Roderick J. Brodie

Purpose: This article develops a novel conceptual framework to explain the processes facilitating a system-wide transition towards the circular economy (CE). The framework aims to provide CE scholars, practitioners, and policymakers with a deeper understanding of how to navigate the complex government-led initiatives aiming to facilitate a large-scale transition from a linear to a circular economy. Design/methodology/approach: The framework is developed from a review of scholarly research on circular service ecosystems (CSEs) and service ecosystem dynamics to identify and conceptualize the processes facilitating CE adoption. This framework is illustrated using the example of Australian government initiatives aimed at reducing food waste. Findings: The Circular Service Ecosystem Adoption framework and illustrative case identify the key processes that facilitate CE adoption. Specifically, the framework shows how CSEs evolve through dynamic states (from reproducing a linear economy paradigm to transitioning to a circular economy paradigm). CSE adoption is facilitated by mobilizing driving processes of evolution towards CSE and managing its inhibitors. Originality/value: An understanding of CE adoption is advanced by unpacking the role of service ecosystems and their dynamics. The framework illustrates how CE adoption occurs through a dynamic, evolutionary process underscored by a shift from a linear to a circular economy paradigm in the service ecosystem. The role of government initiatives is emphasized as a catalyst, facilitating grounded and scalable impact.

Purpose: Actor engagement (AE) literature shows inconsistent understandings of engagement intensity. However, a holistic picture of the nature of AE intensity is foundational to advance empirical AE models and measurement frameworks. This paper provides a nuanced understanding of what engagement intensity is and how it unfolds on different network levels.Design/methodology/approach: This conceptual study draws from a literature review and offers a comprehensive classification scheme of AE intensity. The literature review extends beyond marketing and service research and draws from the etymology of AE intensity in management and social science, specifically, the fields of student, employee and civic engagement.Findings: The classification scheme clarifies that AE intensity at the individual level refers to actors' affective and cognitive tone and varying magnitudes (i.e. efforts, duration, activeness) of resource investments. At the dyad level, AE intensity represents relational strength, and at the network level, it refers to the degree of connectedness in the network.Research limitations/implications: The research reconciles conceptual inconsistencies in the AE literature. Our classification scheme goes beyond the individual actor and actor–actor dyad and offers a holistic overview of possible ways to operationalize AE intensity in networks.Practical implications: The classification scheme can be used as a strategic checklist to include AE intensities of individual actors (e.g. customers and employees), relationships between these actors and network connectedness, when further developing engagement measurement tools and benchmarks.Originality/value: This is the first study providing a comprehensive understanding of AE intensity from an individual, dyadic and network perspective.

Over the past 25 years, the Australia New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) has established itself as a vibrant organisation for marketing academics in Australia and New Zealand. We trace ANZMAC’s development, examine what has worked well and identify future challenges.

Assessing academic performance is challenging and assessing academic performance that makes a contribution to society is especially challenging. Evaluations need to take into account academic rigor and the relevance of the work. We suggest relying on whether an article is published in an elite journal does not necessarily lead to a significant scientific contribution or practical relevance. Rather, to gain insight into a scientific contribution, academic rigor and relevance judgments have to be made as to the work’s contribution to discovering and verifying knowledge in the discipline and across disciplines. While qualitative judgments can be made, indicator-driven metrics play an important role in objective assessment and several citation metrics are readily available to assist in assessments. We suggest there is a need for a portfolio of performance indicators, as there is no one best measure of success. Different indicators highlight different aspects of performance, hence the portfolio approach. We conclude by outlining eight key areas that should be considered when making academic performance assessments.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to clarify how brand meaning evolves as an emergent property through the cocreation processes of stakeholders on multiple levels of a brand's service ecosystem. This provides new insight into the intersection between brands, consumers and society, and emphasizes the institutionally situated nature of brand meaning cocreation processes. It further lays a holistic foundation for a much-needed discussion on purpose-driven branding.Design/methodology/approach: Combining the ecosystem perspective of branding with the concept of social emergence allows clarification of brand meaning cocreation at different levels of aggregation. Emergence means collective phenomena – like social structures, concepts, preferences, states, mechanisms, laws and brand meaning – manifest from the interactions of individuals. Drawing on Sawyer's (2005) social emergence perspective, the authors propose a processual multi-level framework to explore brand meaning emergence.Findings: Our framework spans five levels of brand meaning emergence: individual (e.g. employees and customers); interactional (e.g. where work teams or friend groups interact); relational (e.g. where internal and external actors meet); strategic (e.g. markets and strategic alliances); and systemic (e.g. regulators, NGOs and society). It acknowledges that brand positioning is an inherently co-creative process of negotiating value propositions and aligning behaviors and beliefs among broad sets of actors, as opposed to a firm-centric task.Originality/value: Service research has only recently embraced a macro–micro perspective of branding processes. This paper extends that perspective by paying attention to the nested service ecosystems in which brand meaning emerges and the degree to which this process can (and cannot) be navigated by individual actors.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to diagnose the trajectory of influential conceptual articles in developing a research stream. The authors uncover the knowledge diffusion through influential conceptual articles and identify characteristics that make conceptual articles influential in their field.Design/methodology/approach: This study draws on scientometrics, specifically an integrated approach combining quantitative citation counts with qualitative citation practices analysis that offers a comprehensive understanding of the nature and context of citations. The authors use the case of customer engagement – a prominent contemporary marketing and service research stream – to explore the trajectory of influential articles in shaping a new research stream.Findings: This research shows that influential articles contribute to the reciprocal knowledge diffusion within and outside their home discipline. They provide anchor points for conceptual framing, conceptual refining and conceptual reconciliation – three application patterns of citations that are pivotal to navigate theory discovery and theory justification in a research field.Research limitations/implications: The study analyzes the early impact period of two influential customer engagement articles to understand the developments leading to the establishment of a new research stream. Future research drawing on automated citation and bibliometric methods may consider extended time periods.Originality/value: This study traces the trajectory of influential articles in marketing and service research. The authors identify characteristics of influential conceptual articles, and recommend practices to develop a conceptual paper with the potential for an influential trajectory. It shows that while marketing and service research has a tradition of “borrowing” theories from other fields, seminal articles “lend” theories to other fields.

Purpose: This paper aims to apply a broader perspective of branding to foster new insights and develop strategies to address product counterfeiting. Design/methodology/approach: A review of the counterfeiting and branding literature leads to the development of a new conceptual framework that incorporates proactive, collaborative processes, in addition to the traditional product branding approach. Findings: The integrative framework provides a basis to develop innovative, proactive strategies that complement traditional branding approaches to address product counterfeiting. The complexity of an integrative framework (or network) offers more opportunities for the firm to co-create robust meaning with multiple stakeholders. Identity elements are readily copied, whereas meanings are not. These strategies help to control counterfeiting by developing deep and inimitable relationships between managers and other stakeholders in a marketing network. Research limitations/implications: A research agenda is proposed to structure future studies on counterfeiting. Practical implications: The framework outlines how to leverage collaboration between managers and brand stakeholders to complement conventional approaches to control counterfeiting based on traditional product branding. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the growing body of counterfeiting and brand protection literature by adapting and applying contemporary integrative branding concepts, leading to novel strategies to address the issue.