The study intends to investigate the relationship between work stress and job insecurity, as well as technological changes and job insecurity, with job satisfaction acting as a mediator. The study was conducted among Pakistani retail industry employees using survey questionnaires distributed online and in stores. The sample was composed of 262 retail workers from the FMCG and shopping mall industries. The responses were screened using the statistical software tool SPSS, and hypotheses were examined through SMART-PLS. The findings show (...) that work stress has a strong relationship with job insecurity; additionally, the relationship appears to be statistically significant. This demonstrates that many technological changes cause high levels of job insecurity because employees fear that they will be unable to cope with the changing environment. Furthermore, the mediating mechanism of job satisfaction was found to be significant, as employees with lower levels of satisfaction reported higher levels of insecurity, aiding in the narrowing of the gap in this section of the study. The study also has practical implications because the results show that the retail industry needs to act quickly to make sure workers do not worry about losing their jobs, especially now that COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire. (shrink)

We draw insights from Activity Theory within the field of human-computer interaction to quantitatively measure a mobile in-store experience (MIX), which includes the suite of shopping activities and retail services that a consumer can engage in when using their mobile device in brick-and-mortar stores. We developed and validated a nine-item, formative MIX index using survey data collected from fashion consumers in the United States (n= 1,267), United Kingdom (n= 370), Germany (n= 362), and France (n= 219). As survey measures (...) of consumer engagement in omnichannel retailing using a mobile device, the index items with stronger factor loadings described in-store shopping activities whereas those with weaker factor loadings described activities related to behavioral targeting and social networking. These results suggest that retailers should give consumers the autonomy to independently find, evaluate and purchase merchandise in brick-and-mortar stores, thereby enabling them to co-create personalized shopping experiences as active participants within an omnichannel retail servicescape. Our findings also suggest that retailers should provide consumers with more authentic ways to build community and brand affiliations than mobile marketing and social media promotions. In-store activities should not simply be a migration of pre-existing e-commerce capabilities onto mobile devices. An engaging mobile in-store experience should be an amalgam of physical and digital activities that produce a seamless shopping journey and leverage the unique properties of mobile devices – ultra-portability, location sensitivity, untetheredness, and personalization. Retail executives can use the validated MIX index to prepare strategic investments in mobile technology applications and capabilities for retail stores within their omnichannel operations. The nine-item MIX index is also well-suited for consumer surveys, which also makes it an attractive measure of consumer engagement in omnichannel retailing for future academic research. (shrink)

Rather than "transitional," the American interwar years constituted a contiguous and seminal era during which the social, religious, and aesthetic consequences of a changed environment, modernity, became powerful forces in shaping the patterns in recent popular culture. Increased literacy and affluence, media technologies, and changes in work and leisure encouraged a mass marketplace of ideas. Popular intellectuals, namely D. W. Griffith, Bruce Barton, John B. Watson, Edward Bernays, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Edward L. Bernays, George Creel, Pearl Buck, John Steinbeck, and (...) Gilbert Selders helped Americans reimagine entire areas of existence for the new context. They illuminate important cultural shifts regarding the nature of self in a rationalized, urban world, the legitimacy of religion in the shadow of skeptical empiricism, and the qualities and social role of art in the age of science, alienation, and political apathy. ;Many of our persistent forms of popular expression can be understood as cultural exchanges over the problem of modernity, evidence of the obtuse ways in which modernism has affected the general culture. Griffith's mawkish melodrama is, upon serious scrutiny, deeply informed by modern fears of personal anomie, naturalism, and the aloof power of the new state. New concepts of "personality" and the "masses," based on behavioristic assumptions, envisioned both self and society as malleable and helped mitigate feelings of alienation with promises of empowerment and self-transformation. With Fosdick and Barton, mainstream Protestantism absorbed "positive thinking" and therapeutic conceptions of religion's role in modern life, and in the process redefined the nature of God, self, and the Church, Buck and Steinbeck reshaped melodramatic formulae into response to modern tensions with a blend of brutal naturalism and sentimental romanticism, a vision of an embattled "human spirit." In these thinkers, we can see Americans confronting the century's most compelling issues, disorder, naturalism, scientism, and relativism. Each phenomenon was a way of admitting modern change while imagining techniques for manipulating it. The relentless pursuit in popular culture for social connectedness, mastery of environment, spiritual assurance, managerial order, and personal power can best be understood as multifarious compensatory strategies for our ambivalence with modernity. (shrink)

This paper provides three brief cases of retailers who have, through what is interpreted as stakeholder mismanagement, brought major problems to bear upon those companies, and other stakeholder groups. The main cases examined concern a "free flight" promotion run by the Hoover company in the UK in 1992/3, the collapse of the Ratner'sretail jewellery chain, and wage realignments at British Gas in 1994.Synthesising these examples, it is suggested that: (1) All companies are expected to meet ethical norms in dealings with (...) their stakeholders, regardless of whether or not they have specifically set out to cultivate an "ethical" image; (2) Stakeholder groups tend not to stand in isolation, but to interact; moreover, modern technology may well tend to increase that interaction; (3) The fall-out from stakeholder mismanagement is likely to be widespread, highly publicised, long lasting, and difficult to contain; (4) Prospect Theory, derived from economics and psychology, may be applicable in such cases. This broadly asserts that we are far more readily affected by dissatisfaction than satisfaction, and this is especially so if expectations have been raised. However, from an ethical standpoint, there is still virtue in pursuing high standards in dealings with stakeholders. (shrink)

Several technological developments, such as self-service technologies and artificial intelligence, are disrupting the retailing industry by changing consumption and purchase habits and the overall retail experience. Although AI represents extraordinary opportunities for businesses, companies must avoid the dangers and risks associated with the adoption of such systems. Integrating perspectives from emerging research on AI, morality of machines, and norm activation, we examine how individuals morally behave toward AI agents and self-service machines. Across three studies, we demonstrate that consumers’ moral (...) concerns and behaviors differ when interacting with technologies versus humans. We show that moral intention is less likely to emerge for AI checkout and self-checkout machines compared with human checkout. In addition, moral intention decreases as people consider the machine less humanlike. We further document that the decline in morality is caused by less guilt displayed toward new technologies. The non-human nature of the interaction evokes a decreased feeling of guilt and ultimately reduces moral behavior. These findings offer insights into how technological developments influence consumer behaviors and provide guidance for businesses and retailers in understanding moral intentions related to the different types of interactions in a shopping environment. (shrink)

This paper looks at the question of sustainability through the prism of a collective action problem fundamentally driven by human desires and needs. It ftrst characterizes the problem of non-sustainability by combining environmental ethics with the philosophy of technology. The paper then considers four basic strategies for resolving the collective action problem: virtue, regulation, price, and innovation. Each solution has its own set of weaknesses and strengths, meaning that achieving sustainability will remain a difficult balancing act.

Following the Industrial Revolution in Europe and America, the market was flooded with manufacturing goods. To promote sales, the department store that stressed a “low profit, high volume” model appeared in Shanghai. Sellers lowered prices to encourage purchases, and used rapid and high volume turnover to make up for lower profits. To speed up turnover, department stores invented various devices to increase sales, including intensive media advertising, open and comfortable store spaces, and free and attentive services. The new sales philosophy (...) and tactics not only brought about a breakthrough in the retailing, but also reshaped consumer life and urban culture. The Shanghai department store evinced the social and cultural meaning of consumption in its building and inner design, its application of new technology, and its promotional activities and products display. A consumer lifestyle centering on the department store also remolded the Shanghai society. (shrink)

Innovation and sustainability are postulated as key variables for the future of large commercial distribution. In addition, the development of Information and Communication Technologies solutions, and especially those related to Artificial Intelligence and digitization, are particularly relevant factors in the current pandemic scenario in which retail companies operate. These tools are essential to face the derived changes in commercial relations, especially between companies and consumers. For all these reasons, this work aims to examine the effect of ICT, as a (...) driving factor for innovation and its direct and indirect impact on sustainability in retailing. Furthermore, this study takes into account the eventual differences in these relationships according to the types of store formats. To achieve the aforementioned objective, a theoretical model is proposed that is tested through an empirical study carried out on a sample of 510 consumers of three store formats of grocery retail formats in Spain. For the analysis of the data obtained, the partial least squares regression technique and the Multigroup Analysis were used. The results obtained confirm the direct and indirect effect of ICT on innovation and sustainability in grocery retailing. In addition, the results indicate that consumers unequally perceive the technological progress of companies. These differences are greater between discount stores versus hypermarkets and supermarkets. The larger the size of the store format, the higher the incidence of ICT in relation to innovation. Therefore, it is vital to take ICT into consideration, where Artificial Intelligence is imperative for the growth and development of sustainable competitive advantages in retail companies. (shrink)

Consumer distrust is only recently beginning to be perceived as an important e-commerce issue and, unlike online trust, the nature and role of distrust is much less established. This study examines the influence of two important consumer characteristics on consumer’s ethically-based distrust of online retailers. Also, the moderating role of consumer’s need for personal contact with sales staff is tested. Results from 409 online consumers confirm that both relativist-based ethical ideology and risk aversion are strongly and positively related to consumers’ (...) distrust. Interestingly, our findings show that positive effects of relativism and risk aversion on consumer’s distrust are moderated by consumers’ need for personal interaction, which is more pronounced for those consumers with a high need for personal interaction with retail salespeople. (shrink)

The industries of Japan have developed by learning from Western industries, especially the USA, and by implementing many of their concepts and technologies. However, Japanese industries have often implemented these concepts and technologies in a very different way from the USA. For example, while the USA uses information systems in retail industries as a tool by which data are collected and analysed to ‘control the market’, in Japan this same technology is considered rather as a learning device to (...) ‘interpret the market’. While in the USA the market is seen as a natural phenomenon capable of being controlled, the Japanese see it as an ambiguous phenomenon that is ever changing and is not capable of being controlled. Rather it is important to feel the change in the market itself. (shrink)

“Acceptable Risk” – On the Rationality of Emotional Evaluations of Risk What is “acceptable risk”? That question is appropriate in a number of different contexts, political, social, ethical, and scienti c. Thus the question might be whether the voting public will support a risky proposal or project, whether people will buy or accept a risky product, whether it is morally permissible to pursue this or that potentially harmful venture, or whether it is wise or prudent to test or try out (...) some possibly dangerous hypothesis or product. But complicating all of these queries, the “sand in the machinery” of rational decision-making, are the emotions. It is often noted that voters are swayed by their passions at least as much as they are convinced by rational arguments. And it is obvious to advertisers and retailers that people are seduced by all sorts of appeals to their vanities, their fears, their extravagant hopes, their insecurities. At least one major thread of ethical discourse, the one following Kant, minimizes the importance of the emotions in favor of an emphatically rational decision-making process, and it is worth mulling over the fact that many of those who do not accept Kant’s ethical views more or less applaud his rejection of the “moral sentiment theory” of the time, promoted by such luminary philosophers as David Hume and Adam Smith. (shrink)

Computer-facilitated self-service technologies have become ubiquitous in today’s consumer-focused world. Yet, few human–computer interactions elicit such dramatically polarizing emotional reactions from users as those involving SSTs. ATMs, pay-at-the-pump gas stations, and self-scanning retail registers tend to produce both passionate supporters and critics. While negative comments often center on unpleasant personal user experiences, the actual “abuse” related to such systems is really much deeper and more complex. SSTs carry with them a number of potentially insidious consequences, including the exploitation of (...) consumers as uncompensated temporary workers; the sacrifice of our inherent humanity to delegate both skills and cognition to electronic helpers; and the enabling of a new type of posthuman consumer identity, where each transaction is completed by a cyborg entity constructed of the human on one side and the electronic mechanism on the other. As a result, we may ultimately lose the boundary between the human and the machine. (shrink)

Computer-facilitated self-service technologies have become ubiquitous in today’s consumer-focused world. Yet, few human–computer interactions elicit such dramatically polarizing emotional reactions from users as those involving SSTs. ATMs, pay-at-the-pump gas stations, and self-scanning retail registers tend to produce both passionate supporters and critics. While negative comments often center on unpleasant personal user experiences, the actual “abuse” related to such systems is really much deeper and more complex. SSTs carry with them a number of potentially insidious consequences, including the exploitation of (...) consumers as uncompensated temporary workers; the sacrifice of our inherent humanity to delegate both skills and cognition to electronic helpers; and the enabling of a new type of posthuman consumer identity, where each transaction is completed by a cyborg entity constructed of the human on one side and the electronic mechanism on the other. As a result, we may ultimately lose the boundary between the human and the machine. (shrink)

Drawing on service climate theory and insights from the literature on self-service technologies and customer participation, this study investigates the antecedents of customers’ continuance intentions toward in-lobby self-service technologies (SSTs). Using data collected from 257 actual customers in the context of retail banks, this experimental study examines the proposed relationship between customer perceived service climate, customer readiness factors (i.e., perceived ability, role clarity, and perceived benefit), customer satisfaction and customer continuance intention toward in-lobby self-service technologies. The results show that (...) customers’ perceived service climate positively influences customers’ continuance intentions toward in-lobby SSTs. Moreover, two customer readiness factors (i.e., perceived ability, perceived benefit) and customer satisfaction mediate this relationship. The findings demonstrate the importance of customers’ perceived service climate in driving their continuance intention and provide managerial implications for service firms employing in-lobby self-service technologies. (shrink)

The unprecedented outbreak of the novel coronavirus has led to a great shift toward online retailing and accelerated the need for contactless delivery. This study investigates how technological and health belief factors influence consumer acceptance of autonomous delivery robots. Anchored in four behavioral theories [i.e., technology acceptance model, health belief model, perceived value theory and trust theory], a synthesized model is developed. A total of 500 valid responses were collected through an online questionnaire in Singapore, and structural equation modeling (...) was conducted to examine the responses. The results revealed that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, self-efficacy and cues to action have a positive and significant influence on consumers’ perceptions of the value of ADRs. The total effect analysis also showed that perceived VAL strongly affects consumer acceptance of ADRs. Academically, this study introduces both technological and health belief factors to explain consumer acceptance of ADRs. It also provides recommendations for policymakers and autonomous delivery robot developers on policy formulation, public communication, product design and infrastructure development. (shrink)

Online retailers are using advances in data collection and computing technologies to “personalize” prices, i.e., offer goods for sale to shoppers at their reservation prices, or the highest price they are willing to pay. In this paper, I offer a criticism of this practice. I begin by putting online personalized pricing in context. It is not something entirely new, but rather a kind of price discrimination, a familiar pricing practice. I then offer a fairness-based argument against it. When an online (...) retailer personalizes prices, it competes unfairly for the social surplus created by a transaction. I defend this argument against objections, and offer a simple remedy: online retailers should either disclose that they are personalizing prices, or stop doing so. (shrink)

Using the emerging technology of large-scale textual analysis, this study examines the use of the term ‘customer satisfaction’ and its variants in the annual reports issued by publicly traded U.S. corporations and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as Form 10-K. We document the frequency of the term’s occurrence in 10-Ks over the 1995–2013 period and the differences in usage across industries. We then relate the term’s usage in 10-Ks to subsequent scores from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (...) to determine whether management’s discussion of customer satisfaction in financial disclosures is credible. The commitment of management to shareholders versus, more broadly, stakeholders is a central question in business ethics, and the integrity of management communication is a fundamental construct in the American Marketing Association’s Statement of Ethics. We document a complex relation between management’s discussion of customer satisfaction and subsequently reported satisfaction. We find that the general use of customer satisfaction in 10-K documents is negatively correlated with subsequent ACSI scores. However, for retail firms, when the phrase is located near words indicating measurement or monitoring of the phenomenon, the empirical relation is reversed and becomes positive. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a new perspective on the difficulty and meaning of ethical work for financial controllers. This is achieved by drawing on concepts from Michel Henry’s phenomenology of life in the field of business ethics. The French philosopher Michel Henry is distinguished by his identifying two modes of appearing: ‘intentionality’ and ‘affectivity’ . Henry suggests that relying only on abstract representations constitutes a specific ideology that causes individuals at work to ignore the actual experience (...) of being affected, and hinders the appearance of life to guide their actions, in turn hindering ethics. Empirical illustrations are provided by a case study that explores the practices of management accountants in a travel retail corporation. By observing the empirical practices of management accountants, a body of professionals whose role is largely dependent on information technology, abstraction and technical expertise to trace organisational flows and transactions, we shed light on the difficult ethical issues associated with their role of surveillance and control of other managers’ work. The case study illustrates a wide range of everyday working practices among management accountants. Some convey the impression that they lack empathy and consideration for other individuals, while others engage in close cooperation and ethical practices despite the constraining configuration of their role. A significant result of this research is that it illustrates and interprets, based on Henry’s phenomenology, a wide range of working practices. Consistent with Henry, we argue that the source of business ethics lies beyond professional standards, codes and values. (shrink)

Governing greenwashing in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure is an important issue, but relevant literature is scant. Based on the data on Chinese A-share listed firms from 2012 to 2021, we investigate the governance role of corporate digital transformation (DT) in ESG greenwashing and its influencing mechanism. We find that DT significantly inhibits ESG greenwashing. Moreover, DT mitigates ESG greenwashing by enhancing corporate green technology innovation (i.e., innovation channel), reducing information asymmetry (i.e., information channel), and increasing trade credit (...) (i.e., resource channel). From the perspective of investor attention, we find that both retail investors' online opinions and institutional investors' site visits strengthen the inhibitory effect of DT on ESG greenwashing. Furthermore, such an inhibitory effect is more pronounced in large firms, industries with high competition, and regions with strong intellectual property protection. This research provides new insights and policy suggestions for governing corporate ESG greenwashing behavior. (shrink)

Computer-facilitated self-service technologies have become ubiquitous in today’s consumer-focused world. Yet, few human–computer interactions elicit such dramatically polarizing emotional reactions from users as those involving SSTs. ATMs, pay-at-the-pump gas stations, and self-scanning retail registers tend to produce both passionate supporters and critics. While negative comments often center on unpleasant personal user experiences, the actual “abuse” related to such systems is really much deeper and more complex. SSTs carry with them a number of potentially insidious consequences, including the exploitation of (...) consumers as uncompensated temporary workers; the sacrifice of our inherent humanity to delegate both skills and cognition to electronic helpers; and the enabling of a new type of posthuman consumer identity, where each transaction is completed by a cyborg entity constructed of the human on one side and the electronic mechanism on the other. As a result, we may ultimately lose the boundary between the human and the machine. (shrink)

This article asks how the application of digital technologies is changing the organization of the agri-food system in the context of the third food regime. The academic debate on digitalization and food largely focuses on the input and farm level. Yet, based on the analysis of 280 digital services and products, we show that digital technologies are now being used along the entire food commodity chain. We argue that digital technologies in the third food regime serve on the one hand (...) as a continuation of established information and communication technologies, thus deepening certain features of the existing food regime such as the retail sector’s control over global commodity chains. On the other hand, digital technologies also introduce new forms of control and value extraction based on the use of data and pave the way for large tech companies to take over market shares in the agri-food sector. Finally, we find that multinational agri-food companies are starting to take on the business models of leading digital tech companies, for instance by developing digital platforms throughout the agri-food system. We argue that this shows that the broader economic restructuring of neoliberal capitalism towards digital capitalism is also making its way into the agri-food system. (shrink)

This case takes place in the context of a small to medium-sized retail clothing firm. It examines the latest trends in social media marketing technology and the potential ethical issues regarding privacy infringement and behavioral control of teenagers and young adults that such technology presents. The scenario invites students to consider how much, if at all, such marketing practices should be resisted going forward.

Our study considers the governance, ethics and operational challenges associated with the acquisition, manipulation and commodification of ‘big data’ in the financial services sector. To the best of our knowledge, there are no published studies describing empirical research undertaken within companies in this sector to understand how they are responding to such challenges: our field-based research is a significant initial contribution in this respect. We describe the results of a micro-ethnographic study undertaken in a small-to-medium-sized company developing disruptive, technology-related (...) platforms and services in the banking and retail sectors based on big data and associated analytics: these are used to derive commercially valuable insights from personal customer data in exchange for cash back and targeted rewards. The company was found to employ a multi-level innovation governance approach, underpinned by an ethical strategy based on a principle of mutual benefit. Opt-in and informed consent for using data for specific purposes was supported by principles of data minimisation and anonymisation, with unrestricted use of secondary, anonymised and aggregated data to develop insights. Governance, which included contextual data protection legislation, payment-card industry data usage standards and internal corporate controls, presented as bespoke organisational practices relating to data security and privacy. These in total set the governance and ethics frame for big data innovation at the company within which it has had to be both adaptive and responsive under conditions of normative and regulatory uncertainty. (shrink)

Companies are increasingly using cause-related marketing campaigns to engage consumers during the purchase process and highlight their own corporate social responsibility initiatives. One growing trend among retailers is the use of charity campaigns, where cashiers or technologies solicit consumers to donate money at checkout. Though these checkout charity campaigns are ubiquitous, little is known about their impact on consumers or the psychological processes involved. This paper addresses this gap by examining the process by which checkout charity appeals may license consumers (...) to engage in “guilty pleasures” counter to injunctive norms. In a series of four studies, we affirm this hypothesis, presenting a novel methodological approach for providing evidence of a credits-based process. This method utilizes a Johnson-Neyman procedure to demonstrate how a charitable donation creates a “warm-glow” feeling that subsequent counter-injunctive consumption erodes. In other words, we directly observe individuals “cashing in” credits to pay for bad behavior. We discuss the ethical implications of such campaigns in light of the subsequent behavior they may license. (shrink)

This study examined preschool children’s reasoning about and behavioral interactions with one of the most advanced robotic pets currently on the retail market, Sony’s robotic dog AIBO. Eighty children, equally divided between two age groups, 34–50 months and 58–74 months, participated in individual sessions with two artifacts: AIBO and a stuffed dog. Evaluation and justification results showed similarities in children’s reasoning across artifacts. In contrast, children engaged more often in apprehensive behavior and attempts at reciprocity with AIBO, and more (...) often mistreated the stuffed dog and endowed it with animation. Discussion focuses on how robotic pets, as representative of an emerging technological genre, may be blurring foundational ontological categories, and impacting children’s social and moral development. (shrink)

By the early 2020s, emotional artificial intelligence will become increasingly present in everyday objects and practices such as assistants, cars, games, mobile phones, wearables, toys, marketing, insurance, policing, education and border controls. There is also keen interest in using these technologies to regulate and optimize the emotional experiences of spaces, such as workplaces, hospitals, prisons, classrooms, travel infrastructures, restaurants, retail and chain stores. Developers frequently claim that their applications do not identify people. Taking the claim at face value, this (...) paper asks, what are the privacy implications of emotional AI practices that do not identify individuals? To investigate privacy perspectives on soft non-identifying emotional AI, the paper draws upon the following: over 100 interviews with the emotion detection industry, legal community, policy-makers, regulators and NGOs interested in privacy; a workshop with stakeholders to design ethical codes for using data about emotions; a UK survey of 2068 citizens on feelings about emotion capture technologies. It finds a weak consensus among social stakeholders on the need for privacy, this driven by different interests and motivations. Given this weak consensus, it concludes that there exists a limited window of opportunity to societally agree principles of practice regarding privacy and the use of data about emotions. (shrink)

Sustainability is typically viewed as consisting of three forces, economic, social, and ecological, in tension with one another. In this paper, we address the dangers posed to societal sustainability. The concern being addressed is the very survival of societies where the rights of individuals, personal and collective freedoms, an independent judiciary and media, and democracy, despite its messiness, are highly valued. We argue that, as a result of various technological innovations, a range of dysfunctional impacts are threatening social and political (...) stability. For instance, robotics and automation are replacing human labor and decision-making in a range of industries; search engines, monetized through advertising, have access to, and track, our interests and preferences; social media, in connecting us to one another often know more about us than we ourselves do, enabling them to profit in ways which may not coincide with our well-being; online retailers have not only acquired the ability to track and predict our buying choices, but also they can squeeze vendors based on their outsize bargaining power; and, in general, virtual technologies have changed both the way we think and our sense of self. With the rising deployment of the Internet of Things, and developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence, the threats to individual freedoms and rights, societal cohesion and harmony, employment and economic well-being, and trust in democracy are being ratcheted up. This paper lauds the benefits and addresses the harm wrought by the high tech giants in Information and Communication Technologies. The search for rapidly growing revenues drives firms to accelerate product innovation without fully investigating the entire gamut of their impacts. As greater wealth accrues to the leaders of tech firms, inequalities within firms and societies are widening, creating social tensions and political ferment. We explore the ethical nature of the challenge employing a simple utilitarian calculus, complemented by approaches rooted in rights, justice, and the common good. Various options to address the challenges posed by ICTs are considered and evaluated. We argue that regulation may do little more than slow down the damage to society, particularly since societal values and political preferences vary internationally. Firms need to establish ethical standards, imbuing the upholders of these standards with sufficient authority, while creating a culture of morality. User involvement and activism, and shareholders’ concerns for the sustainability of societies on whose continued prosperity they depend, are imperative to humanity’s ability to decide the future direction of technology. (shrink)

The live streaming e-commerce market continues to grow with the rapid increase in contactless communication due to COVID-19. Live streaming e-commerce goes beyond the confines of traditional e-commerce of simply selling goods or services. It supplies information and allows synchronous information exchange between the online viewer and the Internet celebrity, who influences the consumers information behavior and ultimately contributes to the long-term profit generation of the company. From online commerce to new retail and live streaming, China has been at (...) the forefront of innovation in online commerce worldwide. Therefore, this study focuses on investigating the influences of live streaming e-commerce quality, such as service quality, information quality, and system quality, on consumer purchase intention in China by applying the extended model of technology acceptance. Furthermore, this study analyzes the paths through which the live streaming e-commerce quality affects the consumer purchase intention, based on paths of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived trust, and perceived value. To analyze this study, the data were collected from 231 customers who had used live streaming e-commerce apps in China and empirical analysis was applied. The results were summarized as follows: SQ is positively related to PU and PT. Similarly, IQ is positively related to PEU and PT. In addition, SEQ is also positively related to PU and PEU. Moreover, SQ affected the PV through PU and PT significantly and ultimately influenced consumer PI. Also, the path in which SEQ affects PU, which in turn affects PV, and ultimately PI, was found. This study found out the paths of how the live streaming E-commerce quality affects the consumer purchasing intention and contributes to the research field of e-commerce and consumer behaviors. Additionally, the results of this study give useful marketing suggestions for relevant financial institutions and enterprises. (shrink)

Ethical scandals, as well as unethical behaviour, are becoming major concerns in recent times. Thus, this study focused on the role of ethical climate and employees’ moral identity. Specifically, this study examined the mediation effect of ethical climate on the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ ethical behaviour. Also, the study investigated the moderating role of employee moral identity on the relationship between ethical climate and employees’ ethical behaviour. Data were collected from 620 full-time employees working at thirty-three Iraqi organisations (...) from five Iraqi provinces. These organisations were from various industry sectors such as manufacturing, retailing, medical, insurance, information technology, legal, finance, and telecommunication sectors. The study found that ethical leadership impacted on the ethical behaviour of employees and the ethical climate also significantly mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ ethical behaviour. The moderating role of moral identity on the relationship between ethical climate and ethical behaviour was found to be insignificant in this context. (shrink)

Great individuals are assumed to cause the success of radical innovations--thus Henry Ford is depicted as the one who established the automobile industry in America. Hayagreeva Rao tells a different story, one that will change the way you think about markets forever. He explains how "market rebels"--activists who defy authority and convention--are the real force behind the success or failure of radical innovations. Rao shows how automobile enthusiasts were the ones who established the new automobile industry by staging highly publicized (...) reliability races and lobbying governments to enact licensing laws. Ford exploited the popularity of the car by using new mass-production technologies. Rao argues that market rebels also establish new niches and new cultural styles. If it were not for craft brewers who crusaded against "industrial beer" and proliferated brewpubs, there would be no specialty beers in America. But for nouvelle cuisine activists who broke the stranglehold of Escoffier's classical cuisine in France, there would have been little hybridization and experimentation in modern cooking. Market rebels also thwart radical innovation. Rao demonstrates how consumer activists have faced down chain stores and big box retailers, and how anti-biotechnology activists in Germany penetrated pharmaceutical firms and delayed the commercialization of patents. Read Market Rebels to learn how activists succeed when they construct "hot causes" that arouse intense emotions, and exploit "cool mobilization"--unconventional techniques that engage audiences in collective action. You will realize how the hands that move markets are the joined hands of market rebels. (shrink)

In early 2020, Sobeys—one of Canada’s largest food retailers—partnered with Infarm Indoor Vertical Farming to install hydroponic vertical farming units in their retail locations. This partnership aims to build a resilient agri-food ecosystem in the face of climate change. Infarm is one of few vertical farming start-ups to reach ‘unicorn’ status in the recent boom of venture capital-backed urban farming solutions. Working to mitigate the climate crisis is critical, but I take venture capital as the spokesperson for green technologies (...) as intuitively strange. Actor-network theory is a powerful tool for describing networks in which modern technical objects are embedded. By mapping the nodes of Infarm’s actor-network and analyzing how and by what the expertise of a ‘black-boxed’ vertical farm is negotiated, we can identify obligatory points of passage that render the epistemology of the network durable. Ultimately, Infarm’s vertical farming practice and its climate change mitigation logics are moulded by venture capital and its biopolitical epistemology of valuation—a way of thinking that conceptualizes ‘life’, biology and, therefore, the climate in terms of political economy. (shrink)

In European industrialized countries, a large number of companies in the healthcare, hotel, and catering sectors, as well as in the technology sector, are affected by demographic, political, and technological developments resulting in a greater need of skilled workers with a simultaneous shortage of skilled workers (CEDEFOP, 2015, 2016). Consequently, employers have to address workers who have not been taken into account such as low-skilled workers, workers returning from a career break, people with a migrant background, older people, and (...) jobseekers and train them, in order to guarantee the professionalization of this workforce (Festing and Harsch, 2018). Continuing vocational education and training (CVET) is seen as an indispensable tool; because CVET has advantages for both employers and employees, it helps to increase the productivity of companies (Barrett and O’Connell, 2001), to prevent the widening of socioeconomic disparities (Dieckhoff, 2007), and to open up career opportunities for the workforce (Rubenson and Desjardins, 2009). However, participation rate on CVET seems to differ, depending on institutional factors (such as sector and size of the company) and individual characteristics (such as qualification level, migration background, age and time of absence from work) (e.g., Rubenson and Desjardins, 2009; Wiseman and Parry, 2017). In contrast to previous research, our study aims to provide a holistic view of reasons for and against CVET, combining the different perspectives of employers and (potential) employees. The analysis of reasons and barriers was carried out based on semi-structured interviews. Fifty-seven employers, 73 employees, and 42 jobseekers (potential employees) from the sectors retail, healthcare and social services, hotels and catering, and technology were interviewed. Results point to considerable differences in the reasons and barriers mentioned by the disadvantaged groups. These differences are particularly significant between employees on the one side and employers, as well as jobseekers, on the other side, while the reasons to attend CVET of jobseekers are more similar to those of employers. The results can be used to tailor CVET more closely to the needs of (potential) employees and thus strengthen both the qualification and career opportunities of (potential) employees and the competitiveness and productivity of companies. (shrink)

Under the banner of “data for good,” companies in the technology, finance, and retail sectors supply their proprietary datasets to development agencies, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations to help solve an array of social problems. We focus on the activities and implications of the Data for Climate Action campaign, a set of public–private collaborations that wield user data to design innovative responses to the global climate crisis. Drawing on in-depth interviews, first-hand observations at “data for good” events, intergovernmental and (...) international organizational reports, and media publicity, we evaluate the logic driving Data for Climate Action initiatives, examining the implications of applying commercial datasets and expertise to environmental problems. Despite the increasing adoption of Data for Climate Action paradigms in government and public sector efforts to address climate change, we argue Data for Climate Action is better seen as a strategy to legitimate extractive, profit-oriented data practices by companies than a means to achieve global goals for environmental sustainability. (shrink)

According to the Principle of Techno-Geek Proportionality, for every million times a nerd gets excited about “the latest thing” the world might change once. Central bank digital currency (CBDC) may be that once. There is nothing new about digital money, but there may be many profoundly new things about CBDC. This is especially so for “retail” CBDC – that is, CBDC freely available to the public rather than “wholesale” CBDC, which is restricted to some registered users and central bank (...) systems. At the moment, the vast majority of money in existence takes the form of deposits at Santander, Barclays and the other commercial banks. As the Bank of England makes clear, most of this is originally produced when a bank extends a loan and creates a sum as a deposit which the borrower can then spend. This money flows around our payments system and the money supply, albeit there is more to money supply than just this, grows as cumulative debt grows and shrinks as debt is paid down. In the UK (and equivalents apply in any modern economy that has commercial banks), though we rarely think about it, since the money is denominated in s and the central bank essentially guarantees that it will exchange at par for central bank money, most of what we think of as money is really Santander or Barclays etc. credit units. Retail CBDC could change this state of affairs and the issues are sufficient to require public debate – not only regarding the scope of the technology but also the role and adequacy of central banks. This, in turn, provides an opportunity to discuss the nature of process. (shrink)

RESUMEN Actualmente, la convergencia de tres ámbitos de aplicación tecnológica -Big Data, Inteligencia Artificial e Internet de las Cosas- permite hiperconectivizar, algoritmizar y dataficar los distintos ámbitos de actividad humana para optimizar sus procesos productivos, comunicativos, asistenciales y/o relacionales, y, con ello, aumentar su eficiencia, eficacia y sostenibilidad. El éxito cosechado en sectores como el industrial o el retail y las enormes expectativas que abre su implementación en otros como el político o el asistencial, empero, ha extendido la idea (...) de que incluso es posible discernir mejor qué es lo justo y bueno a través del análisis y procesamiento algorítmico de datos masivos sobre lo moral procedentes de los individuos hiperconectados. Sin embargo, este enfoque dataficado de ética alberga dudas razonables respecto a su viabilidad, posibilidad y eficacia. Pero, sobre todo, produce inquietud su aceptación y puesta en marcha acrítica por las importantes anomalías que produce en el mundo de la vida, especialmente en la concreción y perdurabilidad del saber moral. Este estudio pretende mostrar los retos, límites y consecuencias que subyacen a la dataficación del ámbito moral. ABSTRACT The convergence of three areas of technological application - Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things - means the diferent area of human activity can be hyperconnected, algorithmised and datafied to optimise processes involving production, communication, healthcare and relationships. The aim is to increase their efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability. The success achieved in sectors like industry and retail and the huge expectations aroused by the implementation of this technology in other areas, such as politics and healthcare, have encouraged the idea that it might even be possible to find a better way of working out what is good and fair in the algorithmic analysis and processing of Big Data concerning morality drawn from hyperconnected individuals. There are reasonable doubts, however, concerning the possibility, viability and effectiveness of this datafied approach to ethics. Above all, a critical acceptance and implementation of it raises concerns about the considerable anomalies it causes in the world of life, particularly in the accumulation and durability of moral knowledge. This study attempts to show the challenges, limits and consequences under lying the datafication of morality. (shrink)

Thomas Lynch, called "a cross between Garrison Keillor and William Butler Yeats" (New York Times), reminds us not only of how we die but also of how we live. "The facts of life and death remain the same. We live and die, we love and grieve, we breed and disappear. And between these existential gravities, we search for meaning, save our memories, leave a record for those who will remember us." So writes Thomas Lynch, poet and funeral director, and author (...) of the highly praised The Undertaking, winner of an American Book Award and finalist for the National Book Award, as he continues to examine the relations between the "literary and mortuary arts." The essays assembled here explore the human condition at the intersection of millennia, beleaguered by choices and changes, encumbered by merger and acquisition, numbed by maths and technologies, in search of the meaning of life and time, our lives and times. Lynch tenders life and times--sextons, muckrakers, clergy, caskets, condoms, loved poems, a hated cat, the mall, Main Street. In an age that seeks to define human experience in retail, high-tech, or pop-psyche terms, these essays speak to the existentials: between being human and ceasing to be, between birth and death, we are bodies in motion and at rest. (shrink)

ABSTRACTControl over information is essential to business. This has become increasingly true in an era in which technological advances have enabled the rapid globalization of business. This article explores the implications of this control of information for freedom of speech and information. Four different situations are considered: censorship of the Internet by search engines albeit at the direction of a government; restrictions on Internet content by Internet Services Providers acting on their own; decisions by retail businesses not to sell (...) various DVDs, CDs, etc. to their customers; and legal suits brought against individuals and groups by businesses seeking to prevent the further spread of information they deem injurious to their products or activities. The paper seeks to sort out the various rights and values involved in these cases, when a business may be justifiably said to be violating individuals' rights to freedom of information, and when customers and citizens do not have justified complaints against business decisions not to provide them with certain information products. (shrink)

The role of digitization and globalization have changed consumers’ online buying behaviors, specifically in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. This seriously influences the online retail industry in developing countries that are already struggling to move toward digital trading through e-business. Pakistan being a developing country is no exception, and it is, therefore, pertinent to examine factors that contribute to digital trading. Employing theories of reasoned action and the technology acceptance model, this study aims to investigate how (...) personal innovativeness and perceived usefulness impact consumers’ online purchase intentions through a serial mediational model. The data were collected through an online survey from 410 respondents. Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the proposed model. This study showed significant results for the direct effect of personal innovativeness and perceived usefulness on online purchase intentions as well as the indirect serial effect via internet browsing and attitude toward online purchasing. The study results have some important practical implications for selling firms, especially in the times of COVID-19. The study suggests that online retailers should be more responsive to the aforementioned factors to facilitate consumers to spend more time browsing, which influences consumers’ interest and intention to make online purchases. As the social distancing and lockdown approaches were implemented in Pakistan and other parts of the world, the trend toward online purchases has increased. Due to this shift in the overall purchasing behavior of consumers and the potential for strong growth in e-commerce, organizations need to consider the post-COVID situation to expand their business in an online platform for addressing the future pandemic crisis. (shrink)

The public health measures implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a substantially increased shared reliance on private infrastructure and digital services in areas such as healthcare, education, retail, and the workplace. This development has (i) granted a number of private actors significant (informational) power, and (ii) given rise to a range of digital surveillance practices incidental to the pandemic itself. In this paper, we reflect on these secondary consequences of the pandemic and observe that, even (...) though collateral data disclosure and additional activity monitoring appears to have been generally socially accepted as inevitable consequences of the pandemic, part and parcel of a larger conglomeration of emergency compromises, these increased surveillance practices were not directly justified by appeals to solidarity and public health in the same way that the instigating public health measures were. Based on this observation, and given the increased reliance on private actors for maintaining the digital space, we argue that governments have a duty to (i) seek and ensure that there are justifications for collateral data disclosure and activity monitoring by private actors in the context of (future) public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic, and (ii) regulate and provide accountability mechanisms for and oversight over these private surveillance practices on par with governmental essential services that engage in surveillance activities. (shrink)

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The discourse on the future of work should learn from a turn in philosophy that occurred in the 1980s, one that recognizes the good life towards which ethics strives can only be reached on a foundation of caring relationships (Gillian, 1982; Noddings, 1984). Care ethics recognizes that human well-being is a group project, one that involves strong relationships, and concern for bodies and emotions. Too often, these features are left out of research exploring robotics in the workplace. This paper outlines (...) the main tenets of care ethics, then applies the moral framework to the context of industrial and retail settings using robots. This approach sees these contexts through a relational lens, helping to identify, evaluate, and improve relationships critical to ensuring workers’ well-being. Second, care ethics considers taking care of people’s bodies beyond mere safety, examining how working with robots can exacerbate societal or economic pressures. Lastly, care ethics takes emotions as an important source of knowledge in building and supporting care. Additionally, this paper contributes to the care ethics literature by applying the framework to the context of robotized industrial workplaces, which has yet to be done. (shrink)

Counterfeiting is common in many industries. For the authenticity of online channel products and to combat counterfeiting, many companies have begun to use blockchain technology to trace product information. This paper investigates a dual-channel supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer, in which the manufacturer sells its standard products through the retailer and adopts blockchain technology to launch the online channel to sell the traceable products. A Stackelberg game is developed to depict the pricing decision and (...) channel strategy choice for the manufacturer. It shows that both the manufacturer and the retailer can benefit from blockchain adoption. And the longer it takes for product traceability, the lower the price of online traceable products. It is beneficial for the manufacturer when consumers in the market are less concerned about information transparency. For consumer sensitivity, as consumers’ acceptance of direct sales channels increases, the selling prices of online traceable products have risen. Furthermore, as the traceability time-sensitivity coefficient increases, the sales price of the traceable products decreases, and the retail price of offline standard products rises. The conclusion of this paper has a certain guiding role for the dominant manufacturers in choosing whether to apply blockchain technology to improve the demand for traceable products. (shrink)

The German packaging ordinance is an example of legislated extended producer responsibility (also known as product take-back). Consumers can leave packaging with retailers, and packagers are required to pay for their recycling and disposal. It can be considered to be successful in reducing waste, spurring the redesign of packaging to be more environmentally sustainable, and increasing refilling and recycling. The exception is waste packaging made of plastics, which faces the problems of export due to lack of markets for recycled products (...) within Germany, the lack of capacity for recycling, the allowance for energy recovery within the ordinance, and the manufacturers’ focus on back-to-feedstock rather than back-to-plastics as a solution. This article looks at the ordinance and its effects to consider why this take-back program worked better than others. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 293-302.

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 237-240.