Debbie Ellis

University of KwaZulu-Natal | ukzn · School of Management, IT and Governance

As the global population approaches 10 billion by 2050, addressing sustainable food production is imperative for achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2-Zero Hunger, SDG 12-Responsible Consumption and Production, and Agenda 2063's Aspiration 1 for inclusive growth and sustainable development in Africa. This qualitative study explored South A...

The need for environmental protection, especially of depleting natural resources such as fish stocks, remains a global challenge. Global population growth increases food consumption. Some socially responsible corporate entities in the fish sector are producing and selling sustainable fish products, but beyond meeting their altruistic motives, they...

Purpose Gender bias in artificial intelligence (AI) should be solved as a priority before AI algorithms become ubiquitous, perpetuating and accentuating the bias. While the problem has been identified as an established research and policy agenda, a cohesive review of existing research specifically addressing gender bias from a socio-technical viewp...

Purpose With the increasing mobile activity of the Generation Z market (born after 1994), marketers’ interest in this social group is rising. This research paper aims to uncover the relatively unknown attitudes and behaviour of the youth market in an emerging market, South Africa, towards branded mobile applications (apps). Previous studies on mobi...

Food security has become a major social concern. Social entrepreneurs seeking to address this social concern aim to produce safe food products which cause no harm to either consumers or the environment. To achieve these social goals social enterprises, apply business principles and practices one of which includes a marketing orientation. This invol...

The novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which was declared a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, has disrupted most economies and industries with higher education being no exception. Transitioning to online learning (OL) was one way most higher education institutions (HEIs) attempted to ensure both effective and safe learning. However, this was oft...

In an increasingly knowledge-based global economy, social capital and knowledge sharing, particularly amongst small business, have become critical sources of competitive advantage, but how can such knowledge sharing be enabled? The objective of this research was to explore the effect of knowledge sharing enablers on knowledge sharing in female smal...

Abstract: Consumers’ unsustainable consumption patterns play a substantial role in environmental deterioration. For consumers to behave more sustainably, they need to be knowledgeable of the problems, and various product and service solutions. Some businesses are using environmental sustainability advertising to develop consumer awareness and to in...

As the world population grows, the earth is being placed under extreme pressure (de Marsily and Abarca-del-Rio 2016). The bulk of the growth, both population and economic, is occurring in the emerging markets. Due to the harmful effects on the environment, sustainability has been emphasized by businesses and a higher priority has been placed on und...

Many studies have looked at the relationships between green behaviour and various potential predictors of behaviour (Bong Ko & Jin, 2017; Joshi & Rahman, 2016), but seldom do these studies look in detail at the different green behaviours and the extent to which they are being performed. This study details the different green behaviours undertaken b...

Sustainability is a complex challenge that social marketing can assist in achieving. However, with its multidimensional composition and immense depth, the language of sustainability could be misinterpreted and misguide interventions. Examining macro-level literature and reliable yet different sources for information is key to developing effective s...

The change from conventional to organic foods has been found to have benefits for environmental sustainability and for consumers’ health. Although a market for organic fresh produce has been found to exist in South Africa, consumption levels are low and there is incomplete understanding of the barriers to organic consumption. In this qualitative re...

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to define and describe the two primary domains of this book and present an analysis of the literature at the nexus of these domains. The aim is to determine from literature, how strategic marketing can, and has been found to be, relevant in social enterprises. The analysis finds strong support for the val...

Social enterprises represent a unique form of organization with both commercial and social objectives. As such, the application of strategic marketing to these organizations is not clearly understood. Chapter 1 developed a framework for analyzing strategic marketing, which is applied in this chapter to three South African social enterprises to asse...

Food security has become a major social concern. Social entrepreneurs seeking to address this social concern aim to produce safe food products which cause no harm to either consumers or the environment. To achieve these social goals social enterprises apply business principles and practices one of which includes a marketing orientation. This involv...

Purpose Family consumption studies have been criticised for using an individualistic or dyadic approach to explore the types of influence strategies that children use to sway parental decisions. In this study, attention is refocused on the voices of South African families within twenty-first-century familial interactions. The purpose of this paper...

Abstract Purpose – This paper aims to examine the relationship between feelings toward buying wine on mobile phones and m-commerce website loyalty by examining the mediating role of sales promotion and the moderating role of service attributes of the m-commerce websites in influencing the mediation. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 3,318 co...

The planet is under threat. Unless all stakeholders, that is governments, businesses, and consumers, become more environmentally friendly, some predict dire consequences for the earth and all those who inhabit it. While governments and businesses have a role to play, green consumer behavior is vital to the sustainability of the environment. Consume...

Purpose: What consumers know about a product affects many aspects of their behaviour and is particularly important for marketers to understand when it comes to developing marketing strategy. The purpose of this research is to understand the components of consumer knowledge of wine and to investigate these as a potential basis for wine market segmen...

Wine is a prolific, but complex and information-intensive product, so it is important for marketers to understand the behaviors and characteristics of different wine market segments, in order to better target their marketing strategies to these different segments’ needs. Yet little is known about how the characteristics of consumers’ subjective and...

Purpose This paper aims to examine the relationship between feelings toward buying wine on mobile phones and m-commerce website loyalty by examining the mediating role of sales promotion and the moderating role of service attributes of the m-commerce websites in influencing the mediation. Design/methodology/approach A total of 3,318 completed surv...

Group service encounters, when multiple customers are intentionally batched and involved in the delivery and consumption of a service, are common in tourism and hospitality, recreation, and education. In such service settings, customers will accept, expect, and sometimes even desire to share and consume the service experience “with” other customers...

Universities in South Africa are operating in an increasingly competitive environment with each institution aiming to attract the best students and meet their enrolment targets. The Department of Education’s (DoE’s) strategy to address the inadequacies of the past and the shortage of skills in maths and science in South Africa has also affected how...

The aim of this paper was to determine the key attributes influencing a sub-segment of Generation Y, the Twixters’ choice of clothing retailers in South Africa, an emerging market. Generation Y has been identified as an important segment particularly for apparel and the Twixter sub-group comprises a third of the segment. Using a positioning theory...

The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand the extent that consumers report purchasing wine on mobile devices and to empirically examine potential drivers of m-wine purchasing across six countries to guide theoretical research enquiry moving forward. Purposive sampling was employed. An online survey involving 2853 respondents from Fran...

That sustainable practices are necessary for the earth’s survival, is well documented, but how to creatively balance the needs of the multiple stakeholders of society, the economy and the earth, is a major challenge. Individuals, businesses and societies require substantial changes to how they behave with regards to the earth’s limited resources. S...

The success of encouraging environmental sustainability by means of social marketing programs is partially determined by identifying certain actions that can favourably influence people’s behaviours towards a more ecologically benign lifestyle. In this chapter, such actions (remodelling businesses and the economy by means of non-market capitals, so...

Wine is a heterogeneous, information-rich offering, with a plethora of brands in the market. Knowledge of wines amidst such diversity understandably varies. In addition, some offer opinions on wine while others seek them. Yet, the interplay between opinion leadership and opinion seeking, on the one hand, and wine knowledge, both objective and subje...

Global sporting events such as the Olympic Games attract significant amounts of sponsorship spend by companies that want to position their brands with such a high profile event. There are very few events that can achieve this on a truly global scale, but the Olympic Games are one of these events. However, it is also the case that these types of eve...

What a consumer knows about a product or service is crucial to how it is marketed, and this is particularly true in the case of information-intensive products. However, there are two important sides to consumer knowledge: first, there is what consumers really know, or objective knowledge; second, there is what consumers think they know, or subjecti...

Purpose – This paper aims to determine whether exploratory wine purchasing behaviour is affected by consumers’ objective and subjective wine knowledge. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire was developed using recognised scales for exploratory consumer tendencies, objective and subjective wine knowledge. The survey was administered using t...

Global sporting events such as the Olympics require large sums of money to host successfully. Much of this funding is sourced from private sector sponsors who contribute significant sums of sponsorship revenue to the organisers of the events. Rather than paying for sponsorship, companies can achieve an association with the event by ambushing it. S...

Pester power is then the ability of a child to influence the purchasing choice of an adult using various tactics, the most common of which is repetitive nagging. There is a considerable amount of literature on ‘pester power’ in western societies, where children have been documented to be responsible for significant expenditure each. Western societi...

Identifying the personality traits of effective sales people has been a long-standing challenge to sales managers and researchers in a wide range of contexts from business-to-business, to retail and services. A definitive identification of the characteristics of the ideal salesperson remains elusive. We investigate the impact of the Big Five person...

The smartphone has become the uniquely personal computing device choice for consumers. Applications (apps) for smartphones are set to reach revenues of £25 billion according to Gartner. This presents great opportunities for marketing as apps can provide great benefits for consumers and firms. However it is Information Systems (IS) departments that...

Learning through group work constitutes an integral part of academic teaching and learning. Working in groups extends the frontiers of skills learning and knowledge acquisition, and increases students' chances of employment. However, despite the benefits of group work it is not without its challenges. Insight into some of the benefits and challenge...

With technological advancements, consumers now have many different avenues as platforms to communicate or voice their opinions about organisations and service levels. Increased competition and a more vigilant consumer mean that organisations need to keep track of their customers’ perceptions of service and product delivery and where necessary, to r...

The South African secondary boarding school sector has become more competitive as schools attempt to attract and retain pupils. Management of such schools must not only address the educational and boarding needs of pupils, but also apply appropriate management and marketing principles to compete effectively with boarding schools throughout the coun...

The need to develop science capacity in South Africa has been recognised as a national priority both to address past inequalities and for economic development. However, many students wanting to enter science-related programmes in universities lack the necessary skills, knowledge and resources and thus access programmes have been developed to bridge...

This exploratory study sought to determine what customers perceive to be the most important attributes when choosing their passenger airline within the South African domestic airline industry. In line with positioning research protocol, respondents then evaluated the performance of each airline on those attributes. The attributes that respondents p...

Sexuality is a widely used appeal in advertising today. The aim of this research was to establish whether or not this form of advertising connects with South African students and whether gender differences existed. A triangulated research design with data collected in focus groups, was used. The findings generally indicated negative attitudes towar...

This article explores whether WebCT, a virtual learning technology, meets organisational and customer goals at Coventry University Business School (CBS). Lecturer and student perceptions about the benefits of WebCT as a teaching and learning resource are examined as well as the goals of WebCT for the university as an organization. CBS students comp...

Strategic Management theory suggests the importance behavioural alignment of organisational actors with organisational objectives (Robbins, 1998, Hellriegel, et al. 2001). This study utilises Kelly’s Personal Construct theory to examine the similarity of constructs held by four groups of actors in a retailing operation, regional managers, store man...

This article outlines research conducted to determine the attributes consumers consider when purchasing a luxury vehicle. Two hundred and ninety two questionnaires were distributed in the luxury car showrooms within Pietermaritzburg. The determinant attributes were found to be safety, reliability, comfort, performance, aesthetics and service. Posit...