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Prior research has examined value antecedents to sustainable consumption, including religious or cultural values. We bridge together these usually separated bodies of literature to provide an ethically-based examination of both religious and cultural values in one model to understand what drives sustainable consumption as well as outcomes on consumer well-being. In doing so, we also fulfill calls for more research on socio-demographic antecedents to ethical consumption, particularly in the domain of sustainable consumption. We examine this relationship using data from the religiously and culturally diverse country of Singapore (n = 1503), collected from a door-to-door, representative sample utilizing numerous quality control techniques. Our path analysis and logical follow-up tests reveal that both religious and cultural values influence sustainable consumption, and then sustainable consumption positively influences consumer well-being. Implications are provided for consumer ethics, business' ethical practices, and belief congruence theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential neighborhoods shape consumers' well‐being in many profound ways. However, research has yet to adequately understand how consumers' perceived economic hardship interact with neighborhood's income and diversity to influence well‐being. We examine these effects in a diverse and densely populated Asian country of Singapore using four measures of well‐being: perceived quality of life, emotional well‐being, status consciousness, and consumer needs satisfaction. Results from a national sample of 1,445 respondents showed that consumers that were female rather than male, of immigrant origin rather than native born, representing an ethnic minority background, or had fewer economic challenges reported higher well‐being. The relation between economic hardship and consumer well‐being was moderated by neighborhood‐level socioeconomic status (SES) and diversity, such that more economic hardship predicted lower well‐being but only among residents in low SES or heterogeneous neighborhoods. Findings build on social comparison theory, and implications for consumer welfare and marketing practice are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outsourcing has long been touted as an avenue for companies to divest their non-core processes for cost and efficiency gains. However, outsourcing has since become so sophisticated that some companies are even outsourcing core functions such as engineering, marketing, and R&D and as a consequence, could be unknowingly nurturing its outsourcing partners as future competitors. Through formal game theoretic analysis, we show that in addition to learning, outsourcing firms could also make use of brand equity to safeguard themselves from the threat of potential market entry by their outsourcing suppliers when the outsourced component is a core competence, particularly when the rate of learning is at best moderate. In addition, we show that it may be optimal for outsourcing firms to adopt a make- and-buy strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically explores the relationship between the general attitude towards advertising and the attitude towards advertising in specific media: television and print. Our results support the proposition that attitude towards advertising in general (AG) is an abstract level construct while attitude towards television advertising (ATV,) and attitude towards print advertising (APRINT) are experience-based constructs in the consumer's structure of attitudes towards advertising. We found a significantly negative reciprocal relationship between ATV, and APRINT a significantly positive reciprocal relationship between ATV and AG, and a non-significant relationship between APRINT and AG. Macro level belief factors like 'good for the economy' and 'materialism' are related positively and negatively to AG, respectively. The personal experience belief factor of 'product information' is positively related to APRINT while personal experience belief factors like 'hedonic' and 'falsity/no sense' are related positively, and 'social image' is related negatively, to ATV. Implications for future research and advertising practices are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an adaptation of the Skepticism toward Advertising framework (Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1998, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 7(2), 189–186) in examining Singapore consumers' skepticism toward health claims made by manufacturers. The study found that Singaporean consumers, like their Western counterparts, are skeptical about health claims. Age and consumer's self-confidence in information acquisition, identification of product alternatives, and getting recognition from others about purchase decisions made, are important antecedents to Singaporeans' skepticism toward health claims. Cynicism is also found to be a distinct concept from skepticism. While motivation to process nutrition information positively influences Singaporeans' skepticism toward health claims, use of health claims is negated by skepticism toward such claims. Managerial implications arising from the findings are discussed and directions for future research suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of framing through the use of a vague scarcity restriction ("while stocks last") on consumers' perception of promotional offers involving different claim formats (tensile price claim such as "save up to 60 percent" versus non-tensile price claim such as "save 60 percent") and different amount of price discounts. The findings show that framing the sales offer with such a vague scarcity restriction and using a tensile claims format improve the consumers' perceived informational value of the offer, only if exaggerated price discounts are involved. This study also confirms earlier studies' findings on the effects of exaggerated price discounts and tensile claims on consumers' perceived savings and information value of sales promotional offers. Managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Respondents from five Asian countries were surveyed in terms of their consumer ethnocentrism, animosity, and attribution towards the USA and Japan in the context of the Asian economic crisis. The results indicated that the more severely hit a country was, the more ethnocentric respondents were. In general, animosity towards the USA was higher than towards Japan with regard to the Asian crisis. Koreans held the greatest stable animosity towards the Japanese because of the atrocities experienced during the Second World War. Respondents attributed the blame of the Asian crisis more to themselves. They also felt that they and the Japanese could have controlled the turn of events during the crisis. Implications arising from the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four types of animosity, the emotional antagonism felt toward a specific entity, were identified as a function of their sources (situational vs. stable) and locus (personal vs. national) of manifestation. A five-country survey was conducted in Asia to validate the typology, using the United States and Japan as target entities. Results affirmed the four-factor structure of the proposed typology. Several cross-national differences in animosity were also uncovered. Indonesians, Malaysians, and Thais tended to have greater situational animosity toward the United States than Japan, except for Koreans and Singaporeans. Not surprisingly, Koreans showed greater stable animosity toward Japan than the United States. Asians also demonstrated a higher level of animosity at the national than personal level. Implications arising from the findings are discussed and directions for future research suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By focusing on the construct called consumer scepticism towards advertisements, this study identified four dimensions of scepticism towards advertising claims: scepticism about the believability (disbelief), credibility (mistrust), desirability (undesirable) and informational value (misinform) of advertising claims. Using an experimental design setting, this study found that the type of claim and claim extremity solicit differential responses from consumers on different dimensions of the scepticism construct. The differential responses are more pronounced for a product than a service advertisement. Implications arising from the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research advanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the existing literature discusses strategies available to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), they do not address the plight faced by SMEs, namely resource limitations in their strategy formulation. Drawing on deductive logic, this paper identifies and conceptualizes three marketing strategies which are generic to SMEs and which specifically take into consideration the competitive reactions of bigger incumbent firms. These three generic marketing strategies are substitution, free riding and strategic deterrence. Successful substitution calls for the SME to offer differentiated yet substitutable products to that of an incumbent so as to force accommodation by the latter. Free riding allows the SME to enter a served market segment without having to incur market development expenses. Finally, strategic deterrence aims to deter a bigger incumbent firm from embarking on aggressive counteractions against the SME. This can be achieved by the formation of strategic alliances and/or incurring sunk costs in order to signal the SME's commitments to stay in the market credibly. Examples from Asian SMEs are given to illustrate the three generic strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an experimental design setting, this study investigates how global firms can make use of warranty strategies to influence consumers' evaluations of hybrid products that are designed in one country and manufactured in another. The results confirm that consumers tend to perceive lower quality and higher purchase risk when evaluating products manufactured in a country perceived to be of lesser capability than its country of design (i.e., negative hybrid effects). However, global firms with products that carry such negative hybrid effects can develop appropriate warranty strategy to overcome such biases. For instance, the results show that consumers improve their assessment of the quality and purchase risk of the negative hybrid products when these products carry warranty with wider coverage and longer duration than the standard package, and when the firm providing the warranty has good warrantor reputation. Implications of these findings for international marketing and research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue of Internet marketing from the perspective of the consumers. Using experimental design and conjoint analysis, the paper determines the risk perception of Internet shoppers and their responses to different types of risk reduction mechanisms available when shopping through the Internet. The results of the study show that consumers perceived Internet shopping to be of higher risk than in-store shopping and only those who are less risk averse are more likely to shop on Internet. The conjoint analysis shows that generally, the most preferred risk reliever is reference group appeal, followed by retailer's reputation, brand image and warranty. The risk perceptions of both parties need to be addressed in order to realize the full potential of Internet marketing. This study shows a close correlation between risk aversion and Internet shopping tendency. This implies that Internet marketers should focus on the less risk averse consumers as their initial target segment and work on using the appropriate risk relievers to lower the perceived risk of the mostly risk averse consumers.

Singapore is a country highly dependent on external trade. In 1985, total export was 1.26 times that of the gross national product. However, the census of manufacturing firms reported that wholly local-owned manufacturers (primarily dominated by small and medium sized firms) accounted for only 11 per cent of the direct export. This article therefore attempts to profile the differences between exporting and non-exporting firms among the smaller manufacturers and to determine if nature or nurture contributes to greater export involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the effects of employing Chinese idioms in headlines on consumer memory. Enhancement of consumer memory of print advertising; Comparison between the use of idiomatic and non-idiomatic headlines; Headline recall and brand name recognition of high language knowledge individuals.