Nowadays, switching to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) is a promising way to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This research aims to explore consumers’ attitudes towards adopting PHEVs in the City of Winnipeg. The study attempts to identify social-technical factors affecting car buyers’ intention to purchase PHEVs, along with how attitudes, knowledge and experience affect preference for PHEVs. A further discussion of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) will justify the linkage between attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and purchase intentions. Questionnaires were distributed to two groups of people: an expert group familiar with or having experience with electric vehicles and a non-expert group with less knowledge about electric vehicles. Given issues of charging infrastructure and driving range, these vehicles have the potential to alter the urban landscape. Results of the study are expected to provide insight into effective public policy options and PHEV adoption/acceptance by car buyers. / February 2017

Thesis (M. Com.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2015. / The research investigated the use of the two potential predictors of customer purchase intention of counterfeit products (perceived behavioural control and price-quality inference of counterfeit products) as a means of establishing whether these were related to customer attitudes towards economic benefits of purchasing counterfeit products, which ultimately lead to purchase intention of counterfeit products. The study reviewed prior literature on counterfeits purchasing. Probability sampling was used to select respondents, and a research model was developed to measure the constructs used for the study. Field study was conducted in Johannesburg at the University of the Witwatersrand, and research data was collected from 380 registered students of the University of the Witwatersrand, 18 years and older. Using the SPSS 22 and AMOS 22 software program, structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to analyse the data set. The results revealed that price-quality inference of counterfeit products had a stronger relationship with customer attitudes towards economic benefits of purchasing counterfeit products, than to perceived behavioural control implying that the customers were more likely to purchase counterfeits because of the perceived price bargain and not because of the perceived ease of purchasing counterfeits. The contribution of this study was to enhance the comprehension of existing literature on the relationship between the predictor variables (perceived behavioural control and price-quality inference of counterfeit products) and the outcome variable (purchase intention of counterfeit products).

Background: The advice and opinions given by consumers online have been proven to have a positive influence on consumers purchase intentions. It has previously been established by researchers that consumer-created information is more trustworthy compared to information provided by a seller. As a result, consumers’ eWOM has taken over the stage on the internet. Social media has in comparison to traditional media brought communication to a new level in terms of engaging consumers online. For instance, bloggers nowadays are assumed to be viewed as peers that can generates social ties between a blogger and a blog reader due to a blogger’s credibility. Thus, the power of peer communication is of relevance when considering persuasion in real life as well as online. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how eWOM can be a powerful tool through social ties between the source and the receiver when it comes to generating consumers’ purchase intentions. The authors intend to contribute with an understanding of how different sociodemographic factors of homophily and source credibility can potentially have a direct or indirect influence on the persuasion process online. To understand the process of how consumers are persuaded through eWOM the authors examine the relationship between Swedish blog readers and Swedish bloggers and the process of how the readers are absorbing and using the bloggers’ message. Methodology & Method: This study was conducted using a qualitative methodology approach. The primary data was collected through interviews and observations. Ten interviews were implemented on the selected sample consisting of women living in Sweden, who are in the ages of 16-25 and read famous Swedish lifestyle blogs. Furthermore, the favourite blogs of the interviewees were observed by the researchers in order to complement the interviews. Conclusion: From this research the authors have found that homophily creates social ties between the blog reader and the blogger, and therefore this underpins that the likelihood of persuasion is higher if several factors of homophily exists. However, the factors of homophily are not sufficient on its own to establish a relationship between eWOM and purchase intentions. Rather, source credibility is considered to be the major factor that determines the extent of purchase intentions.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of different types of consumer knowledge and values on their attitude towards buying organic personal care products and their purchase intentions of organic personal care products. The aim was to make a theoretical contribution to the research area of consumer behaviour in the context of organic products. As no research had been conducted on how different types of consumers’ knowledge affect their attitudes towards buying organic products and their purchase intentions of organic products, this study aims to address this research gap. In addition, while previous studies have mainly focused on organic foods this study aims to enhance knowledge about the little researched sector of organic personal care products.

Previously, an organisation's attributes (corporate appeal, product and services, social responsibility, vision and leadership, workplace environment, and financial performance) were used as determinants of corporate reputation. In other words, corporate reputation was measured using a multidimensional single construct. However, there are arguments suggesting that, in order to obtain more accurate conclusions, an organisation's attributes need to be treated as antecedents whereby organisation's attributes are used to predict corporate reputation. Thus, this study is aimed at testing the impact of an organisation's attributes that is product, corporate personality and corporate responsibility on corporate reputation, and the mediating effect of corporate reputation in influencing stakeholders' purchase intention. Malaysia national car brands are used as a case reference for this study. Using a quantitative research approach, this study found that not all attributes contribute to positive reputation and intentions. The impact of each attribute varies across different stakeholder groups and across brands. Using a sample of 419 automobile customers and 300 Malaysia national car dealers, this study shows that only corporate personality has a positive and significant influence on corporate reputation and it is consistent across both groups and brands. Corporate responsibility, on the other hand, is found to have a positive influence on corporate reputation assessed by customers, but is not significant for dealers. The effect of customers' and dealers' satisfaction on the products is rather mixed. Results from this study provide empirical evidence that reputation should not be measured using a multidimensional single construct in order to draw a more accurate conclusion. This study also contributes to practice as it provides a distinct view for corporations to establish good rapport and to assist in developing effective strategies for the relevant groups of stakeholders. Recommendations are also discussed to provide focus for future research.

Past research has indicated that the visual presence of credit card images and monetary primes has an impact on an individual's actions. Feinburg (1986) reported that the magnitude and probability of spending were increased in the presence of credit card stimuli, and Vohs et al.'s (2006) series of studies demonstrated that exposed to monetary images, individuals became more self-sufficient and less willing to help others. The present study examined influence of money primes on materialism, consumer purchase intentions, and consumer attitudes. Materialism, was measured by the Richins and Dawson (1992) Material Values Scale (MVS), and was treated as both an independent variable. Consumer purchase intentions and behaviors were assessed using Attitude Toward the Ad (Henthorne, Tony, LaTour, & Nataraajan, 1993), Willingness to Buy (Dodds, Monroe, & Grewal, 1991), Willingness to Pay (Fienburg, 1986), and Attitude Toward the Brand in the Ad (Gardner, 1985). In addition, participants completed the Credit Card Use Scale (Roberts & Jones, 2001), and the Conformity Motivation Scale (Kahle). A total of 172 participants, enrolled in both undergraduate and graduate courses at SIUC, completed a two-part internet survey for extra credit. Results indicated that materialism levels were not increased when exposed to money primes (credit card and money symbols) when compared to the control group, rather the study found a significant decrease in materialism in the unhypothesized direction. In addition, the findings were unsupportive of the hypothesis that the inclusion of money primes (either credit card stimuli or monetary images) would increase an ii individual's purchase intentions and behaviors. Finally, an examination of the moderating effect of materialism produced non-significant findings, when comparing the influence of money primes between high and low materialism levels taken prior to the study's manipulations.

The focus of this study is to explore the effect social media have on influencing consumers’ purchase intentions for different brands. More specifically, this paper aims to examine how different social media communication styles for a brand, such as firm generated content (FGC) and user generated content (UGC), influence consumers’ purchase intentions for different brands when valenced either positively or negatively. Firm-generated content is a communication style which is essentially a form of advertising that is completely controlled by a brand and follows a marketing strategy (Schvinski & Dabrowski, 2016). User-generated content is an original communication style created by consumers that are unrelated to any specific brand and is disseminated via the internet (Daugherty, Eastin, & Bright, 2008). The participants of this study were 61 undergraduate liberal arts college students from southern California. Participants in the study were exposed to various brand descriptions and social media posts and tasked with indicating their purchase intentions for these brands. The results of this study imply that different communication styles as well as different brand valences significantly influence consumers’ purchase intentions. Positively valenced brands positively influenced purchase intentions while negatively valenced brands negatively impacted purchase intentions. FGC was shown to have a more positive effect on purchase intentions than UGC, however, UGC was shown to have a strong negative influence on purchase intention when UGC posts were valenced negatively.

Authors: Malin Karlsson, Sandra Karlsson, Amanda Malmberg Tutor: Dr. Setayesh Sattari Examiner: Prof. Anders Pehrsson Background: Consumers increasingly purchase products online due to the widespread use of the Internet. The decision for consumers to purchase online is predicted by their purchase intentions, which in turn is affected by their information privacy concerns. There is a lack of research on IPC and purchase intentions in the context of online personalized advertising. Purpose: To extend the understanding of purchase intentions considering information privacy concerns and involvement in the context of online personalized advertising. Methodology: A survey in form of a questionnaire was conducted in order to gather the information necessary to be able to analyse the relationship between IPC and purchase intentions in the context of online personalized advertising. The sample consists of 18-70 year olds from cities in southern Sweden. Conclusion: Conclusions drawn in this thesis is that when applied in the context of online personalized advertising, there is no significant relationship between IPC and purchase intentions. However, involvement is suggested as having a positive relationship to purchase intentions, as well as a positive moderating effect on the relationship between IPC and purchase intention in the context of online personalized advertising. Keywords: Purchase intentions, Information privacy concerns (IPC), Online personalized advertising, Involvement.

In response to growing concerns about environmental degradation and climate change,demand for green products and services has increased. The use of environmental claimsas a marketing tool in order to gain a competitive advantage has also increased.The goal of this study is to close this gap by understanding how perceptions ofgreenwashing influence Angolan consumers of Generation Z's green trust and greenpurchasing intention. Through a qualitative approach, with 20 semi-interviews, thisresearch reveals that greenwashing perception has a negative impact on green trust, butthe same is not true for green purchase intention. Nonetheless, green trust has a positiveinfluence on green purchase intention, and green concern, in turn, has a positive influenceon greenwashing perception, green trust, and green purchase intention. Since consumerconcern over the environment is on growing, it is critical for businesses to be aware ofthis development, while still meeting customer expectations. This alteration should beseen as a challenge for both general organizational management and the marketingdepartment in particular.

Yes / Social media has emerged as a significant and effective means of assisting and endorsing activities and communications among peers, consumers and organizations that outdo the restrictions of time and space. While the previous studies acknowledge the role of agents of culture change, it largely remains silent on the role of social media in influencing acculturation outcomes and consumption choices. This study uses self-administered questionnaire to collect data from 514 Turkish-Dutch respondents and examines how their use of social media affects their acculturation and consumption choices. This research makes a significant contribution to consumer acculturation research by showing that social media is a vital means of culture change and a driver of acculturation strategies and consumption choices. This study is the first to investigate the role of social media as an agent of culture change in terms of how it impacts acculturation and consumption. The paper discusses implications for theory development and for practice.