German Consumers Research Articles

English 'fantasy words' in the mind of the German: what has art got to do with advertising?

The German Federal Patent Court decides on how the average German consumer would interpret the potentially descriptive English word ‘artconcept’.

Consumer File Sharing of Motion Pictures

Illegal consumer file sharing of motion pictures is considered a major threat to the movie industry. Whereas industry advocates and some scholars postulate a cannibalistic effect on commercial forms of movie consumption, other researchers deny this effect, though sound evidence is lacking on both sides. Drawing on extant research and utility theory, the authors present hypotheses on the consequences and determinants of consumer file sharing and test them with data from a controlled longitudinal panel study of German consumers. The data contain information on the consumers' intentions toward and actual behavior in relation to the consumption of 25 new motion pictures, allowing the authors to study more than 10,000 individual file-sharing opportunities. The authors test the effect of file sharing on commercial movie consumption using a series of ReLogit regression analyses and apply partial least squares structural equation modeling to identify the determinants of consumer file sharing. They find evidence of substantial cannibalization of theater visits, DVD rentals, and DVD purchases responsible for annual revenue losses of $300 million in Germany. Five categories of file-sharing behavior drive file sharing and have a significant impact on how consumers obtain and watch illegal movie copies.

Consumer File Sharing of Motion Pictures

Illegal consumer file sharing of motion pictures is considered a major threat to the movie industry. Whereas industry advocates and some scholars postulate a cannibalistic effect on commercial forms of movie consumption, other researchers deny this effect, though sound evidence is lacking on both sides. Drawing on extant research and utility theory, the authors present hypotheses on the consequences and determinants of consumer file sharing and test them with data from a controlled longitudinal panel study of German consumers. The data contain information on the consumers' intentions toward and actual behavior in relation to the consumption of 25 new motion pictures, allowing the authors to study more than 10,000 individual file-sharing opportunities. The authors test the effect of file sharing on commercial movie consumption using a series of ReLogit regression analyses and apply partial least squares structural equation modeling to identify the determinants of consumer file sharing. They find evidence of substantial cannibalization of theater visits, DVD rentals, and DVD purchases responsible for annual revenue losses of $300 million in Germany. Five categories of file-sharing behavior drive file sharing and have a significant impact on how consumers obtain and watch illegal movie copies.

Consumers' response to offensive advertising: a cross cultural study

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how Chinese and German consumers react to print advertisements that are potentially offensive.Design/methodology/approachUsing culture theories about information context, individualism and feminine consciousness, the paper hypothesizes that Chinese consumers will be less accepting of the advertisements than German consumers. It also compares the dimensions of consumer perceptions for both countries and how consumer perceptions are related with intentions to reject the products and the brands because of the ads. A survey of 563 respondents aged 17‐58 from urban China (Shanghai) and Germany was conducted in October 2005 and June 2006. A questionnaire with six print advertisements containing sexism and other themes was constructed. Data were collected through five universities.FindingsFindings on perceptions of the offensive advertisements among Chinese and German respondents were mixed. Overall, as expected, Chinese respondents were less accepting of offensive advertising, as they liked the advertisements less than German respondents. However, they were also more likely than German respondents to find the advertisements convincing and informative. Results showed that Chinese respondents and German respondents had different dimensions of advertising perceptions. The two print advertisements that received the most negative perceptions both contained sexually oriented body images. The study also found that advertising perceptions had a significant impact on consumers' intentions to reject the products and the brands.Research limitations/implicationsThe city surveyed in China is highly advanced in terms of economical and advertising development when compared with all other Chinese cities. Consumer responses were derived from a student sample. Only the “manner” of offensive advertising was studied, and the “matter” as well as “media” were not covered.Practical implicationsUseful advice for marketers and advertisers to understand how far they can stretch the line for controversial advertisements and to assess the possible risk involved.Originality/valueThis paper offers insight to design communication and message strategies for consumers of very different cultural backgrounds.

One reputation or many?

PurposeThe firm's reputation is one of its most valued intangible assets. Scientific and managerial interest in corporate reputation grows steadily. Reputation management – one of the cornerstones of corporate communications – seeks to align communication with stakeholder groups as to prevent a fragmented reputation. As yet, little is known about the perception of corporate reputation amongst the different stakeholders of a firm. Comparative empirical evidence has remained scarce. The aim of this paper is therefore to raise fundamental questions about reputation: how it may or may not differ between stakeholder groups and how firms can take these differences into account when measuring and managing corporate reputation.Design/methodology/approachA single‐case, but very substantial, quantitative empirical study among German consumers, employees, and private investors of a consumer goods producer. Methods of data analysis include cluster analysis, ANOVA, and structural equation modelling using partial least squares.FindingsThe data analysis shows that the criteria applied by individuals belonging to different stakeholder groups in assessing corporate reputation are rather similar. Differentiation emerges in relation to actual perceptions of various reputational facets.Practical implicationsThe findings have implications for building and interpreting the results of stakeholder‐related measures of corporate reputation and for reputation management.Originality/valueThe paper integrates different stakeholders' perceptions of corporate reputation within one empirical design and delivers insights into the relevance of adapting reputation measures to specific stakeholder groups.

The effect of product variety on purchase probability

Regarding the effect of product variety on purchase probability, there exist findings which demonstrate a positive effect of variety for small assortments and a negative effect of variety for large assortments. Despite these results, little evidence exists about the causal mechanism of this effect. We conduct a field study among German consumer electronics customers to investigate the previously proposed constructs of anticipated product utility, anticipated regret and evaluation costs. The results suggest that anticipated regret and evaluation costs play a powerful role in explaining the negative link between variety and purchase probability for high variety assortments. Anticipated product utility on the other hand serves to explain part of the positive causality for low variety assortments. The results obtained give rise to recommendations for the planning of assortments.

Service quality assessment: a comparison of Turkish and German bank customers

PurposeThe study first seeks to determine the underlying configurations of service quality perceptions between Turkish and German bank customers and then tries to ascertain the extent of cross‐cultural congruence.Design/methodology/approachSamples of Turkish and German bank customers serve as the study setting. Usable responses were obtained from 156 Turkish and 226 German customers.FindingsResults show that the underlying configurations of service quality items decompose into three factors for both groups. The extent of congruence between the two groups is strong.Research limitations/implicationsReplications among other samples are needed to validate the current findings.Practical implicationsThe overall consistencies between the Turkish and German consumers suggest that a standardized approach is feasible for multinational banks operating in the two countries.Originality/valueThe factor congruency technique was employed to determine the extent of similarities and disparities between the two groups. Emergence of cross‐cultural similarities carries implications for bank managers.

Differences in consumer price knowledge between Germany and Finland

Price knowledge studies are a key to understanding behavioural pricing strategies. Consumer price knowledge is an ongoing concern in the literature. It is also generally acknowledged that price awareness is subject to cross-cultural differences. This is important because the retailer market is dominated by global players who use standardized marketing-mix instruments. However, there are no studies about price knowledge between countries. This study examines differences in price knowledge between German and Finnish consumers. The results show that Finnish consumers were able to give at least some price estimate for a product more often, but the estimates of German consumers were more accurate. Due to data limitations of our study more research is needed about cross-cultural price knowledge.

Current Reform Efforts of German Consumer Insolvency Law and the Discharge of Residual Debts

The new Insolvency Statute (Insolvenzordnung – InsO), which came into force on 1 January 1999, sets a discharge of residual debts (Restschuldbefreiung), sections 286 – 303 InsO. When the debtor is a natural person, he or she can request the discharge on the basis of two different insolvency proceedings: either in accordance with the regular insolvency proceedings or in accordance with the consumer insolvency proceedings. The discharge of residual debts has both a social and an economic function. On the one hand, it serves as personal protection for the debtor, especially his rights of privacy and dignity (allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht); it will give debtors a new perspective. On the other hand, the provisions intend to (re)integrate debtors into economic life, thereby avoiding illegal employment.

Cognitive anthropology and the problem‐solving behaviour of green consumers

Abstract This paper examines the contextual aspects of problem‐solving behaviour of ‘green’, environmentally oriented consumers. It is argued that by profiling the consumer in cognitive terms, a more robust understanding of green consumer behaviour can be provided. To illustrate this, we draw upon the cognitive anthropological concepts of practical thinking and bricolage. These are used to integrate ‘context’ into a model of cognition via qualitative, interview‐based research which examined how consumers assess the environmental friendliness of supermarket products. In order to increase external validity two respondent groups were compared, British and German consumers. Different levels of successful and unsuccessful practical thinking and bricolage were identified. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Markets: Beer in Germany and the United States

Between 1950 and 2000, the four-firm producer-concentration ratio for beer increased from 22 to 95 in the United States; and Anheuser-Busch's share of domestic output ballooned from 6 to 54 percent. In Germany, concentration has risen, but it remains low. In 2000, the four-firm producer-concentration ratio was just 29; and the eight-firm ratio in Germany was smaller than the one-firm ratio in the United States. In 2005, after five years of important mergers involving big brewers, the German beer industry was still much less concentrated than its American counterpart. In this article, I discuss several candidate explanations for the failure of beer-producer-concentration to rise as much in Germany as in the United States: the relevance of the new technologies to German brewers, the preferences of German consumers, the rules for advertising on German television and other factors, largely absent from the consensus interpretation of American experience. I find that market structure depends on a remarkably broad range of factors, extending well beyond technological opportunity and market size.

Consumer Price Adjustment Under the Microscope: Germany in a Period of Low Inflation

We analyse the adjustment of retail and services prices in a period of low inflation, using a set of individual price data from the German Consumer Price Index which covers the years 1998 to 2003. We strong find evidence of time- and state-dependent price adjustment. Most importantly, the differences in ?unconditional? sectoral price flexibility are found to be linked to input price volatility.

Consumer Price Adjustment Under the Microscope: Germany in a Period of Low Inflation

We analyse the adjustment of retail and services prices in a period of low inflation, using a set of individual price data from the German Consumer Price Index that covers the years 1998 to 2003. We strong find evidence of time- and state-dependent price adjustment. Most importantly, the differences in unconditional sectoral price flexibility are found to be linked to input price volatility.

Tratamento do Capital nas Sociedades Cooperativas Brasileiras

A história inicial do sistema cooperativo nunca tributou muita importância à formação de capital nas cooperativas. A primeira cooperativa alemã de consumo não tinha capital próprio em seus registros contábeis. Queremos analisar, mesmo que o capital não fosse essencial, qual a função que realmente exerce.

Designing a Formative Measure for Corporate Reputation

The construct of reputation has attracted much attention among researchers and practitioners alike. The growing body of literature in this area has led to a wide variety of measurement approaches, albeit most publications do not point out the epistemic nature of reputation as a construct. It is not clear (1) if reputation is a formative or reflective construct and (2) how it should be conceptualized using a formative approach. The incorrect specification of the construct would produce misleading results, which in turn would provide no solid basis for reputation management. Based on a study among German consumers, this paper conceptualizes reputation as a formative construct consisting of ten indicators. The findings suggest that this conceptualization is a solid method on which to build reputation measures, which in turn are an important step for efficient reputation management.

Deoxynivalenol in Lebensmitteln

Within a joint research project entitled “Analysis and occurrence of importantFusarium toxins (deoxynivalenol and zearalenone) and dietary intake of these toxins by the German consumer”, supported by the German Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture (BMVEL), representative analytical data are generated on the contamination level of foods withFusarium mycotoxins. This paper gives a comprehensive summary concerning the contamination of foods from the German market with deoxynivalenol (DON) in the period from August 2001 to April 2004. More than 4700 food samples (mostly cereals and cereal-containing foods) were purchased from food shops in Germany and analysed for DON by enzyme immunoassay, HPLC, and LC-MS/MS, respectively. All analytical methods were validated through intra- and interlaboratory studies and gave mean recoveries of >80% for each matrix. Although DON was detected with high frequency in all cerealcontaining samples, the mean and median levels were in most products well below the recently established maximum permitted limits in Germany.

Vergleich verschiedener DON-Standards

DON is the only mycotoxin of the trichothecene group that has been regulated in food so far by the German authorities. The quantitative determination of DON in food and feed therefore is of great importance regarding compliance with legal limits. An important source of measurement error is the bias introduced by different absolute concentration of calibration standards. To make an estimation of the contribution of calibration standards to total error six different DON-standards provided by the participants of the project “Analysis and occurence of important Fusarium toxins (DON and ZEA) and uptake of these toxins by the German consumer” sponsored by the German Ministry of Consumer Protection, Nutrition and Agriculture (BMVEL, Projekt BLE 00HS055) were analyzed and compared to three batches of commercial standard solutions. The range of the results was between 29.2 and 26.3% for the laboratory standards and 11.3 respective 3% for the commercial standards depending on different calculation modes (UV height and area and fluorescence height). Therefore a substantial reduction of the measurement error by using commercial standards instead of laboratory-prepared standards seems possible.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Citizenship: Towards Corporate Accountability

Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Citizenship: Towards Corporate Accountability

Food risk perceptions by different consumer groups in Germany

This paper presents an analysis of the changing food risk perceptions of German consumers over the period 1992 to 2002. We analyse the respondents’ general risk attitudes and their specific perceptions of food risks. Using cluster analysis we generate a typology of four consumer types. One group is worried about natural food risks, the second does not worry about any types of food risks, the third is concerned about technical food risks and the fourth is concerned about all food risks. A multinomial logit analysis identifies factors that describe the classification of households in this grouping. General risk attitudes and knowledge about food risk are significant variables in the explanation.

The Role of Domestic Animosity in Consumer Choice: Empirical Evidence from Germany

SUMMARY The paper argues that specific choice and preference constructs previously only applied in international research may explain certain domestic phenomena better than those concepts typically used in domestic choice and preference studies. The animosity model of foreign product purchase is employed within the German consumer market. Results suggest that the previously uninvestigated notion of domestic animosity is responsible for a recent cross-segmental preference reversal in the eastern part of the nation. The outcome of the study has implications for internal trade in countries across the globe, as well as for scientific marketing research.