The small tea growers (STGs) constitute a significant part of the tea industries in several tea producing countries in the world. STGs constitute 70 percent of the tea cultivation by area and 60 percent of the total tea production by volume. However, low profitability, limited marketing options, inefficient supply chain, and dependency on the large tea estates for processing has emerged as a serious threat to the sustainability of the STGs. Mostly, the STG’s role in the tea supply chain is confined merely to the cultivation of the tea leaves. In India too, the STGs are confronted with similar challenges. India is the second-largest tea producer in the world with about 50 percent of the total tea production coming from the STGs. Notably, considering the economic and environmental benefits, some of the STGs have taken to organic cultivation of tea. Further, some of them who adopted organic cultivation also took to processing and marketing of made tea like hand-made green tea, black tea, and other specialty products by themselves. This study seeks to understand and analyze the role of organic cultivation in providing market linkages and the development of value chain(s) for the STGs. The study was conducted in the state of Assam, which is recognized worldwide for the presence of one of the oldest and the largest tea industries. It used a qualitative value chain approach to analyze the current situation of the STGs involved in the production of organic tea. The study mostly relied on primary data collected from the various actors of the emerging tea value chain through a semi-structured interview schedule, in-depth interviews, and focused group discussions. The processing and marketing of tea by the organic STGs in Assam has indeed led to the development of tea value chain(s) for the STGs. Adoption of sustainable agriculture systems like organic cultivation has opened up new opportunities for the STGs to earn from tea processing and marketing by themselves. Although such developments are in a very initial stage, understandings from the present scenario add to the literature on the development of value chain and market linkages for the smallholders in the tea sector with implications for other agricultural sectors as well. Encouraging the STGs to produce orthodox tea products, especially green and black tea varieties, in larger quantity by mobilizing them for collective actions is likely to locate them in the global tea value chain. The study suggests such suitable policy measures to bring about transformations in the tea sub-sector. Appropriate institutional changes to develop sustainable tea value chain(s) controlled by the STGs would be the key to impart overall sustainability to the industry. Such developments are likely to help the tea industry in Assam and other tea producing regions to meet the changing consumer aspirations and sustain global competition.

This study attempted to investigate how satellite fans’ nostalgia influences their attitude toward the European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL) sponsors and purchase intention toward EFL sponsors’ products. Based on the sample drawn from EPFL fans in Singapore, a conceptual model was developed. This study found that satellite fans’ nostalgia significantly affected attitude toward EPFL sponsors, which positively influenced their intention to purchase EPFL sponsors’ products. The findings of this study emphasize the critical role of sport nostalgia in affecting attitude and purchase intention and offer practical implications for marketers.

A central focus area of this study is to investigate the distinctive way religion influences consumer behaviour in their consumption of brands by exploring the dynamics that take place when a brand transgression violates a religious norm. Specifically, the Halal consumption context was used in this study, where the brand transgression involved a breach by Halal-certified brands. This study applies the disconfirmation paradigm and posits that a brand transgression involving a violation of a religious norm, results in a unique disconfirmation of expectations that is beyond a consumer-brand relationship. Essentially, the present research explores trust levels and behavioural intentions after a brand transgression and the effectiveness of recovery strategies in mitigating the negative effects of a transgression. A scenario-based experimental approach was used to operationalise this research.

Across several disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences, recent work on reciprocity in social exchange raises questions about exploitativeness, sustainability and environmental concerns (Weiss, 1987; Ursell, 2000; Smit, 2011; Lewis et al., 2015; Grinstein and Riefler, 2015) with calls to research to explore the importance of consumers’ prosocial activities in relation to concepts such as ethnocentrism (Ratner and Miller, 2001; Olivola and Shafir, 2013; Small and Cryder, 2016). Clearly, while the focus of ethnocentrism is on the consumer’s own group, the focus of many calls for prosocial activities is on the “other”. Hence, a question of interest arises from this: how do these competing forces coexist? In other words, since ethnocentrism is a complex multidimensional construct, how do the different dimensions of ethnocentrism relate to prosocial consumer behaviors? Furthermore, since prosocial behaviors are considered necessary, another question of interest is; how can consumers be urged to engage in prosocial behaviors?

When considering donation, donors may evaluate causes of need and deservedness of recipients (Bekers & Wiepking, 2011). The plight of recipients may be attributed to their misbehaviors (e.g., laziness) or social problems (e.g., poor welfare), which in turn influences donation decisions. To maximize persuasiveness of donation appeals, therefore, marketers of charity events should decide how to describe donation recipients. How potential donors perceive recipient responsibility also interacts with donor characteristics (Lee, Winterich, & Ross, 2014). We investigate how causes of need interact with donors’ cultural background to determine reactions to donation appeals. Drawing upon research on the cultural differences in thinking styles and causal attributions (Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998), we propose that donation appeals are better accepted when there is a correspondence between donors’ cultural background and causes of need than when such correspondence lacks. We find that Westerners and Easterners show distinctive reactions to charity appeals that present different causes of need. Specifically, we demonstrate that Westerners are more attracted to appeals with external causes, whereas Easterners are relatively unconcerned about causes of need. We also offer insight into the process via empathy and outcome efficacy through which cause of need and culture collaboratively affect persuasiveness of charity appeals. Empathy drives the effect for both Westerners and Easters; outcome efficacy drives the effect for Westerners only.

Marketers and retailers are increasingly interested in grabbing the opportunity to reach the consumer at the right time and place with a smart phone. Depending on Location Based Advertising (LBA) and associated sensors with the IBeacon technology, marketers can determined the consumer’s favorite products through his search history and previous purchase activities furthermore his location in-store. So, marketers and retailers pay more attention to in-store mobile LBA. In this work, the modified LBA in-store framework are constructed. This model proposed that the temporal time, type of information and the variety of receiver of mobile in-store LBA affect the Purchase intention in retail stores.

This paper discusses consumers’ use of fashion to promote various civic causes, such as political, social, and environmental issues. Fashion has become a civic act. The fashion industry is beginning to create items to suit this purpose. This paper reviews literature supporting fashion activism, identifying future research directions. This paper contributes both academically and practically. Academically, it identifies the gap in literature referring to the understanding of the use of fashion by youth as a means of civic engagement. Prior studies are limited in scope. Thus, we urge further research to investigate fashion activism. This study contributes practically by opening up the idea to practitioners about fashion as communication tools regarding political, social and environmental matters.

The luxury market has become a prevalent global economic sector which is estimated to reach $442 billion by 2025 (Arienti, Levato, Kamel, & Montgolfier, 2018). Sales revenue in the luxury market has grown not only in the US and EU, but also in emerging economies with rapid economic expansion, such as China and India (Shukla, 2010; Tynan, McKechnie, & Chhuon, 2010). Young consumers (i.e., millennials and Gen Z) comprise the fastest growing group of purchasers of luxury goods (D’Arpizio, Levato, Prete, Del Fabbro, & de Montgolfier, 2019). Subsequently, marketers are interested in factors that affect young consumers’ decision-making process in luxury fashion goods consumption. It is a challenge for marketers to appeal to young consumers because abrand or brand name is less important to them than it has been for older generations (Forte, 2019). Country-of-origin (CoO) is relatively important for luxury purchase compared to non-luxury purchase (Godey et al., 2012). In the context of luxury brand consumption, research suggests that attitude functions (social-adjustive, value-expressive, hedonic, and utilitarian) also have an impact on luxury purchase intentions (Schade, Hegner, Horstmann, & Brinkmann, 2016). This study thus investigates significant factors influencing luxury brand purchase among young consumers. Specifically, we draw from “Functional Theories of Attitudes” (Grewal, Mehta, & Kardes, 2004) as a framework to investigate the effects of CoO on consumers’ attitude functions and luxury brand purchase intentions.

Price-setting research has mainly focused on normative processes. However, a conception of pricing practices in B2B-companies is missing. Information deficits lead pricing managers to deviate from normative processes. We complement and extent normative models by assessing pricing managers’ compensation behavior in cases of information deficits. We propose a typology of approaches to missing price-related information.

Product labels are one way for advertisers to provide information to purchasers on product quality (Atkinson & Rosenthal, 2014). Label policies have been issued to promote information disclosure on food products in some developed countries. Recent years have also seen increasing attempts to promote healthy eating in emerging markets. In China, nutrition labels became mandatory under the nutrition labeling acts. The laws require nutrition information to be presented at the point of purchase as well as in establishments where food is prepared or consumed. Additionally, similar actions were taken by India (India Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 2011), Mercosur members and in South Africa (Brazilian Ministry of Health, 2012; Institute of Food Technologists [IFT], 2011).

Ecosystem firms have been dominantly implementing knowledge sharing and collaboration between consumer interest groups, business firms and technology platform vendors (Adner, 2016). The ecosystem businesses create new value through business activity arrangements and individual offerings of the shared assets, standards, and interfaces upon a technology platform (Adner, 2006). Face with the highly dynamic and competitive environment, the multisided ecosystem platform firms specifically design mobile app to generate more participation in co-creation of value (Roma & Vasi, 2019). Little research has been dedicated for mobile app developers to understand user’s context-centric and user’s personalistic-centric mobility to formulate diversification or specialization in the cocreation strategic process. Our work focuses on the ecosystem users and customers as focal stakeholders who experiencing the peer-to-peer ecosystem platforms via mobile application could perceive context-centric and personalistic-centric mobility to fit, to make identification, to cocreate value, and to contribute to the ecosystem by their equity.

The study investigates the effects of influencer on advertising effectiveness compared to traditional celebrity endorser. Results of an experiment shows that the use of influencer have a better fit with hard-sell appeal and well-known brand to have more favorable brand attitude and higher intention to purchase. The findings provide ample contribution to theory and practice.