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This paper aims to examine the role of individual action in addressing challenges of sustainability, and to help marketing scholars and practitioners better understand what motivates sustainable living.

Semistructured interviews with 35 individuals self-identifying as sustainable shed light on motivations and identity expression in sustainable living. Four Drive Theory, and Personal and Social Identity Theory (operationalized through the Dynamic Model of Identity Development), provide this study’s guiding theoretical framework. Data analysis was informed by the Gioia methodology.

Individuals differently express their personal and social identities through sustainable living, and are differently motivated to live sustainably. Those expressing personal identity salience through sustainable living draw on a broader set of motivations than those expressing social identity salience. This results in varying levels of commitment to sustainable living, with differences also found in individuals’ personal satisfaction derived from their sustainable living efforts. Based on these findings, a novel typology of sustainable individuals is developed.

This study is limited by its focus on one geographic area and relatively small sample size. A key implication is the need to consider both personal and social identity when studying behavior in other marketing contexts.

The research provides important insights for marketing practitioners, policymakers and others seeking to better categorize sustainable individuals and target marketing messages to encourage sustainable behaviors.

This paper contributes to marketing scholarship by providing new insights on the role of identity and motivations in sustainable living. It introduces a novel typology of sustainable individuals, founded on differences in identity expression and motivational drives, which are also associated with the range of sustainable behaviors people engage with and how individuals make sense of these behaviors.

This research examines the impact of the National Rural E-commerce Comprehensive Demonstration Project (NRECDP) on poverty reduction and income growth in rural China.

The study develops a theoretical framework, which considers the role of geographical, technological, institutional and cultural factors for the e-commerce poverty alleviation (e-CPA) model. Empirically, this study applies the difference-in-differences (DID) model and the event study approach to evaluate the effectiveness of NRECDP on the basis of large-scale county-level and household-level panel data spanning 2010 to 2020.

The study found that the NRECDP, as a government-led, information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled, market-based program, has led to a significant increase in per capita output of primary industry employees, as well as in the disposable income of rural residents, especially those in national-level poverty-stricken (NP) counties. The interventions of the NRECDP achieved these positive outcomes through transportation and Internet infrastructure improvement, ICT adoption and human capital accumulation in impoverished towns and villages in remote rural areas. These effects are larger in the eastern region of China, followed by the central region, whereas the weakest effects were found in the western region. However, we found little evidence of the NRECDP increasing household developmental expenditure.

The study findings have important practical and policy implications for rural e-commerce development and self-sustained poverty alleviation solutions. The research revealed the significance of government NRECDP interventions for increasing rural income, reducing living costs, and empowering the rural population in its multiple social roles, namely, as consumers, producers, employees and microentrepreneurs. The local cultural context may also play a role in ICT adoption and entrepreneurship cultivation with a downstream effect on the effectiveness of e-CPA practices. Policymakers would need to ensure a supportive entrepreneur-friendly environment for rural e-commerce development and continue implementing progressive policies for poverty alleviation.

This study explores poverty alleviation issues in China by developing for the first time a multi-faceted framework that is subsequently tested by both county-level and household-level large-scale observations. Also, it is the first study to provide nationwide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of e-CPA in narrowing down the spatial and digital divides in China. In addition to the impact of geography, technology and governmental support, this study also sheds light on the role of culture in the adoption and diffusion of digital technologies and as a source of local entrepreneurial opportunities.

Of a company’s most valuable assets, its reputation is among the hardest to build and the easiest to lose. Reputation is also no longer merely a question of brand image and visibility, or “looking good” while dealing with major corporate crises. The other side of reputation is about protecting against the loss of the valuable intangible assets that companies build up over time, such as trust, loyalty and good relationships with stakeholders. Leading global companies are coming to realize that they will be in a much better position to manage change and challenges – financial as well as social and environmental – if they have invested in their relationships with their stakeholders. This means building trust, loyalty, commitment to values, and transparency. However, companies should also reflect on why a good reputation is important to them, who the reputation is aimed at (which stakeholders) and for what purpose (how do they aim to influence stakeholder behavior). Wasting time on the “wrong” stakeholders, such as the media and isolated high‐profile campaign groups, can be as bad as making no effort at all. Consequently, this article focuses not only on the drivers behind the increasing importance of reputation management in our global society, but will also address how companies should take up this challenge.

This case addresses several issues dealing with entrepreneurship, including identification of opportunities, valuation, and most importantly, partnership splits among founding partners.

While Freeman's stakeholder management approach has attracted much attention from both scholars and practitioners, little empirical work has considered the interconnectedness of organisational perspectives and stakeholder perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to respond to this gap by developing and empirically testing a bi‐directional model of organisation/stakeholder relationships.

A conceptual framework is developed that integrates how stakeholders are affected by organisations with how they affect organisations. Quantitative data relating to both sides of the relationship are obtained from 700 customers of a European service organisation and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling technique.

The findings provide empirical support for the notion of mutual dependency between organisations and stakeholders as advocated by stakeholder theorists. The results suggest that the way stakeholders relate to organisations is dependent on how organisations relate to stakeholders.

The study is original on two fronts: first, it provides a framework and process that can be used by researchers to model bi‐directional research with other stakeholder groups and in different contexts. Second, the study presents an example application of bi‐directional research by empirically linking organisational and stakeholder expectations in the case of customers of a UK service organisation.

Criticizes previous research on price/earnings ratios (PER) for neglecting their historical links with interest rates and analyses the causal links between interest ratres and the PERs of the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 Index (TSE300) and of seven major Canadian industries 1965‐1997. Explains the methodology and identifies three “distinct PER regimes”: 1965‐1974 (average PER 17.17), 1975‐1982 (average PER 8.92) and 1983‐1997 (average PER 17.2 with a higher standard deviation). Looks at the economic conditions for each period and suggests that current PERs “may not be too high”. Finds a negative correlation between PERs and treasury bill rates, differing between industries; and that the bill rate explains 95 per cent of PER variation for the TSE300, although it is not significant for the gold and silver industry. Adds that divided payout ratios and lower investor risk aversion are positively related to PERs, but that growth rate has a more variable influence. Summarizes the findings and their implications for PER forecasters.