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The unglamorous leek is an everyday foodstuff in a British supermarket, but its meaning is constructed through the interplay of a range of non-human materialities including the plant, its packaging and its information dense labels. This chapter examines the variations in the ways in which leeks are marketed in different supermarkets, with a particular focus on how they can be traced back to their roots in British fields. We examine the ways in which non-human and virtual entities ‘bring to life’ the human producers of the leeks in a bid to mimic the reconnection that is sought through local food systems. We use the example of the leeks to explore what is happening to food supply chains, urban-rural connections and rural representations as farmers and retailers build new modes of working and as social media tools open up virtual access to the people growing our food.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate if CSR is balanced between firm and wider society interests.

A qualitative interpretive hermeneutic approach is used to analyse a variety of publically published secondary sources on the CSR of Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons and Co-operative in the UK grocery multiple sector (2005-2010).

CSR strategic outcomes currently favour the firm more than society interests. A multilayered framework in the form of Social Responsibility of the Corporation (SRC) is designed and offered in support of balancing the business-society relationship more evenly.

This study is limited to firms originating from within the UK grocery multiple sector. Asda could not be included in the study as it does not publish CSR reports annually in the UK after becoming part of Walmart group.

A framework for multi-level standardised definition of CSR in the form of SRC is offered. The inclusion of employees and members of the public on CSR/SRC boards is recommended to foster wider collaboration. The SRC framework promotes standardisation at global level while respecting diversity and firm heterogeneity at firm level. The findings may further contribute to GRI; UN Global Compact; WEF dialogues.

Recommendations are made to extend CSR board diversity for improved dialogue with communities. The SRC framework may be applied at global; national; industry and firm level. The framework can be applied internationally or locally. Future studies may offer quantitative attributes for balancing CSR/SRC.

A globally unique and universally applicable framework for evaluating CSR activities is proposed. Future studies may extend the authors' framework to other industries, national environments or globally in the pursuit of balance between firm and society. Furthermore, firms may also adopt the framework to support CSR activities.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an exploratory case study of how the UK’s leading retailers are addressing sustainable consumption.

The paper begins with a discussion of the growing awareness of the importance of sustainable consumption and of the role that retailers can play in promoting more sustainable patterns of consumption. This is followed by a short literature review of current thinking on sustainable consumption. The paper draws its empirical information from the top ten UK retailers’ corporate websites and from an observational survey conducted in these retailers’ largest stores in the town of Cheltenham in the UK. The paper concludes with some reflections on how the UK’s leading retailers are addressing sustainable consumption and on how the concept fits into their business models.

The findings reveal that the UK’s top ten retailers make very limited public corporate commitments to sustainable consumption and that while some of these retailers were offering customers some information which might encourage more sustainable shopping behaviour, such information was systematically undermined by marketing messages which were designed to encourage rather than restrict consumption. More critically the paper concludes that the leading retailers’ commitments to sustainable consumption are couched within existing business models centred on continuing growth and that as such they are effectively ignoring the fact that present levels of consumption are not sustainable.

This paper provides an accessible review of the extent to which the UK’s leading food retailers are addressing sustainable consumption and communicating sustainable consumption agendas to their customers within stores, and, as such, it will be of value to academics, practitioners, consumer organizations and policymakers interested in the role retailers can play in promoting sustainable consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to develop insight regarding art gallery members' identification with their galleries through the use of segmentation. The antecedents of a member's identification and subsequent involvement with the gallery are explored. Within the four regional art galleries analysed, the authors identify three different segments within the membership groups which illustrate the ways in which gallery members, who identify positively with their gallery, contribute to the organisation through behaviours such as the donation of time and money.

A mixed methods approach was used, including 11 in‐depth interviews with gallery staff and members and a survey (n=433) of gallery members. The in‐depth interviews were interpreted using content analysis and thematic analysis. The survey results were analysed using exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis.

The paper's findings suggest that gallery members can be differentiated in terms of the way that they contribute to their art gallery. Three types were identified: promoters, donors and committee members. A number of constructs were used to distinguish between each of the segments, including: member identification, satisfaction, prestige, visibility, contact quality and domain involvement from the current arts marketing literature. Four other constructs which emerged from the qualitative research were also used to profile the clusters: self‐enhancement, organisational culture, social responsibility and elitism which emerged from the qualitative research.

Profiling different segments in the market (membership) using sociodemographics, attitudes and donating behaviours allows marketers and managers to more effectively target the segments who can positively contribute to the organisation. Moreover it provides a greater understanding of the membership base and how various members are engaging with their institution. Current methods of marketing are becoming less ideal to obtain marketing objectives, with diminishing returns to scale on marketing programmes an issue.

An understanding of the differences between each of these member types will allow galleries to more efficiently use their finite resources. By tailoring offerings to each of the different segments galleries can maximise the value of their membership base. Further, the use of segmentation enables gallery managers to identify segments where members may be less or not engaged and its causes and potential solutions.

Many non‐profit organisations with a membership base, such as the art galleries sampled in this research, rely on the contribution of their membership to survive. Therefore understanding the relationship between the institution and the membership is important.

The paper is unique in the application of segmentation analysis to examine gallery members. It also furthers the current understanding of identification and its role in the relationship between organisation members and their behaviour as members. That is the role of identification in relationship marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, and explore the importance of, ethical and socially responsible (ESR) factors in Australian consumers' choices of grocery products and stores.

Following an earlier study in the UK, an initial qualitative investigation, then a survey of grocery shoppers in New South Wales, was conducted. Factor analysis explored the structure of the choice factors for grocery products and stores in “main” and “top‐up” shopping situations. Finally, four multiple regression equations measured the effects of these factors.

This paper finds that, when “top‐up” shopping, ESR consumers are less discriminating than when “main” shopping. The provision of ethically farmed produce has most influence on store choice when “main” shopping, while retailers' fair trading and environmentally responsible policies have the greatest influence when “topping‐up”. The ethical provenance of goods is the most important factor in product choice.

The constructs developed need to be validated internationally.

The two large Australian retail grocers may benefit by developing roles as “choice editors” on behalf of their ESR customers; whilst smaller retailers may gain advantage by concentrating on community‐based, environmentally friendly and fair trading policies. Manufacturers of grocery products may benefit by emphasizing their products' ESR provenance and their organisations' ethical policies.

This is the first study of its kind in Australia. It contributes to the development of an internationally relevant set of ESR shopping choice factors.

An assumption made in many applications of stated preference modeling is that preferences remain stable over time and over multiple exposures to information about choice alternatives. However, there are many domains where this assumption can be challenged. One of these is where individuals learn about new products. This paper aims to test how attribute preferences as measured in an experimental choice task shift when respondents are exposed to new product information. The paper presents results from a study investigating consumer preferences for a new consumer electronics product conducted among 400 respondents from a large consumer panel. All respondents received several choice tasks and were then able to read additional information about the new product. After this they completed an additional set of choice tasks. All choices were from pairs of new product alternatives that varied across eight attributes designed according to an orthogonal plan. Using heteroscedastic logit modeling, the paper analyses the shifts in attribute utilities and scale variances that result from the exposure to product information. Results show that as respondents become better informed about a new attribute the attribute has a greater influence on their choices. In addition a significant shift in scale variance is observed, suggesting an increase in preference heterogeneity after information exposure.

The purpose of this paper is to show how understanding of human resource (HR) management practices which have been adopted in the emerging markets such as that in China is particularly interesting to academia and management practitioners. The purpose of this study is to shed some light on the implementation of innovative HR practices among 74 Chinese small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and to explain how the HR practices influence their firm performance.

Cluster analysis is used to group Chinese SMEs according to their adoption of innovative human resource (HR) practices and examine how the practices are associated with HR outcomes and firm performance.

It is found that the membership of clusters is influenced by several factors, including ownership, age and size of firms. These characteristics have influenced the motivation, capacity and ability of firms in the sample to adopt high performance human resource practices. The extent to which firms have adopted innovative human resource practices is shown to be closely associated with human resource outcomes and firm performance.

The key implication is that SMEs, especially those rapidly developing domestic and collectively owned small firms, as well as those state‐owned enterprises in China, may see clearly the benefits of devoting greater attention to HR practices to achieve their future growth potential.

Trust is known to have three dimensions: ability/competence, integrity/contractual and benevolence/goodwill. Yet what develops these three dimensions of trust is relatively unknown, particularly at the different stages of the relationship lifecycle. The primary goal of this paper is improving understanding about the development of these three elements of trust. Hence, this research is undertaken within the critical growth phase of the relationship lifecycle.

A qualitative approach was deemed most appropriate to achieve the deep understanding needed for this type of exploratory study. Using a relationship dyad, which contained a retail manager and wholesale salesperson as the unit of investigation, 18 in‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted. This constituted nine case studies, which were analysed using content and thematic analysis. A purposive case selection method was used to ensure variance of cases and provide rich data.

The most interesting findings relate to how trust is developed and how this varies for the different forms of trust. For ability trust, the crucial factors in its development were performance, expertise and communication. With respect to integrity trust, honesty, integral actions and candid response were found to influence the development of trust. For benevolence, trust actions and attitudes emerged as key factors for the development of trust.

Trust has been found to be a key component of relationship marketing success. This research extends this through providing understanding of the elements of trust and what drives the development of these elements, thus providing insights at a level more usable for the practitioner.

It is generally agreed that trust is a multidimensional construct; however there has been limited research on how to develop each of the three elements of trust. This research provides insight into how to develop trust, at a crucial time in the relationship growth stage. It is at this stage that partnerships can flourish or fade, hence trust is vital. Therefore, the development of ability, integrity and benevolence trust is important. This is not an issue that has been researched frequently in the literature; this paper helps to provide understanding of the key factors which develop these three elements of trust.

Water availability and usage in agriculture suggests increasing scarcity. To ensure the long-term sustainability of water resources, efficient pricing and distribution methods must be considered. The role that market-based systems of water distribution can play in enhancing the management and sustainability of water resources has garnered attention. An important element that cannot be ignored when contemplating changes to established agricultural water delivery systems must be users’ readiness for change. Thus the purpose of this paper is to examine factors that impact the readiness for organizational change to a system where users can buy and sell water in an open market.

Using data collected from a survey of greenhouse growers in Almería, Spain, a model of binary choice was developed to predict the probability of growers’ readiness to buy and sell water in an open market.

The level of education of the grower, and the use of a euro per hour water metering system positively impacted the probability of the willingness to participate in formal water markets. Also, the degree of satisfaction in the administration of the growers’ irrigation community, as well as their overall confidence in anticipated water supplies, had a negative impact on readiness to change.

This research offers an interesting and unique scholarly contribution as it fuses the extant management literature on the topic of organizational change with issues related to natural resource management, thus contributing to the growing literature(s) related to resource sustainability and management.

This research provides insight into some important factors which may predict the readiness to change of agricultural water users toward more market-driven distribution systems.