In the last decade the automobile industry has invested heavily in the developments of better vehicles, in regards to performance, emissions and also durability. The latest development has been the introduction of electric vehicles into the markets. The electric vehicles are touted as being better for the environment in terms of emissions and even low noise production. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy)calls for ensuring that everyone has access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy. This goal is often geared towards moving the energy production to more renewable sources, making it highly relevant to electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are still fairly new in the market, so it’s worth exploring what the purchase intention looks like and how the interacting environmental factors contribute to the overall intention. This study aims to investigate consumer’s purchase intention in regards to electric vehicles and the influences that user beliefs, attitudes and risk perceptions have on the consumer’s final decision. The study also seeks to find out how the environmental risk aspects associated with the electric vehicles closely tie into the overall purchase intention. The method of collecting data was through a web-based survey where the respondents filled out different sections, the results of the survey were then studied and presented using quantitative analysis methods. The results of this study are presented with the help of previous research and theoretical frameworks that are relevant to the study topic. The study concluded that the purchase intention for electric vehicles was pretty high and that the factors influencing the intentions had more to do with personal gains or savings rather than an overall concern for the environment. The study also shows how subtly our actions can be influenced by behavioural social norms around us, this is shown in the fact that the perceived initial motivation behind the purchase intention of electric vehicles is the concern for the environment but on a deeper level it proves to be the result of social action norms. / Under det senaste decenniet har bilindustrin investerat mycket i utvecklingen av bättre fordon, när det gäller prestanda, utsläpp och även hållbarhet Den senaste utvecklingen har varit introduktionen av elfordon på marknaderna. Elfordonen anses vara bättre för miljön när det gäller utsläpp och till och med låg ljudproduktion. FN:s mål 7 för hållbar utveckling (prisvärd och ren energi) kräver att alla ska ha tillgång till prisvärd, pålitlig, hållbar och modern energi. Detta mål är ofta inriktat på att flytta energiproduktionen till mer förnybara källor, vilket gör den mycket relevant för elfordon. Elfordon är fortfarande ganska nya på marknaden så det är värt att undersöka hur köpintentionen ser ut och hur de interagerande miljöfaktorerna bidrar till den övergripande avsikten. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka konsumenternas köpavsikt med avseende på elfordon och vilken inverkan användarens attityder och riskuppfattningar har på konsumenternas beslut. Studien syftar också till att ta reda på hur de miljöriskaspekter som är med elfordonen hänger ihop med den övergripande köpintentionen. Metoden att samla in data var genom en webbaserad enkät där respondenterna fyller i olika avsnitt, resultatet av enkäten studerades sedan och presenterades med hjälp av kvantitativa analysmetoder. Resultaten av denna studie presenteras med hjälp av tidigare forskning och teoretiska ramverk som är relevant med studienamne. Studien drog slutsatsen att köpintentionen för elfordon var ganska hög och att faktorerna som påverkade avsikterna hade mer att göra med personliga vinster eller besparingar snarare än en övergripande oro för miljön. Studien visar också hur subtilt våra beteende kan påverkas av sociala normer omkring oss, detta visar sig i det faktum att den upplevda initiala motivationen bakom köpintentionen av elfordon är omtanken om miljön men på ett djupare insikt visar sig att det vara resultatet av sociala beteendesnormer.

M. Tech. (Department of Marketing, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / Counterfeiting is a global phenomenon in developed and developing countries, causing a threat to national economies and societies. It negatively harms new investment and progressively endangers public health and safety as well. Known and famous brands are often targeted for counterfeiting. This phenomenon is primarily driven by consumers’ aspiring attitudes, social media pressures and the need to differentiate oneself. The aim of the study is to examine the influence of materialism, hedonic consumption motive, utilitarian consumption motive, personal gratification and novelty-seeking on attitudes and the influence of attitudes on willingness to purchase counterfeit sportswear products at a selected HEI. The study is grounded within the positivist philosophy, in which a quantitative research approach was followed, since positivists prefer an analytic and factual interpretation of quantitative data. An online structured questionnaire was used to collect data through an online survey. The study sample was conveniently selected from a population of registered students at a selected HEI in Southern Gauteng in the 2020 academic year. Data were collected on demographic variables, materialism (MAT), hedonic motivation (HED), utilitarian motive (UTL), personal gratification (PGT), novelty-seeking (NOS), attitude towards counterfeits (ATC) and willingness to purchase (WTP) counterfeit sportswear. A total of 327 questionnaires were completed and used in the final data analysis. Descriptive statistics techniques, correlations and regression analysis were used to evaluate perceptions and relationships between the study constructs. The research results revealed the existence of significant positive associations amongst the study constructs. Of the five antecedents, two of the five predictor variables, namely, UTL and NOS showed significant predictive relationships with attitudes towards counterfeit sportswear purchases. Attitudes towards counterfeits (ATC) also emerged as a significant predictor of students’ WTP counterfeit sportswear. Since NOS and UTL seem to predict a positive attitude towards counterfeit sportswear, the study recommends that brand owners develop awareness about ethical purchasing behaviour. They should also educate consumers on the social and economic downside of buying counterfeit products and that seeking novelty when purchasing counterfeit products may soon wane and wear off, leading to regret and cognitive dissonance. Further, brand marketers should also emphasise the utility value inherent in the purchase of authentic branded products instead of buying counterfeits. Since consumers cannot often readily distinguish between genuine and fake sportswear, it is therefore critical for marketers of branded products to promote the contrast of originals and fakes and to underline the quality, longevity, and dependability of their authentic products in the market. These results make a valuable contribution to academics, brand managers and marketers, as the results reveal that consumer buying can be influenced by personality and social interests of different individuals. The study notes that laws only cannot prohibit the sale and purchase of counterfeit products. It requires the stricter implementation thereof. Further, there is a need for behavioural change strategies to counter the effects of counterfeiting. Nudges such as promotions and loyalty programmes may encourage the purchase of authentic products as opposed to the purchase of counterfeits.

This study aims to examine the effect of organisational commitment and employee’s pro-environmental behaviour at home on their intention to adopt green practices at the workplace in the context of hotel industry, by taking the theory of planned behaviour as a conceptual framework. Hotel employees play a critical role that affects customers' experiences, which then affects the overall hotel performance. However, the mechanism that affects their behavioural intention has yet to be investigated properly. Thus, a survey was conducted to collect the data from employees working in green and non-green hotels in Malaysia. Overall, there were 407 responses received, which represented a response rate of 55.75 percent. Then, a set of hypotheses was tested using the structural equation modelling. The empirical results indicate that organisational commitments have a positive effect on the attitude for engaging in a green behaviour and subjective norm, which in turn influenced employees’ intention to adopt green practices at work. Meanwhile, employees’ pro environmental behaviour at home has an indirect impact on employee’s intention to adopt green practices in the workplace through their attitude for engaging in a green behaviour, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control. The findings lead to a theoretical contribution by incorporating another theory into the theory of planned behaviour, which is the social bond theory through organisational commitment and spill-over effect through pro environmental behaviour at home. Subsequently, a practical recommendation from this research is attainable to policy makers and hotel providers in order for them to understand and increase employees’ willingness to adopt green practices at the workplace. / The full text will be available at the end of the embargo: 15th Dec 2026

The premise of this study is the in-depth exploration and investigation of the nature of Ethical Decision Making (EDM) in marketing research. More specifically, this research is concerned with exploring the understanding and the holistic conceptualisation of Ethical Decision Making (EDM) through the investigation of different moral agents in marketing research in the United Kingdom. In particular, marketing research researchers’ (MR researchers) and marketing research respondents’ (MR respondents) ethical judgements and behavioural intentions have been investigated based on two marketing research techniques that generate ethical issues; neuromarketing [NM] and autoethnography [AE], Despite the examination of the two aforementioned moral agents, at the heart of this thesis has been the investigation of MR researchers’ (un)willingness to adopt or practice (i.e. behavioural intentions) these marketing research techniques. This study employed a qualitative design and was initiated on descriptive behavioural ethics, in order to investigate MR researchers’ behavioural intentions, while it has a nonnative purpose towards norm generation in the field. Thus, the Theory of Planned Behaviour’ and the ‘General Theory of Marketing Ethics’ (i.e. H-V model) were applied for the initial theoretical considerations of this thesis. By utilising descriptive and nonnative ethical accounts, this study has found that Ethical Decision Making (EDM) in marketing research is grounded in a social contract ethics foundation of a multidimensional structural functionalistic premise. Within this ethical setting the MR researcher is considering the MR respondent’s decision making processes with regards to norm generation, governed by social consensus, social proof and conformity. This results from a multidimensional interdependent social interaction of the two moral agents. Finally, this thesis concludes that Ethical Decision Making (EDM) in marketing research is not conceptualised in a linear progressive manner, but it consists of numerous constructs that fit with each other in a rather loosely coupled modular manner depicting a rather complex and dynamic system of multilayered factors and multi-dimensional constructs.

<p>Government efforts to improve the self-employment prospects of persons with disabilities are increasing, yet there is a dearth of information about the outcomes of these initiatives. Further, methodological limitations in the entrepreneurship literature make it difficult to determine the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education more generally. This three-wave, quasi-experimental study provides the first quantitative examination of the outcomes of entrepreneurship education programs for persons with disabilities, indicating that the programs are effective in helping participants to create their own businesses. Contributions are also made to entrepreneurship pedagogy via the first quantitative assessment of the place-train model applied to entrepreneurship development, showing that this approach when combined with financial incentives yields significantly better results than the train-place approach without financial incentives. The study contributes to theory building in entrepreneurship by investigating theory of planned behaviour relationships that have not been adequately assessed, showing significant relationships between intentions and nascent gestation behaviours. The relationship between nascent gestation behaviours and actual business creation is also shown, thus helping to demonstrate the value of utilizing the theory of planned behaviour in examining education interventions designed to promote business creation. Also, the study assesses whether those persons with disabilities who are successful at creating their own businesses have an associated increase in self-esteem, and thus the potential to reap both economic and social psychological rewards, with results indicating it is the activity of trying to start a business, rather than actual business creation, that best predicts increases in self-esteem.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis examines the effects of Culture, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), Expectation Confirmation Theory (ECT) and Technology Readiness (TR) on the satisfaction and usage continuance intention of Internet banking customers within the Saudi Arabian context. The aim is to develop and test a new framework for use in determining the factors that affect Internet banking customers’ actual usage behaviours, with a special focus on the role of cognitive processes, and cultural and personal psychological traits. This research uses cross-sectional survey questionnaire methods within a quantitative approach. 261 valid responses were received. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to test the hypothesised relationships within the research model in Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS 20) software. ECT is well established in conventional marketing literature and explains how cognitive beliefs and affects lead to customers’ repurchasing behaviour. It was first adopted for the Information Systems (IS) context and then customised to explain IS continuance intention behaviour. However, previous ECT customisations in the IS context present a significant knowledge gap because technology-based services are sensitive to individuals’ psychological traits, which ECT does not account for. This research integrates psychological traits and culture into the ECT framework to explain customer satisfaction and continuance intentions in the context of Internet banking usage. It combines ECT with the UTAUT in order to expand ECT to include more cognitive beliefs. Then it integrates TR and Culture to account for psychological and sociological traits. The results present a new contribution to the body of knowledge by validating a theoretically backed integration of the above models into one structural model. This model broadens the understanding of the factors that influence IS satisfaction and usage continuance intention. Compared to previous studies, the explanatory power of this model is a major improvement, with an R2 of (0.61) for usage continuance intention.

Customers adoption of Internet banking has become a widely-researched topic, although it is fair to state that some research gaps still exist. This research aims to fill some of the research gaps by examining the factors that determine the relevant behaviour of three different categories of Internet banking customers in China (i.e. current users, non-users, and discontinued users), and by developing two conceptual models that are derived from different, but complementary, theoretical approaches. The Decision Making Model and the Service and Relationship Evaluation Model are developed in this research. The Decision Making Model is grounded in the technology acceptance model (TAM) and it incorporates an additional construct of perceived value of using Internet banking. Additionally, the Service and Relationship Evaluation Model is derived from the service quality evaluation and relationship quality evaluation literature. Unlike in most other Internet banking adoption studies, these two conceptual models are used complementarily to deliver a comprehensive understanding of customers Internet banking adoption in China. The models are tested using a sample of 614 Chinese Internet banking customers collected via mall-intercept personal interviews based on questionnaires. Partial Least Square (PLS) path modelling and mediation analysis are applied to test the hypotheses advanced in the two models. The key findings of this research show that perceived value is a major factor for explaining customers Internet banking adoption, thus indicating to the banks that they should reduce costs associated with using Internet banking while providing more (perceived) benefits to customers; the importance of incorporating perceived value in Internet banking adoption model(s) is also demonstrated. The findings also confirm that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are important factors that determine the adoption of Internet banking by all categories of customers. Current users and non-users perceptions of their behavioural control over using Internet banking contribute to their adoption of Internet banking, and such control perceptions are shaped by self-efficacy, perceived government support and technological support. Additionally, it is demonstrated that both current users and discontinued users perceived value and perceived service quality of Internet banking have positive associations with their satisfaction with Internet banking, which lead to their Internet banking adoption. Moreover, the findings reveal that current users are more likely to continue with Internet banking if they are affectively committed to their banks; they are less likely to continue with Internet banking if they are calculatively committed to their banks due to the costs associated with leaving the banks. These therefore indicate the importance of establishing high-quality customer-bank relationships and placing less strict switching cost barriers that impose less pressure on their existing customers. This research contributes to the Internet banking adoption literature by (i) identifying the important category of Internet banking discontinued users, apart from current users and non-users; and (ii) using two complementary conceptual models, which are grounded in different theoretical streams, to investigate the relevant adoption behaviour of all three categories of Internet banking customers. It hence delivers a comprehensive understanding of personal customers adoption of Internet banking in China.

No description available.

When a new transport service is introduced, people have to learn and familiarize themselves with the new service before they decide to adopt it. These processes are developed over time, thus produce dynamics in individuals’ behavioural responses towards the service. This affects the demand of the new service, thus affect revenues. Available studies have examined the factors influencing these responses from microeconomic perspectives. The influence of the theory-based subjective factors has not been examined empirically. Understanding these would assist transport and urban planners to design a better marketing strategy to increase the market share of the new service. A change in seasons affect individuals’ activity-travel decisions, thus produce dynamics in activitytravel patterns in different seasons. Individuals’ constraints, in a form of mandatory activities (working/studying), are influencing individuals’ decisions to participate in day-to-day nonmandatory activities (leisure and routine activities). The interdependency between travel demand, time allocation and mode choice that considers interactions between mandatory and non-mandatory activities, in different seasons is less explored. Understanding these would assist transport planners and operators to manage travel demand strategies across different seasons of the year and provide better transportation systems for all individuals. This thesis includes five papers. Paper I explores individuals’ characteristics of the quick-response and the adopters of the new public transport (PT) service and examines the temporal effects. Paper II investigates the subjective factors influencing a quick-response to the new PT service by proposing a modified attitude-behaviour framework. Paper III and IV analyse the effects of seasonal variations and individuals’ constraints on their day-to-day activity-travel decisions and patterns. Paper V analyses the attrition and fatigue in the two-week travel diary panel survey instrument. / <p>QC 20170323</p>

The electricity system will go through massive changes in the coming years. Smartgrids are becoming more popular. The phasing out of fossil fuels in electricity production in favour of renewable power sources will entail challenges. To handle these challenges, the Swedish Energy Markets Inspectorate (Ei) has identified demand side flexibility as a partial solution. Ei has presented new functionality demands on electricity meters, which aim at working for an increase of demand side flexibility. The aim of this report is to investigate how smart meters and the new functionality demands contribute in making customers become more active, along with how customers can be motivated to change their behaviour. The findings from this report show that the new demands do not directly lead to more demand side flexibility. Instead they enable other actors to develop services that could lead to customers contributing with demand side flexibility. In the energy sector, it is assumed that customers need to see an economic benefit in order to contribute with flexibility. This report finds that this is not entirely the case. Customers can be motivated by other things, such as protecting the environment. Important factors for customers are that they experience the same comfort as before, along with simplicity. Therefore, automatic steering is the preferable option which might entail the need for economic subsidies since investing in automatic systems will be economically notable. Once a considerable amount of customers are contributing with flexibility, social pressure might motivate remaining customers to do the same.