The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of lumbar stabilization and sling exercise on visual analogue scale (VAS), Korean Oswestry Disability Index (KODI), and stability index (ST) in patients with chronic lower back pain (CLBP). This study included participants with a VAS scale of 6 or higher and a KOD of 20-40%. They were randomly divided into a mat group (n=15) to perform lumbar stabilization exercises and a sling group (n=15) to perform sling exercises, and then they underwent a four-week experiment. The experimental results of this study were as follows: the VAS and KODI showed a statistically significant difference (P<.05) and a larger effect size within each group after the intervention, it exhibited no statistically significant difference between the two groups (P>.05). There were significant differences in ST before and after intervention in each group (P<.05), however there was no significant difference between the groups. The present study suggest that the effects of lumbar stabilization exercise and sling exercise are similar.

Teacher quality is a topic of international concern, as it impacts student learning and teacher preparation. This study compared the undergraduate secondary science teacher preparation programs from two universities in Korea with those of Oregon, USA. We examined the programs’ structural curricular coherence, conceptual curricular coherence, and curricular balance. Structural curricular coherence was determined by examining the overarching goals of the institutions’ programs, the organization of the programs of study in terms of meeting those goals, and outside bodies of evidence. All universities were in structural coherence for various reasons. Conceptual curricular coherence was determined by examining students’ perceptions of the connection between their preparation and their clinical practice. In case of Korea, most students from both universities were not satisfied with their practical preparation. In the US, the students from both institutions felt well prepared to transition to inservice teaching. To determine curricular balance, we examined the institutions’ preparation programs looking at the credit hours taken in the four main areas of the teacher knowledge base: GPK (General Pedagogical Knowledge), SMK (Subject Matter Knowledge), PCK (Pedagogical Content Knowledge), and CK (Contextual Knowledge). The total credit hours taken in each category was very similar by country but the application and field component in the USA was far greater than those of Korea where the focus was heavily on SMK and PCK. The main reason for these may be the nations’ licensing and employment processes. Keywords: teacher quality, teacher preparation program, inservice, preservice, curricular coherence

The objective of this study was to quantify and characterize the inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus outflow loading from different water managements in paddy fields. We investigated the NO3-N, NH4-N, and PO4 in runoff from paddy fields in Iksan. The three different water management treatments were conventional continuous irrigation at 4 and 8 cm water levels, and intermittent irrigation at a 4 cm water level. The concentration of NO3-N at the early growth stage in surface water was 6.11 mg L-1, and then it gradually decreased. The downward curve increased slightly with additional nitrogen fertilization at the panicle initiation stage, and then it continued to decrease. The NH4-N concentration was 5.26 mg L-1, and that of PO4 was 0.70 mg L-1 at the early growth stage. However, the concentration of NO3-N peaked at 8.79 mg L-1 directly after transplantation and then decreased rapidly throughout the growing season. The amount of NH4-N runoff was 1.86 kg ha-1 in the plot with intermittent irrigation, and 2.0 kg ha-1 and 2.1 kg ha-1 in the plots with water depths of 4 and 8 cm, respectively. The NO3-N runoff was 7.43 kg ha-1 in the plot with intermittent irrigation, 8.62 kg ha-1 in the plot with a water depth of 4 cm, and 10.25 kg ha-1 in the plot with a water depth of 8 cm. In addition, the PO4 runoff was 0.42 kg ha-1 in the plot with intermittent irrigation, 0.48 and 0.55 kg ha-1 in the plots with water depths of 4 and 8 cm, respectively. The saving effect of irrigation water was 28.5% than that of conventional water management treatments, and the amount of nitrogen runoff was decreased by 18.5% with intermittent irrigation. However, the phosphorus runoff was not different between the different water management treatments in paddy fields.

A study on indigenous diatoms was carried out at 10 sites from May 2014 to December 2016 in marine and freshwater in Korea. Seventeen species of diatoms are new to Korea and they are divided into 3 classes, 4 subclasses, 10 orders, 14 families, and 16 genera. The nomenclatures, references, dimensions, specimens examined, local habitat, distribution in Korea, and photograph are reported here. Seventeen species found in marine, freshwater, and brackish water showed species-specific habitats.

This study was conducted to establish the optimal chemical post-activation conditions in porcine embryonic development after parthenogenesis (PA) and somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) using 4 different chemical compositions (cytochalasin B (CB), cyclohexamide (CHX), demecolcine (DC), 6-dimethylaminopurine (DMAP). Porcine embryos were produced by PA and SCNT and then, cultured for post-activation with CB (7.5 μg/mL), CB (7.5 μg/mL) + CHX (10 μg/mL), CB (7.5 μg/mL) +DC (0.4 μg/mL), and CB (7.5 μg/mL) + DMAP (2 mM). In PA embryonic development, cleavage rates have been significantly higher in CB group (94.7%) and CB+DMAP group (94.1%) than that of CB+CHX and CB+DC group (88.1 and 84.3%, respectively). There have been no significant differences in blastocyst formation rates among the four groups. In cell number of blastocyst was shown in CB group (42.3%) significantly higher than CB+CHX and CB+DC group (40.6 and 40.6%, respectively). In SCNT embryonic development, CB+DMAP group (89.7%) significant differences were found on embryo cleavage rates when compared with other three groups. Blastocyst formation rates in CB+DMAP group (26.9%) were significantly higher when compared with CB, CB+CHX, and CB+DC groups (25.5, 20.2, and 22.1%, respectively). In blastocyst cell number, CB+DMAP group (41.4%) was found higher significant difference compared with other three groups. Additionally, we have investigated survivin expression in early development stages of porcine SCNT embryos for more confirmation. Our results establish that CB group and CB+DMAP group for 4 h during post-activation improves pre-implantation improvement of PA and SCNT embryos.

This study examines the titles of poetry in order to analogize the original landscape of Byeolseo garden in Korea and China. This study analyzed the titles of Soswaewon 48 Poems and Humble Administrator’s Garden 31 Poems, comparing the form of the compositional form and the landscape elements of titles conveyed in them. The titles of the Soswaewon 48 Poems and the Humble Administrator’s Garden 31 Poems are made up of combinations of places, activities, meanings, and landscape elements. Soswaewon 48 Poems are composed of ｢Landscape Elements + Landscape Elements｣ and ｢Place + Activity｣, while Humble Administrator’s Garden 31 Poems are composed of ｢Place + Meaning｣ and ｢Landscape Elements + Landscape Elements｣. The Soswaewon 48 Poems clearly show the element of activity, whereas the Humble Administrator’s Garden 31 Poems show the element of meaning, which is different. Landscape elements that appear in the titles of both show more physical than symbolic elements. However, symbolic elements appear more in Humble Administrator’s Garden 31 Poems than Soswaewon 48 Poems. This is a characteristic of Chinese culture that valued Yijing, giving meaning to each component of the garden. Among physical elements, natural elements appeared more frequently in the Soswaewon 48 Poems than in the Humble Administrator’s Garden 31 Poems, whereas artificial elements appeared more in the Humble Administrator’s Garden 31 Poems.

이 논문은 1880년대와 1890년대에 예이츠가 민속을 어떻게 활용하는지 는 탐구한다. 예이츠는 민속을 활용하여 자신이 아일랜드인임을 강조하며, 프로테스턴 트교인이면서 중산층 도시민으로서, 아일랜드독립운동에 참여하고자 한다. 아일랜드 농부들의 민속은 보편적 원시종교의 계승이며, 민속과 신비주의는 동일한 곳에서 파생 하다는 것을 보여줌으로써 자신의 아일랜드 정체성을 강조하려는 것이다. 그는 농부들 과 자신이 같은 신비주의적이고 전통적인 신바주의를 공유한다고 강조함으로써 자신 과 농민층과의 연결 짓고 자신의 아일랜드정체성을 갖고자 한다. 문화에 활력을 불어 넣는 예술가로 자처하는 그는, 원시종교의 영항을 보여주는 것 같은 특징을 강조하여 자신과 농산층 사이의 고리를 만듦으로써, 힘을 얻고자 한다.

In response to growing instability and a perceived over-commercialization also of luxury brands, there is a trend among consumers to search for meaning and for experiences that feel genuine. The “humanization” of brands may feed the consumers growing desire for authenticity. This paper combines the brand personality concept and brand anthropomorphization and introduces the notion of personality-driven brand management especially for luxury brands and high-end cultural and creative businesses. After an introduction into the concept of brand personality, and with reference to identitydriven brand management, we explain what personality-driven brand management actually means. When the focal point of brand management shifts to the enlivened brand, the brand personality becomes the main source of inspiration for brand-building and influences all branding decisions. With personality-driven branding, managers may leverage the full potential of brand anthropomorphization. For instance, it can help to turn the brand into a strong character, which can spark the employee’s enthusiasm and thus also the customer’s passion for the brand. As a prerequisite of (internal) brand anthropomorphization, managers need to decide what kind of person they would like their brand to represent. For this purpose, they can consult a framework of brand personality dimensions for some guidance. A central part of this paper is a study about the major dimensions of luxury brand personality. Results suggest that there exist five distinct luxury personality dimensions including tradition, modesty, elitism, eccentricity, and sensuality. They help brand managers to develop distinct brand personalities by encouraging them to decide between contrasting traits. After presenting the major strategies to bring a luxury brand personality alive, the paper discusses the benefits of personality-based brand management and concludes with some major lessons learned.

One specific manifestation of CSR is the solicitation of donations in collaboration with an NGO. Especially in an online environment, companies can easily control if they present donation options to consumers either before or after the actual purchase moment of their products. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the sequence of purchase and donation requests in the customer journey influences the willingness to donate to a charitable cause and the potential revenues for the seller. As theoretical frame, we use two related concepts of moral self-regulation, namely moral licensing and moral cleansing. We assume that consumers spend a higher sum on a luxury product after donating to an NGO (moral licensing) and vice versa donate a higher sum to charity after purchasing a self-indulgent product (moral cleansing). While we do not consider luxury products as morally questionable per se, prior research has shown that consumers repeatedly feel bad after purchasing a luxury item. Our results indicate that the moral cleansing effect is present in our experiment. On average, participants who first indicate their WTP for a luxury product are subsequently more prone to donating money to an NGO. We could not observe a moral licensing effect at large. Both conditions lead to comparable mean WTP measures, hence to similar total potential revenues. In general, our results indicate that both parties profit the most, if donation options are available after purchase decisions.

On the one hand, organic food consumption has emerged as a rapidly growing consumption trend, juxtaposed against the unsustainability of industrialized food provisions. On the other hand, recent reports highlight that premium food consumption is one of the fastest growing luxury market segments worldwide. This paper draws on the theory of social practices in order investigate how organic food consumption can be understood as an emerging luxury fashion trend, comprised of multiple interrelated ‘nexuses of doings and sayings’ that represent the elements of, and situated within the broader context of consumer culture. In this endeavour, we have conducted a situated investigation of organic food consumption in South Korea. Our findings illustrate that Korean consumers engage in organic food consumption not merely for their superior health benefits or sustainability concerns. Instead, organic consumption conveys three distinct consumption value types – namely, functional (e.g., superior quality), experiential (e.g., feeling better about themselves because they purchase eco-friendly produce), and symbolic (e.g., allows them to convey their social status). Importantly, when these value types are taken together, they closely resemble the value derived from luxury fashion, which lead us to the conclusion that organic food consumption can be conceived as a particular type of luxury fashion trend. The paper concludes with the discussion of theoretical contributions and managerial implications.

The approach will be to study the fast evolving use of technology in fashion, especially related to creating innovative materials in the clothing business. From discussing nano technology as well as embedded sensors, we shall try to take a look at the evolution of technology in fashion garment construction. Special mention will be given to companies like Intel who are working with designers to create innovative fabrics and material prototypes. We shall also touch upon the use of technology to create unique and rare products that cannot be recreated and hence have a lot of value associated with them.

Much of the sustainability research has orientated around the production side of the business model, changing a consumer’s consumption pattern, such as extending the usage of a product and reducing the frequency of purchase and even promoting shared use, is now being recognised as a critical facet of working towards sustainability. The focus on the consumer perspective, their usage and response to alternative modes of garment use is under represented in the research to-date, which has predominantly focused on the point of design or disposal. Employing a multi-method qualitative study, this research engages with consumers to build the critical insights currently pertinent but neglected in shifting consumers towards more sustainable fashion consumption practices. Fashion management is important as evidenced by a global garment industry valued at around US $1.7 trillion and employing approximately 75 million people (Fashion United; International Labour Organisation). However, there are significant environmental costs from resource inputs, manufacture, use and disposal of clothing. This impact occurs while around only 30% of clothing, valued at around £4000, in our wardrobes was worn in the last year (Williams, 2016). Coupled with an increase in clothing purchases, this has led to the phenomena of disposing of garments that may only have been worn a few times. Disposal of clothing is a key tenet of sustainability, with high volumes of purchases propelled by discourses of “fast fashion” (Bianchi and Birtwistle, 2010) resulting in approximately one million tonnes of clothes being disposed annually in the UK (Defra, 2009). Whilst a need for consumer behaviour change is clearly identified for systemic change within fashion management, little insight is provided as to how this can be facilitated. From a production and retail perspective, sustainable clothing discussions have been appropriated into mainstream retail practice (in brands such as People Tree, Patagonia, Everlane, H&M) however one of the presented barriers of a mainstream adoption of this approach, is the lack of trust and weak incentives for consumers. With the premise of extending understandings beyond interested niche fashion groups to mainstream society, we explore tensions and opportunities in extending clothing acquisition practices towards a circular approach. Focusing on fashion consumers (considered as purchasing one fashion item per week) we carried out a multi-method ethnographic study over six months to intervene and challenge consumer fashion consumption habits. We augment the conventional model of fashion consumer behaviour of ‘buy-own-dispose’ and contribute an emergent understanding of the challenges, barriers and opportunities of sustainable clothing consumption and the implications for fashion management.

The phenomena of fashionable hijabi - headscarf-wearing women - who crowded social media has been seen in the past three years. Social media is progressively penetrating daily media using (Hinton & Hjort, 2013). Indonesian hijabis also use social media to show her creativity in styling their outfit and hijab and share it to others thus like-minded people are inspired to do the same thing too, to combine the fashion and faith. Indonesia, as the largest Muslim majority country has benefited this booming of hijab fashion in articulating the Muslim lifestyle. This trend is triggered by 30 young Muslim women who then formed Hijabers Community. One of them was Ria Miranda, who is known as one of hijab fashion movers in Indonesia, is then now a prominent Muslim fashion designer in Indonesia. Ria Miranda is actively using social media for her marketing strategy from the booming of blog, Facebook, Twitter then now Instagram and the newest one is YouTube. Her team is using many forms of social media to engange with customers. She has her own Instagram under the name @riamiranda which has more than 500.000 followers as for personal branding including her daily activities, her family story which is considered now as "family goals" and also her designer life. Her husband under the name @pandurosadi serves as her co-branding which sometimes tell a "behind-the-scene" of her designer wife's activities, his family and his romantic words to her wife. She also has an instagram as for the information about her brand named @inforiamiranda which has more than 80.000 followers. She builds a very good relationship with her customers who then claimed to be Ria Miranda Loyal Customer or RMLC. These customers are die-hard fans who always hunt her products and they also sometimes serve as word-of-mouth on their social media platform especially on Instagram. They always wear Ria Miranda’s products and post their photos under the hashtags that of Ria also uses, they also put their biodata as “Ria Miranda Loyal Customers” which becomes a pride for them. Ria Miranda uses a several hashtag to differentiate her timeline feeds and the most used ones are #riamirandastyle, #RMLC and #riamirandasale. These hashtags are also used by unofficial sellers of her products because her producst are not easy to get thus there are many people who sell their items to others. Apart from only selling her fashion products, Ria tells a story, she tells her lifestyles as her digital strategy engagement. That is what Indonesian people are looking for, a role model. Her product was once only women’s clothes but now it also ranges to accessories such as eyeglasses, necklaces, shoes and bags. It is not only designed for women but also kids and the newest one is for men. So it is a family-package brand. In 2016, she makes several activations including private preview collection show to several big cities around Indonesia that has its store branches and this program also included to invite her customers to travel together and it ended up with fashion show and bazaar. No need to explain, her products were all sold out in minutes. Other events are Ria Miranda Trend Show which is an annual event, this year is the forth time. It was held on December for two days, not only about fashion show but also talkshows about trend in fashion, beauty, e-commerce, lifestyle, music and family. Before this main event, it held several pre-events about Beauty and Make Up class and talkshows about Fashionpreneur that were also crowded by her customers. The most interesting was that it also made a challenge in Instagram called #30dailychallenges that has been used for more than 5.000 posts in Instagram. This program was about a challenge to post our photos on Instagram with several thematic topic such as about the style, hijab outfit of the day that mostly knonw as #HOTD and other daily activities related to Ria’s products and other products that are collaborated with her such as cosmetics and e-commerce. Ria can be said as a good designer in Indonesia. I have a high curiosity about how she can make her customers loyal to her and always want to buy more and more. Besides that she made a good and high quality product, her clothes are not cheap but her customers are always willing to buy and even compete to have her products. They have created many words that are only understood among them, we need a dictionary to know the meaning of them such as #PPCi, #RMLCii, #RMTSiii. I want to analyze them too. This research will employ a qualitative research method which will use more words than numbers (Stokes, 2003) with non-participants observation and visual semiotics analysis. Semiotics is the study of signs that is useful to interpreting the text (Berger, 2014; Howells, 2003; Jensen & Jankowski, 1991; Stoke, 2003). In here I will analyze the Instagram's photographs, captions and also the hashtags that contain meaning behind their usings. Globally, Instagram has reached 500 million users and Indonesia is ranked as the third countries with most users after Japan and Brazil. 89% of instagram users are between 18 – 34 years old and dominated by women with a portion of 63% (Edwin, 2016). Instagram helps designers to show their product freely and got global exposure as long as they can provide a good quality of photos. Fashion and technology are the most popular products among Indonesian Instagram users and they must have ever made a shopping experience from their Instagram’s brands they follow. Apart from that, Indonesians use instagram to find inspiration, share their travel experience and to find information about new trends. I also use in-depth interview to understand more about this brand. I have been able to interview her husband who serves as Business Development and who creates the strategy behind this brand. I want to know deeper about the digital strategy of Ria Miranda brand as it is actively using social media to engange with customers and how it creates consumer culture for fashionable hijabi. Consumer culture is simply the tendency of people who consume what is available on the market through different types of shopping platforms such as on the Internet, retail and shopping malls (Lury, 2011). This research’s goals are to examine the digital strategy of Ria Miranda and team that has been used on Instagram. I hope that this research will contribute to the way how we use social media to make a profit, share positive things and to know more about the new digital strategy. The future work will be possible to analyze about YouTube video that Ria Miranda has newly engaged with.

Prolonged observations of fashion students highlighted a limited understanding of garment construction quality, technical knowledge and skills, timescale boundaries, and a lack of confidence to experiment with construction techniques; it was the realisation of these issues which initiated a study to revitalise and enhance sewing skill capability through a purposely designed resource tool. While originally developed to be used by fashion design students the resource tool when fully developed would also be useful for craft dressmakers to develop and enhance their skills and expertise. In the fashion student context an extensive literature review substantiated the observed sewing skills which was also verified by further industry personnel through interviews. While the salient points from the literature review and interviews are given the main purpose of this paper is to outline the development stages of the proposed resource tool which was designed to serve as an aid to revitalise and enhance garment construction knowledge, skills and expertise. The resource samples were inspired by clothing collections held in two UK archives thus offering an opportunity to revitalise some of the more complex construction techniques that are no longer used in modern mainstream fashion. The usefulness of the resource tool is also given along with future developments to improve the system.

Despite its innovative and avant-garde reputation, the luxury industry initially began showing a very low commitment to new online marketing tools and it held a conservative approach to selling when compared to other sectors. Nowadays, the context has dramatically changed and luxury brands are approaching with an increasing interest social networks as well as the online selling. This research aims to clarify the current strategic approaches of the players in the different luxury markets towards the social commerce phenomenon, from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. The purpose is to test a framework that can be used to classify luxury companies’ strategies regarding social media adoptions based on actual theories on social media. Four strategies related to the social media adoption by luxury brands have been identified: the Social brand ambassadors strategy class (low promotional content percentage and low social commerce score) includes those brands that use social media for entertainment and user engagement; the Social showcases strategy (high promotional content percentage and low social commerce score) includes those brands that use their social accounts as online catalogues; the Social infotainers strategy (low promotional content percentage and high social commerce score) includes those brands that scored high in social commerce, mainly because of the provision of informative content and brand–consumer interactions, but they were linked to more entertainment-oriented actions rather than product-related ones. Finally, the Social sellers strategy (high promotional content percentage and high social commerce score) includes those brands that have integrated social commerce into their online strategies and have subsequently exploited the potential of social media to drive online and offline sales. The database is built using original data from a content analysis of 100 luxury brands’ postings on five different social media platforms – namely Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest. The total final sample included 12,132 Facebook posts, 21,216 tweets on Twitter, 1,105 YouTube videos, 10,138 Instagram pictures/videos, and 117,359 Pinterest pictures. The main findings are the following: luxury brands adopt at this stage the Social brand ambassadors and Social showcases approaches; brands belonging to the perfumery, cosmetics, jewelry and watches markets show a more developed attitude towards the social commerce; in other luxury markets, such as wine and spirits, brands still adopt a Social Brand Ambassador strategy, while managers should increase the promotional content in order develop the social commerce. The Fashion & Accessories brands show a positive relationship between the percentage of promotional content and social commerce score. This means that social commerce adoptions depend on the single brand’s strategic choices, ranging from low adoption to best practices. In general, social commerce is still not widespread; many luxury fashion brands, while presenting new collections during fashion weeks, focused on fashion shows, backstage events, and celebrities, rather than really promoting the new product lines with materials, availability, and purchasing indications. This social media approach is mainly focused on increasing brand awareness rather than increasing social commerce. If managers aim at increasing social commerce they should add direct call to action and link the contents to e-commerce market place. Automotive brands are concentrated in the Social showcases area; This sector encounters natural limitations in the introduction of social commerce due to the difficulty of selling products through the digital channel; many brands have, however, devised strategies to approach their users during the purchasing process prior to the actual transaction to take advantage of the increasing ROPO phenomenon. Conversely, the Perfumes & Cosmetics sector shows a highly fragmented approach to social commerce. The content analysis based on single post contents has shown that actually the contents are based on pictures of the products, or the brand, information on events, and a large and increasing presence of video posts based storytelling about the history of the product and the brand heritage; the most social commerce oriented posts are picture or video focused on the product. The commercial contents that aim at developing the see now, buy now approach are mainly based on video shows.

Recent research has pointed out the emergence of new online actors, especially in the domain of fashion and lifestyle—“social media influencers” or SMIs (Etter, Colleoni, Illia, Meggiorin, & D’Eugenio, forthcoming). SMIs are defined as “people who possess greater than average potential to influence others due to such attributes as frequency of communication, personal persuasiveness or size of—and centrality to—a social network.” As SMIs become professionals, with a mass audience of followers, they gain competence in generating sophisticated content such as creation of stories, videos, visuals, etc. (McQuarrie, Miller, & Phillips, 2013). As such, SMIs are tempted to leverage their online influence to partner with brands. One of the reasons brands collaborate with SMIs is that they are considered trustworthy and “one of the few forms of real, authentic communication” (Scott, 2015, p. 295). Authenticity is recognized in the marketing literature as an important attribute, as consumers increasingly desire authenticity in their products and brands (Chronis & Hampton, 2008). A notion of authenticity which has been gaining acceptance revolves around whether an individual or brand expresses their true self (Moulard, Raggio, & Folse, 2016). Holt (2002, p. 83) notes, “To be authentic, brands must be disinterested; they must be perceived as invented and disseminated by parties without an instrumental economic agenda, by people who are intrinsically motivated by their inherent value”. However, collaborating with brands may question SMIs authenticity as their inner desires to focus on products they are passionate about are challenged by commercial opportunities to showcase brands that they would not ordinary like. Their credibility might be questioned as the persuasive effect of their messages is often attributed to their perceived noncommercial nature as compared to branded advertisements. Despite growing research on influencers and acknowledged pressure of pursuing financial gains (Abidin & Ots, 2015), past research has overlooked the challenges to remain authentic when collaborating with brands. As such, our research focuses on the question: what are the strategies of SMIs to maintain authenticity while they are under commercial pressure? To answer it, we conducted a research in the context of fashion, beauty and lifestyle, as it is one of the most successful and visible domains of digital production. We analyze posts from 49 influencers participating in 9 brand campaigns that employed multiple SMIs simultaneously. These observations are complemented with 27 interviews with SMIs to understand “behind the scene” goals pursued to project this authenticity. Results suggest that SMIs implement two potentially complementary strategies expressing authenticity under commercial pressure: 1) passionate authenticity, which refers to one’s expressing of his/her inner self and being passionate even when involved in a collaboration, and 2) informational authenticity, which refers to being consistent with the facts and not lying about the partnership, the influencer or the products promoted. From a theoretical standpoint, the notion of passionate authenticity has been established in the previous literature (Moulard, et al., 2016), but we identify a new form of authenticity that we name informational authenticity. It thus extends the literature and builds on previous research to reframe the concept of authenticity (Grayson & Martinec, 2004; Morhart, Malär, Guevremont, Girardin, & Grohmann, 2015; Napoli, Dickinson, Beverland, & Farrelly, 2014). From a managerial standpoint, our findings should help SMIs manage their authenticity under threat as it suggest that they can either use Passion or Information. SMIs should be cautious to report the reality of the partnership and the product in their WOMM contents. Similarly, they should keep producing noncommercial messages about brands they are really passionate about. In the same vein, managers should be attentive to let SMIs select products in order to increase enthusiasm for the brand and minimize constraints to give room for personalized communication aligned with SMI’s style and opinions.

This paper aims to examine the effect of live streaming, recently adopted by online clothing sellers to help sell clothes on the Facebook. Drawing on the literature in retailing, adoption behavior, and e-commerce, this paper proposes the framework to test the effect on customers’ perceived values, trust, and engagement intention. When shopping online, consumers are generally concerned with legitimacy of the vendor and authenticity of products or services (Chen and Dhillon 2002). Live streaming allows shoppers to view the seller’s face and expressions, background (e.g. clothes, furniture), as well as offered products that are not pre-recorded or edited prior to being presented in the online store. Due to the spontaneous, interactive nature of live streaming, viewers ask questions and receive answers from the page in almost real time (Wang et al. 2000), and the seller can use the feedback to respond to the need of customers better. Live streaming is expected to positively affect on customer’s perceived utilitarian value (authenticity, responsiveness). By merely viewing the seller showing, wearing, or putting different clothes on a mannequin can be fun and enjoyable like viewing the fashion show. Live streaming is expected to positively affect on customer’s perceived hedonic value (enjoyment). The act of shopping can also provide a symbolic benefit, as customers express their personal values, identity, self through the shopping experience (Chandon et al., 2000). Given that live streaming is not prevalent and used by general users, customers who participate in the live streaming may be perceived that they are innovative. Live streaming by possibly affecting customer hedonic, utilitarian, and symbolic value would be likely to positively affect trust and engagement intention. Trust can refer to the extent to which customers believe the web site is legal, ethical and credible and can protect their privacy(Wan, 2000). Trust can lead to positive feelings towards the online seller, and in turn can increase intention to revisit and purchase from the site (Chiu et al. 2009). Engaged people are generally those visiting the site frequently, spend substantial time on the site, and have many page views (Calder, Malthouse, and Schaedel 2009). The relationship of live streaming, and perceived values (customer hedonic, utilitarian, and symbolic value), trust, and engagement intention will be tested by conducting the survey with about 400 online shoppers. The data will be analyzed using the structural equation modeling. Results are expected to provide implications for the use of live streaming for online shopping. The study aims to examine the process underlying the effects of livestreaming on consumer trust and engagement. Livestreaming has potentials to bridge the gap between traditional and online shopping, allowing sellers and shoppers distant in space to interact and smoothening the online shopping experiences.

Food has become a significant lifestyle and life quality generator, and consumers are increasingly developing food regimes with expectations of healthier, happier selves. The global food industry has turned to delivering towards these expectations, and functional foods form a significant multimillion dollar growth category. Fortified with added health-giving compounds, these foods are promoted as the modern, convenient way of obtaining health benefits from food intake itself, rather than from the use of vitamin supplements (Grunert, 2013). However, there are indications that their appeal and usage varies considerably across nations. Somewhat surprisingly, few studies have considered functional food consumption through a culturally mediated lens, as consumption entities used to convey and transfer meaning. This research explores personal meaning making for one such proposed functional food concept. Foods which are fortified to enable greater control over hunger control are currently under development as potentially assisting those seeking weight loss. The data consisted of 14 in-depth phenomenological interviews with New Zealand women who were attempting weight loss. Participants discussed their lived food and weight loss experiences and then freely responded to the weight loss foods concept. The findings reveal the omnipresent nature of weight loss practices in daily lives, with the perception of success, or failure, sometimes underpinning one’s sense of self. As found by Willis & Knobloch-Westerwick (2014), motivations for weight loss were dominated by appearance and body image concerns, driven by the continuation of persistent societal expectations privileging thinness. Extending this, the present research found a conflation of motivations where slimness was seen to equate to healthiness. A line of progression in the types of practices was revealed where many ‘fad diets’ were attempted with typically unsuccessful long term results. Although, healthism was internalised as an overriding way of thinking about food and weight loss practices, paradoxically, this often co-existed with the desire for foods of indulgence, especially for those identifying as emotional eaters. Vastly different dispositions were revealed towards the proposed innovation of the fortified weight loss foods. These were interpreted as being aligned with perceptions of identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Whilst the overall fortification of foods was viewed negatively, risks and doubts were mitigated in some cases in the interest of trying the proposed foods. The research findings resonated with societal contradictions observed for food consumption (Warde 1997), and paradoxes specifically theorised for technology (Mick & Fournier, 1998). Although, technology has been theorised to be a positive enabler in consumers’ lives, offering feelings of freedom, competence, and control, it can also be regarded as an intrusion, leading to feelings of enslavement and incompetence (Mick & Fournier, 1998). Whilst there was the promise of enhanced health and wellness from a bio-technological innovation, this contradicted central beliefs about what it means to be healthy, where food for many consumers represents values of naturalness, purity, nostalgia, and simplicity (Barsky, 1988; Biltekoff, 2010). Implications of the research for functional foods marketers are outlined, advocating the need for continuing understanding of the paradoxical aspects of consumption in contemporary health contexts.

Given the recent modest growth of the personal luxury good market and the urge to face difficulties through innovative brands’ marketing communication strategies, this paper examines the potentialities of tactical associations between luxury fashion brands and furniture design. Results indicate that there can be positive repercussions deriving from luxury fashion brands and furniture design interconnections. In particular, associations with collectable furniture design may help to define and enhance brands’ luxury values whilst providing consumers with innovative and creative luxury brand experiences. Future expectations in this market show a compound annual rate (CAGR) of 3% to 4% through 2020, to just about €280 billion. This is dramatically slower than the past fast growth experienced from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s. In this scenario, luxury fashion managers and marketers must envision new strategies to succeed and surpass competition. In order to be competitive and successful, luxury brand managers must take into account current market dynamics and find pertinent and substantial solutions. This paper shifts its attention to the identification of how in such a difficult scenario different cultural industries can meet in order to mutually enhance their circuits of value. Some studies have demonstrated that in order to meet such new global challenges, luxury fashion firms may discover strategic opportunities in art (Codignola, 2016). Given their symbolic connotation and aesthetic value, high-end furniture design items are more and more perceived as art works exchanged in art auctions or fairs, collected and purchased by collectors, exhibited in galleries or museums. At the same time, furniture design goods show some divergences from conventional art works (i.e. functionality, reproducibility, etc.) and some correspondences with fashion goods. By observing the luxury fashion sector, one may then find--for different sets of reasons--more than one interesting intersection with the furniture design sector. By taking into account the furniture design sector within its specific market features and goods, this paper argues that through furniture design LFBs can develop engaging creative and innovative brands’ marketing communication strategies. Compared to art, such strategies would be able to add value and strengthen LFBs’ luxury features even in a more effective way.

The willingness to actively contribute to more sustainability bares important challenges for managers who must take strategic decisions. The literature about corporate social responsibility has developed in many directions, with often a divide in focus, between society (Acquier & Aggeri, 2015) or corporate sustainability and responsibility (Bansal & Song, 2017). The paper sits at the intersection of these fields by focusing on the question of ethical dilemmas. The objective is to approach the question of ethics in context, through the trade-offs that managers are facing when taking strategic decisions to build sustainable business models, to discuss the contours of the ethical competences at work. The paper focuses on a specific context, the one of successful pure players of sustainability in the luxury fashion industry. It means first that we leave aside the question of organizational change to analyze the core dilemmas that even new actors that start from scratch must face. These pure players could also be named “social entrepreneurs” (Elkington & Hartigan, 2008) or “elegant disrupters” (Bendell & Thomas, 2013). Second, by focusing on luxury fashion we locate our analysis in an industry where the nature of the activity is both a source of salient controversies and of exemplary practices (Kapferer, 2010; Godart & Seong, 2014), two aspects that have the potential to make visible some dilemmas. We focus on a small number of cases of organizations that we selected per criteria of similarities and differences, to allow for an inductive in-depth comparative case study (Yin, 2009). The four organizations are: a producer of yak products, a fur recycling company, a fur auction house and a digital platform for emerging designers. The cases are similar in that each organization is a successful promoter of sustainable practices. The four cases however differ in that each puts at the core of the business model different types of sustainability issues and is based at a different level of the value chain (sourcing, fabrication, intermediation and market access). Also, the four organizations differ in the degree to which they aim to disrupt existing practices in the luxury fashion industry. Data were collected through a series of interviews and complementary press articles, websites and reports. Data analysis proceeds in two steps. We start by narrating each case through the voice of the organization, to describe and understand the rationale behind each business model. We then further our interpretation of the cases through a comparative analysis by systematically recording the tensions or contradictions. Each firm organizes the activity around key engaging choices that promote sustainability but do not lift some inbuilt dilemmas–labelled as: sustainability vs. luxury fashion, sustainability vs. sustainability, and sustainability today vs. tomorrow. The paper highlights how innovative players can openly discuss some dilemmas, approaching sustainability as a story they care about but also as a debate. Yet, the paper also points to the fact that some dilemmas may remain harder to reflect upon, especially the ones that can counter in the long-run the objectives that were at the base of the business. Some questions as the one of growth, in time and scale, might push far the reflexive ability but it is also where ethical competences might be the most needed.