Suchergebnisse

Young consumers hold an iconic position in post-industrial cultures. In spite of youth idealization in consumer culture, we know little of how youth is situated in everyday interactions in service culture. In our study, we focus on age-related power structures in service encounters. We argue that customer service interaction is built on the norm of an adult order; that is, to achieve an appreciated position as a customer, young people are required to act like 'middle-aged' consumers. To gain recognition, young consumers use resistance tactics: They create co-performing teams together with adults and modify their own performance towards adulthood by masking signs of youth. The findings suggest that young people may also resist the dominant adult order; laughter and smiling express a strategy that re-positions adults into a less powerful position in the service environment. The study shows that young and adult categories in service interaction are constantly under re-negotiation.

It is uncertain how the traditional forest sector can respond to the changing political environment, evolving markets, and global environmental problems. This study focuses on the development of forest-based bioeconomy (BE) in Finland from the perspective of three forest-based value networks (wooden multistory construction, fiber-based packaging, and biorefining) and thus breaks the tendency of siloed discussions. The study of expert opinions applies a collaborative interdisciplinary research method that combines group discussions and follow-up survey data. The results indicate that transformational regulation, proper incentives, and ways of increasing interaction at the business-consumer interface are required to support the creation of new practices and the destruction of old practices in the industry renewal. (C) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. ; Peer reviewed

While climate change and biodiversity loss have exposed humanity to major systemic risks, policymakers in more than 40 countries have proposed the transition from a fossil-based to a bio-based economy as a solution to curb the risks. In the boreal region, forests have a prominent role in contributing to bioeconomy development; however, forest-based bioeconomy transition pathways towards sustainability and the required actions have not yet been identified. Participatory backcasting was employed in this study to 'negotiate' such pathways among Finnish stakeholders by 2060 in three forest-based value networks: forest biorefineries, fibre-based packaging and wooden multistorey construction. There are many alternative pathways, ranging from incremental to more radical, to a forest-based bioeconomy within a framework of ambitious climate and biodiversity targets. Path dependence can support incremental development on bioeconomy transition pathways, and this should be considered when planning transition towards sustainability. Orchestration of the more radical changes requires actions from legislators, raw material producers, consumers and researchers, because the possibilities for business development vary between different companies and value networks. The envisioned actions between the pathways in and across the networks, such as forest diversification and diverse wood utilisation, can offer cobenefits in climate change mitigation and biodiversity protection. ; Peer reviewed