Corporate Consumer Research Articles

The Body

The popular media industry of spectacle with instruments of “seduction” produces “voluntary cosent” of man in acceptance, imitation and evaluation of distribution of corporate consumer culture. In this world man plays role beyond his ontological need and self-conscious realization of subject as thinking creature. The aim of this paper is to problematize socio-cultural phenomenology of body transfiguration, impressions and experiences in opticum of consumerist globalization. The new construction of “new” body is modeled on techniques of instrumentalisation, stereotyping and hybridization of narcissism as the primary reprezentational principle of such media experience.

영웅적 유명인에 대한 애착이 기업진정성과 소비자 삶의 질에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

영웅적 유명인에 대한 애착이 기업진정성과 소비자 삶의 질에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

Skew Preference in Energy Commodity Option Design

The pay-off profiles of an option buyer or seller, indeed the risks they bear, are skewed and asymmetric by design. A poorly designed option has a tendency for inadequate or excessive risk mitigation. Our objective in this paper is to develop an optimisation model for determining the mix and structure of energy commodity options, given alternative levels of skew preference and option premium budgets. Our modelling is particularly suitable to the setting of electric utility regulation involving multiple stakeholders with potentially diverse skew preferences. A regulated electric utility has a fiduciary duty to seek a prudent programme for fuel cost hedging, yet various stakeholders, including but not limited to corporate managers, regulators, and consumer advocates, are able to influence its configuration. We implement calibrations and simulations of our model for scenarios pertaining to skew preference, option premium budgets, and a representation of a California regulatory incentive system. We assess the economic consequences of mischaracterising the concept of skew in the design of natural gas options.

Looking for luxury CSR practices that make more sense: The role of corporate identity and consumer attitude

ABSTRACT This paper explores the factors affecting consumers’ evaluation of luxury corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. In particular, it examines how corporate identity and consumer attitude influence the importance they attribute to a variety of luxury CSR practices. The existing academic literature neglects this question, and there has been a call for understanding which type of CSR practices is appropriate for luxury brands. Findings from an empirical study regarding the French luxury brand Hermes indicate that corporate identity is a significant predictor of which CSR practices consumers evaluate as important. As well that, consumer attitude mediates the latter effect. The current research thereby stresses the need for luxury brand managers to link CSR practices to corporate identity and to acknowledge how consumers’ attitude can affect this relationship.

Corporate social responsibility and consumer behaviour in the hospitality sector: its effects on the decision-making process

Corporate social responsibility and consumer behaviour in the hospitality sector: its effects on the decision-making process

Corporate social responsibility and consumer behaviour in the hospitality sector: its effects on the decision-making process

In current marketplaces, implementation of activities related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a new expectation to be fulfilled by all sort of organisations. These ethical practices are key issues at the time of differentiating products, gaining competitive advantages for consumer decisions and reviews, and building simultaneously a positive reputation in face of the various stakeholders. Although the recent marketing literature indicates a positive link between companies' involvement in social and environmental causes and consumer goodwill towards firms and brands, the effects of social reputation on consumer behaviour are not entirely demonstrated. In the context of these evidences, this paper analyses the consideration of responsibility criteria over the different stages of the consumer decision-making process with regard to hospitality services. Particularly, a self-administered questionnaire was conducted with a representative sample of consumers in Spain. In general, findings support a moderate-downward impact of perceived business responsibility over the consumer decision-making process, while some discrepancies can be observed between individuals within gender and different age groups. Lastly, a final discussion is carried out gathering some interest considerations as direct reflection of results obtained and further lines of future research are indicated.

Corporate Social Irresponsibility and Purchase Intention

An important objective of business research is to understand how organizational practices can influence consumer attitude and behaviors in order to help achieve organizational goals via consumer purchase intention. It was proposed and found in this study that consumers’ perceptions of certain Corporate Social Irresponsible (CSI) practices serves as antecedents of consumer purchase intention (PI) via corporate reputation (CR) and consumer attitude (CA). On the one hand, this finding may help understand the “black box” between CSI practices and PI. On the other hand, while CR refers to customers’ evaluations of the reputation of the organization and CSI represent a significant channel the organization uses to channel its irresponsible behavior to the community, CR and CA literatures have not comprehensively examined the effect of CSI practices on consumers CA and CR beliefs. The findings in the hierarchical regression from a sample of 455 consumers of products in a large corporate organization in Kenya as a study documenting a negative association between CSI practices and CR and CA with PI suggests that consumers draw inferences from the CSI-related treatment they receive in assessing the supportiveness of the organization. By implementing CSI practices that demonstrate the organization does not care about the community and values their contribution, organizations are likely to be perceived as engaging in a high level of irresponsible behaviour. The results of this study add to our knowledge about the antecedents of CR and CA. Moreover, this study bridges the gap in the literature, by combining CSI, CR, CA and PI.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Consumer Behaviour: A Review to Establish a Conceptual Model

Over the past decades, concern about the environment has become not only a significant public issue but also a crucial topic in academic research. A sharp rise in environmentalism has emerged. Despite an increase in consumer expectations for business to do more for society than deliver on economic conditions and many firms' increasingly adopting socially-responsible stances, marketplace behaviour highlights a gap between what consumers report they expect from firms and what they are prepared to reward. This paper discusses the review of past papers to identify the gaps and to frame a conceptual model as per the consumer and firm’s expectation from CSR policies.

Key Antecedents Influencing Intermediary Social Responsibility and Its Outcomes: Insights from a Transitional Economy

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate and determine the key antecedents of intermediary social responsibility (ISR) and its outcomes. Design: The conceptual framework was designed through exploratory research design where structural relationships were shown with partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with smart PLS 3. Findings: The result showed that intermediary self -interest is the strongest predictor of intermediary social responsibility along with consumer ethical aspect has moderate impact but societal and environmental factors do not predict of intermediary social responsibility. Research Limitation/implication: The theoretical contribution of the study is to minimize the knowledge gap by widening the length of existing literature related to the aspect of consumer research. Intermediary social responsibility would help to build up nexus between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and consumer social responsibility (CNSR) which brings positive socio-economic development of the transitional economy. Originality: The novelty of this research is that it is the unexplored area of consumer research and is not commonly seen and researched by past researchers in the transitional country context.

The Effect of Investment Distribution to Economic and Social Responsibility Activities of Corporation on the Consumer's Corporate Evaluation

The Effect of Investment Distribution to Economic and Social Responsibility Activities of Corporation on the Consumer's Corporate Evaluation

Communication With Clients Using Electronic Mail – Analysis of the Expectations of Various Market Segments

This article is a part of the series of publications on written communication. The aim of the article is to evaluate the possibilities of electronic communication with individual market segments and to identify key elements of e-mail communication and to adapt them to the preferences of clients. Three segments of consumers were identified in the research – young people (up to 40 years old), mature ones (over 40 years of age) and corporate consumers. Each of these groups has different habits regarding communication, which they transfer to relationships with suppliers of goods and services. Older people communicate with energy supplier mostly by mail or by visiting the customer service point personally. Younger people choose electronic communication or via the hotline. Entrepreneurs’ representatives most eagerly handle matters by e-mail.

Longlive Friendship? Relationships among friendship, trust and brand loyalty: A study of Starbucks

Undoubtedly, Facebook has become a rapidly emerging social media during recent decades. It has not only successfully expanded the traditional 'consumer-brand' relationship from the physical channels to the virtual ones, but also shaped complete interaction/communication model between corporate brand and consumers by aggressively build up its brand community. Though Starbucks has already been a well-known brand in Taiwan, few of social media studies has concerned with the influence of friendship and trust on fan's brand loyalty. In view of this, this study based on 340 valid fan samples from Starbuck's fan pages used structural equation modelling (SEM) to validate the research hypotheses. The empirical findings showed that friendship and trust both impact fans' brand loyalty to Starbucks while friendship also influenced trust. Besides, the moderated effect of consumer personality partially existed in our research model.

СТРАТЕГІЧНЕ УПРАВЛІННЯ ЛОГІСТИЧНОЮ ДІЯЛЬНІСТЮ В ПТАХІВНИЧИХ ПІДПРИЄМСТВАХ

The article considers the strategic guidelines of the logistics activities of poultry enterprises. It is noted that the strategies of minimizing logistics costs and investing in the logistics network, maximizing and improving logistics services, maximizing income and profits, increasing the competitive advantages of the enterprise, logistics outsourcing are the most widely used logistics strategies. It is proved that the purpose of creating a logistics system is to harmonize the interests of producers, suppliers and consumers. It is established that an important factor in improving the strategic activities of the enterprise is the introduction of the principles of distribution logistics. This concept involves the use of a systematic approach and integrated planning, as well as management of the entire flow of feed, materials, breeding and commercial poultry products in various areas from suppliers, through manufacturers of breeding and breeding products, distribution centers, to the final individual and corporate consumers of poultry products. The main stages of the business process of integration of a poultry enterprise in the supply chain are schematically shown. The necessity of introduction of new, more progressive forms of service in the process of goods movement can be achieved. The need to use regional distribution centers of poultry enterprises in the supply chain, which will significantly reduce the cost of delivery of their products through the formation of optimal transport batches of products from different manufacturers, its packaging and labeling.

Corporate association strategies and consumer responses: The relative effectiveness of CA versus CSR communication strategy by industry type

Given the importance of communication in the realm of corporate associations, this study analyzes the roles that communication strategies play in the formation of corporate associations. The study examines (1) whether particular types of associations (corporate ability or corporate social responsibility associations) can be developed through CA- or CSR-based communication strategies, and (2) the relative effectiveness of these two association types at amplifying favorable consumer responses across three different industries (consumable goods, durable goods, and stigmatized goods). An experiment was conducted to test the proposed model with six Fortune 500 companies. The results demonstrate that communication strategies can effectively facilitate a particular type of association. Differing levels of association effectiveness were found within each industry. For the consumable goods industry, CA associations are found to be more effective than CSR associations. For the durable goods industry, CSR associations are more influential at enhancing consumer attitudes and purchase intent than CA associations, while CA associations have a larger impact on supportive communication intent. In the case of the stigmatized industry, CSR associations play a determinant role in fostering positive consumer responses. This study provides managers and communication specialists with more concrete guidance for choosing a particular corporate positioning and communication strategy.

The Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Purchase Intention: Evidence from Banking Sector

The relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and company performance has been examined by many scholars, but this relationship is affected by many factors making the tests imprecise. Therefore, this study considers corporate ability and consumer identification as probable constructs in the relationship between CSR and purchase intention. This relationship is underestimated by many scholars and has not been much investigated in the literature. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities on Turkish banks customers and on their responses using the customer - company identification which is affecting the purchase intention. A personal survey on 1934 banking customers was carried out and structural equation modeling is used to test the hypotheses. The results confirmed the positive relationship between the constructs showing that CSR activities should take into account the different aspects of social identity of the banks to attract and retain customers. The study also suggests that CSR can be a source of competitive advantage for the banks improving their financial performance as suggested in the related literature (e.g. Bhattacharya and Sen 2004) by enhancing reputation and customer satisfaction.

Development of algorithm for depreciation costs allocation in dynamic input-output industrial enterprise model

The article considers the issue of allocation of depreciation costs in the dynamic inputoutput model of an industrial enterprise. Accounting the depreciation costs in such a model improves the policy of fixed assets management. It is particularly relevant to develop the algorithm for the allocation of depreciation costs in the construction of dynamic input-output model of an industrial enterprise, since such enterprises have a significant amount of fixed assets. Implementation of terms of the adequacy of such an algorithm itself allows: evaluating the appropriateness of investments in fixed assets, studying the final financial results of an industrial enterprise, depending on management decisions in the depreciation policy. It is necessary to note that the model in question for the enterprise is always degenerate. It is caused by the presence of zero rows in the matrix of capital expenditures by lines of structural elements unable to generate fixed assets (part of the service units, households, corporate consumers). The paper presents the algorithm for the allocation of depreciation costs for the model. This algorithm was developed by the authors and served as the basis for further development of the flowchart for subsequent implementation with use of software. The construction of such algorithm and its use for dynamic input-output models of industrial enterprises is actualized by international acceptance of the effectiveness of the use of input-output models for national and regional economic systems. This is what allows us to consider that the solutions discussed in the article are of interest to economists of various industrial enterprises.

Application of the Logistics “Just in Time” Concept to Improve the Road Safety

Abstract The paper examines correlation in planning and organizing logistics of supplying goods and the issue of safety at urban roads; a model to determine the time of goods delivery is proposed on the basis of logistic concept “just-in-time” that takes into account the requirements of road safety on the one hand, and the customer-oriented approach of delivery, applied technologies and management solutions, on the other. The model is based on an integrated approach to the management of logistics processes; it can serve as a basis for decision making among departments in transport enterprises, logistics departments at industrial and trade enterprises, and corporate consumers. The paper also proposes to add the second level parameters to the system of logistics key performance indicators (KPI); these parameters would allow evaluating the target performance in goods transportation, as well as actual performance of logistics operations, including transportation in terms of road safety.

Suppliers' corporate ability and consumer evaluations of a manufacturer

This study explores consumer perceptions of supply chain partners. In particular, we analyse whether a supplier's corporate ability affects consumer evaluations of a manufacturer. We also examine the moderating effect of a supplier's market position, either the top-dog (strong) or underdog (weak) position. Using a vignette-based experiment, we find that a supplier's high corporate ability does not affect how consumers evaluate the manufacturer. However, a supplier's low corporate ability leads consumers to devalue the manufacturer. We also find that the effect of a supplier's corporate ability is moderated by the supplier's market position: the link between a supplier's low corporate ability and consumers' negative evaluations of a manufacturer becomes stronger when the supplier is perceived as in a top-dog position.

Suppliers' corporate ability and consumer evaluations of a manufacturer

Suppliers' corporate ability and consumer evaluations of a manufacturer

Do security and privacy policies in B2B and B2C e-commerce differ? A comparative study using content analysis

ABSTRACTSecurity and privacy policies address consumer concerns related to security and privacy in e-commerce websites. As these policies represent only the vendor’s perspective, often there exists a mismatch between the stated and desired policy. Based on transaction cost theory, we speculate that business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce customers use their transaction cost savings in order to obtain varying levels of security and privacy. These differences are bound to be reflected in the security and privacy policies of e-commerce companies. Therefore, in this paper, we perform a comparative content analysis of the security and privacy policies in B2C and B2B e-commerce. Results show that B2B vendors are more concerned about security than their B2C counterparts, while B2C vendors are anxious about intimacy and restriction privacy. Our findings have important implications for e-commerce consumers and vendors as individual and corporate consumers have varying concerns while transacting online. Individual consumers are concerned about maintaining security and intimacy privacy, whereas corporate users are anxious about regulatory issues. Therefore, B2C vendors should incorporate stringent measures dedicated to confidentiality and protection of consumer data as well as enhance intimacy privacy in their security policies, while their B2B counterparts should focus on enhancing restriction privacy.