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Today’s consumers are becoming increasingly exposed to foreign markets through travel or via the Internet. They are facing new challenges in these less familiar shopping environments. One such challenge is the comparison of prices in a foreign currency. This issue is addressed by examining how consumers from different countries evaluate such price discounts. Hypotheses are developed regarding the impact of currency denomination familiarity on consumers’ attitudinal response to changes in prices. The results of an experimental study conducted in Italy and the USA support the proposition that consumers who are more familiar with the foreign currency’s denomination will be more influenced by price differentials than those consumers who are less familiar with the foreign currency’s denomination. The implications of the findings for pricing strategies in regional trade zones, international tourism, and global e‐marketing are discussed.

In recent research, two views of the possible postmodern consumer have emerged. One view, advanced by Firat and Venkatesh, postulates that the consumer has increased expressive flexibility and is therefore liberated from prior ideologically‐created restraints. A second view, provided by Thompson and Hirschman and based on an empirical study of bodily‐related consumption, is less sanguine and argues that “long‐standing cultural narratives” continue to inhibit the consumer. To further consider these two contrasting perspectives, this paper analyses downloaded, discussion texts which express the emic views of consumers who participate in NetGirl, a gender and relationship‐oriented, online forum. The results provide some evidence supportive of both perspectives, i.e. the Net is more a mental, “hyperreal” and therefore more flexible phenomenon than the body, yet it also manifests the long‐standing need of people to tangibilize online phenomena in “real” terms. Implications are drawn which reflect this finding, as well as the idea that online cyber‐narratives and offline, real life narratives tend to mirror and be inscribed in each other.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effect of trusting beliefs about a store on country‐of‐origin (COO) effects. The paper suggests that three trusting beliefs (ability beliefs, benevolence beliefs and integrity beliefs) about a retail store moderate negative effects of COO on product evaluation and purchase intention. However, under high manufacturer risk conditions, only benevolence beliefs moderate the negative COO effects.

The toy industry is chosen as the study context. The first three hypotheses are tested with survey data collected from 224 participants. The last hypothesis is tested with data collected from 338 participants. Hierarchical moderated regression was used in the testing of the hypotheses.

The results show that while only benevolence and integrity beliefs about a store weaken the negative effect of COO on product evaluations, all three trusting beliefs lessen the negative impact of COO on consumers' purchase intentions. However, when manufacturer risk is high, only benevolence beliefs have a significant moderating effect.

The findings show that manufacturers can reverse the negative cycle, or at least minimize their losses, if they choose those retailers that consumers have high trusting beliefs about as their channel members. Similarly, if they can signal that they are benevolent and honest stores, retailers can balance their customers' negative evaluations of products made in certain countries with negative image.

Given the recent product recalls and concerns, the toy industry presents an ideal case to study the effect of trusting beliefs on COO effects. Nonetheless, the focus on a single industry does limit the generalizability of the findings. The authors recommend that future researchers examine these relationships in studies focusing on other product categories.

To the best of authors' knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the impact of individuals' trusting beliefs about a store on COO effects.

The paper's aim is to explore consumer perceptions of marketing and test the malleability of those perceptions.

Study 1 is exploratory in nature, and employs a free-response sentence completion to, “marketing is […]”. Study 2 employs an experimental design, testing whether the framing of communications about marketer performance (firm-oriented vs consumer-oriented) influences consumer perceptions of marketing.

Based on free responses to “marketing is […]”, findings indicate that US consumers generally see marketing as something that is bad for them, but good for businesses. However, this asymmetry disappears when marketer performance is communicated with a consumer orientation.

Marketers aim to create relationships with consumers based on value exchange, yet consumers do not see such value exchange. They see the value of marketing for business, but not for consumers themselves. By being more cognizant of how marketer performance is discussed, marketers can overcome such perceptions and build better relationships with consumers.

Other research on attitude toward marketing focuses solely on people's feelings about marketing; here we capture an extra dimension – namely, consumer perceptions of who marketing serves. Further, extant research on consumer attitudes toward marketing tend to describe their current state; this paper does the same but also tests and offers a specific solution for improving perceptions of marketing.

Aims to examine consumer politeness, an interaction style that may prevent a dissatisfied customer from complaining about a negative service encounter, and seeks to determine the relationship between politeness and the propensity to engage in various types of complaining behavior.

Two surveys served to develop and validate a scale for measuring politeness and tested the relationship between consumer politeness and complaining behavior. The specific items for the politeness scale were developed based on the distinction between negative and positive politeness as described by politeness theory.

The results suggest an inverse relationship between politeness and complaining behavior. The studies also find that polite and impolite consumers do not necessarily engage in the same types of complaining behavior.

In future studies, researchers may consider examining the conditions under which polite consumers do and do not voice complaints. Researchers may also consider investigating the possibility of a relationship between politeness and the opposite of complaining behavior, i.e. complimenting behavior.

Given that voice offers managers an opportunity to identify and then remedy problems, they should look for non‐threatening ways to encourage consumers to engage in this behavior. Managers may, for example, consider using positive politeness as a means for soliciting complaints.

This study introduces a sociolinguistic construct to help explain propensity to engage in complaining behavior. As such, it serves to identify and isolate one of the challenges managers face in addressing consumer complaints across a variety of service industries.

To examine how people from countries that vary in uncertainty avoidance (UA) use information about product uncertainty when evaluating products.

Two studies were conducted that vary in methodology, sampling and analysis. First, an experiment was designed to manipulate product uncertainty through the use of country of origin (COO) quality‐stereotypes. It was administered to university students from a diverse range of countries, all studying in the USA. Next, data from a large‐scale survey of consumers from ten countries was submitted to hierarchical binary regression analyses to include variables at the country and individual level.

The studies support an interaction between product uncertainty (PU) and cultural UA on quality perceptions and behavioural intentions. Consumers from high UA countries evaluated high PU offerings less positively and held weaker behavioural intentions than those from low UA countries, but for low PU offerings, no difference was found. The effect of UA was reduced for people with more experience and those who were younger.

Although we isolated the effects of UA from other cultural and individual level variables, it would be useful to directly cross individualism with UA in an experimental design, as these two variables are highly correlated.

This study suggests products with higher levels of PU will have more opportunity to prove themselves in low uncertainty cultures.

This study should be valuable for marketing managers devising rollout strategies for products with higher levels of PU or weaker quality stereotypes.

The COVID-19 pandemic stressed the health care sector's longstanding pain points, including the poor quality of frontline work and the staffing challenges that result from it. This has renewed interest in technology-centered approaches to achieving not only the “Triple Aim” of reducing costs while raising access and quality but also the “Quadruple Aim” of doing so without further squeezing wages and abrading job quality for frontline workers.

How can we leverage technology toward the achievement of the Quadruple Aim? I view this as a “grand challenge” for health care managers and policymakers. Those looking for guidance will find that most analyses of the workforce impact of technological change consider broad classes of technology such as computers or robots outside of any particular industry context. Further, they typically predict changes in work or labor market outcomes will come about at some ill-defined point in the medium to long run. This decontextualization and detemporization proves markedly problematic in the health care sector: the nonmarket, institutional factors driving technology adoption and implementation loom especially large in frontline care delivery, and managers and policymakers understandably must consider a well-defined, near-term, i.e., 5–10-year, time horizon.

This study is predicated on interviews with hospital and home health agency administrators, union representatives, health care information technology (IT) experts and consultants, and technology developers. I detail the near-term drivers and anticipated workforce impact of technological changes in frontline care delivery. With my emergent prescriptions for managers and policymakers, I hope to guide sectoral actors in using technology to address the “grand challenge” inherent to achieving the Quadruple Aim.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the pressures of being a Little Emperor in a rapidly changing society are reflected in consumer experiences, particularly in the meanings attached to products and brands. The paper aims to focus on young adults in urban China, specifically young professional women.

The subject was shadowed at work for two weeks during the Spring of 2007 and for an additional two weeks during the Spring of 2008. Social interactions and purchasing behavior were carefully observed, as well as conducting a series of informal interviews. During the Summer of 2008, a formal, in‐depth interview was conducted with an informant in the USA.

The unique pressures of growing up as a Little Emperor in a changing society are widely reflected in product usage and are ways in which to ease the tension and anxiety associated with the pressure of maintaining expectations from friends, family, and society.

The study focused on a single informant who, while on the surface appearing to represent adult Little Emperors, may in fact have different attitudes from her contemporaries. It would be interesting to investigate the degree to which parallel themes occur in the male market, namely what categories young urban professional men who were raised as Little Emperors use to express themselves.

The research provides insights into some of the conflicting expectations derived directly from the experience of growing up as a Little Emperor. It translates these insights into practical recommendations for various aspects of marketing and advertising cosmetic products in China, thus allowing multinationals to build successful marketing campaigns that appeal to managing these conflicting expectations.

The paper is the first work on the consumer experiences of urban young adult Little Emperors, specifically young professional women.

Postmodernism has provided valuable insights into the cultural significance of shopping and shopping sites in advanced societies. Despite their important contribution, postmodern accounts of shopping behaviour have predominantly focused on shopping in public spaces of malls and high streets. In this paper it will be argued that postmodern accounts of consumer shopping behaviour need to be developed and applied within the home shopping and wider remote shopping context. Directions for future research are proposed.