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The purpose of this paper is to explore the banking experiences and awareness of marketing efforts of banks among youth in mainland China.

Four focus-group interviews were conducted. A convenience sample of 26 participants aged 17 to 20 years was recruited in Laiwu, Shandong, a medium-sized city in China. They were asked to report experiences that could illustrate good and bad banking services. They were also asked to recall bank marketing promotions.

Participants’ perceived service quality of banks was determined by staff attitude, service delivery, physical environment and comparison of user experience. The marketing communication activities they recalled most frequently included product placements, advertising slogans, entertaining commercials and co-branding with online games.

The findings were based on a non-probability sample. The study also did not differentiate between personal experience and indirect experience with family and friends. Similar studies can be conducted in large cities or in rural China to compare banking experiences in different social economic settings. Further studies can be designed using quantitative methodology to measure the importance of various factors in influencing perceptions of service quality. Online banking experience can also be studied in the future.

Banks in China can enhance their competitiveness and brand reputation through raising the professionalism of their front-line staff, improving efficiency and transparency and streamlining the service process. Banks can make contacts with youth through offline and online promotional activities, such as co-branding with popular online games.

This is the first study on banking services among youth conducted in a medium-sized city in China.

This study aims to test a conceptual model using public attitudes toward biomedicine and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to predict respondents’ medical treatment choice.

A quantitative online survey was conducted using quota sampling. Altogether 1,321 questionnaires from Hong Kong residents of age 15 years or above were collected.

Attitudes toward biomedicine in relation to TCM and perceived cost of TCM consultation were found to be significant variables in predicting respondents’ medical treatment choice of treatment. Perceived efficacy of TCM, however, was not a significant predictor. Older respondents, as well as respondents with higher education, were less likely to consult biomedicine first when ill. They were also less likely to consult biomedicine exclusively.

This study uses a convenience sample recruited through personal networks. The findings cannot be generalized to the rest of the population.

Respondents in the study generally perceived TCM’s efficacy to be high, but not high enough to make it the medical treatment of choice. To promote TCM in Hong Kong, there is a need to enhance trust in it. This can be achieved through strengthening scientific research and development of TCM, enhancing professional standards of TCM practitioners and educating the public about the qualifications of TCM practitioners. Strategic channel planning to reach potential target and reducing the time cost of TCM medication should be examined.

The study is the first to relate attitudes to and perceptions of TCM with medical treatment choices in Hong Kong.

The purpose of the study was to apply the theory of planned behavior to predict Danish adolescents’ behavioral intention for healthy eating.

A cluster sample survey of 410 students aged 11 to 16 years studying in Grade 6 to Grade 10 was conducted in Denmark.

Perceived behavioral control followed by attitudes were the most important factors in predicting behavioral intention. Females and adolescents with a higher Body Mass Index were also found to have a stronger behavioral intention. Healthy eating was perceived to be beneficial and useful, and, to a lesser extent, interesting and desirable. Family, TV programs, and teachers were influential socialization agents.

The survey responses may be affected by a social desirability bias. The survey includes a non‐probability sample and results may not be generalized to all adolescents, even in Denmark.

The results may inform educators and policy makers in designing health communication interventions, particularly in making socializing agents aware of their role in fostering healthy eating behaviors in adolescents. As perceived behavioral control was the strongest predictor of behavioral intention, interventions and messages communicated to adolescents on healthy eating should aim to empower them with knowledge, ability and determination to eat more healthily.

The study uses a predictive, theoretical framework (TPB) to investigate healthy eating, whereas previous efforts among Danish adolescents have primarily used descriptive approaches.

The study aims to investigate consumers' attitudes toward advertising by medical professionals, and how the attitudes vary among different demographic groups.

A survey using quota sampling was conducted. Altogether 1,297 adults aged 20 or above in Hong Kong filled in an online questionnaire in March 2012.

Consumers' attitudes toward advertising by medical professionals were in general favorable. Respondents reported that advertising by medical professionals provides consumers with information about the services and qualifications of practitioners. However, consumers were worried about misleading information in these advertisements. Respondents perceived strongly that advertising by medical professionals would lead to an increase in the price of services. Younger respondents and respondents with higher education were more sceptical toward advertising by medical professionals.

Medical professionals should put emphasis on providing consumers with relevant information of their services, expertise, and qualifications to assist consumers' information search. They should refrain from using price appeal.

This is the first study to examine consumers' attitudes toward advertising by medical professionals in a Chinese context.

The objective of the study is to use the constructs in the theory of planned behavior and advertising intervention to predict adolescents' intention for healthy eating.

A convenience sample survey of 570 secondary school students aged 11 to 19 studying in Form 1 (equivalent to Grade 7) to Form 5 (equivalent to Grade 11) was conducted in Hong Kong.

Perceived behavior control was the most important factor in predicting behavioral intention for healthy eating, followed by attitude toward healthy eating and subjective norms. Perceived behavior control, attitude and subjective norms together explained 45 percent of the variance of behavioral intention. Respondents' attitudes towards advertisement advocating healthy eating had high positive correlation with attitudes toward healthy eating.

First, the sample was not a probability sample. Second, the data were collected through face‐to‐face interviews and respondents may tend to give socially desirable answers to the questions.

Hong Kong adolescents found healthy eating beneficial and desirable, but boring and not‐enjoyable. Future health promotion campaigns should put emphasis on the fun and enjoyable attributes of healthy eating. As perceived norms were sourced from the government and the family, health campaigns should continue to communicate the positive value of healthy eating to the family, and the society.

The current study is the first to adopt the theory of planned behavior and the advertising intervention to predict the effects on healthy eating in a Chinese society.

This paper aims at describing and exploring how consumers perceive acupuncture as a medical treatment in relation to biomedicine.

Data were collected through an online survey using quota sampling. The attitudes of 879 Hong Kong residents aged 20 or above were surveyed. Questions were generated from a previous focus group study.

Factor analysis found that attitude toward acupuncture consisted of five underlying dimensions, including trust in biomedicine, risks versus benefits, cure and effectiveness, qualification and skills of acupuncturists, side effects and costs and severe aftereffects. Lack of trust in acupuncturists and perceived inferiority of acupuncture to biomedicine were the major barriers of public acceptance of acupuncture. Perceived strengths of acupuncture identified were not involving taking medicine, fewer side effects and being good for preventive care.

This study used a convenience sample recruited through personal networks, so the findings cannot automatically be generalized to the rest of the population.

There is a need to build trust in the therapy and the reputation of acupuncturists through better communication of the profession’s qualification and accreditation system, as well as dissemination of clinical evidence on a long-term basis. Consumers need to be better educated about the sensations to be expected during acupuncture and the criteria for selecting an acupuncturist.

This has been the first quantitative study focusing on Hong Kong consumers’ perceptions of acupuncture.

This paper aims to examine the development of graffiti in Hong Kong. Based on cultural criminological theories, the study looks at graffiti from the cultural verstehen perspective (Ritzer, 1996) – giving voice to graffiti writers, instead of focusing on how the police or the general public react to the graffiti issue. The research also examines the motives of those writers and whether they perceive graffiti as an act of vandalism or an expression of an art form.

Graffiti is still an underdeveloped research topic in Hong Kong, which is absent not only in the mainstream discourse, but also in mainstream arts. It merely catches the media’s attention when graffiti are associated with political struggles. Thus, this paper aims to bridge the gap between the existing literature reviews and the graffiti development in this cosmopolitan city. In particular, it gives voice to graffiti writers to let readers understand how this hidden group of people perceive the notion of graffiti within their own subcultural discourse – and, at the same time, how the public responds to those graffiti-writings.

The research project, to a certain extent, manifests similarities to the literature reviews at an international level, especially the graffiti studies in London and New York. There are similarities in the graffiti styles – tags, bombs and pieces – and also in terms of the meanings carried behind graffiti-writing in public spaces, which showcase power through occupying space and its association with commercialization. Nevertheless, graffiti in Hong Kong have certain unique features, particularly as regards the official response to graffiti and the linkage of graffiti with politics. As seen in the Umbrella Movement and the Ai wei-wei incident, the legal responses were rigid and efficient, showing that the government paid great attention to the messages delivered in these cases. When no complaints or reports are made to the police, graffiti work is left undisturbed. Only when strong political messages are carried will prompt action be taken.

Graffiti are an underdeveloped research topic in Hong Kong, which is absent not only in the mainstream discourse but also in the mainstream arts. This paper aims to bridge the gap between the existing literature reviews and the graffiti development in Hong Kong. It gives voice to graffiti writers to let readers understand how this hidden group of people perceives the notion of graffiti within their own subcultural discourse and how city dwellers respond to those graffiti-writings.

Stigma remains to be a major barrier to addressing the sustained rise of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in the Philippines. Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with other men (MSMs) (G/B/MSM) living with HIV experience compounded stigma due to their sexual identity and HIV seropositive status. The family has been identified as one of the main sources of homonegativity and HIV-related discrimination. Drawing from the family life histories of 31 Filipino MSMs living with HIV, the authors demonstrate the concept of compounding stigma, which posits that the extent and nature of gender- and sexuality-based stigma experienced in early life may potentiate or mitigate the experience of HIV stigma in later life in the context of the family. Narrative analysis of the family life histories reveals a central factor that shaped the sexual development and stigma experiences of MSMs living with HIV: sexual identity visibility in the family (SIVF) – the family’s extent of knowledge and/or acceptance of their sexuality. Three core narratives emerged from the data that categorize informants based on the type of SIVF present in their family life viz. full, partial, and invisible. Results also trace the resultant life trajectories for each core narrative and reveal three forms of compounding stigma: low compounding stigma or compounding acceptance, compounding enacted stigma, and compounding internalized stigma.

The purpose of this study is to investigate multichannel integration of hotels and online travel agencies (OTAs) and to compare consumer behavior between China and Indonesia in the context of online to offline (O2O) commerce. We examine how the services, brand and market share of OTAs influence behavioral intentions in both online and offline channels. SERVQUAL, theory of reasoned action and the halo effect are integrated to develop the research model.

To investigate Chinese and Indonesian customers' experiences and behavioral intention of OTAs and hotels, the customers who booked hotels using OTAs were invited to participate in the questionnaire survey. This study collected 336 and 305 data from China and Indonesia, respectively. A partial least squares structural equation modeling technique was used to test and compare the research hypotheses and model between China and Indonesia.

The results compare the similarities and differences of cross-country customer experiences and behavioral intentions of OTAs and hotels. The effect of website service quality on online satisfaction, the effect of online satisfaction on offline confirmation and the effects of offline confirmation and booking intention on patronage intention are significant and positive in both countries. Website service quality is positively associated with booking intention for Indonesia but not for China. The relationship between perceived size and booking intention is significant for China but not for Indonesia. The findings provide insights into the development of O2O commerce for global markets and multichannel strategies between OTAs and hotels.

With the development of O2O commerce, increasingly more hoteliers are opening up online and offline sales channels by cooperating with OTAs. Although several cross-country studies have investigated consumer behavior or behavioral intentions, behavioral settings are based on online or offline channels rather than the integration of both channels. Although some research has studied the integration or competition of OTAs and hotels, none of these studies have investigated the issues from the perspective of country comparison. This study provides the understanding of how customers in different countries and with different backgrounds react to the same e-commerce development, especially the cooperation of OTA and hotels.