E-ISSN : 2233-5382
Purpose: Modern globalization and Western markets saturation has catalyzed the growth of culinary globalization into developing countries. The question was whether fast food consumers in frontier markets of Sub-Saharan Africa (Zimbabwe), either upholds national gastronomic tendencies in terms of consumer ethnocentrism and buy local or they adopt global fast food brands. Demographic consumer profiles were also analyzed as antecedents of consumer ethnocentrism. Research design, data and methodology: A sample size of 400 fast food-adult consumers was surveyed in the City of Harare. Data was captured on SPSS and Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS). Hypothesis testing was done using sample t test (H<sub>1</sub>), logistic regression (H<sub>2</sub>) and multiple regression (H<sub>3</sub>, <sub>4</sub>, <sub>5</sub>) analysis. Results: Consumer ethnocentrism in Zimbabwe was marginally above average and no statistically significant relationship between the levels of consumer ethnocentrism and adoption of foreign fast food brands was noted. Age had an inverse relationship; income had a positive association whilst gender had no statistical significance with consumer ethnocentrism. Conclusions: Despite the Zimbabwean consumers being marginally ethnocentric, international restaurateurs should invest in the Zimbabwean fast food market since their nature of being foreign has got an exotic appeal to the Zimbabwean consumers thereby enhancing their likelihood of success.
Purpose: This paper aims to investigate whether consumers' mental simulation and self-brand connections influence purchase intention and how the characteristics of advertisings' nonverbal information (congruence among multisensory cues) and verbal messages (self-referencing point and narrative structure) jointly shape mental simulation and self-brand connections. Research design, data and methodology: This paper develops a sportswear advertising and totally collected 225 data through the online survey platform "WenJuanXing". To exam the hypotheses in this paper, structural equation model is conducted in AMOS 21.0 via using 210 valid data. Results: The findings reveal that consumers who engage in mental simulation or establish the connections between them and the brands are more likely to present high purchase intention. Moreover, the characteristics of congruence among multisensory cues, self-referencing points and narrative structure can not only facilitate consumers' mental simulation but also encourage consumers to create connections between them and the brands. Conclusions: This paper develops the advertising research via exploring the characteristics of advertisings' nonverbal information (multisensory cues) and verbal messages simultaneously. And suggesting that both of consumers' mental simulation and self-brand connections are the important approaches for advertisers to effectively increase consumers' purchase intention. Finally, the limitations and suggestions are concluded for the future research.
Purpose: The international business is affected by significant cultural factors that may impediment the operation and the ultimate performance of a business organization. The current study aims to investigate prior literatures works to find cross-cultural discrepancies such as the cultural distance that impacts international companies' operations and management and develop appropriate strategies for realizing high performance while overcoming these challenges. Research design, data and methodology: To find the required sources, the study employed the use of secondary data. Different search strategies were used to find the necessary materials from various sources. The data composed of an extensive review from multiple peer-reviewed journals and other existing research. Results: Based on literature analysis, the current study suggests novel seven strategies for multinational organizations. As a result, this study provides various pieces of literature to deduce meaningful information on the appropriate business strategies that a company can use to bridge the gap of the limitations of cross-cultural impacts on international businesses. Conclusion: An organization moving into a new cultural environment faces challenges including tastes and preferences, norms, language barriers, and beliefs. Organizations, therefore, have to devise the best strategies to align themselves with the prevailing cultural conditions to reap the benefits of internationalization.
Purpose: Organizational crime is an offense committed by an individual or an official in a corporate entity for organizational gain. This study aims to explore the literature on challenges facing digital forensics and further discuss possible solutions to such challenges as far as the protection of corporate crime is concerned. Research design, data and methodology: Qualitative textual methodology matches the interpretative approach since it is a quality method meant to consider the inductivity of strategies. Also, a qualitative approach is vital because it is distinct from the techniques used in optimistic paradigms linked to science laws. Results: For achieving justice through the investigation of digital forensic, there is a need to eradicate corporate crimes. This study suggests several solutions to reduce corporate crime such as 'Solving a problem to Anti-forensic Techniques', 'Cloud computing technique', and 'Legal Framework' etc. Conclusion: As corporate crime increases in rate, the data collected by digital forensics increases. The challenge of analyzing chunks of data requires digital forensic experts, who need tools to analyze them. Research findings shows that a change of the operating system and digital evidence interpretation is becoming a challenge as the new computer application software is not compatible with older software's structure.
Purpose: Before COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese mid/low-priced hotel industry has been steadily growing in recent years, and internal and external competition has been intensifying. Under these circumstances, this study started with a strategic objective to increase the quality of service, thus enabling customer satisfaction and revisit intention. For enhancing the competitiveness of Chinese mid/low-priced hotel business, we plan to establish a model using SERVQUAL, O2O platform, and identify their relationship through empirical analyses. Research design, data and methodology: Through the consideration of the existing literature, this study intended to identify the characteristics of service quality in Chinese mid/low-priced hotels and to consider their impact on customer satisfaction and revisit intention. We also wanted to examine the moderating effect of the O2O platform between the characteristics of service quality and customer satisfaction. A survey was carried out on customers using mid/low-priced hotels in China and empirical analyses were conducted using regression analyses. Results: First, in the hypothesis of service qualities' effects on customer satisfaction were identified with significant positive effects. Second, in the hypothesis of service qualities' effects on revisit intention, "tangibles, reliability, and empathy" have shown significant positive. Third, in the verification of the moderating effect of the O2O platform, there were "positive partial moderating effects" between service qualities and customer satisfaction. Finally, the effect of customer satisfaction on revisit intention was positive significant. Conclusions: In order to satisfy their customers, improvements in service quality should be made first. In addition, customer satisfaction had a positive impact on revisit intention. In order to revitalize Chinese mid/low-priced hotels, differentiation strategy is also needed for specialized customers such as college students, and basically, efforts should be made to optimize the O2O platform. O2O platforms should establish optimal platform construction strategies based on the customer's perspective. After all, in the case of Chinese mid/low-priced hotels, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of the latest hardware infrastructure and O2O platform of software infrastructure, and to improve customers' advanced online and offline experiences. Finally, regarding the hypothesis that was rejected among service qualities' characteristics, we tried to discuss the reason and find the implications of these.
Purpose: This research aimed at exploring the functions of consumers' perceiving approach and avoidance roles and their feeling anger and disgust in the effect of the two types of self-discrepancy at social identity such as the ideal self-discrepancy and the ought self-discrepancy on within-self domain versus across-self domain consumption. Research design, data, and methodology - This study divided the self-discrepancy group into the ideal self-discrepancy and the ought self-discrepancy group as experimental groups for empirical study. Self-discrepancy type between-subjects design was used to develop two types of questionnaire according to the type of experimental groups. The platform, 'questionnaire stars' of 'WeChat' in China was used to collect 103 data from the ideal self-discrepancy group and 102 from the ought self-discrepancy group for empirical study. T-test and the structural equation model in Amos 21 were used to verify hypotheses developed through theoretical review. Results - First, ideal self-discrepancy positively affected the role-approaching goal and anger. Second, ought self-discrepancy positively affected the role-avoiding goal and disgust. Third, the role-approaching goal and anger positively influenced on the within- versus across- domain consumption. Fourth, the disgust negatively influenced on the within- versus across- domain consumption, however the role-avoiding goal did not influence on the consumption. Fifth, there was the mediation roles of anger (disgust) in the effects of ideal (ought) self-discrepancy on the consumption. Conclusions - When consumers feel anger at the ideal self- discrepancy induced by in-group, it is necessary for the marketers to promote their product brand used by the in-group. They should develop and advertise the messages priming the ideal self-discrepancy and the anger to increase the intent to purchase or use their product brand when the in-group members have used the brand by relating the brand to their social identity concerned with the ideal self-discrepancy. However, marketers should help consumers feel disgust by developing and advertising the messages expressing the ought self-discrepancy to lead the consumers to the place of purchasing or using their product brand when the members have used the brand based on keeping the consistence between the brand and other social identity not related to the ought self-discrepancy.