This dissertation consists of two central parts. Part one of the dissertation examines the impact of interactive restructuring on decision processes and outcomes. Five experimental studies show that consumers examine less information and engage in more compensatory decision processes when interactive restructuring tools are available. Consumers also increase their use of restructuring tools in cognitively challenging choice environments. The availability of a sorting tool improves objective and subjective decision quality when attributes are positively correlated, or when the number of alternatives in a choice set is large, but not when attributes are negatively correlated or choice sets are small. Greater use of interactive restructuring tools has deleterious effects on decision quality when attributes are negatively correlated. Under time pressure the availability of an interactive restructuring tool improves decision quality, even when attributes are negatively correlated, since time pressure limits tool overuse. Finally, the effects of multiple interactive restructuring tools on decision making vary by the types of tools that marketers make available to consumers. Part two of the dissertation explores the effects of visual design on consumer preferences and choice. Experiment 1 demonstrates preference reversals when visual separators are between product alternatives versus between product attributes. Experiment 2 shows that when product attributes are negatively correlated, visually separating alternatives improves decision quality but visually separating attributes hurts decision quality. Visual separators do not affect decision quality when attributes are positively correlated. Experiment 3 extends experiment 2 to show that visual separators enhance decision-making efficiency and can limit the extent to which consumers adapt to contextual changes in choice environments. Finally, experiment 4 shows that, under time pressure, both visual separators between attributes as well as visual separators between alternatives improve decision quality when attributes are negatively correlated.

<p>This study will examine the importance of Country-of-Origin, Price, Quality and Expiration date, in the consumer decision making process for fresh meat. Country-of-Origin has earlier been investigated, however the research has been focusing on manipulating one single cue. With the recent scandals in the fresh meat industry, were animals being abused and expiration dates being changed, it is interesting to investigate how important the consumers find the four attributes; Country-of-Origin, price, quality and expiration date.In order to answer the research questions, and fulfil the purpose, the authors will use a mix of different data collection methods. Qualitative data will be gathered by performing interviews and quantitative data will be gathered by conducting a pilot study and an experiment. The data will be retrieved with the use of SPSS 17.0 and the conjoint analysis procedure. Country-of-origin has been found to be the most preferred attribute for consumers in their purchasing process for fresh meat, closely followed by expiration date. The consumer did find price and quality to be of importance, however the attributes were not found to be as important as Country-of-Origin and expiration date.<strong> </strong>As Country-of-Origin was found to be the most significant attribute for consumers in their decision making process, this indicates that the consumers are ethnocentric in their behaviour, i.e. they consider their own country and culture to be above others, which leads to a purchase of Swedish meat. It has also been found that the purchasing process of fresh meat is of great complexity, especially with the negative attention the fresh meat industry has induced.</p>

Tourism as one of the biggest industries in the world has been changing continuously and rapidly. The publishing of the Brundtland Report in 1987 has accelerated the discussion about combining economic, social and environmental factors – the so-called triple-bottom line – in order to secure long-term sustainable living conditions on a finite planet for both business and society. This has lead to occurring pressure from different stakeholder groups as for example policy makers or non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) urging for more sustainable business practise within the industry whereas one important pressure group appears to be missing out in this context: the customers of mass tourism products and therefore the demand side within the economic equation. Tourists have been observed to be overall reluctant to pay price premiums for more sustainable travel alternatives and seem to “take vacation” from their everyday green behaviour. Hence at the current point of time eco-tourism appears to be a market niche in which mainly small-scale providers and NGO’s like Nature’s Best in Sweden operate. However integrating mass tourism into the consideration can be seen as a promising opportunity and from an environmental standpoint an urgent necessity as it can be argued that within an industry of this scale, even small improvements towards more sustainable behaviour bear the potential for a substantial impact. The purpose of this study therefore lies in researching the two marketing tools of brands and eco-labels and the influence they can have individually and in combination on the tourist’s decision making delimitated to the context of charter tourism in Sweden. Through the research of this study it was found that currently no directly applicable theory about the combination of brands and eco-labels seems to exist for marketing neither in general, nor for the tourism industry in particular. This strongly indicates the novelty of the topic of combining brands and eco-labels and points out research opportunities. In order to achieve this purpose, a mixed-method research design was used combining qualitative expert interviews from direct business representatives and a quantitative data collection utilizing the scholarly acknowledged marketing research method of conjoint analysis in one of its most up-to-date forms of an adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis. Theory from different fields of study as consumer behaviour and decision making, branding and eco-labelling as well as sustainability marketing was combined and translated into the new and emerging service category of sustainable tourism. From this a conceptual framework was developed combining the data collection results from the mixed-method approach. This leads to the identification of ways for improving current charter tourism companies’ marketing based on the customers’ current view on utilities within certain aspects of the tourism package. Overall this study therefore contributes to the discussion on how demand for sustainable products evolves and can likely be increased. This is seen as a valuable theoretical, practical and societal contribution as it helps improving tourism companies’ understanding of their customer base and supports offering products/services with an improved perceived individual and societal value for charter tourism companies that aim for a higher degree of sustainability in their objectives.

During the last few decades, "regular people" have become increasingly involved with investing in the stock market. One way of doing this, which has become more and more popular, is to invest in mutual funds. The mutual fund industry has, due to its explosive growth, been described as a success story of the 20th century. These days, sources report that over 70% of the Swedish population actively invests in mutual funds. This thesis is an investigation into consumer decision making regarding one specific type of mutual fund: Socially Responsible Investment (SRI). SRI profiled mutual funds are different from "regular" mutual funds in that they incorporate social, ethical, and environmental (SEE) criteria. In this manner, SRI profiled mutual funds could be said to have two separate dimensions. The regular financial dimension has the purpose of generating a high level of financial return while managing risk. The socially responsible dimension, on the other hand, focuses on incorporating SEE issues into the investment process. However, consumers that desire to choose mutual funds that will both perform well financially and have a good socially responsible dimension face a more difficult decision than consumers who choose to invest in "regular" mutual funds. As each of the dimensions come with its own set of challenges which the consumer must overcome, choosing an appropriate combination of these is a difficult task. In this manner, consumers of SRI profiled mutual funds have to navigate through a complex decision making environment to arrive at a good choice. Based in this notion of decision making in complex environments, this thesis investigates how consumers combine their "traditional" financial objectives with their "additional" SEE consideration and examines the impact of personal factors related to these two areas on consumer investment in SRI profiled mutual funds. Four separate essays on these topics, each investigating a specific stage in the Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (1968) consumer decision making process, are presented. Moreover, in order to understand how complexity impacts consumer decision making in the area, the results of each study are analyzed against a conceptual framework focusing on the complexity of the market. The results show that consumers of SRI profiled mutual funds care about both financial and SEE issues. However, how consumers combine these in their decision making differs. Factors, such as the stage of the purchase decision making process, personal abilities, preferences, and perceptions are found to impact consumer decision making.  Against this background, this thesis generates an increased understanding of consumer decision making in complex decision making environments in general and of SRI profiled mutual funds in particular.

Cultural, social, personal and psychological factors were identified by Rani (2014) as the four major influences on consumer’s buying behavior. While There are many studies about the personal values and consumer purchase behavior, but there is very little research to study Africa women’ consumer behavior, and in Zambia there is even less studies which are conducted to analyze their women’ values and their consumer decision-making styles. The purpose of this study is to explore Zambian women’ personal values and their consumption decision-making styles and how personal values influence their consumer decision-making styles in the context of human hair extension products. It is very important to analyze the consumer values of Zambia women and their consumer decision-making styles in the context of human hair extension, because the demand for hair extension in Zambia is growing fast and the hair extension has become a muti-billion dollars industry This paper had reviewed literature regarding consumer behavior, in specifically personal values and consumer decision-making styles. The LOV scale proposed by Kahle (1983) and the Consumer’s decision making styles proposed by Sproles and Kendall (1986) were adopted to analyze the inter relationship through methodology of multiple regression. The author conducted a descriptive analysis of the primary data collected by a field survey of research questionnaire toward Zambian women. All the questionnaires are distributed and collected at the main shopping malls and universities in Lusaka, Zambia. Through a series analysis of the sample by SPSS, the paper had detected all the list of values and decision-making styles of Zambian women. There are only two consumer values namely Security related with physical and financial safety and Self-fulfillment related with achievement of consumption which achieved a reasonable degree of reliability, and the consumer decision-making styles of Confused by Over-choice related with lacking ability of information analysis and Novelty-Fashion Consciousness related up-to-date fashion pursuit achieved a reasonable degree of reliability. The results reveal that the higher the value of Security, the greater the adoption of Novelty-Fashion Consciousness, and the higher the value of Self-fulfillment, the greater the adoption of Confused by Over-choice Decision-making Styles. However the Security value does not have any significant impact on the adoption of Confused by Over-choice Decision-making styles and the effect of Self-fulfilment value on Novelty-Fashion Consciousness is not significant.

Cultural, social, personal and psychological factors were identified by Rani (2014) as the four major influences on consumer’s buying behavior. While There are many studies about the personal values and consumer purchase behavior, but there is very little research to study Africa women’ consumer behavior, and in Zambia there is even less studies which are conducted to analyze their women’ values and their consumer decision-making styles. The purpose of this study is to explore Zambian women’ personal values and their consumption decision-making styles and how personal values influence their consumer decision-making styles in the context of human hair extension products. It is very important to analyze the consumer values of Zambia women and their consumer decision-making styles in the context of human hair extension, because the demand for hair extension in Zambia is growing fast and the hair extension has become a muti-billion dollars industry This paper had reviewed literature regarding consumer behavior, in specifically personal values and consumer decision-making styles. The LOV scale proposed by Kahle (1983) and the Consumer’s decision making styles proposed by Sproles and Kendall (1986) were adopted to analyze the inter relationship through methodology of multiple regression. The author conducted a descriptive analysis of the primary data collected by a field survey of research questionnaire toward Zambian women. All the questionnaires are distributed and collected at the main shopping malls and universities in Lusaka, Zambia. Through a series analysis of the sample by SPSS, the paper had detected all the list of values and decision-making styles of Zambian women. There are only two consumer values namely Security related with physical and financial safety and Self-fulfillment related with achievement of consumption which achieved a reasonable degree of reliability, and the consumer decision-making styles of Confused by Over-choice related with lacking ability of information analysis and Novelty-Fashion Consciousness related up-to-date fashion pursuit achieved a reasonable degree of reliability. The results reveal that the higher the value of Security, the greater the adoption of Novelty-Fashion Consciousness, and the higher the value of Self-fulfillment, the greater the adoption of Confused by Over-choice Decision-making Styles. However the Security value does not have any significant impact on the adoption of Confused by Over-choice Decision-making styles and the effect of Self-fulfilment value on Novelty-Fashion Consciousness is not significant.

Bakgrund Klädesbranschen står inför nya möjligheter i form självserviceteknologi (SST). Ett flertal butiker har redan börjat använda olika typer av teknologiska lösningar. Det verkar dock finnas meningsskillnader angående om det är en god idé att införa SST i alla typer av butiker. Syfte Syftet med studien var att skapa en djupare förståelse för hur svenska konsumenters shoppingstil och teknikmognad möjliggör användningen av SST i klädesbutiker. Genomförande Efter en utförlig litteraturstudie konstruerades en enkät baserad på inom ämnet etablerade metoder inom köpbeteende och teknikmognad. Enkät delades ut i Linköping. En statistisk analys genomfördes därefter med hjälp av programvaran SPSS. Resultatet jämfördes och utvärderades till sist mot tidigare genomförda studier inom området. Slutsats Svenska konsumenter har olika shoppingstilar samt olika nivåer av teknikmognad. Studien identifierade fem konsumentgrupper av shoppingstilar samt fem konsumentgrupper av teknikmognad. De konsumenter som klassificerats som vane- och lojalitetsshoppare samt undvikare av shopping har en hög teknikmognad således är implementering av SST en god idé för dessa konsumentgrupper. För stilarna: shoppingälskaren och den förvirrade shopparen verkar potentiellt användande av SST mindre positivt då dessa karaktäriseras av lägre teknikmognad. / Background The apparel industry faces new possibilities in the form of selfservice technology (SST). Several stores have already started using different types of technological solutions. There seem to be a disagreement regarding whether or not this is a good idea to implement SST in all types of apparel stores. Purpose The purpose of this study is to create a deeper understanding regarding Swedish consumers decision making styles and their technology readiness and how this enables the use of SST in apparel stores. Completion After an extensive literature review a survey was created. The survey was based on well established tools for measuring consumer decision making styles and technology readiness. The survey was distributed in Linköping, Sweden and then analyzed in SPSS. Conclusion Swedish consumers have different consumer decision making styles and different levels of technology readiness. The study showed that it was possible to divide the consumers into four different groups regarding consumer decision making style. The consumers classified as habitual and brand loyal and shopping avoiders showed high levels of technology readiness, the enabling of SST for this type of consumer seems promising. The shopping lover and the confused shopper enabling of SST seems less promising since they show low levels of technology readiness.

In recent years, the sales promotion techniques provided by marketing strategies has increased and has become an important factor in the fashion industry. In todays society customers have more knowledge and easier access to information online. Due to the growth of consumer awareness, businesses need to gain insight on how limited-time promotion techniques affect consumers.  Accordingly, the purpose is to gain insight and understand how millennials' impulse buying is influenced by limited-time promotion when purchasing fashion products online, and explore if hedonic and utilitarian motivation appear and lead millennials to a purchase decision. The aim is to develop a more recent and essential knowledge within this topic due to the poverty of recent studies on if limited-time promotion influences millennials impulse buying behavior.  The empirical findings that were collected using a multiple-method qualitative study of four focus-groups and six semi-structured interviews with people originated from Sweden. The findings were analyzed and discussed with the literature that have been presented to determine their similarities or differences.  The conclusion of this thesis demonstrates millennials in Sweden's awareness of businesses marketing strategies, and that they are detached to the process. Throughout the thesis, millennials' attitudes towards the businesses promotions in the market is saturated, and that they are not influenced by limited-time promotion online since the knowledge that there will soon occur a discount again. Although the increased awareness of millennials in Sweden, utilitarian and hedonic motivations tend to create impulse-buying behavior online. Furthermore, to attract millennials in Sweden some factors have been identified.

Background: The emergence of mobile phones today and in history proves to beexceptionally unique in the consumer electronics market as well as the telecommunicationmarket. The reason behind the huge growth of the industry has been the exceptional evolutionof the technology used in the mobile devices in terms of performance and miniaturization. Purpose: The purpose of the research is to investigate the different stages within theconsumer decision making process and the influencing factors that have a grip overconsumers and shape the consumer behaviour towards smartphones. The study is aimed atexploring the main reasons that affect the buying decision of students regarding a specificcase, which is the iPhone product and its student users in the Swedish market. By focusing ona specific segment of the iPhone consumers, the research will present more accurate and clearresults. The theoretical perspective of the study will be using the traditional five-stagedecision-making model as a backbone thus putting the main focus of the analysis on theconsumer behaviour of the respondents. Method: Additionally, the paper will take the customers’ point of view in order to portray theinfluencing factors that exist within the consumers’ decision-making. For the purpose of thestudy, 12 iPhone users will be interviewed through semi-structured interviews and thegathered data would be analysed and coded in order to find and synthesize the results into aframework that will be developed specifically for the case. Conclusion: According to findings that were made regarding the iPhone case, there were afew factors that stood out as the most relevant when it comes to the students’ purchasedecision - brand loyalty, culture and society, perceived risk, financial influence, usage andproduct features. After the initial purchase of an iPhone which is mainly influenced by socialinfluences, it can be concluded that brand loyalty plays a key role in the repurchase behaviourof customers.

In recent years there has been a remarkable distribution of the omnichannel environment, which has emerged as a significant factor in the fashion industry. Today's society is characterized by customers who possess extensive knowledge and easy access to information online, with the added convenience of constantly available e-commerce. As consumer awareness has escalated, it has become imperative for businesses to understand how customers' needs, pain points, and desires impact their customer journey in an omnichannel environment. Consequently, the aim of this research is to gain a comprehensive understanding of how Generation Z customers' needs, pain points, and desires influence their behavior throughout the customer journey within the fashion industry's omnichannel landscape. This study aims to contribute new and crucial insights to the existing body of knowledge, given the lack of recent research on this topic from the consumer perspective. To achieve these research objectives, empirical data was collected through a qualitative multi-method study comprising five focus groups and five semi-structured interviews, with a total of 25 participants. The participants consisted of individuals of Swedish origin who were born in, and belong to, Generation Z. The collected data was afterwards analyzed and discussed, which meant comparing and contrasting the results with previous research on the topic. The conclusion of this thesis reveals remarkable observations about Generation Z in Sweden, where this study has identified the most common combinations of different channels in omnichannel atmospheres. Overall, this study highlights a clear preference among female participants to use the services provided by e-commerce, while male participants show a propensity for physical, traditional commerce. In addition, this report sheds new light on the information search and evaluation process, which constitutes the initial stage of the consumer's decision-making process. Finally, needs, pain points and desires based on each step in the customer journey are identified, as well as how the problems can be resolved with initiatives from the companies.