Eileen Fischer, Ahir Gopaldas and Daiane Scaraboto
Interpretive consumer researchers frequently devote months, if not years, to writing a new paper. Despite their best efforts, the vast majority of these papers are rejected by top…
Abstract
Purpose
Interpretive consumer researchers frequently devote months, if not years, to writing a new paper. Despite their best efforts, the vast majority of these papers are rejected by top academic journals. This paper aims to explain some of the key reasons that scholarly articles are rejected and illuminate how to reduce the likelihood of rejection.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a dialogical collaboration between a co-editor of the Journal of Consumer Research and two junior scholars who represent the intended audience of this paper. Each common reason for rejecting papers, labeled as Problems 1-8, is followed by precautionary measures and detailed examples, labeled as solutions.
Findings
The paper offers eight pieces of advice on the construction of interpretive consumer research articles: (1) Clearly indicate which theoretical conversation your paper is joining as early as possible. (2) Join a conversation that belongs in your target journal. (3) Conclude your review of the conversation with gaps, problems and questions. (4) Only ask research questions that your data can answer. (5) Build your descriptive observations about contexts into theoretical claims about concepts. (6) Explain both how things are and why things are the way that they are. (7) Illustrate your theoretical claims with data and support them with theoretical argumentation. (8) Advance the theoretical conversation in a novel and radical way.
Originality/value
The goal of this paper is to help interpretive consumer researchers, especially junior scholars, publish more papers in top academic journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research.
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Daiane Scaraboto, Stefânia Ordovás de Almeida and João Pedro dos Santos Fleck
The purpose of this study is to explain how online brand communities work to support the denormalization of controversial (i.e. illegal yet normalized) gaming practices.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explain how online brand communities work to support the denormalization of controversial (i.e. illegal yet normalized) gaming practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study was characterized by long-term immersion in an online brand community for Brazilian Xbox gamers. The dataset includes online and offline interactions with community members, interviews, and online archival data.
Findings
This study shows how online brand community members promoted legal gaming in a market where piracy was prevalent. It demonstrates how community members worked to establish coherence; engaged in cognitive participation; developed collective action that extended beyond the community; and reflected on their own work.
Research limitations/implications
This study identifies online brand communities as a potential ally in combating controversial practices in online gaming; complements individual and behavioral approaches in explaining why consumers adopt controversial practices in online environments; and adds a normalization framework to the toolkit of Internet researchers.
Practical implications
This study identifies ways in which the potential of online brand communities can be leveraged to reduce consumer adherence to controversial gaming practices through denormalizing these and normalizing alternative practices that may be more desirable to companies and other stakeholders.
Originality/value
This long-term, qualitative study inspired by normalization process theory offers an innovative perspective on the online practices of consumers who engage with a brand in ways that create value for themselves and for the brand.
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Daiane Scaraboto, Marcia Christina Ferreira and Emily Chung
The purpose of this study is to examine the interplay between the curatorial practices of consumers as collectors and the materiality of the collected objects. In particular, this…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the interplay between the curatorial practices of consumers as collectors and the materiality of the collected objects. In particular, this study explores how the material substances of collected objects shapes curatorial practices and how the ongoing use of the collected objects challenges curatorial practices.
Methodology/approach
Taking advantage of the publicization of once-private collections on social media, we collect 111 YouTube videos created by plastic shoe aficionados. Drawing from visual anthropology and theorizations of materiality, we analyze consumer interactions with the objects they collect.
Findings
This study’s findings elucidate consumers’ interactions with the material substances of the objects they collect and demonstrate how these interactions shape the ways in which consumers curate their collections, including how they wear, care for, catalog, and display the collected objects.
Research implications
Our findings have implications for theorization on consumer collections, consumer identity, and consumer participation in brand communities and are relevant for consumer researchers who study the interactions and relationships between consumers and consumption objects.
Originality/value
This study is the first to re-examine consumers as collectors to extend and update consumer research on the curatorial practices of physical, wearable collectibles. This study sets the foundations for further research to advance our understanding of consumers as collectors as well as to illuminate other theories and aspects of consumer research that consider consumer–object interactions.
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Bernardo Figueiredo, Nacima Ourahmoune, Pilar Rojas, Severino J. N. Pereira, Daiane Scaraboto and Marcia Christina Ferreira
Abstract
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Rodrigo Guesalaga, Meghan Pierce and Daiane Scaraboto
– The purpose of this paper is to explore cultural sources of variation on consumers’ expectations and evaluations of service quality within local emerging markets.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore cultural sources of variation on consumers’ expectations and evaluations of service quality within local emerging markets.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employ a multi-method approach. The multi-method research design utilizes: first, netnography to examine foreign consumers’ blogs and online communities; second, interviews with local and foreign consumers to unveil critical incidents in service encounters; and third, an online survey of 139 foreign consumers living in Chile and 460 Chilean consumers to map differences in their expectations and evaluations of services.
Findings
A general analysis of local and foreign consumers living in an emerging market reveals that these two groups do not differ significantly in their expectations of service quality. The authors also find that differences in expectations and evaluations of service quality within a local emergent market are only partially explained by aggregating consumers according to their country or region of origin. Finally, the findings demonstrate that examining cultural differences at the individual level generates a better understanding of how cultural factors impact consumer expectations and evaluations of service quality within emerging markets.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited to one emerging market (Chile) and focusses largely in one industry (banking). Further research should be conducted to examine the findings in other contexts, including developed markets, and to identify how other cultural differences (e.g. language mastery) within local markets may impact consumer expectations and evaluations of services.
Practical implications
Service companies operating in emerging markets should account for cultural differences when determining service standards and protocols. These differences may cut across the local-foreign divide and suggest that profiling foreign customers depending on their country of origin is not the most adequate approach for providing excellence in service and enjoying the benefits that follow.
Social implications
Foreign consumers living in a local market are frequently considered a homogeneous group distinct from local consumers, and are treated as such by public and private service providers. The study demonstrates that foreign consumers may be more or less similar to local consumers depending on their cultural values, and should not be considered as a uniform group.
Originality/value
The findings extend research on consumer expectations and evaluations of service quality to account for cultural diversity within local emerging markets. The authors demonstrate that a cluster-approach to examining consumer expectations and evaluations of service quality better accounts for variations due to cultural values within local markets.
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This paper aims to illuminate the characteristics of Analytic and Continental scholarship to generate a deeper appreciation for both writing styles in the consumer culture theory…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to illuminate the characteristics of Analytic and Continental scholarship to generate a deeper appreciation for both writing styles in the consumer culture theory (CCT) community.
Design/methodology/approach
Two CCT researchers discuss the merits of Analytic and Continental scholarship in an accessible dialogical format.
Findings
Analytic ideals of scholarship, espoused by elite academic journals, include conceptual rigor, logical claims, theoretical coherence, researcher agnosticism and broad generalizability. Continental ideals of scholarship, more likely to be espoused by niche and/or critical journals, include creative writing, holistic interpretation, intellectual imagination, political provocation and deep contextualization.
Originality/value
This dialogue may build more understanding across variously oriented scholars, literatures, and journals in the CCT community.
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Richard Kedzior, Douglas E. Allen and Jonathan Schroeder
The purpose of this paper is to outline the contributions presented in this special section on the selfie phenomenon and its significance for marketing practice and scholarship.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline the contributions presented in this special section on the selfie phenomenon and its significance for marketing practice and scholarship.
Design/methodology/approach
The significance of the topic is reviewed and themes related to the selfie phenomenon and marketplace issues are discussed in connection with extant research. The contributions of each paper are briefly highlighted and discussed.
Findings
Although the selfie is a relatively new phenomenon, both marketing practice and scholarship have noticed its prominence in consumer lives and potential for generating marketplace insights. Despite its frequently presumed triviality, the selfie is a multifaceted phenomenon of significance to key marketing areas such as branding, consumer behavior or market research. Possible avenues for future research are outlined.
Originality/value
Key issues relating to research into the selfie phenomenon for marketing scholars are illuminated.
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– This paper aims to offer junior scholars a front-to-back guide to writing an academic, theoretically positioned, qualitative research article in the social sciences.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer junior scholars a front-to-back guide to writing an academic, theoretically positioned, qualitative research article in the social sciences.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on formal (published) advice from books and articles as well as informal (word-of-mouth) advice from senior scholars.
Findings
Most qualitative research articles can be divided into four major parts: the frontend, the methods, the findings, and the backend. This paper offers step-by-step instructions for writing each of these four parts.
Originality/value
Much of the advice in this paper is taken-for-granted wisdom among senior scholars. This paper makes such wisdom available to junior scholars in a concise guide.