Townhouse residents’ use of interior products in the social zones of their homes as a demonstration of their need for uniqueness

Town houses or cluster homes refer to housing developments where the exterior façade of adjacent units are architecturally identical or very similar. A pertinent disadvantage of this type of tenure is that residents are not allowed to alter the exterior of their homes to reflect personal differences. This study focussed on the probability that residents in these type of townhouses would make intentional effort to demonstrate their uniqueness through counter‐conforming choice of interior objects for the social areas of their homes where guests are received and entertained. The study involved 182 respondents who lived in townhouses in a major urban area in South Africa who were recruited through convenient snowball sampling. Findings indicate that townhouse residents' interior product decisions are predominantly of a creative counter conformity nature which is the safer alternative than avoidance of similarity or unpopular choice counter‐conformity practices that might evoke criticism from peers or reference groups. Interior product choices are therefore predominantly cautious and aimed to evoke the admiration of others rather than critique. A positive outcome of this study in terms of future research is confirmation of the usefulness of the measuring instrument, which was originally developed for clothing research. Findings are insightful for property developers, interior designers, interior decorators and retailers in terms of consumer facilitation and the appropriate marketing of interior products.     

A Complete Characterization of Efficient Liability Rules: Comment

In a recent article, Jain and Singh (2002) prove that a condition they call negligence liability is necessary and sufficient for any liability rule to be efficient. In this note I criticize their result on two accounts: First, their result crucially depends on implicit restrictions they impose on the liability assignment function. If we drop the assumption that the liability apportionment between two non-negligent parties is constant for all combinations of non-negligent care levels, the equivalence between the condition of negligence liability and the efficiency of liability rules breaks down. Second, their attempt to drop the assumption of uniqueness for the social optimum improves the generality of the model at a substantial cost, since it must be accompanied by a new assumption that is possibly even more unrealistic. The importance of the uniqueness assumption is shown in a simple discrete care model, in which comparative negligence may lead to an inefficient outcome when the existence of two social optima leads us to interpret due care as a varying standard based on the other partys actual choice.     

Disclosure protection of microdata: problems and solutions

National statistical offices meet an increasing demand for the dissemination of data sets containing individual data on respondents. This trend may cause problems with respect to the care taken not to disclose data about individuals. Therefore the risk of disclosure of each microdata set to be released should be assessed. If this risk is too high, measures have to be taken to protect the data set. This contribution describes the disclosure problem, and explains why it is a real problem. Using the concept of uniqueness, some theory is developed which may help to establish the risk of identification. It turns out that useful microdata sets can only be released if some of the disclosure risks are dealt with by legal arrangements, rather than by restrictions on the data to be released.     

The role of innovation,entrepreneurial self-efficacy and local uniqueness on marketing performance in small and medium-sized restaurants

ABSTRACT

The growth of the food service business in Indonesia cannot be optimized by small and medium restaurants due to a lack of innovation and entrepreneurial skill. This present study combines marketing and entrepreneurship literature and explores the link among innovation, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and marketing performance. Using a purposive sampling methodology, data were collected from 124 respondents of small and medium-sized restaurants in Bogor city, Indonesia. This study used Structural Equation Modeling to analyze the influences of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, innovation and local uniqueness on marketing performance. The findings indicate that innovation activity has a direct significant influence on marketing performance. This study also indicates that entrepreneurial self-efficacy positively influences marketing performance reflected by increasing sales, profits and number of customers. In addition, local uniqueness, which is an intermediary variable, is not affected by innovation activities and does not directly affect marketing performance. Even though this study supports most hypotheses, two out of six were not. As such, the results of this study provide important practical insights as well as interesting contributions to the theoretical advancements in entrepreneurship and marketing especially in the setting of small and medium-sized restaurants.     

Warmth or competence: Brand anthropomorphism,social exclusion,and advertisement effectiveness

This paper examines how social exclusion moderates the role of brand anthropomorphism in advertisement effectiveness, its underlying mechanism, and its boundary conditions. Specifically, we propose that rejected (vs. ignored) consumers are more likely to purchase brands advertised as warm (vs. competent) through decreased (vs. increased) need for uniqueness. Additionally, product type moderates the effect of brand anthropomorphism, such that rejected (vs. ignored) consumers prefer warm (vs. competent) brands only for products with high safety levels; for less safe products, consumers tend to purchase competent brands, regardless of the state of their social exclusion. We empirically test this hypothesis across four studies that use different operationalizations of social exclusion. We conclude by discussing our contributions to the literature on brand anthropomorphism and social exclusion.     

Thinking outside the bottle: Effects of alternative wine packaging

Packaging communicates intrinsic product attributes to consumers, which can influence consumer response and decision-making; however, little is known about the impact of non-traditional packaging formats. The current research aims to bridge this gap. Across five studies, we demonstrate that non-traditional packaging negatively influenced purchase intention of a complex product, wine, through product appeal and taste perceptions (Study 1A)/expectations (Studies 1B–4). We also demonstrate that the consumer response to non-traditional packaging is a function of individual differences (desire for unique products) and label attributes (eco-friendly labels).     

Short and sweet: Effects of pop-up stores’ ephemerality on store sales

Responding to increasing demand for ephemeral and experiential consumption, pop-up stores have developed into a preferred retail concept. By considering the juxtaposition of pop-ups’ non-sales focus and recent research finding experiential stores generating immediate store purchase, two experiments test how and when pop-ups’ distinguishing feature, ephemerality, affects purchases. We integrate commodity and regret theory to propose that store ephemerality boosts purchase of standard products for low-need-for-uniqueness (NFU) consumers as well as exclusive product purchases for high-NFU consumers. The implications for academic researchers and retail managers are discussed.