Leonie Lynch, Maurice Patterson and Caoilfhionn Ní Bheacháin
This paper aims to consider the visual literacy mobilized by consumers in their use of brand aesthetics to construct and communicate a curated self.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to consider the visual literacy mobilized by consumers in their use of brand aesthetics to construct and communicate a curated self.
Design/methodology/approach
The research surveyed a range of visual material from Instagram. Specifically, the goal was to use “compositional interpretation”, an approach to visual analysis that is not methodologically explicit but which, in itself, draws upon the visual literacy of the researcher to provide a descriptive analysis of the formal visual quality of images as distinct from their symbolic resonances. The research also incorporates 10 phenomenological-type interviews with consumers. Consistent with a phenomenological approach, informants were selected because they have “lived” the experience under investigation, in this case requiring them to be keen consumers of the Orla Kiely brand.
Findings
Findings indicate that consumers deploy their visual literacy in strategic visualization (imaginatively planning and coordinating artifacts with other objects in their collection, positioning and using them as part of an overall visual repertoire), composition (becoming active producers of images) and emergent design (turning design objects into display pieces, repurposing design objects or simply borrowing brand aesthetics to create designed objects of their own).
Research limitations/implications
This research has implications for the understanding of visual literacy within consumer culture. Engaging comprehensively with the visual compositions of consumers, this research moves beyond brand symbolism, semiotics or concepts of social status to examine the self-conscious creation of a curated self. The achievement of such a curated self depends on visual literacy and the deployment of abstract design language by consumers in the pursuit of both aesthetic satisfaction and social communication.
Practical implications
This research has implications for brand designers and managers in terms of how they might control or manage the use of brand aesthetics by consumers.
Originality/value
To date, there has been very little consumer research that explores the nature of visual literacy and even less that offers an empirical investigation of this concept within the context of brand aesthetics. The research moves beyond brand symbolism, semiotics and social status to consider the deployment of abstract visual language in communicating the curated self.
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Leonie Boland, Michelle Kennedy, Lauren Jane Lynch, Meabh Bonham-Corcoran and Sarah Quinn
Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence-based employment model, effective in supporting individuals with severe mental health difficulties to gain competitive…
Abstract
Purpose
Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence-based employment model, effective in supporting individuals with severe mental health difficulties to gain competitive employment. Irish mental health policy recognises its value and IPS is being rolled out in a national programme. Employment is recognised an important contributor to mental health recovery and social inclusion. However, research on IPS has tended to focus on competitive job outcomes. The purpose of this study was to explore the non-vocational outcomes of IPS in an Irish context.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research approach was used to interview participants taking part in IPS within community mental health teams. Twelve interviews were included in the data analysis process which was informed by a thematic analysis approach.
Findings
Participants experienced increased confidence and positivity, both within a work context and whilst job seeking. More purposeful time use, participation in activities and engagement with society were also experienced by those employed and those at the job search stage of IPS.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature about the non-vocational benefits of IPS within an Irish context, highlights the mental health recovery benefits of taking part in IPS and supports the need for ongoing development of IPS throughout mental health services in Ireland.
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Guido Caniglia, Beatrice John, Martin Kohler, Leonie Bellina, Arnim Wiek, Christopher Rojas, Manfred D. Laubichler and Daniel Lang
This paper aims to present an experience-based learning framework that provides a bottom-up, student-centered entrance point for the development of systems thinking, normative and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present an experience-based learning framework that provides a bottom-up, student-centered entrance point for the development of systems thinking, normative and collaborative competencies in sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
The framework combines mental mapping with exploratory walking. It interweaves mapping and walking activities with methodological and theoretical inputs as well as with reflections and discussions. The framework aligns experiential activities, i.e. mental mapping and walking, with learning objectives, i.e. novice-level sustainability competencies. The authors applied the framework for student activities in Phoenix/Tempe and Hamburg/Lüneburg as part of The Global Classroom, a project between Arizona State University in the USA and Leuphana University of Lüneburg in Germany.
Findings
The application of the experience-based learning framework demonstrates how students started developing systems thinking (e.g. understanding urban systems as functional entities and across different domains), normative (e.g. using different sustainability principles) and collaborative (e.g. learning across disciplinary, social and cultural differences) competencies in sustainability.
Originality/value
The experience-based learning framework contributes to the development of curricular activities for the initial development of sustainability competencies in introductory-level courses. It enables students from different disciplinary, social and cultural backgrounds, e.g. in international education, to collaboratively start developing such competencies. The framework can be adapted to different educational contexts.
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The contemporary city is a field with a myriad of problems that require deep reflection and the questioning of habitual ways of thinking and acting. This chapter examines some of…
Abstract
The contemporary city is a field with a myriad of problems that require deep reflection and the questioning of habitual ways of thinking and acting. This chapter examines some of these, while seeking a path – or perhaps a way out – in order to deal with the difficulties linked to the most pressing emergent phenomena: the multiplication of new citizens, the complicated mosaic of differences, the spread of voluntary communities and the requests for recognition in a socially diverse and multiple society.
The reflections brought together in this chapter leave behind mundane literary routines, imprisoned in the clichés of the discourse on post-modernity, to single out a ‘field of practices’ that is enigmatic but at the same time constitutes and generates a new idea of urbanity. DiverCity (Perrone, 2010) is the literary and evocative figuration that recounts this set of practices. The figuration uses a ‘play on words’ between diversity and city, in which the two concepts are understood as entities with a one-to-one correspondence, an ontological interconnection. DiverCity is the outcome of a process to produce and exchange multiple, plural, interactive (built up during the action), expert and experiential knowledge.
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Leonie Bowles and Lisa Ruhanen
Establishing a shared understanding of the environment and sustainable development between stakeholders should be fundamental to the raison d'être of ecotourism businesses…
Abstract
Purpose
Establishing a shared understanding of the environment and sustainable development between stakeholders should be fundamental to the raison d'être of ecotourism businesses. Indeed, many will begin ecotourism businesses with the objective of sharing their own personal environmental ethics and values with their customers through the tourism experience. Yet it is not always the business owner that interacts with the customer, the organisations’ employees will also interact with the guest and are thus responsible for communicating the environmental ethics and values that underpin the business. The purpose of this paper is to explore how ecotourism business owners ensure that their employees convey their environmental ethics and values to their customers. So how do ecotourism business owners ensure that employees convey their environmental ethics and values to their customers?
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reports on the findings of interviews with 18 eco-tourism business owners in Australia who sought to examine their strategies for disseminating environmental ethics and values with the organisation’s employees.
Findings
It was found that strategic recruitment to attract like-minded employees was important which was reinforced through education, training and mentoring to develop an organisational culture underpinned by shared values and responsibility.
Originality/value
This study has contributed to the growing body of literature focused on the supply side of ecotourism businesses. It has addressed a gap in our understanding by specifically investigating the strategies that ecotourism business owners adopt to disseminate their personal environmental ethics and values to their employees.
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Tom Baum, Leonie Lockstone-Binney and Martin Robertson
The aim of this opinion piece is to seek to cast a critical eye over the event studies field to chart its progress as an emerging area of study, relative to its close relations…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this opinion piece is to seek to cast a critical eye over the event studies field to chart its progress as an emerging area of study, relative to its close relations tourism, hospitality and leisure.
Design/methodology/approach
Viewpoint approach.
Findings
The paper highlights various challenges that event educators and researchers face in advancing event studies to discipline status.
Originality/value
It is timely that, as the quantum of event research and the number of event management education programmes surge, those involved in the field engage in greater critical introspection. This opinion piece attempts to provide such a reflective insight, which has been largely absent from the event studies literature to date.
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Birgit Muskat, Leonie Lockstone-Binney, Faith Ong and Maike Andresen
The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrative conceptual framework of the “talented hospitality entrepreneur”. In doing so, the authors address the current lack of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrative conceptual framework of the “talented hospitality entrepreneur”. In doing so, the authors address the current lack of understanding of talent at the individual entrepreneurial level and the lack of integration between the talent and entrepreneurship literatures and specifically consider the hospitality context.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper systematically synthesizes the extant literature and links key concepts within talent management, entrepreneurship, hospitality and human resource management to develop a model of the talented hospitality entrepreneur.
Findings
Seven propositions emerge from the literature synthesis, and the integrative conceptual model is developed to define the individual antecedents of the talented hospitality entrepreneur and their outcomes for success.
Originality/value
To date, understanding of the individual level of talent has been neglected in the management literature. The quandary is that the extant literature on talent has focused on the management of talent at an organizational level, while the entrepreneurship literature has concentrated on spatial macro-level effects. Further, the notion of talent in hospitality literature remains underexplored. Adopting an inclusive view of talent, the authors offer a new integrative framework explaining the constituencies of talent for hospitality entrepreneurs and an associated research agenda.
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Jane Bailey, Nicola Henry and Asher Flynn
While digital technologies have led to many important social and cultural advances worldwide, they also facilitate the perpetration of violence, abuse and harassment, known as…
Abstract
While digital technologies have led to many important social and cultural advances worldwide, they also facilitate the perpetration of violence, abuse and harassment, known as technology-facilitated violence and abuse (TFVA). TFVA includes a spectrum of behaviors perpetrated online, offline, and through a range of technologies, including artificial intelligence, livestreaming, GPS tracking, and social media. This chapter provides an overview of TFVA, including a brief snapshot of existing quantitative and qualitative research relating to various forms of TFVA. It then discusses the aims and contributions of this book as a whole, before outlining five overarching themes arising from the contributions. The chapter concludes by mapping out the structure of the book.