Retailers increasingly are connecting with consumers using social media. This two-way, networked communication method facilitates word-of-mouth that may ultimately impact retailer loyalty. The purpose of this study was to examine motivations of consumers’ purchase intention from apparel Facebook retailers, and the relationship between purchase intention and loyalty. Consumer motivations were examined in terms of the utilitarian values of cost, convenience, and information and the hedonic values of experiential shopping, bargain perception, sociability, and curiosity. The relationship of purchase intention and loyalty also was investigated. The instrument was developed from existing scales drawn from literature. A consumer panel (N = 250) of Facebook users that connect to apparel retailers was used to collect data through an online Qualtrics survey. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics of frequency and crosstab distributions, factor analysis, and regression analysis. Factor analysis resulted in four dimensions including convenience, information, experience, and bargains. All motivators were found to be significantly related to both purchase intention and loyalty for this consumer group. The variable with the strongest relationship to both purchase intention and loyalty was experience. Additionally, a strong relationship was found between purchase intention and loyalty. Lastly, practical business implications are reviewed, in addition to limitations of the study.

This study investigates the consumers' intention towards Internet shopping. The Theory of Planned Behavior is used to predict behavioral intention (BI), which is a function of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control (PBC). The effects of demographic and personal variables on BI are also examined. Data analysis (n = 303) indicates that attitude, subjective norm, perceptions of behavioral controls, and previous purchases are significant predictors of behavioral intention. Product/Convenience, Customer Service (attitude factors), Purchase and Delivery, Promotional Offers, Product Attribute (factors of PBC), subjective norm, hours spent online, money spent online, and previous purchases discriminate respondents of high BI from low BI. Behavioral intention of shopping online is highest for Specialty Products followed by Personal, Information Intensive, and Household Products.

Diese Diplomarbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Irrtum im Strafrecht und seine Problematik. Zweck der Arbeit ist die Wichtigkeit von diesem strafrechtlichen Institut zu betonen und seine Rolle im Rahmen des Strafrechts klarzustellen. Daraus entspringt auch seine sehr enge Verbindung zwischen dem Irrtum und dem Grundsatz der Subsidiarität der Strafrepression, auf welchen muss man in einigen Fällen des Rechtirrtums eine besondere Rücksicht nehmen. Der Irrtum des Straftäters ist für die Rechtstheorie wesentlich. Und es hat eine große Bedeutung auch für den Täter, weil es Einfluss auf seine strafrechtliche Verantwortlichkeit hat. In dem ersten Teil definiere ich erstens einige Begriffe, die wesentlich für das Verständnis des Irrtums sind und auf welche wir nicht verzichten können. In dem ersten Kapitel geht es um den Straftat. In dem zweiten Kapitel verlege ich mich mit der subjektiven Seite der Straftat und mit den Begriffen wie das Verschulden, der Vorsatz, die Fahrlässigkeit, der Versuch, die Vorbereitu ngshandlung und Weitere, also die meist mit Zusammenhang mit dem Strafrechtirrtum verwendeten Begriffe. In dem dritten Kapitel stelle ich kurz auch die Umstände, die die Widerrechtlichkeit beseitigen, vor. Kurzgefasst zahle ich auf, um welche es geht und was wir uns unter diese Begriffe vorstellen...

M. Tech. (Tourism and Hospitality Management, Faculty of Human Sciences)|, Vaal University of Technology. / Tourism is regarded as a modern-day engine of growth and one of the largest industries globally. In 2012, the G20 heads of state recognised tourism as a driver of growth and development as well as an industry that has the potential to spur global economic recovery. South Africa is currently receiving a higher number of first time visitors with the number of return visitors for leisure purposes very low. It is thus the aim of the study to identify the predictors of tourist’s intention to return to South Africa. Specifically, this study will focus on demographic characteristics, travel behaviour, travel motivations and satisfaction intention to return. This information can contribute to adjusting marketing and product strategies to enhance visitors’ intention to return. A quantitative survey was done at Aerial Cable Way (Table Mountain National Park) where 800 respondents were requested to participate in the study. The Cable Way attracts a high number of international visitors who was the population for this study. The questionnaire was distributed by fieldworkers who returned 720 completed questionnaires. The data was captured, analysed and interpreted to identify the predictors of visitor’s intention to return to South Africa as a tourism destination. The respondents were on average 40 years of age, mostly male, from the USA and UK respectively and married. They hold either a degree or a diploma and serve in professional or management occupations. When visiting South Africa these respondents stay on average 16 days, travel in groups of 3.71 and they prefer hotels and lodges. It was evident in this research that respondents were mainly first-time visitors, emphasizing the problem that this research assess. These respondents travel to enjoy Relaxation and Novelty, Social motivations, Cultural motivations, Personal Motivations and Product motivations of which Relaxation and Novelty and Cultural motivations were rated as the most important. These travel motivations were influenced by gender, occupation and accommodation preferences. Core to this study and addressing the main aim of the study was the finding that Communication, Experience, Safety and the Tourism offering contributes to willingness to return of which the Experience and Safety were the most important aspects. These willingness were also influenced by gender and occupation. Ultimately it is about the experience in South Africa. The relationship between willingness to return and travel motivations were also evident highlighting the inter- dependence of these variables. It was evident that marketing campaigns should be adjusted and more value-added products should be provided to increase intention to return. Continuous communication is needed with people that visited this country and showing new products, discount offers and unique products. Clearly the importance of intention to revisit is evident an aspect that needs attention in South Africa.

Corporations as such are often not perceived to have moral agency, and directors and officers of the corporation are frequently not considered responsible for corporate actions. However, I appeal to Peter French's view that reflection on a corporate internal decision (CID) procedure shows that a corporation should be considered a moral agent. Many writers have cast doubt on the correctness of French's view, but I defend it from several major objections.

Thesis advisor: Arthur Madigan / Thesis advisor: Jorge L. Garcia / The relationship between intention, intentional action, and moral assessment is of fundamental importance to ethical theory. In large part, moral responsibility is based on an assessment of agent responsibility, which in turn is based on the connection between an agent's intentions and the actions which they cause. In the last twenty-five years, there has been a debate in contemporary action theory about the relationship between intentions and intentional action. Objecting to what he calls the "Simple View," which he characterizes as the view that all intentional actions are intended under some description, Michael Bratman, among others, argues that not all intentional actions are intended. In this dissertation, we will defend the Simple View by appealing to Aristotle's theory of action as developed in his psychological and ethical works. In the first part of the dissertation, we argue that all intentional actions are intended under some description; however, we argue that distinctions between different types of intention are essential: specifically, the distinction between deliberate and non-deliberate intentions and the distinction between the intention of the end and the intention of the means. Our account centers on Aristotle's concept of prohairesis, which he identifies as the distinctly human principle of action. The term prohairesis in Aristotle's works seems to have at least three senses: 1) primarily, the deliberate intention with which a person acts, an `occurent' choice; 2) the habitual or `dispositional' choice or resolve of `decent' people; and 3) general purposes that men have which may encompass voluntary action as a whole. The first sense of the term is the primary one that properly signifies the concept. Prohairesis fits within the general framework of animal motion which Aristotle sets out in the De Anima and De Motu Animalium. For Aristotle, orexis or desire is the cause of all animal motion, including human motion. Prohairesis is a deliberate desire for the means to an end. It is a principle of action peculiar to mature human beings capable of deliberating, as it is the intention which is the result of deliberation. It marks off a narrow but important stretch of intentional action. Prohairesis is set off against other types of intention, like boulesis, which is an intention of the end, and epithumia (bodily appetite) and thumos (anger), which are non-deliberate intentions relating to non-rational appetites like lust and anger. Aristotle, in contrast to contemporary accounts of intentional action, is unusually specific in his designation of the different kinds of intention. Different orexeis differ not only with regard to specific objects but also with regard to time, planning, and detail. Aristotle traces both the causal and moral responsibility agents have for their actions to the action of these internal principles of desire. Moral assessment is linked to the operative internal principle of an act. This allows for an action to be voluntary and intentional, even if the agent does not fully understand or plan for the consequences of an action. Intention, for Aristotle, if we correctly understand it as orexis and what results from orexis, is not reducible to one mode but is irreducibly plural. Furthermore, each person's capacity for intentional action is shaped by his character, and each character has correspondingly different kinds of intention, both with respect to the objects of intention and in their relation to action. Finally, the scope of intention is not definite, and depending on the agent, can include those things which attend to the means of which he has cognizance, for instance, harmful side-effect consequences or other costs of his action. In the second part of the dissertation, we examine at length the objections to the Simple View, lodged by Bratman, Gilbert Harman, and Joshua Knobe. We give an overview of objections by Bratman, Harman, and Knobe which center on three cases and four objections. The cases are: 1) a hypothetical video game; 2) unexpected success; and 3) unintended consequences. The objections are: 1) with respect to the hypothetical video game, the Simple View ascribes an irrational intention to a gamer playing the game; 2) When agents are doubtful of the success of an action they undertake, the Simple View requires that they intend the act the perform rather than that they merely try to perform the act, which opponents argue that this is irrational and false; 3) The Simple View entails the rejection of the distinction between intention and foresight which itself entails that agents intend all the results of their actions, even when those results are merely foreseen and not intended; 4) The Simple View does not adequately explain ordinary language usage with respect to ascriptions of intention for side-effect consequences, and therefore does not reflect basic, commonly shared notions of intentional action. The first two objections center on cases where it seems irrational for an agent to intend the act he performs. In the case of the video game, the scenario is so set up that the player wins a prize for hitting either target but knows that he cannot hit both or the game will shut down. It seems irrational for him to intend to hit both if he cannot; however, in order to maximize his chance winning, it would be rational to aim at both. In the case of unexpected success, it seems that agents do not intend acts whose chances of success they doubt because intending seems to require the positive belief that one will succeed; rather, it is argued that agents merely try but do not intend the act they perform. Against these cases and objections, we argue that agents are capable of conditional and complex intentions, such that one may conditionally intend to hit whichever target is opportune, while aiming at both. Likewise, we argue that intending to act does not require the positive belief that one will succeed; only that it is possible for one to succeed. Furthermore, the distinction between trying and intending is specious. Finally, we respond to the third and fourth objections centering on the intentionality of side-effect consequences. It is argued by Bratman et al. that the Simple View entails the rejection of the distinction between intention and foresight, and that such a rejection further entails consequentialism. Likewise it is also argued that the Simple View fails to account for ordinary language ascriptions of intentionality for side-effect consequences. We agree that the Simple View entails rejecting the distinction between intention and foresight as it is currently applied, but deny that this entails consequentialism, i.e., the view that the consequences of an action are the primary basis for moral evaluation and not the agent's intentions. Likewise, we agree that the Simple View does not model ordinary language ascriptions of intention; however, this is not necessarily a defect since such ascriptions are inconsistent and imprecise. Furthermore, we argue that the Simple View might be used to more adequately explain such usage. We center our response to these objections on the Doctrine of Double Effect. We argue that the doctrine arises from a mistaken interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas' treatment of defensive killing. We argue that Aquinas does not hold that the death of an attacker is a foreseen but not intended side-effect, as proponents of Double Effect and opponents of the Simple View hold; rather it is intended as a means to the end of self-defense. Therefore, the two effects are not the desired end and a side-effect but rather the intended end and the intended means. Furthermore, we argue that this does not entail doing evil for the sake of good because Aquinas' Aristotelian account of action specification incorporates circumstances as essential components of intentions which give an act its moral quality. Furthermore, the necessary references to an agent's intentions show how the rejection of the application of the distinction between intention and foresight does not entail consequentialism. Finally, we tackle the underlying assumptions about intention and desire which lead to the rejection of the Simple View. Opponents of the Simple View hold that intention is not a form of desire because then it would not have an essential role in the genesis of action or in rational deliberation. We, however, argue that the major objections to the Simple View are defeasible once one understands intention as a species of desire, i.e. a deliberate desire, whose scope includes consequences beyond acts performed and goals achieved. The paradoxes at the heart of the debate hinge on the ambiguity of the English word `intention' and its usage, as well as the inherent difficulty of examining psychological concepts. `Intention' has several senses unified by the purposiveness of the mental states to which the word is referred. These senses can often, but not always, be distinguished in English usage by the degree and kind of deliberation attendant to them. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Illegible written prescriptions and “Doctor’s handwriting” may have been synonymous, but this stereotype has begun to change with the gradual uptake of e-prescriptions. These eprescriptions are electronically captured and delivered prescriptions, and are touted as the solution to the many medical risks caused by written prescriptions. Whilst there is published support for the benefits of e-prescriptions, the uptake of e-prescribing has been too gradual for all patients to enjoy these benefits. The inadequate research into physicians’ adoption of e-prescribing systems presents a need for further study in this area, in an effort to improve the general use of these systems. Based on a review of literature, this study proposes six factors which may explain physicians’ intentions to use e-prescribing systems. These factors are based upon the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). This model is extended in this study by Social Dominance Theory, Commitment-Trust Theory and the Product Evaluation Model. Quantitative data was collected to test the proposed hypotheses. This data was gathered from physicians who have had some exposure to an e-prescription system. 72 usable responses were obtained for this study. The results of the study suggest that Performance Expectancy and Price Value have the highest influence on Behavioural Intention. Effort Expectancy and Social Influence had no direct influence on Behavioural Intention when in the presence of other variables, but they, along with Trust, had an indirect effect on Behavioural Intention through Performance Expectancy. Surprisingly, Social Dominance Orientation was not found to have an influence on Behavioural Intention. Implications, contributions and further research are discussed.

The use of e-government has increased in recent years, and many countries now use it to provide high quality services to their citizens. As user acceptance is crucial for the success of any IT project, a number of studies have investigated the user acceptance of e-government via the use of adoption models, such as the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. However, these models do not pay sufficient attention to security. The lack of security is one of the key issues associated with the adoption of e-government. Thus, this study aims at investigating the role of security in the behaviour intention for using e-government services. In addition, this study seeks to determine the factors influencing end users’ perceptions in e-government security. Therefore, in mind of achieving the aim, the research followed a mixed-methods approach, which divided the research into two phases. The first phase is a qualitative study aiming at exploring the factors influencing end users’ perceptions in e-government security. The second phase is a quantitative study aiming at identifying the role of security and its antecedences in the behaviour intention for using e-government services. To achieve this goal, a research model was developed by integrating trust, security and privacy with the UTAUT2 and tested via Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The findings show that user interface quality, security culture and cyber-security law positively affect security perception. These factors explain 54% of security perception variance and strongly influence trust in e-government services. The findings also show that trust is ranked as the third most critical factor affecting behaviour intention after performance expectance and habit. The results make a significant contribution to academic research as this research is the first that investigated the factors that influence the security perception in e-government services. This will provide opportunities for further research to investigate further contributing factors and validate the security antecedences explored in this study. This research has practical implications regarding understanding the role of security in e-government adoption and the factors affecting end users’ perceptions of e-government security. This will help the decision makers in government to increase users’ trust in e-government by focusing more on these factors.

English is a global language which is associated with modernity and in advertising, English is used to associate products with modernity in the minds of the consumers. In non-English speaking countries, modernity-related products are more often advertised in English than products unrelated to modernity. Despite this, no previous research has proven that consumers’ purchase intention is higher for modernity-related products advertised in English compared to the same product advertised in the native language. Through an online-survey with a between-subject design a quantitative field experiment was conducted. It was found that consumers had a higher purchase intention for modernity-related products advertised in English compared to the same products advertised in Swedish and that consumers’ purchase intention was higher for products unrelated to modernity advertised in Swedish compared to the same products advertised in English.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how organisations can identify the untapped potential of intrapreneurial intention amongst employees to increase its competitive advantage. Competitive advantage was therefore seen as an outcome of entrepreneurial actions, which, i.e. can be used for more effective and novel marketing strategies. To reach enhanced competitiveness, many firms make use of the concept of corporate entrepreneurship to boost innovation and firm performance. To measure an employee’s intrapreneurial intention, this thesis deploys an exploratory approach by developing a research model that immerses organisational factors – an employee’s perception of the company’s Entrepreneurial Orientation, with behavioural attributes, as designed by Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The model includes five dimensions of a firm’s Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO), including autonomy, innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, and competitive aggressiveness. Behavioural attributes proposed by Ajzen consist of the personal attitude towards intrapreneurship, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control. The quantitative study generated a sample of 394 employees working in different organisations, industries, and on distinct hierarchical levels. Based on the findings, the authors propose a new framework, in which intrapreneurial intentions are directly influenced by someone’s attitude towards intrapreneurship, and indirectly influenced by an employee’s positive perception of the organisation’s EO. As a result, a company should focus on individual attitudes first to discover a potential for intrapreneurial interests. As a support, a firm’s positive perception of its EO can influence the employee’s attitude towards intrapreneurship, but cannot solely boost intrapreneurial intentions amongst workers.