Ahir Gopaldas

Fordham University · Marketing

Customer experience management research is increasingly concerned with the long-term evolution of customer experience journeys across multiple service cycles. A dominant smooth journey model makes customers’ lives easier, with a cyclical pattern of predictable experiences that builds customer loyalty over time, also known as a loyalty loop. An alte...

Companies often believe they should make their customers’ experiences as effortless and predictable as possible. But the authors’ research shows that this approach is overly simplistic—and can even backfire. While in some instances (say, watching movies on Netflix) customers want their journeys to be easy and familiar, in others (working out on a P...

Purpose Dyadic services research has increasingly focused on helping providers facilitate transformative service conversations with consumers. Extant research has thoroughly documented the conversational skills that providers can use to facilitate consumer microtransformations (i.e. small changes in consumers’ thoughts, feelings and action plans to...

Purpose — The marketing literature on service conversation in dyadic services has elaborated two approaches. An advisory approach involves providers giving customers expert advice on how to advance difficult projects. By contrast, a relational approach involves providers exchanging social support with customers to develop commercial friendships. In...

In this article, we explore how the history and myths about Artificial Life (AL) inform the pursuit and reception of contemporary AL technologies. First, we show that long before the contemporary fields of robotics and genomics, ancient civilizations attempted to create AL in the magical and religious pursuits of automata and alchemy. Next, we expl...

Purpose This paper aims to illuminate the characteristics of Analytic and Continental scholarship to generate a deeper appreciation for both writing styles in the consumer culture theory (CCT) community. Design/methodology/approach Two CCT researchers discuss the merits of Analytic and Continental scholarship in an accessible dialogical format. F...

In this article, we explore why the bad boy is a popular archetype in advertising, erotica, fashion, journalism, movies, songs, television serials, and other forms of commercial culture. First, we interpret the bad boy as a combination of juvenile masculinities (aggression, rebellion, hypersexuality), appealing qualities (charisma, ruggedness, sens...

Media diversity studies regularly invoke the notion of marketing images as mirrors of racism and sexism. This article develops a higher-order concept of marketing images as “mirrors of intersectionality.” Drawing on a seven-dimensional study of coverperson diversity in a globalizing mediascape, the emergent concept highlights that marketing images...

Eileen Fischer, Professor of Marketing and Anne & Max Tanenbaum Chair in Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at the Schulich School of Business at York University, has published research on entrepreneurs, consumers, and markets in several leading management and marketing journals. Professor Fischer has served on the editorial review boards of Co...

Purpose Interpretive consumer researchers frequently devote months, if not years, to writing a new paper. Despite their best efforts, the vast majority of these papers are rejected by top academic journals. This paper aims to explain some of the key reasons that scholarly articles are rejected and illuminate how to reduce the likelihood of rejectio...

Purpose – This paper aims to offer junior scholars a front-to-back guide to writing an academic, theoretically positioned, qualitative research article in the social sciences. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on formal (published) advice from books and articles as well as informal (word-of-mouth) advice from senior scholars. Findings...

Aptly known as the “talking cure,” therapy typically involves a client reflecting on their personal challenges and a provider guiding the conversation with feedback, questions, and non-verbal cues. How did this rare medical treatment of the early twentieth century evolve into a pervasive cultural trope and marketplace icon – and why? To answer thes...

This article makes three conceptual advances toward a theory of positive marketing. First, the article distinguishes what constitutes positive marketing in contrast to other pro-social marketing concepts: cause, green, and social marketing. Positive marketing is defined as any marketing activity that creates value for the firm, its customers, and s...

Diversity can be analyzed using one of two approaches. The dominant unidimensional approach examines diversity across a single dimension at a time (e.g. first by race, then by sex). By contrast, an emerging intersectional approach considers diversity across multiple dimensions at once (e.g. by race and sex). This article presents a visual study of...

From outrage at corporations to excitement about innovations, marketplace sentiments are powerful forces in consumer culture that transform markets. This article develops a preliminary theory of marketplace sentiments. Defined as collectively shared emotional dispositions, sentiments can be grouped into three function-based categories: contempt for...

Marketing has many uses. In the business-to-business sector, firms use marketing to attract other firms as clients. In the government sector, agencies use marketing to serve marginalized stakeholders. In the non-profit sector, advocates use marketing to promote social causes. However, the most ardent, creative, and visible users of marketing are fo...

The concept of intersectionality refers to the interactivity of social identity structures such as race, class, and gender in fostering life experiences, especially experiences of privilege and oppression. This essay maps out the origins, evolution, and many contemporary meanings of intersectionality to make a notoriously ambiguous idea more concre...

Advancing the Production/Consumption Dialectic in Consumer Culture Theory

Intersectionality: Insights for Consumer Research

Anti-consumption: Now on Sale