As one of the factors influencing consumers purchase behavior, decision-making styles are crucial for understanding consumer shopping behavior and for developing successful marketing strategies. Decision-making styles have been mainly viewed as a relatively enduring consumer personality that seldom changes even when applied to different goods and situations. Recently, a study showed that consumer decision-making styles are influenced by product type, suggesting that decision-making styles are individual response patterns in a specific decision context rather than personality trait based. Despite extensive research regarding consumer decision making styles, relatively little attention has been paid to identify whether consumer decision-making styles are truly personality trait based or context-dependent. Thus, this work challenged the theory that decision-making styles are personality trait based and investigated whether decisionmaking styles are context dependent. Three independent studies, focusing on extending our knowledge regarding consumer decision-making styles, were conducted. The first study examined whether consumer decision-making styles depend on channel type (online versus offline channels). In addition, it explored new types of decision-making styles which better represent current consumer needs and preferences. Study results supported previous arguments suggesting that decision-making styles are not personality trait based but vary across contexts. Results also demonstrated the need to continuously observe consumers’ decision-making styles and capture emerging new styles. The second study explored whether product characteristics, specifically intangibility and non-standardization, influence consumer decision-making styles in an online context. At the same time, this study examined whether there is any interaction effect between product type and product involvement. The results showed that certain types of online decision-making styles are influenced by product type. The results also showed that product involvement has an important role in influencing online decision-making styles. The third study investigated whether consumer online decision-making styles influence loyalty toward online travel agencies. The results of the study provide support for five out of eleven hypotheses, indicating that consumers’ online decision-making styles significantly influence loyalty toward online travel agencies. Finally, the overall findings, limitations of the studies, agenda for future research, and practical and theoretical implications were discussed.

Experimental economics is often called upon to inform theory and aid in explaining real world behavior. As such it is important to carefully design laboratory experiments to test the validity of new theories and to reexamine results that demonstrate robust anomalies of classic theory. My first aim is to design an experiment that will allow me to test the propensity of subjects to use CaseBased Decision Theory (from now on referred to as CBDT). I carefully design a setting in which the predicted choices of CBDT are deterministic and unique to CBDT (i.e. different from the predicted choices of other relevant decision making processes). I examine how well CBDT organizes subject choices when subjects are asked to make thirty independent decisions each with a fixed and given history. I find that some subjects do appear to be using the information given to them in the form of CaseBased Decision making. My second goal is to revisit traditional firstprice private values auction experiments with the idea of making the priceprobability tradeoff, the central consideration in auctions, more salient to subjects. I approach this in two different ways. First, I use a customdesigned graphical interface which displays all results both visually and numerically. In this treatment I find that subjects bid more aggressively than predicted by riskneutral BayesNash equilibrium. Second, I restructure the presentation of the idiosyncratic reservation value. Subjects are now engaging in some economic behavior and earning their total consumer surplus each period. This differs from traditional firstprice private values auction experiments in which subjects only earn a payoff if they win the auction. Here I observe that market prices in a sealedbid implementation are significantly lower than those reported using the standard auction setup.

One psychosocial variable, human mate selection, has been studied extensively within the field of evolutionary psychology. A question of interest is how sexual/reproductive decision-making (i.e., dating, marrying, and childbearing) might be influenced by an individual’s perception of his/her genetic risk and other psychosocial variables. There is a paucity of empirical studies within the literature exploring this specific relationship. This partially mixed, sequential mixed methods study addresses how individual perception of genetic risk (PGR) influences or predicts sexual/reproductive intentions and decision-making. A systematic review of the literature was conducted by searching for English language, peer-reviewed, empirical studies in Cambridge Scientific Abstracts databases (N=26). Next, students from three Southwestern universities were recruited for focus groups and responded to 15 open-ended questions (N=86). Transcripts were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim and analyzed using holistic-content analysis. Based on the literature review and qualitative findings, a 138-item, web-based instrument was designed and tested at two Southwestern universities (N=2,576). Survey data were analyzed using non-parametric univariate analyses and multiple regression. Approximately 50 demographic, individual/familial psychosocial and genetic testing-related factors influenced the relationship between PGR and sexual/reproductive decision-making in reviewed studies. Individual psychosocial factors (e.g., intention, attitudes) represented 65.8% of all findings. Participants in the qualitative phase exhibited moderate health literacy when interpreting and discussing genetic risk information. A number of factors including age, gender, religion, individual/family values, and exposure to genetic concepts/technology appeared to influence sexual/reproductive decision-making. Demographic, Health Belief Model (HBM) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) variables predicted the relationship between PGR and dating, marital, and childbearing intention in the quantitative phase. TPB variables were the strongest predictors of intention accounting for 33.1-38.7% of variance. Positive family norms were the single best predictor of dating and marital intention. Age was the best predictor of childbearing intention. Further research is needed to understand how young adults incorporate genetic risk perceptions into sexual/reproductive decision-making. Mixed methods and longitudinal study designs, and structural equation modeling are recommended for use in future studies. Study findings affirm a need for health educators to consider adopting genomic competencies; creating theory-based curricula/interventions; and forming partnerships with genetic specialists and local/regional health departments.

Risk based audit (RBA) approaches represent a major trend in current audit methodology. The approach is based on risk analysis used to identify business strategy risk. The RBA has created a new set of research issues that need investigation. In particular, this approach has important implications for risk identification and risk assessment. The success of the RBA approach is contingent on understanding what factors improve or interfere with the accuracy of these risk judgments. I examine how budget constraints and decision aid use affect risk identification and risk assessment. Unlike previous budget pressure studies, I cast budget constraints as a positive influence on auditors. I expect more stringent budget constraints to be motivating to the auditor as they provide a goal for the auditor to achieve. I also expect budget constraints to induce feelings of pressure leading to the use of time-pressure adaptation strategies. When auditors have use of a decision aid, they take advantage of these motivational goals and/or use beneficial adaptive strategies. Overall, I find that auditor participants tend to be more accurate when identifying financial statement risks compared to business risks. Budget constraints have no effect on risk identification for financial or business risks; they also have no effect on financial risk assessments. On the other hand, business risk assessments are improved by implementing more stringent budget constraints, but only when a decision aid is also provided. Budget constraints can affect performance through a goal theory route or a time-pressure adaptation route. I investigate the paths through which budget constraints improve business risk assessments under decision aid use. I find that budget constraints directly affect performance, supporting a goal theory route. However, I do not find that budget constraints are mediated by perceived budget pressure as expected. Auditors appear to use a positive adaptive strategy to respond to perceived budget pressure, however perceived budget pressure is not induced by providing a more stringent budget.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 292-305). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.S.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): Nita Lewis Miller, Saverio Manago, Matt Chesney. Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-61). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2001. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiv, 169 p.; also contains graphics (some col.). Includes abstract and vita. Advisor: B. Chandresekaran, Dept. of Computer and Information Science. Includes bibliographical references (p. 165-169).

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2001. / Field problem. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--University of Southern California. / Bibliography: leaves 265-287.

Thesis--Handelshögskolan i Stockholm. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-203).