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The purpose of this paper is to explore how consumers view sponsorship tattoos. This study specifically addresses three research questions: first, how consumers view the idea of sponsorship tattooing; second, how the brand of the tattoo alters acceptance of the tattoo; and third, how the placement on the body of the athlete affects acceptance of the tattoo.

To address these research questions, focus groups were conducted.

Findings highlighted three important themes related to tattoos, sponsorships and brand perceptions: meaning of the tattoo itself, meaning related to the brand and the tattoo and meaning related to the tattoo and athlete.

For practitioners, this research highlights the complexity between consumers’ interaction with brands through sponsorship tattoos, which is a complicated, multi-dimensional process during which meaning can be assigned to multiple facets of the sponsorship relationship.

For scholars, this research offers a glimpse into an emerging trend that ties together the multi-billion dollar sports and tattoo industries. In sum, this research identifies ways in which consumers interpret meaning related to the tattoo itself, the brand and the athlete based on placement, sport and brand perceptions.

In this paper I analyze Sex and the City as performances of contemporary post-modern culture of femininity and engage in a multi-modal, semiotic reading of their socio-cultural significance. In particular, I argue that the same discursive formation underlies the ideology of the show: a discourse largely coinciding with the Standard North American Family Code (Smith, 1999) and therefore a discourse that stigmatizes single women and reinforces the value of marriage as both symbolic and material capital. Drawing in part from Goffman, I argue that an oppositional reading of the show also yields another interesting connotation: the show offers its viewers techniques and scripts of stigma resistance.

All gender identity is socialized, but anything gendered feminine is marginalized. In the United States, we live in a patriarchal culture that is bounded by binary gender identity. Up to this point, work on gender and education leadership has remained within the bounds of patriarchy, and thus been confined to binary, hierarchical gender definitions. This study pushes past prior work to advance a more complex and messy understanding of how identity impacts aspiring leaders in their careers. Using Carol Gilligan and Snider (2018) Listening Guide Method, this study of 18 aspiring school leaders of different gender identities, sexual identities, and races focuses on how gender identity and gender performance impact school leaders' career trajectories. A key finding of this study is that women, regardless of race or sexual identity, have difficulty finding mentors while men, regardless of race or sexual identity, are tapped by schools leaders and offered mentoring opportunities. This chapter posits a new framework for mentoring that will lead to more liberatory pipeline structures.

After the extreme turn of the late 1980s and early 1990s of metal music, three northern England-based bands – My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost from Bradford, and Anathema from Liverpool, commonly referred to as ‘the Peaceville Three’ – went on to pioneer the musical style which came to be known as death/doom. Mid-1990s have seen these bands’ stylistic shift into a more gothic rock-influenced sound. This Paradise Lost-led shift gave birth to the style gothic/doom. Around this deviation, these bands also started to employ a different sense, or rather a sense, of locality in their music: Paradise Lost started calling themselves a Yorkshire band, instead of specifically Bradford; Anathema shot a video for their 1995 song ‘The Silent Enigma’ in Saddleworth Moor (historically part of West Riding of Yorkshire) in Manchester; and later, My Dying Bride became more and more ingrained in the Goth culture of Whitby, including releasing an extended-play titled The Barghest o’ Whitby (2011), a Dracula-inspired trail guide, and frequently appearing in festivals in Whitby. This ethnographic research with both musicians and fans further suggests the involvement of the North in making and perception of gothic/doom. Applying Michel de Certau’s idea stating that ‘every story is a spacial practice’ within the context of northern England landscape, gothic/doom metal style emerges as an act of northernness. The author proposes to discuss how this act is performed within these bands’ oeuvre and how it is perceived from the listener perspective using interviews with people from around the world, and musicological analyses of significant songs from the repertoire of this trio.

Heritage tourism has become increasingly popular, and improving the sustainability of such sites is essential both nationally and internationally. The purpose of this paper is to explore the opportunities and challenges of improving the condition and sustainability of a chapel at a busy international heritage tourist attraction.

A case study approach was adopted. This utilised interviews with four of the primary building professionals involved with the refurbishment project. Documentary analysis and observations were also used.

The present case study presents the opportunities and challenges faced by a tourist heritage attraction. Improvements to the condition and sustainability of such assets are essential to ensure their sustained and enhanced use, and the protection of heritage buildings. Such projects create opportunities to increase knowledge and understanding about these assets as well as enhancing opportunities for meaning making for visitors. The paper highlights the importance of a strong leader and a balanced team working towards common objectives. Further, whilst synergies between conservation and sustainability exist, there are also tensions and compromises.

This case study highlights the opportunities and challenges of improving the condition and sustainability of built cultural heritage at a tourist attraction. Opportunities included increased knowledge and understanding about the heritage asset; enhancement of values for present and future generations; improved condition, increased usability; and increased sustainability. Challenges were: team turnover; delays resulting from archaeological findings; previous work resulting in building defects; the existing building condition; and unfamiliarity and the uncertainty regarding particular measures.

The practical implications of this case study include ensuring clear project objectives and a balanced project team are in place. These should be enhanced by a good system of information recording throughout the project to limit the impact of staff absence. Good communication within the team and with external members such as manufacturers will reduce the impact of unfamiliar products and aid in decision making. Future research should explore whether these findings are applicable to other heritage tourist attractions, and whether visitors’ narrative encounters with the asset change following a sustainability improvement project.

Limited research has been previously performed on improving the sustainability of built cultural heritage at tourist attractions. This research investigates the opportunities and challenges facing building professionals in improving such heritage assets. The improvement of heritage tourist attractions requires careful consideration. Whilst they need to be conserved for future generations, increasing the sustainability of such assets is essential to ensure their continued usability.

Purpose: This paper examines emerging consumption patterns in Vietnam’s transportation market, and considers them within broader practices and histories of mobility. I examine how Vietnamese consumers are apprehending the current transportation shift from motorcycles to automobiles and the corresponding societal transformations it foreshadows and remembers.

Design/methodology: Research was conducted between 2013 and 2016 and involved analyses of transportation industry global and regional documents and reports, observations and interviews with users and sellers of motorcycles and automobiles in Vietnam, participant observation and focus groups with drivers and driving schools in Danang and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and discussions with transportation designers, engineers, manufacturers, and marketing professionals.

Findings: Shifts in manufacturing and recent regional and international trade agreements mandating tariff reductions on transportation commodities have been reorienting material and temporal relations to the market. In this transition period when the meaning and valuation of motorcycles are shifting, anticipations of automobiles are paramount.

Originality and value: By analyzing emerging transportation markets in Vietnam, I identify potential collaborative opportunities for stakeholders in academia, industry, and policy to further explore issues of transportation and mobility preferences and developments in Southeast Asia and suggest that this may be a productive arena for lateral learning.

This research investigates and conceptualizes non-dyadic human–robot interactions (HRI).

The authors conducted a netnographic study of the Facebook group called “iRobot – Roomba,” an online brand community dedicated to Roomba vacuums. Their data analysis employed an abductive approach, which extended the grounded theory method.

Dyadic portrayals of human–robot interactions can be expanded to consider other actants that are relevant to the consumption experiences of consumer robots. Not only humans but also nonhumans, such as an online brand community, have a meaningful role to play in shaping interactions between humans and robots.

The present study moves theoretical discussions on HRI from the individual level grounded in a purely psychological approach to a more collective and sociocultural approach.

If managers do not have a proper assessment of human–robot interactions that considers different actants and their role in the socio-technical arrangement, they will find it more challenging to design and suggest new consumption experiences.

Unlike most previous marketing and consumer research on human–robot interactions, we show that different actants exert agency in different ways, at different times and with different socio-technical arrangements.