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This study aims to examine the impacts of demographic variables (gender, age, income, education) and food product involvement (FPI) on food-related consumer decision-making styles (CDMS).

Original Sproles and Kendall's CSI instrument (1986) was applied in the food-product context. Data were collected using consumer phone survey. Eight separate regression analyses were conducted to test hypotheses. In each model independent variables were socio-demographic variables and FPI, while dependent variables were eight food-related CDMS.

Regression analyses indicate that each of food-related CDMS are affected by different antecedent variables. Perfectionism, high-quality consciousness was affected by gender, age, income and FPI; Brand consciousness by age, income and FPI; Novelty consciousness by FPI; Recreational, hedonistic shopping consciousness by gender, age and FPI; Price consciousness by age, education and income; Impulsiveness by age, education and income; Confusion by overchoice by education and FPI, and Brand loyalty by education, income and FPI.

The study applies modified Sproles and Kendall's CSI instrument (1986) in the food product context. The present study also provides a more definitive conclusion about the relationships between demographics, FPI and food-related CDMS. The analysis determined how demographics and FPI affect food-related CDMS.

This study analyzes the causal effect of education on consumers' cognition and attitudes toward genetically modified (GM) foods.

The authors propose an analytical framework to clarify the role of education levels and education content in the formation of attitudes toward GM foods and utilize education reforms in China as natural experiments to test the theoretical predictions empirically. For education levels, the authors use Compulsory Education Law's implementation to construct the instrument variable. For education content, the authors utilize the revision of the biology textbook in the Eighth Curriculum Reform to implement staggered difference-in-difference estimation. The authors use two national household surveys, the China Genuine Progress indicator Survey (CGPiS) and the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) of 2017, combined with provincial-level data of education reforms.

The education level, instrumented by the Compulsory Education Law's implementation, has an insignificant effect on consumers' cognition and attitudes toward GM foods, whereas the acquisition of formal education on genetic science, introduced by the Eighth Curriculum Reform, has a statistically significant and positive influence.

This is the first study to investigate the causal effects of education level and content on consumers' cognition and attitude toward GM foods using national representative data. It is also the first to evaluate the long-term effects of the biology textbook reform in China. The findings help open the black box of how education shapes people's preferences and attitudes and highlight the significance of formal biology education in formulating consumers' willingness to accept GM foods.

Is the aim of the university to prepare citizens to contribute to civic and social life as well as to travel flexibly and successfully through a rapidly changing work world? Or is the purpose of higher education more narrowly to advance students’ individual economic interests as they understand them? Should we think of students as citizens or consumers? Many analysts argue that, in recent years, the notion that higher education should serve to advance students’ individual economic position has increasingly taken prominence over broader notions of the purpose of American higher education. In this paper, we examine whether and to what extent a shift from considering students-as-citizens to students-as-consumers has occurred in US higher education. We provide a longitudinal analysis of two separate and theoretically distinct discourse communities (Berg, 2003): higher education trustees and leaders of and advocates for liberal arts education. Our data suggest a highly unsettled field in which commercial discourse as measured by the student-as-consumer code has surely entered the US higher education lexicon, but this code is not uncontested and the more traditional citizenship code remains significant and viable.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate roles of financial literacy, financial behavior, and financial capability as mediating factors between financial education and financial satisfaction.

Data are from the 2012 National Financial Capability Study, a large national data set with detailed information on financial satisfaction, education, literacy, behavior, capability, and related variables. Mediation analyses are used to answer research questions.

Financial education may affect financial satisfaction, a subjective measure of financial well-being, through financial literacy, financial behavior, and financial capability variables. Results show that subjective financial literacy, desirable financial behavior and a financial capability index (a sum of Z-scores of objective financial literacy, subjective financial literacy, desirable financial behavior, and perceived financial capability) are strong mediators between financial education and financial satisfaction.

The study has used cross sectional data that can only document associations between financial education and satisfaction and the mediators between them. Future research could use relevant longitudinal data to verify multiple benefits of financial education.

The findings have implications for financial service professionals to take advantages of multiple benefits of financial education in content acquisition, confidence in knowledge and ability, and action taking when they communicate with their clients.

Policy makers on consumer financial education may use the information to advocate and promote effective education programs to improve consumer financial well-being.

This study is the first of this kind to examine the association between financial education and financial satisfaction and several financial capability variables as mediating factors.

The purpose of this research was to identify the drivers of customer loyalty in the context of green marketing. In particular, the extended theory of reasoned action model specified here added crucial constructs in consumer behavior, namely, consumers’ trust and beliefs about corporate social responsibility, to increase the predictability of the model. Additionally, the moderating role of level of education in predicting customer loyalty to hotels was also examined.

A mixed methodology was used for the study. A structural mixed methodology was used for the study. A structural model was developed to understand the theoretical relationships between identified constructs. Additionally, multiple regression analyses were used to identify the moderating role of level of education in predicting consumer loyalty. Data collected through an online survey from 446 hotel guests were used for the analyses.

The results indicated that in addition to attitude and subjective norms, consumers’ trust in hotels’ intentions to be green influence their loyalty to green hotel enterprises. Further investigation also showed significant moderating influence of levels of education in their choice to be loyal to green hotels.

Even though the majority of the study’s sample has extensive travel experience, the data were collected from university employees, which might have limited the findings of this study.

Consumers need to trust ethical claims in adopting green practices to become loyal customers. Hence, it is imperative for marketers to convey that their business believe in proenvironmental activities. Additionally, marketers should not neglect their level of education because it influences their loyalty to green hotels. Green marketing should target not only an individual customer but also his/her ties to significant others, because subjective norms influence customer loyalty to green hotels.

This research developed a comprehensive model to understand customer loyalty to green hotels, thus providing insights to marketers and academics about a timely subject, namely, green behavior. In doing so, this research added crucial constructs to extend the traditional model of theory of reasoned action as well as examined the moderating role of level of education in the identified model.

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between financial capability and informal bankruptcy, especially among families in which the respondent and/or spouse borrowed student loans to fund their own education and families that did not have such loans.

US nationally representative data were employed. Three family types were used, families with student loans borrowed to fund respondent and/or spouse's education and education was completed (type 1 holders) or not completed (type 2 holders), and families that did not borrow student loans for respondent and/or spouse's education (non-holders). Informal bankruptcy was measured by being insolvent and late in debt payment for 60 or more days. Financial capability was measured by both an index and its various components. Multivariate logistic regressions were conducted to examine associations between financial capability and informal bankruptcy.

Generally, financial capability was negatively associated with informal bankruptcy, and student loan holders were more likely to be informally bankrupt than non-holders. However, such negative associations were statistically significant for type 1 holders and non-holders but insignificant for type 2 holders. Two desirable financial behaviors (information search and online banking) reduced the chance of informal bankruptcy for type 2 holders.

First, cross-sectional data cannot establish a causal relationship. Second, findings using data from a single country may not be generalized to other countries.

Financial service professionals should help loan applicants evaluate the necessity of borrowing. Banking professionals can use the findings to develop products to meet different consumer needs. Financial educators should target different groups with different strategies in financial capability education. Policymakers should develop policies helping student loan holders complete education funded by student loans.

This study examines factors related to informal bankruptcy, providing insights to warning signs of bankruptcy. This study explores the potential effect of a new factor, financial capability, on informal bankruptcy, filling in a gap in the bankruptcy literature. This study recognizes differences in informal bankruptcy among various types of families and examines the different effects of financial capabilities on informal bankruptcy for different types of families.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to aligning higher education towards meeting the challenge of global sustainability.

The barriers to sustainability are juxtaposed against the resources, responsibilities and potential of higher education. Ideas from several models and from within several disciplines are integrated to construct a framework through the challenges can be examined and then translated into learning outcomes, expressed as graduate attributes.

The focus of education for global sustainability has been on encouraging consumers to modify patterns of resource consumption and waste management. However, there are some significant limitations to relying on consumer action. Future professionals, involved in managing resources or designing options from which consumers make choices, are in a much better position for influencing how social, cultural and environmental resources are used. To actualise this potential requires that higher education curricula offer experiences which develop graduate attributes of self‐efficacy, capacity for effective advocacy and interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as raise awareness of social and moral responsibilities associated with professional practice.

For higher education to contribute towards achieving sustainability requires support of the whole institution, and considerable professional development of staff to help them appreciate how they can lead the next generation to global sustainability. The next stage of the research into the role of higher education in building a sustainable society should focus on how these objectives can be achieved.

Considerable research has been dedicated to describing the urgent and intractable nature of the problems facing the global community and, to some extent, the need for higher education to engage with these problems. This paper takes the next step by presenting some guidelines for designing curricula to develop graduate attributes required for this work.

In a globalized world, consumers embrace mutually conflicting cultural values rather than making exclusive, either/or choices. As a result, they experience multiple tensions, a phenomenon that can be identified as the consumer cultural paradox. Despite clear interest in the influence of local/global culture on consumers, knowledge of how conflicting cultural elements shape consumer behavior remains limited. To address these issues, the current article seeks to identify higher- and lower-level tensions inherent in the consumer cultural paradox.

Using in-depth interviews, the authors investigate tensions experienced by Chinese consumers of international private education services. This study applies a paradox lens, a tension-based conceptual approach that is well suited for studying consumer paradoxes.

Ten lower-level tensions of the consumer cultural paradox arise in the focal international service context; these tensions in turn form three higher-level tensions.

The study is among the first in marketing to use a paradox lens and empirical research to delineate multiple dimensions of the consumer cultural paradox, then categorize them into lower and higher-level tensions. The findings offer theoretical and managerial implications, in that recognizing the multiple tensions experienced by consumers allows scholars and marketers to gain a better understanding of how consumers perceive and evaluate services from different cultures.

Increasingly brands are performing several activities on social media in order to alter consumer consumption towards their offering. However, limited studies have attempted to understand as how activities on social media influence usage intentions and brand loyalty. Thus, this study aims to examine the influence of social media marketing activities (SMMA) on brand experience and its association with continued usage intentions (CUI) and brand loyalty.

The study conceptualized a research model by using the theoretical premise of stimulus-organism-response theory. SMMA acts as stimulus, four (sensory, affective, behavioral and intellectual) elements of brand experience act as organism, and CUI and brand loyalty act as response. A survey-based questionnaire is used to collect data from 309 respondents. The hypothesized associations of research model were examined using the structural equation modeling approach.

Results of the study are in line with hypothesized associations among constructs. Results suggest that SMMA is associated with all four elements of brand experience. Also, affective, behavioral and intellectual aspects of brand experience are associated with CUI which influence brand loyalty. The moderating role of education on hypothesized association and the mediating role of organism are also confirmed.

Using stimulus-organism-response theory, this study confirms that SMMA are associated with sensory, affective, behavioral and intellectual aspect of brand experience which has not been examined so far. Also, the novel findings of study add to existing literature of SMMA, brand experience and brand loyalty. The study further contributes to literature by showing the moderation effect of education.