Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Corporate Social Responsibility (Csr): An Examination Of Consumer Awareness, Evaluation And Purchase Action, Alan A. Pomering

Alan Pomering

Despite marketplace polls reporting heightened consumer interest in and support for companies acting in socially-responsible ways, there remains to date little evidence of such consumer support translating into general purchase behaviour. There is a gap in our knowledge regarding which particular socially-responsible behaviours are likely to prove most influential with consumers and be rewarded with supportive purchase behaviour, and how awareness of firms’ commitments to these behaviours is to be brought to consumers’ attention. It appears from the marketplace success of some socially-responsible, or ‘ethical’ brands, such as The Body Shop and recently launched clothing brands such as American Apparel …

Consumer Preferences For Online And Offline Resources In The Process Of Buying A High Involvement Service Bundle: A Qualitative Exploration, Robert G. Grant

Robert Grant

Adding online resources to a promotional mix adds a new level of complexity to marketing communications. The challenge for marketers is to retain a focus on value delivery which requires understanding both main effects and interactions between communication and promotional methods. This paper reports a qualitative study preceding a non-discrete choice experiment simulation to research information source effects at different stages of the buying process for different service types.

Determination Of Consumer Context In An Online Transaction Process For A High Risk Purchase, Robert G. Grant, Rodney J. Clarke, Elias Kyriazis

Robert Grant

This paper showcases/discusses a method of analyzing consumer website behavior that enables real-time purchase context identification. Such analysis will enable online vendors to serve content that is relevant to the consumer’s needs, addressing the apparent utility deficit that websites have for complex product transactions. The use of communication theory is a key component of a value co-creation process that leverages the data derived from website interactivity by analyzing the meaning of consumer activity on a website. Such an approach offers insights into the effect of information accessed by consumers in real time, enabling a responsive system for serving information in …

Relative Values And Complementarity Of Online And Offline Interactions In Consumer Buying Behaviour: A Proposed Research Plan To Study Purchasing Of A Consumer Service Product Bundle, Robert G. Grant

Robert Grant

Current research into online consumer behaviour seems to be limited in two respects, firstly it treats online interaction as a stand-alone phenomenon and secondly it focuses on discrete steps in consumer processes, neglecting links between the steps. This paper proposes a research method to investigate relative values and complementarity between online and offline interactions in a consumer's buying process, examining differences within and between steps. A range of information source types and functional resource options will be researched for both effectiveness and efficiency benefits as well as emotional preferences for both online and offline interactions. The research will focus on …

Perceived Firm Transparency: Scale And Model Development, Jennifer Dapko

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the last few years alone, calls for transparency by consumers have grown louder. No longer are consumers willing to sit back and allow firms to make `closed door' decisions that benefit the company (and its executives) at the expense of consumers and society. This dissertation begins to answer the call for a greater understanding of transparency from both practitioner and academic perspectives. In particular, this dissertation focuses on systematically developing a succinct definition of perceived firm transparency, developing a valid measure of transparency, and empirically testing antecedents and consequences of transparency.

Two studies were conducted to develop the transparency …

Keynote Address: Cognitive, Emotional, And Hard-Core Behaviourism As Theoretical Paradigms For Consumer Behaviour, John R. Rossiter

John Rossiter

When Paula asked me to be the keynote speaker at this conference, I naturally wanted to pick a big, important topic that was relevant to consumer researchers, you, the audience. I am working on three big topics at the moment, between editions of the Rossiter and Percy textbook. One topic is marketing knowledgewhat it is and how we can test it. I have a large ARC grant for that one. A second topic is a new procedure for the measurement of marketing constructs-a replacement for the narrow Churchill procedure that everyone seems to follow. Some of you have seen working …

Consumer Xenocentrism And Consumer Cosmopolitanism: The De-Velopment And Validation Of Scales Of Constructs Influencing Attitudes Towards Foreign Product Consumption, Steven James Lawrence

Wayne State University Dissertations

Like many other attributes, consumers exhibit varying degrees of preference with regard to foreign and domestic products. Some consumers have preferences for domestic products while other, seemingly similar, consumers prefer the foreign counterpart. Product quality differences aside, we aim to investigate the attitudinal constructs behind the varying preferences among consumers as they relate to foreign and domestic products.

The author created two new scales for the measurement of the consumer xenocentrism and consumer cosmopolitanism constructs. The consumer xenocentrism scale is intended to measure consumers' favorable orientations to products from outside their membership group. The consumer cosmopolitanism scale is designed to …