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Purpose: A status quo situation has occurred among actors, policymakers, producers, retailers and consumers where no one takes the lead on the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) fight. Common theoretical approaches to behaviour including awareness, understanding and use are insufficient in the AMR context. In this paper, the authors suggest the application of accountability literature to fully understand the status quo situation with AMR.

Design/methodology/approach: AMR in food has become an alarming problem in the past decade and is an increasing threat to global health. The knowledge about AMR often comes from a medical context where the perspective is completely different. Therefore, it is difficult for consumers to apply this to a grocery store context purchasing food.

Findings: This paper uses the concept of accountability and the significant other within the accountability field and discusses how this could help overcome the non-action state of mind of consumers and other actors.

Practical implications: Enhanced accountability could significantly improve One-Health solutions for combating AMR. By fostering a culture of shared responsibility and transparent communication among stakeholders, the silo effect may be mitigated, promoting collaborative efforts. Accountability mechanisms should ensure that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and communicated across sectors, such as health care, agriculture and policymaking. Educational initiatives can increase AMR awareness, enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions. Integrating perspectives from various domains will facilitate the development of holistic strategies, thus improving the overall effectiveness of efforts to address AMR and ensuring a sustainable approach to public health.

Social implications: Enhanced accountability in AMR management can lead to significant social benefits. By promoting transparency and collective responsibility, communities can foster greater trust and cooperation among various stakeholders, including health-care providers, policymakers and consumers. Increased awareness of AMR can empower individuals to make informed decisions, thereby promoting public health and safety. Socially, this could lead to more sustainable practices in antibiotic use and a reduction in the spread of resistant infections. In addition, fostering a culture of accountability ensures that efforts to combat AMR are more inclusive, equitable and effective, ultimately benefiting society as a whole.

Originality/value: The proposal to create strategies according to a basis of accountability can be applied at all levels of the AMR problem and for all actors. This therefore provides important knowledge about how AMR can be approached in a more long-term way where initiatives to prevent the spread of AMR do not take place in parallel or become difficult to access.

For as long as people have met and gathered in small villages, in larger cities, at religious events or along travel routes, for shorter or longer periods of time, people have engaged in trading goods – the forerunner of today's retailing. Hence, retail is an economic sector with a long history (Stobart & Howard, 2019). Most early retail took place in town centres, establishing the relationship between trade and urban agglomeration (Coleman, 2006). A general rule has been that retail is located where the customers are (May, 1989), owing to the economic potential of proximity to larger consumer markets. This is true not only for retailing, but for almost all economic activities in liberal markets (Scott, 1998), and the general trend is a drainage of investments, companies and people in sparsely populated rural and peripheral localities in favour of urban agglomerations (Lindgren et al., 2017), at least when it comes to physical retailing, which is the focus of this chapter.

The fundamental role and purpose of retail stores is changing. The growth of e-commerce is forcing physical stores to evolve in order to stay relevant and meet shifting consumer demands. This chapter re-examines the role of physical fashion stores during the digital retail era by outlining these stores' traditional role, by discussing the role of online stores and by providing a comparison between physical and online stores' roles vis-à-vis consumers. At the end of the chapter, the consumer view of stores of the future is demonstrated in the results of an exploratory study. The chapter shows that physical stores need to be inspirational, to have knowledgeable staff, and to make sure that consumers get personal service and care when visiting stores. The study has also shown that consumers today value stores of the future having other attributes (e.g. local connections and inspiration) than those previously recognized in research.

The retail industry is disrupting fast. Shopper behavior is evolving and keeping up with the pace of modern technology such as big data, AI, AR, VR, apps and gamification, which is a challenge as well as an opportunity that the retail industry faces. New technologies are creating new ways to do business, making it important to find balance between what worked in the past and what is needed in the future. Digitalization has (positively as well as negatively) a huge potential to help achieve sustainability or at least help reduce the negative impact of people. In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the already struggling physical retail, which accelerated the digital transition in retail. We are living in a time where we cannot dodge the challenges and changes that are happening, and therefore, people as well as companies have to keep up with the pace of modern technology and take responsibility for the environment in order to be prepared for the future that is already here.

För att överbrygga gap mellan olika aktörer och sammanhang är ett viktigt led att föra samman universitet och omgivande samhälle. I denna studie har metoden samverkansworkshop bidragit till att ett avancerat affärsutvecklingsprogram utvecklats i växelverkan mellan praktik och akademi. Ett samverkanshjul presenteras för att diskutera växelverkan mellan universitet och omgivande samhälle. Hjulet illustrerar den cirkulära rörelsen av kunskaper och erfarenheter som utbyts mellan olika intressenter. Hjulet beskrivs utifrån termerna Att nå ut med forskning, Att ta tillvara på praktiknära erfarenheter, samt Att återföra nya forskningsrön.

Antimicrobial resistance occurs when microorganisms survive exposure and proliferate in the presence of therapeutic levels of antimicrobial drugs. Because antimicrobial resistance is increasing, it is vital to encourage consumers to change and adopt smarter antibiotic behaviour. Despite World Health Organization's efforts to combat antibiotic resistance and their emphasis on the importance of public involvement, the role of consumers has been overlooked. The manifold responsibility for antibiotic resistance extends across different actors, including food retailers and consumers. Given this shared responsibility, a blame game arises and no action occurs. To overcome this status quo situation, we draw attention to the potential role of individual responsibility and social pressure to encourage consumers to adopt smart antibiotic behaviour but also to empower them. Conditions must be put in place to enable consumers' critical evaluation of the health-related and ethical aspects of their food choices. Such behaviour can be facilitated using digital innovations to support informed choices, in store and online.