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This study examines the influence of demographic variables and dimensions of motivational factors of two types of consumer Web use: percentage of weekly Web surfing time spent searching for product and service‐related information and online shopping and transactions. It combines data from two sources: a self‐administered survey of 59 undergraduates in an introductory communication course at Cornell University; and a mail/Web survey of 59 New York State residents who had reported subscribing to an online service in a previous mail survey. We found distinctively different patterns of relationships among demographics and motivational factors for the two types of dependent variables. Most importantly, transactional privacy concerns were found to be negatively related to percentage of time spent on product searches and online shopping, while economic motivations had a positive influence. In addition, online shopping was found to be predicted by information motivations, interactive control motivations, and socialization motivations. Implications for Web‐based commerce and advertising are discussed.

Cosmopolitanism represents a complex, multilevel, multilayer phenomenon manifested in a variety of social spheres, including moral, political, social, and cultural. Yet, despite its prominence in other disciplines, cosmopolitanism has received relatively scant attention in international management research. Furthermore, the understanding of cosmopolitanism as an ever-present social condition in which individuals are embedded lags significantly behind.

In this chapter, we develop a conceptual framework for cosmopolitanism as an individual-level phenomenon situated at the intersection of the moral, political, and sociocultural perspectives. The framework explicates the interrelations between macrolevel dynamics and individual experiences in a globalized world. We conceptualize cosmopolitanism as an individual disposition manifested and enacted through identities, attitudes, and practices. We also highlight the diversity of individuals who can be considered cosmopolitans, including those who may not possess the classic cosmopolitan CV. Finally, the chapter explores the implications of cosmopolitanism for global organizations and global leadership.

Consumers are assumed to engage in external information search only after exhausting their internal information sources. Guided by the accessibility/diagnosticity and ease-of-retrieval frameworks, and the elaboration likelihood model, the current study investigates this phenomenon.

To test the relationships between internal information accessibility/diagnosticity and the importance of external search, and the moderating role of involvement in these relationships, 308 responses were collected on Amazon MTurk. Then, structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data.

The analyses showed that while accessibility and diagnosticity of internal information have an impact on external information search, involvement with the product class has a consequential moderating effect on these relationships. In particular, in the low-involvement group, only the diagnosticity of internal information had a negative effect on external information search. On the contrary, in the high-involvement group, only accessibility of internal information had a negative effect.

These findings highlight the possibility of drawing erroneous conclusions resulting from not incorporating involvement, in conjunction with information accessibility and diagnosticity, in the study of the consumer external information search behavior.

The findings also imply that if practitioners aim to prime consumers to engage in external information search, they need to take into account that the effects of internal information's accessibility and diagnosticity on consumers' external search behavior may be different depending on their levels of involvement.

This study's results showed that without considering the moderating effect of involvement, spurious conclusions may be made about the relationships between accessibility and diagnosticity of internal and external information importance. This finding may explain the discrepancy between the accessibility/diagnosticity and ease-of-retrieval frameworks, thus enriching the literature.

This chapter examines EI, presents a history of EI including the various models, and a discussion of the three streams approach to classifying EI literature. The author advocates for the efficacy of the Stream One Ability Model (SOAM) of EI citing previous authors and literature. The commonly used SOAM instruments are discussed in light of recent studies. The discussion turns to alternate tests of the SOAM of EI including Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs). Recommendations include an analysis of SOAM instruments, a new approach to measurement, and increased use of SJTs to capture the four-branch ability model of EI.

To measure adolescent girls’ preferences over features of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines in order to provide quantitative estimates of the perceived benefits of vaccination and potential vaccine uptake.

A discrete choice experiment (DCE) survey was developed to measure adolescent girls’ preferences over features of HPV vaccines. The survey was fielded to a U.S. sample of 307 girls aged 13–17 years who had not yet received an HPV vaccine in June 2008.

In a latent class logit model, two distinct groups were identified – one with strong preferences against vaccination which largely did not differentiate between vaccine features, and another that was receptive to vaccination and had well-defined preferences over vaccine features. Based on the mean estimates over the entire sample, we estimate that girls’ valuation of bivalent and quadrivalent HPV vaccines ranged between $400 and $460 in 2008, measured as willingness-to-pay (WTP). The additional value of genital warts protection was $145, although cervical cancer efficacy was the most preferred feature. We estimate maximum uptake of 54–65%, close to the 53% reported for one dose in 2011 surveillance data, but higher than the 35% for three doses in surveillance data.

We conclude that adolescent girls do form clear opinions and some place significant value on HPV vaccination, making research on their preferences vital to understanding the determinants of HPV vaccine demand.

DCE studies may be used to design more effective vaccine-promotion programs and for reassessing public health recommendations and guidelines as new vaccines are made available.

The number of internet consumers who adopt ad-blocking is increasing rapidly all over the world. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate this phenomenon by: assembling the existing considerations and key theoretical aspects of the determinants of online ad-blocking; and by exploring the consumers’ beliefs and sentiments toward online ads and expected outcomes of ad-blocking behavior.

Data consist of 4,093 consumers’ opinions in response to the news items about ad-blocking, published by a leading news and technology website in the period 2010–2016. The unstructured data are analyzed using probabilistic topic modeling and sentiment analysis.

Five main topics are identified, unveiling the hidden structure of consumers’ beliefs. A sentiment analysis profiling the clustered opinions reveals that the opinions that are focused on the behavioral characteristics of ads express the strongest negative sentiment, while the opinions centered on the possibility to subscribe to an ad-free fee-financed website are characterized on average by a positive sentiment.

The findings provide useful insights for practitioners to create/adopt more acceptable ads that translate into less ad-blocking and improved internet surfing experience. It brings insights on the question of whether ad-free subscription websites have or do not have the potential to become a viable business opportunity.

The research: improves the current understanding of the determinants of ad-blocking by introducing a conceptual framework and testing it empirically; makes use of consumer-generated data on the internet; and implements novel techniques from the data mining literature.

To determine the new responsibility and new form of CSR required in an evolving ecosystem, this chapter covers the historical evolution of CSR including the various additional labels CSR has attracted, and its many surrogate, complementary, and alternative terms and themes. Some parties still view CSR as just a form of Philanthropy; however, current definitions for CSR involve many components, which have adapted over time. The new CSR definition provided by the European Commission in 2011, for example, mirrors some of the changes created by the inclusion of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in 2015. The creation of shared and integrated value and the ongoing development of the social enterprise industry are further developments, alongside the growing trend toward B-Corp registration, the increasing emphasis on ‘business-for-purpose’ and the rise of the ‘be the change’ movement. This chapter discusses this journey and reveals how CSR has followed a cycle of social movements through several industrial revolutions. As we head toward the Fourth Industrial Revolution and usher in the new era for Globalization 4.0, this requires new business models, new labels, and new adaptations of CSR. These concepts are introduced in this chapter and developed further in later chapters.