Family Decision Process Research Articles

A Influência dos filhos no Processo de Decisão de Compra e Consumo alimentar das Famílias

Objetivo: O presente estudo tem como objetivo verificar a influncia do consumidor infantil no processo de deciso de compra e consumo de alimentos na famlia. Mtodo: Para tanto, foi conduzido um estudo quantitativo-descritivo junto a 304 pais de crianas de 07 (sete) a 12 (doze) anos incompletos, mediante questionrios estruturados. Para a anlise dos dados utilizou-se de estatstica descritiva e anlise hierrquica aglomerativa de clusters. Originalidade/Relevncia: Poucos estudos analisam a influncia do consumidor infantil na deciso de compra familiar com foco em reas especficas, como a de alimentos. Resultados: Foi possvel verificar a existncia de quatro segmentos distintos de famlias: Famlias concessivas sem restrio econmica, na qual 75,8% das crianas influenciam no processo de deciso de compra e consumo de alimentos na famlia (37,45% da amostra), Famlias no concessivas com restrio econmica, na qual 50,0% das crianas influenciam (23,87% da amostra), Famlias no concessivas sem restrio econmica, na qual 51,7% das crianas influenciam (11,93% da amostra) e Famlias concessivas com restrio econmica, na qual 84,6% das crianas influenciam (26,75% da amostra). Contribuies tericas/metodolgicas: Esta pesquisa tratou de forma indita da anlise do processo de deciso de compra e consumo de alimentos na famlia sob a tica da percepo dos pais quanto a influncia de seus filhos neste, abordando de forma quantitativa esta interao.

Bereaved relatives' decision about deceased organ donation: An integrated psycho-social study conducted in Spain

RationaleFamily refusal to organ donation of a deceased relative represents one of the most important barriers to organ transplantation. Although a large literature about family decisions has amassed, the existing evidence needs further integration and structuring. ObjectiveThis study seeks to analyse relationships between bereaved relatives’ decisions and a wide range of factors that converge in the family decision process, including interactions and complex relationship patterns, and taking psychosocial theoretical frameworks as reference to conceptualize empirical findings. MethodThis observational study examined 16 Spanish hospitals during a 36-month period. Transplant coordination teams collected data of 421 cases of family decision processes about donation (338 donations/83 refusals) through a previously validated instrument. Indicators of the following factors were collected: deceased's characteristics; circumstances of death; bereaved relatives' characteristics, beliefs, and expressions; behaviour of health and coordination staff; and family's emotional responses. Three global hypotheses related to bivariate and multivariate relations of factors with family decisions and relationships/interactions among factors were tested. ResultsRelatives' beliefs about the deceased's wishes concerning donation are the strongest predictor of family decisions. However, family decisions are also related to the deceased's characteristics, relatives' characteristics, satisfaction with medical attention, satisfaction with personal treatment and relatives' emotional responses, and other factors. Relatives' emotional reactions are related to satisfaction with health-staff interventions and condition family decision, even if deceased's will concerning donation is known and positive. Relatives' beliefs about deceased's wishes concerning donation vary as a function of deceased's characteristics and according to relatives' characteristics. ConclusionsUnderstanding of family decisions underlying organ donation may greatly benefit from a more complex, integrated, and theoretically based approach. Educational efforts should stress the need to register or simply communicate own willingness to donate organs. However, an adequate training and performance of the health-staff involved in the organ donation process may generate substantive differences in consent rates.

Influence of Migration in Women Emancipation - Case Study from Kosovan Albanian Diaspora

In many undeveloped Mediterranean countries with few occupational possibilities, international migration from late 1960’s become a matter of government policy, frequently through bilateral agreements for guest workers. Initially part of these agreements were only men, who migrated toward European counties as seasonal workers. This type of migration created attitudes among the Albanian population in Kosovo that international migrations are mainly for men. However, being in such places with high employment opportunities, profits and life standard, many of them decided to continue living in host countries, bringing thus their family members along. This move gave the to the Kosovar Albanian women opportunity to become part of host societies and possibility to Albanian population to understand that migration as a right which belong to both genders’ equally.Initially, migrated women who joined their husbands came mainly from rural and low educated families and were personally and mentally unprepared for a new life in an alien environment. Even though their integration into host societies was challenge for them, we argue that migration has affected their status and family life, as well. By entering into a wage earning production process they become more independent and active in family decision processes, families became egalitarian, relations between family members became more open and their social networks were expanding. Additionally, recent female migrants are more open into integration processes. They are showing interest for involvement into labor market and educational processes, meaning that beside job, they tend to ensure the position at profession, as well.These criteria of emancipation we will prove by using ethnographic research technique, which implies the collection and analysis of detailed in-depth interviews (life stories) of Kosovan Albanian migrants in Germany and Switzerland. By women’s narratives, through which they express themselves, will draw a conclusion about integration strategies and way of living in host societies. While, the husbands and children’s narratives will be used to prove the changes in their family life.

Lebendorganspende

The decision for living organ donation is, apart from medical questions, mainly influenced by family conditions such as the reciprocity relation. Additionally, two-thirds of all donated living kidney transplantations come from women. Thus, living organ donation takes place according to the action theory based on the Maussian theory of giving. This paper deals with living donation as a family decision process with particular relevance to gender roles and the action of giving.

The Changing Intra-Household Resource Allocation in Russia

During the transition toward a market economy, Russian workers have had to face important structural changes in the labour market as well as dramatic changes in their real earnings. In the process, the wage gap between men and women has varied wildly over that period. In recent years, young women have embraced professional careers, are more mobile on the labour market, and tend to delay the birth of their first child. All these trends are likely to influence intra-household relations and consequently the family decision process. To investigate this matter, we estimate a household collective labour supply model. We generalize the specification so as to allow the sharing rule to change in a discrete manner between the pre and post 1998 financial crisis periods. The parameters of the sharing-rule indicate that the households have shifted to a new equilibrium in the post-1998 period. Indeed, husbands have become more egotistic and wives more altruistic: An increase in their relative wage translates into a smaller/larger transfer to their spouse.

Influences and Emotions: Exploring Family Decision-making Processes when Buying a House

The decision to purchase a house is embedded within a set of economic and socio-cultural processes and is operationalized within the context of a specific local property market. In the residential mobility literature considerable attention has been given to examining issues of house prices, life-course and demographic influences on the decision to buy, but less attention has been directed to understanding the internal family decision-making process. While the act of purchasing a property constitutes a significant economic event for a family, the process of purchasing a house is an inherently social activity, involving setting goals, discussing and negotiating family needs, interacting with exchange professionals (information intermediaries), imagining modifications to potential purchases and interpreting market trends. These family activities are shaped by family structures, gender roles, ethnicity and socio-economic status. In addition, the house purchase process takes place within specific market conditions and institutional practices. For example, in New Zealand, the estate agent has a large amount of power when negotiating contracts between buyers and sellers. Using in-depth interviews, this paper examines family decision processes in Auckland from the perspective of estate agents who deal with families purchasing houses on a daily basis, and formulate their own understanding of buyer behaviour, and adult family members who have recently purchased houses. The analysis makes it possible to explore the ways in which estate agents interpret the purchasing behaviour of families and to compare these interpretations with the understandings of adult family members. The study offers insights into the ways in which families engage in search practices, interpret information and internally negotiate decisions. It is argued that the findings here contribute a greater understanding of how housing markets are performed and made.

The Changing Intra-Household Resource Allocation in Russia

During the transition toward a market economy, Russian workers have had to face important structural changes in the labour market as well as dramatic changes in their real earnings. In the process, the wage gap between men and women has varied wildly over that period. In recent years, young women have embraced professional careers, are more mobile on the labour market, and tend to delay the birth of their first child. All these trends are likely to influence intra-household relations and consequently the family decision process. To investigate this matter, we estimate a household collective labour supply model. We generalize the specification so as to allow the sharing rule to change in a discrete manner between the pre and post 1998 financial crisis periods. The parameters of the sharing-rule indicate that the households have shifted to a new equilibrium in the post-1998 period. Indeed, husbands have become more egotistic and wives more altruistic: An increase in their relative wage translates into a smaller/larger transfer to their spouse.

Children's influence on and participation in the family decision process during food buying

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to contribute to studies of family decision making during food buying. In particular a theoretical framework is proposed for structuring future studies of family decision making that include children's influence and participation at specific stages of the process.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual framework is developed on the basis of earlier theoretical work focused on family shopping as well as an ethnographic study of parents and children. The framework was refined after testing in a survey with 451 Danish families with children aged ten to 13 using questionnaires for both children and parents.FindingsFamily food decision making is often a joint activity, and children's active participation, among other things, determines the influence they gain. Parents and children do not always agree on how much influence children have in the various stages of the process, indicating the importance of listening to both parties in research into the family dynamics and processes involved in everyday food buying.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research should further extend the knowledge about the areas where children have influence, about the techniques used by children to achieve influence, and more about those factors that explain when they gain influence.Practical implicationsMarketers can benefit from the findings when promoting food products to adults as well as to children. Specifically, the findings suggest that children have most influence on decisions regarding easily prepared meals.Originality/valueThis mixed‐method approach provides interesting new results, and the main findings emphasise the importance of looking at food decision making as a joint activity where children participate actively and gain influence.

Tax reform and collective family decision-making

Traditional analysis of tax reform treats market behaviour as arising out of individual utility maximisation. In this paper, behaviour is modelled as the Pareto-efficient outcome of a family decision process. Conditions for the existence of a feasible, Pareto-improving tax change are presented and contrasted with those that obtain in the individualistic case. The consequences of treating households as a single individual are also discussed.

Family Members' Perceptions of Adolescents' Influence in Family Decision Making

Influence perceptions of mothers, fathers, and one adolescent child are compared to document structural relationships between parents and children in family decision making. Family triads are found to disagree in their perceptions of adolescent influence on both a broad selection of specific products and general influence in family decision processes. Mothers, fathers, and children, however, all rate children as having some influence in purchase decisions for a variety of products. A “household” measure of perceptions of general adolescent influence in purchase decisions is constructed and the antecedents of agreement or disagreement among family members are explored, yielding propositions for future research.

Consumer Behaviour in Tourism

The analysis of consumer behaviour requires the consideration of various processes internal and external to the individual. To understand behaviour, it is necessary to examine the complex interaction of many influencing elements. This study deals with determinants of behaviour, culture and reference group influences, the relationships between individuals and their environments, perceived risks, and family decision processes. It concludes with an illustration of tourist behaviour modelling.

Malnutrition, child morbidity and the family decision process

This paper suggests a microeconomic model of the process by which infants and toddlers are subject to malnourishment, diarrhea and other illnesses in developing countries. It is econometrically estimated on a cross-section, time-series basis for 1200 children from Candelaria, Colombia. The model focuses on four issues: (i) the impact of economic constraints and intra-family resource allocation decisions on a child's nutritional and health status, (ii) the interrelationship between malnutrition, diarrhea and other diseases, (iii) the impact on health and nutritional status of specific policy interventions (maternal-child health education, food supplementation and the encouragement of breast feeding), and (iv) the importance of distinguishing between the effect of different policy variables on a child's height and weight during this period.

Decision Making within the Household

Existing research on household decision making is reviewed in terms of three questions: (1) Which family members are involved in economic decisions? (2) What is the nature of family decision processes? and (3) Are decision outcomes affected by differences in family role structure and decision strategies? Problem areas related to each of these questions are discussed, including an overemphasis on decision roles rather than processes and outcomes, noncomparable and insufficient measures of purchase influence, and marketing's preference for individual-based models of consumer behavior.

The Role of Operations Research in Population Planning

Two features of population planning are of special interest to operations researchers: the important interaction among family planning, health, and economic development, and the substantial but varying impact of social, cultural, political, and economic factors—features that require a multi-disciplinary, flexible approach for which operations research is well suited. In spite of the vast differences among various international settings, three overriding principles should be borne in mind. First, programs of population planning are designed to serve national goals, whereas the ultimate actions concerning family limitation are usually recognized to be private family decisions. Second, one usually faces a rather ill-defined interplay among a great variety of factors. Third, the universal importance of the population problem in developing countries is always coupled with severe limitations of resources to cope with the problem. This paper deals initially with the family decision process and then with the organization of professional activities toward population control. In both cases hypothetical models are developed, information from the field is used to illustrate their significance, and suggestions for further research are offered. The decision model considers the utility of child-bearing for different population groups compared with the subjective valuation these groups give to contraception. Means of measuring these poorly defined values are proposed. In assessing the role of operations research in the organization and delivery of family planning services, the paper directs attention to the allocation problem, which includes concern, on the one hand, for the methods of contraception provided, the manner in which they are offered, and the kinds of personnel employed, and, on the other hand, the attitudes of target populations toward both the services and the providers.

Some Pilot Studies of Communication and Consensus in the Family

Studies of groups can be classified according to whether the groups are artificial or ad hoc or temporary on the one hand, or permanent and persisting like the family on the other. They also focus either on power and participation, or on consensus and communication. And role allocation, though often considered as a manifestation of power structure, is not always the same thing: A random relationship was found between power structures on the one hand and structures of task allocation on the other, indicating that the traditional and companionate types often discussed in the literature may not represent the facts of the current scene.' Studies of power within the family based on questions about who makes the decisions, who initiated the idea, or who prevails have produced variable results, and results that do not agree with findings on whether the husband or wife can predict best what the family actually does.2 Hence, it seemed appropriate to ask what was holding up studies of communication and consensus, as a way of providing some better background information for family decision processes, as well as useful data on what kind of information one could expect to secure from