Analysis of Investment Decisions at BMT Latansa Gontor Ponorogo

This study aims to examine customer decisions in investing in BMT. The theory used to predict customer decisions in investing is the theory of reasoned action. The research method used is quantitative research with data analysis techniques Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results showed that the sharia system, product knowledge, religiosity, attitudes, risk perception, image, and investment intentions affected investment decisions.

Societal Impacts of Cyber Security Assets of Project ECHO

Solutions on both consumer and state levels have become increasingly vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks by e.g. malware, phishing, machine learning and artificial intelligence. As the adoption and integration of information technologies are increasing and solutions are developing, the need to invest in cyber-security is at an all-time high. Investment in cybersecurity is a chief priority within the European Union, and project ECHO is a one initiative that put emphasis on devising, elaborating, implementing and enhancing a series of technological solutions (assets) to counteract cyber-attacks. The research problem of this study is what societal impacts do the ECHO assets have as product, as knowledge use, and as benefits to society. The literature review includes theory and practice from academic papers, EU innovation project and professional reports, and some ECHO project workflows. Relevant academic theoretical approaches that provide a basis for this task are: e-skills and training, Organisational Learning (OL), Societal Impact (SI), Societal Impact Assessment (SIA). This is a qualitative pilot study that evaluates the usefulness of employing a Product/ Knowledge/ Benefit Societal Impact framework to assessment of societal impacts. Data collection involved qualitative participatory observation of a co-creative expert hackathon workshop. This pilot study shows that the methodology path, where societal impact of ICT and AI solutions (e.g. the ECHO assets) are examined as these three elements (product, knowledge use, societal benefit). This pilot study serves as a step to validate this path and design and select practical, rigorous and relevant quantitative methodology to further the understanding of both societal impact assessment of cyber, e-, and AI-based solutions and services. To incorporate societal impacts with cyber and e-skills this study recommends developing and refining actual key performance indicators (KPI) to provide a basis for rigorous and relevant qualitative and quantitative questionnaire based inquiry of cyber, e-, and AI-based solutions and services.

Awareness and product knowledge of service stakeholders involved in the importation and distribution of HCFC-22 in Botswana

Environmental problems such as global warming, ozone depletion and climate change remain universal subjects of concern, with baneful effects on both the environment and human health. The consumption and venting of ozone depleting substances (ODS) into the atmosphere are the chief anthropogenic cause of ozone depletion. One such manmade ODS with high global warming potential Chlorodifluoromethane (HCFC-22). The MP targeted to phase-out HCFC-22 with obligatory cut-off timelines for its use by 2040 for developing nations. To comply with the HCFC-22 phase-out timelines, meant at embarking on national communications to disseminate information on HCFC-22 phase-out through key stakeholders’ involvement. The achievement of HCFC-22 phase-out strategy depends on participation of key stakeholders in the implementation process. the level of awareness and product knowledge of service stakeholders in the importation and distribution of HCFC-22 in Botswana. customs officers, officers and industrial consumers. Questionnaires and interviews were used to solicit key stakeholders’ views, opinions and perceptions on HCFC-22 phase-out awareness and product knowledge. Results revealed that 87% of the stakeholders are learned and knowledgeable in ODS related service provision. The level of HCFC-22 knowledge and awareness among stakeholders is moderate with distinguished inter-group differences. In particular, industrial consumers had the highest median level of HCFC-22 awareness than other stakeholders, indicating gaps in HCFC-22 phase-out awareness raising and training. About 67% of respondents had low levels of awareness of the HPMP and alternative technologies to HCFC-22. This proposes gaps in information dissemination to key stakeholders and this remains a crucial disparity between the country’s HPMP success lead and lag indicators. There is need to carefully select communication media used in line with the media consumption habits of target markets. Use of popular and commonly accessed social-media platforms would ensure that the HCFC-22 phase-out messages have high chance of reaching targeted stakeholders and the general population.

The effects of different factors influencing commuterline in Indonesia

Commuterline plays an important role for transportation planning in Indonesia, and it is essential to learn more on how to motivate people to actively use this public transportation facility. This paper presents an empirical investigation to explore different factors influencing the use of this publica transportation facility. The proposed study develops a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 374 people who had good experience of using commuterline in their daily lives. The questionnaire is designed to learn the effects of environmental, individual, consumer resources and psychological factors. Using some statistical techniques, the study has determined that psychological factors are the most important elements influencing consumer behavior to use this public transportation followed by consumer resources, product knowledge and individual characteristics.

Exploring the Effects of Product Knowledge, Trust, and Distrust in the Health Belief Model to Predict Attitude Toward Dietary Supplements

Although the health belief model (HBM) has been widely applied in health behavior research, it cannot fully account for dietary supplement (DS) consumption. This study proposed a second-stage moderation model to empirically examine the mediating role of product knowledge and the moderating effects of trust and distrust in the HBM. Surveys were conducted both online and offline in first-tier Chinese cities; 768 effective samples were collected. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypotheses. The findings indicated that perceived susceptibility was a better predictor of attitude toward DS products. Second, perceived susceptibility’s effect on product attitude occurred through product knowledge. Third, trust in manufacturers positively affected product knowledge’s effect on product attitude. Based on these findings, to promote DS consumption, marketers can leverage consumers’ perceived susceptibility to illness, associate the benefits and efficacy of DSs with consumers’ health knowledge, and emphasize their production of high-quality DSs.

Skepticism Toward Online Advertising

Despite the enormous spending on digital advertising, consumers are skeptical toward online advertising (STA). We integrated advertising value and stimulus-organism- response (SOR) frameworks to develop a model of STA's causes and consequences. Product knowledge and perceived ethics of online seller (ETH) were proposed as moderators. For study 1, moderated-moderated mediation technique was applied on the time-lagged data of 411 consumers. For study 2, a between-subject experiment (n = 179) compared the effects of skepticism across video and picture ads. The results indicate that ETH and product knowledge moderated the relationships between stimulus-organism and organism-response states, respectively. Moreover, consumers showed favorable attitudes toward video ads. This study made novel contributions to research on STA by filling multiple voids (a) integration of advertising value and SOR (b) infotainment and puffery as predictors (c) product knowledge and perceived ethics of online seller as moderators (d), and comparison across advertisement type (video vs. picture).

How do foreign customers' perceptions of product-harm crises affect their transfer of capability- and character-based stigma?

PurposeCustomers often trace a product-harm crisis to the deviant firm's capability- or character-relevant issues. This study examines how capability- and character-based stigma associated with product-harm crises influence foreign customers' product preferences (i.e. brand affect and purchase intention) for other firms from the same country of origin.Design/methodology/approachQualitative survey data are used to test hypotheses with a structural equation model.FindingsThe authors find that negative capability judgment significantly affects foreign customers' product preferences for other firms from the same country of origin, whereas negative character judgment does not. However, customers' national animosity and product knowledge moderate the stigma spillover effects. Specifically, national animosity and product knowledge weaken the spillover effects of capability-based stigma but strengthen those of character-based stigma.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research could examine strategies for uninvolved firms to avoid the stigma-by-association effect. Moreover, due to the lack of resources to collect data, this study does not investigate how customers' generalized favorability and familiarity with crisis-stricken firms and uninvolved firms moderate the stigma-by-association effect.Originality/valueThe findings of this study advance our knowledge on product-harm crises and the stigma-by-association effect.

METRICS OF VIRTUAL PROMOTION OF A PRODUCT

An approach to the mathematical description of the criterion for the effectiveness of a new object of research – virtual promotion is presented in thepaper. The emergence of this new object of research is connected, on the one hand, with the classical theory of marketing, and on the other withmodern Internet technologies. Marketing is based on the 4P principle: product, price, location and promotion. Promotion is a component of thisprinciple. But in modern conditions, this phenomenon is changing under the influence of the Internet. Now this 4P component is becoming a fullyvirtual instrument. The traditional scheme of promotion functioning is as follows. A message is created to a potential buyer and the delivery channel ofthis message undergoes a change. It is based on the principle: money – goods – money. While the new sales scheme is described by the scheme: weattract a client, make money on a client, we spend money. In the new scheme, we deal with product knowledge in the form of the so-called semanticcore of web content. Knowledge describes for a potential client how a given product can cover his need for something. Using the logistic principles ofthe transfer of goods, this semantic core is loaded into the specified Internet nodes. That is, virtual promotion is formed as two channels: logistics andmarketing. The first one performs three operations: concentration, formatting and distribution of semantic cores on the Internet. The second managesthis process, forming a virtual promotion map. This map is a graph of Internet nodes. It is required to define such a tree of Internet nodes so that virtualpromotion has maximum efficiency. The paper analyzes modern metrics related to the processes of search engine optimization on the Internet.Unfortunately, these metrics evaluate only statistically after the fact of visiting a web resource or the budget of the Internet site in which theadvertising message about the product was placed. Therefore, based on the conversion metric, a criterion for the effectiveness of virtual promotion wasproposed in the work, which takes into account both the attractiveness of the semantic core and the attractiveness of the Internet site where thesemantic core will be located. The criterion reflects the income that we receive depending on the attractiveness of the semantic kernel and the Internetsite.

Role of Digital Technology in Transforming Organizational Competencies Influencing Digital Economy: Moderating Role of Product Knowledge Hiding

Digital technology has gained momentum in the recent decade, with its relationships with digital entrepreneurship, digital economies, digital social interaction, green economies, etc. These have changed the perspective of business and hence digitalized the strategic policies through blockchains. The current study aims to identify such benefits that have changed the day-to-day life processes and procedures for carrying out different tasks due to the convenience of adopting digital technology. Those benefits have been classified as transparency, centralization, and access to new markets for the organizations considering their consequences, especially when using digital technology. When processes are taking place online, there are fair chances of hiding knowledge about certain products or procedures to gain particular benefits. Hence, this study has considered the moderating role of product knowledge hiding while interacting online. This study is a quantitative post-positivist cross-sectional study that has followed a survey technique for data collection. The population used in this study is the managerial staff of the telecom sector in the mainland in China. The sample size used in this study is 358. The software used in this study is Smart-PLS 3.3. The technique used in this study for data analysis is structural equation modeling with measurement modeling. The findings of this study show that digital technology has led to many benefits for organizations like centralization, access to the new markets, and transparency, which have been made possible remotely only because of the use of digital technology in business operations. However, the moderating role of product knowledge hiding has been found significant only for transparency. This research paper highlights the important benefits of the use of technological use in the corporate world. Also, it contributes to expanding the network of knowledge hiding, addressing the moderation of product knowledge hiding, and extending the known consequences of digital technology influencing knowledge hiding.

Unraveling Determinants of Webrooming Behavior: A Qualitative Inquiry

Webrooming, a practice whereby consumers research for products online prior to making their final purchase offline, represents a prevalent form of shopping behavior in the current retailing landscape. This study aims to explore the determinants for and against the adoption of webrooming behavior among Millennials. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were employed to collect data. Data were analyzed through theoretical thematic analysis. Results unveil a number of important themes, categorized based on consumers- (i.e., need for touch, need for interaction, price-comparison orientation, and product knowledge), channel-related factors (i.e., online search convenience, perceived usefulness of online reviews, perceived helpfulness of in-store salespeople, immediate possession, perceived risk), situational factor (i.e., product category), as well as experiential outcome (smart-shopping perception) that arose from webrooming. Considering the limited research on webrooming, this study advances the theoretical understanding on the determinants of webrooming, and offers managerial insight for retailers to deal with this popular shopping phenomenon.