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The purpose of this paper is to examine the links between individual investors' subjective evaluations of certain companies' products and brands, on one hand, and their willingness and decisions to invest in those companies' stocks, on the other. The authors aim to challenge the traditional assumption that individuals would make stock investment decisions purely on the basis of expected financial returns and risks.

Survey data were collected from 293 individuals who invest in the stock market of a European country and analyzed with PLS path modeling.

In the clear majority of the consumers' stock investment decisions that were analyzed, the consumers exhibited some willingness to invest in a chosen stock beyond its expected financial returns/risk. Two variables are found to elicit willingness to invest in a company's stock beyond its financial returns: the personal relevance that the individual attaches to domains (activities or areas of interest; ideas or ideals) supported or represented by the company's products; and the individual's affective evaluation of the company's product brand.

Replicating the study with different companies from different industries and with consumers from different countries will be important. Overcoming a potential retrospection bias in the reported study is also a task for further research.

The findings provide insights that can serve segmentation, targeting, and positioning when it comes to marketing a company in the stock market so as to attract investors.

The paper provides new evidence on the influence of product and brand evaluations in consumers' stock investment decisions – suggesting that positive product evaluations elicit extra willingness to invest in a company's stock, over and beyond its financial returns.

Although social influence plays an important role in organizational groups, past findings regarding culture's impact on social influence have been scarce and inconsistent. Past research has found that people from collectivist cultures are more susceptible to social influence, while other studies have found the opposite or no effect. One major weakness of prior research on social influence is the predominantly cognitive orientation that has underemphasized the role of affect in culture's impact on social influence. We address this weakness by outlining an affective model of social influence, thereby expanding our understanding of social influence in multicultural decision-making groups.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of product harm, consumers' product knowledge and firms' negative information disclosure on ethical evaluation of a firm, especially, the moderating effects of product knowledge and negative information disclosure.

A 3×2×2 between‐subject design with three levels of product harm, two levels of product knowledge, and two treatments of negative information was used in this study. The experimental product is diet food.

The findings reveal that the level of product harm affects consumers' ethical evaluation. Furthermore, the individual's ethical evaluation will influence his or her purchase intention. The main effect of subjective knowledge is significant while its moderating effect is not significant. It is also found that the negative information disclosure will lower consumer's ethical evaluation of a firm, and the effect of product harm on ethical evaluation will be stronger for harmful products than for harmless products when the negative information is disclosed.

Marketers might need to be especially responsive if their practices result in a diminished reputation for their firms and lost sales. Exploiting the vulnerability of consumers or worsening their situation by marketing harmful products might be evaluated as unethical under principles of justice. It is suggested that marketers include increased disclosures of actual product harm levels relative to industry norms.

Consumers' product knowledge and firms' negative information disclosure are integrated into the model, exploring the effect of product harm on consumer's ethical evaluation of a firm and their moderating effects are discussed.

There has been an increased interest in marketing literature in understanding the role of sensory experience. However, few researchers have addressed multisensory interaction of visual and tactile evaluation for products salient in single sensory modality. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap and investigate how multisensory evaluation influences overall attitude and purchase intentions. Further, the role of individual personality variable in influencing the interrelationship between sensory evaluation and behavioral outcomes are examined.

The data for this study were collected from 126 students who responded to attitude towards the product and purchase intentions after evaluating three experimental tasks. Repeated measures analysis of variance was carried out to test the multisensory interaction hypotheses.

The multisensory interaction of tactile and visual information was found to significantly increase the consumer attitudes for products dominant on single sensory modality of touch. Further, the multisensory evaluation led to greater purchase intentions than visual or tactile evaluation.

The paper is perhaps first to investigate multisensory interaction of tactile and visual sensory information in evaluation of products that are salient in touch properties. The current study further examines the role of individual personality variables in influencing interrelationship between sensory evaluation and purchase intentions.

The use of teams in the workplace is an accepted facet of current working life. Training is undertaken with a view to equipping students for the eventual transition to a workplace which demands the social scientific skills of being an active, contributing, co‐operative team member. The use of content and process in a practical‐based learning situation is the focus of this study, which assesses a range of learning approaches used to acquire a knowledge of the skills required for team working. The division of the course into content and task‐related aspects on the one hand, and process and subjective experience on the other, is evaluated from the point of view of the skills it transfers to the course participant. The concept of emotional intelligence is measured to ensure the practical application of theory on team working to the experience of team functioning. The results indicate the success of this approach and demonstrate its ease of transfer to the workplace training environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine core self‐evaluations (CSEs), family support, co‐worker support, supervisor support, job characteristics, work‐life balance policies (WLBPs) and work‐family culture as the predictors of work‐to‐family enrichment (WFE) and family‐to‐work enrichment (FWE) and explore the moderating effect of CSEs.

Data were collected through a questionnaire survey from 485 employees from six organizations in India representing manufacturing, telecommunications and information technology sectors and were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regressions.

Supervisor support, job characteristics, WLBPs and work‐family culture predicted WFE. CSEs, family support and job characteristics predicted FWE. Little moderating influence of CSEs was found. It moderated the relationship between supervisor support and WFE.

The cross‐sectional design of the study constrains inferring conclusions regarding causality.

This study indicates that from an organizational perspective, involvement in family roles should not be viewed as a hindrance, since it can also benefit employees at work. Employee assistance programs may be introduced to help employees develop the necessary skills and adaptability to increase their work‐family enrichment experience.

The construct work‐family enrichment examined in this paper reflects an understanding of work‐family interface from a newer lens in a novel socio‐cultural context and demonstrates the moderating role of CSEs.

Extant literature reveals that the personality variable, core self-evaluation (CSE) which represents an employee’s self-assessment of himself has rarely been researched with respect to sales employees. The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of personality variable, core self-evaluation (CSE), in the relationship between demands and work – family enrichment. In this study, CSE has been treated as a moderating variable in the relationship between demands and work-family enrichment. This paper also aims to validate the CSE scale developed by Jugde et al. (2003) in Indian context.

Data were collected through structured questionnaires from 330 sales employees belonging to firms from some of the major sectors of Indian industry namely, Manufacturing, IT, FMCG, Pharmaceuticals and Financial Services. The study first validated the CSE scale in the Indian context using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Further, moderated regression analysis (MRA) was used to test the model.

The present research supported the 12-item CSE scale in the Indian context. Also, results of MRA suggested that, irrespective of higher work demands, sales employees having higher CSE experience higher levels of work to family enrichment (WFE). In addition, higher CSE employees tend to experience higher levels of FWE at the family front.

In an emerging economy such as India wherein sales professionals are facing a lot of work demands, organizations should invest in their frontline employees to be able to deliver value for money to the customers and thereby gain competitive advantage. With this realization, managers should acquire and retain frontline employees with positive core self-evaluation. Therefore, organizations should select and try to retain candidates with positive core self-evaluations.

Corporates should focus on nurturing sales employees’ positive CSE to make sure that their employees can contentedly adjust to various challenging work situations. In addition practices like job transitions, empowerment, enrichment and rewarding employees for their desired performance might be some of the interventions which positively impact core self-evaluations.

This study contributes to work – family literature by addressing the role of CSE in achieving WFE and FWE among sales employees in Indian context.

Entrepreneurial intention is regarded as a useful and practical approach to understanding actual entrepreneurial behavior. Planned behavior has been widely applied to examine entrepreneurial intention. Nevertheless, how risk aversion affects entrepreneurial intention using the model of planned behavior is not well understood. The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated model based on planned behavior to examine the direct and indirect effect of risk aversion on entrepreneurial intention concurrently.

The paper first uses factor analysis to study the latent constructs underlying determinants of planned behavior, risk aversion, and entrepreneurial intention. Then, it applies the technique of structural equation modeling to explore relationships among latent constructs. There are 306 survey responses collected from dental school students to run the analysis.

The determinants of planned behavior are positively associated with entrepreneurial intention. There is no direct relationship between risk aversion and entrepreneurial intention. Risk aversion only indirectly reduces entrepreneurial intention through determinants of planned behavior.

The results of the integrated model may be constrained by the sample context of dental students. Replicating the model by using other samples with various educational backgrounds can strengthen the implication of the study. Another limitation is the weakness of the cross-sectional study design, leaving room for improvement by using longitudinal data in the future.

Risk aversion only indirectly reduces entrepreneurial intention. To establish an environment with a strong entrepreneurial intention, a focus on developing a positive attitude and strengthening entrepreneurial skills are perhaps more fruitful than lowering risk aversion. This study also suggests that non-business students may need additional business education to improve the perception of self-efficacy.

The integrated model of this paper is original. The development of the model draws support from planned behavior adjusted to the context of starting a business.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the individual and aggregate level foundations of subjective well-being (SWB). In particular, the authors focus on the institutional differences between the welfare states as possible explanatory sources of SWB.

The data come from the Finnish, British, German and Greek sections of the European Social Survey Round 5, 2010 (n=10,046). The methods consist of multilevel and linear regression models.

The results indicate that the effects of many background variables are somewhat constant in the selected countries, even though the countries are different from each other in terms of their institutional characteristics. SWB can be explained relatively well by individuals’ social networks, health and socio-demographic factors. However, the detected cross-country differences also point to the fact that the institutional differences among the countries have significance in this instance.

The research approach was built on cross-sectional data on Finland, Germany, the UK, and Greece only. While these countries represent different types of European societies it is not possible to make broader conclusions on the variation caused by societal or cultural factors in the global sense.

The findings are significant regarding the current economic situation in many European countries.

Previous studies have addressed the direct effects of the background factors in contemporary Europe. Beyond these determinants also lies the possible impact of institutional and cultural factors.