Examining Awareness of and Support of Regional Food Systems in Iowa: Establishing a baseline of consumer knowledge about regional food systems and communication preferences

This study included focus groups and telephone surveys of Iowans about their understanding and knowledge of regional food systems and related concepts

Leveraging student expertise to solve food production marketing problems

Teams of business, agriculture, and food science student teams worked with small market farmers to help them make better business decisions about their operations

Reexamining masculinity, femininity, and gender identity scales

This research compares and contrasts three gender identity instruments, the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ), and the Sexual Identity Scale (SIS), that have been used in previous investigations of various aspects of consumer behavior. Specifically, it examines the dimensionality and internal reliability of each scale, inter-scale correlations, and the relationship of each scale to biological sex. Results indicate that the gender identity scales consist of several dimensions beyond those typically interpreted as masculinity and femininity. The femininity factors emerging in the three scales tended to be highly correlated, and females scored higher than males on the femininity factors. However, the three masculinity factors were not correlated with one another, and were not as strongly associated with biological sex - females identified with typically masculine traits just as much as males. The implications of these results for using gender identity in consumer research are discussed, and future research opportunities are explored.15 page(s

Adolescent consumption autonomy: A cross-cultural examination

Adolescents are an important market segment globally not only for their spending power as adolescents but also for their future spending power as adults. One variable that impacts current and future spending power is the degree to which adolescents are autonomous consumers. This study reports on depth interviews conducted with adolescent girls in France and the United States for the purpose of identifying dimensions of adolescent consumption autonomy based on adolescents' perceptions. Four dimensions of adolescent consumption autonomy are identified, including attitudinal, emotional, functional and financial. Similarities and differences between the two cultures are discussed, and implications for marketing and future research are identified.Adolescent consumers Consumption autonomy Cross-cultural Shopping

Different ways of 'seeing' : how gender differences in information processing influence the content analysis of narrative texts

This manuscript examines the potential of bias in qualitative research due to coder gender. It reports a study of gender differences in coding by males and females based on a coding assignment involving written narratives completed by 18 males and 17 females. The study found gender differences in their coding the presence/absence of 10 themes related to gift exchanges and three gender role concepts, as well as differences in intercoder reliabilities based on gender composition of coder pairs. For several hypotheses, differences were opposite those predicted. The surprising findings suggest the complexity of qualitative data and emphasize the need for greater care in its analysis. Specific recommendations are made for researchers using qualitative data, and suggestions for future research are provided.17 page(s

Is it better to give than to receive? Exploring gender differences in the meaning of memorable gifts

Research on gift-exchange behavior has generally found that women are more concerned and involved with giving gifts than are men. Moreover, the consumer behavior literature has focused almost exclusively on gift-giving behavior, offering few insights regarding gift-receiving roles. As an initial step toward understanding gift receiving, 89 men and 85 women from the United States (n = 124) and Europe n = 50) completed written narratives regarding their most memorable gift experiences. An interpretive analysis of the texts uncovered several themes associated with giving and/or receiving gifts, and correspondence analyses generated distinct gift-receiving and gift-giving profiles for men and women. Surprisingly, given the more prominent role of women in gift giving, four of the five female profiles involved memories of receiving rather than giving gifts. It was the men that tended to report gift-giving experiences; two of the three male profiles that emerged involved giving gifts. The texts then were reexamined and further interpreted to acquire a deeper understanding of each profile and how giving and receiving profiles of both men and women might be related to one another