Do the Poor Pay More for Food? An Analysis of Grocery Store Availability and Food Price Disparities

Do the poor pay more for food? To answer this question, this study was conducted to provide an empirical analysis of grocery store access and prices across inner city and suburban communities within the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area. The comparison among different types of grocers and geographic areas is drawn from a survey of approximately fifty grocery items for fifty-five stores. Results indicate that the poor pay only slightly more in the Twin Cities grocery market. More significantly, those who shop in non-chain stores pay a significant premium, and the poor have less access to chain stores. This study reveals that the biggest factor contributing to higher grocery costs in poor neighborhoods is that large chain stores, where prices tend to be lower, are not located in these neighborhoods.     

Do Eco‐friendly VMD and Store Reputation Increase Satisfaction of Retail Customers?

This study builds on previous research to investigate the effect of the benefits of eco‐friendly VMD (visual merchandising) on satisfaction as well as the effect of satisfaction on store attitude. This also testifies the moderating effects how the benefits of eco‐friendly VMD affect customer satisfaction by store reputation. A total of 363 responses were used to examine the process through which core benefits and relational benefits of retailers with eco‐friendly VMD affect psychological satisfaction and social satisfaction. This is a unique study offering empirical evidence that psychological and social satisfactions are the mechanisms through which benefits of eco‐friendly VMD lead to store attitude. Results indicate that information benefit and psychological benefit result in positive psychological satisfaction and social satisfaction, which in turn leads to positive store attitude in retail customers.     

How Do Price Perceptions of Different Brand Types Affect Shopping Value and Store Loyalty?

This research investigates the relationships among price perceptions for different brand types (national brands, standard store brands, regional store brands, organic store brands), shopping value dimensions (quality, price, social, and emotion value), and store loyalty (retention and word of mouth (WOM)). A comprehensive model depicts determinants of customer store loyalty. Using structural equation modeling, the model test includes 671 consumers intercepted during shopping trips. The data analysis yields several surprising results. In particular, low product price perceptions do not necessarily signal negative store quality evaluations. Shopping value dimensions influence store retention loyalty and WOM behavior differently. Furthermore, different brand types exert distinct effects on the value creation process. Favorable prices for national and standard store brands have comparable positive effects on store price value and emotional value creation; appealing prices of regional store brands instead reduce the emotional value of the store, and low prices for organic store brand products significantly increase social value creation.     

Pie in the Sky? Real Versus Perceived Values of Air Miles

Over 20 million people in the Britain and the US collect air miles – many significantly distorting their consumption patterns to increase the rate of accumulation. You can now earn and spend air miles without ever stepping foot on an airplane, and air miles from the more popular scheme have begun to take on the status of a "pseudo-currency." The importance has attracted the widespread attention of governments (worried about how they should most appropriately be incorporated into the tax base) and financial regulators (worried about how the associated liabilities should be dealt with under accounting and financial reporting legislation). To both groups a key hurdle has been knowing how to value an air mile. The paper outlines the characteristics of air miles that make them peculiarly well suited to use as a "shadow" currency. The perceived value of air miles in a panel of UK consumers is assessed (using the contingent valuation method) and compared to the actual value. The former is shown to be substantially larger than the latter – consumers systematically overestimate the purchasing power of air miles. These findings explain why air mile programmes are, and are likely to continue to be, popular promotional tools with businesses but are potentially harmful to consumers.     

Effects of Ethnic Identity on Perceived Advertisers’ Motives in Values Advocacy Advertising

The current study examined Asian American consumers’ responses to values advocacy advertising through the interaction of levels of ethnic identification (weak or strong Asian ethnic identification) and culturally embedded ads (low and high in Asian/White culturally embedded ads) in evaluating altruistic motives of advertisers and purchase intention through an experimental design. The findings suggest that low Asian ethnic identifiers may identify with the advertiser employing Asian spokespersons with Asian cultural cues and in turn, perceive that the advertisers advocate social causes with altruistic motives. However, they did not feel congruent with the advertisers utilizing values advocacy ads with low Asian cultural cues (only featuring Asian spokespersons) more than with low/high White cultural cues (featuring White spokespersons with and without White cultural cues).The findings were discussed based on ethnic schema and attribution theory. Further, the present study discusses how Asian American consumers view ads through their different lenses toward meanings of race and culture based on their different levels of ethnic identification.     

Is the Market Perceived to be Civilizing or Destructive? Scientists’ Universalism Values and Their Attitudes Towards Patents

Journal of Business Ethics - Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting is becoming mainstream, yet there is limited research on whether and how CSR reports communicate value relevant...     

How Do Risk Attitudes Differ within the Group of Entrepreneurs? The Role of Motivation and Procedural Utility

Starting a business involves risk and, thus, requires a risk‐taking attitude. The concept of risk and entrepreneurship has been widely discussed in the entrepreneurship literature; most studies compare entrepreneurs with nonentrepreneurs such as managers or bankers. So far, little research exists on the risk attitudes of the different types of entrepreneurs—those who pursue a new business because of opportunity and those who do so through necessity. This study aims to fill this gap. Our particular focus is on individuals' motivations to start their businesses and the nonmonetary returns from entrepreneurship. The results show that opportunity entrepreneurs are more willing to take risks than necessity entrepreneurs. In addition, those who are motivated by creativity are more risk tolerant than other entrepreneurs. The study contributes to the literature about both risk attitudes of entrepreneurs and necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship.     

The Meanings of Food Consumption,Consumer Effects and the Role of “Origin”: The Case of Ethnic Food in Cameroon

This study examines the role of an individual’s belonging to some ethnic groups as it relates to the meanings associated with food consumption as well as the outcome(s) of ethnic food consumption. To achieve this goal, data were collected from 607 individuals, using a survey and structural equations analysis. Findings revealed that ethnic food consumption triggers specific emotions associated with different ethnic origins; there is a significant and positive moderating effect of sense of belonging to the product’s region of origin. Attachment serves as a mediator of the effect of ethnicity on commitment. These findings have several notable implications.     

What Do We Really Need? Goals and Values,Security, and the Perception of Consumer Necessity

There is a general trend for consumer goods considered luxuries to become thought of as necessities. Although the luxury/necessity distinction is central to the fields of marketing and economics, little research has examined the perception of necessity as a psychological phenomenon. Three studies examined the relationship of the perceived necessity of a variety of consumer goods to goals, values, and insecurity. In Study 1, the number of goods considered necessities as opposed to luxuries correlated negatively with intrinsic and positively with extrinsic goal pursuit. In Study 2, this pattern generalized to the distinction between needs and wants, the extent to which participants reported needing their possessions, and to materialistic values. In Study 3, the perception of necessity mediated the relationship between anxious attachment and materialism, suggesting that needing consumer products has in part a basis in interpersonal insecurity. In turn, it may facilitate materialistic consumption.     

Inverting the Pyramid of Values? Trends in Less-Developed Countries

The authors discuss the consistency of transnational companies in their home, as well as in less developed host countries, concerning ethics, values and social responsibility. Ethical behavior offers good reputation, credibility and tradition to the corporation. It leads to corporate social, environmental and economic responsibilities, cooperating to the desired sustainability. This paper analyzes the inversion of values that corporate governance systems have suffered. The meaning and implication of the corporate social responsibility is investigated and discussed. A “pyramid of values” is built upon individual ethical values at the basis. Over them, the organizational ethical values should indicate the limits of operations, so that the corporate social responsibility can be sustained, in the top. The authors comment that ethical values no longer lead the organization. Its communication with the stakeholders, specifically through reports, has been gradually replacing the code of ethics and corporate values. These reports have taken the basis of the pyramid leading the organizations to socially irresponsible and unethical behavior. They do not guarantee transparency or communicate the needs of the society. It appears that transnational companies do not behave the same way in their home country as they do in host countries, particularly in less developed regions like Latin America and Africa. Lack of communication and transparency may induce employees to unethical decisions and transform the reporting system into a marketing instrument. In order to guarantee compliance with the codes, transparency and ethical responsibility, communication within the organization is essential.     

How Do Customers Alter Their Basket Composition When They Perceive the Retail Store to Be Crowded? An Empirical Study

Using data from a large-scale field study, we show that (perceptions of) crowding change(s) the composition of a consumer's shopping basket. Specifically, as shoppers experience more crowding, their shopping basket contains (a) relatively more affect-rich (“hedonic”) products, and (b) relatively more national brands. We offer a plausible dual-process explanation for this phenomenon: Crowding induced distraction limits cognitive capacity, increasing the relative impact of affective responses in purchase decisions. As we are the first to show that level of crowding relates to what shoppers buy (at both product and brand level), the implications of these effects for retailers are discussed.     

Why Do Consumers Go Internet Shopping Again? Understanding the Antecedents of Repurchase Intention

Consumer intention of reusing online websites for shopping is a major consequence for an electronic commerce company's profitability. Therefore, understanding the factors that influence online customers' repurchase intentions is of great importance to the EC companies. Drawing on specific dimensions of Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), Information Systems continuance model, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), and empirical findings from prior studies as antecedents, the related factors were adapted and integrated within the context of Internet shopping repurchase intentions and were tested in a field study. Empirical data for hypotheses testing were collected from the online virtual store of 7-ELEVEN in Taiwan, yielding 444 valid samples. The results show that online consumer repurchase intention is determined by satisfaction, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and Internet shopping self-efficacy. Satisfaction is influenced by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, confirmation, and positive Internet shopping experience. Perceived usefulness, in turn, is influenced by behavior modeling, positive Internet shopping experience, Internet shopping self-efficacy, and confirmation. Confirmation is affected by positive Internet shopping experience and behavior modeling. In addition, confirmation has significant effects on perceived ease of use. Finally, positive Internet shopping experience appeared to have a significant impact on Internet shopping self-efficacy. From the empirical data, meaningful findings and conclusions are derived, and suggestions for future research are also discussed.     

Who Will Trigger the Bomb of Price in the Auto Market in 2003 in China?

Despite China's auto market is till immersed in the afterglow of its "great eruption of oil well," as if every model of cars, costing a high price or low price, would all sell well on the market, yet it can be predicted that the year 2003 will, no doubt, be a year of price for China's auto industry. As soon as a big equivalent "bomb of price" would blow off in the beginning of the year, the pricing in China's auto market is sure to go through a sweeping reshuffle, and an effect of the theory of domino is inevitable to follow. No wonder, the market will be shaken by a price downslide of some key model of car produced by a solid-founded enterprise, with a drastic price down of RMB50000 for each car!     

AGOA and Apparel: Who Captures the Tariff Rent in the Presence of Preferential Market Access?

The United States grants preferential (tariff‐ and quota‐free) market access to a list of products from eligible countries in sub‐Saharan Africa through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). We analyse the increase in prices received by apparel exporters who benefited from AGOA preferences. In the presence of competitive markets, export prices should increase as much as the tariff which was previously collected by the US government. We refer to this price increase as the ‘tariff preference rent’ since exporters receive this income as the rent for their preferential status. The results show that exporters receive only one‐third of this rent and smaller exporters receive less than larger and established ones. We then provide evidence that suggests this may be due to the degree of market power enjoyed by US importers when facing African exporters.     

Do Depositors Benefit from Bank Mergers? An Examination of the UK Deposit Market

This study examines whether depositors benefit from bank mergers Specifically, do horizontal retail bank mergers influence the availability and interest rates of deposit services? This examination is important, as the effect of mergers on customers is a primary merger assessment criterion in the European Union and the United States. The research question is addressed by considering 57 UK banking mergers over the period 1989–2008. It is reported that different deposit services and deposits of different values face statistically insignificant levels of interest-rate change after mergers. The availability of notice deposit services for low and high levels of investment are reduced after mergers and are largely unchanged for other deposit services. It is concluded that UK depositors benefit little from bank mergers, and different types of depositor face differences in the availability of deposit services after mergers.     

Perceived justice and post-recovery satisfaction in banking service failures: Do commitment types matter?

Based on the notion that the types of customer commitment to a service provider may have diverse reasons and effects on the customer’s perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors, this study aims to investigate the different buffering effects of calculative and affective commitments on the perceived justice and post-recovery satisfaction (PRS) relationship. Multiple and hierarchical regression analyses were conducted based on survey data collected from 284 households who experienced service failure in the banking sector. Results revealed that while affective commitment moderates the effects of procedural and interactional justice, calculative commitment increases the impact of distributive and procedural justice on PRS.     

Who Do Start‐Up Firms Imitate? A Study of New Market Entries in the CLEC Industry

Institutional theory contends firms imitate other firms with ideal traits, whereas the strategic groups literature on imitation suggests firms imitate similar firms. We address this debate by studying 1,067 market entries by founder‐managed start‐ups in the U.S. Competitive Local Exchange Carrier industry from 1996 to 2004. In support of the strategic groups literature, start‐ups imitate entry decisions of and gravitate toward markets that are densely populated by other start‐ups. Though start‐ups avoid markets already densely populated by corporate ventures, they imitate the market entries of corporate ventures. Our discussion of these and other findings provide insights for start‐ups navigating new industries.     

Do Ethical Values Work? A Quantitative Study of the Impact of Fair Trade Coffee on Consumer Behavior

This study investigates the large French fair trade (FT) market and the importance of FT coffee within it, in an attempt to identify some general features of FT consumers. On the basis of 7,587 transactions, the authors also determine the impact of FT characteristics on customer behavior. The main result is somewhat surprising: FT coffee purchases seem to involve a temporary commitment as FT coffee consumers appear less loyal than traditional coffee consumers. The authors derive some business and academic implications.