Bernardo Figueiredo

RMIT University | RMIT · School of Economics, Finance and Marketing

The ability of older adults to engage with information and communication technologies (ICT) is crucial in today’s more digital and connected world. Anxiety about and failure to adopt and engage with ICT is increasingly likely to be a barrier in daily living for older adults, potentially reducing their freedom as consumers, quality of life, independ...

Purpose-This paper aims to examine how visual elements used in packaging design relate to diasporic consumer identity and influence aesthetic appreciation. Design/methodology/approach-Drawing on social identity theory, research on aesthetic principles and using a mixed methods approach, two studies are conducted. Study 1 involves a qualitative expl...

During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns (2020-2021), almost all facets of life were rendered digital – health, work, schooling, and logistics. In this phenomenon, not only did digital access become synonymous with social inclusion but inequalities were also amplified – particularly in the case of older adults (65 years and over). Contemporary older...

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how and when visual referents in brand visual aesthetics (i.e. colours, shapes, patterns and materials) serve as design applications that enable consumer diasporic identity. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses an innovative methodology that triangulates 58 in-depth interviews with diasporic consumers,...

This report discusses the unique challenges experienced by aged care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and explores potential approaches for how these challenges, or indeed the legacies and implications of these challenges can be addressed.

Purpose This study aims to address the existing gap in co-design frameworks by introducing the EMPOWER framework, a strength-based co-design methodological approach specifically designed to tackle the key empowerment challenges associated with co-designing alongside individuals experiencing vulnerability. The purpose of this study is to provide a s...

This paper examines the influence of socialisation agents in shaping digital competence in older adults (aged 65+ years). Data was collected from the University of the Third Age (U3A) Network Victoria, a volunteer organisation that provides courses and programs for the retired and semi-retired community. We used a two-stage approach; focus groups a...

Coffee is far more than just a beverage. It is a product that boasts an extraordinarily rich history, and its cultural identity has shifted over time. This article explores how coffee secured its status as a global marketplace icon. We argue that coffee is a metamorphic product based on its capacity to assume multiple and different cultural meaning...

Makeshifting is a social practice whereby consumers bypass market-mediated offerings to directly design and produce their own products by reusing materials, parts or objects at hand. Our study investigates this understudied, yet widespread, consumption practice thriving in many emerging markets. Although prior marketing research has investigated do...

This research investigates the socialisation agents older consumers use to learn about information and communication technologies (ICT). We surveyed 871 older consumers in Victoria, Australia, about whom they would most likely turn to for advice (i.e., their preferred socialisation agents) if they needed help using or fixing an ICT device. They wer...

As digital inclusion becomes a growing indicator of wellbeing in later life, the ability to understand older adults’ preferences for information and communication technologies (ICTs) and develop strategies to support their digital literacy is critical. The barriers older adults face include their perceived ICT risks and capacity to learn. Complexit...

Ethno-racial minorities are often racialized and consequently excluded from various consumption contexts. Racialized market actors strive to overcome exclusion and gain participation in markets; however, these efforts are often insufficient because they cannot create equitable access to market resources, fair opportunities for voice, and empowermen...

This study examines how hybrid organisations might manage multiple logics to design experiences that may prompt consumer transformation. Literature on hybrid organisations has mostly examined how they manage tensions and challenges related to logic multiplicity. Less is known about how they combine multiple logics to facilitate consumer self-transf...

This digital booklet aims to support older Australians with strategies to increase your digital confidence to connect, as well as assist organisations working with seniors and policy-makers to help reduce the digital divide. We want to help older adults to increase their digital confidence by addressing perceived risks experienced when engaging wit...

Marketing scholars have developed a solid literature on servicescapes, the physical environments where services are performed, delivered and consumed, with a particular interest in themed retail environments. Themed servicescapes rely heavily on signs and symbols and emplaced ideologies to build brands, attract consumers, and increase sales. We ext...

This paper examines how culturally displaced brand owners help construct imagined worlds with their selection and use of brand visual aesthetics (BVA). Using the theoretical lens of habitus, we focus on the role of owners’ design-related decisions in this process and use brand owners of Middle Eastern origin as the research context. Through a multi...

This paper examines how consumers interpret host country brands drawing on visual aesthetic referents sourced from a consumer's imagined home culture. As globalisation rises, many consumers maintain consumption habits from their home culture. Prior literature has discussed ways individuals consume products from their home culture and ways brand pro...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how visual aesthetic referents used in branding can help foster a transnational imagined community (TIC). The authors use brands embedded with Middle Eastern visual aesthetics as a research context. As such, the study aims to examine how Middle Eastern non-figurative art is used by non-Middle Ea...

The purpose of this article is to (1) explicate micro-to-meso linkages of well-being, (2) provide a theoretical framework to guide research on connecting patient experiences to community well-being, and (3) offer guidelines to policymakers. We develop a conceptual framework establishing connections between micro and meso levels through the expansio...

This study examines academic isolation – an involuntary perceived separation from the academic field to which one aspires to belong, associated with a perceived lack of agency in terms of one’s engagement with the field – as a key challenge for researchers in increasingly globalized academic careers. While prior research describes early career rese...

This paper examines individual experiences of regional diaspora consumers and how they combine to produce a transnational consciousness and belongingness in the marketplace. In-depth interviews with Middle Eastern diaspora identify five emotions to construct a transnational imagined Middle Eastern world through three elements of re-enactment. Impli...

This article introduces a special issue of Consumption Markets & Culture on “Bridging Boundaries in Consumption, Markets and Culture” presenting research by scholars based around the globe. Together, their work examines ways in which the dynamic relations between consumer actions, the marketplace, and cultural meanings bridge boundaries in consumpt...

This chapter addresses the way the market and the servicescape provides resources to enact cosmopolitan ideology, embody cosmopolitan characteristics, or participate in cosmopolitan practices. It thereby contributes to understandings of the sociomaterial inscriptions of cosmopolitanism as related to retail brand ideology, branded and themed spaces....

The paper outlines a methodological approach for investigating how consumers create brand meaning using the material resources companies provide. The approach draws from Material Engagement Theory—to discuss the role of consumers in creating patterns of meaning by engaging with objects. It also explicates the role of objects in supporting this patt...

Eileen Fischer, Professor of Marketing and Anne & Max Tanenbaum Chair in Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at the Schulich School of Business at York University, has published research on entrepreneurs, consumers, and markets in several leading management and marketing journals. Professor Fischer has served on the editorial review boards of Co...

This paper investigates isolation in an emerging academic marketing field. Previous research has looked at isolation in various markets and organizational contexts. However, it is not clear what form isolation takes in academic fields and how it can be addressed. We draw on the concepts of polycentric governance and institutional bricolage from ins...

This study examines how object circulation—the recurrent transferring of objects among members of a group—can be used to foster a hybrid value regime in alternative economies. Prior research notes that alternative economies harbor multiple conceptions of what is valuable, suggesting that hybridity can help sustain alternative economies. This study...

Extant research tends to adopt a community perspective when examining value creation in consumer collectives, which limits the understanding of how value is created in loosely organized, dynamic, and heterogeneous networks. This study expands research on value creation by adopting a circulation-centric perspective that explains how value is created...

PurposeWe introduce critical regionalities and the archipelago metaphor as an analytic lens for interrogating and redrawing regional borders while preserving the benefits of a regional approach. Methodology/approachUsing secondary data from Latin America, we interrogate the mode by which regions are adopted in marketing and consumer research, raisi...

Gift-systems build relationships and create various types of value for the individuals who participate in them. Organizations may also reap the benefits of gift-systems when they understand, support, and foster practices of object circulation within these systems. We adopt a theoretical framework based on anthropological approaches to value-inactio...

Situated at the intersection of markets and development, this commentary aims to promote a cross-fertilization of macromarketing and Transformative Consumer Research (TCR) that directs attention to the sociocultural context and situational embeddedness of consumer experience and well-being, while acknowledging complex, systemic interdependencies be...

Marketing scholarship often employs geographical regions to demarcate and contextualize market and consumer research. Regions help researchers grasp phenomena that span over areas larger than a single locality. However, the potential for regions to create greater understanding in consumer research has been limited by researchers’ acceptance of geop...

With a focus on highly skilled professionals who have moved and resettled in different countries for reasons related to work, the aim of this paper is to enhance understanding of the role of consumption practices in managing the temporal dimension of global mobility. Two related datasets are used: in-depth long interviews with globally mobile profe...

In order to understand the connection between development, marketing and transformative consumer research (TCR), with its attendant interest in promoting human well-being, this article begins by charting the links between US ‘exceptionalism’, ‘Manifest Destiny’ and modernisation theory, demonstrating the confluence of US perspectives and experience...

Brands may be regarded as cultural platforms with ideological statements (Askegaard 2006, O’Guinn and Muniz 2004) as they are filled with societal values transferred via advertising, fashion and design (McCracken 1986). Luxury brands in particular are highly connected to socio-historical elements that imbue the brands’ identity (Lipovetsky and Roux...

350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) Despite the growing stream of literature concerned with the impact of globalisation on consumer culture, there has been little discussion about how consumers' geographical mobility, an important feature of globalisation, impacts consumption. This research addresses this gap by investigating how global mobility shape...

Consumer acculturation research has focused on understanding adaptation processes and identity work of consumers who have moved from one country to another. To extend current models beyond the dual-context territorially-based perspective, we investigate the consequences of the multiple acculturative processes of circulating consumers, individuals w...