The consequence of possessions: Self-identity,extended self,psychological ownership and probabilities of purchase for pet’s fashion clothing

This research attempts to exemplify whether pets ascribed as possessions can be regarded, as part of our selves, i.e., a metaphoric relationship with pets, by examining the dynamic relationship between beliefs, extended self, self-identity concerning possessions, and psychological ownership.This study extends the literature by developing a conceptual model asserting that probabilities of purchase for pets, in particular, are contingent on possessions and the extended self. A sample of 326 pet owners was selected, and by using SEM, the direct and indirect relationships were explored. Self-identity and beliefs were significantly associated with psychological control and the extended self, however, beliefs were negatively related to the probabilities of purchase. The extended self and the psychological ownership demonstrated mediating relationships. The study contributes to an understanding of the theoretical relationship between the role of possessions and provides scholars and retail practitioners with an understanding of probabilities of purchase for pet fashions.     

Exploring the dark side of pet ownership: Status- and control-based pet consumption

Desire for status or control may motivate some consumers to own certain types of pets. In the light of recent debates surrounding “designer pets,” this article examines the dark side of pet ownership through interpretive interviews with dog owners. The findings compare and contrast two types of ownership motivation — pets as companions to love versus pets as toys, status markers, and brands. This latter category forms part of the dark side of pet ownership. Owners differ in their motivation for ownership, their appreciation of the pet, the nature of human-animal interaction, breed choice, and the purchase of pet-related paraphernalia.     

A conception of moral sensitivity and everyday consumption practices: insights from the moralizing discourses of pet owners

The marketing discipline is somewhat under‐theorized regarding the moral meanings that both shape and are shaped by the everyday consumption practices of consumers. Therefore, using the context of pet ownership, this paper aims to develop a conceptual understanding of the moral aspects of consumption by examining the social construction of morality in consumers’ day‐to‐day lives. Using phenomenological interviews and autodriving techniques, the study identifies a number of underlying polemics, linked to the ontology of animals as pets, strands of which weave through participants’ moralizing discourses. The study draws attention to the nuances and contradictory processes within which the moral meanings allied to pet ownership and the pet marketplace are constituted and enacted within consumers’ day‐to‐day lives. The paper concludes with a discussion on the value of adopting a sociological perspective of consumption morality and its implications for future studies of consumption.     

Understanding co‐consumption between consumers and their pets

Pets live with people; they participate in people's everyday life activities and are often seen as human‐like family members. Consumers in the industrialized countries are investing more money in their pets and spending more time with them than ever before. The pet and the owner can even be considered to form a unit that consumes together. In this article, we develop a conceptual understanding of co‐consumption by examining how pets act as co‐consumers in everyday consumption. The pet owner and pet have joint consumption experiences in which they interact with other actors such as service providers. The consumer (pet owner) consumes because of the pet, meaning that he or she constantly needs to take the pet into account in choices and activities beyond pet‐related consumption, such as what kind of car to buy, where to work, whom to marry and how to live. The co‐consumer (pet) also acts as an active agent who experiences, feels, suffers and likes the goods and services that the consumer buys for the pet. Reciprocally, the pet provides the consumer (pet owner) with companionship, support and a boost to wellbeing. As such, our research suggests that co‐consumption provides an understanding not only of consumption with pets but also of other contexts, especially those in which the aim is shared well‐being such as consumption together with children, the disabled or the elderly.     

Feeding Fido: Changing Consumer Food Preferences Bring Pets to the Table

Consumers increasingly demand premium foods that satisfy particular lifestyle requirements. Simultaneously, premium pet foods lead the $18 billion U.S. pet food market. Using a Heckman two-stage decision model, we investigate the relationship between consumers’ food choices for themselves and food choices for their pets. Premium human food consumers with higher education and incomes are more likely to purchase premium pet food. This study also reveals a surprising age cohort effect: younger consumers are more likely to purchase premium pet food, despite budget constraints. The findings have implications for pet food marketing strategies. They also suggest an expected increase in demand for pet food ingredient transparency and pet food safety policy.     

Does excessive buying for self relate to spending on pets?

Using two studies, this article explores how a tendency to buy excessively for self relates to spending on one's pet. Existing research on excessive buying reports that these buyers spend money primarily on themselves. Excessive buying is the tendency to be preoccupied with buying and, consequently, to buy relatively more and more often than others. The first study, using a qualitative research approach, provides insights into the relationship of excessive buying for self and for pets. This study reveals that excessive buyers consider their pets as full family members and extensions of themselves. The second study, a national survey conducted via the Internet, provides a quantitative test of the relationship between excessive buying for self and spending on pets. Respondents who score high on an excessive buying index also tend to spend more on their pets for toys, food treats, clothing, accessories, and grooming products.     

A tail of two personalities: How canine companions shape relationships and well-being

More people own pets than ever before. Further, people spend more money on pets than they ever have. The increase in pet ownership and spending on pets provides evidence of the importance humans place on the pets in their lives. This study explores the relationships between humans and their animal companions, specifically canine companions. Drawing on decades of research on personality, relationships, and well-being, the current research takes a cross-species approach to examine the influence of pet personalities on human outcomes. Using personality assessments for human and dog, the article examines how both personalities impact relationship satisfaction. The article also examines how human-dog closeness impacts owner well-being. Some findings corroborate results found in the human personality and relationship literature, but others point to some unique aspects of the human-dog bond. These results not only shed light on the human-dog relationship but also suggest some departures from the human relationship literature that could be explored in future research.     

Consumer Education and the Preschool Child

Children are consumers and subject to a number of factors which socialize them into this role. Consumer education is often cited as an important tool in directing this socialization process toward the desired result of developing efficient and knowledgeable consumers. But how early can consumer education begin in the school setting? Can the preschool child be taught basic marketplace concepts and sequences or is this consumer simply too young? What are the early building blocks of consumer education? Do some approaches to teaching the very young consumer work better than others? This study presents a conceptual framework and the results of an exploratory laboratory study which begin to answer these important questions.     

Social media influencers: A route to brand engagement for their followers

Social Media Influencers (SMIs) are micro‐celebrities with large followings on social media platforms who engage consumers and hold the potential to promote customer‐brand relationships across different product categories. SMIs have an existing relationship of trust with consumers, and consumers seek out the content created by SMIs for valuable information and advice. This study explores the process of brand engagement between consumers and brands in the digital content marketing environment, specifically examining the research question: Do SMIs act as a route to brand engagement for their followers? The context for this study is the beauty community on YouTube; over 60,000 user comments were analyzed through automated text analysis. This study is among the first to provide empirical evidence that SMIs do act as a route to brand engagement through the three dimensions of cognitive processing, affection and activation.     

Board independence, firm performance and ownership concentration: Evidence from Chile

What determines the composition of companies' boards in the context of high ownership concentration? Are independent directors important as an internal governance mechanism in companies with high ownership concentration? Do markets favor companies whose controlling shareholders use voting rights to elect professional directors?Using a four-year, 160-company panel data, and controlling for endogeneity, this paper addresses these three related questions, finding that an increase in the proportion of outside directors affects company value. The paper also finds that companies that present more exacerbated agency conflicts tend to incorporate professional directors to the boards, in an effort to improve corporate governance and ameliorate the agency problem.     

Materialism and Consumer Ethics: An Exploratory Study

As the issue of marketing's social responsibility grows in significance, the topic of materialism surfaces. While many marketing efforts encourage materialism, the materialism that is encouraged may have negative societal effects. An understanding of the effects of materialism on individuals, families, society, etc., is important in evaluating whether or not it is socially irresponsible for marketers to encourage materialism. However, the adequate empirical work has not yet been done on the overall effects of materialism. The current paper asks and addresses one important empirical question in this area. Do consumers who are more materialistic have different ethical standards than those who are not? Empirical evidence is presented which would indicate that materialism is negatively correlated with people's higher ethical standards as consumers. The implications for this in understanding social responsibility are discussed.     

Animal-companion depictions in women's magazine advertising

Via a content analysis of 1398 advertisements that include both people and pets and that appeared in women's magazines over a period of four decades, this study examines the changing roles played by companion animals and the changes in themes used in these advertisements. Considering both the pictures and text, the study codes advertisements for themes, pet roles, whether or not the pet appears on a leash, and the physical location of the pet. These data show the movement of companion animals from outdoor protectors and companions to loved family members sharing all areas of the home with their human family. The study provides a method for transforming qualitative data so that they can be rigorously tested using a quantitative approach. The findings support prior survey research and provide direction for positioning and marketing-communications strategies to allow for societal trends that influence consumers' self-identities.     

Pets as means rather than ends

Research relating to pets focuses almost exclusively on human-pet interactions or pet-specific behavior such as pet-food purchasing. Seldom has research used pet consumption as a context to study broader consumer-behavior topics. The influence of pet-related research is expandable by viewing pets as a path toward studying more general consumer-behavior questions.     

Are Low Price and Price Matching Guarantees Equivalent? The Effects of Different Price Guarantees on Consumers’ Evaluations

Some retailers offer price match guarantees, whereas others offer guarantees making the same promise but labeling these low-price guarantees. Do consumers respond differently to these different price guarantee labels? To address this research question, this paper leverages insights from pricing, signaling, and regulatory focus theories to demonstrate – across multiple studies – that consumers perceive price match versus low price guarantees differently. In turn, contingent on consumers’ regulatory focus, this difference in perceptions feeds forward and influences consumers’ purchase intentions and post purchase (e.g., repurchase) intentions. This paper contributes to theory, not only by showing differences across price match versus low price guarantees, but also by being the first to jointly examine purchase and post purchase intentions relating to price guarantees. This paper also speaks to practice, noting contingencies that determine whether the price match or the low-price guarantee label should be used.     

Determination of Intrinsic Appearance Properties that Drive Dry Dog Food Acceptance by Pet Owners in Thailand

Consumers and institutions make purchase and potential consumption decisions on behalf of other product users on a daily basis. Pet foods are one example of a product in that situation. The objective of this study was to determine what aspects of pet food appearance characteristics determine higher liking among Thai consumers. Consumers (n = 120) evaluated a total of 30 samples that varied in color, shape, size, and kibble composition. Information on overall liking, shape liking, size liking, and color liking was collected. Additional information was collected using a check-all-that-apply question regarding product characteristics. The results indicated that color and shape were important for Thai consumers; specifically, a yellowish color and bone shape were liked best. These results are important for pet food manufacturers and marketers in developing new products, as well as for product marketers in other consumer goods, such as child food, medications, food aid, and other divisions.     

进境宠物隔离检疫常见问题及处理

北京海关动物隔离场承担北京口岸进境宠物的隔离检疫工作。根据隔离检疫工作中宠物的饲养和护理经验,本文总结了隔离检疫期间宠物经常出现的问题及疾病,提出相应的处理方法。     

An Analysis of Pet Food Label Usage

We use the 2008 Health and Diet Survey to investigate the extent to which pet owners consult pet food labels. We find that pet food label usage has not penetrated shopping behavior to the degree that using the Nutrition Facts label has for human food purchases. While we find no gender difference in using pet food labels among dog owners, women may be less likely than men to consult labels among cat owners. The data also suggest that usage increases when at least three pets are owned; cat owners consult pet food labels less frequently than dog owners; and usage is not dependent on the type of product purchased.     

External managers,family ownership and the scope of SME internationalization

SMEs are important to world business and the majority of SMEs are family firms. Yet some family SMEs are inert, local firms while others are dynamic and international. Do certain governance structures encourage the scale and scope of their internationalization? We jointly apply social capital and corporate governance theories to explain the scope of family SMEs internationalization, and find that professional managers externally recruited from outside the family are important, but only for lower levels of family ownership, suggesting synergistic combinations of ownership and management. It is the combination of external capital with external managers that really works.     

The price of unconditional love: Consumer decision making for high-dollar veterinary care

Animal companions play an increasingly important role in consumers' lives, and therefore many pets receive acceptance and treatment as members of the family. As the human-animal bond increases, so does consumer spending on pets, including that on high-dollar veterinary care. Unlike human health care, however, consumers must directly pay for the majority of high-dollar veterinary care. When an animal companion is ill, the consumer faces a stressful decision of whether even to engage in the treatment, along with the hardship of paying for it. Despite a rudimentary understanding of the factors relevant in the decision-making process regarding high-dollar veterinary care, knowledge is lacking about this often heart-wrenching choice. Using a depth-interview method, this study examines the decision-making process consumers go through when facing expensive medical treatment for their pets. The research results in an expansion of three a priori themes and the discovery and discussion of three factors that influence consumer decisions about veterinary care across all three themes.     

Price Awareness and Consumers’ Use of Deals in Brand Choice

There is evidence that consumer knowledge of prices is limited, implying that, on occasions, consumers may not be fully informed of prices when making a brand purchase. On such occasions, how do consumers make their brand choice decision? One possibility is that consumers use their expectation of prices. This raises an interesting question. To what extent is brand purchase either a function of preferences and posted prices or, of preferences and expectation of brand prices? Another important issue relates to the role of displays and features in simplifying consumer brand choice. First, do promotions cause consumers to restrict their attention to only promoted brands? Second, do promotions affect the price aware consumers more than the price unaware consumers? Our study uses scanner data on ketchup and peanut butter categories to answer the foregoing questions. We find that between 40 and 50% of the purchases are made by consumers using expectations of prices rather than posted prices. Consumers using price expectations may be thought of as being “unaware” of prices. We also find that promotions cause some consumers to focus exclusively on promoted brands, and this effect is greater on the price aware consumers than on the price unaware consumers. Our findings have an important bearing on the rationality of consumer expectation of prices, especially of the promoted brands. Price aware consumers act as a check against firms promoting without accompanying price cuts.