice and for the tutors’ reliance on technology to foster teaching and learning practices that have transformative effects