Marketing Studies

An experiment was conducted in a restaurant to determine the effects of a small gift upon entry and greeting customers with a thank you for their patronage. Two types of gifts were used: a cup of yogurt and an inexpensive key chain. The authors found that providing a gift upon entry into a store had an impact on how much was spent, on the performance rating, and on how strongly the establishment would be recommended. This study did not find any differences between gifts: a gift of a cup of yogurt had the same impact as a key chain. The difference in amount spent between the group that was not greeted or given a gift and the group that was greeted and given a cup of yogurt was 46.4%, a considerable amount. The authors conclude that retailers should greet customers who enter their stores and, if possible, provide a small gift.

There exists substantial research on social media marketing (SMM) in the United States and other developed countries. Studies of SMM in emerging economies, such as the eleven Global Growth Generator (3G) economies, are rare. This study seeks to discover and characterize the use of social media marketing channels in the Republic of Mongolia, an emerging economy, transitioning from socialism and at the earliest stages of marketing development. The study is limited to twenty companies listed on the Mongolia stock exchange. These companies are categorized by whether they are involved in social media marketing based on direct or indirect presence on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter with supporting quantitative data on activity levels. Also, specific content is examined descriptively in order to characterize the primarily functions of social media marketing in this special environment.

The hostile business environment in Malaysian private higher education institutions (PHEIs) has proved to be fatal to numerous institutions. While there are success stories, the issue looms as what differentiates the performers and the non performers. As such, this study was conducted to understand why some PHEIs perform better than others; and whether the differences in performance are due to the choice of strategy. Finally, this study explores whether the organisational distinctive capabilities influence towards the institution choice of strategy. Based from a sample of 97 PHEIs, the study depicts that differentiation strategy was significantly link to performance with a spectrum of organisational capabilities influencing the institution's choice of strategy.

This research introduces eight different types of sustainable consumers and their future scenarios. We profiled consumers from the angles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and egoistic and altruistic motivation. We applied the Structure of Motivation for Sustainable Choices which is based on the Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour . The qualitative data (n = 37) and quantitative data (n = 1023) were analyzed by mixed methods. The identified consumer profiles were the Uncompromising, the Autocrats, the Curious, the Ambitious, the Bystanders, the Devoted, the Caretakers, and the Dreamers. The quest for sustainable consumption was verified for all the consumer groups. The Devoted and the Uncompromising are consumers that are strongly aware of the consequences of their consumption. They represent altruistically and intrinsically motivated consumers. From the perspective of marketing and product conceptualizing, it is essential that quality, rather than price, counts for much in several of the consumer groups that are intrinsically motivated. Extrinsically motivated consumers (the Caretakers, the Dreamers and the Bystanders) account for 53.5% of Finnish consumers. They represent enormous potential for social change, as they can be influenced in many ways. The product or service that appeals many of the identified consumer groups is the one where both the egoistic and altruistic consequence of consumption coincides. For example, locally produced organic vegetables benefits the local community, food and nutrition promote public health, and consumer choice maintains biodiversity and helps establish global food security.

The emergence of new forms of banking channels such as Internet banking, Automated Teller Machines (ATM), phone banking and also maturing financial market and global competition have forced bankers to explore the importance of customer loyalty. Therefore, studies need to focus on the changing role of the banking system and its dynamic financial market. The underlying model of SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988) with five dimensions was used by this research to evaluate the impact of service quality on customer loyalty among bank customers in Penang, Malaysia with customer satisfaction mediating these variables. The findings show that improvement in service quality can enhance customer loyalty. The service quality dimensions that play a significant role in this equation are reliability, empathy, and assurance. The findings indicate that the overall respondents evaluate the bank positively, but still there are rooms for improvements.

The importance of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises as an engine of economic growth has been widely recognized. However, despite their invaluable contribution in the Ghanaian economy, their performance has not been impressive due to the orientation of their marketing strategies. This study, therefore, sought to investigate the relationship between market orientation and the performance of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises in the Accra metropolis of Ghana. Given the purpose and nature of this study where most of the analyses were quantitative in nature, quantitative research approach was deemed the most appropriate and, therefore, adopted. The descriptive and correlational study designs, too, were adopted for this study. Simple random sampling technique, specifically lottery method, was used to select 346 small and medium manufacturing enterprises in the Accra metropolis. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses postulated. It was observed from the findings that positive relationship exists between market orientation and small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises performance. This means that market orientation contribute positively to the well being of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. The study recommends that policy makers as well as National Board for Small Scale Industries should sensitize owners/managers of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises about the importance of employing market orientation practices in their business operations.

This paper seeks to create an epistemologically grounded understanding of the causes and process of corporate rebranding via the lens of the theory of evolution by natural selection. A review of the factors that trigger corporate rebranding, as reported in academic literature, is made. Following the review, a case is made for the absence of an epistemologically grounded understanding of why firms rebrand. Consequently, the theory of evolution by natural selection is brought forward as a platform for the development of a new model that explicates the causes and process of corporate rebranding. A new model anchored on the theory of evolution by natural selection, and a new definition of corporate rebranding is advanced. Essentially, the model offers epistemologically grounded reasons for ascendancy of corporate rebranding in the environment. This is a conceptual paper-meaning that the model suggested in this study is yet to be subjected to a serious empirical exercise. The review of literature indicates the absence of an epistemologically grounded understanding of the causes and process of corporate rebranding in the business environment. The pursuit of this exercise therefore makes this work original, unique and valuable.

There exists substantial research on social media marketing (SMM) in the United States and other developed countries. Studies of SMM in emerging economies, such as the eleven Global Growth Generator (3G) economies, are rare. This study seeks to discover and characterize the use of social media marketing channels in the Republic of Mongolia, an emerging economy, transitioning from socialism and at the earliest stages of marketing development. The study is limited to twenty companies listed on the Mongolia stock exchange. These companies are categorized by whether they are involved in social media marketing based on direct or indirect presence on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter with supporting quantitative data on activity levels. Also, specific content is examined descriptively in order to characterize the primarily functions of social media marketing in this special environment.

This article analyses different factors that influence the purchasing behaviour of online supermarket customers. These factors are related to both the appearance of the website as well as the processes that take place when making the purchase. Based on these analyses, the various groups of consumers with homogenous behaviour are studied and positioned according to their attitudes. The analysis also allows the quality of the service offered by this kind of establishment to be defined, as well as the main dimensions in which it develops. In the conclusions, factors which should influence the manager of an online supermarket to improve the quality of its service are given.

Information technology is crucial for a communication based process. Therefore, this study presents an investigation of the significant role of information technology in customer service delivery and firm performance in selected insurance companies in Nigeria. Specifically, three hypotheses were tested. They are to determine whether: (i) customers are not aware of the availability of IT facilities in their dealings with the Nigerian insurance companies; (ii) the use of IT does not enhance the performance efficiency of insurance organizations in Nigeria; and (iii) providing quality customer service delivery will not enhance organizational performance of insurance companies. The survey research design for the study was a cross examination. The study sample consisted of 112 participants made up of IT managers, marketing managers, and underwriting managers drawn from 25 insurance companies which were randomly selected from the directory of member companies. One-sample T-test and simple frequency percentage tables were used for data analysis. The study revealed that most customers hardly use online services in their engagement with the Nigerian insurance companies even with the level of awareness created which depicts a low level business relationship. Thus, many of the insurance organizations indicated that they experienced high performance efficiency in their investment in and adoption of information technology. This study recommends that insurance administrators and regulators at all levels should gather relevant information as regards factors that may assist in contributing meaningfully to the usefulness of IT in effective service delivery. They should also undertake optimal investment in IT, provide quality service delivery to customers and regularly evaluate IT usage in every department of insurance organizations in Nigeria in order to take appropriate strategic decisions capable of enhancing firm performance.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of sales promotion on buying behavior among university students. Specifically, University Putra Malaysia (UPM) was chosen as study location. A total of 150 respondents were recruited using systematic random sampling technique. The data were collected using self-administrated questionnaires. This study found that there was no significant difference between gender and buying behavior (t = 1.569, p > 0.05). On the other hand, a there is a significant differences family monthly income and buying behavior (F = 2.597, p ≤ 0.05). There were significant relationship between attitude towards price discounts (r = 0.351, p ≤ 0.01), coupons (r = 0.392, p ≤ 0.01), free samples (r = 0.491, p ≤ 0.01) and "buy-one-get-one-free" (r = 0.456, p ≤ 0.01) with buying behavior. Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression found that free samples and buy-one-get-one-free explained 28.7% variance in buying behaviour of the respondents. The findings of this study would help marketers to understand the types of promotion that significantly influence buying behaviour of the respondents. Hence, this could help marketers in their marketing planning to become more competitive and gain profit.

Integrated marketing communication (IMC) is one of the most controversial areas of research, the concept marking a constant progress from the simple coordinating of promotional tools to a complex strategic process. Further to the evolution of modern marketing, where IMC has become a major way of achievement the objectives of a company, there is a need to identify opportunities to increase its impact on consumer behaviour. Therefore, is of interest, the relatively recent approach found in the literature, according to which IMC works specifically through all the four classic elements of the marketing mix: product, price, placement and marketing communications. In this context, this paper intends to clarify some aspects regarding the effects of IMC on the consumer behaviour, materialized in the consumer decision-making process.

This research aims to investigate the impact of marketing mix strategy on patient satisfaction in private sector hospitals in Jeddah city in Saudi Arabia (KSA). This research consists of the independent variables represented by marketing mix strategy components (namely health service, pricing, distribution, promotion, physical evidence, process, and personal strategies) and dependent variable which represented by patient satisfaction. In order to explore the relationship between independent and dependent variables the quantitative method was used to collect primary data through a questionnaire, which was administered in the private sector hospitals in Jeddah city with hospital managers. All Jeddah city private sector hospitals were targeted in this research rather than a representative sample of these hospitals. The research population of this research consists of 272 managers from 34 private hospitals in Jeddah. The research sample in this research also consists of the total population accounted 272 managers. The researcher retrieves 190 valid research questionnaires. A purposive sampling strategy was used to choose the participants in this research. The results confirm significant differences in the influence of the marketing mix strategy have varied significant and insignificant influence on the patient satisfaction. Furthermore, the results exhibit those hospital managers might benefit more by placing more emphasis on an integrated service marketing mix strategy and recognizing the patient satisfaction. The result shows that five out of seven variables are significant (health service, promotion, physical evidence, process and personal strategies) on the other hand two variables are insignificant (pricing and distribution strategies). This research contributes to the academic and practical knowledge as being one of the first attempts to investigate empirically the impact of the marketing mix strategy on patient satisfaction. In addition to recognizing the vital roles of marketing in improving the patient satisfaction, this research integrates, refines and extends the empirical work conducted in the field of health services marketing in Saudi Arabia. It raises many implications for managers in these hospitals, such as considering the importance of influences by marketing strategy on patient satisfaction. This research provides useful guidelines for further and future research possibilities such as exploring the influence of the marketing mix strategy influence on other hospital performance criteria.

Researchers and Practitioners have been interested in the field of impulse buying for the past sixty years Chang et.al, 2011). The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed account of the impulse buying behavior by compiling the various research works literature in the field of Retailing and Consumer Behavior. It gives a broad overview of the impulse buying construct and the various behavior related aspects. A wide range of journal databases and books were referred to review the works of various researchers. The content analysis of the various research works led to the classification of literature into different factors influencing impulse buying and further development of research framework. The multiple aspects of the subject are categorized for future research works in the area of impulse buying with the suggestions. The paper will be useful for marketing practitioners and researchers towards comprehensive understanding of the consumer's impulsiveness.

Trabajo de fin de posgraduación sobre un análisis de viabilidad del uso del CMS Wordpress en el desarrollo y uso de webs corporativas para PYMES como eje innovador de una marca, en la ciudad de Santiago de Compostela .Ejemplo práctico de desarrollo.

Previous studies on brand equity measurement can be classified into the following main streams: (1) Customer-based Brand Equity (CBBE), where the value of the brand is determined by customers' associations with a product brand and (2) Corporate Brand Equity (CBE), where the value of the brand is determined by stakeholders' associations toward a corporate brand. This paper proposes a holistic approach to Total Brand Equity (TBE) measurement which integrates Customer-based Brand Equity and Corporate Brand Equity into Total Brand Equity measurement. This approach offers a more comprehensive perspective for brand equity valuation which addresses a company's relationships with its customers and stakeholders at large. Further, this paper offers a series of propositions that address the relationship between total brand equity and corporate performance.

This research examines the effect of leadership on financial performance of two Ghanaian banks. The autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles theories have been extensively discussed. Correlational research design was employed to determine the predictive relationship between the independent variables (autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles) and the dependent variable (financial performance). Multiple Regression test was used to test the hypothesis in the study. The result showed that, none of the leadership styles significantly predicted financial performance of the two banks. However, democratic leadership style (β=-.222) was found to account for more variance in financial performance than autocratic (β=-.043) and laissez-faire (β=-.039). The implications for practice and theory have been discussed.

The present study addresses the issue of consumer intention to buy original brands and their counterfeits in the Indonesian fashion product market. Specifically, it examines the impact of past purchases (of original brands and their counterfeits), consumer attitudes (toward the economic benefits of counterfeit purchase and hedonic benefits of counterfeit purchase), and personal characteristics (i.e. self-image, materialism, and perceived future social status) on consumer intention to purchase original luxurious fashion brands and their counterfeits. Based on a preliminary study, five brands in five different fashion product items were selected and used for the study. About 170 females aged between 15 and 50 years old living in Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta (DIY) province participated and filled in the self-administered questionnaires for the current survey. Multiple regression analyses were employed to test the research hypotheses.

Several studies attempted to conceptualize and measure brand equity. Brand equity constructs identified include awareness, associations, perceived quality, and loyalty, among others. Further, brand performance has been operationalized in terms of market share, ability to charge price premium, and distribution coverage. While most studies focused on consumer-based constructs, few researchers tested the effect of distribution intensity on brand performance. This study advances a model that links distribution intensity with brand preference and loyalty, and empirically tests it on the fuel industry in Egypt. First, in-depth interviews with industry experts were conducted to validate research hypotheses. Then, online surveys were distributed to test model relationships on four leading brands. Results revealed that affect, satisfaction, perceived quality, as well as distribution intensity significantly affected brand preference; which in turn was the key driver to brand loyalty. It is recommended that firms consider the role of distribution while developing marketing strategies and brand-building activities.

Ghana's banking industry has witnessed stiff competition in the last decade thus accentuating the need for banks to consider various strategic options and programmes in order to survive and thrive. One of such programmes is Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The aim of this study is to assess the relationship between customer relationship management and customer loyalty using a case bank. Cross sectional research design was used to sample 20 staff and 50 customers. Data was collected from sampled respondents using a questionnaire. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16 was used to analyse the data. The result indicates that the bank assigned relationship managers who take care of the individual customer's needs. Thus, there is indication of the practice of CRM at the bank and this was more evident in the area of feedback to customers. However, staff perception of the constructs of CRM practice was relatively more positive than customers given the respective mean scores of the measures. Thus, Banks may believe that they are practicing CRM when in actual fact customers are not recognizing it that much. A correlation analysis revealed that there is a strong positive relationship between CRM practice and customer loyalty. The study recommends that management of the bank should continue with the CRM practices and effectively communicate their CRM policy to customers to improve customer loyalty. In addition introduction of some loyalty programmes would enhance customer loyalty.

The gold market in India is predominantly a market for buying and selling physical gold and gold in the form of ornaments. In the physical gold front, in the wholesale segment, nominated agencies are the bulk importers. This market is reasonably efficient from the point of view of distribution of bars and scraps over the length and breadth of the country, which takes place in a very effective manner. Price uniformity is also generally observable in areas with identical incidence of duties and tax. However in the market for ornaments and jewellery, consumer protection is still not assured, although it has received much policy attention in last few years. It is a well-known fact that cheating on caratage is widespread. In April 2000, Government of India introduced voluntary hall marking of gold jewellery through Bureau of Indian Standards. But the progress in this regard has been slow so far with only few jewelers have accepted the necessary certification with most of them having only partial stocks of their jewels hallmarked. In this backdrop, a study was carried out to understand the perception of customers purchasing gold ornaments and their awareness levels on the concept of hallmarking by Bureau of India Standards.

The primary objective of the study was to describe the extent to which personnel differentiation strategies may be used to gain competitive advantage among Private Tertiary Education Institutions in Botswana. The study examined how personnel differentiation may be employed by private tertiary education institutions in order to achieve competitive advantage. The study used descriptive survey research and the findings revealed that the private universities have to a certain extent employed personnel differentiation strategies. However, institutions have not done enough to clearly stand out as differentiated universities. The study recommends that the universities must appeal to prospective employers; hire, train and retain competent staff, and also get involved in activities that will enhance institutions’ credibility. Institutions need to work together with key stakeholders and continually seek ways to attain competitive advantage through personnel differentiation.

The objective of this research is to examine cultural influence on the general attitude of Pakistani people towards advertising. The study aims to analyze the cultural impact on attitude of people towards advertisements of brands according to product information, social integration and hedonism/pleasure, whereas power distance and masculinity as culture dimensions. Sample size includes 250 respondents which are involved directly in purchasing. It includes adults from all disciplines, house wives within the vicinity of Islamabad/ Rawalpindi and the people from different age groups and educational backgrounds. Regression is used to check the impact of product information, social integration and hedonism over public general attitude towards advertisement. And apply moderation analysis to check the impact of culture as moderating variable. Social integration, product information and hedonism have a significant impact on attitude towards advertisement. But product information has weak impact on attitude towards advertisement; whereas culture has a significant moderating effect which strengthen the relationship between dependent and independent variables. The most important limitation was the time constraint. The time was limited due to which a huge sample size was impossible to manage. The responses were taken only from Islamabad and Rawalpindi cities which restrict the generalizability of the study. This study will help marketers to advertise there products according to the culture values and attitude of the people which reflects their personality. It will also help companies to segment their customers according to their behavior/attitude towards advertisement, which in turn will help companies to gain competitive advantage and increase profitability.

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that influence strategic marketing in relation to profitability in rural banking in Ghana. The research was conducted to see how management and employees follow strategic marketing programmes in delivering superior quality service to their customers and how customers view the service that they receive from the bank. Data was collected from primary and secondary sources. The research revealed that strategic marketing has an effect on the profitability of rural bank services; it revealed that Dangme Rural Bank was marketing oriented and were practicing strategic marketing very well. All employees and the management were conscious of strategic marketing process and activities.

Revisit intention has been highlighted as an important research topic in competitive market of tourism destinations. Despite the considerable number of research on repeat visitors, it remains unclear why people undertake repeat visits and what kind of characteristics hold repeat visitors. This research aims to identify factors influencing repeat visitors to Sabah, Malaysia. The results of this study indicated that "destination image" and "relaxation and recreation" were the most important destination attributes and travel motives for repeat visitors to Sabah. Concerning their perception on destination loyalty, the study revealed that respondents were loyal to Sabah, intent to revisit and recommended Sabah as a holiday destination.

This study is about discoveries of the religious factor and its influence towards purchase intention of organic food in Malaysia. Each religion teaches its followers to consume healthy food in their daily lives. Organic food is commonly known for its healthier content without the use of pesticides, herbicides, inorganic fertilizers, antibiotics and growth hormones. To a certain extent organic food is directly related to Halal, a preconditioned to the Muslim to consume certain permitted foods and preparation, consistent with the Shariah requirements. However, not every consumer view such circumstances as important though being encouraged by their religion to consume such food in a way promoted by the organic foods. The research aims to identify the religious factor and its impact towards the customer purchase intention in Malaysia. The findings of the study indicated that religious factor was found to have less impact on customer purchase intention of organic food. This is because the consumers could be looking on other vast factors such as perceived value and health consciousness in deciding to purchase organic food products. They may perceive that the existing conventional foods are perfectly matched with organic food and the consumers are fully confident that the foods are prepared in a way permitted by their religion. The result has shown some differences with the previous literature which described that religious factor plays one of the most influential roles in shaping food choice in certain countries of the world. Hence, this study is expected to provide understanding to both the industry players as well as academicians on the factors that influence Malaysian customer purchase intention towards organic food products as such phenomena might be different from 97 one country to another. Future research should focus on a similar study with the extended scope to all states in Malaysia so that the findings could be compared and generalized to the entire population in Malaysia

Due to the tremendous growth in Internet usage around the globe during the last ten years, marketing teams now must better understand the impact of social media on consumer buying patterns. With Internet penetration estimated to continue to grow during the next decade, especially in second and third world markets, marketing executives will need to prioritize understanding the changes related to consumer buying patterns. Many papers have discussed this phenomenon and it was explored and analyzed as a result of new media advertising through social media ad repetition on consumer buying behavior. This study tested hypotheses on repetition and relevance, separately and jointly, with respect to obtaining a positive decision-making experience. Test subjects were given single and mixed ads via a video presentation then surveyed through SurveyMonkey. Test subjects came from similar academic universities in New Jersey USA and Changzhou China. The results reflect that ad repetition has a posi...

Ku Amir Ku Daud School of Business Innovation and Technopreneurship, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Malaysia Abstract On-line commerce through Internet is gaining attention from students today. The aim of this research is to study the factors influencing student's buying ...

This present study investigated the causal relationships among the dimensions of consumer-based brand equity in the context of service shop; and to improve the conceptualization of service quality, which serves as a sub-dimension of perceived quality. A total of 602 self-administrated questionnaires were distributed via non-probability sampling. Findings suggested that the dimensions of service quality in the service shop were comprised of tangibles, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, recovery, and knowledge. The causal effects of service quality are significantly greater than product cues in formatting favorable consumer response towards the brand. The major contribution is that it provides imperative insight into the development of consumer-based brand equity in the service industry that is based on typology-specific. Future study should include simultaneous examination of the four service quadrants as classified by , and investigates the universal dimensional of consumer-based brand equity in service industry by typology-specific.

This paper aims to analyze the influence of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty toward the local fast food restaurant in Indonesia. The variables involved in this study were perceived service quality, perceived product quality, perceived price fairness, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. Samples of this study were customers of the local fast food restaurant in Yogyakarta. Quantitative method is used to analyze the relationships within variables. This research examined 200 respondents by spreading the online questionnaires that were analyzed by using Structural Equation Model method. To collect the data, this study used convenience sampling method. The results show that perceived service quality, perceived product quality, and perceived price fairness had a positive and significant influence on customer satisfaction. Also, perceived service quality, perceived product quality, and perceived price fairness had a positive and significant influence on customer loyalty. F...

This study was to investigate the motivational factors that may contribute to explain salespeople's motivation toward marketing intelligence activities. The proposed conceptual model utilizes expectancy theory, a process theory of motivation. Three factors can motivate salesperson to exert effort to collect and transmit information from the field expectancy, instrumentality and valence. The proposed conceptual model provides a manager a better understanding that salespeople will motivated and given amount effort to contribute marketing intelligence activities if he or she will gather good information about competitors or about customers and receive a reward for the information transmitted, which he or she really want to obtain.

Fashion adoption is concerned with how consumers accept a prevailing style during a particular time. Fashion is accepted by the consumers and influences their behavior in many ways. It is one of the strongest drivers to influence and motivate their intention to buy and adopt new products. Either through advertisement and promotion of brands or through endorsement of celebrities, companies motivate consumers of different socioeconomic backgrounds to follow the new fashion trends and buy their products. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that compel consumers to adopt apparel fashion in Pakistan. It has been investigated that, how and why different factors i.e., Fashion innovativeness, Consumer innovativeness, Fashion involvement, Opinion leadership, and Status, influence consumers' intention to adopt new apparel fashion and how that intention influence their actual fashion adoption. Total 500 questionnaires were distributed among the respondents in different places (i.e., shopping plazas or malls, public places such as bus stops, playgrounds, and inside the educational institutions, in the cities of Islamabad and Lahore, Pakistan. Out of the total, only 332 (66.4%) questionnaires were retrieved. The regression test and the model fit results using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis revealed that, except fashion innovativeness, and consumer innovativeness, the fashion involvement, opinion leadership and status of consumers positively influence their intention to adopt new fashion. However, Intention to adopt has no significant effect on the consumers' actual adoption of fashionable clothes. The positive and negative effects are discussed accordingly. In the light of the results and findings, the implications and future research recommendations are also debated at the end.

This study sheds some light on the importance and consequences of satisfaction in the competitive telecom industry in Bahrain. The factors related to payments and savings (such as offers, rents, charges) are the most significant in determining satisfaction, retention, and likelihood of switching from one mobile provider to another. Conversely, intercommunication factors (such as customer service, friendly employees, user-friendly websites) were found to be the least significant. A significant positive relationship was found between satisfaction and retention while a poor association was noticed between satisfaction/retention and loyalty.

This study aimed to measure the Impact of Health Service Quality on Patient's Satisfaction in the Hospital's of Public and Private sectors in Jordan. To attain the aim of this study a random sample of inpatients was chosen to conduct this study within. The sample consisted of 450 inpatients. To determine the impact of Health Service Quality on Patient's satisfaction the researcher used a special measure called "SERVPERF" which was designed specially to measure the quality of service in different Service sectors the content validity of the measure conducted by committee arbitrators and throughout the multiple use of this measure over the time. The reliability of the measure computed using Cronbach alpha and the result indicated that the internal consistency of the measure was 90%.

This study aims to explore the influence of religiosity, gender and education levels on attitude towards business ethics. Religiosity has long been regarded as the key determinant in shaping ethical values. The well-established scale of Attitude Towards Business Ethics Questionnaire (ATBEQ) was adapted. Religiosity was measured using the Religious Commitment Inventory Scale (RCI-10). There are two dimensions of religiosity -intrapersonal religiosity and interpersonal religiosity. Results showed that intrapersonal religiosity was a significant determinant to attitude towards business ethics but interpersonal religiosity was not. Comparisons were also made across several demographic characteristics with regards to business ethics. There was no significant difference between gender. Significant difference was found in business ethics across different educational levels.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the association of unplanned buying with post-purchase regret, moderated by consumer-family income and gender, as well as the association of both sales promotion and bankcard payment with unplanned buying in the Saudi market. Drawing on unplanned buying and post-purchase literature, the study tested a model of post-purchase regret. A survey was conducted among Saudi consumers of retail stores in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A convenience sample of 927 respondents was taken for data collection, among them 903 were finalized for analysis. The study concluded that there is a positive relationship between unplanned buying and post-purchase regret. An increased association of unplanned buying with post-purchase regret has been found among low-income earners and male consumers. Furthermore, bank-card payment, but not sales promotion, has a significant association with unplanned buying. Practically, consumers and marketers can benefit from the results and recommendations of this study, both avoiding the bad consequences of post-purchase regret. Self-awareness of the factors that cause regret may turn consumers to be more rational in their future buying decisions. Marketers' perceptions of those factors may also be helpful in setting marketing strategies towards their target markets; satisfying, and retaining consumers. The original contribution of this study comes from a lack of research in the Middle East on unplanned buying, post-purchase regret and their relationship antecedents.

Fashion is a major part of online consumer culture. In addition to shopping, consumers engage in diverse practices related to fashion consumption. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze consumers’ online fashion consumption practices. The study uses a practice–theoretical framework. The empirical material consists of two focus group interviews with thirteen informants and observations of fashion websites. Four interlinked online fashion consumption practices were identified: dreaming, expertise, information search and being part of a community. In addition, twelve procedures related to these practices were identified. The findings indicate that fashion website content should be able to support consumers’ online fashion consumption practices to enable and enhance value creation, facilitate purchase and support the consumption of fashion items. Consumers online fashion consumption practices play a key role in engaging consumers on the website and in directing them toward...