No abstract

To sustain their growth worldwide, luxury brands are increasingly adopting the codes of fast fashion. They continually introduce new designs that move quickly from the catwalk to stores to stay on-trend, resulting in short and constantly renewed collections. But does this fashionization impede luxury brands’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) image? This article investigates this question building on the ephemerality–scarcity dual-route model. Findings from a first experiment involving a fictitious luxury brand show that fashionization increases both perceptions of ephemerality (negative route) and scarcity (positive route), with opposing resulting effects on the brand’s CSR image. Extending these results to a real-life luxury setting, findings from a second experiment show that the influence of fashionization on the brand’s CSR image is only mediated by the positive scarcity route. This study provides a number of noteworthy theoretical insights and relevant managerial implications for luxury managers involved in CSR communication.

A central theme of the literature on strategic groups is that group membership affects performance. The basic premise of strategic groups and their main interest is in fact that performance can be attributed to strategic groups and not only to the idiosyncratic character of the individual firm. The aim of this paper is therefore to characterize and synthesize studies that examined the relationship between strategic groups, considered from the economic or cognitive perspectives, and performance. We notice that these studies have often yielded conflicting results. We will focus specifically on the relationship between the positioning of the firm, the strategic group and performance, a link that has hitherto been little studied in the literature. In other words, is there for the firm an optimal positioning in relation to strategic groups in its industry? The few empirical studies focusing on this relationship, emphasizing a cognitive approach, were able to show that firms moderately differentiated with respect to their belonging strategic group are more successful.

Changes in French environmental legislation since 2010 require major companies to establish a corporate social responsibility policy. Although very small, small, and medium-sized companies are not as yet required to comply with these obligations, some of them consider that it is necessary to develop provisions addressing this concept, and even to fully embrace them. In view of the particular character of VSEs and SMEs, which are informal in nature, characterized by intuitive strategies, and have limited access to information, this reconnaissance study examines the role of agricultural cooperatives in disseminating information about CSR policies and implementing them in the industry. A preliminary series of qualitative interviews shows that these organizations are taking responsibility for assimilating the regulations in order to prepare their members, and that the existence of certifications is useful in this regard. The reconnaissance nature of the study has enabled us to formulate two research propositions, to be tested by future investigations.

This paper discusses the findings of a qualitative study carried out in the French automotive, building-trade and hairdressing sectors about relationship expectations and behaviors of very small enterprises (VSE). While VSE represent more than 90% of European enterprises, little research has been done on these business customers. Defining VSE characteristics and the interest of relationship marketing to study this target, this research sheds lights on VSE buying behavior. The results of the qualitative study allow us to propose a relationship marketing model for the VSE of each sector and to identify relationships key components for this target (interpersonal, brand and offer). The paper concludes with a cross-sector model insisting on the necessity to develop our knowledge of individual characteristics of the VSE owner/manager as an area of future research