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This paper aims to develop a geometry of moral systems. Existing social choice mechanisms predominantly employ simple structures, such as rankings. A mathematical metric among moral systems allows us to represent complex sets of views in a multidimensional geometry. Such a metric can serve to diagnose structural issues, test existing mechanisms of social choice or engender new mechanisms. It also may be used to replace active social choice mechanisms with information-based passive ones, shifting the operational burden.

Under reasonable assumptions, moral systems correspond to computational black boxes, which can be represented by conditional probability distributions of responses to situations. In the presence of a probability distribution over situations and a metric among responses, codifying our intuition, we can derive a sensible metric among moral systems.

Within the developed framework, the author offers a set of well-behaved candidate metrics that may be employed in real applications. The author also proposes a variety of practical applications to social choice, both diagnostic and generative.

The proffered framework, derived metrics and proposed applications to social choice represent a new paradigm and offer potential improvements and alternatives to existing social choice mechanisms. They also can serve as the staging point for research in a number of directions.

This study aims to reveal the presence of products with negatively correlated nutrients in the marketplace and their implications for consumer choices. It also investigates the role of an overall simplified nutrition scoring system (SNSS) – health star rating (HSR), in improving the healthiness of consumer choices.

Three (lab, online and eye-tracking) experiments investigate the effects of negatively correlated nutrients and the mitigating role of an overall SNSS for consumers’ food choices. A final panel-data study analyzes the changes in actual food purchases after the introduction of HSRs (an SNSS) in Australia.

Experimental results show that consumers use a decision strategy based on a dominant nutrient to choose food products, which creates health halos and leads to less healthy choices when products have negatively correlated nutrients. The presence of an overall SNSS leads to more accurate healthiness perception and healthier choices. Panel data analysis shows that the healthiness of consumer food purchases increased after the introduction of HSRs.

The study investigated the effect of an overall SNSS on specific categories, but not on the overall shopping basket.

For policymakers, this paper shows that overall SNSS helps consumers choose healthier options. Food manufacturers and retailers could be motivated to formulate healthier products when consumers choose healthier options.

This is the first study to document the presence of products with negatively correlated nutrients and their implications for consumer choices. It highlights the unique role of an overall SNSS, in helping consumers identify healthier options when products have negatively correlated nutrients.

This study aims to introduce the duration of uniqueness, an important dimension of unique products. It studies how choices between products with long versus short duration of uniqueness are influenced by the interaction between pressure and consumers’ need for uniqueness (NFU).

This research uses a multi-method study approach. A pilot field-study tested the novelty and importance of the research by asking retail professionals to predict the choice of a hypothetical consumer. A retrospective study assessed the importance of duration of uniqueness in unique product choices, by asking consumers about a real and recent unique product purchase. Four additional experimental studies directly tested hypotheses by manipulating pressure and by measuring or manipulating uniqueness motivations.

The pilot field-study showed the novelty and relevance of this research for professionals. Study 1 revealed that, retrospectively, uniqueness duration was considered important for the choice of unique products, by high-NFU consumers under pressure. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that pressure increases the tendency of high-NFU, but not low-NFU, consumers to choose products with long over short uniqueness duration. Study 4 provided initial evidence for the process behind the effect. Study 5 showed that considerations of uniqueness duration when choosing mediated the effects.

The results of the pilot field-study and retrospective study might be affected by recall bias or lay theories. The findings need to be replicated with other sources of pressure and uniqueness. This calls for further research.

Results are important for companies marketing unique products and they suggest that pressure-based marketing appeals can be used strategically to increase sales of products with long uniqueness duration but decrease sales of products with short uniqueness duration. Although the research provides these guidelines, managers should consider the ethical implications of pressure strategies.

This is the first attempt to empirically investigate the duration of uniqueness. Although extant research has examined choices between products with different degrees of uniqueness, this research studies choice of products with similar degrees of uniqueness, but different uniqueness duration. Thus, this research adds to the scarce literature studying the duration of symbolic benefits. Moreover, although pressure and NFU frequently co-exist in uniqueness consumption settings, this study is the first to study their joint effects.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, this study applies social presence theory to explore the influences of public self-awareness on consumers’ choice inconsistency and post-choice satisfaction. Second, the authors investigate how time pressure moderates the effects of self-awareness on choice inconsistency and post-choice satisfaction so that online sellers can better align their marketing strategies.

This research consists of two studies. Study 1 conducted a 3 (self-awareness: public/private/control) × 2 (time pressure: high/none) experiment, and 311 online participants were recruited to explore the influence of public self-awareness and time pressure. Study 2 used a 3 (self-awareness: public/private/control) × 2 (time pressure: high/no) × 2 (self-consciousness: high/low) quasi-experiments, and the authors used 652 online participants to examine the effect of self-awareness, time pressure and public self-consciousness on choice inconsistency and post-choice satisfaction.

The results indicate that publicly self-aware consumers under high time pressure show greater inconsistency than those under no time pressure. Also, people with higher public self-consciousness exhibited higher choice inconsistency and post-choice satisfaction in public self-awareness situations than those in private self-awareness and control conditions.

To generalize the results, this study should be replicated using more heterogeneous populations in diverse regions and cultures, as well as other product categories.

This study explores the implications of evoking self-awareness during online consumption and the online purchase process by observing the moderating effect of self-consciousness and time pressure. The findings provide insights to marketing practitioners who seek to increase their companies’ competitive advantage and profits through effective online manipulations of consumers’ self-awareness.

Extant research does not address how time pressure affects the relationships among public self-awareness, choice inconsistency and post-choice satisfaction. In addition, prior research only focused on public self-awareness in customer consumption. This study bridges these gaps and has implications for e-commerce, consumer behavior and relationship marketing research fields.

This paper aims to examine the factors affecting travelers’ decision to select more than one destination in their trips. Drawn from the rational choice theory, this study posits that the selection of multi-destination tours, as a rational choice, is determined by the travelers’ perception of costs and benefits associated with that choice.

The conceptual model was developed from both an exploratory research with in-depth interview and the literature. A logistic regression model linking four explanatory variables representing perceived benefits and costs of multi-destination option with travelers’ choice of multi-destination trips. The conceptual model is controlled for diversity of travel purposes; tour group size; type of travel arrangement and travelers’ demographic characteristics while the research context of multi-destination travel within Phu Yen – Dak Lak – Gia Lai – Binh Dinh helps control for the characteristics of the destination set (spatial proximity and traffic convenience). The conceptual model was tested based on data collected from 1,361 Vietnamese travelers who have ever visited at least one of the four provinces.

This study finds that perceived benefits in terms of diversifying tourism experiences and perceived costs of traveling in multiple places compared to taking single trips represent the most significant drivers for tourists’ selection of multi-destination tours. In addition, the diversity of travel purposes and tour group size have a positive and significant impact on the demand for traveling more than one destination in a trip. Moreover, the richer, older and married travelers have a significantly higher tendency to select multi-destination packages.

The research findings provide important strategic implications for promoting multi-destination trips, thereby, maximizing economic benefits from tourism.

While multi-destination travel patterns have been examined empirically in individual studies sporadically without a common theoretical background, this research makes some progress on this front by using the rational choice theory to connect the relative contributions of those factors to the travelers’ choice of multi-destination trips. Specifically, this study provides a new perspective in explaining the selection of multi-destination trips – from tourists’ perceptions about costs and benefits associated with that choice.

This paper aims to propose to politicize partner choice as a discourse that rationalizes, legitimizes and justifies the choice of partners by underlining economic, cultural and institutional differences to (re)create power relations. By reconceptualizing partner choice as a discourse, the paper challenges the established view of partner choice according to international business and management studies as a rational and strategic behavior based on resource complementarity, best practices and win–win situations.

Based on the longitudinal study of Israeli–Korean business collaboration, which includes in-depth interviews, observations and media texts, this paper uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) to demystify partner choice as neither a neutral nor an objective behavior to unveil its discursive construction and embeddedness in power relations.

The actors on both sides of the Israeli–Korean business collaboration evoke resource complementary discourse between “Israeli innovation” and “Korean productivity” to rationalize their partner choice as a win–win situation. CDA demonstrates how both sides are engaged in a “borrowing” process from east-to-west and head-to-hands postcolonial images to (re)produce hierarchy between the parties. While east–west mapping remained almost unchallengeable, the reversal, crossing and blurring of the Israel-to-Korea knowledge transfer direction provides a counter-narrative to resource complementarity discourse.

The resource complementarity discourse supported by east–west mapping and “head–hands” justifications for partner choice reveals the lingering presence of postcolonial images, imagery and imagination. By taking two nations without substantial troubled memories, histories and relations, the paper broadens the picture beyond national contexts, emphasizing the importance of borrowing and translation from postcolonial vocabulary to non-colonial situations.

Argues that in today′s competitive marketplace, service providers have to compete with goods marketers in addition to other service providers in contexts where different brands of tangible goods serve as substitutes for services. Examines various mixed choice sets composed of goods and services alternatives. Describes various kinds of mixed choice sets and lists various factors that transform them. Draws implications for service providers for dealing with choice sets differing in the market position of services vis á vis goods alternatives.

International students are key protagonists in the Australian educational system. Although much research has been conducted to better understand various aspects related to factors affecting their choices of international education, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the influence of personal sources. This study employs both qualitative and quantitative approaches to clarify this research problem. The qualitative phase identifies the influence from the Thai family into five categories: finance, information, expectation, persuasion, and competition. The quantitative phase examines the influence of five factors on five choices of international education. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for the marketing of international education to Thailand.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of option choice reversibility on the number of options chosen, total spending, and upset/regret from actions/inaction, using 124 Singaporean adults.

The experiment employs two levels of option choice reversibility: fully reversible without a penalty vs strictly irreversible. Participants add options to a base model or delete options from a full model and are either allowed or not allowed to change options in a condominium purchase scenario.

Compared to participants in the irreversible choice condition, those in the reversible choice select more options and end up with higher total spending. In the irreversible option choice condition, participants anticipate more upset (one aspect of regret) when they take actions than inaction, but in the reversible option choice condition, the reverse is true.

The study uses only one decision stimulus, which is a condominium purchase, and the purchase scenario might not be as realistic as an actual purchase decision.

Refunds and option change permission policies make consumers feel they can reverse their buying decisions, making them feel the decisions are less risky and thus inducing them to buy more than when no refunds or option change is allowed after purchase. To drive consumers to take actions, marketers should allow consumers to change their mind after making decisions and assure them of such policy.

The paper shows the effect of decision reversibility on the total spending (i.e. the total costs of choices made) and extends the theory about omission biases by demonstrating that regrets from actions/inaction depend on decision reversibility.

This paper sought to uncover the intrinsic determinants of the choice of transport modes in Nigeria's capital city, Abuja, based on commuters' perceptions on different modes of transport. The ultimate goal of the study was to come up with suitable multifaceted measures to deter private car usage, while refocusing society's mind-set towards alternative forms of transport, thereby keying into some transport-related sustainable development goals (SDG) goals.

The study adopted qualitative methods: 320 commuters were surveyed at bus stops and car parks around the city, and respondents were identified using multistage sampling, aided by purposive/convenience sampling, and this number was reached by saturation of themes. Focus group discussions were held with eight screened public officials from relevant (transportation and environment related) agencies/unions in the city. NVivo 10 software was used to thematically analyse the data gathered from a relativist and an interpretive stand point.

The study found transport mode choice to be intrinsically more motivated by socio-economic forces serving as a basis for other socio-psychological factors. Multifaceted measures, including spatial, socio-economic, environmental and public relation measures, were found suitable to break car-use motives in the study area towards adopting alternative modes of transport, thereby achieving some transport-related SDG targets.

The study was unique as it looked at the intrinsic mode choice determinants from a Sub-Saharan African capital city perspective and provided suitable multifaceted best practiced measures that deemphasised car use while emphasising alternative modes, thereby shifting commuters' mind-set towards environmentally sustainable modes of transport.