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With reference to the global financial crisis and lessons learned, advocacy for distributing suitable financial products by financial intermediaries remain key if consumers, especially the illiterate in underdeveloped financial markets, are to be absorbed into the formal financial system. Financial intermediaries such as microfinance banks should provide suitable financial products, with full disclosure of information and customer protection relating to distribution of all financial products within the financial market to prevent financial vulnerability. The main purpose of this study is to establish the mediating role of financial product suitability in the relationship between access to microfinance products and survival of women micro-agribusinesses in rural Uganda.

SmartPLS with bootstrap based on 5,000 samples was used to test for the mediating role of financial product suitability in the relationship between access to microfinance products and survival of women micro-agribusinesses in rural Uganda.

The results revealed that financial product suitability improves access to microfinance products by 29 percentage points to promote survival of women micro-agribusinesses in rural Uganda. In reality, delivering suitable financial products that suit the economic condition of poor women micro-agribusiness borrowers, can allow them to use these products to generate income to meet timely repayment obligations and business demands.

The current study selected samples from only women micro-agribusinesses operating in rural Uganda, with a specific focus on the northern region. Thus, studies involving samples selected from other rural developing countries may be necessary in future. Additionally, while the findings are significant, the data were collected from only women microenterprises who are clients of microfinance banks. Future studies focusing on women microenterprises who are clients of other financial institutions may offer insightful comparative data.

The findings from this study offer strategies for managers of microfinance banks to invent and design financial products that suit the economic status and condition of different microcredit clients, especially the women micro-agribusinesses. This can help them to solve the problem of defaults in loan repayment and delinquency common while lending to the rural poor. In fact, microfinance banks should adopt a customized loan pricing model that can promote the operational sustainability and commercial viability of women micro-agribusinesses in the current situation of mission adrift.

The current study uses the suitability rule and economic theory to elucidate the importance of microfinance product suitability to increase microfinance inclusion of women micro-agribusinesses in rural areas in developing countries. The novelty in this paper is in combining the suitability rule and economic theory with microfinance theory to promote access to microcredit by the women micro-agribusinesses in rural Uganda under the situation of mission adrift. This is limited in the existing microfinance literature and theory, especially in developing countries like Uganda.

THE increasing pressure of national and international competition is forcing firms to rationalise even further, especially in the field of assembly. In order to perform assembly tasks with the least possible expenditure of time, assembly facilities, space requirements and personnel, it has become necessary to include these objectives in the development stage of the product. Therefore, assembly‐oriented design now provides a good opportunity for rationalisation.

Purpose: Consumer acceptance is considered the most important factor in functional food success and is given top priority in new product development. This study focussed on finding factors that influence consumer perceptions about active food and the pattern of active food consumption. This chapter aims to provide a deeper understanding of taste trading based on a consumer decision-making framework.

Research Methodology: Cross-sectional consumer data were collected by floating G-Doc containing the questionnaire which was supposed to be answered by people according to their behaviours, preferences, knowledge regarding functional foods etc. It contained questions about their income, gender, preference towards functional foods, factors affecting decision-making while purchasing functional foods etc.

Results of the Study: The findings suggest that the consumers' attitude towards functional foods was mainly influenced by the quality and suitability of the product. Purchase intent was found based on age, literacy of population, income and health benefits of active foods. Awareness of functional foods and their price significantly affected the purchase of functional foods. Most people were willing to spend more on functional foods in the future regardless of the taste and provided high quality and product suitability.

This paper aims to provide an explanation and evidence for the recent lack of retail financial product failures in Canada in the face of a (formal) regulatory failure.

The paper applies the literature on self-regulation and reputational risk management to a detailed investigation of the marketing of financial products to Canadian retail investors. Internal approval processes for many different players in the retail financial industry were analyzed in detail primarily using interviews.

The author was able to identify associations between structures and policies at financial firms and outcomes for retail investors. Knowing that prevention is more effective than mitigation, marketers of financial products would generally welcome increased state intervention in terms of more and better information disclosures.

The research contributes to our understanding of self-regulation in financial markets, specifically addressing what firm characteristics may be related to positive and negative outcomes for small investors in complex structured financial products.

Regulators may be able to imply the research findings in selectively allocating scarce resources to policing firms that may be more inclined to participate in riskier behavior. Financial firms may be able to influence the decisions relating to how regulations are designed and implemented and which products are sold to which clients to minimize reputation risk.

This is the first time, to the author's knowledge, that the reputation risk management channel has been analyzed in terms of influencing outcomes for retail (small) investors.

Evaluates the impact of the ‘made in’ label on Finnish consumers' attitudes towards the products of selected countries, and they examine the implication of these attitudes for developing appropriate strategies for the Finnish market. States consumer attitudes frequently relate to specific product attributes, but equally, they are often a response to less product‐specific dimensions such as brand name, or label of country of origin. Proposes that with increased emphasis, international business planning and operations is one of the most pervasive trends in business. Suggests that to successfully compete in the international marketplace it is important for a marketing manager to understand varying attitudes and perceptions of consumers in foreign markets his/her firm has entered. Sums ups that when entering new foreign markets, the exporter must in part screen his opportunities ton the basis of the favourability of these existing images.

Examines over the period from 1975 to 2000 the attitudes of Finnish consumers toward the products and associated marketing practices of Japan in comparison to those the United States. Concludes that, although there are significant differences between the attitudes of consumers toward the products and practices of the Japan and the U.S., the ratings of Japan and the U.S. typically improved over the period in distinctive ways. Raises some strategic implications for Japanese and U.S. firms who market their products in the European Union.

The staggered emergence of the new regulatory regime affecting the distribution of retail financial products in the UK is leading to industry players taking strategic decisions under increased uncertainty. While the debate over the final form of the regulation continues, this paper identifies five emergent themes to the proposed regulatory changes and discusses their potential impact on product distribution. The paper concludes that the proposals constitute the catalyst for a wholesale restructuring of the processes and interactions between the manufacturing and distribution tiers of the UK financial services industry, wherein e‐business developments may take on increasing significance. Whether this restructuring would deliver the consumer benefits desired by the regulator remains an open question.

This study aims to examine the impact of religiosity on fashion knowledge, consumer-perceived value and patronage intention.

This study applied purposive sampling method. The population size used a minimum number of samples (100) in the WarpPLS analysis. The inferential statistical technique used is structural equation modeling. A tool for analyzing the structural models is the partial least square method.

Religiosity is a consumer belief in religion, which does not generate fashion knowledge so that high and low religiousness cannot increase or decrease fashion knowledge. Consumer confidence in their religion can increase consumer-perceived value of Muslim fashion products. It causes consumers to behave positively toward future behavioral intentions, that is, the patronage intention. Consumer religiosity is not the cause of patronage intention so that the high or low level of religiousness does not increase or decrease in the willingness of consumers to visit the store (or patronage intention). Fashion knowledge has a positive influence on consumer-perceived value. Consumer knowledge of fashion can increase the patronage of consumer intention toward Muslim fashion products. Fashion knowledge brings the knowledge to consumers in regard to Islamic law that regulates the prohibited and allowed actions, especially in wearing fashion. The high or low level of consumer-perceived value does not provide a cause for increase or decrease in the willingness of consumers to revisit the store (or patronage intention).

With regard to the relationship between religiosity and knowledge, it is found that there are still limited studies and differences in the sectors studied regarding the influence of religiosity and knowledge. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the religiosity variable in influencing consumer-perceived value has not been used in previous studies. Religiosity is associated with consumer-perceived value expressed as originality in this study because the researcher has not found this relationship in the previous studies. Regarding the relationship between religiosity and store patronage intention, it is found that there are still different opinions in the research results on the effect of religiosity and store patronage intention. Concerning the relationship between knowledge and consumer-perceived value, it is found that there are still different opinions in the research results on the effect of knowledge and consumer-perceived value. The authors found no use of the knowledge variable in influencing store patronage intention in previous research studies. Knowledge associated with store patronage intention is expressed as the originality trait in this study because the researcher has not found this relationship in the previous studies. As for the relationship between consumer-perceived value and store patronage intention, it is found that there are still different opinions in the research results of the study regarding the influence of consumer-perceived value and store patronage intention.

The popularity of wealth management in Taiwan has unleashed tense competition among financial advisors. Consumers are now more conscious of their financial services purchasing behavior. This paper aims to provide insights into local-specific investors’ characteristics and consumers’ financial product preferences and to introduce a different concept to identify localization-suitable products.

To understand customers’ preferred products, the paper examines consumers’ financial behavior by analyzing preference characteristics using data collected from Taiwanese investors. The study entailed a questionnaire designed for consumers using the stated preferences method and the multinomial and nested logit models to develop preference models for consumers’ financial products. A statistical test using the t-value, likelihood and ρ² to observe investor preference product reactions was also used.

The study finds that investors are sensitive to the rate of return on investments and performance changes in foreign currency, stock and mutual funds. An elasticity analysis and prediction of the market share among interactive products show that stock and mutual funds are strongly related and the rate of return on stock undoubtedly influences the market.

The stated preference method and inclusion of risk appetite improve our understanding of consumer choice and investors’ financial product preferences and characteristics. The results provide suitable localization product suggestions for financial institutions to help them understand their customers’ behaviors better. This paper’s results are also useful in the context of smart financial services such as financial robot technology.

Explains the globalization of new products with the help of a global new product development model. Attempts to provide a framework for the new product development process, bearing in mind the increasing globalization of markets. Concludes that joint functioning of engineering, marketing, market research, R&D and management is needed from the first stage of product development.