The main goal of this diploma thesis is to prove whether there is a relationship between the willingness to buy and the user product reviews. Sectional questions are related to e.g. the willingness to pay more for the product with a better review, to a satisfactory number of stars in a rating or to what is crucial for customers when choosing a product. The readers are introduced to basic concepts related to the topic (such as the purchase behavior of customers and its influences, the willingness to buy, the customer satisfaction or the user product reviews) before the analysis. The interviewing method was chosen for primary data collection. Due to a quantitative nature of the research, the research questions were specified firstly. These questions were evaluated using descriptive statistics and tools of statistic reasoning.

What are the key antecedents, factors and moderators that influence environmentally friendly and socially responsible consumer behaviour? Individual consumers buy products and services not only for their intrinsic satisfactory functionalities. They make their consumption choices also because of specific extrinsic products/service abilities to affirm their lifestyle choice, i.e. enhance their self-concepts and satisfy their psychological needs. Given that despite the recent increase of interest in sustainable consumer behaviour, little is known on sustainable consumer aspirations, this study aims at filling the research gap in this area of academic research. This study investigates ad hoc literature in Lifestyle Strategic Marketing, Branding, Social Psychology and Self-Concept Theory applicable in Green and Fair Trade Operational Marketing . Mixed research methods are used in three distinct studies: (a) laboratory experiment, (b) SurveyMonkeyTM online questionnaire analyzed quantitatively, and (c) SPSS and SEM software data management and analysis. They are conducted in France and based on the common research models, i.e. the Theory of reasoned action (TRA) founded by Fishbein & Ajzen (1975) and the Theory of planned behaviour (TPB) coined by Ajzen (1991). Specific attitudes towards environmentally friendly and fair-trade products and services are derived from Value sets, Awareness of Consequences beliefs and Environmental Concern evaluations; therefore in the third partial study we adapt the research model proposed by Hansla et al. (2008). In all of them is employed a convenience sampling method that allows to gather between 109 and 350 respondents. Results allow for identification of salient factors influencing consumer purchasing intention and willingness to adopt and pay for both environmentally friendly and socially responsible products and/or services.

The issue of rising number of disasters, the overwhelming increase in number of older adults, and historically flawed evacuations presents real challenges. Disasters can strike anywhere, any time, and have devastating consequences. Since 1900, the number of Americans 65 and older has increased 12 times (from 3.1 million to 36.3 million). During the next two decades, the number of American baby boomers, now aged 45-64, who turn 65, will increase by 40%. As evidenced by recent disasters, the imperfections and vulnerabilities of flawed evacuations for older adults are still present. This study examined the level of willingness to evacuate among older adults in the event of a disaster. Despite the extensive literature on disasters and evacuation, some significant questions regarding evacuation and older adults have not been addressed. This study addressed the following concerns: (1) What is the willingness among older adults to evacuate when asked to do so by emergency management officials? (2) Does the call to evacuate being mandatory versus voluntary influence the willingness of seniors to evacuate? (3) Do preconditions (Gender, Marital Status, Age, Ethnic Origin, and Education Levels) influence the willingness to evacuate among older adults? The sample population consisted of 765 voluntary participants aged 60 years and older from thirty senior/community centers within seven counties in the State of Oklahoma. A group administered survey (The Disaster Evacuation Survey) included a total of 15 questions. This study revealed the following findings: older adults are more likely to comply with a mandatory evacuation order. Individuals with college degrees are more likely to comply with mandatory evacuations. African Americans are more likely to comply with a voluntary request. American Indian/Alaskan Native are more likely to comply with mandatory evacuation orders from emergency officials. Important practical implications for emergency officials responding to vulnerable older adults in disaster situations are also provided.

The purpose of this study was to deepen the knowledge about factors that influence students’ willingness and ability to oral interaction in a target language, in this case French. It also aimed to achieve a clearer picture of the tasks the students work with and would like to work with in classroom situations. The study was based on two theoretical frameworks, Willingness to Communicate, which looks into the social and affective factors enhancing the will to communicate, and Task Based Language Teaching investigating how tasks can be designed to promote oral interaction between students in a classroom or in a digital environment. Based on the purpose of the study three research questions were formulated. The first question was about the importance of cognitive factors to promote oral interaction. The second focused on the role Willingness to Communicate and other affective factors play to make students willing to communicate in the target language. The third question aimed at investigating to what extent task-based language teaching occurs in teaching to create opportunities for students to interact in the target language. The design of the study was made up of qualitative personal interviews with students from upper secondary schools in the Stockholm area. In total seven students were interviewed, six of them studying French 4, one of them French 3.  All students highlighted cognitive and linguistic factors as being the most important to interact orally, foremost vocabulary and pronunciation and also the ability to express themselves orally. The students did not consider grammar as an important factor to their willingness and ability to communicate in French. Self-confidence, self-efficacy and the teacher’s attitude are the most important social and affective factors influencing the willingness to communicate. The ones that were considered the least important were anxiety, knowing your speaking partner and the topic of the conversation. The students’ opinion of the least important factors differed from research and empirical studies, which rate these factors higher. The students reported that the teaching did not include Task Based Language Teaching as defined in the theory and that limited use of computer mediated communication was used in the classroom. All students express a desire to communicate and interact with each other more than they do at present as well as to work with tasks and tools both face-to-face and digital enabling this to happen.

While common in South Africa, workplace protest actions frequently lead to losses on both sides: productivity losses for organisations and loss of income for protesting employees. It is therefore important to investigate which factors may contribute to low-income workers' decision to protest for higher wages. Based on the theoretical integration of social exchange theory and fairness heuristic theory it was argued that fairer treatment (organisational justice) decreases workers' willingness to engage in protest actions through its positive influence on organisational trust. The researcher examined employees' perceptions of fairness shown by their employer, supervisor and co-workers. A descriptive, cross-sectional research design was employed to test this assumption. Data was collected from low-income employees working in South African factories and retail stores who completed a self-report survey (N = 147). The results of a regression analysis confirmed that employees' perceptions of organisational justice predicted their willingness to engage in protest actions for higher wages when gender and previous involvement in protest actions were kept constant. Perceptions of interpersonal justice as shown by the supervisor was the unique predictor of willingness to engage in protest action, indicating that the decision to protest is not primarily driven by monetary concerns (distributive justice) but rather by how low-income workers feel treated in the workplace. Mediation analysis results revealed that the relationship between organisational justice and willingness to engage in protest action is not through mutual trust. Taken together, this research demonstrated that there is a need for organisations to invest in fairness in the workplace. Most specifically, organisations could focus on training supervisors to treat employees with respect and dignity as it could contribute to employees' decision to refrain from protesting at work.

This thesis contributes to the currently still sprawling literature on the force of sustainable investing together with the “Big Five” personality structure (Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism). By investigating which personality trait, based on the Big Five personality taxonomy, that was willing to exchange revenue for a higher ESG rating in a hypothetical investment fund, we were able to determine when private investors were willing to pay more for a more sustainable investment. We use new data from our own questionnaire where the respondents are adult individuals residing in Sweden who has invested in the stock market. The data was analyzed with an econometric approach and for the regression ordinary least square and tobit was used. The results revealed that two personality traits (conscientiousness and agreeableness) tended to be less interested in sustainable investments, as they were not willing to pay for a fund with a higher ESG rating, unlike Openness to Experience, where the willingness to pay was high. The other two traits also showed a positive relationship and thus willingness to trade revenue for sustainability. This thesis contributes to the knowledge on how the personality of the private investors can motivate investment decisions and the preference of companies they invest in.

Background: Brand coolness is a research area that has been established in prior research. Brand coolness has been defined as a subjective, dynamic, socially constructed, and positive trait brands have. Cool brands can be recognized by the attributes extraordinary, aesthetically appealing, energetic, high status, original, authentic, rebellious, subcultural, iconic, and popular. The formation of cool brands and its consequences has been encouraged to be further investigated in prior research. This study incorporates consequences following brand coolness into the value-attitude-behavior model to see the degree of association with increased willingness-to-pay. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of brand coolness and its impact on the willingness-to-pay through consumers’ values, attitudes and behavior. Methodology: This study uses a quantitative research approach, conducting an online questionnaire with 202 respondents. The data from the questionnaire is then analysed through descriptive statistics, correlation- and bivariate regression analyses.   Findings: The main findings of this study is that all of the five measured brand coolness concepts within values, attitudes and behavior have a significant association with increased willingness-to-pay. The study strengthens prior findings in the research area of brand coolness and adds new knowledge regarding the possible order of prioritization when aiming to increase willingness-to-pay. Managerial implications: The results of the study enables to present an order of prioritization for companies to use when aiming to increase the willingness-to-pay through developed brand coolness. In order to maximize the increase of willingness to make a financial sacrifice for the brand the focus should mainly be on increasing brand love and brand attitude, followed by word-of-mouth, status and self-brand connection.

Utilisées dans un contexte de laboratoire ou d'enquête, les méthodes déclaratives sont très largement utilisées pour estimer les préférences des consommateurs. Les méthodes incitatives de l’économie expérimentale permettent de pallier les biais hypothétiques qui peuvent affecter les méthodes purement déclaratives. Ce travail présente une série d’études basées sur des comparaisons méthodologiques permettant de tester la validité inter-méthodes et d’amorcer la question de la validité externe des mesures. Associés aux travaux déjà présentés dans la littérature, ce travail à permis de mettre en évidence les atouts et les limites des mesures non-hypothétiques (mécanisme BDM et expérience de choix réel) d’une part l’une par rapport à l’autre, et d’autre part par rapport aux mesures hédoniques. Deux résultats majeurs ont été obtenus. Premièrement, le mécanisme BDM permet de révéler les préférences pour un produit même si sa valeur unitaire est faible. Deuxièmement, les deux approches de révélation des consentements à payer donnent des résultats cohérents au niveau agrégé, mais différents au niveau individuel, sans que l'on puisse imputer ces différences aux méthodes ou à l'instabilité des comportements des sujets. Enfin, ce travail argumente et illustre l'intérêt des mesures en situation de terrain qui permettraient d’augmenter la valeur prédictive des mesures de consentement à payer. / Used in a laboratory or survey setting, the declarative methods are very widely used to estimate the consumers preferences. The experimental economic incentive methods allows to make up for hypothetical bias which can affect purely declarative methods. This work sets out several experiments based on methodological comparisons allowing to test the inter-methods validity and to begin external measure validity question. In line with literature previous works, this work allows to highlight assets and limits of the non-hypothetical measures (BDM mechanism and real choice experiment), first one relative to another, second relative to hedonic measures. Two major results were obtained. First, the BDM mechanism allows to reveal the preferences of a product even if its unit value is low. Secondly, both methods used to reveal willingness to pay give coherent results regarding aggregate level, but different regarding individual level, without being able to impute these differences to methods or to instability of the participants behaviour. Finally, this work argues and illustrates assets of field situation measures which would allow to increase predictive values of the willingness to pay measures.

As a result of the convergence of online and offline retailers, and due to the notoriously low margins in the retail environment, innovation and technology have become more and more competitive differentiators. The purpose of this cumulative dissertation is to explore consumers’ behavioral reactions towards those technological innovations in brick and mortar retailing. As it is not feasible to consider every available technology in its own right, the focus of this dissertation is limited to the following three recent technologies: mobile payment, electronic shelf labels, and electric vehicle charging stations. By conducting experiments (Paper 1 and Paper 3) and leveraging real transaction data from a retailer (Paper 2), the author was able to formulate and investigate various research hypotheses, including a positive influence of new technology on the willingness to pay (Paper 1), mere revenue effect (Paper 2), and shopping intentions (Paper 3).:1 Introduction 2 Theoretical foundations 3 Purpose and focus of the dissertation 4 Article summary 4.1 Overview of dissertation articles 4.2 Summary of first article 4.3 Summary of second article 4.4 Summary of third article 5 General contributions and implications of this dissertation 6 Limitations and future research 7 Outlook References Appendix I: The effect of credit card versus mobile payment on convenience and consumers’ willingness to pay Appendix II: Behavioral consequences from converging channel capabilities: the effect of mere electronic shelf label presence on store revenue Appendix III: Recharge while you shop: the impact of free electric vehicle charging on shopping intention and shopping duration

The dissertation is a case study focusing on supplier development (SD) practices of SMEs in information technology outsourcing (ITO) sector. From the dyadic perspective, the research explored three key issues: (1) supplier development activities of SME firms in ITO sector, (2) the role of supplier willingness in supplier selection and development process and (3) the motivations of suppliers to participate in the SD programs with the client. The results from this case study contribute to the knowledge in SME supplier development practices and client-supplier relationship management. Specifically, the contribution is explored from the ITO sector, with respect to the influence of supplier willingness in SME supplier selection, SD practice in ITO sector and the motivations of suppliers to participate in such activities with the client.