Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

The Wretched of the Earth

Individualism and collectivism

By Pierre Bourdieu (London: Routledge, 2010), xxx + 607 pp. £15.99 paper. A combination of social theory, statistical data, illustrations, and interviews, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judg...

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

You are what you can access: Sharing and collaborative consumption online

Access-based consumption, defined as transactions that can be market mediated but where no transfer of ownership takes place, is becoming increasingly popular, yet it is not well theorized. This study examines the nature of access as it contrasts to ownership and sharing, specifically the consumer-object, consumer-consumer, and consumer-marketer relationships. Six dimensions are identified to distinguish among the range of access-based consumptionscapes: temporality, anonymity, market mediation, consumer involvement, the type of accessed object, and political consumerism. Access-based consumption is examined in the context of car sharing via an interpretive study of Zipcar consumers. Four outcomes of these dimensions in the context of car sharing are identified: lack of identification, varying significance of use and sign value, negative reciprocity resulting in a big-brother model of governance, and a deterrence of brand community. The implications of our findings for understanding the nature of exchange, consumption, and brand community are discussed.

Access-Based Consumption: The Case of Car Sharing

The last decade has seen the emergence of the sharing economy as well as the rise of a diverse array of research on this topic both inside and outside the marketing discipline. However, the sharing...

Marketing in the Sharing Economy

Machine generated contents note: List of figures; List of tables; Preface; 1. The appeal and reality of ethical consumerism; 2. Social consumerism in the context of corporate responsibility; 3. Are we what we choose? Or is what we choose what we are?; 4. Ethical consumers or social consumers? Measurement and reality; 5. Rationalization and justification of social (non) consumption; 6. The ethical consumer, politics and everyday life; 7. Tastes, truths and strategies; Appendix; Index; References; Notes.

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The myth of the ethical consumer

Many consumers profess to want to avoid unethical offerings in the marketplace yet few act on this inclination. This study investigates the nature of the rationales and justifications used by consumers to make sense of this discrepancy. The data was collected via in-depth interviews across eight countries. The respondents were presented with three ethical consumption scenarios, and discussed their views on the consumption issues as well as their consumption behavior. The majority of the discussion focused around their rationalizations for their lack of ethical consumption patterns. Three justification strategies emerged from the data: economical rationalization, institutional dependency, and developmental realism. Economic rationalization focuses on consumers wanting to get the most value for their money, regardless of their ethical beliefs. Institutional dependency refers to the belief that institutions such as the government are responsibility to ethically regulate what products can be sold. Finally, developmental realism features the rationalization that some unethical behaviors on the part of corporations must exist in order for macro level economic development to occur. Consumer resistance in the marketplace is currently limited to small niche groups. This study investigates why resistance is so limited, in spite of survey results which suggest that a much larger group of people are interested in ethical consumption. This is the first study to investigate the nature of consumer rationales, and reinforces the need for non-survey-based research to understand nuanced consumer reactions and behaviors in ethical consumerism.



Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Why don't consumers consume ethically?

This study investigates consumers' relationship to possessions in the condition of contemporary global nomadism. Prior research argues that consumers form enduring and strong attachments to possessions because of their centrality to identity projects. This role is heightened in life transitions including cross-border movements as possessions anchor consumer's identities either to their homeland or to the host country. This study reexamines this claim via in-depth interviews with elite global nomads, deterritorialized consumers who engage in serial relocation and frequent short-term international mobility. An alternative relationship to possessions characterized by detachment and flexibility emerges, which is termed “liquid.” Three characteristics of a liquid relationship to possessions are identified: temporary situational value, use-value, and immateriality. The study outlines a logic of nomadic consumption, that of instrumentality, where possessions and practices are strategic resources in managing mobility. A liquid perspective on possessions expands current understandings of materiality, acculturation, and globalization.

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Giana M. Eckhardt

Papers

Access-Based Consumption: The Case of Car Sharing

Marketing in the Sharing Economy

The myth of the ethical consumer

Why don't consumers consume ethically?

Liquid Relationship to Possessions