About this Event
Melbourne CCT Seminar Series - February
Date: February 19th
Location: Dean's Boardroom, Level 12, the Spot, University of Melbourne
Join us for the third session of the Melbourne CCT Seminar Series, hosted by the University of Melbourne! This event will feature two presentations, followed by drinks at a nearby bar.
Presentation 1
Title: From Parenting to Trip Planning to Hosting: How Consumers Coordinate Multiple Practices through Orchestration Work
Authors: Pierre-Yann Dolbec (Concordia University) and Marcus Phipps (University of Melbourne)
Abstract: Research on consumption practices has focused on how consumers learn, perform, and mend practices and what happens when their performance breaks down. Although informative, this work remains silent about the intentional coordination required to bring together multiple practices and many consumers to accomplish time-bound outcomes. This is an important oversight: many everyday consumption activities, such as family dinners, leisure outings, and caregiving, require such coordination.
We address this gap by empirically examining hosting as what we term an orchestrating practice—a practice that organizes people, performances, and elements from different practices into a coordinated, temporally bounded whole. Specifically, we ask: How do orchestrating practices coordinate multiple people, practices, and practice elements to achieve a desired outcome? What happens when orchestration fails?
We identify five types of orchestration work—curating, harmonizing, delegating, documenting, and policing—that align people, practices, and practice elements through four alignment mechanisms: synchronizing temporal coordination, meshing practice elements, anchoring through focal elements, and bounding spatial, temporal, and social limits. Successful orchestration renders work invisible, while misalignments make it visible and effortful. We contribute by introducing orchestrating practices as a distinct practice type and by examining how consumers perform them.
Presentation 2
Title: Sustained Brand Activism: Consumers and the Activist Brand
Authors: Karthika Kumar (RMIT University)
Abstract: Brand activism research predominantly adopts short-term perspectives, examining isolated incidents rather than sustained engagement in the face of recurring backlash. Additionally, the field's Western focus limits understanding of how brand activism operates across diverse socio-cultural contexts, particularly regarding brands that persist with activist positioning despite repeated opposition. This study investigates how consumers perceive brands that maintain sustained brand activism within multicultural marketplaces. Through analysis of social media content examining Tanishq's activist campaigns from 2013 to 2025 and in-depth interviews with 30 Indian consumers, we identify how brands navigate the tension between maintaining activist commitment and managing recurrent backlash. Our research contributes to brand activism scholarship by examining a shift from issue-responsive actions to sustained activist positioning and revealing how brands balance authentic commitment to social causes with the pragmatic realities of navigating rapidly shifting multicultural marketplace dynamics. We extend understanding of brand activism beyond single-event analysis to demonstrate how strategic consistency paired with tactical flexibility enables brands to build enduring activist identities.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Spot, 198 Berkeley Street, Carlton, Australia
AUD 0.00
