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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine consumers' motives in signing up for a week-long voluntary simplicity experiment, No Impact Week (NIW), and reducing their consumption during and afterwards.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical data come from informants who filled out a pre-week email inquiry, completed a daily diary template centred on eight themes, responded to a post-week email inquiry and answered follow-up questions one month after completion.FindingsThose who participate in NIW were motivated by personal factors, such as curiosity and desire to be more aware, to learn tips for eco-living applicable to daily life and to challenge themselves. People who chose not to participate did so largely because they did not understand what would be required of them. Participants incorporated the experiment into their lives, but the outcomes remained dependent on existing structures, in this case environmental and personal factors. The findings indicate the existence of a value–action gap and an awareness–behaviour gap.Research limitations/implicationsWhile a mismatch between consumers' consumption values and behaviour is not uncommon, enabling behaviour in line with values is crucial for reducing consumption. Although voluntary simplicity is a drastic form of consumption reduction that appeals only to a small but growing niche of people, the motives for and consequences of engaging in it highlight pressing issues of consumer behaviour and consumption.Originality/valueThe study is unique in that it links voluntary simplicity to a social marketing campaign that should appeal to those with a favourable attitude towards taking action and reducing their consumption.

Purpose
– The study aims to analyzes how companies present their actions to give the impression that they are sustainable actors. It identifies the organizational impression management tactics that companies use in sustainability reporting.


Design/methodology/approach
– A qualitative template analysis of two sustainability reports was conducted to inductively identify the organizational impression management tactics that companies use in sustainability reporting.


Findings
– The study identified eight organizational impression management tactics used in sustainability reporting, four of which relate to how companies present their actions while the remaining four are characteristic of the writing styles that companies use.


Research limitations/implications
– The study is exploratory in nature and does not claim to identify all existing impression management tactics. Therefore, future research is needed to confirm the results and identify possible additional tactics.


Practical implications
– Companies can use impression management tactics that more strongly aim to shape the impressions that stakeholders hold or tactics that more neutrally inform stakeholders of their actions. Companies need to make a choice between the two, considering that stakeholders' expectations of sustainability reporting would be useful.


Originality/value
– The study shows the different ways that companies use impression management in sustainability reporting, thus lending insight into a perspective on sustainability reporting that has rarely been explored in previous research.

This special discussion article examines the roles that academic workshops play in the creation of a space to advance knowledge in marketing whilst also supporting academic career progression and production of impactful research. We draw upon the concept of Communities of Practice to understand the nature and variation of academic workshops and to highlight their role in advancing the discipline. From this, the invited contributions set out the varied forms through which workshops create safe spaces, atmospheres, both divergent and convergent thinking, time for exploration and joint working and support for publications. Our concluding discussion draws together insights regarding the importance of variation between workshops whilst also being attentive to their common goals. This discussion shows that workshops are worthy of support and protection.

PurposeThe present increasingly tough economic climate has uncovered the need to go beyond the prevailing seller‐oriented models and company practices in order to capture the factors that essentially drive buyer companies. What is needed is a genuinely customer‐side concept that corresponds to offering. The purpose of this study is to develop a new concept labeled "customer needing" which emerged from the material collected in an industrial service setting.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reports a case study of a typical high‐technology industrial service with a strong outsourcing trend. The empirical data consist of interviews with eight representatives from the seller company and 16 interviews from different customer companies.FindingsA needing is based on the customers' mental models of their business and business strategies that affect their priorities, decisions, and actions. It is itself a mental model of how the customer conceives the fulfillment of a specific task. In this paper the needing is operationalized as a profile of three dimensions containing six functions that represent desired value in use for the customer: the doing dimension comprises a relieving and an enabling function; the experiencing dimension has an energizing and a sheltering function; and the scheduling dimension contains a time‐framing and a timing function. Empirical data are presented to illustrate the new concept.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a case study but the ensuing concept provides a framework for further research on value in use and mental models in an industrial service setting. The studied offering was a complex business service representing an outsourced function and the buyers were functional experts and higher‐level executives, all of them experts in the service in question.Practical implicationsThe concept of customer needing extends knowledge of value in use and consequently represents an important tool in developing successful seller offerings. The shift of focus from offering to needing can explain why some sales attempts fail and can thus reveal new business opportunities.Originality/valueIn addition to highlighting the mental models driving companies' priorities and behavior, the study offers insights into value in use in an industrial service setting. The concept customer needing helps to analyze and describe value in use and provides a new buyer‐side concept corresponding to the offering concept.