Search

This article extends current models of how consumers judge or perceive organizations as greedy by employing the theoretical framework of motivated moral reasoning. We show that inherent features of an organization (size and “black sheep” status) and its behavior (relative frequency) bias consumer perceptions of organizational greed. We use an experimental methodology, present subjects with vignettes describing different scenarios, validate our questionnaire using confirmatory factor analysis, and test our hypotheses by employing a general linear model with covariates. Our findings suggest that consumer perceptions of organizational greed are subject to three effects: the underdog effect (Study 1, n = 496), the black sheep effect (Study 2, n = 229), and the “common is moral” heuristic (Study 3, n = 249). This is the first study to investigate greed under a motivated reasoning paradigm and to show that perceptions of organizational greed are subject to socio-psychological biases. This study also provides advice on branding and positioning strategies that appeal to the underdog status of an organization or its local origins. peerReviewed

Public relations (PR) focuses on storytelling by creating newsworthy content that will be communicated to target audiences. However, because social media has empowered individual consumers to an unprecedented level, we are no longer passive consumers of stories and some consumers have even reached influencer status where their opinions carry great authority. In the future, PR stories will shape global culture, but the Covid-19 pandemic has also alerted us to the damage caused by deliberate misinformation (e.g. the anti-vaccination movement). The digital environment — especially where PR now operates — is changing rapidly; artificial intelligence and machine learning are assisting corporations in processing vast volumes of unstructured data. Currently, trust in online communications is eroding in general, but the future of Web3 with blockchain technology may reverse this erosion by introducing new trust protocols into digital interactions. peerReviewed

This chapter outlines the increasing prominence of Big Data and its application to marketing practice. The 8Ps of the Expanded Marketing Mix: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Process, Physical evidence, Partnerships and People are applied as the lens in explaining the application of Big Data in contemporary marketing practice. Big Data is already guiding marketing decision-making at multiple levels, from analysing consumer buying behaviour to Internet-of-Things (IoT)-enabled devices that report on product use conditions, service requirements or processing data from manufacturing. In the future, Artificial Intelligence will become important in handling Big Data. In preparation for this, there is an urgent need for ethical design principles to be integrated into the capture, storage and use of Big Data as part of the entire data management process. peerReviewed