BU Research Blog

Two papers on digital consumption co-authored by Dr Janice Denegri-Knott have been selected to appear in the Journal of Marketing Management’s new Editor’s Choice collection on digital consumption, and will be available free online until the end of November, 2016.

Redistributed consumer desire in digital virtual worlds of consumption

In this paper we discuss and illustrate how the use of software available in digital virtual worlds of consumption, including wish lists, watch lists and digital virtual goods (DVGs) interact with consumer desiring practices. We draw on a data set of three interpretative studies with technology users living in the South of England. We note the emergence of software-human desiring hybrids where various aspects of competence in and commitment to desire construction, maintenance and actualisation are distributed between subject and software, leading to new configurations of consumer desire. We bring to the fore the often neglected role of nonhuman agents in the practice of consumer desire and highlight the potential breaks caused in the assemblage of the practices unfolding in digital virtual worlds of consumption. Our study shows new ways in which consumer desire practices are re-assembled in software-human hybrids, thereby enhancing our understanding of the role of nonhuman agents (software) in consumer desire practices. It also contributes a finer understanding on how software used in the construction and actualization of desire ultimately reconfigure consumer desire practices into a management process, where the focus is not daydreaming activity or material commodities per se, but rather the software itself. Here, the software not only presents things to be desired, but also absorbs some of the skill and competence needed to conjure up desire. Ultimately these configurations appear to create breaks in the experience of desire that weaken the hold previously binding consumers to objects of desire.

The relationship between ownership and possession: observations from the context of digital virtual goods

This theoretical article highlights limitations in the current trend towards dichotomising full ownership and access-based consumption by recognising a broader, more complex array of ‘fragmented’ ownership configurations in the context of digital virtual goods (DVGs). In challenging this dichotomy, we recognise that the relationship between ownership and possession becomes particularly significant. We therefore consider how prominent DVG ownership configurations may shape the way in which possession is assembled, potentially reducing consumers’ scope of action relative to DVGs and leaving possession susceptible to disruption. Conversely, we acknowledge ways in which consumers’ continued attempts at possession may impinge upon the agency of ownership mechanisms within the market. Our analysis ultimately builds upon existing understandings of both ownership and possession, theorising their often overlooked relation in consumption.

On 19th September, 2016 Dr Paweł Surowiec from the Faculty of Media and Communication’s Corporate and Marketing Communication Group delivered a guest lecture to diplomats and public diplomats at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw.

Following the publication of his research monograph entitled ‘Nation branding, public relations and soft power: corporatizing Poland’, this lecture was an excellent opportunity to share academic insights to Poland’s soft power, analysis emerging for this study, and to engage this key audience in the research produced by the Centre for Politics and Media Research.

Soft power and its communicative resources such as public diplomacy or nation branding continue to be of interest to diplomatic networks world-wide. Its local characteristics, however, the utilized media strategies, levels of professionalization as well as forces in global and regional politics shaping soft power capabilities are themes of professional discussions among diplomats.

The lecture session delivered by Paweł opened up a debate about the impact corporate resources have on Poland’s soft power as well as addressed questions concerning limitations of nation branding as a media strategy and a means to the advancement of influence in international relations.

Black Sister Network is a dedicated resource within the Black British Academic Network created in 2014 to support women of colour in higher education.

Sisterhood, Solidarity & Self-Empowerment for Women of Colour in HE, is a ground-breaking event jointly hosted by Black British Academics and Shades of Noir at University of the Arts London. It is aimed at staff and students and includes:

• Audience discussions on issues related to race and gender,
• Presentations by graduates on dissertation projects focused on issues around race, ethnicity and culture,
• A presentation by women academics of colour on a research project exploring strategies for survival and success,
• resistance poetry on the theme of the event.

People of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds are welcome to attend. A buffet lunch and drinks reception are provided. Attendance is free but registration is required via Eventbrite.

For more information, contact Darren Lilleker.

On Tuesday 4th October 2016 we will be joined by Lindy Holden-Dye, who is a Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southampton.

She will explain what we can learn about how our own brains, with their 86 billion brain cells, work by studying the brain of a simple nematode worm which has just 302.

We look forward to catching up with all of you at Cafe Boscanova!

Doors @6:30pm and the talk will start at 7:30pm until 9pm

Cafe Sci team

At the recent annual ASET AGM and Conference at the University of York, FMC Placement Advisor and CEMP doctoral student Vianna Renaud was elected onto the Trustee board of the organisation. As the professional association for work based and placement learning in HE within the UK, this will help ensure that BU will continue to be at the forefront of the sector.

“As the leading association for our work, I am honoured that I have been elected. With so much change taking place, particularly with the future implementation of the Apprenticeship Levy next year by the government, university placement provision will have certain challenges. By working together, the Board will continue in providing up to date information and guidance to our institutional members which will be essential during this time of change.”

For more information on ASET: http://www.asetonline.org/

Please note that there will be no FHSS Research Seminar at 1pm tomorrow due to Freshers week. Hope you enjoy getting to know your new students. Thanks

The BU Research Staff Association coffee morning is back for 2016/17. It is still an informal opportunity to get together but will now have a research related theme.

This month’s theme is ethics and we are delighted to welcome guest speakers Sarah Bell (RKEO), Dr Katarzyna Musial-Gabrys (FST), Martin Hind (FHSS), and Dr Carol Bond (FHSS) to share their experiences of obtaining ethics and sitting on the BU ethics panel.

• Date: 28th September 2016
• Time: 10-11am
• Venue: B420, Bournemouth House, Lansdowne campus

Please let us know if you are attending so we can order enough cake mheward@bournemouth.ac.uk

See you there,

Michelle and Marcellus

BU Research Staff Association

Professor Christoph Teller, Chair in Retailing and Marketing at the University of Surrey, will discuss why shoppers shop where they do through a presentation of a meta-analyses study. The study he presents aims to identify the major antecedents of offline and online retail patronage. In his talk he will outline the retail patronage work of Pan and Zinkhan (2006) and discuss how he extends their view and develops conceptual models of offline and online retail patronage based on Sheth’s (1999) integrated theory of patronage behaviour and Finn and Louviere’s (1996) specification in a retail patronage context. The models he identifies proposes direct effects between antecedents (stimuli), i.e., mainly manageable attributes of retailers, and the retail patronage (response or shopping predisposition). The study is based upon a meta-analysis of more than 300 empirical studies and makes a theoretical as well as practical contribution to the topic area as it provides an overview on, and detailed insights into, patronage research in an offline as well as online context.

This free event, hosted by the Influences on Consumer Behaviour Research Cluster, will take place on Friday 16th September 2016, 2-3.30pm in the Inspire Lecture Theatre. Please book your place through Eventbrite: ‘Why consumers shop where they do’

A six nation collaborative EU bid, led by BU’s Sarah Hean and including Carol Bond, Jaqui Hewitt-Taylor, Sara Ashencaen Crabtree and Jonathan Parker has been successful in securing funding for a four-year project exploring meaningful, appropriate and effective ways of assisting the rehabilitation of people in prison with mental health problem. Sarah is currently completing her highly successful and prestigious Marie Curie-Sklodowska fellowship at the University of Stavangar, Norway, returning to BU in January 2017.

Reoffending is a problem in Europe and internationally. Offender rehabilitation strategies to reduce reoffending focus on limiting key risk factors (e.g. unemployment, substance misuse) which are so often mediated by the individual’s mental health. Levels of mental health are much higher in the prison population, which therefore limits the effectiveness of rehabilitation strategies.

Professionals in mental health and prison services constantly need to find new solutions to the bespoke needs of each individual offender with a mental health issue. Leaders in these services need to transform current working practices in a process of continuous quality improvement to keep up with the changing needs of the offender population, the development of new technologies and the changing landscape of service provision. However, people who have offended also need to take responsibility for their rehabilitation and play an active role in developing solutions to their own needs and challenges. In other words front line professionals, offenders and leaders need to be innovators.

This project therefore seeks collaborative and effective relational work and knowledge exchange between professionals from mental health, prison services and individual offenders. At present collaboration between prisons and mental health services is limited. New models of interagency working are required in which social innovation and collaboration processes are made explicit. In the fields of developmental work research, practice development and social innovation, there is a range of successful models of collaborative working and innovation that have had positive outcomes in other practice contexts. The methods include the ethnographic ‘change laboratory’ methods in development work research, the Ajkaer model of social innovation and collaboration based on a ‘diamond model’ of innovation already applied to working between prison officers and prisoners, Practice Development Units developed and extensively applied in the field of health and social care organizational change with a national reputation in the UK and competency based educational models focused on developing integration, collaboration and social innovation competences in the workforce. The academic members of the consortium have international reputations in the application of these models and will apply these to the rehabilitation of mentally ill offenders specifically and to the interagency working required between mental health services and prison services exploring which of these models might be most effective in transforming interagency working practices in offender rehabilitation or whether an amalgamation or hybrid model combining the strengths of these might be more appropriate.