The fast fashion business model is largely based on the exploitation of poor working conditions and lack of environmental protection laws in the production countries. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of this dark side of fast fashion and the retailers are addressing their concerns with selective organic clothing collections. This study investigates the underlying rationale of environmentally and socially conscious young Swedish consumers for their continued consumption of fast fashion. The findings of this study show that the participants prioritize price, quality and how the clothes look over where they have been produced and under what circumstances. Future research could investigate how Sweden can take a more pro-active role in educating their citizens about the negative impact on people and environment caused by the overconsumption of disposable fashion.

Given the predominance of visual image over language copy in global advertising this research explores its inter-cultural perception across emerging markets worldwide. Discourse analysis was conducted on the qualitative responses to global print advertisements by target segments in emerging markets of three geographic regions. Both similarities and differences of perception were found between the selected markets in the Middle East, Latin America and East Asia regions, among the upper middle-class target segment for up-market fashion products. Hence the author proposes that visual perception of global advertising be conceptualized as a continuum of vernaculars, rather than as discrete modes suggested by established inter-cultural typologies. Effective execution of global advertising campaigns for emerging markets therefore calls for contingency approaches to optimizing creative strategies.

Although its revenues exceed US$ 130 billion annually and represents about 7.5% of total world trade in merchandise, the global arms industry rarely features in business research. What has remained particularly unaddressed is the application of corporate social responsibility and sustainability principles to the arms industry, as with other industries. Hence this research questions why the arms industry has been exempt, and how ethical principles may be applied.  Utilising reliable secondary data on the global arms industry, the paper seeks to identify the major arms exporter countries, mostly in the developed world, to uncover the forms of government support and to raise the socio-economic costs of arms in war. Drawing on NGO and IGO sources, this research aims to illustrate how conflicts perpetuated for corporate benefit and in government interests, are invariably at the expense of citizens in both exporter and importer countries, not to mention devastation caused in conflicting nations. The author argues that if the arms industry are not publicly subsidised but instead discriminated against for producing socially-harmful products, its continued growth could be mitigated. 

Despite political pronouncements about facilitating development through economic integration of geographic regions in Africa, intra-regional trade remains limited and unbalanced. While tariff barriers have declined within Southern Africa, non-tariff trade barriers to export-import growth persist, impacting on the smaller economies. Utilising interviews with small-to-medium enterprises in land-locked Botswana, this study generated in-depth qualitative data on their experience of barriers to trading regionally. The research found that administrative procedures at the national level, ambiguity of implementation at borders and constraints on logistics constitute their most daunting impediments. Among the key imperatives then for effective regional integration and economic growth among developing countries in Africa and elsewhere are standards harmonization, regulatory streamlining, process transparency and improvement of infrastructure.

Advertising is a relatively new industry in Central Asia, dating from the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. But more than that it symbolizes the radical change of ideology and political economy involved in the transition from communism to capitalism. As the closest country to Russia, both geographically and culturally, Kazakhstan has been a trendsetter within the region and hence the development of its media and advertising industries are worthy of analysis. While the countries in Central Asia might now be politically independent, there is still considerable economic and cultural dependence on Russia and other former Soviet states and dependencies. The advertising industry in Kazakhstan is no exception, taking its cue from Russia-and Ukraine-based counterparts, often affiliates of transnational advertising agencies and multinational marketers themselves. Within Kazakhstan, despite rapid growth of commercial media, advertising agencies face a virtual cartel of media ownership by the political elite. These are some of the challenges facing the practice of advertising in this emergent free-market economy, the improvisations on which need to be analyzed for their pertinence to other transitional, developing and emergent economies.

The extant literature on deceptive marketing, trust in marketing and consumer cynicism would suggest some disjunction in evaluation of corporate claims to honesty.  They may support honesty marketing as an authentic approach nurturing trust and consumer-brand relationships.  Yet they might doubt its authenticity, maintaining a cynical stance towards marketing in general.  Embedded in the Swedish consumer sphere, this qualitative study finds confirmations for both positive and negative standpoints.  More significantly it reveals two conditional aspects in consumer evaluation of honesty marketing: the burden of proof and corporate ethical stance.  Thus the authors conclude that any explicit claim to honesty needs to promoted with caution as it tends to create more cynicism than trust. 

Motivating the politically and economically disenfranchised to vote can be problematic, particularly in the emerging democracies where political marketing is gaining ground without concurrent voter education. Utilising textual and discourse analysis this paper deconstructs a social marketing campaign in Peru where the rhetoric of political candidature is challenged. Through characterising voters as employers and selection criteria based on analogies of daily life, the political process is made comprehensible and accessible, if not also radically appealing. The author introduces voter empowerment as a concept positioned in the interstices between social marketing and political communications, and distinct from political marketing. Comparative studies of similar campaigns are needed to demonstrate whether these may prove effective and how much adaptation is needful cross-nationally. Meanwhile the Peru campaign provides policy-makers and social activists elsewhere with a model for communicating creatively with marginalised citizens about exercising their democratic rights.

Given the increasing reliance on global advertising campaigns, visual elements predominate as a means to overcome language barriers but there is uncertainty on how the message is interpreted worldwide. Differences in cross-cultural interpretations of advertising visuals by media audiences across emerging-economies regions have been relatively under-researched. Textual analysis was conducted on the responses to mock print advertisements by potential consumers in geographic markets in three separate regions. The findings suggest that while the differences between emerging markets concerning the primary message are not particularly significant, there are nuances of interpretation in each, that are not easily classified. The tentative conclusions are that less adaptation may be needed for global campaigns targeted at developing/emerging economies, yet some fine-tuning is still needful. Furthermore, the paper proposes that cross-cultural perception of visual communications ought to be conceptualised as a continuum of variation, rather than as comprising discrete modes.

Despite long-standing rhetoric of facilitating trade within the economic regions in Southern Africa, little import and export actually takes place and volumes remain stagnant due to both perceptual and actual barriers. Hence the link between non-tariff trade barriers and export-import performance within SACU/SADC, as well as whether these vary with size and/or industry of the companies, deserves investigation. In-depth personal interviews were utilised for effectiveness in generating high-quality data to supplement that which is traditionally obtained via mail surveys, albeit done at higher cost. This research conducted in Botswana found that regardless of trade policies at a regional level, the national administrative regulations and ambiguity of enforcement at borders are the most significant trade barriers. Hence governments of smaller states need to cooperate in seeking equity of treatment while firms need to lobby those governments to do so urgently. The authors point out that borders imposed by colonial powers remain barriers to political unity and economic prosperity, even though borders have fallen between the former colonists in Europe.