Arzu Seçer, Fikriye Yazar and Mutlu Bulut
This study aims to reveal consumers' internal and external motivations to prefer online food shopping. The paper proposes an integrated model including aspirations, capabilities…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to reveal consumers' internal and external motivations to prefer online food shopping. The paper proposes an integrated model including aspirations, capabilities, subjective norms (divided into online resources and offline resources), perceived value and traditionalism to examine their effects on consumers' intention to do online food shopping.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross–sectional design was used to understand which factors affect consumers' intention to do online food shopping. The data were collected from a total of 400 people via an online survey. The conceptual model was tested using structural equational modeling to understand the relationships between the factors.
Findings
The results suggest that the conceptual framework can be used to have a better understanding of consumers' internal and external motivations to do online food shopping. The study proves that aspirations have a considerable direct effect on and a mediating role between capabilities, subjective norms from online resources, traditionalism and the effect of COVID-19 pandemics and the intention. Also, traditionalism was found to be an antecedent for consumers to prefer online food shopping.
Practical implications
This study reveals better insights for the sellers, marketers and system providers dealing with supplying food products through online channels. The findings suggest that the stakeholders take into consideration aspirations, capabilities, subjective norms, perceived value and traditionalism to organize their activities in food marketing in the online area.
Originality/value
In this study, aspirations–capabilities framework was adopted and confirmed within consumers' online food shopping domain. Also, it was proved that traditionalism was a driver of individuals' intention to do online shopping for food products.
Details
Keywords
Kivilcim Dogerlioglu‐Demir and Patriya Tansuhaj
Market researchers often treat Asian consumers as a single entity and compare them with their Western counterparts. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast consumers…
Abstract
Purpose
Market researchers often treat Asian consumers as a single entity and compare them with their Western counterparts. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast consumers in two Asian countries, Thailand and Turkey. Since global and local brands co‐exist in many regions of the world today, this study, by examining two Asian cultures, examines the impact of personality traits and values on individuals' intentions to purchase global versus local brands. The authors also investigate the role of priming (local versus global cues) in the relationship between these individual traits and purchase intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
The study involves a series of pretests and an experiment conducted among 240 participants from Thailand and 142 participants from Turkey. Though exploratory in nature, content analysis also suggests interesting avenues for future research.
Findings
The findings suggest that although both societies are perceived as traditional and collective, consumers from both Thai and Turkish cultures exhibit some striking differences. There were differences in the ways in which individual traits and values impacted global vs local brand purchase intentions. For instance, while it was discovered that traditionalism and susceptibility were important among Thai individuals, ethnocentrism and materialism were at similar levels in both samples. Traditionalism had an important effect on intentions to purchase local brands in Thailand, while it did not have a very meaningful impact among Turks. Similarly, in Thailand, susceptibility affected global brand purchase intentions. However, a similar pattern was not seen among Turks.
Originality/value
The research is valuable in understanding that two seemingly similar Asian cultures (Thailand and Turkey) are – in effect – dissimilar on key variables such as traditionalism and ethnocentrism and that impacts how these two cultures perceive global and local brands. As marketers aim to satisfy consumer's needs by offering goods and services, it is extremely important to understand consumers' evaluations of these brands and how these perceptions are formed in the first place. Such an understanding will help marketers in their positioning strategies as well as marketing communications design.
Details
Keywords
Mauricio Palmeira and Shahin Sharifi
This paper aims to investigate consumer reactions to minority retail employees. The paper argues that despite the persistence of racism and homophobia in society, the vast…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate consumer reactions to minority retail employees. The paper argues that despite the persistence of racism and homophobia in society, the vast majority of the population is strongly against these forms of discrimination. Because of the profound negativity of such behavior, the study hypothesizes that consumers will be motivated to see themselves unequivocally as individuals free of prejudice. As a result, rather than treating all people equally, the study proposes that consumers will overcompensate and exhibit favoritism toward a retail employee when the latter is a member of a minority group.
Design/methodology/approach
This study presents ten studies in which participants evaluated employees who were a member of a minority or majority group. Studies 1a–1d use sexual orientation to contrast reactions to majority or minority bank managers in four countries (USÀ, Germany, Italy and South Korea), whereas Studies 1e and 1f use ethnicity (White vs Black) to examine the same question (UK and Canada). Study 1g offers a single-paper meta-analysis, testing the robustness of the observed effect. Studies 2 and 3 examine the roles of political ideology and its associated values, and Study 4 examines choice of an advisor in an online, but consequential setting.
Findings
Across several contexts and countries, the study finds a consistent pro-minority bias in evaluations of service employees. The study show that, in the USA, this bias is prevalent among liberals, but not among conservatives. This difference in the impact of political ideology is explained by adherence to traditionalism.
Research limitations/implications
This paper investigates consumer reactions to gays and Blacks and do not test for consumer reactions to other minority groups. Regarding employees’ sexual orientation, the findings of this study are limited to gay men only.
Practical implications
To elicit favorable evaluations from customers, managers may consider the match between employees’ sexual orientation or ethnicity and consumers’ liberal beliefs. In particular, managers may want to hire people from those minority groups in areas known for their liberal values. On the other hand, the findings suggest that managers should not worry about their new recruits’ sexual orientation and ethnicity in conservative areas, because the results suggest that conservatives show no favoritism toward employees in response to their group status.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first paper in marketing investigating consumer reactions to employees who belong to minority groups. The study reports a pro-minority bias that holds across samples and countries, thereby attesting to the population validity of the hypotheses. Further, the study identifies boundary conditions of the effect of employees’ group status by identifying managerially relevant moderators (i.e. political ideology and traditionalism).
Details
Keywords
This paper contends that diverse value systems that lead people to sympathize with their own groups in some cases and with other people’s groups in other cases can serve to reduce…
Abstract
This paper contends that diverse value systems that lead people to sympathize with their own groups in some cases and with other people’s groups in other cases can serve to reduce opportunistic behavior in organizations. In particular, it is useful for an organization to have people who espouse an “innovationist” perspective that supports reduction in hierarchy and economic disparities along with flexibility and change in work conditions. It is also useful to have people who espouse an opposing “traditionalist” perspective that supports hierarchy and inequality along with clear rules and stability in work conditions.
This paper addresses the mutual interdependence of ethnic identity politics and conservative religious affiliation. Called “traditionalism” in this paper, conservative religious…
Abstract
This paper addresses the mutual interdependence of ethnic identity politics and conservative religious affiliation. Called “traditionalism” in this paper, conservative religious affiliation is seen to appeal most to ethnically homogenous communities who have arrived in the United States from Spanish Catholic countries and who draw on the ethnic identity conveyed by traditionalism to deliberately define themselves at a critical distance from the dominant resident culture, called “Anglo-Protestantism” in this paper.
Wouter Andringa, Rense Nieuwenhuis and Minna Van Gerven
The purpose of this paper is to show how the interplay between individual women’s gender role attitudes, having young children at home, as well as the country-context…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show how the interplay between individual women’s gender role attitudes, having young children at home, as well as the country-context characterized by gender egalitarianism and public childcare support, relates to women’s working hours in 23 European countries.
Design/methodology/approach
This study presents results of multilevel regression analyses of data from the European Social Survey (Round 2). These micro-level data on 23 European countries were combined with country-level measures on gender traditionalism and childcare expenditure.
Findings
The authors found that the negative association between having young children at home and women’s working hours is stronger for women with traditional gender role attitudes compared to women with egalitarian attitudes. The gap in working hours between women with and without young children at home was smaller in countries in which the population holds egalitarian gender role attitudes and in countries with extensive public childcare support. Furthermore, it was found that the gap in employment hours between mothers with traditional or egalitarian attitudes was largest in countries with limited public childcare support.
Social implications
Policy makers should take note that women’s employment decisions are not dependent on human capital and household-composition factors alone, but that gender role attitudes matter as well. The authors could not find evidence of the inequality in employment between women with different gender role attitudes being exacerbated in association with childcare support.
Originality/value
The originality of this study lies in the combined (rather than separate) analysis of how countries’ social policies (childcare services) and countries’ attitudes (gender traditionalism) interact with individual gender role attitudes to shape cross-national variation in women’s working hours.
Details
Keywords
Shahzad Uddin, Kelum Jayasinghe and Shaila Ahmed
The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of banking scandals in relation to corporate governance (CG) failures in an emerging economy, arguing that Anglo-American ideas…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of banking scandals in relation to corporate governance (CG) failures in an emerging economy, arguing that Anglo-American ideas of CG are misplaced in traditional settings.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders. Observations of annual general meetings (AGMs) and the personal working experience of one of the researchers, along with documentation, provided triangulating data on CG practices.
Findings
The authors have found that both of the banks studied had adopted CG practices contrary to the expectations of the Sri Lankan CG codes. Key features of CG practices that emerged from their investigations of these two scandals are ineffectual central bank regulations, familial boards of directors, ceremonial board meetings, biased auditing practices and manipulative AGMs, relying on traditional structures of accountability centred around families, kin and social networks.
Research limitations/implications
The authors argue, drawing on Weber (1958, 1961, 1968, 1978), that the traditionalist culture mediates the process of rationality in bank governance codes and regulatory frameworks Therefore, practices fall far short of expectations.
Originality/value
The paper builds on the extended critique of shareholder-centric CG models and their transferability to alien contexts. It contributes to the CG studies calling for more appreciation of the need to move beyond the conventional view of CG problems as simply down to conflicts of interests. The authors complement and advance the decoupling debate in CG studies drawing on the Weberian notion of traditionalism.
Details
Keywords
Patriya Tansuhaj, James W. Gentry, Joby John, L. Lee Manzer and Bong Jin Cho
Do consumers in countries that differ widely in cultural values andin economic development also differ in their resistance to innovations?And, if so, why? Addressing these…
Abstract
Do consumers in countries that differ widely in cultural values and in economic development also differ in their resistance to innovations? And, if so, why? Addressing these questions will help international marketing managers formulate an appropriate strategy for a successful product introduction in diverse foreign markets. In this five‐country study, the cultural values of fatalism, traditionalism, and religious commitment were found to explain cross‐cultural variation in innovation resistance in Senegal and in the United States, but not in India, South Korea, or Thailand. Even though the results were different for every country, fatalism was generally associated with less willingness to try new non‐technical products and with higher levels of perceived product risk. Differences were found to be related to entertainment and media innovations as opposed to technical or fashion‐oriented innovations. The results do not support the contention that a global, standardised marketing strategy may be appropriate for the introduction of new products in foreign markets.
Details
Keywords
Jacob Agyemang, Kelum Jayasinghe, Pawan Adhikari, Abongeh Tunyi and Simon Carmel
This paper examines how a “quasi-formal” organisation in a developing country engages in informal means of organising and decision-making through the use of calculative measures.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines how a “quasi-formal” organisation in a developing country engages in informal means of organising and decision-making through the use of calculative measures.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a case study of a large-scale indigenous manufacturing company in Ghana. Data for the study were collected through the use of semi-structured interviews conducted both onsite and off-site, supplemented by informal conversations and documentary analysis. Weber's notions of rationalities and traditionalism informed the analysis.
Findings
The paper advances knowledge about the practical day-to-day organisation of resources and the associated substantive rational calculative measures used for decision-making in quasi-formal organisations operating in a traditional setting. Instead of formal rational organisational mechanisms such as hierarchical organisational structures, production planning, labour controls and budgetary practices, the organisational mechanisms are found to be shaped by institutional and structural conditions which result from historical, sociocultural and traditional practices of Ghanaian society. These contextual substantive rational calculative measures consist of the native lineage system of inheritance, chieftaincy, trust and the power concealed within historically established sociocultural practices.
Originality/value
This paper is one of a few studies providing evidence of how local and traditional social practices contribute to shaping organising and decision-making activities in indigenous “quasi-formal” organisations. The paper extends our understanding of the nexus between “technical rational” calculative measures and the traditional culture and social practices prevailing in sub-Saharan Africa in general, and Ghana in particular.
Details
Keywords
Josip Obradović and Mira Čudina
This chapter aims to verify predictors of marital quality in Croatia. As a theoretical starting point, the Huston Socio-ecological model was used. Huston’s so-called “wide-angle…
Abstract
This chapter aims to verify predictors of marital quality in Croatia. As a theoretical starting point, the Huston Socio-ecological model was used. Huston’s so-called “wide-angle and close range” variables were included in to study as predictors of marital quality. A two-level hypothetical model was created consisting of Six groups of predictor variables: Level 1 predictors included Partners’ demographic variables, Partners’ personality, Partners’ value system, Marital processes or dynamics, and Partners’ wellbeing. Level 2 predictors included four Marriage characteristics. Altogether at both levels, 42 variables represented predictors. Marital quality in the marriage was a dependent variable. Eight hundred and eighty-four marital couples from 14 counties in various parts of Croatia and from Zagreb, the country’s capital, were included in the study. Factor analysis, Maximum likelihood with Promax rotation was used to extract factors. Eight factors were extracted: Marital harmony, Distress, Partners’ personality, Negative spillover from work, Traditionalism, Engagement in child care, Participation in decision-making, and Economic hardship. Multilevel analysis using the Mix model in Statistical Package for Social scientist, version 20 was used in data analysis. Predictive on Marital quality in a marriage turned out variables: Marital harmony, Distress, Partners’ personality, Traditionalism, Engagement in child care, and Participation in decision-making as level 1 and Marriage duration (Marriage stages) as a level 2 variable. Huston’s Ecological model proved to be adequate and useful in explaining marital quality.