When do political parties listen to interest groups?

This paper examines when parties listen to interest groups and adopt their input. Interest group information can help parties bolster their positions, and by taking their input into account, parties show that they are responsive to the groups’ interests which can increase their appeal to their constituents. Listening to interest groups can, however, also repel voters who disagree with the groups’ positions. This paper argues that party and issue-level characteristics affect whether the benefits of listening to interest groups exceed the costs. Examining more than 25,000 party-interest group observations on 88 Norwegian policy proposals and using a text reuse approach to measure interest group influence, the findings indicate that public salience, party issue emphasis, interest group coalitions, and government status affect parties’ propensity to listen. This implies that interest groups can be a pertinent source of information for parties under certain circumstances which affects the link between voters and parties.

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Their Compliance with Regulations on Smoking and Blood Treatment

Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) are known as a religious group compliant with the national laws in the case of smoking, but not-compliant when it comes to blood treatment. Their beliefs prevent them from taking part in a blood transfusion, which is widely included in standard methods of a life-saving treatment. The aim of this study was to compare the behavior of JWs regarding their approach to blood treatment and to smoking in relation to legal regulations in the field of health. We measured JWs’ compliance with health laws regarding blood treatment and smoking (the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control—FCTC). We used the concept of a semi-autonomous social field by Moore and the theory of planned behavior developed by Ajzen. Our findings show that in the case of JWs, the group rules often prevail over state rules contained in generally-binding legislation. In the case of smoking, this means that they seem compliant to the FCTC and to their group rules. In the case of blood treatment, it seems that they are breaking the national rules, because of their group rules. Breaking the latter can result in exclusion from the JWs community. JWs are compliant with national laws as long as these are congruent with their own group rules. If this is not the case, the group influence is very strong and the fear of exclusion from the JW group is often greater than the potential negative health consequences in real life.

“Outside Lobbying” over the Airwaves: A Randomized Field Experiment on Televised Issue Ads

We present the first field experiment on how organized interest groups’ television ads affect issue opinions. We randomized 31,404 voters to three weeks of interest group ads about either immigration or transgender nondiscrimination. We then randomly assigned voters to receive ostensibly unrelated surveys either while the ads aired, one day after they stopped, or three days afterwards. Voters recalled the ads, but three ads had a minimal influence on public opinion, whereas a fourth’s effects decayed within one day. However, voters remembered a fact from one ad. Our results suggest issue ads can affect public opinion but that not every ad persuades and that persuasive effects decay. Despite the vast sums spent on television ads, our results are the first field experiment on their persuasive power on issues, shedding light on the mechanisms underpinning—and limits on—both televised persuasion and interest group influence.

Understanding the antecedents to luxury brand consumer behavior

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how consumers perceive the value of luxury brands and the antecedents to these perceptions, including consumer knowledge, reference group influence and accessibility. Prior studies focused less on the salience of consumer knowledge and sources of luxury information, in addition to their accessibility to luxury. Hence, a more nuanced luxury conceptualization is needed to reflect luxury’s conceptual fluidity, consumers’ different lived experiences, accessibility levels and persistent retail marketing changes. Design/methodology/approach In a survey involving 475 US respondents, five hypotheses were tested and analyzed with structural equations modeling, examining the relationships among knowledge and accessibility of luxury brands, as well as reference group influence and its impact on consumer value perceptions of luxury brands and consumer behaviors. Findings Significant relationships were found for all five hypotheses and demonstrated that knowledge, reference group influence and accessibility have strong relationships with consumers’ personal value perceptions of luxury brands and behavioral measures, including purchase intentions, willingness to recommend to a friend and willingness to pay a price premium. Originality/value This conceptualization recognizes that consumers must have luxury brand awareness prior to reference group influence, developing individual luxury value perceptions and entering the buying process. This research contributes to the literature by highlighting consumers’ views of the luxury category, which induce perceptions and potential outcomes. It also expands the understanding of consumer’s accessibility to luxury products, which impacts purchase intentions. While it was conducted in the USA, it yields broader consumer perspectives.

Market Choices Driven by Reference Groups: A Comparison of Analytical and Simulation Results on Random Networks

The present paper reports simulation results for a simple model of reference group influence on market choices, e.g., brand selection. The model was simulated on three types of random graphs, Erdos–Renyi, Barabasi–Albert, and Watts–Strogatz. The estimates of equilibria based on the simulation results were compared to the equilibria of the theoretical model. It was verified that the simulations exhibited the same qualitative behavior as the theoretical model, and for graphs with high connectivity and low clustering, the quantitative predictions offered a viable approximation. These results allowed extending the results from the simple theoretical model to networks. Thus, by increasing the positive response towards the reference group, the third party may create a bistable situation with two equilibria at which respective brands dominate the market. This task is easier for large reference groups.

Examining the Impact of PP 23/2018 policy through the Tax Compliance Factor of Tanah Abang Traders

This study aims to examine the factors that can affect tax compliance at Tanah Abang Market traders, which are the tax rate, perceived opportunity to evade, legal certainty, and group influence. This study uses a quantitative method with a positivism approach which examines social phenomena and captures the perceptions of MSEs actors on the determinants of tax compliance. The sample in this study were 154 MSEs respondents in Tanah Abang Market that were scope into Central Jakarta Regional Tax Office, both private individuals and corporate taxpayers. The results of the study revealed that the tax rate, perceived opportunity to evade, legal certainty, and group influence have a positive effect on tax compliance at Tanah Abang Market traders, but not significant only in the tax rate variable. This is very useful for the DGT authority and the Fiscal Policy Agency as policymakers that the reduction in tax rates does not affect the compliance behavior of MSEs traders and increase monitoring of compliance with MSEs taxpayers through derivative regulations on the implementation of supervision of MSEs taxpayers.