Challenging Confucius: Western banks in the Chinese credit card market

China has commanded a great deal of interest from virtually all U.S. business sectors. The Chinese credit card market is now particularly intriguing for Western banks. This article examines the strategic minefield that Western banks must navigate as they attempt to compete in the Chinese credit card industry. As an example, Bank of America (BOA)—fresh from purchasing a 9% interest in China Construction Bank (CCB) a few years ago—is now contemplating a joint venture with CCB. The new company will be tasked with leading the Chinese credit card market. Specifically, two questions are addressed: (1) whether the Chinese banking market is a sound option at this time; and (2) whether China affords an optimal environment for credit. The analysis yields several strategic lessons, and encourages caution on the part of Western bank executives as they enter the Chinese market. In particular, BOA officials must appreciate the timing of their joint venture's evolution. Additionally, BOA officials should strongly consider financial ventures other than credit, as Chinese culture should prove particularly resistant to serving as a profitable customer base in the short- and middle-timeframes.     

Union authorization card signatures and union certification election vote

One stage of the union organizing process involves the legal requirement that at least 30% of the employees in a potential bargaining unit express a desire for union representation by signing union authorization cards. Beyond the necessary legal requirement, do the data generated by card signing provide a potentially valuable source of information that may be useful to the union organizer in formulating campaign tactics? In addition, do authorization cards provide a sufficiently valid basis for establishing bargaining unit recognition as is the case in Canada? In order to explore these possibilities, the relationship between card signing behavior and certification vote in six union representation elections is examined. Although card signing and vote for certification are significantly related, overall results indicate that relying on union authorization card data as an indicator of vote at the individual level is questionable.     

Encouraging Charitable Donations via Charity Gift Cards: A Self-Determination Theoretical Account

Charities seeking to increase donations are now offering charity gift cards (CGCs), which allow recipients to select how their gift card is allocated across various charitable projects. Supporting a model derived from self-determination theory, an experiment shows that U.S. consumers are more satisfied and more likely to donate to the card-sponsoring charity after using a CGC than after learning a donation has been made in their name, because CGCs enhance consumers’ felt autonomy, competence, and relationship with the charity and its projects, which predict a more charitable self-concept and satisfaction with the gift. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Gift Giving: An Exploratory Behavioural Study

The purpose of this research is to contribute to the marketing literature through an exploratory review of gift giving behaviour as it pertains to cultural and other demographical variables. Following Mathur's (1996, Psychology & Marketing, 13(1), 107–123) recommendation that future research into gift giving might examine differences among different subgroups in the population, this study closely examined gender differences to identify variables that matter most for female and male gift givers/receivers. Results indicate that 80.7% of respondents had bought a gift within the previous 6 months, mostly for personal reasons (95.4%), which included occasions such as birthdays (64.9%), anniversaries (11.2%), achievement celebrations (10.3%), Father's/Mother's Day (5.0%) and Christmas (1.7%). About 50% of respondents spent between A$10 and A$30 per gift purchase. The results are discussed. Following a comprehensive review of the available literature, the authors set out to formulate a research instrument that would explore respondents' gift giving-related behaviour in terms of the occasion for gift exchange, the relationship between giver and receiver and the range of values that may come into play when engaging in gift giving transactions. Three hundred questionnaires from students at a major Western Australian university were the bases of this report. Of these, 80% reported purchasing a gift in the past 6 months mainly for a family member as a birthday gift, spending A$44 on average. The results revealed that women have a higher perception of gift giving as a valuable opportunity to state relational bonds compared with men. The results also suggested that individuals find it easier to purchase a gift for someone of their same gender, as opposed to someone of the opposite sex. Overall, students from Asia seemed to have a statistically significant difference from Australians and those born elsewhere with respect to their perception of a gift's cost-value, the reciprocity principle and re-gifting practices. This research focused on individuals who frequented a major Western Australian university, thus influencing the age range of the respondents. Future research is encouraged in order to incorporate a greater number of responses and variability in the sample that could allow for an analysis of individuals' opinions about gift giving activities as they relate to their generation. The findings suggest the need to give greater attention to cohort analysis of gift giving behaviour. Matters such as the nature of the relationship between the giver and the recipient, the occasion and the recipient's gender were of primary importance when selecting a gift. This finding may assist marketers' targeting efforts by clarifying what factors consumers tend to consider when purchasing a present. Gender implications also revealed the need to assist individuals in identifying what constitutes an “ideal” gift for a woman or a man. Finally, those residing in Australia tended to find it more difficult to purchase gifts for women than those who reside in Asian countries. This suggests the need to explore acculturation and culture shock notions when it comes to gift giving behaviour. This research incorporated in an exploratory nature those aspects that seemed of greater interest for academics and practitioners, such as gift giving occasion, behaviour, values, and demographical variables such as country of birth and country of residence.     

Tourism and the changing photographic image of the great lakes Indians

Photography has been an indispensable component of tourism in Western cultures. Whether taken by tourists or by commercial photographers, pictures constitute an important window through which tourist ideology can be analyzed. Drawing on a sample of over 600 post cards issued between 1900 and 1970, this study traces the emergence and widespread adoption of Plains Indian imagery in pictures of Great Lakes Indians. The analysis focuses on some of the ways in which photography and tourism have articulated in reinforcing as well as advancing a stereotyped image of the Indian in the western Great Lakes.     

Anti-shopping tourism: a new concept in the field of consumption

In this article, based on qualitative research in Hungary, we propose a new phrase for the field of tourist consumption. Our notion ‘anti-shopping tourism’ refers to the resistant attitude towards consumption and spending money during shopping-related tours. The research discussed in the paper analyses participants’ motivations, attitudes and behaviour on one-day coach trips that include various programmes, for example, sightseeing, lunch, spa visits and even a range of gifts, for a very low price, in exchange for participation in a professional sales show during the trip. Our main goal is to explain and, from an economic and anthropological point of view, conceptualise this form of tourist attitude, and to show how this unique way of travel may be situated in a certain historical setting in Hungary, more than two decades after the collapse of the socialist regime. In order to understand how the participating individuals negotiated this unique form of travel that exists in a grey zone of the institutionalised travel industry, notions such as debt, sacrifice, resistance, gift, seduction and informal contract are discussed and connected to the phenomenon.     

A Study on Ethically Problematic Selling Methods in China with a Broaden Concept of Gray-marketing

This paper expands the definition of gray-marketing to include some ethically problematic marketing activities and techniques used in personal selling in China. Based on this, a conceptual model of gray-marketing for a particular type of selling in which both the sellers and the buyers exhibit problematic ethics in an exchange and the associated hypotheses are developed and tested. The findings show that, first, the respondents have different ethical evaluations of different marketing practices used in personal selling such as giving and accepting gifts, buying and accepting meals, and offering and accepting kickbacks. Some of these practices may not be considered unethical. Second, in terms of ethical assessment, gray-marketing practiced by buying agents is more unacceptable than when practiced by sales agents. Third, a person’s ethical evaluation of gray-marketing behavior, empathy for gray-marketing, and belief that gray-marketing has serious consequences, significantly affects his inclination to use gray-marketing. This paper concludes with a discussion of some possible applications of our research findings. Both authors contributed equally to this work. Guijun Zhuang (Ph.D., City University of Hong Kong) is a professor of marketing in the School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, the People’s Republic of China. His current research interests include marketing channel behaviors, relationship marketing, and consumer choice. He has published in European Journal of Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, and many leading marketing and management journals in China. Alex S.L. Tsang (Ph.D., City University of Hong Kong) is an assistant professor at the Department of Marketing, Hong Kong Baptist University. His research currently focuses on cross-cultural consumer behavior, marketing in China, and marketing communication. He has published in Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing, and Business Horizons, among others.     

信用卡发展中的问题与对策思考

信用卡作为现代社会一种先进的金融结算工具,从它诞生之日起就给人们带来便捷。信用卡在我国经过二十多年的发展,已被广大群众所接受。但信用卡发展中存在的问题也日益显露,主要表现为:商业银行盲目追求信用卡的发行规模,存在套现和诈骗现象,信用卡的不良贷款率上升,睡眠卡比例过高等。对此,政府有关部门应加大对信用卡产业的扶持,推动个人征信体系的完善,商业银行应该加强自身建设,强化内部风险管理,为信用卡产业健康、稳定地发展创造良好的内外部环境,并使之成为我国商业银行一个新的利润增长点。     

A replication study of the credit card effect on spending behavior and an extension to mobile payments

Prior research has shown that credit cards increase spending behavior as measured by the willingness to pay (WTP) or basket value. This research aims to replicate the credit card effect and to extend this effect to mobile payments. In four empirical studies, of which three online studies and one lab study (total n = 692), we manipulated payment methods (i.e., cash, credit cards, and mobile payments) and measured spending behavior (i.e., WTP and basket value). Across four studies, we did not replicate the credit card effect on either measure of spending behavior, suggesting the effect in the literature may be inflated or may have been fading away. A meta-analysis of the relevant literature revealed the expected credit card effect but also showed that the credit card effect has become weaker through the years and that this effect is contingent on the location of data collection. We also did not find evidence that the credit card effect extends to mobile payments on either measure of spending behavior in the three online studies. However, we found a significant difference between mobile payments and cash on the basket value measure (but not for the WTP measure) in the lab study. This paper also explored whether the pain of payment or payment convenience may be a mechanism underlying the relationship between payment methods and spending behavior. Although the pain of payment tended to be lower and the payment convenience tended to be higher for mobile payments, these effects did not translate into more spending behaviors.     

Minimum payments and debt paydown in consumer credit cards

Using a data set covering one quarter of the U.S. general-purpose credit card market, we document that 29% of accounts regularly make payments at or near the minimum payment. To explain the prevalence of low payment amounts, we exploit changes in issuers’ minimum payment formulas to quantify the explanatory power of two potential theories: liquidity constraints and anchoring. At least 22% of near-minimum payers (and 9% of all accounts) respond to the formula changes in a manner consistent with anchoring as opposed to liquidity constraints alone. Our results show that anchoring to a salient contractual term has a significant impact on household repayment decisions.