Correlates of Political Consumption in Africa

Using the marketplace as a site for political action with social change motives is referred as political consumption. Boycott, as a form of political consumption is an innovative way being used by citizens to directly express their attitudes, interests and concerns with the ultimate goal of influencing public affairs. This book chapter specifically examines the correlates of boycott as a form of political consumption in Africa using Wave 6 of the World Values Survey. Based on binary logistic regression, the correlates of boycott action are: level of education, gender, social class, media usage, gender equality, institutional confidence, social network, interest in politics, life satisfaction, seeing oneself as being part of world citizenship, seeing oneself as being embedded in local community, importance of doing something for the good of society, importance of traditions, and importance of riches or expensive things. These findings have implications for reaching out to boycotters.

Sales Promotional Strategies and Buying Behavior in an Emerging Market at the Post Recession Period

The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of sales promotional tools on consumer buying behavior in an emerging market at the post-recession period. This study assesses consumers' proneness to sales promotions and examines the effectiveness of four promotional tools that are premium offers, coupons, buy and get promotions, and price discounts on buying behavior in terms of brand switching, stockpiling, purchase acceleration, and product trial. The findings reveal that consumers are more prone to price discount and buy and get promotions, respectively. Among the four promotional tools, price discount is the most effective to influence product acceleration, brand switching, stockpiling, and product trial behavior respectively. However, there is no statistically significance difference between the effectiveness of premium offer and buy and get deals with regard to brand switching behavior, product acceleration, and product trail responses. In contrast, coupons are the least ineffective promotional tool in terms of generating all types of consumer response.

Consumers Attitudes towards Debt

The purpose of this study is to depict the attitude of Moroccan consumers towards the concept of debt, as well as examine factors triggering their intentions to get a loan. A sample of 310 Moroccans was selected across four cities of the country, namely: Fes, Meknes, Rabat, and Casablanca. Social factors are critically analyzed to understand why the Moroccans' debt has accumulated considerably despite the fact that many of the respondents who are Muslims find interest based loans religiously unacceptable. This research reveals that because respondents view themselves as limited in options, they see financing purchases through debt as a viable solution. The study shows that Moroccans are willing to take loans specifically for education, housing and cars. This study concluded that loans permit some people to be socially accepted and allows them to enjoy life. The implications of the study are discussed in the chapter.

Exploring the Changing Role of Children as Consumers in India

The chapter would explore the growing importance of children as consumers. The chapter would first discuss the importance, growth and views on consumer socialization theory. The chapter would then take the discussion forward by introducing the change in role of children not just as learners but as influencers. This section of the chapter would conclude by initiating a discussion to understand the similarity and differences in the two theories—consumer socialization and reverse socialization. The theoretical overview provides the researchers a premise to integrate consumer socialization theory and reverse socialization to understand how children and parents acquire learning properties to be a consumer. Based on the two theories a conceptual model was developed by the author to understand and indicate the process of children and parents becoming consumers (Sharma & Sonwaney, 2014). The chapter would further discuss the changing social and economic scenario in developing nations with special focus on India.

Consumer Adoption of E-Government in South Africa

This chapter examines South African consumers' patterns of adoption of electronic governance systems. Three elements related to e-government adoption are examined. Firstly, the development of e-government in South Africa is explored. Secondly, the chapter investigates the barriers constraining the public's utilisation of e-gov. Thirdly, suggestions on how e-government initiatives could be better aligned to the Principles of Batho Pele, or people-centred governance, are proffered. To achieve the first objective, an extensive review of the literature encapsulating e-government, South African public services, information communication technologies and commerce is conducted. To achieve the second objective, a survey of 349 consumers from two South African provinces was conducted to explore barriers associated with e-gov adoption. Findings show that although the Batho Pele Principles are pronounced in public sector organisations' missions, their implementation within e-gov still remains a challenge. A plethora of challenges were observed to retard e-government adoption.

Market Receptiveness and Product Positioning Model of Chinese Firms in Emerging Markets

This study looks into the common strategic moves of Chinese firms to create appeal for their products in emerging markets. The focus is on the common competitive factors that make them to have high rate of success and prosperity compared to first movers firms from advanced markets in developing countries marketplace. Past studies showed that a firm without established brands, technology knowhow and management capabilities are likely to face with survival and performance problems, and may also reduce the firm's strategic options and growth opportunities in developing economies. Chinese firms are known to lack established brands and important core capabilities but have been able to demonstrate a unique trend in emerging countries market place. They have a common structure and trend in the ways Chinese firms create appeal to users and potential buyers in emerging market environment. This present research explored the situation with case research interview of seven Chinese firms in Nigeria.

Sustainable Consumption and Social Institutions

Sustainable development has been identified as a strategic priority for both developed and developing countries. The role of sustainable consumption in addressing challenges of sustainable development is undisputed Developing country context is complex due to simultaneous presence of hyper/over-consumption and under-consumption in different sections of society. Efforts to address sustainable consumption cover initiatives by individual consumers, business sector, governments, education and media institutions. It emerged that addressing sustainable consumption in the current times requires multiplicity of approaches, collaboration of multiple institutions and coordination, synergy and cohesiveness among various institutions. Social institutions were identified perfect fit for the purpose. This chapter intends to establish research agenda to explore possibilities for social institutions in propagating sustainable consumption in India.

Consumer Values and Green Products Consumption in Malaysia

To impede environmental deterioration and promote a more sustainable economy, one solution is to shift consumption from conventional to green products. However, inadequate information on how to promote consumers' green behavioral intention is slowing the growth of green markets and has become a barrier for when developing segments and communicating strategies for effective promotion of green products, in countries like Malaysia where the trend is new. This study attempts to examine consumers' green purchase intention motivational drivers and determine the moderating effect of education levels, gender and income. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique was used to evaluate the causal model. The results suggest that cultural values and environmental advertising are the main influence in building green purchase intention while environmental knowledge is not significantly related. It also indicates that gender and education level have a significant positive moderation effect while income is not. The discussions and implications of these findings are further elaborated.

Social Class and Consumer Behaviour in Sub-Saharan Africa

The development around social class evolvement in sub-Saharan African market dated back to pre-colonial era when traditional African institution operated on the basis of royalty, land ownership, subjugation of weak tribe and superiority of strong and powerful tribes. The advent of slavery and migration of white settlers and traders (slaves and goods) further entrenched social class structure in the system. The advent of colonial rule greatly impacted social class system whereby new strata were created based on the new administrative system that colonial system introduced into sub-Saharan Africa. Largely, acquisition of formal education, salary and wage-collection jobs, business opportunities, western religion, clothing styles and new roles to the traditional chiefs opened doors for new social class strata. Social class has witnessed development and improvement that has further improved marketing system and consumer understanding in the society through design of products and services for the market.

Consumer Behaviour in Developing Nations

Irrespective of the differences between us, one of the binding cords that explain our homogeneity is that we all are consumers. However, there are idiosyncratic issues that might still differentiate consumption in one society from another. These constrain the extent to which we can generalise on the existing relevant postulations. Hence, this chapter presents a critical overview of consumer behaviour with reference to developing nations to give a well-focussed discussion of the topic. It shows that the consumer in these nations is influenced by personal, social and cultural factors, and the marketing stimuli. However, it also emphasises that despite the conventional understanding that developing nations are characterised with low development in many areas; globalisation and civilisation are introducing many changes into these societies. Consumers' taste and awareness in these countries are changing. Hence, while the plans for approaching marketing activities in developing nations will have to be contextualised, they also need to be made more dynamic, and robust to keep up with the pace.