Determinants of consumer demand for circular economy products. A case for reuse and remanufacturing for sustainable development

We investigate determinants of consumer demand for circular (reused and remanufactured) products. Based on exploratory choice-based conjoint experiments with a sample of 800 adults in the United Kingdom, we examine two types of premium segment electronic appliances: a mobile phone and a robot vacuum cleaner. We find that consumers prefer partly circulated products over fully or not at all circulated products and that circular products can likely successfully enter the existing market at the retail price of a new product. Interestingly, circular products compete for market share primarily with new products, leaving the market share of second-hand options less affected. The results show a promising path for firms considering a transition to circular business models.     

Remanufacturing for the Circular Economy: An Examination of Consumer Switching Behavior

For the circular economy to be tenable, consumers need to not only return products after use, but also purchase products that are remanufactured. However, research finds that consumers have a poor opinion of remanufactured products and are typically not prepared to adopt them. Thus, development of the circular economy is dependent upon deeper understanding of consumers’ attitudes and behaviors. Research typically considers either micro‐level or macro‐level factors when assessing consumer perceptions of remanufactured products. The current research incorporates macro‐level factors of price, government incentives and environmental benefits with the moderating influence of micro‐level consumer attitudes to examine consumers’ intention to switch from purchasing new products to remanufactured products. The findings suggest that a consumer's attitude toward remanufactured products is an important moderating factor predicting consumer switching behavior to remanufactured products. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior: Use of Local Language for Market Communication—A Study in Region Friuli Venetia Giulia (Italy)

Cross-cultural consumer behavior is of market interest due to globalization of marketplaces, migration, multicultural marketplaces, and diffusion in the EU of many languages. The objective of this study is to check whether the local language used in a marketing communication could affect the consumers’ preferences for food products. The theoretical foundation is the consumer motivational approach that goes deeper into motivations interfering with the consumers’ preference order. The multivariate conjoint analysis is used to evaluate the preferences for attributes described in different languages. A number of students from the University of Udine (located in the northeastern part of Italy) have been submitted to interviews to examine their preferences for a simulated sandwich package reporting information in different languages, distributed by vendor machine. The results suggest that the consumer’s reaction to local language depends on sociodemographic profile, cultural background, language knowledge, and family education, and the local language could actually be used as a market tool for market segmentation. These results are of interest to many EU countries with bilingual communities such as Spain, Belgium, the UK, Switzerland, and most of the Italian regions where local languages are still alive.     

Flagship stores for FMCG national brands: Do they improve brand cognitions and create favorable consumer reactions?

National brands have begun to engage in direct distribution, displaying the brand in its own biotope. Such operation of flagship stores is one means of forward verticalization. From samples of visitors to two flagship stores of fast-moving consumer goods brands, this study analyzes the effects of the flagship store visit on brand experience, brand equity, brand attachment, and loyalty. In the low-involvement FMCG context, flagship stores are useful for reinforcing brand experience. However, flagship store-fueled brand experience does not necessarily lead to favorable consumer reactions; its effect on future purchases is mediated by both brand equity and brand attachment.     

Investigating the Drivers of Consumer Acceptance and Response of SMS Advertising

This study tests five potential drivers underlying the acceptance of SMS advertising. After developing a scale to measure behavioral responses to SMS advertising, the relationships between the acceptance of SMS advertising, intention to receive SMS advertising and behavioral responses to SMS advertising are tested. A convenience sampling method was employed. Survey questionnaires were distributed across Western Australia. The return yielded 203 usable questionnaires from the respondents. Several factors emerge as significant drivers of acceptance of SMS advertising including utility of SMS advertisements, context of SMS advertisements and attitudes to advertising in general. Contrary to expectation, control over SMS advertisements did not emerge as a significant driver for acceptance of SMS advertising. Trust in advertisers and laws did not emerge as a significant driver of the acceptance of SMS advertising among Australian respondents. Advertisers who pursue consumer acceptance should strive to build utility and context considerations into their SMS campaigns. Future research opportunities include testing the drivers of SMS advertising to further investigate the impact of control and trust on acceptance of SMS advertising in other countries where the SMS advertising has not been explored yet.     

Do movie contents influence box-office revenues?

This article studies the determinants of box-office revenues in the motion picture industry. We first adopt an approach that takes into account quality signals (e.g. talent concentration, movie budget and Oscar awards, among others) to analyse the empirical relationship between category-specific parenthood ratings (R-ratings) and box-office revenues. Then, by matching movie contents with economic performance records, our original approach reveals that offensive contents like profanity or nudity may be a hindrance to achieve economic returns, while violent contents seems to enhance box-office revenues. Further research is needed to clarify the interaction in this regard between production budget and movie contents.     

Contrasting Developments in UK Energy Regulation: Retail Policy and Consumer Engagement

This article explores the role of regulation as a supporting institution for an energy market. Two aspects are examined: first, the role of regulation in promoting a competitive market for the retail supply of energy, and second, the role of regulation in providing access to the transmission and distribution networks, assumed to be monopolies, that provide services for the retail suppliers. UK regulation promoted retail energy competition until 2008, but in that year changed direction, and since then has been restricting retail competition. In contrast, UK regulation since 2008 has encouraged more customer engagement in the network part of the energy sector. This offers the prospect, at least, of the emergence of a form of competition and choice in the process of setting price controls.     

Relevance,responsibility, critical performativity,testimony and positive marketing: contributing to marketing theory,thought and practice

In this commentary, I chart recent changes at the Journal of Marketing Management (JMM). These include the introduction of a senior editorial board, a revised main editorial board and a modified team of associate editors. The new deputy editor is welcomed. The exemplary performance of the JMM in scholarly league-tables is registered. From this, a case is made for the pluralisation of the concepts of relevance and impact. In doing so, the emergent literature on critical performativity is unpacked. I highlight a missed opportunity in this material, namely, the potential for academics to act as critical commentators on industry practice in the courtroom. Developing the ideas associated with critical performativity leads to the scrutiny of new concepts in marketing. One of importance is positive marketing. This regressive manoeuver is critiqued; as is macromarketing narcissism. Following Dunne et al., I make a plea for more responsible academic practice. Developing logically from these ideas, a number of new potential avenues for contributing to the JMM are sketched. These include special sections and research notes among others.     

“互联网+”与消费品制造企业转型——基于架构创新的视角

通过研究架构理论,分析了消费品制造企业在"互联网+"背景下的架构创新。提出变换外围要素、核心要素相同的二阶中性置换可以形成两种不同的消费品制造企业架构创新模式。经过改进的双层技术接受模型检验,两种模式的结果殊途同归,预测两种模式结合的双层架构创新模式会成为未来新型消费品制造企业架构创新的主流。     

Factors affecting donations in U.S. retail stores: A conceptual framework

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that influence consumer donations in U.S. retail stores. The study provides a conceptual framework of factors derived from the cause-related marketing, consumer behavior and psychology literatures. These factors are categorized as consumer-related factors, retailer-related factors and context-related factors. Consumer-related factors include consumer-retailer identification, consumer-cause affinity, impure altruism, civic engagement and post-purchase cognitive dissonance. Retailer-related factors consist of retailer-cause fit, retailer's commitment to the cause, retailer image as being altruistic, and retailer credibility. Context-related factors include time pressure, social pressure, shopping amount, and perceived savings during the shopping trip. This conceptual framework serves as a foundation for future empirical studies.