Ethnic Differences in Nigerian Consumer Attitudes Toward Foreign and Domestic Products

Abstract

This paper uses conjoint analysis to investigate ethnic differences in the importance of a product's country-of-manufacture relative to other attributes in the Nigerian consumer choice. It was found that the country-of-manufacture was more important to Yoruba than Hausa respondents, price was more important to Ibo than Yoruba respondents, and reliability was more important to Hausa than Ibo respondents. Additional analyses indicated that prestige was important to Yoruba respondents in the preference for foreign cars while it was important to Ibo and Hausa respondents in the choice of foreign TV sets. Implications for foreign marketers, domestic governments and domestic manufacturers are discussed.     

The role of family management and ownership on semi-globalization pattern of globalization: The case of family business groups

Employing a multi-level with longitudinal concern data analysis this research examines the impact from family management and ownership on semi-globalization pattern of globalization in family business groups from an integrated framework. The results reveal that the more likelihood that the controlling family utilize family management in the subsidiary, and the higher degree of pyramidal ownership in the subsidiary, the more likelihood that the family business group will choose to engage in the host regions. Additionally, family management and pyramidal ownership is positively related with the choice to engage in a higher difference region instead of a lower difference region in family business groups. The theoretical and future research implications of these findings for family enterprises and globalization research are discussed.     

A problem of discrete choice: Moody's municipal bond ratings

This article focuses on an important discrete choice problem in business and economic research—the determination of general obligation municipal bond ratings by Moody's Investors Service, Inc. The problem is examined by using N-chotomous probit analysis on a data set that is more representative of the population of cities with Moody's bond ratings and that includes measurements for more of the community characteristics said to be examined by Moody's analysts than the data used in previous research. Several new insights on how population, housing, debt, and geographic variables influence municipal bond ratings are obtained from the use of this larger and more varied data sample.     

Love Is Blind: How Our Love for More Choice Costs Time

The paper applies a multilevel modeling approach in the study of individual behavior in choice experiments. The purpose is to study the relationship between choice time and several features of the choice task such as the number of choice alternatives, amount of choice information, and (dis)similarity of the choice alternatives. A special focus is on the difference in choice time between individuals who frequently maximize in choice making and their counterparts who are habitually satisficing. In total, 15 choice experiments were conducted (three versions of choice experiments for five different choice stimuli: restaurant, holiday resort hotel, smartphone, job, and project partner). The results show that choice time increases as choice tasks are more complex. As to the people's maximizing tendency, no significant differences in choice time are found between maximizers and satisficers.     

Pride in my past: Influencing sustainable choices through behavioral recall

Emotional appraisal research has demonstrated that recalling a past behavior and its associated emotions can influence future behavior. However, how such recalled emotions shape sustainable consumer choice has not been examined. This study examines the role of recalled pride and guilt in shaping sustainable purchase intentions and the mediating role of anticipated pride and guilt. A conceptual model is proposed for motivating sustainable purchase intentions through the emotions associated with the behavioral recall. The model is applied in two experiments with online consumers examining purchase intentions of low carbon cars. Recalling feelings of pride associated with a past sustainability‐related behavior increases sustainable purchase intention, as compared with a neutral recall. This effect occurs through the mediation of both anticipated pride at the prospect of a sustainable behavior choice and anticipated guilt if the future choice is not sustainable. Similar hypotheses relating to recalled guilt at past unsustainable behavior were not supported. The study contributes to research on sustainable consumption, revealing an emotional route by which past behavior can influence future behavior. It also adds to emotional appraisal research by showing the role of specific self‐conscious emotions in forming this route, as prior research has focused more broadly on emotional valence.     

Intermediate Choice Lists: How Product Attributes Influence Purchase Likelihood in a Self-Imposed Delay

Many online retailers enable consumers to postpone a purchase decision by placing a desired item onto an intermediate choice list, such as a wish list or saved-for-later list. This research demonstrates that using a list in this way decreases purchase intent for the wait-listed products, relative to the same choice made without the option to delay the decision. The findings of five experiments show that purchase likelihood is affected by a shift in the importance, or weight, of product attributes. Specifically, the attributes that are weighted more heavily in the decision to place an item on an intermediate choice list are then weighted less heavily in the decision to purchase an item from that list. This shift in attribute weighting suggests that consumers may switch from more noncompensatory to more compensatory decision-making between the initial decision to use an intermediate choice list, and the later decision of whether to purchase the item from the list. This process tends to diminish the importance of the attractive attributes that encouraged consumers to put these items on lists in the first place. These findings have implications for retailers who wish to understand the risks and benefits of wish lists and related tools, and for consumers who desire to reduce impulsive purchases.     

The Impact of Online and Offline Information Sources on Automobile Choice Behavior

The Internet has significantly impacted the information search behavior of consumers. Many consumers regularly consult Internet sources for information on product categories, brands, manufacturers, and retailers, particularly when making a purchase decision about major durable goods. Automobiles are one example of such goods. The Internet has become a major source for information on automobile brands, attributes, and dealers. While much research has been done on the impact of the Internet on automobile information search behavior and search costs, there is limited work on the relationship between Internet use and the ultimate automobile choice. This type of relationship may have interesting managerial implications for both manufacturers of automobiles and firms that provide information on automobiles. This paper attempts to address this gap. It examines whether Internet use is associated with different choice patterns for automobiles. Using discrete choice analysis on automobile choice data, we explore whether there will be differences in the salience of specific information types for online versus offline consumers. We find that Internet users rely more on ratings while non-Internet users rely more on recommendations when making automobile choices. Our findings have several useful managerial implications for information provision, both online and offline.     

The influence of price on the relationship between involvement and consideration set size

This study examined the relationship between involvement and consideration set size for a product category featuring wide variability in the price and quality of choice alternatives. The use of a heterogeneous choice domain is considered important because it gives consumers the opportunity to make price and quality tradeoffs in the selection of their consideration sets. The results indicate that in such a choice context, the total effect of involvement on consideration set size is positive. A path analysis of the data indicates the reason for this positive relationship was that high-involvement subjects set wider latitudes of acceptance for price and thus were more likely to consider the more expensive models in the choice domain.     

Choice and the Internet: From Clickstream to Research Stream

The authors discuss research progress and future opportunities for modeling consumer choice on the Internet using clickstream data (the electronic records of Internet usage recorded by company web servers and syndicated data services). The authors compare the nature of Internet choice (as captured by clickstream data) with supermarket choice (as captured by UPC scanner panel data), highlighting the differences relevant to choice modelers. Though the application of choice models to clickstream data is relatively new, the authors review existing early work and provide a two-by-two categorization of the applications studied to date (delineating search versus purchase on the one hand and within-site versus across-site choices on the other). The paper offers directions for further research in these areas and discusses additional opportunities afforded by clickstream information, including personalization, data mining, automation, and customer valuation. Notwithstanding the numerous challenges associated with clickstream data research, the authors conclude that the detailed nature of the information tracked about Internet usage and e-commerce transactions presents an enormous opportunity for empirical modelers to enhance the understanding and prediction of choice behavior.     

Consumers' Choice Factors of an Upscale Ethnic Restaurant

The demand for ethnic foods has increased worldwide, due to the influences of ethnic diversity, globally sourced food, cultural experiences, and media exposure. Despite the importance of restaurant choice criteria and a growth in the popularity of ethnic foods, published research on consumers' restaurant selection behavior that focuses on the ethnic restaurant segment is sparse. This research aims to fill this gap in the literature by empirically identifying the factors (and their relative importance) that influence consumers to dine at an upscale ethnic restaurant.

Focus group discussions and the literature review assist in identifying a set of factors that influence restaurant choice. A mail survey is used to collect the data. Factor analysis is applied to refine the decision factors. Logistic regression analysis identifies five significant factors that influence restaurant choice: dining experience, social status, service quality, food quality, and value for money.     

Is money really the root of all evil? The impact of priming money on consumer choice

Despite the ubiquitous importance of money, the psychology of money has until recently received relatively little attention. While the literature has found that priming money has notable psychological consequences, little research has been done on the impact of priming money on consumer choice, particularly, their choice between hedonic and utilitarian options. The current research proposes that priming money will increase the likelihood of a prevention regulatory focus, and consequently, consumers will be more likely to choose more prudent alternatives when facing a trade-off between hedonic and utilitarian options. Results of four experiments show that participants in the money priming condition were more likely to choose utilitarian over hedonic options, compared with participants in the control condition. Furthermore, this effect was mediated by consumers’ situational prevention focus on the exposure to money primes, but attenuated when credit cards are primed.     

Brand presentation order in voice shopping: Understanding the effects of sequential product presentation

Nearly half of US households own a smart speaker with voice shopping functionality. Voice shopping product presentation is inherently sequential due to the audio delivery of information, which may give retailers the opportunity to influence customer decisions through the order in which brands are presented. This research examines the effect of brand order presentation in voice shopping and its impact on high-equity versus low-equity brands. Moreover, this research considers the moderating effect of product presentation format (simultaneous vs. sequential, audio vs. visual) on the impact of brand presentation order. The results of six experiments with more than 1,000 participants provide evidence that consumers attempt to balance competing concerns about risk in voice shopping with search costs because products are presented sequentially and information is reduced. If high-equity brands are presented first, the choice distribution in voice shopping is unimodal, with a peak at the first-presented products. However, a bimodal choice distribution results if low-equity brands are presented first. Importantly, choice distribution in voice shopping differs markedly from choice distribution when products are presented simultaneously and visually, as in online shopping.     

The influence of positive affect on consideration set formation in memory-based choice

Although prior research has examined whether positive affect can impact consideration set size in stimulus-based choice, unknown to this point is whether affective influences also characterize memory-based consideration processes. This distinction is important insofar as consideration in memory-based choice entails psychological processes (including those involving the accessibility of brands) that are unique to choice undertaken in memory-based settings. Experiment 1 provides an initial demonstration of positive affect’s ability to shape memory-based consideration by documenting that positive (versus neutral) affect leads to larger consideration sets. Two additional experiments extend these findings by showing that the influence of positive affect on consideration set size is moderated by characteristics of brands (typicality) and consumers (regulatory focus). Experiment 2 demonstrates that this increase in memory-based consideration set size is attributable to a greater number of atypical, but not typical, brands being considered under positive affect. Experiment 3 documents the moderating effect exerted by consumers’ regulatory focus by showing that the ability of positive affect to increase consideration set size is more likely for consumers high (but not low) on promotion focus. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed as are suggestions for future research.     

A simple method for estimating preference parameters for individuals

This paper demonstrates a method for estimating logit choice models for small sample data, including single individuals, that is computationally simpler and relies on weaker prior distributional assumptions compared to hierarchical Bayes estimation. Using Monte Carlo simulations and online discrete choice experiments, we show how this method is particularly well suited to estimating values of choice model parameters from small sample choice data, thus opening this area to the application of choice modeling. For larger sample sizes of approximately 100–200 respondents, preference distribution recovery is similar to hierarchical Bayes estimation of mixed logit models for the examples we demonstrate. We discuss three approaches for specifying the conjugate priors required for the method: specifying priors based on existing or projected market shares of products, specifying a flat prior on the choice alternatives in a discrete choice experiment, or adopting an empirical Bayes approach where the prior choice probabilities are taken to be the average choice probabilities observed in a discrete choice experiment. We show that for small sample data, the relative weighting of the prior during estimation is an important consideration, and we present an automated method for selecting the weight based on a predictive scoring rule.     

Context and Task Effects on Choice Deferral

This article reviews recent research that has examined consumer decision making when the option of not choosing any of the alternatives is provided. The attractiveness of the decision outcomes and the difficulty of choosing are posited to be two key factors that determine the preference for a no-choice option. Building on the notion that preferences are often constructed, it is proposed that task and contextual variables can alter how the choice situation is evaluated on the two factors and consequently choice incidence. Several experiments that explore and manipulate decision attractiveness and decision difficulty are reviewed, and areas for future research are suggested. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these results for research on consumer choice.     

Combining Sources of Preference Data for Modeling Complex Decision Processes

We review current state-of-the-art practices for combining preference data from multiple sources and discuss future research possibilities. A central theme is that any one data source (e.g., a scanner panel source) is often insufficient to support tests of complex theories of choice and decision making. Hence, analysts may need to embrace a wider variety of data types and measurement tools than traditionally have been considered in applied decision making and choice research. We discuss the viability of preference-stationarity assumptions usually made when pooling data, as well as random-utility theory-based approaches for combining data sources. We also discuss types of models and data sources likely to be required to make inferences about and estimate models that describe choice dynamics. The latter discussion is speculative insofar as the body of literature on this topic is small.     

Combining revealed and stated preferences data

Our objective is to develop a unifying framework for the incorporation of different types of survey data in individual choice models. We describe statistical methodologies that combine multiple sources of data in the estimation of individual choice models and summarize the current state of the art of data combination methods that have been used with market research data. The most successful applications so far have combined revealed and stated preference data. We discuss different types of market and survey data and provide examples of research contexts in which one might wish to combine them. Although these methods show a great deal of promise and have already been used successfully in a number of applications, several important research issues remain. A discussion of these issues and directions for further research conclude the paper.     

医疗护理服务可及性对居家老人照料服务选择的影响研究——基于北京市的实证研究

利用课题组2018年在北京市的抽样调查数据,运用Logistic回归方法考察医疗护理服务可及性对居家老人照料服务选择的影响。结果发现,医疗护理服务的便捷性、可支付性与老人照料服务的选择显著相关。住所附近有医疗卫生机构、有提供上门护理服务的机构或是与家庭医生签约的老人,更倾向于选择社会照料服务;支付能力对照料服务的选择呈现"U"型效应:家庭支付能力较强或者经济自评相对不足的老人更倾向于选择社会照料服务。应通过优化医疗护理资源布局、建立并完善社会照料服务的价格机制等措施,推进高效、可持续的社会照料服务体系的构建。