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This paper aims to determine Chinese peasant consumers' decision‐making styles.

The paper reflects on the psychological orientation and decision‐making styles of peasants' purchase of durable appliances. This has the dual character of purchase behavior by the study on factor analysis from a view of peasants' consumption psychology. The consumer style inventory (CSI) was administered in January 2009 to 5,827 peasants in 656 villages in 14 provinces which were selected randomly in China. Both an exploratory factor analysis and a confirmatory factor analysis are adopted to validate the CSI inventory. This results in a 25‐item and eight‐factor solution.

Findings indicate that three consumer segments are formed: confused by over choice peasant consumer; fashion and impulsive peasant consumer; and perfect peasant consumer. The income effect on a farmer's purchasing has a threshold, while income does not reach the limit, income does not have an obvious effect on the decision‐making styles of peasants' purchasing on durable appliances, the category of consumer styles depends on the “individual” factor of peasants' consumption psychology, and their consumption behavior characteristics depend on the grade of psychological orientation and decision‐making styles of the consumer.

The marketing mix of an enterprise should recognize the potential differences of psychology of the peasant consumer. Enterprises should adopt positive marketing strategies in pricing to induce and inspire consumer motivation and behavior, so that enterprises can positively interact with rural consumers and achieve optimal allocation of marketing resources.

This paper decribes the decision‐making styles of Chinese peasant consumers based on their purchasing behavior with regard to consumer and consumption psychology. The effect of annual average income and income source of the family on the consumers' decision‐making styles is not obvious, but the number of people in a family has some effect on consumers' decision‐making styles.

Independent travelers are those vacationers who have booked only a minimum of their transportation and accommodation arrangements prior to departure on the vacation. Independent travel is an important and growing sector of worldwide tourism. Choice of vacation itinerary for the independent vacation represents a complex series of decisions regarding purchase of multiple leisure and tourism services. This chapter builds and tests a model of independent traveler decision-making for choice of vacation itinerary. The research undertaken employs a two-phase, inductive–deductive case study design. In the deductive phase, the researcher interviewed 20 travel parties vacationing in New Zealand for the first time. The researcher interviewed respondents at both the beginning and the end of their New Zealand vacations. The study compares pre-vacation research and plans, and actual vacation behaviors, on a case-by-case basis. The study examines case study narratives and quantitative measures of crucial variables. The study tests two competing models of independent traveler decision-making, using a pattern-matching procedure. This embedded research design results in high multi-source, multi-method validity for the supported model. The model of the Independent Vacation as Evolving Itinerary suggests that much of the vacation itinerary experienced in independent travel is indeed unplanned, and that a desire to experience the unplanned is a key hedonic motive for independent travel. Rather than following a fixed itinerary, the itinerary of an independent vacation evolves as the vacation proceeds. The independent traveler takes advantage of serendipitous opportunities to experience a number of locations, attractions and activities that they had neither actively researched nor planned.

This study explores the decision-making powers of Australian female consumers in the financial product market. More precisely, it examines how the integrative effects of rationality, emotions and personality traits influence the decision-making powers of Australian female consumers when making financial product purchase decisions.

The study employs a quantitative research approach, utilising a survey strategy. The proposed conceptual model was tested using structural equation modelling (AMOS) on a valid 357 responses from Australian female consumers.

The findings revealed that rationality, self-efficacy and impulsivity have a positive impact on the decision-making powers of Australian female consumers. Besides this, self-efficacy and anxiety had significant moderating effects on the decision-making power of Australian female consumers when buying financial products, whereas anger and impulsivity were found to have no moderating effects.

The study offers understanding on the role of emotions and personality traits in financial decision-making, which can help financial institutions design sound products and services that can also ensure consumers' overall well-being.

Informed by the theoretical notions of the appraisal-tendency framework (ATF) and emotion-imbued choice model (EIC), the study makes a unique contribution by investigating the impact of rationality, emotions and personality traits on the decision-making powers of female consumers in the Australian financial product market.

Previous research has generally assumed that a homogeneous cultural value exists within a given country. This research aims to identify the regional differences in cultural value based on an urbanization dimension in China, which generate diversity with regard to perceived value and consumer decision‐making styles.

A large‐scale questionnaire was administered to freshmen from major colleges and universities across China to measure cultural value, perceived value, and consumer decision‐making style. The data were analyzed with a multi‐group structural equation model and a stepwise discrimination test.

Results demonstrated significant differences in cultural value, perceived value and consumer decision‐making style among regions with different degrees of urbanization and revealed antecedents and formation of the mechanism of decision‐making style.

Future research should explore more antecedents that influence consumer decision‐making styles and other market dimensions other than urbanization.

The research might provide prominent guidelines for marketers to understand Chinese consumers. Specifically, in regions with different degrees of urbanization, marketers should develop differential strategies to exploit the market given the distinctions in cultural value, perceived value and consumer decision‐making styles.

This study is the first to build a theoretical relational model of cultural value, perceived value and consumer decision‐making styles. And this model revealed the antecedents and formation of the mechanism of decision‐making style.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of transparency on consumers' judgment and decision-making.

This study uses an experimental research design in which participants' negative emotions dynamically change driven by group emotional interactions when they are experiencing a group complaint.

The experimental results show that compared with opaque products, transparent products make consumers rely more on emotions to make judgments and decisions (Experiment 1). It is precise because transparency increases the influence of emotion on consumers' judgment and decision-making that positive emotion makes consumers' evaluation and willingness to pay higher, while negative emotion makes consumers' evaluation and willingness to pay lower (Experiments 2 and 3). Transparency will also affect consumers' subsequent judgment and decision-making methods, so they are more inclined to choose the option with the dominant emotional dimension (Experiment 4).

Previous studies mainly focus on the impact of transparent packaging on consumers and discuss the impact of transparent packaging on consumer product evaluation and consumption quantity. This study proves that product-related transparent elements can also affect consumers' decision-making methods, making them more dependent on emotions to make decisions, enriching the research on the influencing factors of consumer decision-making methods.

Using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, how consumers choose a financial institution for their checking accounts is investigated in this study. It was found that, although most consumers value convenience as one of the most important decision‐making criteria, their definitions of convenience vary across consumers. How different consumers use different decision‐making criteria and heuristics is reported, and the implications for financial service marketers are drawn from the findings.

India has undergone dramatic change in its retail markets since economic liberalization in 1992. The authors aim to use the framework of consumer decision making styles to investigate longitudinally how these styles have changed from 1994 to 2009. They also conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the 2009 data to determine whether decision making styles are shaped by psychological variables: perceived time pressure, shopping opinion leadership, shopping self-confidence, consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence, and materialism.

The eight different consumer decision making styles were measured with instrument by Sproles and Kendall. The psychological variables were measured with established instruments with adequate reliabilities. The survey was administered to young adults. The Indian samples from 1994 and 2009 were matched allowing for comparisons.

The longitudinal analysis showed that four of the eight decision making styles changed statistically between 1994 and 2009; there were increases for brand consciousness, novelty-fashion consciousness, and impulsive-careless shopping while perfectionist-quality consciousness decreased. The cross sectional analysis of the psychological variables showed that perceived time pressure had minimal impact while shopping opinion leadership and shopping self confidence had a major impact. Materialism and consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence had a moderate impact.

The authors used an urban sample; a rural sample would also be useful. Future research could examine other emerging markets such as Brazil and Vietnam to identify the impact of the psychological variables on decision making styles in those countries.

The study shows that decision making styles do change as an emerging economy becomes more developed. The study also shows that psychological variables can explain some of the differences in decision making styles among consumers. Retailers and marketers can use this information to be more strategic in the way they develop their planning.

Changes in decision making styles show that consumers are now more brand and fashion conscious while being more impulsive and careless in their shopping. These changes may signal that Indians are becoming more materialistic and more focused on brands and fashion which can lead to excessive buying and debt.

The paper offers a longitudinal view of changes in decision making and a cross sectional analysis of how psychological variables affect decision making styles. This study focuses on issues not presently discussed in the literature.

The purpose of this study is to segment consumers according to their decision-making styles in the context of social commerce. Additionally, the differences among consumer segments in consumer innovativeness, perceived risk, satisfaction and demographic characteristics are evaluated.

A total of 384 respondents who shopped for restaurant deals through social commerce participated in this study through an online survey. Two-step cluster analyses were used to segment social commerce consumers into groups, using their decision-making styles.

The results showed three types of social commerce consumers of restaurant deals: innovative brand-preferring consumers; realistic consumers; and passive consumers. Innovative brand-preferring consumers chose specific brands and showed the most innovativeness, while realistic consumers and passive consumers were price-conscious and far more cautious in purchasing restaurant deals using social commerce. Passive consumers were, in addition, confused by overchoice. All three consumer groups perceived higher risks to privacy in purchases using social commerce. Passive consumers were especially aware of the risk, while the innovative brand-preferring consumers and the realistic consumers were less concerned about risk. Consumers were especially likely to perceive economic risk, performance risk, social risk, psychological risk, privacy risk and time risk. Innovative brand-preferring consumers were more likely to be innovative and showed a higher level of satisfaction, while passive consumers showed the lowest satisfaction and the least innovativeness.

This study provides additional insights on consumer decision-making styles in the context of social commerce in Korea.

Consumer decision-making styles can help restaurant managers to develop deals tailored to specific types of consumers, as well as create customized products and services.

This study is one of the very few attempts to investigate consumer decision-making styles in social commerce for restaurant deals, so it contributes to the literature on social commerce in the hospitality industry. This study shows that consumer decision-making styles are important in understanding the behavior of social commerce consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the consumer decision-making style clusters within the context of automobile purchases in Australia. It also examines the differences between consumer decision-making styles in terms of the importance given to external influences, such as importance of dealers, importance of friends/family members, number of cars test driven, time spent researching final decision and importance of information sources (e.g. internet, magazines, TV ads, word of mouth, etc.), prior to making their final purchase decision.

Data were collected from 209 respondents using self-administered questionnaires. Cluster analysis and ANOVA were employed to identify and analyse the differences between consumer decision-making style clusters. Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI; Sproles and Kendall, 1986) was used to measure respondents’ consumer decision-making styles in relation to automobile purchases.

Three clusters were identified from the analysis, namely “innovative informed”, “rational confused”, and “traditional habitual”. Significant differences were found between the clusters in terms of the average time they spent with each car dealer, the time they spent on researching final decision and the importance of consulting with family members prior to making their final purchase decision.

The paper found that some consumers rely heavily on friends/families and dealers as the most important sources of information. Other sources of information consumers use include television advertisements, newspapers, billboards and magazines. Based on the findings, marketers should focus on providing similar types of information/messages by using these above-mentioned sources when communicating with this type of consumers. Dealers could be trained to spend time explaining product features and benefits in full with these consumers and their friends and family members whom they are likely to bring along before making the final purchase decision.

The findings of this study have extended the knowledge by determining the impact of external influences on consumer decision-making styles using the CSI in context of specific product which is yet to be known in relation to Australian automobile consumers.

With rapidly changing marketing landscape, nowadays, the formulation of various marketing strategies is increasingly focused on how consumers tend to make decisions. To meet the highly demanding consumer expectations, market segmentation can be used as an important marketing strategy. Due to gender marketing concept familiarity in the contemporary world, gender difference is one of the reference features in the process of market segmentation for marketers. This research is aimed to examine various determining factors that foster consumer purchase decision-making and the differences between consumers of different genders while making shopping and purchase decisions with special reference to an emerging economy, i.e. Pakistan.

Based on a cross-sectional sample of 367 consumers, the study adapted Sproles and Kendall's (1986) Consumer Style Inventory (CSI) to scrutinize the decision-making of both genders in Pakistan. For data analysis, the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis in addition to the structural equation modeling has been used.

The study emphasized that, with the exception of quality awareness, brand consciousness, fashion consciousness, option overload and price consciousness greatly affect buying decisions. In addition, when it comes to consumer purchase decision-making, significant gender variations were discovered for both fashion consciousness and price consciousness.

Drawing upon the distinctive cultural characteristics of Pakistan and its people, in-depth research was conducted on purchasing behaviors of Pakistani consumers and the decision-making characteristics of customers of different genders were summarized. The outcomes are expected to make a significant contribution to the field of gender marketing by organizations.