Consumer values,motivation and purchase intention for luxury goods

There is considerable ambivalence in how different societies and cultures relate to the consumption of luxury goods. Thinly focused in the literature are Islamic societies (with rapidly emerging ‘super-rich’ consumer segments) where the concept of luxury may be in tension with religious values. Set against this background, this paper investigates how consumer values and motivation influence purchase intentions towards luxury goods. Based on a sample of 400 respondents drawn from Morocco and applying logistic regression models, the paper finds correlations between the intention to buy luxury goods, motivation and personal values. Paradoxically, the influence of religion appears to diminish as consumer affordability of luxury goods increase. Partly due to globalization of markets and impacts on consumer values, Moslems are not fundamentally different from western consumers with regard to predispositions towards luxury consumption. Potential impacts of religion on luxury consumption attitudes and personal values appear to be moderated by the global consumer culture. The results also show an important gender underpinning especially when considered alongside perceived gender biases in consumption decision-making in many Islamic countries. Regarding the nature of purchase behavior women were found to be more positively disposed to impulse purchasing of luxury goods compared to men while more educated people, generally, indicated a greater tendency towards rational than impulse buying decisions.     

Noisy prices and the Fama–French five-factor asset pricing model in China

This paper provides an empirical evaluation of the five-factor model recently presented by Fama and French (2015a) that augments the traditional three-factor model with two new factors related to profitability and investment, taking into account the bias in mean returns induced by noise in prices. Using an extensive sample over the period 1997 to 2015, we find that the five-factor model consistently outperforms the three-factor model in the Chinese equity market. In contrast to the findings in Fama and French (2015a), both value and profitability factors are important, while the investment factor is found to be redundant for describing average returns in our sample. With respect to the double-sorted left-hand-side (LHS) portfolios, the main problem with the five-factor model is its failure to fully capture the high average returns of stocks whose returns perform like those of growth firms that invest conservatively due to low profitability. On the other hand, although we find mixed results in the three-dimensional sorting, the LHS portfolios with extremely low average returns are those that cause serious problems for the five-factor model.     

Untangling the relationships between consumer characteristics,shopping values,and behavioral intention in online group buying

This study examines the link among consumer characteristics (price-sensitive behavior, variety-seeking behavior, and compulsive buying behavior), shopping values (utilitarian and hedonic shopping values), and behavioral intention in online group buying (OGB). This study tests usable responses collected by means of mall-intercept systematic sampling from consumers who previously participated in OGB. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze data and test the hypothesized relationships. Findings suggest that price-sensitive and variety-seeking behaviors are significantly related to utilitarian shopping value, whereas price-sensitive, variety-seeking, and compulsive buying behaviors are significantly related to hedonic shopping value. Both utilitarian and hedonic shopping values significantly influence consumers’ OGB intentions. For a successful OGB strategy, Internet marketers and site operators should emphasize the utilitarian shopping value of price saving and selection and introduce the hedonic shopping values of promotions and sensory experiences. This study provides a link between two streams of prior research – that is, consumer characteristics and shopping values. Furthermore, it validates an empirical model whose results can help business practitioners make better-informed marketing management decisions for OGB and help academics and consumers better understand OGB behavior.     

An integrated framework for competency development: perspectives of risk managers in banks

To succeed, business organisations need comprehensive competency development to continuously churn out talent. However, existing approaches are inadequate because they focus on specific technicalities, people and internal firm matters, rather than tackling the issues in a comprehensive manner. We address this deficiency by testing a framework that integrates three concepts—core competencies, dynamic competencies and learning organisation—in an under-researched context: banks’ risk management functions. Our survey of 135 risk management professionals yielded a five-factor framework. The proposed framework guides competency development more comprehensively in that it integrates the three concepts hitherto studied in isolation. It is also systematic and practical given its overarching and expandable dimensions.     

Chinese values and negotiation behaviour: A bargaining experiment

The importance of Chinese culture in cross-national negotiation has become conventional wisdom in international business research and practice. However, empirical work has not sufficiently established whether, how and under what conditions specific cultural values of the Chinese affect their negotiation decisions. This paper reports an experiment with a purpose-designed game task in which Chinese subjects divide a fixed gain over escalating stages. We find that concerns for face and harmony promote cooperative negotiation decisions while desire to win and risk seeking accentuate competitive ones. Values only predict behaviour in the critical, final stage of the bargaining process supporting a dynamic view of the effect of culture in negotiation.     

Social and personal factors influencing green customer citizenship behaviours: The role of subjective norm,internal values and attitudes

Several models have previously been proposed, suggesting factors influencing customers’ citizenship behaviours against the background of the need to care for the environment. The current research sets out to contribute to the conversation by providing an integrated understanding of the extent to which the social factor, subjective norm and the personal factors internal values and attitudes, framed by VABH, may influence green customer citizenship behaviours. A sample of 444 green customers provided insight into these phenomena. The findings indicate that internal values influence green attitudes, which motivate green customer citizenship behaviours. Subjective norm influences both green attitudes and green customer citizenship behaviours and contributed to the largest portion of the variance in green customer citizenship behaviours. Ultimately, the findings present a novel solution for promoting actual green customer citizenship behaviours, through the VABH and additionally advance understanding of the important role other customers perform in influencing green customer citizenship behaviours.     

Cosmopolitanism, individual-level values and cultural-level values: A cross-cultural study

Cosmopolitanism (COS) is an important consumer characteristic for international market segmentation. To date, no empirical studies investigate how COS relates to consumer values. This research, involving samples of Canadians and Turks, focuses on the associations of individual- and cultural-level values to COS dispositions, and compares these relationships cross-culturally. The findings support the cross-cultural applicability of these constructs. While some of the COS-values relationships are consistent across the two cultures, others differ. Overall, COS is much more strongly associated with Schwartz's individual and cultural level values than with either Hofstede's cultural dimensions or demographics.     

Measuring service quality of travel agents: evidence from Northern Cyprus

Service quality delivered by travel agents in Northern Cyprus was examined using a SERVQUAL scale. The translated instrument was purified using an item-categorisation technique and administered to 337 current users of travel agents in the region. Expectations and performance (SERVPERF) scores indicated that respondents were concerned most with the efficiency and least with the personalisation of the services offered. The largest service gaps were identified with the ‘modern’ appearance of the service and service-scape, and the smallest with interpersonal qualities of service. Multiple regression showed promptness, empathy, efficiency and service-scape aesthetics to be the main determinants of customer satisfaction. SERVPERF scores gave a better prediction of overall satisfaction and showed marginally better reliability and validity than those from which expectations were subtracted. Instead of the predicted SERVQUAL five-factor solution, factor analysis showed an underlying uni-dimensionality that is consistent with the findings of other authors. Possible management actions suggested by the findings are discussed in the context of the small business environment in Northern Cyprus.     

Effect of Business Education on Women and Men Students’ Attitudes on Corporate Responsibility in Society

This article describes a survey among Finnish business students to find answers to the following questions: How do business students define a well-run company? What are their attitudes on the responsibilities of business in society? Do the attitudes of women students differ from those of men? What is the influence of business education on these attitudes? Our sample comprised 217 students pursuing a master’s degree in business studies at two Finnish universities. The results show that, as a whole, students valued the stakeholder model of the company more than the shareholder model. However, attitudes differed according to gender: women students were more in favor of the stakeholder model and placed more weight on corporate ethical, environmental, and societal responsibilities than their men counterparts – both at the beginning and at the end of their studies. Thus, no gender socialization effect of business school education could be observed in this sense. Business school education was found to shape women and men students’ attitudes in two ways. Firstly, valuation of the shareholder model increased and, secondly, the importance of equal-opportunity employment decreased in the course of education. This raises the question whether the educational context is creating an undesirable tendency among future business professionals. The results further suggest that the sociocultural context can make a difference in how corporate social responsibility is perceived. The article also discusses possible ways to influence the attitudes of business students.     

Vietnamese values,networks and family businesses in London

The article explores the so-called Confucian values associated by Hofstede and Bond (1993) with competitive advantage in business and investigates the role of ‘trust’ and ‘trusted networks’ amongst the Vietnamese of London. It investigates the extent to which distinctive cultural attributes can be detected in the ways this Overseas Vietnamese community has adapted to London, and how the Vietnamese either resemble or differ from another migrant community with whom they share a common history, namely the Overseas Chinese. The study explores the extent of Confucian influence on core values and how these may account for the relative success of Vietnamese businesses in London. The findings support the idea that the cultural inheritance of the Vietnamese has conferred a competitive advantage in business activity, but this is not exclusively Confucian.     

Engaging values in international business practice

Managerial decisions and behaviors in the international business arena have ethical implications across cultures and countries. The need for ethics and core values in business practice has been heightened by continued business scandals and ethical managerial lapses that have violated public trust. Global businesses can offer practical guidance and set ethical examples for others to follow by establishing corporate values beyond written business codes. Four key work values (Honesty, Fairness, Concern of Others, and Achievement) known to be present in businesses across cultures, are put forth as a baseline start for multinational corporation leaders. Offered is a process for making the core values unique to an organization, and for adopting and training managers in the use of core values. Presented is evidence of managerial implementation of the core work values, and managers’ alignment of work values with organizational strategies. By addressing the values and principles of their workplaces, international businesses can achieve cross-cultural ethical practices, managerial alignment, and global social responsibility.     

The paradox and change of Russian cultural values

Existing studies on Russian culture using the dominant dimensional theory of culture (e.g., Hofstede’s), in general, offer “stereotypical” characterization of that country’s societal culture but fail to capture the dynamics of cultural values that exist in Russian business and society. We argue that this weakness stems from the either/or logic associated with such an approach. We echo the call for improving the quality of cross-cultural research by going beyond Hofstede (Tung & Verbeke, 2010) through studying cultural paradoxes and their embedded contexts (e.g., Osland & Bird, 2000) in historical and contemporary Russia. To this end, we have applied Faure & Fang’s (2008) framework which builds on the holistic, dynamic, and paradoxical Yin Yang thinking to unravel the paradox inherent and changes to Russian cultural values over time. We find that underlying paradoxical values that traditionally coexisted in Russian culture during the Communist regime have been further reinforced as a consequence of Russia’s interactions with the rest of the world. In post-Communist Russia, traditional values have not disappeared; rather, they coexist and interact with new values as a result of cultural learning and knowledge transfer in global economy. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research.     

Product specific values and personal values together better explains green purchase

Consumers not only buy green products to fulfil their environmental values but also seek product specific benefits from their green purchase. However, research predicting green purchases based on value-attitude integrated theoretical framework significantly overlooks an integrated approach of both personal values and product-specific values in determining green purchase intention. Employing a two-study (qualitative followed by quantitative) mixed method approach, current research fills this gap. Employing phenomenology, in-depth interviews in study-1 identified pre-dominant personal and product-specific values affecting green purchase. Employing theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and stimulus-organism-research (SOR) framework, study-2 proposed a model combining these identified values and empirically validated the model by collecting 401 online survey responses analysed through PLS-SEM. The findings from this study demonstrate that consumers green purchase attitudes and subsequent intentions are predominantly influenced by two personal values: altruism and biosphere; and two product-specific values: product quality and uniqueness. These results provide insights to organizations to craft their green marketing strategies by combining both personal and product specific values. This study extends the green consumption literature within an extended TPB plus SOR ambit.     

Measuring learning from others: The development and validation of the Proactive Social Informal Learning Questionnaire

The present study aims to develop, validate, and cross-validate an instrument measuring three proactive social informal learning activities, namely feedback seeking, help seeking and information seeking. Prior research mainly focused on detecting or measuring the frequency of these seeking behaviours and did not consider whether the information, help or feedback that has been sought was also used. Furthermore, although these seeking behaviours were studied extensively in different research fields, the current study takes a learning perspective and interprets feedback, help and information seeking as learning activities. The questionnaire was completed by a convenient sample of 650 professionals working in higher education, consultancy, retail and food production. We performed an exploratory factor analysis (N = 230 educators) to explore the structure of the questionnaire. This was followed by a confirmatory factor analysis (N = 230 educators) to confirm the structure. Finally, we cross-validated the questionnaire in a sample of business professionals (N = 190) by testing for measurement invariance. The final questionnaire resulted in a five-factor structure measuring the (1) Use of Feedback Seeking, (2) Frequency of Help and Information Seeking, (3) Use of Help seeking, (4) Use of Information Seeking and (5) Frequency of Feedback Seeking. The current study presents a preliminary, yet promising instrument that taps into proactive social informal learning.     

A comparative evaluation of seven instruments for measuring values comprising Hofstede's model of culture

Culture and its measurement are foundational to International Business research. Hofstede's model of culture dominates cross-cultural research. Unfortunately, the evidence of poor psychometric properties of Hofstede's instrument for measuring cultural values, the VSM, has been mounting, which prompted the development of numerous alternative instruments for measuring cultural values comprising Hofstede's model of culture. The abundance of choices makes it challenging to determine which of the instruments is most suitable for a given study. Using a large international sample (N = 12,462), we evaluated the psychometric properties of seven different instruments for measuring individual-level values in Hofstede's cultural framework and assessed their content validity, reliability, factor structure, and measurement equivalence. Our tests confirmed that Hofstede's instrument suffers from several psychometric deficiencies, while other instruments, notably those developed by Dorfman and Howell (1988), Yoo et al. (2011), and Taras et al. (2013), showed good reliability and validity. Guidelines for selecting the most suitable instrument and directions for future instrument development are provided.     

Professional Development for Cross-Border Managers: New Growth Opportunities for Executive Education

The need of business enterprises for professionals trained for the challenges of cross-border assignments will increase exponentially through the decade. Business schools will be hard pressed to deliver programs with the scope, scale, and effectiveness necessary to address the unique competencies required for cross-cultural understanding and communication, and the complexity of global business operations. This article reviews the existing literature in order to identify the competencies that are needed by global managers and the training approaches that can successfully build those competencies. A template of 10 criteria that should be addressed by training programs for cross-border professionals is proposed and applied to a sample of business schools that currently offer executive programs. Although there are good examples of programs that meet one or more of the 10 criteria, most business schools will be required to expand and to innovate their programs in order to meet the projected demand for training.     

What is Ethical Competence? The Role of Empathy,Personal Values,and the Five-Factor Model of Personality in Ethical Decision-Making

The objective of the present research was two-fold: (1) to provide a new definition of ethical competence, and (2) to clarify the influence of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality on ethical competence. The present research provides a comprehensive overview about recent approaches and empirically explores the interconnections of these constructs. 366 German undergraduate students were examined in a cross-sectional study that investigated the relationship of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality with moral judgment competence and counterproductive work behavior as indicators of moral judgment and behavior. We found self-transcendence values to be related to both, high levels of empathy and ethical competence, in contrast to self-enhancement values. Multiple mediation analysis revealed unique effects of empathy on ethical competence through values as mediators. Affective (but not cognitive) empathy transmitted its effect on ethical competence through benevolence, conformity, tradition, power, and hedonism. Most importantly, perspective taking lost its predictive power when investigated alongside affective empathy dimensions. These results converge to an important role of affective empathy, in particular empathic concern, with regard to personal values and ethical competence. Furthermore, the five-factor model of personality explained variance in measures of ethical competence. Our research suggests that organizational decision makers should consider the role of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model in their human resource management in order to select employees with high ethical competence.     

How Can We Better Understand Current and Future Workforce Values in the Global Business Environment?

Our study tested the predictive power of socioeconomic development theory and age differences theory to explain work values across cultures and across age groups. We compared the values orientations of future managers, business students under the age of 25, with those of current managers and professionals, who we split into three decade groups (30 to 39, 40 to 49, and 50 to 59). Our respondents (n = 1,518) come from six diverse societies: Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, Russia, the United States, and Vietnam. Our findings indicate that both theories contribute to our understanding of work values and behaviors. One implication is that while socioeconomic development theory makes an important contribution, it is clearly not sufficient by itself to explain work values/behavior differences in the global context. The study findings and the discussion of them will hopefully provide multinational managers with a clearer assessment of current and future workforce values/behavior. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

基于消费者预期的在线零售企业社会责任行为研究--量表开发与验证

通过文献回顾、访谈、预试和大样本调查,从消费者预期视角对我国在线零售企业社会责任行为的维度结构和测量量表进行实证研究。其中,运用筛选条目和预测试等程序初步确定在线零售企业社会责任行为的测量量表,并经由探索性因子分析与验证性因子分析发现,消费者预期的在线零售企业社会责任行为包括经济责任、消费者责任、员工责任、法律责任、公益慈善责任五个维度,其测量量表具有良好信度和效度。结果还显示,消费者最看重在线零售企业承担消费者责任,其次才是法律责任、员工责任、公益慈善责任,相对不看重经济责任。另外,不同性别、年龄、受教育程度、网购频率的消费者所预期的在线零售企业社会责任行为存在差异。