Search results for: consumer reference

Authors: Abdülcelil Mücahid Zengin, Göksel Şimşek

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Mobile phones are one of the direct marketing tools that can be used to reach todays hard to reach consumers. Mobile phones are very personal devices and they are always carried with the consumer, where ever they go. This creates an opportunity for marketers to create personalized marketing communications messages and send them on the right time and place. This study examines consumer attitudes toward mobile marketing, especially toward SMS marketing. Unlike similar studies, this study does not focus on the young, but includes consumers who are in the 18-70 age range to the field research. According to the results, it has been concluded that most participants think SMS marketing is disturbing. Most important problems with SMS marketing are about getting subscribed to message lists without the permission of the receiver; the high number of messages sent; and the irrelevancy of the message content.

Keywords: direct marketing, mobile phones mobile marketing, sms advertising, sms marketing

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Authors: Ibrahim Ali, Adamu Danlami Ahmed

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This study examines the impact of depreciation on taxable income and financial performance of consumer goods companies quoted on the Nigerian stock exchange. The study adopts ex-post factor research design. Data were collected using a secondary source. The findings of the study suggest that, method of depreciation adopted in any organization influence the taxable profit. Depreciation techniques can either be: depressive, accelerative and linear depreciation. It was also recommended that consumer goods should adjust their method of depreciation to make sure an appropriate method is adopted. This will go a long way to revitalize their taxable profit.

Keywords: accelerated, linear, depressive, depreciation

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Authors: Abdelkader Merah, Kada Hartani

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A reference model based control approach for improving behavior following car is proposed in this paper. The reference model is nonlinear and provides dynamic solutions consistent with safety constraints and comfort specifications. a robust fuzzy logic based control strategy is further proposed in this paper. A set of simulation results showing the suitability of the proposed technique for various demanding cenarios is also included in this paper.

Keywords: reference model, longitudinal control, fuzzy logic, design of car

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Authors: John Akinwumi Makinde

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Nigerian manufacturing industry, particularly the fast moving consumer producing firms play vital roles in Nigerian economy. This sector’s product acceptability is given very little attention along with social media advertising that communicate product information to audience across the globe need to be documented. Procter and Gamble Plc operate in Nigeria with appreciable number of fast moving consumer goods that service Nigerian economy. Social media advertising disposition of the company and product acceptability of the company deserve some elucidations. This study therefore examined the impact of social media advertising on product acceptability of FMCG in Nigerian manufacturing industry, using Procter and Gamble Plc as case study. The study employed the case study type of descriptive survey research design. The population consisted of 235 customers of G&P Plc, which were selected through random sampling method. A total of 235 copies of questionnaires titled 'Social Media Advertising and Product Acceptability (SMA-PA) Questionnaire' was administered and retrieved. Data generated were analysed using frequency distribution and regression analysis at 0.05 level. It was found that social media advertising positively and significantly motivated customers to buy product of P&G Plc (r =.147**, N= 235, p(.000) < .01). Findings also showed that social media advertising has significant impact on product acceptability of FCMG in P&G Plc (F(2,61)=22.250; R2=.629; P(.000) < .05). The study concluded that social media advertising is a determinant factor of consumer decision to accept fast moving consumer goods in Nigerian manufacturing industry. It is recommended that with the growing market of FMCG, there is need to educate the market with the product unique features, standard and quality on social media. Finally, Fast Moving Consumer Goods firms should deploy excellent marketing mix on social media.

Keywords: advertising, fast moving consumer goods, manufacturing industry, product acceptability, social media

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Authors: Sandhya Armoogum

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In distributed systems and in open systems such as the Internet, often mobile code has to run on unknown and potentially hostile hosts. Mobile code such as a mobile agent is vulnerable when executing on remote hosts. The mobile agent may be subjected to various attacks such as tampering, inspection, and replay attack by a malicious host. Much research has been done to provide solutions for various security problems, such as authentication of mobile agent and hosts, integrity and confidentiality of the data carried by the mobile agent. Many of such proposed solutions in literature are not suitable for open systems whereby the mobile code arrives and executes on a host which is not known and trusted by the mobile agent owner. In this paper, we propose the adoption of the reference monitor by hosts in an open system for providing trust and security for mobile code execution. A secure protocol for the distribution of the reference monitor entity is described. This reference monitor entity on the remote host may also provide several security services such as authentication and integrity to the mobile code.

Keywords: security, mobile agents, reference monitor, trust

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Authors: Madeline W. Miller

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The global textile industry produces pollutants in the form of liquid discharge, solid waste, and emissions into the natural environment. Textile waste resulting from garment production and other manufacturing processes makes a significant contribution to the amount of waste landfilled globally. While the majority of curbside and other convenient recycling methods cater to post-consumer paper and plastics, pre-consumer textile waste is often discarded with trash and is commonly classified as ‘other’ in municipal solid waste breakdowns. On a larger scale, many clothing manufacturers and other companies utilizing textiles have not yet identified or began using the most sustainable methods for discarding their post-industrial, pre-consumer waste. To lessen the amount of waste sent to landfills, there are post-industrial, pre-consumer textile waste recycling methods that can be used to give textiles a new life. This process requires that textile and garment manufacturers redirect their waste to companies that use industrial machinery to shred or fiberize these materials in preparation for their second life. The goal of this literature review is to identify the recycling and reuse challenges faced by producers within the clothing and textile industry that prevent these companies from utilizing the described recycling methods, causing them to opt for landfill. The literature analyzed in this review reflects manufacturer sentiments toward waste disposal and recycling. The results of this review indicate that the cost of logistics is the determining factor when it comes to companies recycling their pre-consumer textile waste and that the most applicable and successful textile waste recycling methods require a company separate from the manufacturer to account for waste production, provide receptacles for waste, arrange waste transport, and identify a secondary use for the material at a price-point below that of traditional waste disposal service.

Keywords: leadership demographics, post-industrial textile waste, pre-consumer textile waste, industrial shoddy

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Authors: Jacolien Barnard, Corlia Van Heerden

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Effective and accessible consensual dispute resolution and in particular alternative dispute resolution, are central to consumer protection legislation. In this regard, the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (CPA) of South Africa is no exception. Due to the nature of consumer disputes, alternative dispute resolution (in theory) is an effective vehicle for the adjudication of disputes in a timely manner avoiding overburdening of the courts. The CPA sets down as one of its core purposes the provision of ‘an accessible, consistent, harmonized, effective and efficient system of redress for consumers’ (section 3(1)(h) of the CPA). Section 69 of the Act provides for the enforcement of consumer rights and provides for the National Consumer Commission to be the Central Authority which streamlines, adjudicates and channels disputes to the appropriate forums which include Alternative Dispute Resolution Agents (ADR-agents). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the regulation of these enforcement and redress mechanisms with particular focus on the Central Authority as well as the ADR-agents and their crucial role in successful and efficient adjudication of disputes in South Africa. The South African position will be discussed comparatively with the European Union (EU) position. In this regard, the European Union (EU) Directive on Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Disputes (2013/11/EU) will be discussed (The ADR Directive). The aim of the ADR Directive is to solve contractual disputes between consumers and traders (suppliers or businesses) regardless of whether the agreement was concluded offline or online or whether or not the trader is situated in another member state (Recitals 4-6). The ADR Directive provides for a set of quality requirements that an ADR body or entity tasked with resolving consumer disputes should adhere to in member states which include regulatory mechanisms for control. Transparency, effectiveness, fairness, liberty and legality are all requirements for a successful ADR body and discussed within this chapter III of the Directive. Chapters III and IV govern the importance of information and co-operation. This includes information between ADR bodies and the European Commission (EC) but also between ADR bodies or entities and national authorities enforcing legal acts on consumer protection and traders. (In South Africa the National Consumer Tribunal, Provincial Consumer Protectors and Industry ombuds come to mind). All of which have a responsibility to keep consumers informed. Ultimately the papers aims to provide recommendations as to the successfulness of the current South African position in light of the comparative position in Europe and the highlight the importance of proper regulation of these redress and enforcement institutions.

Keywords: alternative dispute resolution, consumer protection law, enforcement, redress

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Authors: Jim Shih-Chiao Chin , Tsai Lin Hsu, Shui Lien Chen

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This article extends the relation between company’s employee and customers in market. According to the previous researches, most researchers analyzed and focused on customers’ brand perception. In the recently, some scholars star to explore the brand management from company viewpoint. The aim of this study is to explore whether consumers perception would be affected by the firm brand. This research would like to examine the relationship between individual consumers and corporate brands in the business-to-consumers sector. First, the study develops a framework that the connection with consumer and company. Second, this article uses three dimensions, brand knowledge, brand commitment, and brand equity to measure employees’ loyalty of brand and applies brand relationship quality to gauge the level of brand’s importance in consumer’s mind. This paper uses SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 20.0 to test consumers’ minds toward the brand equity which the company provides. There are totally 862 valid questionnaires returned, and 431 participants are consumers; the other 431 participants are employees. Those questionnaires are one-by-one to consumer and employee so those are 431 pairs questionnaires. Based on 431 pairs of consumers and company’s employees, analyzed results show that brand knowledge and brand commitment play important roles influencing brand equity. The results also demonstrate the extra-role brand equity positively impact on the brand relationship quality of consumers. In addition, the findings reveal that the company can improve brand relationship quality of consumers by enhancing extra-role brand equity. There is a sufficient evidence denote that brand relationship quality not only shows about the brand of customers’ thought but also implies company how to build the brand to impress on consumers. These findings provide the degree of the brand in consumers’ cognition. The brand-owner employee can reference the conclusion to creative new strategic to the next time or can be one of the company’s competitive advantages. Those results and conclusions are contributed to management practice and future.

Keywords: brand knowledge, brand commitment, brand equity, brand relationship quality

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Authors: Daphne Sobolev, Niklas Voege

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During the last three decades, consumer ethics perceptions have attracted the attention of a large number of researchers. Nevertheless, little is known about the effect of the cognitive and situational contexts of the decision on ethics judgments. In this paper, the interrelationship between consumers’ ethics perceptions, legality evaluations and mind-sets are explored. Legality evaluations represent the cognitive context of the ethical judgments, whereas mind-sets represent their situational context. Drawing on moral development theories and priming theories, it is hypothesized that both factors are significantly related to consumer ethics perceptions. To test this hypothesis, 289 participants were allocated to three mind-set experimental conditions and a control group. Participants in the mind-set conditions were primed for aggressiveness, politeness or awareness to the negative legal consequences of breaking the law. Mind-sets were induced using a sentence-unscrambling task, in which target words were included. Ethics and legality judgments were assessed using consumer ethics and internet ethics questionnaires. All participants were asked to rate the ethicality and legality of consumer actions described in the questionnaires. The results showed that consumer ethics and legality perceptions were significantly correlated. Moreover, including legality evaluations as a variable in ethics judgment models increased the predictive power of the models. In addition, inducing aggressiveness in participants reduced their sensitivity to ethical issues; priming awareness to negative legal consequences increased their sensitivity to ethics when uncertainty about the legality of the judged scenario was high. Furthermore, the correlation between ethics and legality judgments was significant overall mind-set conditions. However, the results revealed conflicts between ethics and legality perceptions: consumers considered 10%-14% of the presented behaviors unethical and legal, or ethical and illegal. In 10-23% of the questions, participants indicated that they did not know whether the described action was legal or not. In addition, an asymmetry between the effects of aggressiveness and politeness priming was found. The results show that the legality judgments and mind-sets interact with consumer ethics perceptions. Thus, they portray consumer ethical judgments as dynamical processes which are inseparable from other cognitive processes and situational variables. They highlight that legal and ethical education, as well as adequate situational cues at the service place, could have a positive effect on consumer ethics perceptions. Theoretical contribution is discussed.

Keywords: consumer ethics, legality judgments, mind-set, priming, aggressiveness

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Authors: Natalia Moreira, Trevor Wood-Harper

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The acceptance of sustainable products by the final consumer is still one of the challenges of the industry, which constantly seeks alternative approaches to successfully be accepted in the global market. A large set of methods and approaches have been discussed and analysed throughout the literature. Considering the current need for sustainable development and the current pace of consumption, the need for a combined solution towards the development of new products became clear, forcing researchers in product development to propose alternatives to the previous standard product development models. This paper presents, through a systemic analysis of the literature on product development, eco-design and consumer involvement, a set of alternatives regarding consumer involvement towards the development of sustainable products and how these approaches could help improve the sustainable industry’s establishment in the general market. The initial findings of the research show that the understanding of the benefits of sustainable behaviour lead to a more conscious acquisition and eventually to the implementation of sustainable change in the consumer. Thus this paper is the initial approach towards the development of new sustainable products using the fashion industry as an example of practical implementation and acceptance by the consumers. By comparing the existing literature and critically analysing it this paper concluded that the consumer involvement is strategic to improve the general understanding of sustainability and its features. The use of consumers and communities has been studied since the early 90s in order to exemplify uses and to guarantee a fast comprehension. The analysis done also includes the importance of this approach for the increase of innovation and ground breaking developments, thus requiring further research and practical implementation in order to better understand the implications and limitations of this methodology.

Keywords: consumer involvement, products development, sustainability, eco-design

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Authors: Saad Bin Saeed, Fayzan Ahmed, Shahbaz Ahmed, Amjad Hussain

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The aim of this study is to evaluate dynamic log files (Dynalogs) at different dose rates by dose-volume histograms (DVH) and used as a (QA) procedure of IMRT. Seven patients of phase one head and neck cancer with similar OAR`s are selected randomly. Reference plans of dose rate 300 and 600 MU/Min with prescribed dose of 50Gy in 25 fractions for each patient is made. Dynalogs produced by delivery of reference plans processed by in-house MATLAB program which produces new field files contain actual positions of multi-leaf collimators (MLC`s) instead of planned positions in reference plans. Copies of reference plans are used to import new field files generated by MATLAB program and renamed as Dyn.plan. After dose calculations of Dyn.plans for different dose rates, DVH, and multiple linear regression tools are used to evaluate reference and Dyn.plans. The results indicate good agreement of correlation between different dose rate plans. The maximum dose difference among PTV and OAR`s are found to be less than 5% and 9% respectively. The study indicates the potential of dynalogs to be used as patient-specific QA of IMRT at different dose rate.

Keywords: IMRT, dynalogs, dose rate, DVH

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Authors: R. A. Petre, S. E. Nichifor, A. Craifaleanu, I. Stroe

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The relative motion of a robotic arm formed by homogeneous bars of different lengths and masses, hinged to each other is investigated. The first bar of the mechanism is articulated on a platform, considered initially fixed on the surface of the Earth, while for the second case the platform is considered to be in rotation with respect to the Earth. For both analyzed cases the motion equations are determined using the Lagrangian formalism, applied in its traditional form, valid with respect to an inertial reference system, conventionally considered as fixed. However, in the second case, a generalized form of the formalism valid with respect to a non-inertial reference frame will also be applied. The numerical calculations were performed using a MATLAB program.

Keywords: Lagrange equations, relative motion, inertial reference frame, non-inertial reference frame

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Authors: Yujie Wei

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Twitter uses a variety of narrative methods (e.g., messages, featured videos, music, and actual events) to strengthen its cultivation effect. Consumers are receiving mass-produced brand stores or images made by brand managers according to strict market specifications. Drawing on the cultivation theory, this quantitative research investigates how following a brand on Twitter for 12 weeks can cultivate their attitude toward the brand and influence their purchase intentions. We conducted three field experiments on Twitter to test the cultivation effects of following a brand for 12 weeks on consumer attitude toward the followed brand. The cultivation effects were measured by comparing the changes in consumer attitudes before and after they have followed a brand over time. The findings of our experiments suggest that when consumers are exposed to a brand’s stable, pervasive, and recurrent tweets on Twitter for 12 weeks, their attitude toward a brand can be significantly changed, which confirms the cultivating effects on consumer attitude. Also, the results indicate that branding activities on Twitter, when properly implemented, can be very effective in changing consumer attitudes toward a brand, increasing the purchase intentions, and increasing their willingness to spread the word-of-mouth for the brand on social media. The cultivation effects are moderated by brand type and consumer age. The research provides three major marketing implications. First, Twitter marketers should create unique content to engage their brand followers to change their brand attitude through steady, cumulative exposure to the branding activities on Twitter. Second, there is a significant moderating effect of brand type on the cultivation effects, so Twitter marketers should align their branding content with the brand type to better meet the needs and wants of consumers for different types of brands. Finally, Twitter marketers should adapt their tweeting strategies according to the media consumption preferences of different age groups of their target markets. This empirical research proves that content is king.

Keywords: tweeting, cultivation theory, consumer brand attitude, purchase intentions, word-of-mouth

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Authors: Torben Hansen, Lars Gronholdt, Alexander Josiassen, Anne Martensen

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Consumers often exhibit a bias in their knowledge; they often think that they know more or less than they do. The concept of 'knowledge over/underconfidence' (O/U) has in previous studies been used to investigate such knowledge bias. O/U appears as a combination of subjective and objective knowledge. Subjective knowledge relates to consumers’ perception of their knowledge, while objective knowledge relates to consumers’ absolute knowledge measured by objective standards. This separation leads to three scenarios: The consumer can either be knowledge calibrated (subjective and objective knowledge are similar), overconfident (subjective knowledge exceeds objective knowledge) or underconfident (objective knowledge exceeds subjective knowledge). Knowledge O/U is a highly useful concept in understanding consumer choice behavior. For example, knowledge overconfident individuals are likely to exaggerate their ability to make right choices, are more likely to opt out of necessary information search, spend less time to carry out a specific task than less knowledge confident consumers, and are more likely to show high financial trading volumes. Through the use of financial services as a case study, this study contributes to previous research by examining how consumer knowledge O/U affects two types of trust (broad-scope trust and narrow-scope trust) and consumer relationship satisfaction. Trust does not only concern consumer trust in individual companies (i.e., narrow.-scope confidence NST), but also concerns consumer confidence in the broader business context in which consumers plan and implement their behavior (i.e., broad scope trust, BST). NST is defined as "the expectation that the service provider can be relied on to deliver on its promises’, while BST is defined as ‘the expectation that companies within a particular business type can generally be relied on to deliver on their promises.’ This study expands our understanding of the interplay between consumer knowledge bias, consumer trust, and relationship marketing in two main ways: First, it is demonstrated that the more knowledge O/U a consumer becomes, the higher/lower NST and levels of relationship satisfaction will be. Second, it is demonstrated that BST has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between knowledge O/U and satisfaction, such that knowledge O/U has a higher positive/negative effect on relationship satisfaction when BST is low vs. high. The data for this study comprises 756 mutual fund investors. Trust is particularly important in consumers’ mutual fund behavior because mutual funds have important responsibilities in providing financial advice and in managing consumers’ funds.

Keywords: knowledge, cognitive bias, trust, customer-seller relationships, financial services

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Authors: Sujit K. Basak

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This paper presents a comparison of the reference management software between Zotero and Mendeley and the results were drawn by comparing the two software’s. The novelty of this paper is the comparative analysis of the software and it has shown that Mendeley can import more information from the Google Scholar for the researchers. This finding can help to know researchers to use the reference management software.

Keywords: analysis, comparative analysis, zotero, researchers, Mendeley

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Authors: Maia Seturi, Tamari Todua

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Economic growth is seen as the increase in the production capacity of a country. It enables a country to produce more and more material wealth and social benefits. Today, the success of any product on the market is closely related to the issue of branding. The brand is a source of information for a user/consumer, which helps to simplify the choice of goods and reduce consumer risk. The paper studies the role of branding in order to promote Georgian tea brands. The main focus of the research is directed to consumer attitudes regarding Georgian tea brands. The methodology of the paper is based on marketing research. The findings study revealed that the majority of consumers prefer foreign tea brands. The final part of the article presents the main recommendations.

Keywords: marketing research, customer behavior, brand, successful brand

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Authors: Lincoln Panjaitan, Antonius Sumarlin

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The development of property businesses in the metropolitan area is growing rapidly forcing big real estate developers to come up with various strategies in winning the heart of consumers. This empirical research is focusing on how the two schools of marketing thoughts; namely, Modern and postmodern marketing employed by the preceding developers to retain consumers’ commitment toward their prospective brands. The data was collected from three different properties of PT. Intiland Tbk using accidental sampling technique. The data of 600 respondents was then put into Structural Equation Model (SEM). The result of the study suggests that both schools of thought can equally produce commitment and loyalty of consumers; however, the difference lays where the loyalty belongs to. The first is more toward developer’s brand and the latter is more toward the co-creation value of the housing community.

Keywords: consumer loyalty, consumer commitment, knowledge sharing platform, marketing mix

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Authors: Mohamed Muse Hassan

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Selling through the Internet is changing the norms of doing business globally. Today, selling and buying from the Internet is not only an option but the dominant form of shopping. But, this phenomenon is not thriving in the developing countries, mainly in Africa. Therefore, although previous studies focused on the e-retailers’ side, this study investigates the effect of consumer trust and online payment options on the awareness and perception of e-commerce in Africa. We developed a five-construct model and empirically tested the model by targeting professionals and college students who reside in Somalia. We employed structural equation modeling (SEM) technique for path analysis to probe answers for the variables under study. The main findings of the study show that there is significant evidence that online payment option impacts both the awareness level and perception of e-commerce in Somalia. Consumer trust was also found to determine both the awareness and perception of online shopping in the country. Moreover, the current global payment options available ignore local technologies popular in Africa. For example, the inclusion of a mobile payment option alone would make a big difference in Africa. The paper also determined that consumer trust toward online retailers is very low and this can be solved if consumers are given assurances for their financial transactions. The paper concludes that increased online payment options are needed in Somalia and, in Africa, in general. Limitations and further research suggestions are also included at the end of this paper.

Keywords: Africa, consumer trust, e-commerce, online payment

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Authors: Syed Rashid Hussain Shah, Sumera Syed, Nida Mushtaq

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Social media is not only acting as a medium of communication; rather it has provided a platform where customers can actually live with the brands they so dearly envy and interact with others with same interest. Organizations are making social media marketing efforts (SMME) to convert this opportunity into a meaningful experience. It may be resembled or considered as an act of branding where the notion is not only to understand the consumer behavior but also developing a strong link with them. Ultimately the quest is to influence and bend it into a mutual benefit of the stakeholders. This study investigates SMME of brands with the help of five dimensions (i.e., entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customization and word of mouth). The study has found that there is no significant impact of SMME as a construct on brand equity and consumer behavior. However, few of the dimensions (i.e. customization and word of mouth), have been found to have influence on brand equity (brand association, brand image) and consumer response (brand preferences).

Keywords: social media marketing efforts (SMME), brand equity, preference, loyalty price premium, luxury brands, international

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Authors: Minimol M. C.

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The study provides insights into the consumer’s trust on user generated brand recommendations on social networking sites and also investigates the role of ad scepticism in generating consumer trust in user generated brand recommendations. The work contributes to a better understanding of trust development in the context of social networking sites. Specifically, the study reveals that not all dimensions of trustworthiness are equal. The individual user characteristics vary according to the person. The major finding of this study is that high degrees of trust toward user generated brand recommendations can be generated on the basis of high trust toward social networking sites and ad scepticism. Consumers trust the user generated brand recommendations based on the individual’s trust in the particular social networking platform and the level of their individual ad-scepticism. The study pinpoints that as consumers’ trust in user generated brand recommendations is affected by their trust in social networking sites, it is influenced by benevolence, integrity, the propensity to trust, and individual user characteristics to a great extent, and hence, it is imperative for brands should attempt to build on these factors so that they can engage consumers to generate user generated content on social media.

Keywords: Consumer trust, user-generated brand recommendations, ad scepticism, social networking sites

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Authors: Bahar Urhan Torun, Havva Nur Tarakcı

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At the present time, online marketing has become the common target of small and full-scale organizations. Today’s humanbeing who has to spend most of their time in front of the computer because of his job, prefers to socialize by internet due to the easy access to technology. So online marketing area expands day by day. All business organizations from the smallest to the biggest are in a race in order to get a cut from the virtual market share in an extreme competitive environment. However these organizations which use the internet to reach more consumers cannot determine their target group accurately, so this is the biggest handicap of online marketing sales nowadays. The aim of this study is to determine some significant elements about need for communicating efficiently with the consumer on the internet on online marketing. The strategies that can be used in order to increase sales and the limitations of virtual environment where cannot be communicated with the consumer face to face are argued in this study’s scope. As a consequence it is thought that to study on this subject because of lacking and also being limited efficiency of researches and outputs. Within this scope suggesting some proposals about how to communicate efficiently with the consumer and also offering the consumers’ demands efficiently is the essential objective of this study.

Keywords: online marketing, competition, consumer, communication

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Authors: Kiana Keshavarz, Carmen Jaca, María J. Álvarez

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The shift to a circular economy necessitates a substantial change in consumer behavior, a complex and unpredictable actor that proves challenging to guide toward sustainability. This systematic literature review addresses the pivotal role that consumers play in propelling a circular economy, emphasizing the critical gap between positive attitudes and responsible actions. In this review, we utilized two prominent databases, Scopus and Web of Science, during the months of July and August 2023. A comprehensive screening process considered 467 articles, ultimately including 115 in the study for detailed analysis. Recognizing the transformative potential of consumer behavior, the study examines three key phases of consumer interaction with products —pre-purchasing decision, careful usage, and post-use management—identifying consumer-centric strategies that boost sustainability in each phase. Contrary to the prevailing emphasis on post-management strategies in society, the synthesis highlights the profound impact of strategies enacted during the pre-purchasing decision phase. In the investigation of the persistent attitude-behavior gap, factors influencing this gap and impeding consumers from engaging in sustainable actions are identified based on behavioral theories. Subsequently, strategies aimed at diminishing barriers and boosting motivators, as outlined in the literature, are presented. Recognizing the transformative potential of consumer behavior, the study underscores the pivotal roles of policymakers, businesses, and governments in fostering a more sustainable future. Ultimately, there is a call for further research to enhance the depth of analysis. This could be achieved through a more focused approach, such as narrowing the scope to a specific industry or applying a specific behavioral theory.

Keywords: circular economy, consumer behavior, sustainability, attitude-behavior gap, systematic literature review

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Authors: Torben Hansen

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While trust has long been regarded as one of the most critical variables for developing and maintaining well-functioning financial customer-seller relationships it can be suggested that trust not only relates to customer trust in individual companies (narrow-scope trust). Trust also relates to the broader business context in which consumers may carry out their financial behaviour (broad-scope trust). However, despite the well-recognized significance of trust in marketing research, only few studies have investigated the role of broad-scope trust in consumer financial behaviour. Moreover, as one of its many serious outcomes, the global financial crisis has elevated the need for an improved understanding of the role of broad-scope trust in consumer financial services markets. Only a minority of US and European consumers are currently confident in financial companies and ‘financial stability’ and ‘trust’ are now among the top reasons for choosing a bank. This research seeks to address this shortcoming in the marketing literature by investigating direct and moderating effects of broad-scope trust on consumer financial behaviour. Specifically, we take an ability-effort approach to consumer financial behaviour. The ability-effort approach holds the basic premise that the quality of consumer actions is influenced by ability factors, for example consumer knowledge and cognitive effort. Our study is based on two surveys. Survey 1 comprises 1,155 bank consumers, whereas survey 2 comprises 764 pension consumers. The results indicate that broad-scope trust negatively moderates relationships between knowledge and financial healthiness and between cognitive effort and financial healthiness. In addition, it is demonstrated that broad-scope trust negatively influences cognitive effort. Specifically, the results suggest that broad-scope trust contributes to the financial well-being of consumers with limited financial knowledge and processing capabilities. Since financial companies are dependent on customers to pay their loans and bills they have a greater interest in developing relations with consumers with a healthy financial behaviour than with the opposite. Hence, financial managers should be engaged with monitoring and influencing broad-scope trust. To conclude, by taking into account the contextual effect of broad-scope trust, the present study adds to our understanding of knowledge-effort-behaviour relationship in consumer financial markets.

Keywords: cognitive effort, customer-seller relationships, financial healthiness, knowledge, trust

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Authors: Hamed Movahedizadeh, Annuar Md Nassir, Mehdi Karimimalayer, Navid Samimi Sedeh, Ehsan Bagherpour

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The aim of this paper is to evaluate Tehran’s Stock Exchange (TSE) performance regarding with impact of four macroeconomic factors including world crude Oil Price (OP), World Gold Price (GP), Consumer Price Index (CPI) and total Supplied Oil by Iran (SO) from January 2006 to December 2012 that Iran faced with economic and oil sanctions. Iran's exports of crude oil and lease condensate reduced to roughly 1.5 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2012, compared to 2.5 million bbl/d in 2011 due to hard sanctions. Monthly data are collected and subjected to a battery of tests through ordinary least square by EViews7. This study found that gold price and oil price are positively correlated with stock returns while total oil supplied and consumer price index have negative relationship with stock index, however, consumer price index tends to become insignificant in stock index. While gold price and consumer price index have short run relationship with TSE index at 10% of significance level this amount for oil price is significant at 5% and there is no significant short run relationship between supplied oil and Tehran stock returns. Moreover, this study found that all macroeconomic factors have long-run relationship with Tehran Stock Exchange Index.

Keywords: consumer price index, gold price, macroeconomic, oil price, sanction, stock market, supplied oil

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Authors: Vishal V. Choudhari, Gaurao A. Dongre, S. P. Diwan

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A number of reference current generation have been developed for analysis of shunt active power filter to mitigate the load compensation. Depending upon the type of load the technique has to be chosen. In this paper, six reference current generation techniques viz. instantaneous reactive power theory(IRP), Synchronous reference frame theory(SRF), Perfect harmonic cancellation(PHC), Unity power factor method(UPF), Self-tuning filter method(STF), Predictive filtering method(PFM) are compared for different operating conditions. The harmonics are introduced because of non-linear loads in the system. These harmonics are eliminated using above techniques. The results and performance of system simulated on MATLAB/Simulink platform. The system is experimentally implemented using DS1104 card of dSPACE system.

Keywords: SAPF, power quality, THD, IRP, SRF, dSPACE module DS1104

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Authors: A. B. Robert, Adam Pramadia, Calvin Andika

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The main purpose of this study is to explore consumer loyalty characteristic of mobile phone category in Indonesia. Second, this research attempts to identify consumer segment and to explore their profile in each segment as the basis of marketing strategy formulation. This study used some tools of multivariate analysis such as discriminant analysis and cluster analysis. Discriminate analysis used to discriminate consumer loyal and not loyal by using particular variables. Cluster analysis used to reveal various segment in mobile phone category. In addition to having better customer understanding in each segment, this study used descriptive analysis and cross tab analysis in each segment defined by cluster analysis. This study expected several findings. First, consumer can be divided into two large group of loyal versus not loyal by set of variables. Second, this study identifies customer segment in mobile phone category. Third, exploring customer profile in each segment that has been identified. This study answer a call for additional empirical research into different product categories. Therefore, a replication research is advisable. By knowing the customer loyalty characteristic, and deep analysis of their consumption behavior and profile for each segment, this study is very advisable for high impact marketing strategy development. This study contributes body of knowledge by adding empirical study of consumer loyalty, segmentation analysis in mobile phone category by multiple brand analysis.

Keywords: customer loyalty, segmentation, marketing strategy, discriminant analysis, cluster analysis, mobile phone

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Authors: Ying Zhao, Xingyan Bin

Abstract:

Semi-supervised clustering algorithms have been shown effective to improve clustering process with even limited supervision. However, semi-supervised hierarchical clustering remains challenging due to the complexities of expressing constraints for agglomerative clustering algorithms. This paper proposes novel semi-supervised agglomerative clustering algorithms to build a hierarchy based on a known reference tree. We prove that by enforcing distance constraints defined by a reference tree during the process of hierarchical clustering, the resultant tree is guaranteed to be consistent with the reference tree. We also propose a framework that allows the hierarchical tree generation be aware of levels of levels of the agglomerative tree under creation, so that metric weights can be learned and adopted at each level in a recursive fashion. The experimental evaluation shows that the additional cost of our contraint-based semi-supervised hierarchical clustering algorithm (HAC) is negligible, and our combined semi-supervised HAC algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms on real-world datasets. The experiments also show that our proposed methods can improve clustering performance even with a small number of unevenly distributed labeled data.

Keywords: semi-supervised clustering, hierarchical agglomerative clustering, reference trees, distance constraints

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Authors: Sixing Chen, Shuai Yang

Abstract:

Online celebrity business, also known as Internet celebrity business (or Wanghong business in Chinese), is an emerging relational C2C business model, and an alternative to traditional C2C transactional business models. There are already millions of these consumers, and this number is growing. In this model, consumer purchase decisions are driven by recommendations and endorsements in videos posted online by celebrities. The purpose of this paper is to determine the relational constructs within consumer relationships in the Internet celebrity business model and to investigate relationships between the constructs and consumer purchase intention. A questionnaire-based study was conducted with consumers who had an awareness of, or prior purchase experience with online celebrities. The results of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and multiple regression analysis revealed three valid relational constructs: product experience sharing, lifestyle association, and real-time interaction. This study indicated that these constructs had the direct effect on consumer preference and purchase intention. The findings of this study provide insight into a business model in which online shopping is driven by celebrities. They suggest that online celebrities should pay more attention to product experience sharing, life style association and real-time interaction for managing their product promotions. These are the most salient factors with respect to the relational constructs identified in this study.

Keywords: customer relationship, customer to customer, Internet celebrity, online celebrity, online marketing, purchase intention

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Authors: Parul Sinha

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Electronic commerce facilitates increased choice and information on goods or services for consumers but at the same time it compounds the inequality of bargaining power many consumers face when contracting with sellers. Due to the ‘inequality of bargaining power’ experienced by consumers when contracting by electronic means with business sellers in different jurisdictions, it may be difficult to determine where either the consumer is domiciled or the place where the seller is situated or conducts its business. The question arises in such situation that if one party wants to sue the other, then where can one sue? Which court has jurisdiction to try international conflicts arising from electronic contracts concluded through the internet? Will the same rules applicable to conventional contracts apply? Or should other considerations be taken into account? In all these situations the degree of consumer protection in electronic contracts comes into picture. In the light of the above, the paper discusses the jurisdiction and choice of law rules applied in EU and United States. Further, the paper considers the current uncertainty plaguing questions of jurisdiction in India. Therefore, the jurisdiction and choice of law rules for electronic contracts must be applied consistently and provide an automatic, harmonised rule in favour of the consumer’s jurisdiction and law. Lastly, the paper suggests the need for a uniform law in order to achieve effective juridical protection.

Keywords: electronic commerce, electronic contracts, jurisdiction, consumer protection

Procedia PDF Downloads 215

Authors: Rabail Khalid

Abstract:

Social media has changed the business communication strategies in the corporate world. Firms are using social media to reach their maximum stakeholders in minimum time at different social media forums. The current study examines the role of firm-created social media communication on consumer brand perceptions and their loyalty to brand. An online survey is conducted through social media forums including Facebook and Twitter to collect data regarding social media communication of a well-reputed clothing company’s brand in Pakistan. A link is sent to 900 customers of that company. Out of 900 questionnaires, 534 were received. So, the response rate is 59.33%. During data screening and entry, 13 questionnaires are rejected due to incomplete answer. Therefore, 521 questionnaires are completed in all respect and seem to be helpful for the study. So, the positive response rate is 57.89%. The empirical results report positive and significant influence of company-generated social media communication on brand trust, brand equity, and brand loyalty. The findings of this study provide important information to the marketing professionals and brand managers to understand consumer behavior through social media communication.

Keywords: firm-created social media communication, brand trust, brand equity, consumer behavior, brand loyalty

Procedia PDF Downloads 351