Digital nomads are a distinct group within the current context of constructed identities and mobile lifestyles. Although prior research has examined their identity through mobility and work frameworks, limited attention has been paid to consumption as a central dimension of identity formation. Addressing this gap, this conceptual paper develops three propositions to theorize how consumption practices shape the digital nomad identity. Drawing on Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity and Bardhi and Eckhardt’s framework of liquid consumption, it argues that digital nomads engage in ephemeral, access-based, and dematerialized consumption patterns aligned with mobility and minimalism. Though practices such as geotagging, temporary housing, and reliance on digital infrastructures serve as markers of identity, they also expose tensions between espoused minimalist ideals and digital nomad consumption practices. By applying liquid consumption concepts to digital nomad identity, the paper contributes to advancing discussions on digital nomadism, liquid consumption, and materialism in contemporary consumer research.

This study addresses a gap in literature by exploring how dynamic cultural forces between parents and children lead to paradoxical identity conflicts and related tensions. The study explores two distinct consumer categories. The results reveal that traditionally rooted parents consider dependent children as extensions of their identity and experience intense tensions due to the conflict between consumerist aspirations and traditional obligations toward children. They experience tensions due to discrepancies between an ideal self-guide or ought self-guide (both representing traditional values), an ideal self-guide (representing consumerist values at a level considered ideal) and a feared self (embracing too many consumerist values beyond what is considered ideal). The child, in turn, feels obliged to comply with parents’ traditional expectations despite their consumerist identity. They feel similar tensions just as their parents do, between conflicting value systems. In contrast, non-traditional parents do not use children as identity extensions; hence, they find no need to transfer personally rooted values to children and do not experience tensions. The findings contribute to literature on how children as contemporary consumers have implications with regard to identity and tensions of parents and vice versa. Accordingly, practitioners should cater products differently to target groups, based on specific value internalizations—the traditionally rooted parent and child are influenced by each other’s values during the buying decision process. However, marketers have the liberty of considering non-traditional parents and children as separate consumer categories as there are no interplay of values during the buying decision process. By such considerations marketers can successfully exploit consumer expectations and desires that would help address prevailing anxieties and cultural contradictions in society.

Purpose This study aimed to test some dynamics related to YouTube advertising clutter and viewers' attitudes towards YouTube channels operated by traditional television (TV) companies (These YouTube channels tend to have a greater ad clutter since their videos have embedded ads of programme sponsors in addition to regular YouTube advertisements). Design/methodology/approach Employing a positivistic, quantitative methodology, the study collected data through an online survey from a sample of 295 YouTube viewers in Sri Lanka. Data were analysed using the regression-based PROCESS macro, utilising the SPSS software. Findings Ad clutter has a negative impact on viewers' attitudes towards the YouTube channel, but only indirectly, through irritation. Skippability of advertisements does not moderate the relationship between ad clutter and ad irritation, but non-skippability increases ad irritation (direct relationship). Practical implications YouTube channel owners should pay careful attention to having an optimum level of advertising because clutter resulting in high ad irritation leading to a negative attitude towards the channel could reduce subscriptions. Offering an ad skippability option is unlikely to reduce irritation if there is high clutter. Originality/value Although ad clutter is well-researched, its impact on viewer responses to online media channels is uncommon. With YouTube poised to become a top ad revenue-generating medium, this study contributes by examining some dynamics related to ad clutter in a possibly high-clutter context.

YouTube is increasingly being considered a lucrative means of earning money in addition to becoming popular among viewers. To gain these benefits YouTube content creators (YouTubers) need to first attract viewers’ attention to their videos and then persuade them to watch. YouTube metadata, such as the title, thumbnail, description, and keywords, can assist in achieving both objectives. This has been established in the current literature which shows, for example, that metadata optimizing can increase view counts. While these studies have demonstrated the end result of metadata optimization, they do not indicate why viewers respond to different characteristics of metadata in different ways. We contribute to the literature on marketing and consuming YouTube videos by examining, using Holbrook’s (1999) value typology for theorisation, how viewers experience the metadata and how these experiences contribute to the overall value creation process of watching YouTube videos. We employed an interpretive, qualitative research design in conducting the study, using focus group discussions with 21 young YouTube viewers as the data collection method. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Key findings were that metadata can both deliver value (efficiency) and provide signals about values delivered through the video (excellence and aesthetics). Further, the play value viewers get from interacting with the video is indirectly influenced by the metadata. We also identified that although viewers commonly expect some characteristics in the title and thumbnail, irrespective of their purpose of using YouTube, the importance of each differs when they seek information or entertainment gratification. Further, when value promises made by the metadata are not delivered through the videos, viewers respond negatively. Keywords: Entertainment gratification, Information gratification, Metadata optimization, Value, YouTube

Scholars have emphasized that the simultaneous effects of global consumerism and traditional cultural foundations can create fragmented, complex identities for individuals. However, a theoretical explanation of how these nuanced and complex identity formations take place appears to be lacking. This study uses the theory of symbolic interaction to explore the influence of traditional and consumerist discourses on identity formation and probes in to their dynamics. Two groups, namely Traditional Middle Class 2 (TMC 2) and New Urban Middle Class (NUMC) representing different values within the Sri Lankan middle-class were used, where qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 29 individuals. Findings show that older TMC 2 forms identities predominantly rooted in tradition while the younger TMC 2 is more equally balanced in value internalization, but undergoes complex identity formation processes due to financial constraints. NUMC consumers in contrast, defy traditions while conforming more to consumerist discourses, and a subgroup in this broader category also appears to embrace religious values, further showing the fragmented nature of identity. Findings also show that value internalization changes based on one's geographical roots, education/career, and dependent children. The study contributes to knowledge by exploring varied nuances and complexities in the identity formations of consumers of non-Western societies.

Despite the versatility and longevity of Facebook as a Social Networking Site (SNS) in comparison to Instagram, the Daily Active Users count and the average time spent per day have dropped significantly during the recent past. The observed drop in the popularity of Facebook is confounding from a marketing perspective since Facebook appears to provide more benefits and values than Instagram. Hence, using symbolic interaction as a theoretical lens, in this paper we engage in a discussion on how identity construction complexities on SNSs with greater context collapse, such as Facebook, could contribute to users’ preference for SNSs having smaller communities with less context collapse, such as Instagram. A qualitative study was carried out with the participation of 14 informants in the age group between 18-34 years. The data were collected using semi-structured in-depth interviews which were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that the greater context collapse on Facebook has created discomfort for youth in constructing identities. Theoretically, this explains how the unclear, and at times, conflicting ‘universes of discourse’ operating on Facebook impose complexities to navigating user behaviour. Further, the lesser context collapse on Instagram which provides a more cohesive ‘universe of discourse’ allows the youth to construct a more expansive identity that conforms to community norms. This study theoretically accentuates the repercussions of developing and managing undifferentiated SNSs catering to the mass market, which makes it difficult for users to navigate the expectations of diverse audiences.

Contrary to the feminist research based on exclusively gendered processes of inequality in organisations, intersectionality theorists propose an intersectional approach to understanding the inequalities and subordination experienced by Global South women factory workers representing different social hierarchies and experiencing diverse social realities. This paper contributes to the literature by bringing empirical evidence from the Sri Lankan apparel industry to inform the inequality and subordination of women in Global South factory floors from an intersectional perspective. A qualitative methodology using data generated through interviews with women shop floor-level apparel workers who work in export processing zones (EPZs) and village areas was adopted to explore the interplay between multiple social categories (gender, poverty, and rurality) influenced by broader power structures (patriarchy and capitalism) as well as political inequalities in determining the inequalities and subordination of women workers in globalised apparel factories. Further, we consider how gendered and class-based factory processes produce and reproduce the inequalities and subordination of these women at work. The analysis identifies that workers' rural origins, poverty, and traditionally defined gendered roles have worked interactively in favour of capitalist industrialists by pushing these women workers to lower-paid manual jobs in the apparel industry. The factories utilise cheap, material-based incentives and recruitment systems for rewarding and recruiting shop floor workers, capitalising on their poverty, rurality and gender-based requirements as a source of exploitation. In addition, factory managers' behaviours create certain beliefs in these women workers, favouring the factories, resulting in the further subordination of these women through perceived cohesiveness or compliance. Finally, this paper concludes that capitalism, together with patriarchy, creates unequal and subordinated positions for poor, rural women through their collective agendas of wealth maximisation. Keywords: Inequality, Intersectionality, Sri Lankan apparel industry, Subordination, Women workers

Consumer citizenship has attracted significant attention from researchers over time. Recent discussions in this domain indicate that some of the citizenship behaviors that consumers engage in have spilled over to non-consumption arenas as well (i.e., outside the spheres of choice, purchase and use, and behaviors closely related to them). Such behaviors are evident in consumer involvement in organized movements related to an organic farming and consumption, such as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS). Though consumer citizenship has been studied from many perspectives, theorizing what motivates consumers to engage in such behavior has received scant attention. Such theorization is particularly important in the context of consumer citizenship behavior outside the domain of consumption because such behaviors require relatively greater effort and commitment compared to citizenship behaviors executed within consumption. Guided by concepts of the Self-Determination Theory and current literature on consumer citizenship, this paper presents three propositions on how consumers may be motivated to engage in citizenship behaviors outside the domain of consumption, such as volunteering to act as evaluators in PGS.

Mobile apps redistributing surplus food are receiving increased attention for their sustainability benefits. Nevertheless, there is limited research on the opportunities created for businesses to penetrate the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) market. Drawing on Service-Dominant (S-D) logic, affordance and means-end theories, this study investigates how food waste mobile apps can support sustainable value co-creation at the BoP. Using a laddering approach, data were collected through semi-structured interviews in Sri Lanka. Despite similarities in respondents' perceptions of app functions, there are noticeable gaps in the perceived affordances and end goals, which may challenge the value co-creation process. Additionally, opportunism, stigma and goal misalignment may result in value co-destruction, i.e. the diminishment of value through stakeholder interactions. Our findings demonstrate that to develop technologies which enable value co-creation, an in-depth understanding of factors driving perceptions of value is essential.

Consumerism, closely linked with growth-oriented development, has been identified as detrimental to environmental sustainability. Yet literature on throwaway consumption, a key form of unsustainable consumption, has rarely examined the influence of consumerist social values on individual behavior. This paper examines how the contemporary "liquid" consumerist social trends that elevate transience over durability manifest in individual throwaway consumption. Utilizing a sample of consumers from a developing country, Sri Lanka, the study explored the throwaway consumption of the mobile telephone. It identifies that consumers replace their phones with new ones at quick intervals because they consider novelty as a source of pleasure and technological change as progress, both of which can be considered as manifestations of "liquid" consumerism. Further, the market stimulates both ideas, providing greater impetus for throwaway consumption.

Consumers in societies that are still strongly influenced by traditional cultural values experience tension when traditional cultural values conflict with consumerist values. This paper aims at providing a theoretical explanation for these tensions using the theory of Self-discrepancy. The study, conducted in Sri Lanka, used an interpretive qualitative approach, where data were collected through interviews with a middle-class consumer segment from a relatively strong traditional cultural background, but who are also significantly exposed to the consumer culture. The findings demonstrate that cultural tension can be explained as resulting from different forms of Self-discrepancy and that there are differences between the nature and intensity of tension experienced by consumers with different sociodemographic characteristics. In particular, the tension appears to be greater among consumers who had moved to urban areas from rural Sri Lanka, whose affiliation with cultural values is strong, and among parents with dependent children because the children are very strongly influenced by the consumer culture. The theory of Self-expansion in conjunction with the theory of Self-discrepancy is used in the attempt to explain the dynamics between parent and child.

NSBM Journal of Management is published by the National School of Business Management (NSBM), Colombo.The principal objective of the journal is to provide a medium for disseminating findings of study and research addressing issues, practices and developments in Management. Scholars and practioners are invited to publish their work in the field of Management taking either a positivistic or a nonpositivistic approach. Thereby, the journal promotes free and unbiased opinion, networking and sharing of experiences on matters of importance to organizations and society.

Most discussions on the digital divide have predominantly focused on social disparities in the physical accessibility of information and communication technologies (ICT), and the proposed solutions are related to providing low cost access to the underprivileged. The mobile phone has been considered as a good solution due to its relatively low cost. This paper, based on an empirical study in Sri Lanka, demonstrates that even though the underprivileged population has adopted the mobile phone, most of the computer based communication facilities available in the phones are 'inaccessible' to such users due the objectification of broader social inequalities in the design of phones. In other words, the digital divide is objectified in the design.

Postmodernists argue consumption became one of the prime determinant of the self identity of the western consumers since most of traditional values and institutions lost their dominant role in identity creation . Still Sri Lankan consumers appear to adhere to the traditiononal cultural values and institutions along with western consumption ethos. The study examined how Sri Lankan youth construct their self identity through consumption and importance of the cultural core and institutions in this identity creation process comparing with western youths .Set of Sri Lankan youths belonging to two social classes were interviewed by researchers for this study and analysis is done on discourse analysis methodology. Researchers found that cultural core and contemporary institutions still have greater influence on Sri Lankan consumers identity creation process. Research contributes to the severe lack of empirical consumer research in Sri Lanka while introducing a latest qualitative research methodology. This research also challenged the conventional marketers who exaggerated western consumption ethos and provides new understanding of the Sri Lankan consumers. Keywords: Consumption, Identity, Sri Lankan consumer, Postmodernism, Discourse For full paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac.lk

While the relationships between market orientation and employee commitment have been discussed in marketing literature, relationships between value incongruence, employee commitment and employee turnover intention have been discussed in human resource literature. However, there are no studies that link market orientation to employee turnover; nor has value incongruence been discussed in marking literature. Some phenomena observed in a reputed telecommunication company in Sri Lanka, offered an empirical site to study the possibility of incorporating these concepts in a single model. It was found that value incongruence was formed by the gap between perceived company market orientation and market orientation of employees. Affective commitment emerged as a mediating variable between value incongruence and turnover intention. In addition, continuance commitment was found to moderate the relationship between affective commitment and turnover intention. Keywords: Market Orientation, Value Incongruence, Commitment, Turnover Intention For full paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac.lk