What drives college-age Generation Y consumers?

Generation Y (individuals ages 14-31 in 2008) are in the marketplace with the numbers and the purchasing power to have an unprecedented impact on the economy. Despite the potential of this group as a whole, especially the middle-aged members of this generation (ages 18-22) who are in the highly coveted college-student market, much is unknown about the motivations behind these individuals' consumption behavior and preferences. This study attempts to address this gap in the literature by exploring the antecedents of the consumption behavior of college-aged Generation Y individuals. The findings indicate that issues relating to socialization, uncertainty reduction, reactance, self-discrepancy, and feelings of accomplishment and connectedness drive Y consumers' product purchases and retail patronage. This article discusses these issues as well as their theoretical and managerial implications.     

What drives consumers to customize products? The mediating role of brand experience

Brands are increasingly seeking ways to engage consumers in deep and meaningful brand experiences. As technological advances have developed, brands have an increasing arsenal to draw on in creating brand experience. One increasingly common tactic is product customization, whereby consumers are provided the ability to create their own products from a set of options. With this study, we seek to understand the mediating role of brand experience in consumer decisions to customize products. Specifically, we investigate the interplay of non-brand drivers (those intrinsic to the consumer) and brand drivers (those extrinsic to the consumer) in the context of customization. In doing so, we develop an understanding of consumers' intention to use a customization toolkit and their subsequent intention to purchase customized products. We find brand experience drives intention to use a customization toolkit, mediating the relationship between individual factors and usage intentions. A customer's prior experience and their intention to use a customization toolkit are also direct drivers of customized product purchase intention.     

What do consumers want? A methodological framework to identify determinant product attributes from consumers’ online questions

Determinant attributes play an important role in consumers’ purchase decisions. Firms rely on them to differentiate their products. Determinant attributes are typically identified using direct methods or indirect methods. However, the voice of the customer online can also provide key insights regarding attributes that are part of the consumers’ pre-purchase search process. The purpose of this study is to propose a framework to identify determinant attributes from online consumer questions. Our method uses semi-supervised Latent Dirichlet Allocation to identify product attributes initially. This is followed by the application of sequence pattern mining to identify temporal sequences of determinant attributes. Finally, hierarchical time series is used to forecast consumer interest in determinant attributes over time. The results show that our study can be used to identify determinant attributes of competing brands and can also be used to forecast consumer interest in these attributes. Brands can use this framework to have a pulse on what consumers look for before purchase. This will aid their decisions related to promotion as well as product development processes.     

What drives ICT adoption by SMEs? Evidence from a large-scale survey in Greece

The purpose of this paper is to identify potential determinants of ICT adoption in SMEs. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of firms' technological competencies, human capital of workforce and internal organization in ICT adoption measured by five indicators referring to firms' intentions toward ICT implementation, ICT infrastructure, internet integration, e-sales and e-procurement. To this end, a particularly rich dataset is utilized based on a large-scale survey on 3500 Greek SMEs. Estimations of ordered probit models show that innovation and R&D activities and collaborations, well-educated and skilled workers, decentralized decision-making and visionary leadership increase the likelihood of adopting new technologies in SMEs. The results appear to be largely robust across different ICT adoption measures.     

What does luxury really mean to millennial consumers?

The aim of this study was to determine how millennial luxury consumers define luxury based on a holistic systems theory perspective. The human ecosystem and its components were used to fully investigate the system of the millennial luxury consumer. A mixed methodology was used by conducting interviews and then a consumer survey. Based on the findings from this research, the definition for luxury based on the view of the millennial luxury consumer is as followed: Luxury is the characteristics of the product themselves, addresses the consumer's personal needs, and addresses the consumer's social needs. This study suggests that the ecosystem of the millennial luxury consumers, including its environments and interactions, helped in constructing their definition of luxury. This definition delivers millennial luxury consumer insights for luxury retailers and may provide strategic adaptations to help attract and retain millennial luxury consumers, while also supporting business sustainability in a challenging retail environment.     

What drives content creation behavior on SNSs? A commitment perspective

We investigate the mind-sets driving users' content creation behavior on social network sites (SNSs) and antecedents of these mind-sets. The results of our survey of 1242 Renren users in China indicated that affective and continuance commitments are the main drivers of users' content creation behaviors on SNSs, while normative commitment has little influence on content creation behaviors. Further, informational support and emotional support from the social support perspective, reputational capital and relational capital from the sunk cost theory, subjective norm and perceived critical mass from the social influence perspective perform well as antecedents of affective, continuance, and normative commitment, respectively.     

Why do mobile consumers resist mobile commerce applications? A hybrid fsQCA-ANN analysis

Since its inception, mobile commerce (m-commerce) has introduced many disruptive changes to the business world via various types of m-commerce applications, which refer to the novel applications of m-commerce in conducting tasks that require mobility, for instance, mobile payment and mobile shopping. In view that not all mobile consumers around the world are keen to adopt mobile commerce applications, this study seeks to clarify the roles of active innovation resistance barriers (comprising functional and psychological barriers) on three distinct forms of resistance behaviour exhibited by mobile consumers (i.e., rejection, postponement, or opposition) towards m-commerce applications through the theoretical lens of Innovation Resistance Theory. For this purpose, an asymmetric and non-linear model was built and analysed through a configurational approach complemented by machine learning. The results indicate that all active innovation resistance barriers matter but are not equally important in triggering the resistance behaviours. Theoretically, this study has advanced the Innovation Resistance Theory and enriched the existing literature on m-commerce applications resistance. Practically, to lower the resistance behaviours of mobile consumers towards m-commerce applications, practitioners are advised to prioritise strategies that could overcome the psychological barriers.     

Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: What motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the Internet?

Through Web-based consumer opinion platforms (e.g., epinions.com), the Internet enables customers to share their opinions on, and experiences with, goods and services with a multitude of other consumers; that is, to engage in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication. Drawing on findings from research on virtual communities and traditional word-of-mouth literature, a typology for motives of consumer online articulation is developed. Using an online sample of some 2,000 consumers, information on the structure and relevance of the motives of consumers’ online articulations is generated. The resulting analysis suggests that consumers’ desire for social interaction, desire for economic incentives, their concern for other consumers, and the potential to enhance their own self-worth are the primary factors leading to eWOM behavior. Further, eWOM providers can be grouped based on what motivates their behavior, suggesting that firms may need to develop different strategies for encouraging eWOM behavior among their users.     

What Makes a Business Ethicist? A Reflection on the Transition from Applied Philosophy to Critical Thinking

Using a sample of 21,030 US firm-year observations that represents more than 3000 individual firms over the 1998–2012 period, we investigate the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and investment efficiency. We provide strong and robust evidence that high CSR involvement decreases investment inefficiency and consequently increases investment efficiency. This result is consistent with our expectations that high CSR firms enjoy low information asymmetry and high stakeholder solidarity (stakeholder theory). Moreover, our findings suggest that CSR components that are directly related to firms’ primary stakeholders (e.g. employee relations, product characteristics, environment, and diversity) are more relevant in reducing investment inefficiency compared with those related to secondary stakeholders (e.g. human rights and community involvement). Finally, additional results show that the effect of CSR on investment efficiency is more pronounced during the subprime crisis. Taken together, our results highlight the important role that CSR plays in shaping firms’ investment behaviour and efficiency.     

From academic abilities to occupation: What drives stock market participation?

We study how academic abilities along with education and occupation influence stock market participation. Combining five data sets from Estonia for a sample of over 200,000 individuals allows the effect to be observed in the finest detail available. We find that women are clearly less persuaded by their mental abilities to participate in the stock market than men are. Economic activity, occupation and religion affect stock market participation, and stock market investors tend to be more ambitious, more prone to risk and more intelligent than non-participants.     

The effect of credit card versus mobile payment on convenience and consumers’ willingness to pay

Extant literature on payment methods has focused on comparing cash and credit cards and emphasized the lower pain of paying (i.e., fewer negative consequences) for the latter. This finding, in turn, explains why consumers express higher willingness to pay (WTP) when paying with credit cards. The current study introduces mobile technology as a new payment method to this literature. Specifically, it highlights convenience as a positive driver of increased WTP for mobile payment. However, for consumers to perceive mobile payment as convenient, a personal adoption (enabled through an existing system in the respective country market) is necessary. A set of three studies across several country markets tests these assumptions empirically. Convenience emerges as a new mediator between mobile payment and increased WTP, contingent on personal adoption. These findings thus extend extant literature on the mechanisms consumers use with different payment methods, and they offer differentiated recommendations regarding payment channels for country managers.     

Does sustainability really matter to consumers? Assessing the importance of online shop and apparel product attributes

Although there is a shift in consumers' consumption behavior towards more sustainable patterns across a variety of different contexts, sustainable apparel has still not become a mainstream trend despite the textile industry's excessive usage of valuable resources. Albeit extant research found different potential barriers elucidating why consumers hesitate to purchase such apparel, it remains unclear whether sustainability really matters to consumers in a clothing context and further, which aspects are of relevance during consumers' purchase decision. We thus conducted two studies with four best-worst scaling experiments in which 4,350 online shoppers assessed the importance of both conventional and sustainable apparel attributes, as well as sustainable apparel attributes only, and the willingness to pay for sustainable product attributes. We further inquired the importance of conventional as well as sustainable online shop attributes. Our findings indicate that conventional apparel attributes such as fit and comfort, price-performance ratio, and quality are of higher relevance to consumers than sustainable attributes. The most important sustainable apparel attributes are the garment's durability, fair wages and working conditions, as well as an environmentally friendly production process. Consumers also indicated to prefer the latter three attributes to a 20% discount. Moreover, consumers demand less as well as sustainable packaging, free returns, and discount campaigns. Our findings reveal a gender gap regarding green consumerism with female respondents assessing most sustainable attributes as more important than male respondents do.     

Why do firms delete brands? Insights from a qualitative study

Large consumer goods firms manage and market an assortment of brands and consistently deal with strategic challenges related to brand portfolio management, such as creating or acquiring brands, growing brand equity, managing brands in the portfolio and deleting brands. There is substantial research on several areas of brand portfolio management except in the area of brand deletion. This situation exists despite the fact that deleting weak brands has important implications for a firm and its brand portfolio. Therefore, it is critical to understand why firms delete brands from their portfolios. This research applies a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis in the context of firms that adopt a ‘house of brands’ brand architecture and presents findings guided by the strategic decision-making literature.     

What drives financial crises in emerging markets?

The study examines the causes of financial crises in 31 emerging market countries during 1980–2001. It estimates a probit model using 23 macroeconomic and financial sector variables. Traditional variables such as unemployment and inflation, as well as several indicators of indebtedness such as private sector liabilities and the foreign liabilities of banks explain currency crises rather well, and it appears currency crises occur in tandem with banking crises. Indeed, in emerging market countries the vulnerability to crisis is exacerbated by situations involving large liabilities that permit sudden capital outflows. Increases in indebtedness followed the liberalization of capital flows and domestic financial sectors.     

What drives informed trading before public releases? Evidence from natural gas inventory announcements

This paper shows evidence of informed trading in the natural gas futures market before gas inventory announcements. We examine whether traders can predict the upcoming announcement by processing public information. The results show that the difference between the median forecast of analysts with high historical forecasting accuracy and the consensus forecast can be used to predict inventory surprises. This predictor explains some of the pre‐announcement price drift, suggesting that informed trading before the announcement is likely to be driven by superior forecasting rather than by information leakage. A simple trading strategy conditioned on the predictor would have generated an annualized Sharpe ratio of 1.26.     

The EMF uncertainty problem related to mobile phones: where do consumers place their trust?

This paper addresses the uncertainty problem, i.e. cases characterized by lack of knowledge or scientific uncertainty. In such situations, it can be hard for consumers to ‘voice’ or practise consumer power. One field characterized by the uncertainty problem is electromagnetic radiation. An explicit goal of this study has been to articulate Norwegian consumers' practices, attitudes and beliefs regarding electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones to public authorities and consumer policy makers. The study was based on 1000 telephone interviews collected in 2008. Today, experts disagree on the potential health effects of radiation from electromagnetic fields (EMF), as well as standards for safe limits of exposure to mobile phones, base stations and wireless telecommunication systems. In addition, complicated technology and extremely rapid product development and diffusion leave consumers' security considerations to their own beliefs and trust. Whether or not electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones constitutes a health hazard will not be addressed in this paper. Rather, it will focus on how consumers react to this situation of uncertainty. The material reveals four main ways in which consumers can solve what we have named the EMF uncertainty problem: the confident and comfortable way, the sceptical and cautious way, the responsible and good citizen way, and finally, the neglecting way. The paper also discusses the precautionary principle related to EMF. Who should be precautionary: the public authorities, the mobile phone industry or the consumers themselves? We believe that a consistent governmental precautionary policy in combination with consumers taking their own precautionary measures is a viable solution. In this way, all consumers would be addressed and aided when navigating this field of uncertainty.     

What will business-to-business marketers learn from neuro-marketing? Insights for business marketing practice

This research note offers expert comments on the boundaries and frontiers of neuro-marketing application for business-to-business (B-to-B) marketing. This is done using a practice-led approach to discuss the boundaries and frontiers of neuro-marketing application for B-to-B marketing. Insights are provided into what neuro-marketing is, is not, can do, cannot do, should do, and should not do in B-to-B settings. This note can assist B-to-B marketing academics, practitioners, and neuroscientists in understanding the boundaries and frontiers of B-to-B neuro-marketing application. This note outlines how neuroscience can be appropriately applied in theoretical and practical B-to-B marketing endeavors. This note offers a useful response to a series of common but often inadequately answered or unanswered questions on B-to-B neuro-marketing application.     

Should retailers encourage couples to shop together?

Many purchase decisions take place in social relationships, and yet few studies have specifically investigated couples’ purchase decisions made during shopping about products for later joint consumption. We hypothesize that romantic partners purchase more when they shop together than individually and that this effect is strong for vice products, particularly those without an organic label. For our empirical study, we asked romantic partners shopping together in a real-life context to make purchase decisions together or individually (our main experimental condition) in a self-programmed web store that offered 88 product variants (differing in category [vice/virtue] and labeling [with/without organic label]). Participants then filled out an online questionnaire on site. Results of a sequence of nested generalized linear models show that making purchase decisions together increases purchase amount (number of items selected) and purchase value (quantities selected multiplied by the corresponding willingness to pay), especially for vice products without organic labeling. In a second study, we benchmark these effects by comparing them with the effects of individual decision making and varying consumption mode (joint vs. individual consumption), using data from an online survey that followed the same structure as the main study. These effects, again estimated through generalized linear models, are negligible. Our findings strongly support the “accomplice” (rather than the “minder”) role of romantic partners in shopping. Therefore, retailers should target couples, encourage them to shop together, and emphasize joint consumption as a shopping goal.     

What motivates users to hashtag on social media?

Hashtags (i.e., the # symbol) are gaining increased popularity among social media users. However, despite their intense use, little is known about their meanings. Only a few published studies have investigated fragmented aspects of hashtags and treated them as a functional means to structure content. In this study, we provide evidence that hashtags’ meanings go beyond structuring or spreading content and represent an integral element of contemporary communication via social media. In particular, this study presents a series of six empirical studies, following traditions in grounded theory and measurement theory research, to systematically assess motivations for using hashtags. The results uncover the existence of 10 different motivations for use (amusing, organizing, designing, conforming, trendgaging, bonding, inspiring, reaching, summarizing, and endorsing). In addition, we show how these motivations differ between platforms and also relate to different patterns of social media behavior. The results contribute to a better academic understanding of social media, provide managers with profound insights and can guide marketing tactics with hashtags.     

How to generalize from a hierarchical model?

Models of consumer heterogeneity play a pivotal role in marketing and economics, specifically in random coefficient or mixed logit models for aggregate or individual data and in hierarchical Bayesian models of heterogeneity. In applications, the inferential target often pertains to a population beyond the sample of consumers providing the data. For example, optimal prices inferred from the model are expected to be optimal in the population and not just optimal in the observed, finite sample. The population model, random coefficients distribution, or heterogeneity distribution is the natural and correct basis for generalizations from the observed sample to the market. However, in many if not most applications standard heterogeneity models such as the multivariate normal, or its finite mixture generalization lack economic rationality because they support regions of the parameter space that contradict basic economic arguments. For example, such population distributions support positive price coefficients or preferences against fuel-efficiency in cars. Likely as a consequence, it is common practice in applied research to rely on the collection of individual level mean estimates of consumers as a representation of population preferences that often substantially reduce the support for parameters in violation of economic expectations. To overcome the choice between relying on a mis-specified heterogeneity distribution and the collection of individual level means that fail to measure heterogeneity consistently, we develop an approach that facilitates the formulation of more economically faithful heterogeneity distributions based on prior constraints. In the common situation where the heterogeneity distribution comprises both constrained and unconstrained coefficients (e.g., brand and price coefficients), the choice of subjective prior parameters is an unresolved challenge. As a solution to this problem, we propose a marginal-conditional decomposition that avoids the conflict between wanting to be more informative about constrained parameters and only weakly informative about unconstrained parameters. We show how to efficiently sample from the implied posterior and illustrate the merits of our prior as well as the drawbacks of relying on means of individual level preferences for decision-making in two illustrative case studies.