Babson College is a private business school in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Established in 1919, its central focus is on entrepreneurship education. It was founded by Roger W. Babson as an all-male business institute, but became coeducational in 1970.
This study examined how religious and secular social entrepreneurs' (SEs) social and perceived role identities shape their prosocial motivations and resource mobilization strategies. The findings revealed that religious SEs were motivated by strong in-group commitment, viewing their role as a sacred calling and seeing God as an active, transcendent stakeholder. They employed a communal-personal others orientation, characterized by a community-driven logic. Conversely, secular SEs were motivated by universal social justice values and a self-chosen calling. They employed a communal-impersonal others orientation, with a strong emphasis on mission-driven logic. These findings clarify theoretical links between SE identities, prosocial motivations, and behaviors.
The world’s population is aging rapidly, creating profound implications for businesses operating in the emerging “silver economy,” which encompasses economic activities of consumers over 50 years of age. Although older adults hold significant wealth and purchasing power, they are often underserved by marketing strategies that rely on stereotypes or overemphasize youth segments. This paper highlights the need for more nuanced, culturally informed strategies and approaches to engaging senior consumers. We argue for gerontographic segmentation—based on needs and socioeconomic characteristics rather than chronological age—and propose the 5As of silver marketing: Awareness, Accessibility, Affordability, Affect, and Advocacy. These principles provide a framework for designing inclusive products, communications, and services that resonate with diverse senior populations across global markets. We also explore cross-cultural distinctions, such as wellness-oriented appeals in Western countries, family-centered approaches in China, and safety-focused marketing in Japan. In turn, this paper sets out a research agenda to integrate insights from gerontology, psychology, and cross-cultural studies into marketing theory. For practitioners, we emphasize opportunities to create value through age-friendly innovations, universal design, and authentic engagement. Ultimately, we encourage both academics and managers to recognize the silver economy as a driver of growth and innovation, rather than as a challenge to be managed. We hope the research agenda that we have provided will help stimulate a better understanding of the Silver Segment.
Customer safety is a fundamental need, so for customer-centric omnichannel retailers operating in competitive and technologically intensive markets, a critical question arises: do customers’ perceptions of a safe customer experience determine their sense of well-being, as well as the retailers’ performance? To offer insights into these questions, the current research relies on mixed methods across five studies in six phases to develop a multidimensional scale for safe customer experiences (SafeCX). The formative SafeCX scale, which can be adopted as either a full 48-item or a condensed 12-item version, contains 12 critical safety dimensions that constitute essential considerations for managers, as well as key concepts for researchers dedicated to customer safety considerations. Among these dimensions, several directly capture in-store technologies, such as payment systems, surveillance cameras, and technology-mediated order fulfillment processes. Other dimensions reflect online technologies, such as data protection, social media safety, and practices that bridge physical and digital channels, offering a comprehensive perspective on customer safety. Complementing SafeCX, we also develop a two-dimensional, 8-item customer well-being scale: individual well-being, reflecting effects on one’s own mental, emotional, social, and physical life; and community well-being, reflecting effects on family, friends, and the broader community. This scale enables researchers and retail managers to assess how safety perceptions translate into personal and societal value in omnichannel contexts. In turn, this research establishes that customers who indicate positive appraisals on the SafeCX scale also exhibit a higher share of wallet and stronger intentions to influence others, effects that are mediated by their well-being appraisal.
The vast amount of content on social media platforms makes it extremely challenging to get posts noticed. An increasingly popular approach to increase customer engagement relies on text overlays, where text is placed directly on images. Such practices raise questions of how to balance the visual and text elements for the best impact. Three key factors, commonly used by practitioners, can trigger engagement because of their visual salience: the degree of dynamism or implied motion in images as well as the size and centrality of the text overlay. With multiple methods, including field studies, online experiments, and managerial interviews, the authors establish that a text overlay that is too large and placed centrally, combined with dynamic images, has negative effects on consumer engagement, because these design combinations make the post look visually unappealing. They also leverage these findings to develop an interactive app that can help managers compose more engaging multimodal social media posts.
Tension exists between rapid technological advancement which can reduce the need for human employees and consumers preferences for human employee interactions. In response, emerging industry perspectives highlight the importance of technology-human synergy. This research offers empirical insights into how consumers respond to “frontline cyborgs”—employees equipped with human enhancement technology (HET), which augments human abilities beyond natural limits. Following an empirics-first approach, three studies provide insights into the mediating effects of superhumanization, dehumanization, warmth and competence on satisfaction and loyalty intentions. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that HET generates unique consumer responses, distinguishing it not only from traditional human service but also from other technology-infused approaches. Study 3 then indicates that the outcome dependency between the cyborg and the customer impacts consumer perceptions of the interaction. This research introduces superhumanization and dehumanization as novel theoretical perspectives for retail and marketing scholars and managers. Furthermore, our results suggest important managerial considerations for where cyborgs are more (or less) attractive.
