Lee Quinn

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in Physical and Online Retailing: A Review, Synthesis and Research Agenda

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have emerged as rapidly developing technologies used in both physical and online retailing to enhance the selling environment and shopping experience. However, academic research on, and practical applications of, AR and VR in retail are still fragmented, and this state of affairs is arguably attributable to the interdisciplinary origins of the topic. Undertaking a comparative chronological analysis of AR and VR research and applications in a retail context, this paper synthesises current debates to provide an up-to-date perspective—incorporating issues relating to motives, applications and implementation of AR and VR by retailers, as well as consumer acceptance—and to frame the basis for a future research agenda.

Troubled Waters: The Transformation of Marketing in a Digital World

Purpose This paper aims to establish how strategic target-market selection decisions are shaped, challenged and driven in response to the rapidly evolving technological landscape. The authors critically evaluate the implications of these changes for the role of marketers and the organizational function of marketing. Design/methodology/approach The research uses qualitative methods. Key-informant interviews are conducted among senior organizational practitioners within client-side organizations, digital agencies and strategic marketing consultancies, seeking to contrast their views. Findings The findings reveal an erosion of responsibility for the integrated strategic role of marketing decision-making. In particular, the authors reveal that the evolving digital landscape has precipitated a sense of crisis for marketers and the role of marketing within the firm. This extends beyond simply remedying a skills-gap and is triggering a transformation that has repercussions for the future of marketing and its practice, thus diminishing functional accountability. Research limitations/implications The findings have long-term implications for marketing as a strategic organizational function of the firm and for marketing as a practice. Originality/value The study considers an increasingly digitalized marketplace and the associated impact of big data for the function of marketing. It reveals the changing scope of strategic marketing practice and functional accountability.

Debate: Research impact or career progression?

© 2010 THE AUTHORS JOURNAL COMPILATION

Growth and Its Discontents: Paving the Way for a More Productive Engagement with Alternative Economic Practices

Fragmented marketing debates concerning the role of alternative economies are attributable to the lack of a meaningful macromarketing dimension to which alternative economic practices can be anchored. This research frames an evaluation of existing macromarketing developments aimed at reformulating the mindless pursuit of economic growth. Raising concerns with the treadmill dynamics of marketing systems, three different approaches - green growth, a-growth and degrowth - are critically evaluated to: (a) introduce degrowth as a widely overlooked concept in the macromarketing literature; (b) expose how each perspective entails a specific organization of provisioning activities; and (c) foreground the role of alternative economic practices beyond the growth paradigm. We conclude that socially sustainable degrowth is the missing voice within macromarketing debates that lie central to elucidating the future direction of alternative economic practices.

Preparing for the Future -- How Managers Perceive, Interpret, and Assess the Impact of Digital Technologies for Business

This paper investigates how senior managers interpret and react to the strategic threats and opportunities presented by digital technologies. Strategy studies focus on one type of actor or organizational context. Instead, we considered various firms, roles and expertise. We conducted 20 hours of in-depth, elite interviews with 15 senior managers from client firms, digital marketing agencies and strategy consultants and identified several opportunities related to the data and how they are manipulated, the business uses of digital technologies and broad behavioral changes. However, data quality and quantity limit the value of data granularity and currency. Additionally, we found that the three types of interviewees produce strategy assessments that differ in terms of content, salience and valence. This finding advances the conceptual understanding of the impact of different roles and cognitive frameworks on strategy development and, thus, the need to incorporate the views of third parties in environmental scanning exercises.

Reclaiming Sustainable Space: A Study of Degrowth Activists

While degrowth debates typically encompass abstract ecological and economic arguments against growth, our study considers how degrowth-minded activism becomes interwoven with the production and consumption of space and place. Drawing illustrative insights from an ethnographic study in the city of Seville, our findings reveal a configuration of practices (accessibility, self-organisation, reproduction and conviviality) through which degrowth-minded activism infuses urban life with noncapitalist processes and logics. Consequently, our work contributes to a paucity of studies theorising the production/consumption of space in relation to broader processes of capitalist development. In doing so, we also promote a more humane consideration of the spatial dimensions through which more equitable ways of living are constituted.