Showing papers in "Marketing Theory in 2016"
TL;DR: The authors showed that self-branding in the knowledge economy is a key promotional device for the pursuit of self-realization in a context that reifies entrepreneurialism as the main ideologi...
Abstract: Existing research shows that self-branding in the knowledge economy is a key promotional device for the pursuit of self-realization in a context that reifies entrepreneurialism as the main ideologi...
164 citations
TL;DR: The growth of contemporary capitalism is producing a broad sweep of environmental and social ills, such as environmental degradation, exploitative labor conditions, social and economic inequity, an....
Abstract: The growth of contemporary capitalism is producing a broad sweep of environmental and social ills, such as environmental degradation, exploitative labor conditions, social and economic inequity, an...
124 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the consumer sharing is represented as a non-reciprocal, pro-social distribution of resources given without expectation of reciprocity, without the expectation of any reciprocity.
Abstract: The recently introduced construct of consumer sharing is represented as a nonreciprocal, pro-social distribution of resources given without expectation of reciprocity (Belk, 2010, ‘Sharing’, Journa...
123 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the feasibility of a joint application of sustainability and marketing and a blueprint for future sustainability marketing studies and practices is provided, and five issues pertaining to the credibility and ambiguity of sustainability marketing are addressed.
Abstract: Sustainability marketing is a provocative area of research. Through an integrated knowledge inquiry approach, the conceptual article aims to provide answers to the feasibility of a joint application of sustainability and marketing and a blueprint for future sustainability marketing studies and practices. Five issues pertaining to the credibility and ambiguity of sustainability marketing are addressed—namely, the controversial debate between the incompatibility of marketing and sustainability, what sustainability offers marketing, what marketing offers sustainability, the feasibility of adopting the sustainability concept in marketing, and sustainability marketing myopia. Then, the article identifies a set of dimensions that characterize sustainability marketing, including economic, environmental, social, ethical, and technological dimensions. Unlike previous studies that often focus on only selected dimensions, the current article makes the case to consider the five identified dimensions as a whole to ach...
107 citations
TL;DR: This article identified and described actor engagement behaviors that moderate actor experiences of value co-destruction, and unpacked these concepts at both the actor-to-actor and service ecosystem levels.
Abstract: Value co-destruction is emerging as an important way to conceptualize non-positive outcomes from actor-to-actor interactions. However, current research in this area neither offers a clear way to understand how value co-destruction manifests nor does it consider the role of actor engagement behaviors. Drawing on a case study in the aerospace industry, the present study begins by identifying and describing two ways in which actor perceptions of value co-destruction form: goal prevention and net deficits. Next, the study identifies and describes nine actor engagement behaviors that moderate actor experiences of value co-destruction. The study also unpacks these concepts at both the actor-to-actor and service ecosystem levels. The article concludes with implications for marketing theory and practice.
102 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify the antecedents of diminished value in business-to-business exchange and examine the accuracy of the term "value co-destruction" as a blanket description for interaction that results in value reduction, and propose that, in many instances, "value diminution" may be more appropriate.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to identify the antecedents of diminished value in business-to-business exchange. There is only a limited amount of research on value destruction in the context of service-dominant (S-D) logic and, to the best of our knowledge, no dyadic studies. From a business perspective, awareness of factors that have the potential to impede value creation will enable relationship partners to increase mutual value realization. The article examines the accuracy of the term ‘value co-destruction’ as a blanket description for interaction that results in value reduction, and proposes that, in many instances, ‘value diminution’ may be more appropriate. The study adopts an exploratory, qualitative approach. One-to-one interviews are conducted with clients and their creative agencies. The results suggest that diminished value outcomes are caused by resource deficiencies and resource misuse by both relational partners, separately and jointly. We propose a model of five higher-order antecedents o...
97 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the scope of the user-market relationship is broader than developing offers and uses, and conceptualize market shaping as five interrelated subprocesses in which users may be involved as agents: qualifying goods, fashioning modes of exchange, configuring actors, establishing market norms and generating market representations.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to elaborate conceptually on the user–market relationship. Existing research reports a limited user–market relationship, which simultaneously exaggerates and underplays user influence on markets. Assuming a constructivist market studies (CMS) perspective, we argue that the scope of the user–market relationship is broader than developing offers and uses. We conceptualize market shaping as five interrelated subprocesses in which users may be involved as agents: qualifying goods, fashioning modes of exchange, configuring actors, establishing market norms and generating market representations. The extent of user influence in these subprocesses is likely to vary both within a specific market and across markets. By identifying conditions conducive to user involvement in each subprocess, we lay the foundation for empirical research into how users shape markets.
66 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the applicability of service-dominant logic (SDL) to social marketing, with a particular emphasis on how a systems perspective can offer new ways to address challenges of social change, is examined.
Abstract: Over the last decade, social marketing has moved away from traditional marketing management approaches towards service-oriented theory, integrating concepts from other disciplines, to account for the distinctive nature of social change and develop an ecological perspective. This article extends prior literature by interrogating the applicability of service-dominant logic (SDL) to social marketing, with a particular emphasis on how a systems perspective can offer new ways to address challenges of social change. In so doing, it examines how the social marketing benchmarks can be extended through applying (and adapting) the principles, concepts and theories of SDL. The article provides critical reflection on the challenges of transferring service-dominant theory to social change contexts highlighting implications for practice and a future research agenda.
56 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore how smell might contribute to urban identity, building on the strong links between smell, limbic processing and emotion, and identify ways in which smell might be used in future urban place marketing activities, and in particular to more explicitly communicate the experiential attributes of being in a particular city.
Abstract: This article explores how smell might contribute to urban identity, building on the strong links between smell, limbic processing and emotion. It critically examines existing scent marketing, psychology, and urban olfaction literatures, exploring the potential for the marketing of urban places through smell and capitalizing in particular on ambient smells that already exist within a locale. The article makes an initial threefold contribution to theory and practice: (i) demonstrating the current use of smell in city marketing, and the inherent challenges arising; (ii) identifying ways in which smell might be used in future urban place marketing activities, and in particular to more explicitly communicate the experiential attributes of being in a particular city; and (iii) proposing that olfaction may, in certain circumstances, be an effective way of incorporating a more participatory modus operandi within urban place marketing effort. The article concludes with a further overarching theoretical contribution, involving a consideration of place marketing that incorporates non-representational perspectives.
51 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce Bourdieu's recursive triad of practice,habitus and field as a theoretical lens to articulate how sense-making processes incorporate an explicit link between practice and experience, and use it to examine value creation for participants of a self-reliance training course.
Abstract: Practice and experience are central concepts in service logic (SL), and research has provided increasingly sophisticated accounts of their role within value creation. However, to date, they have been largely treated separately and despite acknowledgement that they are intertwined, the precise nature of their relationship remains unclear. To respond to this problem, we introduce Bourdieu’s recursive triad of practice–habitus–field as a theoretical lens to articulate how sensemaking processes incorporate an explicit link between practice and experience. We then utilize the theoretical lens to examine value creation for participants of a self-reliance training course. Our article contributes to the theorization of value creation by showing how it is dependent upon the temporal intertwining of practice and experience; how the unconscious or anticipated/foreseen nature of practice and experience become manifested in value creation and how zooming in and zooming out can be simultaneously achieved to acknowledge...
47 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a framework of the transformation from the goodsdominant to the service-dominant (G-D) logic in firms based on a case study of a bank is presented.
Abstract: This article outlines a framework of the transformation from the goods-dominant (G-D) to the service-dominant (S-D) logic in firms based on a case study of a bank. Drawing from institutional logic and practice theory, the article also contributes by discussing how the transformation from the G-D to the S-D logic takes place by means of the enactment of value creation practices and how such transformations are driven by institutional entrepreneurs and by conflicts between institutional logics. In addition, the article argues that the studied transformation is interwoven with changes in the professional identities of employees. Managerial implications include how managers may draw on the presented framework to transform their firm and its employees.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors contribute to long-standing debates on a dialectical relation between consumption and production, and suggest an intermingling of consumption with production, whereas previous literature suggests a more direct relationship between production and consumption.
Abstract: This article aims to contribute to long-standing debates on a dialectical relation between consumption and production. Whilst previous literature suggests an intermingling of consumption with produ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce the concept of social labour which they define as the means by which consumers add value to their identities and social relationships through producing and sharing cultural and affective content.
Abstract: This article develops understanding of consumer work at the primary level of sociality in the context of social networking sites. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and netnography, we reveal these sites as distinctive spaces of consumer-to-consumer work. To explain this work in consumption, we introduce the concept of social labour which we define as the means by which consumers add value to their identities and social relationships through producing and sharing cultural and affective content. This is driven by observational vigilance and conspicuous presence, and is rewarded by social value. This draws attention to the variety of work consumers enact within their social lives, indicating that consumer work is broader than previously acknowledged.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors draw on both Freudian psychoanalysis and Douglas's structural anthropology to examine the field of nonconsumption or the "choice not to buy", arguing that consuming less at the individual level is not always the result of purposeful acts of ideological, anti-consumption protest or outward expression of countercultural sentiments.
Abstract: Psychoanalytic concepts and theory have long served studies of consumption, from exposing unconscious motives to elucidating contemporary consuming desire. Sharing with psychoanalysis an interest in symbolic meanings, anthropological approaches have also contributed to the study of contemporary consumption and social life. In this article, we draw on both Freudian psychoanalysis and Douglas’s structural anthropology to examine the field of non-consumption or the ‘choice’ not to buy. Based on detailed interpretations of interview data, we argue that consuming less at the individual level is not always the result of purposeful acts of ideological, anti-consumption protest or the outward expression of countercultural sentiments. Rather, forms of non-consumption can have deeper psychological origins that are located in a view of consumerism as a threatening force and a potent source of toxic contamination to mind and body, ‘dirt’ in Douglas’s conceptualization. We argue that this outlook prompts a constant vigilance and the deployment of different defensive measures, prohibitions and purification rituals akin to Freud’s conceptualization of the obsessive–compulsive individual. In this way, our analysis seeks to illuminate the myriad of largely invisible ways in which some people ‘choose’ not to buy within an ostensibly consumer culture or dismiss the idea of such a choice altogether.
TL;DR: In line with the Fifth Transformative Consumer Research Conference held at Villanova University, USA, in 2015, we chaired a dialogical track that involved seven international researchers working on consumer research as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In line with the Fifth Transformative Consumer Research Conference held at Villanova University, USA, in 2015, we chaired a dialogical track that involved seven international researchers working on...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show how psychoanalysis and marketing can be approached as character analysis using fiction, literature and popular culture through a psychoanalytic informed character reading of Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald's(1950 [1926]) The Great GATby and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's(1968 [1949]) Death of a Salesman.
Abstract: The contribution of psychoanalysis to marketing theory does not need to come from putting consumers on the couch. We show how psychoanalysis and marketing can be approached as character analysis using fiction, literature and popular culture through a psychoanalytic informed character reading of Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s(1950 [1926]) The Great Gatsby and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s(1968 [1949]) Death of a Salesman. We examine the consumption desires and practices of these key protagonists to show how the psychoanalytic theories of narcissism and denial can be applied to explain their predicament. Our analysis emphasizes temporality, describing psychic time, its functioning with the ego-ideal and how consumption is implicated. We conclude that the seemingly distant domains of psychoanalysis, marketing and literature fiction offer an interesting synthesis that is able to provide insights for consumer theory, the contemporary consumer and the historical account of consumers of the past.
TL;DR: In this paper, a substantial body of evidence that judgment and decision making are partly controlled by unconscious mechanisms which take the form of preferred forms of order, heuristic processes and mental accounting.
Abstract: There is a substantial body of evidence that judgment and decision making are partly controlled by unconscious mechanisms which take the form of preferred forms of order, heuristic processes and mental accounting. These automatic mechanisms are likely to be involved in any judgments, including those made about theories and methods in science. Examples are presented where bias has affected the acceptance of theories and methods, and the mechanisms that may create such bias are described. Limitations in the design of controlled experiments in consumer behaviour are reviewed; these restrict generalisation and therefore the value of such work in advancing understanding. Despite this, such controlled experiments are highly regarded in consumer behaviour and social psychology; one reason for this high regard may be the effect of automatic mechanisms in biasing judgment about controlled experiments. By contrast, inferences from surveys seem less susceptible to such bias. If controlled experimental findings are over-valued in comparison to other methods, the direction of research will suffer and scientific advance will be impeded.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors extend the knowledge of scientific marketing management and the reasons behind the emergence of the marketing concept and illuminate this argument using the writings of Fred W. Shibley (1864-1944) and the theoretical resources of Michel Foucault.
Abstract: This article extends our knowledge of scientific marketing management and the reasons behind the emergence of the marketing concept. In our narrative, the banking community plays an important role in promoting marketing in the early 20th century. We illuminate this argument using the writings of Fred W. Shibley (1864–1944) and the theoretical resources of Michel Foucault. For Shibley, marketing advanced the interests of corporate financiers, shareholders and employees. Their profit focus was enabled through the marketing concept and accounting practices that mediated hyper- and disciplinary power. In this discourse, organizational relations reflected a pyramidal management of information through a ‘principle of omnivisibility’. These processes individualized departments and affected all employees. Importantly, these control mechanisms were seeded through ‘displacement’. This discursive move reveals a new dimension underwriting the promotion of the marketing concept and the pursuit of profit. These ‘progre...
TL;DR: A panel on "Marketing as Mystification" was held at the 2011 Academy of Marketing conference in Liverpool as mentioned in this paper, where ideas from the Liverpool event were supplemented by commentaries from selected other autho...
Abstract: A panel on “Marketing as Mystification” convened at the 2011 Academy of Marketing conference in Liverpool. Ideas from the Liverpool event were supplemented by commentaries from selected other autho...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how the occupation of branding and the work it encompasses are discursively constituted and made up, and suggest that branding is an intermediary occupation that sustains rather than discontinues liminality and that enduring liveness lends itself to the non-distinctiveness of the occupation.
Abstract: This article explores how the occupation of branding and the work it encompasses are discursively constituted and ‘made up’. It starts with the premise that branding is a cultural intermediary occupation about whose norms and practices we cannot assume certainty, stability or homogeneity. The study illustrates how branding is comprised of multiple social and occupational discourses, namely, ‘creativity’, ‘discovery’, ‘business’ and ‘morality’. Rather than stand alone, these discourses dynamically interweave and intersect. Consequently, branding emerges as an occupation with distinct liminal conditions, being simultaneously about art, science, business and social relational work. Instead of moving towards stability, our findings suggest that branding is an intermediary occupation that sustains rather than discontinues liminality and that enduring liminality lends itself to the non-distinctiveness of the occupation. For branders, occupying a liminal occupational position implies various challenges but similarly scopes for flexibility and autonomy.
TL;DR: Arnould and Rose raise some interesting issues regarding my sharing paper (Belk 2010), but I find that most of their contentions are misguided and are based on misunderstan....
Abstract: Arnould and Rose raise some interesting issues regarding my sharing paper (Belk 2010). We agree on some points, but I find that most of their contentions are misguided and are based on misunderstan...
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TL;DR: The skin-ego theory as mentioned in this paper holds that we experience life as encapsulated by an outer shell and is used to push understandings within consumer research of how we might regard the body, not as a finite entity bound in absolute time and space or as a canvas to be decorated, but as a porous and sprawling entity that bears unconscious and historically formed relationalities open to transformation.
Abstract: This article explores the skin-ego, a theory associated with Didier Anzieu, which holds that we experience life as encapsulated by an outer shell. This insight is used to push understandings within consumer research of how we might regard the body, not as a finite entity bound in absolute time and space or as a canvas to be decorated, but as a porous and sprawling entity that bears unconscious and historically formed relationalities open to transformation. This vein of insight allows us to consider anew how music and noise is consumed in terms of containment, holding and individuation.
TL;DR: This article explored how consumers collect, reconstruct, and protect autobiographical memories through the material possession of the scrapbook, which is a hobby that preserves photographs and memories of their lives, as well as their lives.
Abstract: This study explores how consumers collect, reconstruct, and protect autobiographical memories through the material possession of the scrapbook. Scrapbooking is a hobby that preserves photographs an...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define deceptive consumption behaviors as the deliberate falsification or concealment of an individual's consumption behaviors pertaining to a brand, and explore the underlying motivations that would result in consumers engaging in this practice.
Abstract: Consumers have been observed to engage in deceptive consumption behaviors, including hiding their brand consumption and pretending to consume brands that they actually do not. This article defines deceptive consumption behaviors as the deliberate falsification or concealment of an individual’s consumption behaviors pertaining to a brand. The present work recognizes deceptive consumption behaviors as a relatively unexplored construct in the consumer behavior literature. Therefore, this article sets out not only to define and delineate the various types of deceptive consumption behaviors but also to explore the underlying motivations that would result in consumers engaging in this practice. We propose that these behaviors are a response to an identity threat that occurs due to goal conflict between personal and social identities. We further propose a typology to illustrate the various behaviors that consumers may employ when engaging in deceptive consumption. We explore the consequences of engaging in decep...
TL;DR: This paper explored the nature and public perceptions of salesmanship using editorial cartoons over a 30-year period from 1983 to 2013 and found that while representations of the characteristics and behaviors of salespeople shifted very little across time periods, changes in public perception of seller-buyer conflict, the role of the customer, and selling techniques were observed, thus indicating that cartoons are sensitive enough to measure the portrayal of selling.
Abstract: Unflattering representations of salesmanship in mass media exist in abundance. In order to gauge the depiction of selling in mass media, this article explores the nature and public perceptions of salesmanship using editorial cartoons. A theory of cartooning suggests that editorial cartoons reflect public sentiment toward events and issues and therefore provide a useful way of measuring and tracking such sentiment over time. The criteria of narrative, location, binary struggle, normative transference, and metaphor were used as a framework to analyze 286 cartoons over a 30-year period from 1983 to 2013. The results suggest that while representations of the characteristics and behaviors of salespeople shifted very little across time periods, changes in public perceptions of seller–buyer conflict, the role of the customer, and selling techniques were
observed, thus indicating that cartoons are sensitive enough to measure the portrayal of selling.
TL;DR: In this paper, the roles that academic workshops play in the creation of a space to advance knowledge in marketing whilst also supporting academic career progression and progression, and the role of academic career advancement and progression.
Abstract: This special discussion article examines the roles that academic workshops play in the creation of a space to advance knowledge in marketing whilst also supporting academic career progression and p...
TL;DR: Geiger et al. as mentioned in this paper, 2014) Concerned markets: Shaping exchanges, building markets, and building markets in Consumption Markets and Culture 15(2): 133-47.
Abstract: Geiger, S., Harrison, D., Kjellberg, H., et al. (eds) (2014) Concerned Markets. Economic Ordering for Multiple Values. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Geiger, S., Kjellberg, H. and Spencer, R. (2012) ‘Shaping Exchanges, Building Markets’, Consumption Markets and Culture 15(2): 133–47. Helgesson, C-F. and Kjellberg, H. (2013) ‘Values and Valuations in Market Practice’, Journal of Cultural Economy 6(4): 361–69. Kjellberg, H., Azimont, F. and Reid, E. (2015) ‘Market Innovation Processes: Balancing Stability and Change’, Industrial Marketing Management 44(1): 4–4.
TL;DR: In this article, an epistemology for consumer research based on a five-step process for constructing the object of research is proposed, drawing from the way the artist Piet Mondrian constructs objects in his paintings.
Abstract: Drawing from the way the artist Piet Mondrian constructs objects in his paintings, we offer an epistemology for consumer research based on a five-step process for constructing the object of research. We show how the five steps fit with both existential phenomenology and the context of context approach. We also contribute to the current epistemological debate in consumer research showing commonalities between these two paradigms, often considered antagonistic due to their different unit of analysis. Finally, we encourage the shift towards art in consumer research, by studying artists to rethink the relationship between researchers and their objects of research.
TL;DR: In this paper, three sets of suggestions to integrate exchange governance into service-dominant (SD) logic research are presented, including the subjective, socially embedded nature of value necessitates a greater reliance on norms-based governance.
Abstract: An area that receives limited attention in service-dominant (SD) logic is exchange governance. Exchange governance provisions can determine how benefits and costs are created and distributed, hence their importance. Much of the rationale for this oversight arises due to the emphasis on “value” in SD logic. With this as a starting point, this commentary article offers three sets of suggestions to integrate exchange governance into SD logic research. First, the subjective, socially embedded nature of value necessitates a greater reliance on norms-based governance. Under SD logic, there is a need to govern for a wider variety of idiosyncratic interactions throughout a service ecosystem. This has a bearing on monitoring and control activities. Second, SD logic is virtually silent on resource ownership. Understanding the property rights associated with value-creating resources is likely to determine who creates and appropriates value. Third, value-in-use suggests that value does not occur at the point of excha...
TL;DR: The movie Whiplash as discussed by the authors presents a contrast between customer-oriented and product-oriented teaching styles in a jazz workshop, where the teacher is a marketing-oriented instructor whose method of teaching combines kindness with rigor.
Abstract: In recent years, numerous marketing and organizational theorists have called attention to the analogy between jazz and management strategy. From the perspective of this jazz metaphor, key questions concern the implications of jazz training for marketing education. Too often—say, in motion pictures or television dramas—jazz is portrayed as an innocent folk music whose performance requires more feeling than knowledge. This inaccurate stereotype colors the treatment of music instruction found in the film Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995). A contrasting view of jazz as a technically demanding art form appears in the movie Whiplash (2014). These two films also represent diametrically opposed teaching styles—the first nurturing and customer-oriented, the second sadistic and product-oriented. A third motion picture entitled Keep On Keepin’ On (2014) presents a resolution of this dialectic in the form of a marketing-oriented instructor whose method of teaching combines kindness (the customer-oriented thesis) with rigor (...