Thesis advisor: Juliet B. Schor / In an era of increasing awareness about the impacts of everyday consumption on ecological sustainability, this study investigates the factors that influence mothers' selection of household cleaning products. The data for this study are from 28 in-depth interviews with mothers who maintain diverse preferences across a cleaning product profile spectrum. Incorporating the concepts of risk, trust, and convenience, the analysis highlights the ways in which considerations of ecological health in relation to cleaning products influence purchasing decisions of some participants but not others. This study contributes to understandings of how consumer practices shift toward environmental sustainability. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

The ways in which individuals act within the world around them and the ways in which individuals engage with commodities as consumers play a vital role in providing insight into innate human values and opportunities for growth. By exploring the seemingly mundane and small but meaningful ways individuals engage in the consumer process and space, fruitful data display an interconnected outline of cyclical pathways toward mending the gap between reality and desired individual values, identity, and behaviors. Building on literature from both sociological and adult learning fields, diverse avenues for decision making and strategic outcomes are highlighted to isolate an array of individual consumer experiences and subsequent triggers for ongoing learning and reflection. While consumer research has an extensive theoretical history, by dissecting the nuanced nature of the individual experience, this literature adds a vital layer to the evolving consumer narrative by integrating the hidden fruit of perceived failure. To achieve this, an exploratory study was designed to dissect the lives of 20 individual consumers and their experiences with the intersectionality between their values, identity, and learned consumption behaviors. Several prevalent findings of the study included the identification of self-directed learning as a driving force for enacting agency and lifelong development, the essential nature of motivational drivers that sustain overt and covert degrees of commitment to individual values and the vital presence of coping mechanisms as accessible entry points to engage with the identification and confrontation of shifting values and identity. By tracing socialized behaviors through seemingly mundane acts of consumerism, individuals unlock opportunities to evolve through the increased exposure of varying experiences of others. As such, by adopting practices grounded in radical transparency with self, innate barriers to aligned behaviors can transform into stepping stones for growth, deep renewal, and empowerment. Thus, by capturing identities and values in action, this narrative displays a portraiture of the distorted consumer space and the individuals that consume and are consumed within it.

The paper presents a review of 128 studies on the behavior of older consumers published in the last 35 years (from 1980 to 2014) in 35 peer-reviewed journals. The purpose of the procedure is twofold: First, we aim to summarize results on agerelated changes in consumer research. Second, by doing so, we evaluate the relative importance of age-related factors (chronological, biological, psychological, and social age as wells as life events and life circumstances) in research on older consumers. Results of the review show that research on older consumers is still dominated by investigations using chronological age. Influences of other aspects of the aging process, although recommended by previous research reviews and providing valuable insights, are still playing a minor role in the investigation of consumer behavior. Research with alternative age measures is still in an early, exploratory stage and future studies should include specific aspects as well as multitheoretical models of aging.

Cheng Yuet Yee. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 41-44). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT (ENGLISH) --- p.i / ABSTRACT (CHINESE) --- p.ii / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT --- p.iii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iv / LIST OF TABLES --- p.v / INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.3 / Definition of Loyalty Programs --- p.3 / Background of Loyalty Program Research --- p.3 / Structural Elements of Loyalty Programs --- p.5 / Extension of Consumer-Focused Loyalty Program Research --- p.13 / THEORETICAL FRAMWORK --- p.15 / Motivation as a Function of Goal Distance --- p.15 / Goal Mechanism --- p.17 / EXPERIMENT ONE --- p.21 / Overview --- p.21 / Scenarios --- p.21 / Measures --- p.23 / Results --- p.23 / Discussion --- p.24 / EXPERIEMNT TWO --- p.26 / Overview --- p.26 / Results and Discussion --- p.26 / GENERAL DISCUSSION --- p.32 / Summary of Findings --- p.32 / Theoretical Implications --- p.32 / Managerial Implications --- p.36 / Limitations --- p.36 / APPENDIX (Sample Scenarios) --- p.39 / Condition: Early Stage (one stamp) and Unit Value Absent --- p.39 / Condition: Late Stage (eight stamps) and Unit Value Present --- p.40 / REFERENCES --- p.41

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During the late 1990s and into the new millennium, excessive claims were made about the internet as an emergent arena of commercial transactions. Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, was deemed elemental to a fundamental shift in economics. However, it was also implicated in a shifting dynamic in which the relative power of producers was diminished in favour of that of consumers. In industry literature, the e-commerce consumer was, and remains, typified as 'empowered'. This study explores this portrayal, examining the socio-historical foundations for its implementation, and also the role of this characterisation within contemporary power relations.

One trend that is becoming overwhelmingly popular in mainstream America, particularly among the youth (prior to and as they enter the workforce) is getting tattoos (Armstrong, Owen, Roberts, & Koch, 2002; Chivers, 2002; Laumann & Derick, 2006), yet there is little empirical evidence on the impact of having tattoos in an employment context. The current dissertation sought to understand this impact by examining the influence of employee tattoos on customers’ stereotypical perceptions, attitudes toward the employee, organization, and products, and behavior toward the employee and organization across two studies. In the first study, customers viewed a marketing video in which the employee either had a visible tattoo or not. Customers reported more stereotypical perceptions of tattooed (versus nontattooed) employees, such that they perceived the tattooed employee as possessing more artistic traits, having a less favorable appearance, and being risker. Stereotypical perceptions of artistic traits were the strongest, and these perceptions mediated the relation between tattoo presence and evaluations of the employee, organization, and product. In a second field study, employees (who either had a tattoo or not) sold restaurant cards to customers at a convention to raise money for a charity organization. Results showed that customers engaged in more avoidance behaviors with tattooed (versus) nontattooed employees; however, there were no significant differences in purchasing behavior based on tattoo presence. The results of both studies provide insight into a mechanism for how tattoo presence impacts customers’ reactions to employees, organizations, and products. Implications and future research ideas are discussed.

Abstract Problem: CSR appears frequently in various kinds of reports of different corporations. However, managers are confused about how to practice CSR strategically. Little is known about consumers’ awareness of CSR and how consumers react toward socially responsible corporations and their products. The cosmetic industry has been criticized a lot on CSR because of unethical and unsustainable business activities. Renowned companies in the cosmetic industry are working on different CSR initiatives, but no single study has been done on CSR and its impact on consumer behavior in the cosmetic industry. It is of critical importance to investigate consumers’ awareness of CSR, and to explore consumers’ attitudes and tendency of purchase behavior toward CSR in the cosmetic industry. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to investigate consumers’ awareness of CSR in the cosmetic industry and channels consumers get CSR information from. Furthermore, the aim is to investigate consumers’ attitudes on different CSR activities and how consumers’ purchasing behaviors are affected by these CSR activities. Theoretical perspective: The study combines stakeholder theory with theory on CSR’s impact on consumers’ attitudes and behavior. It refers to consumers as one important stakeholder group for a corporation. Method: A quantitative method is used in the study. Primary data of consumers’ awareness of CSR, consumers’ attitudes and tendency of purchasing behavior were collected through an online questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire were analyzed and interpreted. Conclusions: Consumers get CSR information of the cosmetic industry from different channels. Consumers’ CSR information about the cosmetic industry is between “poor” and “average”. They expect cosmetic companies to communicate more about CSR with the public. CSR is not an important factor that influences consumers’ purchase decision. However, consumers are willing to pay more for cosmetic products made in socially responsible ways. Consumers believe it is important that cosmetic companies fulfill their legal and ethical responsibilities, but they do not ask cosmetic companies to be philanthropically responsible.

The online game industry grows rapidly in these few years. Attrated by the huge market revenue, many game developers start to produce or publish the online game products. This results in a large amount of online game products. The purpose of this study is to understand the consumer behavior of online games. The lifestyle and the demography will be discussed in this study. The focus of this study is to find out if the consumer behavior will be affected by the difference of the lifestyle and demography. This thesis is based on the E.K.B. Model to develop the structure of consumer behavior, and refers to the A.I.O.structure for the lifestyle dimensions. A structured questionnaire is used to investigate the consumer behavior for online games. The findings are as follows: First, the characteristics of online game consumers are Male, 19 to 30 years old, student, college degree and income per month under 10,000. Second, consumers tend to use internet to find related information. Third, while selecting an online game product, consumers put more emphasis on the company service. Fourth, most consumers purchase the online game and the subscription fee card in the convenience stores, but the percentage of consumers obtain these via internet is increasing. As for lifestyle and demography, demogrphy affects consumer behavior significantly, but the lifestyle doesn¡¦t. Online game developers or publishers should provide good service. Also they can develop different marketing strategies for different market segments based on the demography.

Thesis (M.Env.Stud.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.