The mature market presents challenges to marketers because much of the information about the marketplace is based on younger consumers, differing from older consumers in many important ways. The research project was commisioned with two main objectives: to determine what is required to cater for customers falling into the age bracket of 60-75, enabling marketers to successfully target the mature consumer and retain these customers. A qualitative methodology was selected to collect and analyse information to enhance understanding of the perceptions with regard to the functional, social and emotional needs of the mature market sector. Abraham Maslow is known for postulating the 'Hierarchy of Needs Theory', stating that human beings are motivated by their unsatisfied needs. It is necessary to understand and investigate the relative importance of the functional, emotional and actualisation components of mature consumer needs. / Thesis (M.A. (Psychology ))

A 'wave of nostalgia' has gripped the US leading to nostalgic fashions, furniture, television programming and even food. The marketing literature suggests that nostalgic-related consumption is the result of an aging population. It has been proposed that the purchase of nostalgic-products and services is an attempt by mature consumers to return psychologically to the ease, certainties and conflict free periods that existed or seemed to exist during their childhood or adolescence. This paper proposes that discontinuity, as argued by Davis (1979), is a better explanation for why people develop a preference for and consume nostalgic goods. Although some insights have been developed, research focused only on mature consumers and is rather limited in offering alternative explanations for the evocation of nostalgic feelings. MANCOVA was the primary method used to test hypotheses. Findings of this study indicate that discontinuity does not necessarily lead to nostalgia and preference for nostalgic products varies. / by Jana Rutherford. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-11-05T13:00:44Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Eliane Zanoni.pdf: 1257842 bytes, checksum: dd9efb81f4e45ab6a40e00dca128a8d1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-05T13:00:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eliane Zanoni.pdf: 1257842 bytes, checksum: dd9efb81f4e45ab6a40e00dca128a8d1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-09-17 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This study, developed in the context of the research line of the New Technologies in Education, by the Education Program: Curriculum, of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, aims to reflect on the directives of the General National Curricular Guidelines for the organization and operation of Superior Courses of Technology about the conscious consumption and socially responsible to subsidize the construction of the Pedagogical Projects of the Superior Courses of Technology in Marketing. The research had as general objective to analyze the existence of the formation of professional awareness of the social-environmental consequences of consumerism in the curriculum of the superior course of technology in marketing. For this analysis, topics related to curriculum, superior courses of technology, and superior course of technology in Marketing, as well as marketing and consumption were addressed. The methodology includes a bibliographical study of the topics addressed and a documentary research based on the analysis of the legislations and institutional documents of the course in focus. The results of the research allowed to know in a broader way the conceptions about what the General National Curricular Guidelines for the organization and the operation of the superior courses of technology alude about the consumption consciously and socially responsible to subsidize the construction of the Pedagogical Projects of the superior courses of technology in Marketing. In tune, it identified the elements of formation directed to the conscious consumption from the curriculum of the superior course of technology in Marketing researched, pointing out the main practices used and how they present themselves. Finally, the possibilities of improvement in the curriculum of the Marketing course, directed to the formation of a professional that, besides the function of studying and proposing indiscriminate ways of selling, is concerned with the formation of values of conscious and socially responsible consumption / Este estudo, desenvolvido no contexto da linha de pesquisa Novas Tecnologias em Educação, do Programa Educação: Currículo, da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, visa refletir sobre os direcionamentos das Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais Gerais para a organização e o funcionamento dos cursos superiores de tecnologia sobre o consumo consciente e socialmente responsável para subsidiar a construção dos Projetos Pedagógicos dos cursos superiores de tecnologia em Marketing. A pesquisa teve como objetivo geral analisar a existência da formação de consciência profissional das consequências socioambientais do consumismo no currículo do curso superior de tecnologia em marketing. Para esta análise, foram abordados temas relacionados ao currículo, aos cursos superiores de tecnologia e sobre o curso superior de tecnologia em marketing, bem como sobre marketing e consumo. A metodologia contempla um estudo bibliográfico dos temas abordados e uma pesquisa documental a partir de análise nas legislações e documentos institucionais do curso em foco. Os resultados da pesquisa permitiram conhecer de forma mais ampla as concepções acerca do que as Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais Gerais para a organização e o funcionamento dos cursos superiores de tecnologia referenciam sobre o consumo consciente e socialmente responsável para subsidiar a construção dos Projetos Pedagógicos dos cursos superiores de tecnologia em Marketing. Em sintonia, identificou os elementos de formação direcionados ao consumo consciente a partir do currículo do curso superior de tecnologia em Marketing pesquisado, apontando as principais práticas utilizadas e como estas se apresentam. Por fim, as possibilidades de melhoria no currículo do curso de Marketing, direcionada à formação de um profissional que, além da função de estudar e propor formas indiscriminadas de vender, preocupa-se com a formação de valores de consumo consciente e responsável socialmente

This dissertation is an attempt to shed light on the impact that global cultural consumption has had in the transformation of perceptions of material and symbolic consumption in everyday life among urban black African Zulu-English speakers that live in the Durban Metropolitan area. The process of transformation within this group has not occurred without resistance, confrontation and struggle against the hegemonic societal forces. Black Africans have suffered spatial segregation and social exclusion during the history of white colonisation and the apartheid system. Therefore, their socio-economic, cultural and ideological social world has been transformed through multi-cultural relationships, politico-ideological power, socio- economic unequal distribution of wealth and class differentiation. Many events have occurred since the 1980's, the most significant being the triumph of the democratic system on 1994 over apartheid power. This led to South Africa's opening the door to the global economy and to neo-liberal ideologies. These processes have had a powerful effect on the material and symbolic consumption of the social group under investigation and particularly in the area of clothing consumption. Mediations such as the media, western religions, European languages, etc. have been part of this very complex process, which affects and transforms the social practices of black African Zulu-English speakers. The influence of western mediation has transformed the habitus and taste consumption of ordinary black South Africans. Therefore, this study is concerned with the transformed thoughts and perception of the material and symbolic consumption within the popular culture of black Africans Zulu-English speakers who live in the Durban Metropolitan Area. Consumption is a very important concept in our understanding of how taste and habitus organise the social practices of black Africans in everyday live. In addition, consumption in general and clothing consumption in particular serves to define and re-confirm symbolic meanings within popular culture and symbolic distinction between classes. This study has used three different methods: ethnographic, archival historical and statistical. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

In this Thesis, from the disciplinary vantage point of English Studies, I explore some of the complex meanings that may be attributed to several forms and practices of South African consumer culture: magazines, malls and themed leisure. While these contemporary cultural 'texts' are often ephemeral, and people's attachments to them fractured, transient or at least ambivalent rather than unproblematic, my argument takes issue with the pessimism that informs much local and international criticism of consumer culture. My Thesis turns to concepts of affect, image, sign and discourse which have become features of current English Studies in order to generate readings of commercial culture more nuanced than the 'hard analyses' favoured by dominant practitioners of 'radical' South African cultural studies. At the same time, though, my analyses have learnt through disparate forms of local cultural study the necessity of grounding textuality in the structures of political economy. By means of manageable yet conceptually-suggestive South African instances, I consider how commodities and commodified experiences - generated in the first instance by the vested interests of Capital and related ideologies - may nevertheless be experienced by people in a plethora of ways not directly tied to the commercially-expedient construct of the 'target audience'. This experiential process entails a rampant volatility typical of a mass-mediated lexicon which challenges boundaries between high and low, formal and unofficial, propriety and the improper. While advertising and promotion, for instance, function as corporate attempts to contain proliferating signifiers and to secure a preferred, 'authorised' meaning for cultural goods or services, it is also the case that consumers themselves, perhaps creatively and certainly in clandestine ways that escape the supposed authorities of either market researcher or academic intelligence, author meanings that rework the limitations of what still tends to be construed within the university as a culture industry at once banal and insidious. The meanings of the contemporary cultures with which I deal, then, are highly mediated and many-layered, rather than constituting the mere surface announcement often imagined by scholars of both literary culture and of media- and cultural studies. The contexts of my Thesis are particular: it was completed in 1998, and has been produced from a university in KwaZulu-Natal by an academic formally trained in English Studies. In some respects, then, the interpretations I offer are narrow: geographically, historically and disciplinarily focussed. Yet in working on South African examples of commoditised forms and practices that derive from metropolitan vectors and have convoluted international genealogies, I have also sought to theorise the shifting interrelations of regional and national, local and global, discipline-specific and interdisciplinary knowledge. Drawing widely on studies into consumer relations - and at apposite points identifying conceptual connections and differences between 'foreign' figures like Michel de Certeau and influential South African thinkers such as Njabulo S. Ndebele - I suggest that for all its shortcomings consumerism needs to be understood as active process rather than as passive effect. My argument implies that such a rethinking of the conventional binaries of production and consumption is appropriate in a South Africa which is gradually giving substance to a democratic social order. Even within a politics premised on the individual, forms of consumption such as magazine reading and shopping need not necessarily be scorned as the selfish, even hedonistic pursuits caricatured by ideological purists: the Thesis seeks to demonstrate that people are at once citizens and consumers, individuals searching after distinctive identity and style as well as desirous of achieving a variety of community inflected bonds. Overall, the commercial culture examined in the Thesis is represented not as inevitably marred by cultural deficiency and degraded value - despite the dissatisfactions, irritations and deferred pleasures which for many of us form at least one facet of consumption - but as an everyday spectacle which is available for symbolic interpretation and aesthetic investment. This investment may be emotional as well as cognitive, sensuous as well as critical, mundane as well as exceptional, since individuals come to commodity culture with a range of longings, dreams, fears and sedimented allegiances. As my readings demonstrate, it is such diversity of response - provisional and elusive rather than predictable and guaranteed - which gives the lie to theories which are 'always-already' premised on the prior inscription and encoding of consumerism as manipulation. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1998.

A dissertação tem como tema central o Design Emocional nas redes de soluçãodemanda da Economia da Funcionalidade. Seu objetivo principal é caracterizar a contribuição do Design Emocional nas redes de solução-demanda da Economia da Funcionalidade. Este estudo se justifica no campo teórico, por constituir um avanço na pesquisa do tema em questão, pela identificação de uma lacuna a ser estudada e pela originalidade na combinação e na abordagem conjunta destes três conceitos. Justifica-se também no campo prático, pelo potencial de contribuir não apenas para os profissionais do design, mas poder envolver também outros stakeholders, ao abrir novas oportunidades de parcerias e permitir uma ampliação da rede de atores envolvidos em novos modelos de Economia da Funcionalidade. A pesquisa é exploratória e descritiva quanto ao seu objetivo. Para o levantamento e a definição do referencial teórico, foi utilizada a pesquisa bibliométrica e a análise sistêmica. Para a coleta e a análise de dados secundários foi utilizado o método de análise de conteúdo, desenvolvendo uma análise categorial e temática, caracterizando-a assim como uma pesquisa qualitativa. Como objeto de estudo de aplicação da análise das contribuições do Design Emocional, trabalhou-se com o caso prático do Autolib, sistema de car-sharing de veículos elétricos com origem na França. Os resultados encontrados mostram que as contribuições do Design Emocional nas redes de solução-demanda da Economia da Funcionalidade são de quatro naturezas distintas: (i) Estratégias no Design de Produtos (níveis visceral, comportamental e reflexivo); (ii) Aspectos emocionais, psicológicos e cognitivos; (iii) Experiências e (iv) Design centrado no usuário. / This dissertation has as its central theme the Emotional Design in the solutiondemand networks of the Functional Economy. Its main goal is to characterize the contribution of the Emotional Design in the solution-demand networks of the Functional Economy. This study is justified in the theoretical field, as a breakthrough in the research of the subject matter, by identifying a gap to be studied and by the originality of the combination and the joint approach of these three concepts. It is also justified in the practical field, for the potential to contribute not only to designers but also to involve other stakeholders, when opening new opportunities for partnerships and enabling an expansion of the network of actors involved in new models of Functional Economy.The study is exploratory and descriptive as to its purpose. Bibliometric research and systemic analysis were used for the survey and definition of the theoretical reference. For the collection and analysis of secondary data, the content analysis method was used, developing a categorical and thematic analysis, characterizing it as well as a qualitative research. The practical case of Autolib, a carsharing system of electric vehicles originating in France, was used as a study object for applying the analysis of the contributions of Emotional Design. The results show that the contributions of Emotional Design in the solution-demand networks of the Functional Economy are of four distinct natures: (i) Product Design Strategies (visceral, behavioral and reflexive levels); (ii) Emotional, psychological and cognitive aspects; (iii) Experiences and (iv) User-centered design.

Following the call for further research on the consumer perspective of corporate ethics, this research sets out to explore and conceptualize the construct of ‘Consumer Perceived Ethicality’ (CPE), referring to consumers’ aggregate and valenced perceptions of a subject’s(i.e. a company, brand, product, or service) ethicality. Results present novel insights into how positive/negative CPE is formed and impacted by various kinds of corporate conduct, thereby offering some explanations as to why some companies benefit from positive while others suffer from negative moral equity.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Accurate estimation of alcohol price elasticity is important for policy analysis – e.g.., determining optimal taxes and projecting revenues generated from proposed tax changes. Several approaches to specifying and estimating the price elasticity of demand for alcohol can be found in the literature. There are two keys to policy-relevant specification and estimation of alcohol price elasticity. First, the underlying demand model should take account of alcohol consumption decisions at the extensive margin – i.e., individuals' decisions to drink or not – because the price of alcohol may impact the drinking initiation decision and one's decision to drink is likely to be structurally different from how much they drink if they decide to do so (the intensive margin). Secondly, the modeling of alcohol demand elasticity should yield both theoretical and empirical results that are causally interpretable. The elasticity estimates obtained from the existing two-part model takes into account the extensive margin, but are not causally interpretable. The elasticity estimates obtained using aggregate-level models, however, are causally interpretable, but do not explicitly take into account the extensive margin. There currently exists no specification and estimation method for alcohol price elasticity that both accommodates the extensive margin and is causally interpretable. I explore additional sources of bias in the extant approaches to elasticity specification and estimation: 1) the use of logged (vs. nominal) alcohol prices; and 2) implementation of unnecessarily restrictive assumptions underlying the conventional two-part model. I propose a new approach to elasticity specification and estimation that covers the two key requirements for policy relevance and remedies all such biases. I find evidence of substantial divergence between the new and extant methods using both simulated and the real data. Such differences are profound when placed in the context of alcohol tax revenue generation.

This study aimed to develop a causal chain that illustrates the path through which a variety of factors influence consumer financial vulnerability. In order to achieve the stated aim, it was necessary to firstly identify the factors that gave rise to consumers being financially vulnerable. Secondly, the nature of the causal chain between the identified factors was determined. Thirdly, the causes of consumer financial vulnerability according to key informants in the financial services industry were determined. Finally, based on the results of the first three stages, possible explanations for consumer financial vulnerability were provided. Before the construction of the causal chain could be explored, a theoretical framework regarding household financial position as well as financial attitudes and behaviours was provided. The theoretical framework was supported by a description of the linkages through which consumers function and transact in an economy by applying chain reasoning. The chain reasoning was extended by providing financial statements reflecting the results of consumers’ interactions in the macroeconomy with an extract from the national accounts of South Africa presenting the income statements, balance sheets and relevant financial ratios of consumers for the period in which the research was conducted (2008 to 2009). For this study, the explanatory sequential mixed methods design was deemed appropriate to achieve the proposed research objectives. The research process firstly consisted of a quantitative strand where the possible causes for consumer financial vulnerability were identified after which the results were validated with data obtained in the second phase by means of four focus group discussions. To determine the factors giving rise to and establish the causal chain of overall consumer financial vulnerability, regression analysis was conducted. Based on the results of the regression analysis, it became evident that the financial vulnerability chain is not a singular linear process but rather a non-linear process (with contemporaneous and singular linkages) with a variety of factors influencing financial vulnerability, but also influencing each other over time. / Management Accounting / D. Accounting Science

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