Religiosity, Attitude Toward Business, and Ethical Beliefs: Hispanic Consumers in the United States

Growth of the Hispanic consumer population in America is changing the marketplace landscape. Due to their considerable buying power, a better understanding of Hispanic consumer behavior has become a necessity. The marketing literature has examined issues regarding religiosity and attitude toward business in regards to consumer ethical beliefs as well as research differentiating consumers on the basis of ethnicity due to their inherently different religious principles. Therefore, the present study contributes to the existing consumer ethics literature by examining the roles of religiosity and attitude toward business in determining consumer ethical beliefs. Furthermore, this study compares the relationships among religiosity, attitude toward business, and ethical beliefs at the sub-cultural level (i.e., between Hispanic and Anglo-American consumers). Survey data compare a sample of 187 predominately Catholic Hispanic consumers with a sample of 127 predominately protestant Anglo consumers. Results suggest a positive relationship between intrinsic religiousness and beliefs that questionable consumer activities are unethical. However, extrinsic religiousness does not impact consumer views as to the ethicality of consumer practices. Hispanics exhibit higher levels of extrinsic religiousness than Anglos, but no difference in terms of their intrinsic religiousness. Results also suggest that Hispanics have a more negative attitude toward business than Anglos do. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Inflation Linkages Within The Eurozone: Core vs. Periphery

We examine the process of inflation transmission among GIIPS countries (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain) and Germany. Our findings suggest that inflation spillovers have increased since 2001. We also find that peripheral economies are (dis‐)inflation transmitters to the core. This finding is significant for policy formulation, given the very low inflation environment that currently exists in the Euro area and the macroeconomic implications that arise from this.     

How product–cause fit and donation quantifier interact in cause-related marketing (CRM) settings: evidence of the cue congruency effect

We are the first to examine the joint impact of product–cause fit and donation quantifier in the cause-related marketing (CRM) domain. We show that these two CRM cues interact in a unique manner, reflecting the cue congruency effect. Specifically, congruent combinations of these two cues result in high purchase intentions when the cues individually have positive effects. In all other cases, however, purchase intentions are low. Furthermore, we identify moderators of the above cue congruency effect. In Study 1, we show that the cue congruency effect is moderated by product-type, evidencing only in more hedonic product contexts. In Study 2, we show that the above cue congruency effect is moderated by purchase-type, evidencing in planned purchase contexts, but reversing in impulse purchase contexts. We discuss the process mechanism driving these effects, specify the contribution of this research for CRM, cue congruency and impulse purchases, and outline implications for practice.     

Social Information “Nudges”: An Experiment with Multiple Group References

Social information “nudges” concerning how others perform typically boost individual performances in experiments with one group reference point. However, in many natural settings, sometimes due to policy, there are several such group reference points. We address the complications that such multiple group social information might introduce through an experiment. The boost to average performance is significant and comparable to the one group case. Between‐group inequality does not change. Individual inequality falls, however, because the boost is largest among the pre‐“nudge” very poor performers. Finally, the boost to average performance is highest when individuals freely choose their group affiliations.     

Joint Optimization of Product Price, Display Orientation and Shelf-Space Allocation in Retail Category Management

We develop a model that jointly optimizes a retailer's decisions for product prices, display facing areas, display orientations and shelf-space locations in a product category. Unlike the existing shelf-space allocation models that typically consider only the width of display shelves, our model considers both the width and height of each shelf, allowing products to be stacked. Furthermore, as demand is influenced by each product's two-dimensional facing area, we consider multiple product orientations that capture three-dimensional product packaging characteristics. That enables our model to not only treat shelf locations as decision variables, but also retailers’ stacking patterns in terms of product display areas and multiple display orientations. Further, unlike the existing studies which consider a retailer's shelf-space allocation decisions independent of its product pricing decisions, our model allows joint decisions on both and captures cross-product interactions in demand through prices. We show how a branch-and-bound based MINLP algorithm can be used to implement our optimization model in a fast and practical way.     

Bayesian model averaging and identification of structural breaks in time series

Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) is used for testing for multiple break points in univariate series using conjugate normal-gamma priors. This approach can test for the number of structural breaks and produce posterior probabilities for a break at each point in time. Results are averaged over specifications including: stationary; stationary around trend and unit root models, each containing different types and number of breaks and different lag lengths. The procedures are used to test for structural breaks on 14 annual macroeconomic series and 11 natural resource price series. The results indicate that there are structural breaks in all of the natural resource series and most of the macroeconomic series. Many of the series had multiple breaks. Our findings regarding the existence of unit roots, having allowed for structural breaks in the data, are largely consistent with previous work.     

The role of attributions in consumer perceptions of retail advertisements promoting price discounts

This study examines whether information in an advertisement promoting a price discount is capable of affecting attributions made about the price reduction and whether these attributions, in turn, affect consumer perceptions and evaluations of the sale. Findings show that price image of the retail advertiser had a strong effect on attributions pertaining to the merchant and a marginal effect on product attributions. The attribution variables, in turn, explained significant amounts of variance in criterion variables measuring consumer perceptions of value, attitude toward the ad, and shopping intentions, beyond the variance explained by the store and discount claim variables manipulated in the study. These results suggest the importance of the role of attributions made by consumers when exposed to ads promoting discounts.     

Differences between workstations and keypad group support systems: Implications for keypad GSS facilitators

Organizations are successfully using group support systems (GSS) to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction in organizational meetings. Meeting success relies on making an appropriate match between group, taks, and technology. This responsibility often falls to the meeting facilitator. This article draws upon GSS and facilitation literature to develop a framework for the discussion of effective facilitation in workstation and keypad meeting environments. The article identifies differences between the systems and how they impact upon the behavior of the meeting facilitators and their choice of technology. Compensatory actions are proposed for keypad facilitators to address the lack of key workstation features. Keypad strengths are also identified to show the opportunities available to facilitators to maximize the benefits of using these GSS. Further, it is proposed that different types of GSS are not mutually exclusive and should be seen as complementary components of a suite of GSS tools designed to support organizational goals.