Consumer Mindfulness and Marketing Implications

The aim of this study was to examine the role of mindfulness in consumer behavior and service marketing in Australia and Malaysia. Two studies were conducted; first to identify and characterize consumers on the basis of mindfulness, and to obtain data on the dimensions of relationship quality and consumer loyalty from the groups. Results from a standard analysis of data confirmed five of the six hypotheses tested. There are significant differences in the three dimensions of relationship quality (i.e., trust, satisfaction, and commitment), and in two of three dimensions of consumer loyalty (namely, attitudinal and behavioral loyalty) between the two consumer groups—high and low mindful consumers. There is no significant difference in consumer switching restraint between the groups. These findings lead to research and managerial implications that conclude the paper.     

Consumer credit search behaviour

The study applies Stigler's economic model of information to the external search for a popular financial service — consumer credit — and seeks to explore factors associated with diverse consumer search behaviour. Logistic regression analysis was used. The empirical analysis revealed findings similar to those of several product information search studies. Consumers engage in little information search. Large expenditure (in this study, the size of loan) and education have significantly positive effects on credit search. Income has a curvilinear effect on search. Implications of these results may contribute to consumer education, public policy making and future research.     

Consumer Law and Policy in Ghana

This paper presents a picture of the landscape of consumer law and policy in Ghana and reviews the scope of protection of consumer interests with specific regard to product safety and liability, consumer sales, and telecommunication services. It assesses the legislative and policy framework on consumer contracts, product safety, and unfair commercial practices; discusses the role of national agencies in enforcing safety standards; and highlights some critical consumer issues in telecommunications service delivery. The paper examines the regulatory framework on other consumer issues such as advertising, labelling, and marketing of consumer products; terms and conditions of consumer contracts; and after sales services including the enforcement of guarantees, warranties, refund, and return policies. The paper also discusses the extent of external influence on the development of consumer law and policy in Ghana and reviews the level of interaction with other legal systems and supranational bodies in the three focal areas. The contribution also explores areas of Ghana’s consumer protection framework which could benefit from guidance from the EU transnational model on consumer protection and makes recommendations for the enhancement of the emerging legislative and policy regime on consumer protection in Ghana.     

Financial Consumer Protection Regime in Malaysia: Assessment of the Legal and Regulatory Framework

This paper examines the status of the legal and regulatory framework for consumer protection in Malaysia, an emerging economy. Using leximetrics and notions of incomplete law, the paper explores the financial consumer protection regime in the country by examining two aspects of the legal framework: the legal infrastructure and typology of laws. The Malaysian legal framework for financial consumer protection is assessed in light of the good practices identified in international guidelines issued on the themes by OECD and the World Bank. The results highlight the complementary nature and different roles that laws, regulations, and supporting institutions play in achieving a comprehensive financial consumer protection framework in the country.     

Consumer Protection in Cyber Space and the Ethics of Stewardship

This paper explores how consumer protection is evolving in the information-communications technology (ICT) sector. Traditionally, consumer protection law regimes are vertical in design and somewhat paternalistic in attitude. Requirements are imposed by governmental agencies on providers of goods and services with a view to protecting consumers. In many cases, consumers are not actively engaged by regulatory regimes in their own protection and may not be able to contract out of provisions designed for their protection. In the context of internet-based activities, however, a paradigm shift is necessary to protect not only the individual consumer but the wider network of consumers using the internet. This paper explores what consumer protection should look like in our hyper-connected, online world. Its central argument is that a new sort of model is necessary for consumer protection in the ICT sector. In the context of internet-based activities, regulators must engage consumers on a horizontal level as co-stewards of the internet. This involves more than just education about the risks of malware and online scams. The consumer protection framework must draw consumers into its structure as proactive agents working collaboratively with government, internet service providers, and other stakeholders to promote cyber security.     

Perceived Third‐Person Effects and Consumer Attitudes on Prevetting and Banning DTC Advertising

This study examined consumer attitudes toward two potential direct‐to‐consumer (DTC) advertising regulatory options—prior approval of DTC ads and a total ban—and how those attitudes are influenced by perceived DTC ad effects and receiver‐specific characteristics within the context of the third‐person effect framework. Results suggest that (1) consumers support the prevetting of DTC ads, but not the banning of DTC ads, (2) their support for prior approval is unaffected by demographic, predispositional, and ad‐effect perceptual differences, but (3) their support for a ban is associated with age, attitude toward DTC advertising, and perceptions of negative effects on self and others.     

Demand‐side housing policy in Costa Rica: a response to the housing deficit

The purpose of this study was to establish what the housing needs of Costa Rica are and to assess what policies have been implemented to respond to their housing deficit. In order to answer these questions, a combined methodology consisting of primary and secondary data was used. Using open‐ended questions and a topic schedule, face‐to‐face interviews with Costa Rican housing authorities were conducted at the interviewee's work place in Costa Rica in May 2003. The most recent secondary data available in the country was used to compute the housing deficit and to study the effects of demographics on current housing needs. Sources of the secondary data were the Costa Rica Ministry of Housing and Human Settlements, and the National Institute of Statistics and Census. The Costa Rican government has made great progress in reforming the housing finance system in order to meet the housing demand of its citizens. In 2002, Costa Rica had a 75.6% home ownership rate. Yet, even in light of the housing system's current success, many social, economic and political barriers threaten to undermine its accomplishments and the peoples’ ability to obtain safe and affordable housing. The paper considers the strengths and weaknesses of the current housing finance system as well as the government strategies for addressing difficulties.     

The Effects of Consumer Education on Consumer Search

This paper reports the results of an empirical investigation of the relationship between selected consumer and marketplace characteristics—focusing on participation in consumer education activities—and consumers’ prepurchase information search behavior. A need exists for further study of the counteractive effects that consumer education is likely to have with respect to preferences for search and to the efficiency with which consumers conduct search.     

Meeting the challenge of globalization in Costa Rica

As president of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998, José María Figueres played a key role in transforming the Costa Rican economy, helping to move the country up the value chain in the global production process. Figueres's success in bringing Intel into Costa Rica led to a major shift in the country's main exports—from bananas and coffee to microprocessors. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Consumer rights of the elderly as vulnerable consumers in South Africa: some comparative aspects of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008

Although consumer protection is not a new concept in South African law, the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (CPA) now provides for a much more comprehensive and encompassing mechanism to protect consumers. Consumers are protected, not only in the provision of goods and services, the conclusion of contracts but also in the promotion and marketing thereof. The CPA further provides special protection to a particular type of consumer which is the vulnerable consumer and includes elderly consumers. Importantly, and for the first time in the history of South African law, the consumer is provided with eight core fundamental consumer rights. As this contribution is an attempt to provide an interdisciplinary analysis from a legal perspective, identification of what is considered to be an ‘elderly' consumer, needs to be assessed by referring to relevant empirical studies from both an international as well as South African perspective. The focus of this study is on the protection of the elderly as a category of vulnerable consumers in terms of the CPA. The investigation will attempt to show that the elderly is protected in terms of all eight of the fundamental consumer rights within the CPA. Special reference will be made to two fundamental rights of the consumer in terms of the CPA. First, the elderly consumer's right to equality in the consumer market (Part A of the CPA) which provides additional protection as the CPA also refers to the Constitutional right to equality. Second, the elderly consumer's the right to fair and responsible marketing (Part E of the CPA) which in terms of the research is compared with the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. Certain problems regarding elderly consumers are identified and the importance of consumer rights as well as the implementation of the correct consumer policy is argued.     

Considering Market-Based Instruments for Consumer Protection in Higher Education

Based on the economics of consumer protection and contributions from the economics of education, this article presents an analytical framework to deal with the problem of consumer protection in the higher education sector. It is demonstrated that there are not only governmental mechanisms (information provision, quality regulation) but also market-based mechanisms (seller signalling, private certification, private information intermediaries, student screening) to mitigate the informational asymmetry between buyers and sellers of educational services. This informational asymmetry, called students’ ex ante quality uncertainty, provides the central economic rationale for thinking about student protection, quality assurance and consumer information in the higher education marketplace. The basic argument of this paper is that governmental quality assurance is unnecessary in higher education if the market participants themselves, with the help of private third parties (i.e., certifiers and information intermediaries), are able to cope with market failure due to asymmetric information.     

Teachers' Attitudes Toward Consumer Issues and Their Appraisal of the Educational Relevance of These Issues

This article discusses the problem of which group—business teachers, social studies teachers, or home economics teachers—is more consumer oriented and thus a more appropriate choice for the teaching of consumer education. In this study, each of these three groups of teachers was surveyed to determine which was more consumer oriented in attitude and which was more consumer oriented in terms of their appraisal of the educational relevance of consumer issues.     

Price Intransparency,Consumer Decision Making and European Consumer Law

Price comparison is a basic element of competition. For comparison to work, at least prices need to be transparent. Moreover, price is usually a focal point in consumer thinking and deciding on transactions. Hence, obfuscating prices can be detrimental to consumers. Therefore, it is vital for policymakers to know how transparent pricing is in reality. Commercial practices involving price intransparency can be detrimental to consumer decision making and may be associated with market failure. So, legislative intervention to ensure price transparency is sometimes warranted. Suppliers may disclose and frame pricing information in such ways as to influence consumers. For some suppliers, advantages may be gained by obfuscating price—through practices ranging from the outright hiding of price terms in the small print to subtle ways of throwing in gifts or adding charges during the vending process. Do consumers appreciate the implications of the fact that by framing price in different ways suppliers actually try to influence their demand for products? And how does the law broadly speaking respond to problems of price intransparency? In this article, behavioural science insights are combined with a legal analysis of European consumer law in order to chart some of the detrimental influences of price intransparency on the consumer decision-making process and to answer whether and to what extent European consumer law addresses these issues. In doing so, this article first reviews research from consumer psychology, marketing, and behavioural law, and economics regarding the influence of presentation, framing, and transparency of price on the consumer decision-making process. Subsequently, it describes and evaluates the legal framework offered by European consumer law and how this framework responds to practices of price intransparency. Particular problematic pricing techniques are identified and discussed. In conclusion, attention is drawn to the disadvantages of the increasing full harmonization character of European consumer law for combating price intransparency at Member State level.     

Defining the Consumer Interest: Challenges for Advocates

From its birth, The Journal of Consumer Affairs has provided a forum for government officials, consumer activists, and academics to discuss the definition of the consumer interest and how best to pursue it. In the inaugural issue of JCA, published in the summer of 1967, three of the first four articles were titled “The View from Washington” (by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor David Swankin), “Is It Time to Re‐Evaluate the Consumer Protection Activities of the Federal Government?” (by Consumers Union president Colston E. Warne), and “The Consumer Interest—the Real Issue” (by Professor of Marketing Robert D. Schooler). When JCA began publication in 1967, a few landmark pieces of consumer legislation had already been passed concerning pharmaceuticals, cigarettes, and motor vehicles, but the heyday of the consumer movement—and consumer research—was just beginning. In his article, Warne wrote: “The time has come, I think, for consumers and consumer movements to face some highly unpleasant problems” (p. 24). Schooler chastised the federal government for being “misdirected toward real but secondary issues” (p. 40). Swankin called for an organization and a professional journal capable of creating “an intellectual climate in which the phrases ‘consumer interest,’‘consumer economics,’ and, yes, ‘consumer information’ can be developed and can flourish” (pp. 9–10). Nearly forty years later, and long after the zenith of the U.S. consumer movement, we still face a host of consumer problems and a federal government disinclined to address them. We do, however, have a respected journal in whose pages the consumer interest and consumer policy can be examined. On April 25, 2005, the University of Utah hosted a symposium on consumer policy in honor of the retirement of Dr. John R. Burton. John, who established the consumer studies program at the University of Utah, has devoted his career to teaching, research, and service that advance the consumer interest. Seven nationally renowned speakers, including professors Monroe Friedman, Loren Geistfeld, Jeanne Hogarth, Jean Lown, and Ivan Preston, presented papers pertaining to the consumer interest. Two of the seven papers are reproduced here. The first is by Stephen Brobeck, long‐time executive director of the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) and the editor of The Encyclopedia of the Consumer Movement. Dr. Brobeck's article examines how a major consumer advocacy organization like CFA decides what public policy positions are in the consumer interest. The article applies a general framework to the specific issue of automobile fuel economy standards. In the companion piece to this article, Michael Burton, an assistant professor of political science at Ohio University and the son of the symposium's honoree, draws on his experience as a congressional aide and vice presidential staff member to describe and defend the art of compromise as it applies to consumer politics. – Robert N. Mayer, University of Utah     

The external trade of the CACM-countries

The Central-American Common Market (Mercado Común Centroamericano — MCC) was established in 1960 and its members are: Costa Rica, EI Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Purpose of this article is meant to be a reflection on these countries’ development of their external trade during the period 1960–1972.     

Moderating Role of Consumer Self-Concept on the Effectiveness of Two Nostalgia Appeals

Existing empirical studies suggest that evoked nostalgia about a brand is positively related to attitude toward the brand. However, it is unlikely that nostalgia appeals are universally effective. Therefore, this research investigates two types of consumer nostalgias—individualistic nostalgia and collectivistic nostalgia— and examines how the relative effectiveness of these two nostalgia appeals is moderated by consumer self-concept (independent versus interdependent). Based on a two-phase study with time-honored Chinese brands, we reveal that, for consumers with an independent self-concept, an individualistic nostalgia appeal is more effective than a collectivistic nostalgia appeal, whereas for consumers with an interdependent self-concept, a collectivistic nostalgia appeal is more effective than an individualistic nostalgia appeal.     

Organizational Sensemaking of Non-ethical Consumer Behavior: Case Study of a French Mutual Insurance Company

Researchers and managers alike are becoming increasingly interested in the topic of unethical consumer behavior. Where most studies view unethical behavior as something that is identifiable per se, the authors of the present article believe that it only exists because it has been constructed by people operating within a specific context. Hence the efforts made by this paper to explore, at the level of one specific organization, how interactions between employees and consumers might lead to the construct of unethical consumers. Based on a case study of France’s AMDM—a mutual insurance company set up to serve a client base comprising motorcyclists—the paper addresses how one group of consumers ends up being categorized as unethical by revealing the existence of a sensemaking process within the target organization. This process develops in three main phases: the nurturing of a shared ethos; the protection of employees’ recognized status; and the demonization of any group of consumers threatening this status. Managers incorporating this sensemaking process can avoid or mitigate the negative effects befalling organizations when these kinds of unethical consumer behavior are constructed.     

Domestic spaces and beyond: Consumer food waste in the context of shopping and storing routines

To significantly reduce the volumes of food currently wasted in industrialized countries, tackling food waste on the household level is paramount. While awareness campaigns and economic incentives are important measures, it is crucial to look beyond individual decision making and scrutinize how contextual factors frame consumer lifestyles in ways that intensify the issue of food going to waste. This paper addresses the role of material contexts—in particular, infrastructures and technologies—in the shaping of food shopping and storing practices and thus consumer food waste. It presents an in‐depth, qualitative study with 24 Austrian households, conducted from November 2016 to February 2017. Data were collected through food waste diaries, semi‐structured interviews and a total of 16 focus group discussions. In line with other studies, we find that food waste is a largely unintended outcome of entangled daily routines revolving around food, such as meal planning, grocery shopping and food storing. The characteristics of food retail infrastructures—in terms of accessibility, density and type—shape these routines and thus potentially influence excess food purchases. Food storing practices as well depend on the characteristics of domestic infrastructures and co‐evolve with technologies used for storing food. Unraveling the interconnectivity between material contexts and household food practices can inform policy, product design and food retail development and thus has implications for reducing consumer food waste.     

Dissemination of Consumer Law and Policy in Tanzania

This paper discusses the current consumer protection laws status in Tanzania with special focus on selected areas, including product safety and product liability, quality of goods and services, and telecommunication consumer protection. A case study on status of consumer protection in Tanzania is rendered to reveal the realities of consumer protection in the country. The paper also reflects the desired state of consumer protection in the country and how it can be achieved. Furthermore, the paper highlights the influence laws from other jurisdictions and international organisations have on the Tanzania consumer protection laws and regime.