Pirated software: ethical attitudes and purchase behaviour of consumers

This study investigates the ethical attitudes and purchase behaviour of Indonesian consumers towards software piracy. While previous studies have uncovered various motivations that drive consumers from different countries to engage in this undesirable behaviour, changes in the business landscape, including advancement in technology, necessitates a revisit into the attitudes and purchase intentions towards pirated software. It is found that habitual behaviour, integrity, facilitating conditions, and personal gratification are significant predictors of consumers’ attitudes towards software piracy. Habitual behaviour and facilitating conditions are also found to be predictors of purchase intention. In contrast to prior studies, collectivism, normative and informative susceptibility, and value consciousness do not influence either attitudes towards and purchase intentions of pirated software. The main implication of this study is the clear indication that different strategies need to be formulated to curb software piracy in an emerging economy such as Indonesia

The influence of ethical attitudes and purchase behaviour for pirated software

This study investigates the ethical attitudes and purchase behaviour of Indonesian consumers towards software piracy. While previous studies have uncovered various motivations that drive consumers from different countries to engage in this undesirable behaviour, changes in the business landscape, including advancement in technology, necessitates a revisit into the attitudes and purchase intentions towards pirated software. It is found that habitual behaviour, integrity, facilitating conditions, and personal gratification are significant predictors of consumers' attitudes towards software piracy. Habitual behaviour and facilitating conditions are also found to be predictors of purchase intention. In contrast to prior studies, collectivism, normative and informative susceptibility, and value consciousness do not influence either attitudes towards and purchase intentions of pirated software. The main implication of this study is the clear indication that different strategies need to be formulated to curb software piracy in an emerging economy such as Indonesia

Conceptualising the mediating role of inferences of manipulative intent between consumer skepticism and product judgment

This paper proposes a research framework on the antecedents of consumers' skepticism toward advertising and its related outcome variables; including inferences of manipulative intent, attitudes toward the advertisement and product judgment. The scope of the study will be limited to the industry of beauty products, due to the myriad of dubious beauty ad claims. Consumer involvement and risk are also discussed as possible background variables for the framework. The paper will attempt to bridge a number of gaps inherent to consumer skepticism toward advertising, including validating the consumer susceptibly toward interpersonal influences scale and marketplace knowledge scale, in the context of mature target audiences and their degree of ad skepticism and empirically verify Obermiller and Spangenberg's (1998) suggestion of high skeptics infer high inferences of manipulative intent. The framework is built on the persuasion knowledge model and a conceptual model is used to explain the various relationships, leading to a series of hypotheses. This research provides implications for policy makers, strategists, advertisers and planners

Effects of "Owned By" versus "Made In" for Willingness to Buy Australian Brands

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the effects of economic nationalism and consumer ethnocentrism in the form of country of origin (COO) cues specifically “Made in…” and “Owned by…” on the product judgment of bi-national wine brands (brands with multiple country affiliations). Further, the role of consumer product knowledge is examined as a moderator of these xenophobia attitudes. Design/methodology/approach – A self-administered questionnaire was designed using established scales. A convenience sample was drawn from participants attending a major wine trade exhibition in Western Australia and university students. A variety of statistical techniques were used to analyse the data. Findings – High levels of economic nationalism and anti-foreign sentiment was so strong that respondents did not want products that had any association with a foreign country, regardless of whether the products are directly or indirectly related to a foreign origin. This suggests that Australian consumers are not any more receptive to bi-national brands; as such domestic affiliations have not diluted the economic nationalistic sentiment. Further, results confirm that Australian consumers use COO cues as part of wine evaluations. Consumers with low product knowledge are likely to rely on extrinsic country cues to reinforce their brand evaluation, whereas consumers who are more knowledgeable are found to base evaluations on intrinsic attributes rather than extrinsic cues. Research limitations/implications – Only respondents from Perth, Western Australia were chosen, thus limiting the representativeness of the sample. Other cultural contexts and product categories based on a larger sample size should be investigated in the future. Practical implications – This research provides useful consumer insights and new market entry implications in terms of advertising and branding strategies for international wine manufacturers and distributors who wish to expand globally. In addition, there are managerial implications for domestic market where local retailers, merchandisers, importers can avoid importing products originating from offending countries and take on opportunity to exploit and promote “buy domestic campaigns”. Originality/value – Conceptually, this study extends the existing COO literature by (1) introducing bi-national brands into the model, (2) expanding on country of ownership appeals in evaluating bi-national brands and (3) identifying the correlation between the economic nationalism and consumer ethnocentrism constructs. Further, this research can significantly help wine marketers to develop more effective positioning strategies. It will also help in the development of pricing and promotional decisions

Examining the role of hybrid products in a consumer animosity setting

This paper aims to examine the effects of animosity on consumers? willingness to buy hybrid products (i.e. products that involve affiliations of two or more countries - such as branded in Japan but made in China). By examining the Chinese consumers? animosity towards the Japanese, the study?s findings revealed a high level of animosity present that resulted in the Chinese consumers? unwillingness to buy Japanese products. More importantly, results showed that the Chinese consumers are not any more receptive to hybrid products as such domestic affiliations have not diluted the animosity

Examining consumer risk perceptions of prototypical brands versus me-too brands

This study examines brand familiarity, extrinsic attributes, self-confidence, and perceived quality for their effects on perceived risk between prototypical and me-too brands. Factor analyses and path analysis were used in testing hypotheses. Brand familiarity produced a significant positive effect, while extrinsic attributes produced a significant negative effect on perceived equivalent quality for both the pioneer and me-too brands. Respectively, the perceived equivalent quality of the MP3 players produced significant positive and negative effects on perceived risks for pioneer and me-too brands. Managerial implications include strategic use of me-too brands and management of competitive advantages of pioneer brands with perceived prototypicality

Counterfeiting in Singapore: understanding consumer attitudes and purchase intentions

The paper examines the factors that influence the attitudes of Singaporean consumers towards counterfeits of luxury brands. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire from 300 postgraduate students of a large university. Both social influence and price quality inference were found to significantly influence attitudes towards counterfeits of luxury brands. There is no significant relationship with brand consciousness, personal gratification, value consciousness, and brand prestige. Attitudes towards counterfeits of luxury brands were found to influence purchase intention. A research model is developed together with an agenda of seven hypotheses. The main contributions of the proposed research are also delineated

Historical nostalgia intensities: effects on cognition, attitudes, and intentions

This paper compares the effect of high, medium and low levels of historical nostalgic reactions in consumers exposed to a historical nostalgic advert on cognitive, attitudinal, and purchase intention reactions. These important consumer reactions are found to be effected in some way due to the change in historical nostalgia intensity. Although nostalgia has been explored in the past, effects of historical nostalgia specifically are generally unexplored. This paper begins to fill this important empirical gap

Devil wears (counterfeit) Prada: a study of antecedents and outcomes of attitudes towards counterfeits of luxury brands

The paper examines how social and personality factors influence Chinese consumers' attitudes towards counterfeits of luxury brands and how these two sets of variables influence purchase intention. It provides a profile of buyers and non-buyers of counterfeits of luxury brands. A self-administered questionnaire was designed using established scales. A survey was conducted in downtown Shanghai through the "mall intercept" method. A variety of statistical techniques was used to analyse the data. Status consumption and integrity are strong influencers of purchase intention, whereas normative susceptibility, information susceptibility, personal gratification, value consciousness, novelty seeking had weaker influencing relationships. The attitude towards counterfeiting of luxury brands is found to influence purchase intention. Collectivism does not influence attitudes nor purchase intentions towards counterfeits of luxury brands. The findings are only limited to Chinese consumers in Shanghai, which cannot be generalized across whole of China. Further, only luxury brands are considered. Other cultural contexts and product categories should be investigated in future. This research provides an in depth understanding of Chinese consumers' attitudes towards counterfeits of luxury brands. The research findings can be used to formulate strategies for academia, practitioners and more importantly policy makers to help eradicate or at the very least curb counterfeiting activities.The majority of previous studies focused on counterfeiting and piracy of music and other optical media whereas this paper focussed exclusively on luxury brands. Status consumption is also added as an antecedent towards attitudes and purchase intention of counterfeits

Development and validation of Consumer Economic Nationalistic Tendencies Scale (CENTSCALE)

Economic nationalism has been identified as a critical component of nationalistic sentiment, influencing cognitions, attitudes, evaluation and purchase intentions. While a distinction is made between economic nationalism and other measures of national and international orientation (ie. consumer ethnocentrism), previous empirical studies explore the concept in a 'unified' form. This study bridges this gap by developing a scale specifically tailored to measure consumer economic nationalistic tendencies. Scale generation, purification, validation and confirmation are achieved through five studies