College Students\u27 Choice Criteria of Retail Banks

The purpose of this research is to develop a scale identifying American college students’ choice criteria of retail banks. It is an exploratory study that complements extant studies on retail bank selection. The reliability of the scale was assessed using exploratory factor analysis and serves as a prelude to further empirical validation analysis. The results present four distinct factors important in the selection of retail banks, namely, convenience , competence”, “recommendation by parents and free banking - no bank charges . It concludes by discussing managerial contributions, limitations and future research directions

Effects of Market Orientation on University Brand Equity

Given the propensity of brand equity to act as a good information resource and performance evaluation system for market-oriented universities, the current study proposes that market orientation is positively correlated with brand equity in an academic institution where brand equity is operationalized by four dimensions: perceived quality, brand awareness, brand association, and brand loyalty. This study used open ended interviews to investigate brand equity concept in an educational environment. This method was designed to get individual observations of brand equity from the leaders of colleges and schools. Three Deans and Associate Deans were invited to participate in face-to-face open-ended discussions . Since it was the open-ended interview, the interviewees had opportunities to express their ideas about university brand equity and specific features that make brand equity in an academic setting different from that in a corporate setting. Based on extensive experiences in management, ideas of the university leaders set a solid foundation for establishing the right brand equity concept used in an academic setting. The findings of the study showed that there was a strong connection between market orientation and university brand equity. It seems reasonable to assume that these relationships should be positive because, like a business, universities attempt to implement marketing strategies in order to build a strong brand name in the marketplace, differentiating themselves from the others in a competitive environment, and attracting more students

The Challenges Of Market Orientation Strategies Implementation In An Emerging Economy

The purpose of this research was to explore the market orientation profiles and strategies implementations of a single Nigeria-based company, in the context of International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment programs. The design enabled broader understanding of the challenges facing an individual company adopting and implementing market orientation strategies in an unstable economy of a developing country.  Based on lack of parsimonious market orientation definition, construct and assessment model in extant literature, this study assessed firm market orientation in this case, by the identification of market orientation instances, aggregation of properties of key market orientation components, and integration of environmental influences using proposed explicative market orientation model.  Data processing and analysis was presented through multiple approaches. To facilitate this process, all market orientation properties and patterns identified in the in-depth interviews, and firm documents were presented in the list of market orientation action themes, using thematic aggregation and content analysis. Inter-functional involvements in firm market orientation and strategies implementations were assessed using simple correlation analysis.  The findings of this study can help policy makers, international organizations and scholars in assisting individual organizations to more effectively navigate the adoption and implementations of market orientation strategies in an emergent economy undergoing market restructuring

The Role of National Culture on Relationships Between Customers’ Perception of Quality, Values, Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intentions

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of individualistic cultures (such as the American culture) and collectivistic cultures (such as the Chinese culture) on the interrelationship among service quality, food quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions in the fast-food industry. First, the authors provide empirical evidence of the robust relationships among the constructs across diverse cultures. Second, they investigate how moderator variables such as customer age, gender, and national culture affect customer behavioral intentions. Moreover, they examine how national culture, as a moderator, affects the magnitude of the relationships among these constructs. Using survey data collected from the United States and China, results indicate that national culture does have a moderating effect on the relationships and there are differences in the behavioral intentions of American and Chinese customers. More specifically, in the United States, service quality and food quality have a stronger influence on customer satisfaction than in China. Also, the effect of perceived value on customer satisfaction and the effect of customer satisfaction on customers’ behavioral intentions are stronger in China than in the United States. Overall, the findings provide rare crosscultural insights and thus serve as building blocks for strategies in the global fast-food domain

Africa Meets America: The Impact of Collectivism and Individualism on Attitude towards Shopping

The adoption of marketing strategy does not occur in cultural vacuums. Instead, marketing strategies unfold within social contexts that encode values, beliefs, and patterns of behavior. The increasingly inter-dependent global economy results in the acculturation of tensions between global and local consumer cultures. This dynamism however offers new opportunities for international firms to redefine and reevaluate their glocal (global/local) marketing strategies. Relying on Triandis cultural dimensions, this research contributes to international marketing literature by answering two key research questions, namely, what are the differences between African (Ghanaian) and American consumers’ cultural characteristics? and how do the cultural differences explain attitude towards shopping behavior? The results of the study demonstrate, contrary to the literature, that Ghanaians, unlike Americans, exhibit a fusion of collectivism and individualism. Further, while both individualism and collectivism cultural traits positively and significantly impact attitude towards shopping, the extent to which culture impacts attitude towards shopping is higher in the American consumer sample than in the Ghanaian consumer sample. The authors discuss implications for international marketing practice

Blood pressure patterns in rural, semi-urban and urban children in the Ashanti region of Ghana, West Africa

BACKGROUND: High blood pressure, once rare, is rapidly becoming a major public health burden in sub-Saharan/Africa. It is unclear whether this is reflected in children. The main purpose of this study was to assess blood pressure patterns among rural, semi-urban, and urban children and to determine the association of blood pressure with locality and body mass index (BMI) in this sub-Saharan Africa setting. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional survey among school children aged 8–16 years in the Ashanti region of Ghana (West-Africa). There were 1277 children in the study (616 boys and 661 females). Of these 214 were from rural, 296 from semi-urban and 767 from urban settings. RESULTS: Blood pressure increased with increasing age in rural, semi-urban and urban areas, and in both boys and girls. The rural boys had a lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure than semi-urban boys (104.7/62.3 vs. 109.2/66.5; p < 0.001) and lower systolic blood pressure than urban boys (104.7 vs. 107.6; p < 0.01). Girls had a higher blood pressure than boys (109.1/66.7 vs. 107.5/63.8; p < 0.01). With the exception of a lower diastolic blood pressure amongst rural girls, no differences were found between rural girls (107.4/64.4) and semi-urban girls (108.0/66.1) and urban girls (109.8/67.5). In multiple linear regression analysis, locality and BMI were independently associated with blood pressure in both boys and girls. CONCLUSION: These findings underscore the urgent need for public health measures to prevent increasing blood pressure and its sequelae from becoming another public health burden. More work on blood pressure in children in sub-Saharan African and other developing countries is needed to prevent high blood pressure from becoming a major burden in many of these countries