Consumer Purchasing Behaviour towards Organic Products in Thailand

This study investigates the factors affecting consumers’ decisions to purchase organic products. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data from consumers who are primary shoppers for their households at five retail stores in the Bangkok metropolitan area. Using psychological and socio-demographics variables, exploratory factor analysis and logistic regression was used to examine consumers’ decisions to purchase organic products. Results suggest that consumers who are knowledgeable about organic products often purchase groceries at natural/health food stores, are concerned about health and food safety, and are more likely to purchase organic products. In addition, middle-aged female consumers who are highly educated and in the high income group are more likely to be organic consumers. In contrast, households who often dine out or consume takeaway food are less likely to purchase organic products.

Importance of Perpetual Government-University-Industry (GUI) Collaboration Today

The globalization of the 21st century has changed economic and other realities far beyond the expectations of most individuals. The competitive landscape continues to be reinvented due to such factors as accelerating globalization, changing demographics, rapid technological advances, shorter business/product life cycles, innovation, and productivity. This chapter focuses on why there is a need for perpetual Government-University-Industry (GUI) collaboration, especially in advanced economies, and some options on how to achieve it effectively. The chapter commences with an introduction to the realities of contemporary globalism that have raised the need for this collaboration, and the body then outlines the status of GUI collaboration in the world’s four largest economies: China, India, Japan, and the USA. There is a model example of ideal GUI collaboration in the discussion section for reference. The conclusion synthesizes the earlier discussions and provides suggestions for consideration regarding optimum GUI collaboration, most notably a list of seven “Best Practices” provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA.

Incremental and Radical Service Innovation in Living Labs

Living labs provide a new, under researched form of open innovation. Although open innovation is increasingly popular in service development, extant literature lacks knowledge of different open service innovation strategies, which companies can employ. This chapter focuses on strategies that firms can take in co-creating service innovations through living labs. The authors found nine open service innovation strategies based on an analysis of 26 living labs in four countries. Understanding of strategies and their links with incremental or radical innovation outcomes aid managers to set up an efficient innovation management. Knowledge of various strategies helps companies to succeed in service development and innovation novelty assessment based on the characteristics of the living lab.

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos of Doing Business Abroad

Marketing, by definition, is the performance of business activities of directing the flow of products and services from producer to consumer. By definition, international marketing is the performance of marketing activities across two or more countries. Transcultural marketing, by definition, is the performance of business activities of directing the flow of products and services from producer to consumer across two or more countries’ core ethos, pathos, and logos. The root of all countries’ core ethos, pathos, and logos is its culture. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze transcultural marketing for incremental and radical innovation based on the key factor of culture in transcultural. As such, Geert Hofstede’s five dimensions of national culture are utilized and analyzed in relation to transcultural marketing. Hofstede’s fifth dimension is long-term orientation (and) is the most difficult because it is the newest of the dimensions and the least familiar to Western researchers.

The Term “Global” in Cross-Cultural Studies

Globalization in its broadest sense is part of the strongest external environmental forces that affect organisations today (Daniels, Radebaugh, & Sullivan, 2011). Despite the “slogan” that globalization is likely to produce homogeneity in various cultures, different civilizations of the world will reassert themselves to preserve their cultural heritages. This means it is necessary to consider the dynamics of the continued interplay between various trends in world cultures and the process of globalization. Moving from these considerations, cross-cultural management research seems to be the natural framework for using the term globalization. Cross-cultural research has received considerable attention by management scholars. The purpose of this study is to understand the connotation of the term “global” used in the context of cross-cultural studies and the enrichment of his meaning in the last four decades. To achieve it, the authors use a computational linguistic tool, namely an automatic textual analysis software, by means of which they locate and extract specific linguistic expressions. This allows retrieval and location of a series of concepts that denote and connote the term “global” over the last four decades.

Conspicuous Consumption Behavior

Demand in the luxury market is consistently growing with the demand from individuals as their buying power increases due to improvements in economic conditions (Kuisma, 2008). In this chapter, the authors present the concept of conspicuous consumption and explore the spread of luxury culture, especially in the Asian countries, since previous studies have tested such phenomena predominantly in Western countries. The spread of the luxury model as suggested by Chadha and Husband (2006) helps to better understand the spread of luxury culture among Asian societies. In the past, many studies have suggested that conspicuous and luxury concepts are related to each other. By examining the conspicuous motivation among consumers, the authors hope to explain why people are motivated to engage with luxury consumption from a cultural theoretical lens, particularly in Asian countries. Finally, they highlight the managerial and theoretical implications, followed by research directions for future transcultural marketing studies.

E-Marketing and Online Consumer Behavior

The evolution of human society, improvement in communication processes, and digital convergence have provided innovative opportunities and challenges for marketing as the Internet moves ahead to play significant roles in the consumer decision making process. This chapter explores significant issues in the context of the Internet, consumer decision making, and organizational strategy formulation. This framework addresses noteworthy aspects with respect to the role of the Internet in decision making, effect of the Internet on consumer behavior, post-purchase behavior, and the consumer decision-making process. It traces the research design and formulation of a research instrument to address the proposed issues.

Modernization without Westernization

This chapter examines various radical and incremental changes and innovations (physical, economic, educational, societal, and cultural) introduced by the government of Saudi Arabia in view of the slogan “modernization without westernization.” The slogan highlights the government efforts to encourage incremental change to integrate development or modernization with the traditional values. However, the authors aim to confirm whether this is an incremental change accepted by the public or a radical change where the tradition is being replaced by westernization, that is, whether it is modernization with or without westernization. The approach taken in this study is to examine the literature in order to find some evidence that supports or refutes the slogan. The authors also conducted a questionnaire survey involving 237 respondents in order to determine their perceptions toward this slogan. The results provide strong support for both modernization and westernization since these two practices have brought about many positive changes to Saudi Arabia. Thus, if one were to include certain Saudi values into the concept of modernization, particularly those related to culture and religion, one could safely say that the slogan or motto, “modernization without westernization,” is true or acceptable only up to a certain extent. In other words, the findings suggest Saudi society is more accepting of both “modernization” and “westernization” as long as they do not go against the basic tenets of Islam.

Job Hunting Experiences of Bicultural Students in Japan

The subject of this chapter is the Japanese job application process from the perspective of half-Japanese university students. The chapter first introduces the reader to the Japanese labor market and the topic of biculturals in general and hafu (half-Japanese) in Japan in particular. The main part of the chapter is an empiric study consisting of interviews with five half-Japanese students in various stages of the process of finding a job after graduation. In addition to possessing multiple language skills, biculturals benefit from a broader cultural perspective, which might be assumed to be an advantage when seeking a job. However, hafu are often viewed as outsiders wherever they go due to their being different. This chapter aims to show the difficulties hafu encounter as well as the benefits from which they profit.

International Diversity Management Approaches for Marketing to Create Innovation

This chapter provides an overview of several approaches to International Diversity Management (IDM) for marketing departments striving for innovation. Approaches to IDM are explained and distinguished in two groups: four process and three structure approaches. Process approaches are IDM approaches that explain how diversity is considered in a model or perspective. Structure approaches are IDM approaches on how to act in an organization to deal with diversity. The four discussed process approaches to IDM are the following: the relational framework (Syed & Özbilgin, 2009), the diversity typology (Harrison & Klein, 2007), the Categorization-Elaboration Model (CEM) (Van knippenberg, De dreu, & Homans, 2004), and the social categorization versus the information-decision-making perspective (Williams & O’Reilly, 1998). The following three structure approaches to IDM are discussed: a conceptual IDM framework, the perspective approach, and the multicultural approach. Then, two sections are dedicated to the suitability and relevance of the approaches to marketing. Finally, a retrospective view is given to the link between marketing, IDM, and innovation. The approaches, guidelines, and factors mentioned in this chapter provide insight into how IDM can be implemented to achieve innovation in the marketing field.