Does personality congruence explain luxury brand attachment? The results of an international research study

© 2020 Elsevier Inc. There is a general lack of clarity regarding measurement of the self-brand congruity construct, which also calls for cross-national validation. Although previous evidence suggests a positive relationship between self-brand congruity and consumer brand associations (brand attachment), this relationship requires a deeper investigation. This study tests and validates a personality congruence scale in the luxury sector on an international level. Based on a survey of nearly 1500 international luxury customers, it also measures the effect of congruence on brand attachment. The findings confirm that the personality congruence structure is based on five dimensions: prestige, emotion, trust, anxiety, and order. The results highlight the personality congruence effect and its influence on brand attachment. Finally, similarities and differences across countries are detected in the personality congruence and brand attachment relationship. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed. This study contributes to the literature on brand personality congruence and its impact on brand attachment in the luxury context

The model of customer trust for internet banking adoption

The use of the Internet has increased dramatically over recent years and is now regarded as the best channel for distribution of products and services of various types of businesses, such as internet banking services. This paper extends an area of information systems research into a financial services context by looking into the element of trust in Internet banking. As more financial institutions are currently seeking ways to boost Internet banking adoption rates, trust is also being examined as a significant issue in the relationship. This can be attributed to the fact that bank customers are concerned about the security involved in processing such sensitive material as financial information. Moreover, significant factors of trust are involved and these include: accessibility, privacy, security, quality, usability, users knowledge and disposition to trust. These can all have an impact on customer trust in adopting internet banking. Based on previous models with aforementioned variables that are theoretically justified as having an influence on trust, a relevant research model was developed to test eight (8) hypothesized paths among the study variables. These include, namely: accessibility, privacy, security, quality, usability, users knowledge, disposition to trust, trust, as well as the rate of internet banking adoption. Data was collected by survey questionnaires from a sample of 150 internet banking users. The Smart PLS tool was used for data analysis. The results of the data analysis generally support the model, as well as all of the proposed hypotheses. In summary, the results of this research have shown that accessibility, privacy, security, quality, usability, users knowledge and disposition to trust were found to have significant influence

Determinants of the attitudes of Portuguese accounting students and professionals towards earnings management

We revisit religiosity, gender, age, ethics education and experience as drivers of ethicality, while expanding prior research from Anglo-Saxon and Asiatic/Euro-Asiatic countries to a Latin European country, Portugal. We apply the Merchant (1989) instrument of attitudes towards earnings management, in a sample of Portuguese accounting students and alumni. We find no significant evidence of a positive association between religiosity and accountants’ judgments on earnings management. However, gender, age, education (and accounting ethics education) and experience are significant predictors of accountants’ judgments. The results are unchanged when we control for the intent (selfish benefit) of earnings management. Females, older individuals and alumni judge accounting earnings management more harshly than males, younger individuals, and students (who have not yet completed an accounting ethics course). A higher level of accounting work experience induces accountants to judge accounting earnings management as a less ethically questionable practice. This finding is theoretically relevant because it underscores the necessity of taking people’s constraints in the workplace into consideration when studying ethical behavior in business contexts. The results are also practically relevant, as they highlight the importance of a systematic ethics education throughout the accountant’s life.Funding -This paper is financed by National Funds of the FCT –Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology within the project UID/ECO/03182/201