[Call for papers] WORKSHOP & SPECIAL ISSUE OF MERCATI E COMPETITIVITA’

The Workshop & Special Issue of Mercati e Competitività (SIM affiliate conference) on "Consumer entrepreneurship and its reflections on branding theory and practice" will be held in Milan, at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, on May 28, 2019.

This increasing entrepreneurial fervor is raising new challenges to the world of brands and branding: what role can traditional brands play in this evolving scenario? Which new brands are emerging? How are the relationships between consumer-entrepreneurs and brands reconfiguring? Which new business models are the new consumer entrepreneurs creating? How are the new consumer entrepreneurs-as-brands building and managing their bond and influence on other consumers?

These questions represent the starting point for the workshop and upcoming special issue of Mercati e Competitività to revisit the concept and the role of brand and branding in light of the emergence of new forms of consumer-entrepreneurship. This on the background of the big cultural changes related to the progressive emergence of social phenomena such as liquid and accelerated society, network society, networked individualism, technocapitalism, and the reconfiguring of the agency among consumers, brands and objects.

Scholars who wish to present a paper at the workshop are invited to submit an extended abstract in English of 750-1000 words to: rossella.gambetti [at] unicatt.it; silvia.biraghi [at] unicatt.it; federica.ceccotti [at] uniroma1.it no later than April 5, 2019. Authors will be notified of the outcome of the selection process by April 15, 2019.