Chapter 7 Links to selected Journals (Research Insights)

Chapter 7 Links to selected Journals (Research Insights)

Research Insight 7.1

Source: Shobeiri, S., Mazaheri, E., and Laroche, M. (2015). How would the e-retailer’s website personality impact customers’ attitudes toward the site? Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 23, 4, 388–401.

Insight: This study is a survey of consumer attitudes towards an e-retailer’s website, looking specifically at the website personality (defined as the brand personality of an online product or service, usually represented by a website) and how this related to site involvement and site attitudes.

The authors found that the five dimensions of website personality (enthusiasm, sophistication, genuineness, solidity, and unpleasantness) are not equally effective in shaping consumer reactions to a site. While enthusiasm has a positive effect and unpleasantness has a negative effect on both site involvement and site attitudes, some other dimensions only influence site attitudes (genuineness), or site involvement (solidity), or neither attitude nor involvement (sophistication). The authors discuss how online marketers should pay extra attention to enthusiasm and unpleasantness because these two personality dimensions played a major role in influencing user site involvement and attitudes.

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10696679.2015.1049682

 

Research Insight 7.2

Source: García-de-Frutos, N., Ortega-Egea, J.M. and Martínez-del-Río, J. (2016). Anti-consumption for environmental sustainability: conceptualization, review, and multilevel research directions. Journal of Business Ethics, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3023-z.

Insight: A recent stream of consumer behaviour research has focused on the area of anti-consumption (Lee et al, 2009) and how consumers avoid certain brands and products for a host of reasons, including what is communicated about them. In this conceptual paper by García-de-Frutos et al., the authors review the most recent literature on anti-consumption in environmentally oriented situations, and examine the role of individuals and organizations in achieving environmental sustainability. They comment that environmentally oriented anti-consumption gives some power to individuals who are willing to express their environmental concerns in a way that corporations will listen.

URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10551-016-3023-z

 

Research Insight 7.3

Source: Lowe, M.R. and Butryn, M.L. (2007), ‘Hedonic hunger: a new dimension of appetite?’, Physiology & Behavior , 91, 432–439.

Insight: An increasing proportion of human food consumption appears to be driven by pleasure, not just by the need for calories. In addition to its effects on body mass and health, the food environment in affluent societies may be creating an appetitive counterpart to the psychological effects of other hedonically-driven activities such as drug use and compulsive gambling. This phenomenon is referred to here as "hedonic hunger." Animal literature is reviewed indicating that brain-based homeostatic and hedonic eating motives overlap but are nonetheless dissociable. In humans there is evidence that obese individuals prefer and consume high palatability foods more than those of normal weight. Among normal weight individuals it has long been assumed that the appetitive anomalies associated with restrained eating are due to diet-induced challenges to the homeostatic system, but we review evidence suggesting that they are more likely to stem from hedonic hunger (i.e., eating less than wanted rather than less than needed). Finally, a recently-developed measure (the Power of Food Scale; PFS) of individual differences in appetitive responsiveness to rewarding properties of the food environment is described. Preliminary evidence indicates that the PFS is reliable and valid and is related to clinically-relevant variables such as food cravings and binge eating. This measure, combined with environmental manipulations of food availability and palatability, may constitute a useful approach to studying hedonic hunger.

URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17531274

 

Research Insight 7.4

Source: Tikkanen, I. (2007), Maslow’s hierarchy and food tourism in Finland: five cases, British Food Journal, 109, 9, 721–34.

Insight: Using case study methodology, the author identified five sectors of food tourism where the needs and motivations could be linked with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. For example, the kinds of food tourism that are based on social needs include festivals that attract tourists and local residents and food trails where tourists can create their own experiences. The social motives identified include facilitating social interaction with others and the creation of a community spirit around food.

URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/00070700710780698

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