Consumer empowerment: global context,UK strategies and vulnerable consumers

Globalization has created new consumer needs and wants, and resulted in consumer confusion regarding the increasing complexity of products and services. This has stimulated global interest in educating and empowering consumers. The UK government has made a very ambitious commitment to ensure that the framework for consumer empowerment and support is at the level of the best in the world by 2008. The government, many consumer organizations and regulators believe that empowered consumers are key to the success of competitive markets. Two national strategies to co‐ordinate activities in the UK have been developed by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the Financial Services Authority (FSA). The OFT consumer education strategy aims to deliver targeted, effective consumer education by increasing co‐ordination and making the best use of available resources. The FSA is leading a financial capability strategy designed to deliver change to improve the UK's financial capability. Both strategies share a vision of educated and confident consumers making informed choices about the products and services they buy, and both aim to empower vulnerable consumers. Given the global interest and the development of national strategies, it is useful to consider what is meant by the term consumer empowerment. Is there a shared view of consumer empowerment internationally? Does the education of consumers result in empowered consumers? To what extent do the national strategies address the empowerment of vulnerable, disadvantaged, excluded or susceptible consumers? These questions will be addressed in this article which reviews the global context for the consumer education and empowerment agenda and considers key UK developments, with particular reference to the needs of vulnerable consumers. The study found that the language of consumer empowerment is gaining prominence in policy and strategy documents at the highest levels internationally in the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Community, and nationally in the UK.     

INTANGIBLE CAPITAL AND U.S. ECONOMIC GROWTH

Published macroeconomic data traditionally exclude most intangible investment from measured GDP. This situation is beginning to change, but our estimates suggest that as much as $800 billion is still excluded from U.S. published data (as of 2003), and that this leads to the exclusion of more than $3 trillion of business intangible capital stock. To assess the importance of this omission, we add intangible capital to the standard sources-of-growth framework used by the BLS, and find that the inclusion of our list of intangible assets makes a significant difference in the observed patterns of U.S. economic growth. The rate of change of output per worker increases more rapidly when intangibles are counted as capital, and capital deepening becomes the unambiguously dominant source of growth in labor productivity. The role of multifactor productivity is correspondingly diminished, and labor's income share is found to have decreased significantly over the last 50 years.     

Expanding opportunities for online shoppers with disabilities

The Internet promises many opportunities for consumers who shop online. While prior studies identify problems with online access for persons with disabilities, research has not examined whether consumers with disabilities shop online similarly to persons who are not disabled. The study attempts to fill this gap in two unique ways. First, this paper specifically considers the frequency of online shopping, the amount spent, and reasons for shopping online among both disabled and non-disabled persons. In addition, the study groups persons with disabilities into six major categories according to disability type rather than aggregating into one general category. Telephone surveys of 1053 persons reveal both differences and similarities that suggest opportunities for improving online access and developing a richer understanding of the online shopping motivations and needs of persons with disabilities.     

Motives for Corporate Philanthropy in El Salvador: Altruism and Political Legitimacy

This paper discusses how Salvadoran companies practice corporate philanthropy in El Salvador, and what might motivate it. First, I briefly discuss three principal theories of corporate philanthropy, and explore some current trends in international corporate philanthropy to highlight some of the motives Salvadoran companies may have to participate in charitable activities. Then, I discuss the history of the Salvadoran private sector to help us understand philanthropic activity today. Next, I suggest that philanthropic acts by Salvadoran firms are driven by altruistic and politically strategic motives, and reflect individualistic and paternalistic attitudes. In the discussion, I include examples of Salvadoran corporate philanthropy as it is practiced today, based on recent field research in El Salvador.     

The last taboo?: surfacing and supporting Emotional Labour in HR work

The emotional challenges Human Resource Professionals (HRPs) face, and the work they do in managing emotion in day to day HR practice, have largely gone unacknowledged and unsupported and yet is arguably HR’s most value-added activity. Through in-depth interviews and diary study, we uncover the emotion handling aspect of HR work. Specifically we explore Emotional Labour (EL) which, despite its centrality to HR work, remains under-researched in the HR context. By asking our participants to recount and reflect on emotive interactions, we examine HRPs’ use of EL in their relational work; how they come to learn the emotion display rules of their role; the strategies they use to cope with such emotional demands and the factors that help/hinder this process. Our contribution is to ‘surface’ emotion in HR work and identify how organisations can prepare HRPs for, and support them in, their emotion handling efforts.     

The case for educated UK consumers: the National Consumer Council's consultation on consumer education

Consumer education is an integral part of the consumer empowerment mix. Over recent years the importance of consumer education as a vital tool for protecting consumers and making them better informed has been increasingly recognized in the UK. As part of the developing policy debate in the UK, the National Consumer Council (NCC), one of the key consumer champion bodies, has been arguing the case for a national strategy for consumer education. In order to establish whether a national strategy was needed and, if so, how a strategy could be structured and introduced, the NCC carried out a national consultation. In excess of 100 responses were obtained from a very broad range of organizations. This paper provides a review of the secondary data gathered for the NCC research. It was found that although there are many organizations and networks involved in consumer education in the UK, it lacks focus, is fragmented and is not efficient or coordinated. The research highlighted a need for a strategic approach to place educated and empowered consumers at the heart of the marketplace.     

The Fourth International Symposium on Intelligent Systems in Accounting,Finance and Management

The Fourth International Symposium on Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management ranks as the oldest, on-going meeting on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in business. The conference spotlights a wide range of issues with both theoretical/practical and behavioral/technological dimensions.     

User voice and complaints as drivers of innovation in public services

User voice and complaints can serve as important inputs to innovation in public services. User knowledge can be harnessed to provide insights and ideas that prompt more effective service responses and add value to service delivery. However, the mechanisms for harnessing user voice and complaints are often not fully understood, and their potential is often underdeveloped. This paper elaborates a conceptual framework which maps the processes by which user voice and complaints might prompt effective public service innovation. Six practical real-world examples are then presented and analysed to illuminate discussion of some critical success factors for consumer-knowledge-enabled innovation.