Effect of store environment and website characteristics on impulse buying behaviour of university students

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyConsumer behaviour is determined by various factors, therefore it is considered as very complex and difficult to predict. This study is an attempt to explore and establish the relationships between various factors that result in impulse buying behaviour during online and offline buying. A preliminary qualitative study was carried out to understand the various situations in which impulse buying takes place. For the preliminary study data was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews. A thematic analysis approach has been used for data analysis. The results of the study reveal that in the offline buying store environment, presence of others and crowding plays a vital role, while in online buying website quality, visual appeal and usability of the website increases the chances of impulse buying. In addition it has been found that situational factors such as mood, sales promotion, availability of time and availability of money also have an influence. Important literature was reviewed first and a conceptual framework consisting of the different hypotheses was proposed; then those hypotheses were empirically tested. Quantitative data was collected for the main study by using questionnaires and a self-administrative technique; a total of 312 respondents took part in this study, for which a pilot study was carried out to refine the final questionnaire. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was used to evaluate the model fit and for further refinement of the constructs. Data was analysed by using structured equation modelling and this approach was used for testing the hypothesized relationship between independent variables (store environment, website characteristics) and dependent variable (impulse buying behaviour). Results of the mediating test shows that situational factors fully mediate the relationship between store environment and impulse buying behaviour. While on the other hand situational factors partially mediate between website characteristics and impulse buying behaviour. The results further reveal that apparel products are impulsively purchased by females most of the time. Food and food items are purchased impulsively by most of the respondents (140) most of the time, whereas a very small number of respondents mentioned that they purchase books impulsively. Results also reveal that situational factors partially mediate between store environment, website characteristics and impulse buying behaviour

To Buy Or Not To Buy? A Behavioural Approach to Examine Consumer Impulse Buying Choice in Various Situations

Impulse buying is a phenomenon that has attracted attention from marketers and consumer researchers for decades. Whilst impulse buying has been studied extensively, there is a gap in our understanding of consumer impulse buying choice in different consumption situations. Impulse buying research lacks a theoretical and systematic approach in examining and integrating situational variables. This thesis aims to examine consumer impulse buying choice in various situations simultaneously through the identification of both external and individual determinants of impulse buying behaviour in each situation. This thesis adopts the view of radical behaviourism and the behaviour perspective model (BPM). Radical behaviourism views impulse buying as a behavioural pattern shaped by its contingencies, and the BPM provides a theoretical model which generates the influences of both external and individual-related factors and investigates the interactions between the determinants of impulse buying from the pre-purchase to the post-purchase stage. The BPM matrix also provides a systematic framework to examine consumer impulse buying choice in various consumption situations. A questionnaire was developed based on the BPM with a pre-study interview used as a complementary method. The survey collected data from 414 consumers in the UK and Taiwan. The results show that impulse buying behaviour is shaped by its contingencies and the ways in which the BPM components influence impulse buying behaviour vary significantly in different situations. The routine shopping situation and its utilitarian reinforcements trigger the highest rate of impulse buying choice. Secondly, the results demonstrate the interactions between the consumption situations and their corresponding individual-related factors, which illustrate the different types of impulse buying behavioural patterns. Thirdly, post-purchase regret was not necessarily found as the punishment that reduces impulse buying behaviour but an indicator of individuals’ impulse buying patterns. Finally, individuals’ cultural backgrounds were also found to predict different types of impulse buying patterns effectively. As the first study to investigate consumer impulse buying choice in different situations, this study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence of situational influences and cultural differences. In addition, this study complements existing impulse buying knowledge by adopting a behavioural perspective. This research also offers managerial implications for international marketers and consumer policy makers on the ways in which impulse buying behaviour may be encouraged or controlled

Rethinking the risk matrix

So far risk has been mostly defined as the expected value of a loss, mathematically PL (being P the probability of an adverse event and L the loss incurred as a consequence of the adverse event). The so called risk matrix follows from such definition. This definition of risk is justified in a long term “managerial” perspective, in which it is conceivable to distribute the effects of an adverse event on a large number of subjects or a large number of recurrences. In other words, this definition is mostly justified on frequentist terms. Moreover, according to this definition, in two extreme situations (high-probability/low-consequence and low-probability/high-consequence), the estimated risk is low. This logic is against the principles of sustainability and continuous improvement, which should impose instead both a continuous search for lower probabilities of adverse events (higher and higher reliability) and a continuous search for lower impact of adverse events (in accordance with the fail-safe principle). In this work a different definition of risk is proposed, which stems from the idea of safeguard: (1Risk)=(1P)(1L). According to this definition, the risk levels can be considered low only when both the probability of the adverse event and the loss are small. Such perspective, in which the calculation of safeguard is privileged to the calculation of risk, would possibly avoid exposing the Society to catastrophic consequences, sometimes due to wrong or oversimplified use of probabilistic models. Therefore, it can be seen as the citizen’s perspective to the definition of risk

Qualifying Sustainability : A Study of Firm-based Strategies.

The academic and practitioner-based literatures often invoke notions such as "corporate sustainability" or 'sustainable firms' without questioning the processes through which these labels are acquired and become firmly established. By focusing on qualification processes, this thesis challenges the usage of these taken-for-granted definitions, aimed at producing stable qualities. This study endorses a relational view of strategy to investigate how sustainability qualities emerge and how different actors influence, and/or are influenced by a company's ability to develop and establish sustainability qualifications. This thesis is positioned at the intersection of the three theoretical frameworks: 1) studies of qualities and qualifications, 2) studies on developing sustainability strategies and creating sustainable firms, and 3) studies that adopt a relational view of strategy (namely Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and the Industrial Networks (IN) approach). Drawing on a relational ontology, four case studies were analysed and within these 23 practices contributing to build up sustainability qualities were selected and studied in-depth. The resulting findings led to the development of a framework to investigate the establishment of firms' sustainability qualifications. This framework comprises four types of strategising processes: framing, valuing, enrolling and stabilising. By opening up the discussion from the qualification of goods in consumer markets to the qualification of firms in industrial settings, and by taking a strategic approach to understand qualification-requalification processes, this framework extends previous work developed on qualification processes. This study also adds to the IN approach and to the strategic management literatures by providing an empirical study that describes the relational nature of the processes through which a qualification strategy emerges and the role of non-humans in the processes of strategising. Finally, the thesis contributes to the ongoing debates within IN and the 'greening the business' literature on what constitutes value. It suggests a redirection of focus to analyse processes of valuing, rather than assuming a linear relationship between strategies and value creation. Key words: qualification of firms; sustainability; value and valuation; relational approaches to strategy

Performing fandom, performing community : a case study of The Sopranos and its online fandom

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Sites of value? Discourses of religion and spirituality in the production of a New Zealand film and television series

This interdisciplinary study examines the nature of the discourses of religion and spirituality circulating in and around the production of a feature film, Saving Grace and a television mini-series, The Chosen, made and released in New Zealand during the period 1997-1999. Its interest is in the manner in which discourses of religion and spirituality are enlisted and modified in the process of mediation for public screening. Drawing on various insights derived from post-structuralist theory, and informed by recent work in the sociology of religion, the study operates within a modified tripartite model which balances information about the production context of the projects with text-interpretation, and analysis of media constructions (or reviews) of the text. Initially, a description of the complex socio-historical context in which the texts are situated, both globally and locally, is developed. The manner in which selected members of the production teams for the two projects understood meanings around religion and spirituality is then explored through the discursive analysis of material gained by the process of depth-interviewing. The production of the projects was followed over an extended time-duration, in order to ascertain whether those understandings changed under the many influences constituting the conditions of production. The second aspect of the analysis is interpretation of the texts themselves through an analysis of their narrative and generic structures, as well as their discursive content. Finally, responses and evaluations of the text by, in the case of Saving Grace, a series of 'interim' audiences, and for both projects, by media reviewers, are outlined and analyzed. On the basis of this research it is argued that investigation of the production of these projects provides valuable insights both into the changing nature of constructions of religion and spirituality within New Zealand culture and into the tensions involved in their textual encoding. These insights are to be found not just in the texts themselves, where professional norms of 'good' production, constrained and limited the ways in which discourses of religion and spirituality could be encoded, but also in the 'personal' speech of the research participants, marked both by a strong disapproval of institutional religiosity, and a wide-spread interest in informal varieties of spirituality