A construction of consumer cognitive structures and their implications in furniture shopping decisions: a means-end chain approach

The main purpose of this study is to construct a hierarchical value map (HVM) based on an investigation of how consumers in Taiwan link attributes of furniture and home accessories stores with particular consequences, and how these consequences satisfy their personal values. Further, this study compares differences in consumer HVMs in terms of gender, as well as across different chain stores. This study used the means-end chain approach and laddering technique to interview 40 consumers of furniture and home accessories stores in Taiwan. We obtained six ladders regarding furniture and home accessories store consumption. From these ladders, this study found three critical store attributes (function, facility convenience, and price), four consequences that consumers care most about (shopping ease, comfort and pleasure, practicality, and integrated design), and three dominant values that consumers wish to achieve (warm family, pleasurable life, and security). The findings of this study can be used as a basis for market segmentation and the development of retail service marketing strategies.     

A consumer value analysis of mobile internet protocol television based on a means-end chain theory

With the rise of the 4G technology, TV or video services based on mobile devices have received increasing attention from consumers. Using means-end chain theory, this study examines the cognitive structure of mobile internet protocol television (IPTV) users. Here, the cognitive structure refers to the attribute–consequence–value linkage that consumers consider as important in mobile IPTV services. The study classifies consumers based on two dimensions (their gender and occupation) and presents hierarchical value maps of mobile IPTV services. For this, the study collects data on 112 potential users of mobile IPTV services by using the association pattern technique. The results indicate as the representative cognitive structure of men and students; as that of women; and as that of office workers.     

The relationship between moral decisions and their consequences: A tradeoff analysis approach

While at one level, the literature in ethics for some issues is broad, deep, and complex, for others it appears limited and lacking in sophistication. This cross — cultural study deals not only with the moral reasoning behind moral dilemmas in business but also with the magnitudes these dilemmas in concert with their possible outcomes and consequences. While many studies discuss the effect of these outcomes, we have found none that have explicitly examined them.The methodology and analysis use a novel approach for this topic, and is a major contribution of the paper: that of tradeoff analysis. Tradeoff analysis is capable of revealing both the nature of an individual's moral reasoning as well as interactions between this and the rewards or consequences for the moral action. These interactions are illustrated with a cross — cultural pilot study conducted in Singapore and the United States, which reveal noteworthy differences in moral decision making.William R. Swinyard is a Professor of Business Management at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA, 84602.Thomas J. Delong is a Professor of Education at the same university.Peng Sim Cheng is a Senior Tutor at the National University of Singapore, School of Management, Singapore 0511. Correspondence should be addressed to the first author.     

The effect of consumer values on the brand position of green restaurants by means-end chain and laddering interviews

The rise of environmental awareness has changed consumer demands and values. One of the greatest challenges for green marketing of a restaurant presents in the introduction of green positioning to consumer decision-making. This study uses a means-end chain to investigate consumer awareness, decision-making processes, and consumer values with regard to restaurant attributes. The results of the study show that consumers value the following green attributes in restaurants: taste, using recyclable or biodegradable products, local ingredients, energy conservation, and carbon reduction. In terms of result benefits, consumers value feelings of health benefits, environmental protection, increased consumption frequency, happy mood, and an ability to help the environment. In value terms, consumers hope that their choice of restaurant can improve their relationships with others and lead to a happier life. The findings show that consumers with different awarenesses of the green attributes of restaurants have different decision-making processes. However, they share the same terminal value of a “happier life.” For restaurants, this provides the opportunity for green brand positioning. Restaurant operators can use decoration, menu choices, and services to attract their target customers.     

The effect of buying decisions on consumers' assessment of their tastes

Building on the notion that consumers are often uncertain about their tastes or weights, this research examines the proposition that consumers might infer their importance weights from their choices and the choice sets they evaluate. It is also hypothesized that the degree to which choice affects self-assessed weights depends on the consumer's familiarity with the product category and the available product information. The results of an experiment demonstrated that consumers' assessments of their importance weights can be influenced by the choice set they previously evaluated. This effect, however, was not moderated by familiarity or provided product information.     

Social trust and angel investors' decisions: A multilevel analysis across nations

The decisions made by angel investors are embedded in and influenced by their institutional settings. This paper advances a multilevel model of the direct and indirect effects of social trust on individuals' angel-investment decisions. It is postulated that two dimensions of social trust, namely the level and radius, can enhance information transmission, collaboration, and sanctioning mechanisms within a society. Consequently, they facilitate angel investment and moderate the relationship between it and individual factors. A multilevel model of data from 191,907 individuals across 25 countries shows that individuals in countries with a high level of trust are more likely to make angel investments. Whereas both the level of trust and the radius of trust are found to heighten the positive relationship between an individual's perceived entrepreneurial skills and angel investment, it is interesting to note that these factors weaken the relationship between the perception of new business opportunities and angel investment. These direct and moderating effects are robust after controlling for wealth, cultural values, and other factors. This study contributes to the crossover between research on entrepreneurship and social-trust research.     

Consumer Law and the Environment: From Consumer to Citizen

This paper addresses the question of the relationship between consumer law and the protection of the environment. In contradiction to those who see the goals of consumer protection and environmental protection as being close to each other, this paper presents the relationship as one of conflict rather than one of harmony. Consumer law as an expression of the consumer society promotes goals which sometimes run counter to the environmental interest. This clearly comes to the fore when analysing the main consumer rights and their relationship to environmental issues. However, despite this basic incompatibility, the book of consumer law also contains some small stories of environmentally constructive behaviour. The telling of these good stories would require us to transcend the boundaries of traditional consumer law and to replace "the consumer" by "the citizen" who is interested not only in his own consumption but in all aspects of social life. In support of this development certain consumer law measures can be used to raise the awareness of consumers regarding environmental issues.     

Natural growth goals and short- term training: a boomerang effect

The purpose of this research project was to determine the effect of a training session about achieving natural growth goals on perceptions of a university classroom as a learning organisation. The results indicated that a short training session on how to achieve natural growth goals in an organisation appeared to have a boomerang effect on perceptions of a university classroom as a learning organisation. This study should alert us to the inevitable consequence of having our best training efforts backfire when they conflict with powerful, though latent, beliefs or cultural values.     

Using Content Analysis to Examine Consumer Behaviors Portrayed on Television: A Pilot Study in a Consumer Education Context

The purpose of this study was to explore the potential of content analysis methodology for clarifying the nature of one agent of consumer socialization, prime-time television. The results indicated that the consumer-related content of prime-time television programs can be identified with this technique and that it may be useful in studying a variety of issues in consumer affairs. Special issues that should be considered in using the methodology are outlined, as are some promising avenues for future research concerning the socialization of consumers.     

Consumer Control and Empowerment: A Primer

This paper introduces consumer empowerment as a promising research area. Going beyond lay wisdom that more control is always better, we outline several hypotheses concerning (a) the factors that influence the perception of empowerment, and (b) the consequences of greater control and the subjective experience of empowerment on consumer satisfaction and confidence.     

Consumer behaviour and services: A review

This article reviews the current literature in the fields of consumer behaviour and the marketing of services in order to examine the main issues facing the consumer in purchasing services, as opposed to goods. Five distinguishing characteristics of services are discussed and the implications of these for the consumers are placed within the information processing model of consumer behaviour theory. The article suggests that there are particular problems for consumers in acquiring effective information regarding services, making comparisons on the basis of that information and subsequently evaluating the service encounter. It is our contention that unless consumer responses to the particular problems associated with services are clarified, service marketing may be in danger of pursuing provider‐orientated solutions rather than understanding the actual nature of the consumer decision process when purchasing services.     

Consumer response to uncertain promotions: An empirical analysis of conditional rebates

We formulate, estimate, and analyze a model of consumer response to promotions where consumers' receipt of the promotional reward is uncertain. The model incorporates consumers' risk aversion and their subjective assessment of the probability that they will get the reward. It is used to assess the effectiveness of a “conditional rebate”, where the uncertainty arises because the reward is contingent on an external event, versus a traditional rebate, which is similar in all respects except that it is certain. We estimate the model using a conjoint choice experiment. Response to conditional rebates is highly segmented and related to perceived thinking costs and savings and entertainment benefits of conditional rebates as well as to event involvement and gambling proneness. In our application, conditional rebates are more cost effective than certain rebates, mostly because consumers' subjective probability of the event occurring is higher than what market wisdom suggests.     

Towards a new way to measure power: Applying conjoint analysis to group decisions

This paper presents some preliminary development towards a methodology for measuring power in a group purchase decision. We define power as the capacity of an individual to change the probability of an alternative being chosen by expressing an opinion about that alternative. We present a linear model that relates the group members' preferences to the probability that a given alternative will be chosen. The model parameters reflect specific measures of power and can be estimated by conjoint analysis. We present the results of a pilot field study, conducted on a sample of purchasing managers, which favorably assesses certain psychometric properties of the resulting measures for dyads.     

Consumer Responses to Homosexual Imagery in Advertising: A Meta-Analysis

Rising support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, paired with the considerable buying power of this group, has triggered increasing interest from marketers in the gay and lesbian market. Many companies have developed advertising with homosexual imagery to better target this group as well as the mainstream market. The findings on the persuasive effects of homosexual imagery are mixed and do not provide insights on whether and when homosexual imagery in advertising supports persuasion. To resolve the inconsistencies in findings of prior research, this article presents a meta-analysis on the effects of homosexual imagery. The integrated effect size suggests that the net persuasive effect between homosexual and heterosexual imagery does not differ. We find, however, that homosexual consumers show negative responses to heterosexual imagery. Furthermore, the moderator analysis suggests that incongruence between imagery, consumer characteristics, cultural values, explicitness of imagery, endorser gender, and product type results in unfavorable responses to homosexual advertising imagery. These findings provide guidelines for future research and implications for advertisers who intend to address consumers of various sexual orientations.     

The effect of operational flexibility on decisions to withdraw from foreign production locations

Research on international divestment has identified a variety of factors that influence the closure of individual subsidiaries. Drawing on the concept of operational flexibility, this paper investigates the flexibility characteristics of an international production network to predict divestments of elements of this network. The analysis of 596 production locations of 189 German manufacturing firms reveals that the decision to divest a foreign location due to rising and uncertain labor costs is moderated by the ease of dismissing workers and the opportunity to shift production to locations with opposite labor cost developments. Furthermore, the results suggest that the costs of increasing production output moderate the influence of labor cost developments in the remaining locations of the network on the decision to withdraw from a location.     

Reliability criteria bolster product classification decisions: A reply to Jones

We empirically test the robustness of the Easingwood approach to classify early product life cycle forms for infrequently purchased major products. Our results indicate that the key classification parameters could be unstable to variations in the sample size used for estimation, thereby producing more than one classification for several products. We demonstrate that the problem of multiple classifications can be effectively addressed by using the more rigorous criteria of joint confidence regions (as opposed to point estimates) of classification parameters. The benefit of such rigorous classification is that it increases researcher confidence in Easingwood's classification system.     

Collective Prototyping: A Consumer Policy Strategy to Encourage Ecological Marketing

In the present paper, three examples of organized positive consumer action that pursues the aim of supporting ecological marketing practices are presented. It is believed that this form of consumer action is more effective in encouraging ecological marketing than the three classical consumer reaction strategies exit, voice, and loyalty. Positive strategies such as entry, confirmation, and approval allow consumers to articulate needs which are different from those that are already satisfied by products available on the market. The examples chosen describe the process of prototypic development of an environmentally friendly refrigerator, a solar system for the production of energy for private use, and the 3-litre-car, demonstrating how petrol consumption can be decreased by 50%. The goals of the prototyping strategy are, firstly, to demonstrate the feasibility of an ecological product innovation, and, secondly, to assess the market opportunities for such an innovation. The examples show that it is possible and necessary to extend the instruments of consumer policy to collective, partnership-based approaches while still adhering to the paradigm of countervailing consumer power.     

Consumer debt in Australia: why banks will not turn their backs on profit

Five years into the 21st century and consumer debt levels in Australia are still escalating. Simultaneously, there is concern that an increasing number of consumers may be unable to meet their future financial commitments and also mounting alarm at the relative ease with which the majority of consumers can access additional credit facilities. At the same time, credit providers are avidly seeking greater profits by enticing consumers to borrow more and more. Against this background, the issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Australian consumer credit industry is discussed. The application of strategic stakeholder management theory to the activities of a specific class of lender – banks – is then discussed. The aim is to better understand why the contemporary demands of CSR will not lead banks to undertake a more vigilant approach to consumer lending advocated by consumer groups who, witnessing the impact of the growing level of consumer indebtedness on a number of consumers, are calling for more responsible lending practices. The opportunity to contribute to debate aimed at alleviating the risk of growing consumer indebtedness is highlighted. The paper concludes with an acknowledgement that, without intervention, factors such as competition in the free market for consumer credit, the demands of shareholders for profits, and consumers’ own folly in demanding immediate gratification and readily accepting additional credit as a means of financing their consumption, ensure that consumer debt levels will continue to rise.