No abstract

The authors conducted a survey to identify conservation activity among the general populace of a midsize Southwestern community to increase our understanding of those who do and do not engage in a broad section of environmentally friendly activities. Numerous self-reported behaviors were gauged and combined to form a composite measure representing the conserving consumer. They then explored both demographic and psychosocial variables as predictors of this self-reported composite scale of conservation. The results and their implications are discussed for researchers and public policy officials.

Customer rage is a complex phenomenon that is beginning to receive attention from researchers and practitioners. To date, research into the phenomenon has focused exclusively on its occurrence within a failed service context; however, rage may also occur in nonfailure situations as a negative by-product of an organization’s efforts to engage the customer at an emotional level. As a service entity, the live sporting event is characterized by a number of features which make it particularly susceptible to acts of rage. This article examines rage within the context of spectator sport by utilizing a framework that is capable of organizing and focusing attention upon those factors that shape a fan’s consumption experience and render spectator sport, and services in general, susceptible to rage. Services marketers may be unable to eliminate all incidents of spectator rage, especially those that arise when a customer becomes excessively and emotionally absorbed with the service encounter. Nevertheless, fans’ propensity to rage may be reduced by understanding the factors that contribute to it and by carefully designing servicescapes and vigilantly managing customer interactions to generate exhilarating, yet nonaggressive, customer experiences.

The key issue of ethical applications of fear appeals, which has been generally avoided in marketing literature, is reviewed. The authors develop an evaluation framework, the ethical effects-reasoning matrix (ERM), using multiple interest groups (stakeholders) and multiple ethical reasoning perspectives. The framework is intended to aid in isolating and identifying conflicts that may arise when fear appeals are considered from a variety of ethical perspectives involving many interested publics. An example is provided to indicate application of the framework as well as conflict resolution techniques.

Over the past decade there has been an increasing awareness of the many ways that businesses affect the ecology of the planet. Most of the attention, however, has been directed towards activities of organizations in the manufacturing sector of the economy. Argues that service organizations have social responsibilities in the preservation of the environment, too. Presents the importance to a product, such as longevity or specific marketing, of green practices among services, a framework to describe green activities across the service sector, and a pragmatic means to implement a green programme for service organizations.