Informal Consumer Research Articles

The relationships between the multidimensional planned behavior model, green brand awareness, green marketing activities, and purchase intention.

This study investigates the determinants impacting consumer purchasing behavior. Utilizing multidimensional planned behavior theory alongside measures of brand awareness and green brand awareness, this study examines the mediating role of multidimensional planned behavior theory. Empirical data were gathered through a survey conducted among Generation Z university students, yielding 638 responses. Analysis was performed on 590 valid responses. Findings indicate that green marketing initiatives and green brand awareness positively influence consumers' purchase intentions. Subdimensions of the theory of planned behavior (TPB), namely, attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, serve to strengthen these relationships and mediate the interaction process. This study contributes novel insights to the burgeoning field of green marketing literature, offering a structural model for firms and policymakers. It suggests that companies can effectively engage in informal consumer education through green marketing efforts, thereby influencing consumers' purchasing decisions via planned behavior. Moreover, such activities foster an increase in consumers' green brand awareness, providing companies with an opportunity to promote conscious consumer behavior. The study's utilization of the TPB is both timely and original, particularly in its alignment with the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Using transit advertising to improve public engagement with social issues

Out-of-home advertising has the potential to facilitate informal consumer learning about important societal issues. To test this idea, the authors developed an in-market, 14-month transit advertising campaign to educate commuters about climate change and influence attitudes and beliefs on the issue. A unique brand identity, fully functioning website, Facebook page, and Twitter account were created to increase the legitimacy of the campaign. Study results find that the campaign was successful in changing climate change beliefs, increasing optimism about climate change mitigation, and driving commuters to the website where additional information about climate change could be found. Beyond increasing our understanding of social advertising, the study also broadens our understanding of how out-of-home advertising works to increase brand and ad recognition and influence behavior over time and in a naturalistic environment. Ad design and execution strategies are offered to improve the persuasive impact of both out-of-home advertising and informal education through social advertising campaigns.

BANKRUPTCY AND DELINQUENCY IN A MODEL OF UNSECURED DEBT

AbstractThis article documents and interprets a fact central to the dynamics of informal consumer debt default. We observe that for individuals 60– 90 days late on payments, (i) 85% make payments during the next quarter, and (ii) 40% reduce their debt. To understand these facts, we develop a quantitative model of debt delinquency and bankruptcy. Our model reproduces the dynamics of delinquency and suggests an interpretation of the data in which lenders frequently reset loan terms for delinquent borrowers, typically offering partial debt forgiveness, instead of a blanket imposition of the “penalty rates” most unsecured credit contracts specify.

Globalization does not End, it Becomes Another

The article considers the features of a new stage of globalization. The slowdown in the dynamics of interstate flows of physical assets, primarily foreign trade and capital in the post-crisis period, sparked a discussion about the end of globalization. It is shown that the slowing down of globalization processes is temporary, it concerns traditional assets, while the interstate flows of new assets triggered by the 4th industrial revolution are fundamentally strengthened. The driver of a new phase of globalization are the technologies associated with the Internet, new communications, 3D-printing, robotization, renewable energy, etc. They fundamentally change the view of the rational allocation of production and reduce the need for transportation of traditional goods and for foreign investment. As a result, in the future may occur reformatting of some existing value chains. New technologies also change the business strategy, which begins to create special technological platforms that eliminate intermediaries and ensure better and more competitive satisfaction of customers’ demands. The increased tendencies towards regionalization and transregionalization, which stimulate all states to remove barriers to trade and investment and improve the investment climate, is not an obstacle to globalization. In the future, their expansion will take place at the expense of new members, the conclusion of preferential trade and investment agreements between members and non-members of individual mega-partnerships. Another driver of the current stage of globalization is informal consumer globalization, or “globalization from below,” which is connected with the activity of citizens. The number of foreign tourist trips, studying and working abroad, and purchases abroad via the Internet is growing. This is a fundamentally new stage of globalization, which will be gradually formed a world without economic borders, common economic space without participation of supranational formal institutions.

Culture and Household Saving

This paper examines the role of culture in households’ saving decisions. Exploiting the historical language borders within Switzerland, I isolate the effect of households’ exposure to certain cultural groups from economic, institutional, demographic and geographic factors for a homogeneous and representative sample of households. The analysis uses the Swiss Household Panel which I complement with geographic and socio-economic data. I show that low- and middle-income households located in the German-speaking part are more than 12 percentage points more likely to save than similar households in the French-speaking part. I show that these differences across language regions are consistent both with different distributions of time preferences, and norms of obtaining formal and informal consumer credit during times of financial distress.

Utilizing Informal Household-Work Substitutes along the US–Mexico Border: Evidence from South Texas

Utilizing a unique sample of 357 consumers from South Texas, this paper explores the informal or “off the books” consumption of house-work substitutes. Specifically, two ubiquitous house-work services, house cleaning and yard work, are examined. Regionally, these household maid and gardening services are typically exchanged within an informal cross-border market. As such the determinants of consuming these services are estimated from the perspective of the South Texas borderlands informal consumer. Among the key results, income is an important marker in the ability to consume house-work substitutes where those with more resources are able to pass along house-work duties to others. Hence, informal maid and gardening services are normal goods. Other results and policy considerations are discussed.

Pre‐schoolers, parents and supermarkets: co‐shopping as a social practice

AbstractThe objective of this paper was to examine the co‐shopping practices of children and parents in supermarkets, i.e. the practical enactment of grocery shopping. Our special focus is on how informal consumer training occurs during parent–child interaction. We use observational data collected in spring 2008 in different Estonian supermarkets, post‐shopping interviews with parents and focus group interviews with their children. Our analysis is informed by practice theory, which helps to look in detail at how the activities in a particular situation are coordinated by understandings and procedures, and are guided by the engagement in a particular shopping trip. Co‐shopping interactions mostly revolve around particular material objects, although not exclusively. Product choice is a deeply contested area, where both parents and children face numerous pressures in this situation of two‐way socialization. There are implications for consumer education more broadly. To accomplish lasting and meaningful effects on the everyday lives of families, there has to be a wider range of actors – supermarkets, producers, governmental bodies, schools and families – who care about both formal and informal consumer education.

Netnography as a consumer education research tool

Abstract‘Netnography’ is a research methodology in use since the late 1990s in the fields of consumer behaviour and marketing, but not fully utilized by researchers in the field of consumer education. This article argues that netnography is a helpful research tool for consumer education researchers who are interested in capturing and critically examining the education and learning occurring in informal sites of consumer education, especially in online communities. This article also presents an example of recent research conducted using netnography to understand how readers of the informal consumer education lifestyle magazine Budget Living created their own interpretations of meaning from the magazine.

Consumer education between ‘consumership’ and citizenship: experiences from studies of young people

AbstractThe aim of consumer education has been mainly to teach and educate students to act as informed, rational and prudent consumers. This perception of consumption as reasoned behaviour or action is inadequate in the late modern society, where consumerism is first and foremost characterized by globalization, cultural change and the liberation of the individual. The results of a research study involving Danish pupils aged 12–19 years present a picture of consumption connected both to material and non‐material aspects of life. Consumption as such has a significant impact on and meaning for the individual: it becomes a means by which human beings communicate and interact. Consumption is part of children's and young people's education and socialization, and plays a role in the development of identity and self‐image. Institutional consumer enlightenment and the education of students in school stand in contrast to informal consumer socialization and the education of individuals. The aim of formal consumer education may be described as ‘educating for critical consumer awareness and action competence’. However consumer education finds itself in the dilemma between ‘consumership’ and ‘citizenship’. This pilot study is aimed at understanding consumer socialization in order to improve formal consumer education and to reflect on how empowerment becomes part of consumer education.

Consumer empowerment in consumer education. Experiences from educational and consumer studies of youngsters

The aim of consumer education has mainly been to teach and educate students to be and act as informed, rational and prudent consumers. This understanding of consumption as reasoned behaviour or action is inadequate in the late modern society, where consumerism is first and foremost characterised by globalisation, cultural change and the liberation of the individual.The results of a research study involving Danish pupils aged 12–19 present a picture where consumption is both connected to material and immaterial aspects of life. Consumption as such has a significant impact on and meaning for the single person: it becomes a way human beings communicate and interact. Consumption is part of children's and youngsters’ formation and socialisation, and plays a role in the development of identity and self‐conception.Formal institutional consumer enlightenment and the education of students in a class stand in contradiction to informal consumer socialisation and the education of individuals. The educational project may be described as ‘educating for critical consumer awareness and action competence’. But consumer education is located in the field of tension between ‘consumership’ and ‘citizenship’. The pilot study seeks to address and integrate consumer socialization and consumer education in order to reflect on empowerment as part of education.

Explaining Ghetto Consumer Behavior: Hypotheses from Urban Sociology

That ghetto residents are disadvantaged consumers is a conclusion with which no consumer economist would argue. Caplovitz's [8] classic study focused the attention of academicians and government officials upon the unethical and illegal practices which had become commonplace in the low-income marketing system. Indeed, the term economic deviance has been used to describe the ghetto market subeconomy which provides consumer goods to those who are excluded, voluntarily or involuntarily, from the marketplace which serves those of middle and high incomes. The general conclusions of research describing the consumer practices of low-income ghetto residents support the concept of a deviant submarket. Policy recommendations for helping low-income ghetto consumers usually center upon increasing consumer com petencies through formal or informal consumer education programs, strengthening the enforcement of state and federal consumer protection laws, and encouraging the patronage of retail establishments outside of this subeconomy. More recently, An dreasen [4] has noted that the most effective remedial action might be to improve the subeconomy market itself, mainly through in creasing competition within the area. A review of the recent urban sociological literature reveals new insights into the purchase behaviors of ghetto residents. Drawing upon the conclusions of Wilson [24] and Kapsis [15], two conflicting hypotheses will be proposed: (1) ghetto consumers in organized neighborhoods maximize their satisfaction when shopping in the