Fraser McLeay

• Professor at The University of Sheffield

Purpose The emergence of social media platforms has revolutionized how brands develop partnerships with social media influencers (SMIs). However, users are seeking more meaningful engagement with SMIs, and little is known about how brands can shift their focus from transient engagements to continued engagement that builds long-term brand–consumer r...

This study sets out to contextualise the use of Business Model (BM) tools in start-ups. While the BM concept is no longer an emerging field, there is misalignment between the scholarly business literature and business practice. This may be one of the reasons why it is not being used by start-up owners. By undertaking a review of how BM tools are cu...

Service robots with advanced intelligence capabilities can potentially transform servicescapes. However, limited attention has been given to how consumers experiencing vulnerabilities, particularly those with disabilities, envisage the characteristics of robots’ prospective integration into emotionally-intense servicescapes, such as long-term care...

Social media (SM) platforms are frequently used by pre‐teen (8‐12‐year old) consumers for curating their self‐identity, developing social relationships and for learning. This paper identifies the building blocks that drive pre‐teen SM engagement. We use the Gioia method to analyse interview data collected from 32 pre‐teens and parents, in France. F...

There is an emerging trend of firms positioning themselves as both sustainable and luxurious. While it is unclear whether this offers new market opportunities, there remains a debate about the implications of signaling luxury and sustainability credentials together, particularly in the service context. In two studies, we build on Signaling Theory t...

Increasing technological innovation means level 5 fully autonomous vehicle pods (AVPs) that do not require a human driver are approaching reality. However, the adoption of AVPs continues to lag behind predictions. In this paper, we draw on Mowen's (2000) 3M model taking a multi-analytical approach utilising PLS-SEM and fuzzy set qualitative compara...

Scholars agree that the environmental and societal impacts of consumption require greater attention, and need examining in more diverse market contexts. This editorial essay focuses on the nascent area of ethical/sustainable luxury, and critically considers how the scope of ethical/sustainable consumption can be broadened in the luxury sector. We a...

Service organizations, emboldened by the imperative to innovate, are increasingly introducing robots to frontline service encounters. However, as they augment or substitute human employees with robots, they may struggle to convince a distrusting public of their brand’s ethical credentials. Consequently, this paper develops and tests a holistic fram...

This study examines how corporate responses to service failure, caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, influence electronic word-of-mouth (E-WoM) and trust recovery around lockdown, using multiple data sources. A dataset of 398 valid COVID-19 announcements from 50 UK food retailers posted on the social media platform Twitter, and 21,960 consu...

Although ensuring food safety is still an urgent social issue in China, ethical consumption practices are relatively new, and ethical food is not widely consumed. Chinese consumers often face confusing information about a particular food product's safety and are concerned about the situation. Drawing upon stress coping theory, this study examines w...

Purpose As government funding continues to decrease, higher education (HE) providers are pressed to become autonomous in terms of managing resources and innovation. Many operate as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), expanding business activities beyond borders by integrating programmes of International Academic Mobility (IAM). Such programm...

The proliferation of digital media, together with increasingly mobile internet connectivity, has arguably been the most significant influence on brands and brand management in the first two decades of this millennium. An important development in academic research on branding and marketing in this time has been the widening spectrum of research meth...

Ethical consumption is more likely when consumers are receptive to ethical product information and consider such information when making purchasing decisions. Building on communication theory, we develop and test a framework illustrating how different consumer values induce contrasting effects on consumers’ willingness to choose ethical products th...

An increasing awareness of the impact of high levels of meat consumption on health and environmental sustainability is leading to a growing number of consumers reducing or avoiding meat. To address gaps in the literature, we compare and contrast the importance of the seven sustainability-related labels for three consumer groups (meat eaters, meat r...

Online consumer reviews offer an unprecedented amount of information for consumers to evaluate services before purchase. We use the dual process theory to investigate consumer perceptions about information helpfulness (IH) in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) contexts. Results highlight that popularity signals, two-sided reviews, and expert sources (...

Britain’s scheduled exit from the European Union (‘Brexit’) has long-term ramifications for strategic marketing. Faced with new challenges and uncertainty, UK universities are increasingly looking beyond EU borders to recruit international students. In this context, we draw upon country-of-origin theory to categorise the factors that influence non-...

Throughout the developed world, consumers are increasingly being encouraged to adopt cleaner, more eco-friendly behaviours. However, hybrid car adoption remains low, which impedes the move towards a lower carbon economy. In this paper, we examine the risks and drivers of hybrid car purchases, drawing on consumer behaviour and cultural dimensions th...

Brands that do good for the society as well as for themselves are motivated by the core values they espouse, which necessitates a better understanding of what qualities a true core value must possess. The inherent tension within brands that do good, between commercial interests to increase competitiveness, and societal interests that are closely li...

The theme of motivation in travel and tourism research has been largely dominated by a leisure focus and has consequently failed to reflect the changing landscape of business travel. This paper focusses on exploring the motivations of different types of 'bleisure travelers': individuals who combine leisure with professional business obligations whe...

Purpose - The constantly evolving higher education sector is creating a need for new business models and tools for evaluating performance. In this paper, an overview of the importanceperformance analysis (IPA) model and its applicability as a management tool for assessing student satisfaction in the HE sector is provided. The objective is to apply...

The popularity of social commerce websites (SCW) is constantly growing among consumers, who are increasingly adopting them before buying tourism services. Understanding the factors that influence traveller’s decisions to purchase from SCWs is of critical significance for evaluating their impact in the travel industry. This study draws upon the Delo...

Purpose During the past decade, environmental, health, economic and ethical concerns relating to increasing levels of meat consumption have attracted the interest of governments, media and the public. Existing literature has highlighted the impact of personal values and the perceived benefits that meat substitutes bring to consumer food choices an...

High levels of meat consumption are increasingly being criticised for ethical, environmental, and social reasons. Plant-based meat substitutes have been identified as healthy sources of protein that, in comparison to meat, offer a number of social, environmental and health benefits and may play a role in reducing meat consumption. However, there ha...

PurposePublic entrepreneurship is increasingly being propounded as a key means of ‘doing more with less’ during the tough times associated with successive rounds of neoliberal restructuring and austerity. The primary aim of this chapter is to provide a critical-exploratory review of sponsorship – a disruptive interjection or particular form of publ...

The proliferation of fake and paid online reviews means that building and maintaining consumer trust is a challenging task for websites hosting consumer-generated content. This study tests a model of antecedents and consequences of trust for consumer-generated media (CGM). Five factors are proposed for building consumer trust towards CGM: source cr...

Purpose – This study aims to identify the dimensions of business student satisfaction in the Malaysian private higher educational environment and evaluate the influence that demographic factors have on satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire was developed and distributed to 1,200 undergraduate business students at four private...

The objective of this research is to explore UK and Chinese students' perceptions of peer feedback as well as assessment for coursework conducted in groups during the course of their studies at a large UK Business School. Elements of Hofstede's cultural dimensions were used to develop a theoretical framework for this study. An abductive approach wa...

Online reviews (ORs) are continuing to foster a renewed spread of word-of-mouth in the travel industry. Travelers are increasingly using ORs to inform them about accommodations and other tourism-related products. As such, it is important to improve our understanding of the behavioral consequences of e-word-of-mouth. In this article, we adopt the el...

Developing nations are emerging from food poverty and overcoming associated externalities such as malnutrition. However, there is a growing possibility that due to the globalization of food markets and widespread use of different marketing approaches, children immediately then become exposed to a new set of externalities associated with unhealthy f...

An overseas package holiday is a high-value purchase and a unique and complex service product with a fragmented experience, which can take place for several months or more. There is a gap in the experience literature on overseas package holidays, despite the fact that this industry generates approximately one third of all trips and expenditure in t...

Approximately 16% of UK couples are currently married abroad. However, academic or practitioner focused research that explores the complex nature of a couple’s buying preferences or the development of innovative marketing strategies by businesses operating within the weddings abroad niche sector, is almost non-existent. This exploratory paper exami...

In this paper, it is proposed that integrating arts and culture into international trade missions will stimulate arts and crafts, as well as SME exports. It can also help to package trade missions so that they appeal to a wider audience and build SMEs' relationships with international partners. Arts and cultural organisations - as well as individua...