Amélie Clauzel, Nathalie Guichard and Coralie Damay
From experiences recollections, this study aims to explore the place of emotions in the souvenir’s step of the family consumption process of luxury hotels stays.
Abstract
Purpose
From experiences recollections, this study aims to explore the place of emotions in the souvenir’s step of the family consumption process of luxury hotels stays.
Design/methodology/approach
To explore the emotional dimension, this exploratory research is based on a triple qualitative approach (software, manual and a psychology-based approach). In total, 1,055 e-reviews, following a family stay in four- and five-star hotels, were collected.
Findings
The findings highlight an omnipresent emotional dimension in the recollections of experiences of consumers who have travelled with their families. These emotional traces differ according to the hotel’s positioning. Overall, positive emotions are much more prominent in the most luxurious hotels, while negative emotions are more related to the four-star hotels. Moreover, the four-star hotels reviews mainly associate emotions with the tangible aspects of the offer. Those in five-star hotels are more structured through intangible aspects.
Research limitations/implications
The study of family decision-making dynamic, with a focus on the role of each family member, is a first perspective. That of experiences recollections apart from the digital approach is also to be considered.
Practical implications
On the one hand, the objective is to extend the literature about the role of emotions in a service consumption process, and especially in a family context, trying to understand the post-purchase step of these customers. On the other hand, it is interesting for hotel managers to identify to which aspects of the offer (e.g. comfort, room, catering, decoration) the emotional traces that have remained in the customers’ memory are associated.
Originality/value
This study considers the family unit in a new way, that of its emotional memories’ traces of luxury hotels experiences. The post-consumer stage of the purchase process based on many spontaneous online reviews analysis is investigated.
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Olivier Badot, Joel Bree, Coralie Damay, Nathalie Guichard, Jean Francois Lemoine and Max Poulain
The purpose of this paper is to identify the representations, figures and processes of shopping/commerce in books published in France that are aimed at three to seven-year-olds.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the representations, figures and processes of shopping/commerce in books published in France that are aimed at three to seven-year-olds.
Design/methodology/approach
A semiotic analysis of nearly 50 books published over the past 60 years.
Findings
These books reveal a broad diversity in the images of shops given to children (ranging from the traditional shop, a source of pleasure and creator of social ties, to the hypermarket/megastore, a symbol of stress and overconsumption) and the wealth of information that is given to children to help them assimilate the process of a shopping transaction.
Originality/value
The originality and richness of this research lies in its methodological approach. Indeed, it is perfectly aligned with a recent academic trend that calls on researchers to mobilise and compare new data collection tools to apprehend current and future consumer behaviour. Consequently this research is based on an immersion in children’s books that depict the world of commerce in one way or another.
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Coralie Damay, Nathalie Guichard and Amélie Clauzel
– This research aims to evaluate young consumers’ knowledge of everyday product prices. Despite a large body of research on the child as consumer, few studies examine price.
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to evaluate young consumers’ knowledge of everyday product prices. Despite a large body of research on the child as consumer, few studies examine price.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs a quantitative methodology and administered questionnaires that target a sample of 224 primary school French children.
Findings
The various employed measures help shed light on the pricing aspect of children’s consumption processes. In particular, the results show that although price recall is relatively weak, children become familiar with the order of price magnitudes and classify products according to their price level.
Research limitations/implications
A future research could integrate that the children should be affected by internal reference price in the various tasks. Future studies could introduce other variables in the tests, such as children’s commercial experience and their experience with the stores they know.
Practical implications
Firms should adapt their pricing strategies to the expectations of children, not only adults or parents, both for the products that directly pertain to them and for those they might recommend. This research offers managers additional insights into how to communicate about prices, taking into account current customer heterogeneity.
Originality/value
Realized measurements reflect children’s capacities to react to the prices of mass-consumed goods and clarify whether the child is able to identify or reduce his consideration set among some alternatives of choice according to his price knowledge level.
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Valérie Hemar‐Nicolas, Pascale Ezan, Mathilde Gollety, Nathalie Guichard and Julie Leroy
Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's ecological model, this research aims to investigate the interweaving of the socialization systems within which children learn eating practices, in…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's ecological model, this research aims to investigate the interweaving of the socialization systems within which children learn eating practices, in order to open up new paths to build prevention and care programs against childhood obesity.
Design/methodology/approach
Children were interviewed using semi‐structured interviews, including projective methods. The data were analyzed by both a manual content analysis and the use of qualitative analysis software Nvivo. Nvivo enables to cross verbatim and contributes to highlight the joint effects of socialization agents in terms of children's eating learning.
Findings
The study clarifies the interrelationships between social contexts in which children learn food practices. It points out that the different social spheres may sometimes exert contradictory influences and that food learning cannot be limited to the transmission of nutritional information, but also involves emotional and social experiences.
Social implications
By showing that eating habits stem from complex processes, the research suggests measures against children's obesity that take into account the interrelationships between social contexts. It invites the policymakers and the food companies to implement actions based on social relationships involved in food learning.
Originality/value
Whereas the traditional consumer socialization models focus on interactions between child and one socialization agent, this research's findings shed light on the entanglement of social spheres concerning eating socialization. They show that using a social‐ecological approach is useful to policymakers, researchers, marketers, and other constituencies involved in developing solutions to the obesity problem.
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Mathilde Gollety and Nathalie Guichard
The aim of this paper is, by using a semiotic approach to marketing, to evaluate the role of color and its influence on the choice behavior of children with regard to products…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is, by using a semiotic approach to marketing, to evaluate the role of color and its influence on the choice behavior of children with regard to products where flavor is represented by color.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was carried out as an experiment with children aged between 7 and 11 years of age.
Findings
The study showed that the color codes of the market are not used very much by children to make their product choice and also that the influences of metonymical logic (color of the component responsible for the flavor) and aesthetics (favorite color) dominate this choice. In a choice situation, flavor preference prevails more often over color preference.
Originality/value
From an academic point of view, this paper informs the studies in sensory marketing used in the children's market. In particular, it enhances the work on the impact of color on children's decision‐making process. From a methodological point of view, it adds to the range of experimental designs used to research the child target.
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Coralie Damay, Nathalie Guichard and Amélie Clauzel
This paper seeks to examine how young consumers attribute and select product prices according to their presentation (i.e. format and ending).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to examine how young consumers attribute and select product prices according to their presentation (i.e. format and ending).
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire, administered to a sample of children between six and 12 years of age, reveals that children's allocation of prices and children's choices depend on different price formats (i.e. non‐decimal versus decimal prices and varied price endings).
Findings
Children tend to prefer round prices and to choose a 0‐ending in the decimal portion of decimal prices. However, their preferences also depend on their position as either a salesperson or a buyer.
Originality/value
Research into the relationship between children and price is a relatively new field. This study uses recent works as a basis and extends the field with new insights.
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Gabriel Etogo, Etgard Manga Engama and Théophile Serge Nomo
The purpose of this paper is to question gender identities as the basis for a differentialist conception of how to conceive and practice corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to question gender identities as the basis for a differentialist conception of how to conceive and practice corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Design/methodology/approach
This study has used a qualitative approach to study five paths of small and medium-sized entreprises (SMEs) female entrepreneurs. This study selected female entrepreneurs who can bring us rich material, which highlights the relationship between the concepts of gender identity and CSR practices. In this perspective, this study has retained five “revealing” cases.
Findings
By establishing a break with the ontological experience that contributes to the application of CSR practices as a natural expression of behaviour, this study shows how social relations of sex reproduce but also how social relations are subverted with respect to the requirements relating to CSR practices.
Originality/value
The main originality of this approach consisted in adopting the concept of “gender inversion”, characteristic of “gender mobility”, to identify the potential and/or effective observable recompositions in the field of managerial behaviours.
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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of “shopscapes” the authors define as the imaginary geography each person or group of people builds based on his daily…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of “shopscapes” the authors define as the imaginary geography each person or group of people builds based on his daily experiences and practices in reference to retail environments and activities and to apply it to children.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors develop an original and child-centred methodology, by combining drawings and interviews and the authors focus the approach, not on the final drawings but on the drawing activity per se where children work in pairs and collaborate.
Findings
The authors demonstrate the validity of the approach by proposing that a drawing can only be validly interpreted through the content of an open verbal exchange with its author/s. The activity of drawing, and of mapping when “shopscapes” are questioned, is interestingly richer and more fruitful than just the final result.
Originality/value
The originality of the work lies in the concept of shopscapes and in the methodology used in order to reveal them. The authors intend to reveal the nature and range of children’s “shopscapes” with the objective of providing reliable information about on how children perceive the retailing experience.
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Valérie-Inés de La Ville and Nathalie Nicol
The purpose of this paper is to offer some insight into how siblings aged between 4 and 12, engaged in a collaborative drawing activity at home, recall the shopping trips they…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer some insight into how siblings aged between 4 and 12, engaged in a collaborative drawing activity at home, recall the shopping trips they have experienced.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a Vygotskian perspective, the data collection consisted of engaging 15 pairs of siblings in the production of a joint drawing of a shop of their choice. Drawing in pairs opens a Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978) where the younger child benefits from verbal guidance by the older one to achieve the common task. This situation enables the researcher to gain close access to children’s knowledge about stores and to the words they use to describe their personal shopping experiences.
Findings
This exploratory research reveals some constitutive elements of children’s “shopscapes” (Nicol, 2014), i.e. the imaginary geographies they actively elaborate through their daily practices and experiences with regard to retail environments. In their communicative interactions when elaborating a joint drawing of the shop they have chosen, children demonstrate that they master a considerable body of knowledge about retail environments. Surprisingly, recalling their shopping practices sheds light on various anxiety-generating dimensions.
Research limitations/implications
The data collection is based on a remembering exercise performed at home and does not bring information about what children actually do in retail environments. Moreover, the children were asked to focus on buying a present for a friend’s birthday, therefore the information gathered essentially relates to toy stores.
Practical implications
This research underlines the necessity for retailers to endeavour to reduce some of the anxious feelings depicted and verbalized by children, by improving the welcome for children into their stores.
Social implications
There are also opportunities for retailers to invest in the consumption education area by guiding young visitors so that they learn how to behave as apprentice consumers in retail outlets.
Originality/value
The child-centric perspective of the study reveals new and surprising insights about the way children report their memorised shopping experiences.