Multifunctional risk in the adoption of innovative technological products

This study analyses whether the perceived risk of purchasing technological products is less influential on the process of technological adoption when this effect is moderated by the product's multifunctional category (hedonic vs. utilitarian product characteristics). Four experiments were developed according to scenarios related to the multifunctional content (level of complexity according to the product category) of the technology and the number of functionalities in the products. The perception of risk has less effect on adoption when the product characteristics are manipulated to be more utilitarian or heighten the consumer's social value. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of which categories are less influenced by the perceived multifunctional risk of purchasing and adopting a new technology, as well as of when individual values overlap with consumers' risk perceptions. It also contributes managerially by identifying the profile of individuals who are more likely to consume innovations characterized by high complexity and functionality, and by providing guidance for the development of innovative products that prioritize utilitarian, rather than hedonic, characteristics.     

An empirical study of the impact of consumer perceived risk on purchase likelihood: a modelling approach

Drawing on an extensive literature review, a conceptual model incorporating marketing and psychometric paradigms for assessing consumer purchase behaviour is developed in the context of a hazardous and harmful risk associated with potentially contaminated food. An empirical study of 200 respondents was carried out to test this conceptual model. Structural equation modelling using LISREL 8.30 confirmed the link between perceived risk characteristics and risk perception, and that the latter appears to influence purchase behaviour. Concern about potential consequences, long‐term adverse impacts and the involuntariness of exposure were key shapers of risk perception, and risk perception itself was measured by health, money, time, lifestyle and taste losses in this study. These findings can help both the food industry and its regulators as they seek to formulate effective risk management and communication strategies. The model developed in this exploratory study can be extended to all commodities, as well as all services industry.     

The Location of Markets,Perceived Entrepreneurial Risk,and Start-up Capital of Micro Rural Firms

It is argued that when founders of SMEs perceive the probability of a successful and lucrative venture to be greater, they are more likely to provide a greater proportion of the start-up capital. This paper provides an empirical examination of two concurrent hypotheses. Firstly, that the size of the debt or equity is affected by factors influencing perceived entrepreneurial risk. Secondly, that the location of the market for the firm’s output is a major factor reducing perceived entrepreneurial risk and increasing equity of the start-up capital. A statistical analysis based on the simultaneous tobit model is used. Results show that significant factors influencing risk perception include the size of the new business and the sector of economic activity, as well as entrepreneurial experience and the location of the markets for the firm’s output. The results highlight implications for the design and implementation of rural development policies and especially for the instruments supporting rural business creation.     

Intangibility and Perceived Risk in Online Environments

Product intangibility increases consumers' perception of risk. Previous research has examined the effects of multiple dimensions of intangibility on the various types of risk and found out that of the three intangibility dimensions, physical intangibility was the least correlated to the consumers' perception of risk in most situations, while mental intangibility and generality had great impact on most of the perceived risk dimensions. Little research so far has been conducted as to the differences between online and offline environments in which risk is perceived. The results from this study with generic vs. branded products in offline vs. online situations show that significant variations in the perception of risk were identified across different purchasing environments. In the online environment concerns of consumers have a significantly stronger impact on the different kinds of risk perceived than generality and mental intangibility. Whereas intangibility has a major impact on risk during the traditional method of shopping, an elevated perception of risk in the online environment is merely triggered by consumer's concerns about their privacy, the security of their purchases and the security of the system through which their transactions are completed.     

Exploring factors influencing US millennial consumers’ use of tap-and-go payment technology

ABSTRACT

Although mobile payment (MP) represents a possibility for traditional brick-and-mortar US retailers to enhance the quality of customer service, mobile payment adoption in the US has lagged, with research regarding this phenomenon in the US seemingly in its embryonic stage. The current study contributes to the literature on mobile payment adoption in the US by investigating the factors on US millennial consumers’ use of mobile payment technology, operationalized in the study as tap-and-go payment systems. The study mirrors a study of the acceptance of mobile shopping technology among German consumers, with some extension. The study incorporated mobile payment risk perception, system trust, and socio-cultural influence into an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) to explore this issue. Results from a survey conducted among 357 US Millennials indicate that perceived ease of use of MP (PEOUMP); perceived usefulness (PUMP); and risk perception all influence attitude toward mobile payment (AttMP). System trust, socio-cultural influence, and AttMP all influence MP use intention. The paper discussed the limitations of the study and future research directions.     

Risk Reduction in Purchasing Organisational Professional Services

Organisational professional services are often costly, time consuming, high-profile and of undeterminable and variable quality; all of which increase the risk associated with their purchase. Yet understanding of what risks are perceived and how they are reduced is limited. The results of a Lisrel analysis of organisational purchasers’ risk perceptions in a high risk scenario confirmed the positive relationship between risk perception and reduction and that overall risk is derived mainly from the financial risk involved. The article also presents a new framework for understanding organisational purchasers’ risk-reduction behaviour in the context of purchasing professional services by a not-for-profit organisation which involves latent risk-reducing concepts such as clarifying, simplifying and risk sharing. Implications for risk measurement are discussed, together with more managerial recommendations for understanding purchasers’ behaviour and changing marketing practice in this sector.     

What's in the box? Investigating the benefits and risks of the blind box selling strategy

This study explores the benefits and risks of the blind box selling strategy, a unique type of marketing approach wherein consumers purchase a package from a retailer without knowing its content. To this end, this study develops a new framework by incorporating hedonic benefits, perceived risk, risk propensity, customer delight, and brand evangelism in an integrated conceptual model. The findings of a survey of 486 respondents demonstrate that hedonic benefits have a positive influence on customer delight, while perceived risk has a negative effect, and risk propensity moderates the relationship between the two constructs. The findings also reveal that customer delight stimulates brand evangelism and mediates the relationship between hedonic benefits, perceived risk, and brand evangelism. This research highlights the importance of the blind box selling strategy and provides valuable managerial insights for brand managers.     

How to reduce perceived risk when buying online: The interactions between intangibility,product knowledge,brand familiarity,privacy and security concerns

This paper studies how product intangibility and its moderators affect perceived risk in an online shopping setting. The moderators studied were brand familiarity, product knowledge, privacy concerns and security concerns. Student samples performed online experimental tests, wherein product intangibility was manipulated. The findings indicate that both mental intangibility and physical intangibility increased perceived risk. Mental tangibility had more impact over perceived risk than physical tangibility. This study is the first to show how intangibility, product knowledge, brand familiarity, privacy and security concerns interact and affect perceived risk. Previous studies did not have the opportunity to observe the interactions of these relevant dimensions, thus not identifying which one would have a stronger effect over the perceived risk of buying online. In short, we found that when interacting with intangibility security and privacy concerns increase perceived risk to the same degree. On the other hand, product knowledge reduces the perceived risk more than brand familiarity.     

Risk management behaviour by the Northern Ireland food consumer

The main criteria that consumers use during the decision‐making process when purchasing food have traditionally been a combination of prices, incomes, taste and social attitudes, with price being seen as the main determinant. However, in the past 10 years risk has become a ‘new’ criterion that can affect the consumer's decision whether or not to purchase a particular food item. The effect of the perception of risk has been observed during the numerous food scares in the last decade and in trends for the demand for foods that connote a health image. This research, carried out in Northern Ireland, looked at how consumers quantified and managed risk. The research involved 202 primary food consumers and identified the factors that were perceived to be important from both a societal and a personal perspective. Using principal component analysis techniques, societal food risks were seen as either processing or dietary, and personal food risks were seen as either extrinsic or intrinsic. Further investigation into the attributes of the personal risk using the same techniques revealed a three‐factor solution described as fear, involvement and newness. Although these factors cannot be used as predictors of the risk associated with a particular food, they help to describe and explain how the risk may be managed. The relationship between two of the factors, involvement and fear, provide a framework for understanding the way consumers manage their perception of the risk, particularly of high‐risk items. Consumer and scientific knowledge of the risk in question, and the degree of control over the risk were seen as important in the management of the risk in question. The conceptualization of the mechanism by which risks are processed and acted upon provides information regarding risk management and communication strategies that should be employed by educators, food retailers and government policy makers.     

Drunk, drowsy, doped: skiers' and snowboarders' injury risk perceptions regarding alcohol, fatigue and recreational drug use

The objective was to investigate perceptions of snowfield resort visitors about injury risk regarding alcohol, fatigue and recreational drug use. Visitors to a resort village in a large Australian snowfield region completed a brief survey about fatigue, alcohol and recreational drug use and injury risk perception. Participants stated their ability to ski or snowboard and drive safely following a lack of sleep, alcohol and recreational drug use. Intoxicated snowfield resort visitors were compared with non-intoxicated visitors. Safety beliefs across snow sport and transport were compared. Participants reported that they generally slept less than usual and 30% reported both drinking alcohol and using drugs more than usual while visiting the snowfields. Participants perceived driving as a greater injury risk than skiing/snowboarding (p < 0.001). Fatigue was perceived as a relatively weak injury risk factor, particularly whilst skiing and snowboarding. Awareness needs to be raised among snowfield resort visitors about the contribution of alcohol, fatigue and recreational drug use to snow sport and transport-related injury risk.     

The role of ethical problems related to a brand in the purchasing decision process: An analysis of the moderating effect of complexity of purchase and mediation of perceived social risk

The objective of this article is to identify the effect of the perception of a brand's ethical problems on consumer behavior. The research contemplates two experimental studies, in which different brands were used in different product categories. Based on the results of the experiments, we verified the moderating effect of the perceived purchase complexity and the mediating effect of perceived social risk in the relationship between the perception of ethical problems related to a brand and the declared purchase intention, both by university students and by real consumers. Through the analysis of means differences and conditional models analyzed with PROCESS (Hayes, 2012), we identified that the perception of ethical problems related to a brand affects consumer confidence and, in some cases, the perception of product quality. In addition, we find that for products with low purchasing complexity, the effect of ethical problems is mitigated both in relation to the purchase intention and in the formation of the perception of social risk linked to consumption.     

Conflicting attitudes and scepticism towards online shopping: the role of experience

Researchers typically study how levels of risk perception about online shopping affect whether and how consumers use the channel to buy products. In this paper, we propose to study how different types of attitudes towards online shopping are formed when consumers consider both the benefit and the risk of using the Internet to do their shopping. We consider the possibility that general types of attitudes are formed when consumers' perception of the risk and the benefit of using online shopping conflict. We pay particular attention to the concept of online shopping scepticism where consumers may fully realize the benefit of using the Internet to do their shopping, but also express a certain level of concern about the risk of using that channel. In the risk literature, researchers have shown that experience and increased exposure to a particular technology usually involves the accumulation of more and better knowledge that in turn may lead to a reduction in the perception of the risks involved. In this research, we also explore the role of experience in the context of consumers' intention to use online shopping. More specifically, we postulate that online shopping experience has a direct effect as well as an indirect effect on the intention to use online shopping. Experience with online shopping directly increases the consumer's intention to use the Internet to buy products but it also reduces the degree of scepticism and risk aversion, and that in turn, also increases the intention to use online shopping.     

Fish Market Segmentation Based on Consumers' Motives,Barriers and Risk Perception in Belgium

This study's objective was to segment Belgian fish consumers based on their motives, perceived barriers, and their risk perception corresponding with fish consumption. Cross-sectional consumer data were collected in November 2004 through a self-administered questionnaire (n = 852). Cluster analysis distinguished between three consumer segments. Uncertain fish consumers indicate strong motives and a low risk perception, but experience some barriers to increase their fish consumption. Fish Lovers do not perceive any risk from eating fish and express strong motives and low barriers. Finally, Concerned fish consumers perceive few barriers, and they score relatively moderate on fish consumption motives, but express some doubts with respect to potential risks from eating fish. Profiling the clusters yields opportunities for targeted marketing strategies and product orientation.     

Debunking the myth of general consumer rejection of green genetic engineering: Empirical evidence from Germany

The emergence of a more sustainable economy in Europe was accompanied by a range of bio‐based products and technologies. As a prominent example, green genetic engineering opens up multiple options to increase agricultural production, but its public acceptance seems to vary by application area. Risk perception explains consumer acceptance of green genetic engineering, which is a necessary precondition for wider technology adoption. This study investigates risk perceptions for four major sources of risk: health related, environmental, socioeconomic and ethical. Data were collected in a laboratory experiment in Germany, with a total of 439 participants. A between‐subject design was employed. The four experimental treatment groups comprised two policy scenarios, namely one only permitting research and development and the other allowing full commercialization of genetically modified products, and two product end‐uses, bioenergy and food. The study shows significant end‐use differences in both the type of policy scenario and the risk dimension in question. In particular, health risks were generally perceived to be lower for bioenergy than food whenever full commercialization was pursued. Furthermore, full commercialization of genetically modified food prompted higher concerns about personal health, whereas use of crops for bioenergy production was broadly related to higher levels of socioeconomic risk. Finally, although the majority of consumers identified health risks as being most relevant, the consequences for the environment evoked the greatest degree of risk perception. In general, our findings lend support for the notion that the policy regime is the most important determinant for risk perception, followed by the type of risk dimension and level of trust in industry.     

What makes a good citizen in service settings?

As service firms face intense pressure to improve service quality, contact employees have been asked to do more with less. It is important that managers understand the concept of organisational citizenship behaviours and attempt to motivate employees to exhibit such behaviours. This study developed and tested a model of how employees' perception of organisational support affects affective commitment (AC), which contributes to their citizenship behaviours in service settings. Questionnaire data from matched pairs of 318 contact employees and their supervisors demonstrated that both perceived organisational support (POS) and AC play strong, central roles in determining contact employees' exhibition of citizenship behaviours. In addition, AC was found to be an effective mediator linking contact employees' perception of organisational support to their citizenship behaviours.     

Actual consumers' response to purchase refurbished smartphones: Exploring perceived value from product reviews in online retailing

Refurbishing is an industrial process whereby used products are returned to good working condition to extend lifespan. As smartphones are short life cycle products replaced at an increasing rate, refurbishing is one of the end-of-life strategies to recover value from used smartphones. Chief among the factors given for refurbishing success is consumers' perception of the aspects of the purchase toward these products. This research investigates the significant factors in consumer perceived value about purchasing refurbished smartphones. Online product reviews are recognized as a promising data source to evaluate consumers' post-purchase behaviour in the actual market. Accordingly, a customer satisfaction model of online refurbished smartphone reviews from e-commerce websites is presented to explore customer satisfaction dimensions (CSDs) toward refurbished smartphones. The results indicate that product characteristics, including function, which is related to satisfactory working, appearance, which is the same as no scratches on body and screen, and battery health, are the most worrying feature of refurbished smartphones that consumers have mentioned. Besides, we find that the similarity of these products to brand new ones and their lower prices are the main reason and motivation for purchasing. The results also show that the perceived value of refurbished smartphones is found as a two-dimensional structure based on perceived incentive and quality and perceived benefit and risk. Eventually, some solutions propose to improve customer perceptions and reduce the misconception of refurbishment concept, which can be used by refurbishers and marketing managers for proper product development and marketing strategies.     

从被要求做到主动做：群体卷入模型视角下高参与人力资源实践对员工前瞻行为的影响研究

文章以333名员工和68名主管在两时间点进行的配对调查为样本,基于群体卷入模型的研究视角,探析了高参与人力资源实践与员工前瞻行为之间的关系,对员工感知的高参与人力资源实践如何通过员工组织地位感知促进前瞻行为进行了研究。研究结果表明,员工感知的高参与人力资源实践能够正向预测员工的前瞻行为,而员工组织地位感知在这一关系中起完全中介作用。同时,员工主动性人格会削弱组织地位感知对前瞻行为的正向影响,即相对于高主动性人格的员工,主动性人格较低的员工更易受到由高参与人力资源实践导致的组织地位感知的正向影响,进而更多表现前瞻行为。     

Does social trust always explain the active use of sharing-based programs?: A cross-national comparison of Indian and U.S. rideshare consumers

The global trend of the sharing economy has led consumers to use peer-to-peer systems. However, little is known about the cultural difference in forming trust in the platform entities that is critical for participating in sharing programs. The current study researches how social trust perception affects trust in technology and platform-based trust: trust in providers, other users, and the platform company and whether it varies across cultures. Focusing on Indian and U. S. consumers, we propose that cultural orientation (cultural tightness) impacts trust formation and continuation intention. Specifically, in India, trust in technology is formed regardless of the individual's perceived social trust level, which positively impacts the trust in the platform players. For American consumers, their trust in technology is based on social trust perception, which subsequently leads to the sharing participation. This is the pioneering work to investigate social trust-the use of sharing program relation based on cultural tightness.