Shalini Bahl

Transforming Consumer Health

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is intended to transform the U.S. health care system. Its success will require the transformation of consumers’ views about health and their willingness to participate in healthful behaviors. Focusing on three barriers to consumers’ engagement in healthful behaviors, the authors review the research literature and suggest opportunities for further research. Using a social marketing perspective, they suggest actions for health care providers, marketers, and policy makers to help overcome these barriers.

Toward a Framework for Assessing Covert Marketing Practices

In an effort to make the marketing process seamless and more efficient, marketers are surreptitiously and inextricably coupling information gathering and marketing. To understand the welfare implications of these practices better, this essay extends the conceptualization of covert marketing to include both information gathering and marketing communications. The authors present a multistage exchange framework that helps identify factors affecting marketer and consumer welfare when covert practices are used. They use the framework to discuss the benefits and harms related to these types of covert marketing practices as well as consumer reactions to such practices.

Are There Differences Between Consumers ' and Marketers ' Privacy Expectations ? A Segment- and Technology-Level Analysis

Despite previous examinations of business actions, consumer reactions, and regulatory efforts, there has been no direct comparison of consumer and marketer expectations for establishing and respecting privacy boundaries. This study directly compares consumer segments’ and marketers’ expectations for privacy boundaries that regulate marketers’ access to consumers and their information. Using data from a national online survey, the authors compare three consumer segments’ preferences regarding the boundaries for the use of eight information technologies (cookies, biometrics, loyalty cards, radio frequency identification, text messaging, pop-up advertisements, telemarketing, and spam) with survey results of marketing managers and database vendors for the same set of questions. The results identify consumer segments and technologies for which consumer expectations differ from marketers and, thus, for which more regulatory and public policy attention and research scholarship is needed.

Mindfulness: Its Transformative Potential for Consumer, Societal, and Environmental Well-Being

The authors propose that mindfulness is an antidote to mindless consumption, which adversely affects individual and collective well-being. The concept of mindfulness is explained and applied to the consumption context. More specifically, the authors examine mindful consumption as an ongoing practice of bringing attention, with acceptance, to inner and outer stimuli, and the effects of this practice on the consumption process. The transformative potential of mindful consumption is reviewed across domains of consumer, societal, and environmental well-being, with suggestions for future research. The article highlights some of the challenges to realizing the transformative potential of mindful consumption and concludes with suggestions for the actions that consumers, institutions, and policy makers could take to promote mindful consumption.

Paradoxes of Teaching Mindfulness in Business

This chapter is dedicated to exploring the efficacy and ethical considerations of teaching mindfulness in business. The emergence of mindfulness as a popular means of enhancing workplace skills has come under some scrutiny and criticism. Particularly, teaching mindfulness in business without the foundation in ethics and wisdom poses unique challenges and consequences. Drawing from Buddhist teachings, mindfulness research, management theory, and experiences of corporate mindfulness instructors, this chapter looks at two paradoxes of teaching mindfulness in business: (1) Mindfulness programs seek to reduce stress at work without changing work conditions that cause stress and (2) Mindfulness is grounded in ethics but applied in business without ethical considerations. The chapter offers mindful inquiry of our circles of influence as a comprehensive framework to guide our intentions and work of integrating mindfulness in business to enhance the well-being of all its stakeholders. The lens of mindful inquiry is expanded to include not only mindful awareness but also wisdom and ethical considerations. Mindfulness instructors can utilize this expanded framework as a pragmatic approach to navigate the challenges of teaching corporate mindfulness, without compromising the integrity and efficacy of their programs.

Smart phone addiction and mindfulness: an intergenerational comparison

Young consumers are particularly vulnerable to the addictive nature of smart phone technology. This paper aims to investigate the smart phone addiction cycle and health outcomes of young and old consumers from the lens of consumers’ mindfulness traits.,Qualitative and quantitative studies reveal that the lack of mindfulness, measured as a mindless trait, is strongly associated with smart phone addictions and health and quality of life outcomes.,Differences in mindlessness and smart phone-generated health outcomes are found between younger and older consumers. The negative impact of mindlessness on quality of life was greater for younger adults than older adults.,This research establishes baseline effects between the mindless trait and smart phone addiction levels.,Paper suggests the marketing of mindfulness programs and the use of marketplace apps to combat addiction issues.,Smart phone addiction is a growing problem, and this paper contributes to the understanding of the problem and offers societal solutions for its resolution.,This is the first empirical paper to investigate the connection between a mindless trait and smart phone tendencies and resulting health outcomes.