So far, very little attention has been paid to examining consumer perceptions of trust from an interdisciplinary perspective. The purpose of this study is to examine how consumer trusting belief and ...disposition to trust within the financial services sector vary on the basis of individual demographic differences in trust. The research provides new insights into how consumers with higher dispositional trust have higher institutional trust and higher trusting belief and how consumers’ trusting belief significantly differs according to their demographic background in terms of age, marital status, ethnicity and gross annual income. The findings offer useful insights for the managers in financial institutions to carefully consider the impact of the influence of these individual differences on consumer behaviour in order to serve the needs of consumers in their target market and be able to design financial products and develop trust building strategies to attract and retain them. They also call for the action of the regulators and the financial institutions to play their part in building strong institutional systems that contribute to engendering higher levels of consumer trust.
The purpose of this article is to study the impact of brand image on consumer trust through empirical investigation in the context of the financial services sector. While trust helps to bind ...consumers to brands, a strong brand image works like magic in reducing consumers’ risk perception and promoting trust. This study analyses how brand image influences consumers’ trusting intention through operationalising an interdisciplinary brand-trust model. Constructs and measures were drawn from interdisciplinary brand and trust literature and tested through employing EFA, CFA and structural equation modelling. Data were collected through a quantitative survey of 300 financial services consumers. Using the analogy of a magic trick, the study unveils the key role of financial services branding in engendering consumer trust in the ‘pledge’ or ‘prestige’ parts of the trick but not in the ‘turn’. The research contributes to the convergent and mutually inclusive theories of trust and branding as well as services marketing literature. For managers and policymakers in the financial services sector the findings will help them to effectively manage brand image and foster consumers’ trusting intention.
Purpose - "Brand architecture" is an organisation's approach to the design and management of its brand portfolio. Previous research, focused on the views of practitioners, identified a ..."multi-corporate" approach in financial services, where a "family of main brands" was incorporated into an organisation's brand portfolio, often in the form of brands traditionally associated with separate companies. The current study seeks to provide contrasting insights from consumer data and to highlight the conceptual and practical implications of the findings.Design methodology approach - A qualitative methodology was adopted for the study incorporating six focus groups containing an average of nine participants.Findings - The findings from the current study offer empirical support for the conceptualisation of the corporate brand playing a predominant role in services markets. In doing so, the findings also suggest that the alternative conceptualization of a "multi-corporate" approach advocated by practitioners and identified previously is not validated by consumer-based research.Research limitations implications - The context of the study reported may be limited by its restriction to a single category, financial services.Practical implications - Practitioners' rationales for maintaining multiple brands are, in the main, undermined by the views of consumers. Organisations should consider rationalising their brand architecture in order to benefit from significant cost savings.Originality value - The consumer perspective on brand architecture is significantly under-researched and as a result this paper provides valuable insights, and a significant contribution to existing literature.
Research in services marketing has recognised the role of brands as aids to customers' decision making, particularly in situations where credence qualities and perceived risk may be high. In ...practice, there is limited empirical evidence for the role played by brands in highly intangibly contexts such as financial services. This paper explores the role of the brand in relation to bank selection by small business customers in two culturally distinct countries, namely Egypt and the UK. The results indicate that there is considerable similarity in the role played by brands in both countries and suggest that greater emphasis should be placed on brands when developing marketing strategies for the small business market.
With channels of distribution changing rapidly and multichanneling becoming increasingly widespread, studies of consumers will need to focus not just on understanding product choice, but also on ...understanding the reasons for channel choice. Although the choice of individual channels and the adoption of new channels has been researched, there is little to suggest that we have a more general understanding of why consumers, although purchasing essentially similar products, use some channels rather than others. Using the example of financial services, where multichanneling has been the norm for some time, this paper reports on an exploratory study to identify those factors which influence channel choice. Based on the results of focus group discussions, the paper argues that channel choice in financial service can usefully be conceptualised as being determined by consumer, product channel and organisational characteristics, with productchannel interactions and consumerchannel interactions being particularly important.
In spite of the aim of the World Trade Organization and other international organizations to foster international trade and development by lessening protectionism agendas worldwide, there has been a ...rise in consumer‐boycotting behaviour at a macro level involving campaigns directed against foreign products from countries embroiled in conflicts in international relations, rather than against products from individual companies perceived to have engaged in a domestic egregious act. While campaigning at this level is becoming a more effective tool for consumer protest, as it negatively affects both the boycotted countries' macroeconomics and companies' micro‐competitiveness, consumer motivation to participate in macro‐level boycotts has so far been overlooked in the boycotting literature. This paper examines consumers' behavioural intentions to participate in macro‐boycotting campaigns within the context of an Arab country, which has recently witnessed a number of campaigns of this nature. Using the theory of planned behaviour, the findings of an exploratory qualitative study of Egyptian consumers offer insights into the motives and barriers to individual macro‐boycott participation. Findings are discussed together with managerial implications.
A study of time limited price promotions Devlin, James; Ennew, Christine; McKechnie, Sally ...
The journal of product & brand management,
01/2007, Letnik:
16, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Purpose - This paper seeks to provide a detailed study of the impact of offers incorporating a time-limit restriction on consumers in the context of price promotions. Time limited offers are those ...where a pricing offer is only available for a specified, normally relatively short, period of time. Although price promotions have been the subject of much previous research, a detailed study of the effects of time limit restrictions on consumer behavior is warranted.Design methodology approach - The study incorporates an experimental approach whereby the impact of time-limited and non time-limited offers on consumers' assessments of value and search and purchase intentions are isolated.Findings - Findings show that the presence of a time limit does not impact directly on perceptions of value or search and purchase behavior. A marginally significant interaction effect between time limit and discount size is present, impacting in particular on search behavior.Research limitations implications - The research was carried out in the context of a consumer durable good (TV) and it is recommended that the study is replicated in other contexts, such as services and packaged goods, to ensure that the results reported here are generalisable.Practical implications - The results suggest that policy makers should not assign significant time and resources to investigating influences of alleged false time limit promotion, as the findings would lead to the conclusion that such resources would be better used controlling other forms of misleading advertising and promotion. Marketing managers should note that time limited offers have no significant impact on consumer perceptions or purchase intentions.Originality value - The paper is of value to both the policy making community and practitioners and provides important and original insights into the minimal impact of time limit restrictions on consumers' evaluation of price promotion offers and subsequent behavioral intentions.
Considers the USA's opposition to the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court (ICC) focusing on its battles over them in the United Nations Security Council. Starting with Resolution 1422, ...which gave immunity to all current or former officials from non-State parties to the ICC, over acts and omissions relating to UN missions for a period of a year, traces the events and resolutions in the Security Council since 2002. Discusses the legal basis for the resolutions and assesses their impact on the ICC and on the ostensible subject of the resolutions, peacekeeping operations. Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
The construct of believability has been shown to be a key variable in consumers' evaluations of comparative price offers. This paper provides a detailed investigation of believability in the context ...of such offers. In particular, it investigates the impact of the presence of, level of, and type of advertised reference prices (ARPs) on believability across a range of product contexts. An experimental methodology is adopted for the study. Findings show that the presence of an ARP does not enhance believability but that the presence of a time limit does. Believability is also shown to vary inversely with the level of ARP but is not related to semantic cues, such as list prices, contained within the offer. The study provides evidence that the product context of the offer impacts on believability. Two interaction effects are also identified. The paper contributes to the extant literature by providing new insights into how consumers' believability is influenced by how a comparative price offer is presented. Such insights will be of interest to academics interested in pricing, practitioners seeking to ensure that their promotions have maximum impact, and policymakers hoping to ensure that consumers are not misled by dishonest comparative price advertising.
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