Employment Opportunities for Consumer Affairs Professionals

This analysis of consumer affairs professionals in business and government describes what functions they perform, where they are employed, what education and experience is required and what their salaries are. Professional educators in the consumer field have generally ignored the career field of consumer affairs professional. Colleges and universities train consumer majors to be educators, researchers, or extension workers, but little attention is paid to the education of consumer affairs professionals for business and government. This article not only attempts to give educators in the consumer field a greater awareness of this relatively new career so that they can develop educational programs more intelligently but also attempts to make business and government more aware of what is being done in this area so they may be able to utilize the talents of consumer affairs professionals.     

Increasing the Organizational Influence of Corporate Consumer Affairs Departments

Empirical research suggests that most corporate consumer affairs departments are not a part of the decision-making structure of their respective firms. The typical consumer affairs department appears to have little influence in management decisions that affect consumer satisfaction and welfare. As a result, it is of limited value for the consumer. A reason for the isolation of consumer affairs from corporate decision making may be that the department's contribution to the firm's welfare is not well understood. By showing a significant contribution to company sales, the consumer affairs department would be in a position to gain influence in the profit-seeking organization. The article identifies the relationship between sales and complaint management within a marketing framework and develops objectives for complaint management that maximize the consumer affairs department's contribution to sales thereby enhancing the power base of the department within the business organization.     

Consumer Affairs in Rural New Zealand

Recent changes in many areas of Government policy as well as changes in the private sector have had major impacts on the provision of services in rural areas of New Zealand. This report describes the results of a New Zealand survey of 795 rural consumers. The results emphasise how the problems perceived as most important to people in rural areas are essentially linked to fundamental services such as housing, water, communications, and transport. Though this element of basic needs is covered in the consumer policy literature it is not a feature that tends to be emphasised. The survey also gauges some aspects of rural consumers' knowledge of their entitlements under New Zealand consumer law and their familiarity with, and use of, consumer advisory and support services.     

Public Affairs Management Activities of German Multinational Corporations in India

In this paper the importance of public affairs management in multinational corporations in India will be examined. After briefly discussing the state of the art in international business and society literature, a conceptual framework for public affairs management in multinational corporations will be developed. This framework serves as the theoretical basis for an empirical study among German multinational corporations in India. In the main part of this paper the results of this study will be presented and discussed. The paper ends with a critical assessment and some major implications for future studies.     

The Brave New World of Organ Transplantation: Issues and Challenges from a Consumer Affairs Perspective

Policy makers are trying to narrow the widening gap between the demand and the supply of transplantable organs. They are doing so largely without contributions from consumer affairs specialists. This article establishes the need for involvement of consumer affairs scholars and suggests directions for further empirical and critical inquiry. Substantive research must be grounded more firmly in established theoretical constructs and behavioral theories.     

A Decade in Perspective 1975–84: Focus and Trends in the Journal of Consumer Affairs

An analysis of research articles published in the Journal of Consumer Affairs for the issues published from 1975 (1) through 1984 (2) reveals a marked increase over time in the number of papers focusing on policy issues and a marked decrease over time on articles focusing on the consumer movement and consumer education. The largest number of authors during this period were from the University of California-Davis. Forty-four percent of all authors were from business and economics subject areas, and 26 percent were from home economics. Assistant Professors had the highest publishing rate. Papers were found to be equally divided between land grant and nonland grant institutions with the majority being of single or dual authorship. It is concluded that the Journal of Consumer Affairs is meeting its stated editorial policy.     

Business Unethicality as an Impediment to Consumer Trust: The Moderating Role of Demographic and Cultural Characteristics

The article reports the findings of a study conducted among 387 consumers regarding their perceptions of the unethicality of business practices of firms and how these affect their response behavior, in terms of trust, satisfaction, and loyalty. The study confirmed that high levels of perceived corporate unethicality decrease consumer trust. This in turn reduces consumer satisfaction, which ultimately has negative effects on customer loyalty. It was also revealed that, although both consumer gender and urbanity have a moderating effect on the link between perceived unethicality and trust, the age group and level of education of the consumer did not exhibit such an effect. With regard to consumer cultural characteristics, both high uncertainty avoidance and low individualism were found to increase the negative impact of business unethicality on trust, as opposed to power distance and masculinity that did not have any moderating effect on this relationship. Implications for managers are extracted from the study findings, as well as directions for future research.     

Risk Regulation and Consumer Welfare

Health and safety have become major consumer concerns in the 1980s. Major issues focus on who should decide for whom what level of safety and health is appropriate. This paper examines the role of consumers and government in reducing risk. Consideration is given to consumer risk perception and risk response, the need for government intervention, and the various risk evaluation procedures that might be used by government agencies to develop appropriate risk management strategies.     

Consumer Concerns of Senior Citizen Center Participants

The greater emphasis being given to the development of education programs and public policy dealing with the consumer problems of the elderly creates a need for systematically assessing the specific problems this group perceives. This paper reports an in-depth study that identified and compared consumer concerns and educational interests of senior citizen center participants in three age groups (55–64, 65–74, and 75 and over) living in rural and urban areas. The frequency with which participants expressed concern with particular areas differed relatively little between subgroups. Urban participants and younger participants expressed higher levels of concern than did rural or older participants. The areas about which the participants were most frequently interested in learning more were medical services and utilities, although many participants indicated they felt no need for consumer education. Television and newspaper articles were the most preferred media for receiving information.     

Opinions on Consumer Issues: A Review of Recent Studies of Executives and Consumers

How do consumers and marketers differ in their views on consumer issues? Have these differences changed over time? In an attempt to answer these questions, this paper compares findings from five major attitudinal studies conducted between 1971 and 1977, which examined the attitudes of the two groups. This analysis focuses on five key issue areas: product quality, advertising, consumer information, perceptions of corporate attitudes and government regulation. Consumers and business executives were found to have wide differences of opinion in all the studies examined. The differences were particularly sharp on perceptions of corporate attitudes and on the need for more government regulation.     

Using Content Analysis to Examine Consumer Behaviors Portrayed on Television: A Pilot Study in a Consumer Education Context

The purpose of this study was to explore the potential of content analysis methodology for clarifying the nature of one agent of consumer socialization, prime-time television. The results indicated that the consumer-related content of prime-time television programs can be identified with this technique and that it may be useful in studying a variety of issues in consumer affairs. Special issues that should be considered in using the methodology are outlined, as are some promising avenues for future research concerning the socialization of consumers.     

Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility and Product Perceptions in Consumer Markets: A Cross-cultural Evaluation

The concept of corporate social responsibility is becoming integral to effective corporate brand management. This study adopts a multidimensional and cross-country perspective of the concept and analyses consumer perceptions of behaviour of four leading consumer products manufacturers. Data was collected from consumers in two countries – Spain and the UK. The study analyses consumers’ degree of interest in corporate responsibility and its impact on their perception about the company. The findings here suggest a weak impact of company-specific communication on consumers’ perception. The implications of this study are relevant to companies for strengthening their social responsibility associations with the consumers. Dr. Jaywant Singh is Senior Lecturer at Kingston University, London where he teaches consumer behaviour and international marketing. His research interests include customer loyalty, product variants, new brands, corporate social responsibility, and consumer panel data. He received his PhD in marketing in 2004. Dr. Maria de Mar Garcia de los Salmones is Lecturer at University of Cantabria (Spain). Her current research interests include corporate social responsibility, brand image and consumer behaviour. She received her PhD in business administration in 2002. Dr. Ignacio Rodriguez de Bosque is Professor of Marketing at the University of Cantabria (Spain). His current research interests include Business Communication, relationship marketing and distribution channels. He has published in several international journals such as Tourism, Management, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services and Industrial Marketing Management.     

产品伤害危机管理因素对消费者信任修复的影响研究

利用联合分析法,通过情景模拟调研,对产品伤害危机管理中的重要影响因素(如企业社会责任、企业响应策略、媒体效用以及时间)在不同危机严重程度(非常严重、中等程度、轻微程度)下对消费者信任修复造成的影响以及重要程度进行研究,结果表明,时间对于非常严重程度下的消费者信任修复最为重要,响应策略对于中等严重程度下的消费者信任修复最为重要,而企业社会责任对于轻微程度下的消费者信任修复最为重要。     

Redefining Confidence for Consumer Behavior Research

Although quintessential to market exchange and trade, consumer confidence evokes little interest from marketing scholars, and largely persists as an untapped dimension in consumer behavior research. Nevertheless, the dearth of confidence research provides a most useful foundation for investigating how it is both relevant and informative to the study of consumer decision making and behavior. Following a comprehensive review of the theoretical foundations of confidence, an integrated conceptualization is mapped out, and examples of consumer behavior research areas deemed to benefit from a more honed study of confidence are highlighted.     

Solicitation and the Legal Profession: A New Issue for Consumer Affairs Professionals

While issues relating to the advertising of legal services have received much attention in the scholarly literature, this has not been the case for solicitation by lawyers, even though it appears that lawyers are more interested in being able to solicit than to advertise. In this article the legal issues surrounding solicitation are identified and tied to a basic communications model; then research propositions are presented along with the results of a survey of attitudes held toward solicitation by 125 lawyers practicing in two Rocky Mountain states. The survey results suggest that solicitation is not going to be easily accepted and that many lawyers may have trouble evaluating differences among solicitation, direct mail and advertising. The survey results also suggest that attitudes toward solicitation may be changing in that younger, less experienced respondents expressed more liberal attitudes toward solicitation than their older and more experienced colleagues. Taken together the findings of this article strongly suggest that solicitation is likely to offer a complex and challenging development for consumer affairs professionals in the years ahead.     

Reflections on Consumer Sophistication and Its Impact on Ethical Business Practice

This paper investigates consumer sophistication and its role in the development of proactive public policy. Consumer sophistication is examined in light of several historical shifts in market structure and consumer lifestyles. These shifts create market conditions that foster the emergence of a “Corporate Dilemma” in which unsophisticated consumers reward unethical business practices and punish ethical business behavior. To reduce unethical business practices in the market, this paper proposes that the optimum level of interim government intervention should be based on the level of consumer sophistication in the market.     

THE EFFECTS OF INSTRUCTION IN CONSUMER EDUCATION ACADEMIC UNITS ON CONSUMER ECONOMIC PROFICIENCY *

This research sought to determine whetehr formal classroom instruction improves students' consumer economic competencies. Students who were enrolled in a course that presented information in the areas of credit use, money management, savings and investment, and insurance when compared to students who did not take the course demonstrated a higher level of consumer economic competency. Significant differences in competency were also found when social class, post-high school career plans, and sex of student were considered.