Purchase Behaviors During Emergencies: Exploratory Analyses and Predictive Models

In this study, we distinguish between traditional emergency events (i.e., those that occur frequently) and novel emergency events (i.e., those that occur rarely in one’s lifetime). We examine consumers’ shopping behaviors during both types of emergency events. Using data from a U.S. supermarket chain, we answer three research questions. First, we conduct multiple cluster analyses and identify three distinct shopping behaviors during emergency events, namely strategic, routine, and stocking. Second, we examine how consumers change their shopping behaviors toward novel emergency events and find that majority of consumers continue to engage in routine shopping behaviors. Third, we examine how to predict shopping behaviors before emergency events and show that all three types of shopping behaviors can be predicted with reasonable levels of accuracy based on consumers’ spending before emergency events

Effectiveness Of Relationship Marketing Tactics In A University Setting

We test the correlation between student perception of three university relationship-building tactics - commercial friendships, preferential treatment, and tangible rewards - with university student satisfaction. We also test whether two student characteristics - enduring involvement with education and sense of entitlement - have a moderating effect on the aforementioned relationship between university relationship-building behaviors and student satisfaction. Results revealed positive correlations between perceived relationship tactics and overall satisfaction. Correlations between the relationship-building behaviors and satisfaction were also greater among high-involvement students than among their lesser-involved cohorts. Students who felt a sense of entitlement were more likely to believe that they were recipients of relationship-building behaviors, but they didn’t always appreciate them more than students who felt less entitled

Caving, role playing, and staying home: Shopper coping strategies in a negotiated pricing environment.

This interpretive study reveals specific behaviors that shoppers enact in order to cope with the tensions they experience in an environment where negotiated pricing is the expected norm. Consumers experience inner conflict, or tension, when they feel that a pleasant shopping experience may only be attained at the risk of a poor financial outcome. These tensions, derived from 34 depth interviews with auto shoppers, include “truth versus deception,” “self-presentation versus testing the limits,” and “reciprocation versus looking out for number one.” Some coping strategies emanating from these tensions include using analogies, role playing, and bringing one\u27s own audience. Implications for academicians and retailers are discussed

A cluster analytic approach for consumer segmentation using the vegetarian/meatarian distinction.

In this study, we use cluster analysis to create a consumer segmentation scheme based on individuals\u27 vegetarian/meatarian orientation, along with key attitudinal, personality, and demographic characteristics. Such characteristics include concern for animals, concern with health, concern for the environment, attitude toward corporate ethical practices, need for cognition, social conformity, age, gender, and level of education. In segmenting consumers along these dimensions, this research study not only expands our knowledge about consumers, but also provides useful insight for marketers of food products and services

Characterizing consumer concerns about identification technology.

Purpose - Retailer\u27s use of advanced technology to identify consumers has broad and, for many individuals, disturbing social implications. This study seeks to uncover consumer concerns regarding various identification technologies that may be encountered in present and future retail environments. Design/methodology/approach - Subjects were asked to describe, in writing, concerns that they might have regarding six identification technologies. Content analysis was employed in order to place consumer concerns regarding biometric and radio frequency identification device technology into meaningful categories. Findings - Eight specific categories of concern emerged which fall under three general themes: concerns regarding the technology itself, concerns regarding the security of collected data, and existential issues regarding interaction with the technology. Research limitations/implications - This research provides a framework for academic researchers to further develop a model of consumer interaction with identification technology. Therefore, an empirical follow-up study, using a representative sample, should be conducted in order to expand the findings of this research. Practical implications - This research study makes use of qualitative elicitation techniques to uncover specific areas of concern that may be addressed and alleviated prior to a technology\u27s introduction. Originality/value - This paper fills a gap in the existing literature with regard to our knowledge of consumer concerns and fears about identification technology

Vegetarianism: Toward a greater understanding.

Vegetarianism continues to gain prominence in contemporary society. This research uses a two-phase approach to further the understanding of this phenomenon. In the first phase, a phenomenological perspective is utilized to provide a deeper understanding of the motivations, tensions, and coping mechanisms underlying vegetarianism. The second phase builds upon this understanding and broadens the scope of the research by introducing the concept of vegetarian orientation. Here, survey methodology is employed to investigate the manner in which a person\u27s demographic, attitudinal, and personality characteristics influence his/her vegetarian-oriented attitudes and behaviors. Findings and their marketing implications are discussed

Sociological factors influencing high-risk physical activities.

Although risk-taking has been investigated widely in psychology and marketing-oriented literature, the vast majority of those risks pertain to lifestyle choices, such as sexual promiscuity, smoking, and illicit drug use. Conversely, relatively little work has explored why adults engage in high-risk physical activities, such as mountaineering and skydiving. To help explain this phenomenon, we create a model based on the theory that the human body is hot-wired to thrive on certain types of stress not provided in modern society. That is, high-risk behaviors provide the stress (and accompanying stress release) that some individuals crave. We propose that, aside from innate personality characteristics, sociological factors influencing one\u27s likelihood of engaging in high-risk activities include a sense of alienation at work, postponement of gratification, the feeling of work as an imposition, a perceived lack of control in one\u27s life, and questioning the meaning of life. We believe that this paper helps explain risk-taking behaviors of a relatively large group of people in modern society, and can provide a springboard for further empirical research; managerial implications for marketers of high-risk activities are discussed