Developmental antecedents to children’s responses to online advertising

Many critics have raised concerns about online advertising directed to children. This study investigated the role of several antecedent variables that may impact children’s attitudinal and behavioural responses to online advertising. Specifically, online ad scepticism, family communication patterns, time spent on the internet, and perceived internet competency were examined as factors that may impact children’s online advertising attitudes and behaviours. A survey conducted with a dyad sample of 381 parents-preteens in South Korea revealed that children with high scepticism towards online advertising, who spent less time using the internet and who perceived lower levels of confidence about their internet skills were more likely to have a negative attitude towards online advertising and less likely to disclose personal information to online marketers. However, the relationship between family communication and children’s responses to online advertising found in this study was inconsistent with the previous empirical findings. Implications of findings are discussed and directions for future research suggested.     

Make me special: Gender differences in consumers’ responses to loyalty programs

Current literature on loyalty programs emphasizes the importance of psychological rewards and special treatment. However, it is not clear if male and female customers respond to these incentives in a similar way. We explore the differential effect for female versus male consumers of two psychological rewards that are provided through a loyalty program (a) high status (e.g., Gold membership), and (b) personalization, at different levels of visibility to other consumers. Across three experiments and a field study, we find a coherent pattern of gender differences in the way customers respond to different types of psychological rewards in the context of loyalty programs. The results show that men respond more positively than women to loyalty programs that emphasize status, but only when their higher status is highly visible to others. In contrast, women respond more positively than men to loyalty programs that emphasize personalization, but only for personalization in private settings. We discuss managerial implications for the design of loyalty programs.     

What Should Be the EU’s Approach to Global Trade?

For a global player like the EU, it must adequately respond to US unilateral actions and not give in to threats in order to preserve its credibility. However, it is not in its interest to let trade conflicts escalate and be drawn into trade wars.It is worth noting that through the bilateral rules established in the context of a comprehensive trade agreement, the EU not only influences global norms and standards but that those in turn feed back into the EU’s economic order in a way that traditional trade agreements have not. They can therefore either reinforce the European model or weaken it.     

It’s never the same: the role of homogeneity in online services

This research aims to study the differences between services sold on the Internet, based on their degree of homogeneity. While travel services are mostly sold online, other customizable services do not enjoy the same success. We carry out an empirical study based on declared intentions, risk perceptions, and actual purchasing behavior. The main findings show that: the degree of homogeneity is an adequate segmentation variable for online services; homogeneous services seem more suited to e-commerce than non-homogeneous services; a relation exists between perceived risk and intention to buy services online; and the scope of some traditional classification variables needs narrowing.     

Understanding Consumer’s Responses to Enterprise’s Ethical Behaviors: An Investigation in China

The response of consumers to a firm’s ethical behavior and the underlying factors influencing/forming each consumer’s response outcome is analyzed in this article based on information obtained through interviews. The results indicate that, in the Chinese context, the responding outcome can be boiled down to five types, namely, resistance, questioning, indifference, praise, and support. Additionally, consumers’ responses were mainly influenced by the specific consumer’s ethical consciousness, ethical cognitive effort, perception of ethical justice, motivation judgment, institutional rationality, and corporate social responsibility–corporate ability (CSR–CA) belief. Based on these results, a generalized framework of consumer’s ethical responses is developed which provides a number of insightful suggestions upon how to motivate a consumer’s support of a firm’s ethical behavior and to transfer this kind of support into truly positive purchasing behavior.     

Beyond Trade Costs: Firms’ Endogenous Access to International Markets

In this paper, we explore another factor besides trade costs that can affect firms’ exports: strategic interaction between firms in R&D investment. Three results can be highlighted. First, the volume of trade is higher in the presence of R&D than in the absence of it, given that R&D reduces marginal costs. Second, like with reductions in trade costs, international trade grows with increases in the return on R&D, since technological progress enhances firms’ competitiveness. Third, when firms differ in commitment power in R&D, the R&D leader plays strategically in R&D in order to become more competitive and to be more active in international markets than the R&D follower.     

South Africa Continues to Be China＇s Largest Trade Partner in Africa

In 2005, the trade volume between China and South Africa grew 23% year-on-year to 7.27 billion U.S. dollars, making South Africa remain China＇s largest trade partner in Africa.     

China‘s Foreign Trade: from Quantitative Change to Qualitative Change

The latest General Customs‘statistics showing that by November 20, 2004,China‘s foreign trade has topped 1 trillion and reached RMB 1.0017 trillion, marking a new leap of China‘s foreign trade. After entering the 1 trillion dollar period, it is on a new stage. Foreign trade, as a big stage for China‘s economic cooperation, shows the six features as No.1, top 3, 10%, US$10 billion, US$100 billion, and US$1 trillion.……     

Hong Kongers’ cross-border consumption and shopping in Shenzhen: patterns and motivations

The phenomenon that many Hong Kong people cross the border to shop and consume in Shenzhen has recently drawn great public attention in Hong Kong. In an attempt to understand the nature of this phenomenon and to shed further light on cross-border consumption and shopping in general, this paper investigates the patterns and motivations of Hong Kong people's consumption and shopping in Shenzhen. A negative binomial model is developed to evaluate the effects of motivational factors and socio-economic characteristics on the frequency of cross-border trips. Results of the study indicate that Hong Kongers’ cross-border consumption and shopping activities in Shenzhen were both functional and recreational.     

China‘s Foreign Trade Availed in the Sino-US Trade Partner Network

China council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) Chairman Wan Jifei and US Commerce Acting Under Secretary for International Trade Tim Hauser signed a Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) on July 11,2005 to launch a new Sino-US International Partner Network in 14 major business centers across China. The MOU was signed during the Sino-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade annual meeting.……     

Young adults’ responses to product placement in movies and television shows

This research examines young adults’ attitudes towards product placement in films and television shows from two countries that represent contrasting cultural distinctions: the US and Korea. The results suggest that young adults in both countries perceive film product placement in a similar way but, with respect to television, Korean respondents tend to perceive it as less effective in enhancing content realism and more unethical and misleading. In addition, the findings suggest that, for both film and TV, materialism, attitude towards advertising, and realism enhancement appeared to be significant predictors of consumer cognitive response to product placement. However, cross-cultural differences were observed for TV product placement. In the US, materialism and realism enhancement were found to be most powerful predictors of cognitive response to product placement. In contrast, attitude towards advertising and materialism were found to be the strongest predictors in Korea. Implications for both advertising researchers and practitioners are provided.     

Business in the urban informal economy: barriers to women’s entrepreneurship in Uganda

Abstract

Business in the urban informal economy can be seen as a challenging terrain with enormous hurdles for women entrepreneurs. This paper explores major barriers that obstruct smooth development of women entrepreneurship in Uganda’s urban informal economy. The study provides some useful academic insights and offers some practical suggestions for improving policy for women entrepreneurs. The value of this research lies in providing significant insights related to the initiation of policies and programs for entrepreneurship development, but also in increasing women’s involvement in the urban informal economy through a better understanding of the gender-based barriers to entrepreneurship. It is hoped that the study will influence business development in the urban informal economies of Uganda in particular, and Africa in general.     

China＇s Trade Surplus Expected to Exceed US$4100 bin in First Half

China＇s trade surplus will top US$100 billion in the first half of the year, up 60% on the same period of last year, ananalyst with the General Administration of Customs told Xinhua.     

China’s “Socialist Market Economy”: A Systemic Trade Issue

The socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics has turned into a systemic trade and investment issue both bilaterally and multilaterally. The hope that WTO membership would eventually transform China into a market economy with distortions that would gradually become tolerable and negotiable has not been borne out.     

Chengdu to Host Sino-EU Trade Fair in 2006

China will host a large Sino-European Union investment and trade fair in Chengdu, capital of southwest China＇s Sichuan Province in the year 2006, a senior official with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade （CCPIT） said on December 10.     

Trade in healthcare and health insurance services: WTO/GATS as a supporting actor (?)

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is far broader in policy coverage than conventional trade agreements for goods. At the same time, governments are offered more flexibility to tailor their obligations to sector- or country-specific needs. As a result, commitments vary widely across sectors and modes of supply. Health insurance has proved far more popular, for instance, than healthcare services. Surprisingly, governments have been less selective in other policy contexts, in particular bilateral investment treaties (BITs). Many signatories of such treaties, including individual EU Members, have undertaken potentially challenging obligations across virtually all service sectors. Yet, though frequently invoked, BITs do not meet the same standards, in terms of transparency, open (consensual) rulemaking and legal certainty, as commitments under the GATS.     

Fair Trade in Italy: Too Much ‘Movement’ in the Shop?

With the advent of globalization, the track record of multinational corporations (MNCs) has been mixed at best in relation to their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) involvement in developing countries. This article attempts to cross-fertilize insights from the business-society and international business political behavior literature streams to identify relevant dimensions and contingencies that can be used to analyze the CSR of MNCs in developing countries and the extent of standardization or localization of their strategies. The article makes use of the new theoretical framework in the context of an interpretive research methodology to examine the CSR orientations of a sample of MNC subsidiaries in Lebanon. The findings reveal patterns of global CSR being diffused to developing countries, but also being diluted along the way in view of specific subsidiary endowments and host market characteristics.     

Observing viewers’ self-reported and neurophysiological responses to message appeal in social media advertisements

PurposeMarketing research mainly uses self-reported method to record respondents' perceptions of creativity, and while self-reported method has its own merits, there exists some critique, particularly in terms of its ability to adequately capture the influence of message appeal on creativity. This paper studies how viewers’ responses to message appeals in social media advertisement compare in terms of self-reported responses versus responses taken through a neurophysiological method of Electroencephalograph (EEG).MethodologyTwo social media advertisements are displayed through a laboratory experiment to 17 subjects observing the subjects' neurophysiological reactions as well as their self-reported responses with regard to the commercials’ emotional, informational, and brand-related content.FindingsResults show that neurophysiological method offers unique details about emotional appeal, which the self-reported method fails to reflect. Furthermore, the neurophysiological measure identifies differences across the two target commercials in the emotional content part, which again are not identified through the self-reported method.OriginalityThis paper advances advertising research in social media literature by comparing content evaluation within advertisement through neurophysiological and self-reported measure. These findings have implications for marketers to use and measure message appeals in advertisement on social media to influence consumer response.