Despite the increasing popularity of spiritual tourism, there has not yet been an effort to provide an overview of the growing body of research. Addressing this void, this study employs a systematic literature review of 45 articles to highlight the state of knowledge and important gaps in the field.
Over the last decade, the sharing economy that covers systems of organised sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping among communities of peers on Internet platforms has emerged as a major disruptive pattern in capitalist economies (Botsman and Rogers, 2010). Prior research on the sharing economy has mainly concentrated on young, well-educated urban users and therefore particularly underlined “noble” motivations for participation, such as hedonic, environmental, and political reasons. This research looks beyond this “hipster” view of sharing entrepreneurs and focuses on French deprived mothers who use peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms to survive. Drawing on the literature on subsistence markets in developing countries (e.g., Viswanathan et al., 2014), it investigates Facebook buy-and-sell groups as a new form of subsistence markets in developed countries. Using a multi-method approach involving in-depth interviews, netnography, and participatory observation on Facebook buy-and-sell groups, it more particularly explores how Facebook specific digital features participate in these emerging markets. The findings indicate that subsistence markets’ emergence in developed countries on Facebook is founded on new digital features that (re)create structural, cognitive and relational forms of social capital. This research thus offers interesting contributions and implications for public policy makers engaged in the regulation of the sharing economy.
Sociocultural and demographic shifts have resulted in a changing perception of older age. Older women, historically subjected to age-ordering rules of dress, have increasingly refused to be marginalized fashion consumers and have been striving to construct a more positive age identity. Although studies have examined consumers’ negotiation of marginalized identities, age identity has not received much attention as a type of marginalized identity. This study argues that Pinterest acts as a platform for identity work by allowing older women to creatively reconstruct their sense of self by saving images and organizing them into thematic boards. Drawing on symbolic interactionism theory and notions of digital self-presentation, this paper seeks to explore the discursive practices that older women employ on Pinterest to resist ageist fashion discourses. The sample consisted of 15 fashion-oriented Pinterest profiles of older women. Netnographic inquiry was employed first to examine what images were saved and what thematic boards were created. Three analytical frameworks for visual data analysis were integrated to further scrutinize the visual texts within the thematic boards. The analyses revealed three main themes-rejecting age, accepting age, and consuming age. The themes that emerged formed the basis for an age identity reconstruction process whereby women attempted to bridge the existing gap between older age and mainstream fashion discourse.
Online advertisers use multiple channels to reach consumers on the Internet. However, little is known on the interplay between online advertising channels. To fill this gap, this study provides a comprehensive overview of interaction effects in online advertising for individual consumers, including not only site visits, but also exposures that do not directly lead to a click. Based on a large cookie-based individual-level data set the authors analyze interaction effects within and between channel groups on purchase behavior. By classifying online marketing channels along the dimensions of initiation locus and previous brand awareness, they find significant interactions between contacts within and across channel types. While clicks following contacts in customer-initiated channels that require brand awareness overall have a negative effect on purchase propensity, previous clicks in firm-initiated channels positively interact with clicks in customer-initiated channels. The results can help managers to coordinate marketing strategies, optimize campaigns, and develop individualized marketing and targeting approaches.
One of the central problems for today's philosophy is elucidation roles of individuals and communities in history. For modern researchers it is stress-free to keep a clear divided line between them, as well as between religious and secular, communalist and nationalist and etc. Such approach becoming a recognized problem and I want to suggest that one way of shedding light on the issue may lie in widening sphere of philosophical discourse on mind, without making simplistic distinctions between rational and irrational in history. At this context would be right to recognize that culture creates the human mind. Once this done, it becomes less complicated to evaluate not just the pass history but also the current socio-political trends of modern development, including Central-Asian. At this context I propose to stress role of communitarian mind and it's oppositions\links with today's nationalism in the region. Community-based social structures managed to survive for a long Central-Asian history. Islam as a dominant religion managed to accept communal diversity as a natural law here. Such frame is particularly observable since Central-Asian Muslims succeeded to develop and keep unique TurkishPersian (settled-nomad) cultural synthesis. However today we have heating up problems among all five modern Central Asian states (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Turkmenistan) and most experts could not able to have clear explanations on today's brinkmanship (borders, water, migrants and etc.). But on the roots of conflict is ignoring communitarian mind and accepting nationalism.
Sintering behavior of the Fe-0.8Mn-0.5C powder system was studied on the specimens with a density of ~7.0 g/cc sintered at 11200C for 30 min in a gas mixture of 7%H2/93%N2 with the inlet dew point of -600C. During the atmosphere monitoring (CO/CO2-content and dew point) was showed, that carbothermical reduction occurs in two different temperature ranges; three peaks of dew point profile also can be distinguished during sintering cycle as well. Following sintering the Mn-content distribution and microstructures around the Mn-source were micro-analytical evaluated; the results showed that manganese travels through porous iron matrix up to ~60 μm.