Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Massachusetts, 1986. / Director: Dr. Bertil Liander. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University

One of the most important trends in today’s marketplace is consumers’ increased reliance on smartphones not only as a communication device but also as a central platform for accessing information, entertainment and other consumption activities—the so-called “mobile revolution” (Ackley 2015). While the marketing implications of mobile platforms are receiving emerging attention in the marketing modeling literature (e.g., Danaher et al. 2015; Ghose and Han 2011; Sultan et al. 2009), still very little is known about the consumption psychology of smartphone usage. The purpose of my dissertation is to address this void by examining what is fundamentally different about the psychology of smartphone use. The dissertation consists of two essays examining two complementary components of mobile consumer behavior. In the first essay I focus on clarifying the particular type of relationship that consumers form with their smartphones. Specifically, I advance the hypothesis that smartphones often fulfill the role of “attachment objects” for consumers. That is, smartphones are now used by many consumers in much the same way as pacifiers or security blankets are used by children—which I refer to as the Adult Pacifier Hypothesis. Consistent with this hypothesis, results from two controlled lab experiments show that relative to a comparable device such as one’s personal computer, engaging with one’s smartphone provides greater comfort as well as faster recovery from a stressful situation, both of which are defining characteristics of attachment objects. A third lab study reveals that, under feelings of stress, people actively seek out and engage with the device over other objects in much the same way that a child would seek out and engage with his or her pacifier. Also consistent with this hypothesis, a fourth study shows that the drive to use one’s smartphone becomes especially pronounced among consumers who have recently quit smoking—that is, consumers who are particularly susceptible to anxiety and stress. In the second essay I document an important consequence of consumers’ increased reliance on their smartphones: its impact on user-generated content. Across three field studies and six controlled lab experiments, I find that smartphone usage drives the creation of content that is more emotional, specifically more positively emotional, and potentially more impactful than content generated on PCs. Overall, these findings provide insight into the psychology of the mobile consumer and its downstream marketing implications.

“Mobile phones as a communication technology fits into culture rather than imposes on a culture” (Xin, 2006).Therefore, the main purpose of this research was to investigate and to understand the impact national culture has on mobile phone buyer behaviour of Thai and Swedish consumers. The research was also conducted to identify whether there was a significant cultural difference of buying behaviour for these two cultures when purchasing mobile phones.  Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (individualism/collectivism and power distance) was addressed in order to examine if culture influences Thai and Swedish consumers when purchasing a mobile phone.  In order to examine the difference between Thai and Swedish consumers, a data analysis was conducted through the SPSS statistical program using an Independent Sample T-test and Pearson Correlations. The questionnaires were distributes to both Thai (70 sets) and Swedish (70sets) students in the University of Malardalen. The findings indicated that there is a significant difference between Thai and Swedish consumers in term of mobile phone purchasing behaviour as far as Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. A major contribution to this study is that it will provide an insight into the differences in culture between Swedish and Thai consumers, the Eastern and Western cultural divide and how culture influences mobile phone purchasing behaviour.   The findings will also assist managers in mobile phone organizations to manage the dynamics of culture through time as well as to enhance their communications and promotional strategies within an overall marketing strategy. Incorporating culture into their overall marketing and communications strategies will enable organizations to meet customer needs and expectations, sustain and increase growth along with market share and to maximize profitability.

Title: Consumer’s behavior and trust in E-commerce. Authors: AMIMEUR Rachel and NOCERAS MULET Caterina Supervisor: LJUNGQUIST Urban Level: Bachelor Thesis in Business and Administration, Marketing Key words: E-commerce, consumer’s behavior, buying behavior, Trust, pure players… Purpose: The purpose is to explore how people working in E-commerce can encourage customers purchase decision on internet by improving customer trust during the purchase. Frame of references: First of all, we give a definition of consumer behavior following by characteristics affecting it and a description of different king of buying behavior. Then, we describe the buyer decision making process for a known product or an innovation. We bring some knowledge about trust in E-commerce. Finally, we present our conceptual framework. Method: First, we explain the methodological approach and then the research design. After this, we explain which research method we took and why. Finally, we explain the writing of our survey. Conclusion: Trust in E-commerce can be brought through for elements: product quality, payment security system, E-customer relation management, website quality and time of delivery.

In resent years the development of the whole globe boosts the exploitation of the region economy and the brand benefit of the merchandise increases by means of the characters. After that the issue that whether the brand benefit of characters derived be a sustaining development and improved becomes the focus of many discussions. During the period that the economy of Taiwan is seriously influenced by SARS in 2003, the behavior of consumers buying the respirators became the most important exchanging activities. This paper investigates whether the respirator possessed characters attributes in the form of questionnaire and discussed whether there are notable differences resulted from the influence factors by means of statistic analysis soft SPSS and statistic method. The intention of this paper is to understand the issues that are formed during the development process of the character brand by means of the consumer behavior of the respirator. The demonstration of this paper focus on the citizens in TaiChung as the object of the discussion by means of the collection review of the literature. This paper intends to forward some proper suggestions for the strategy of the development of the upcoming common consuming merchandise and to promote the quality of management programming.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Supervisor: John D. Leckenby. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.

Past research has shown that concrete ad copies perform better than abstract ad copies in enhancing consumers’ attitudes toward and purchase intentions of the product. These studies have defined the abstractness-concreteness of an ad copy as the extent to which the ad copy activates visual imagery of the product information in consumers’ minds. However, other researchers have proposed another definition of the abstractness-concreteness of an ad copy: generality vs. specificity. That is, the more general (specific), the more (fewer) particular incidents an ad copy includes. Employing the alternative definition, this study re-examined the concreteness effect that has been reported. Specifically, based on regulatory focus theory and past studies on hedonic/utilitarian consumption, this study proposed that the impact of the abstractness-concreteness of an ad copy on consumers’ attitudes toward or purchase intentions of the product would be moderated by their regulatory foci and types of product attributes. Also, several propositions were set forth regarding the underlying process of the moderation effect. However, the online experiment this study conducted failed to support the propositions. Instead, the concreteness effect was observed. Based on the finding, this study discusses several issues that may advance our knowledge about the concreteness effect as well as about regulatory focus theory and consumers’ hedonic/utilitarian consumption. Also, several suggestions are made for future studies in this regard. / text

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