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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.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cultural assimilation influence on family purchase decision making of Chinese immigrant families in New Zealand, and in Chinese families living in China.

The data were collected from 200 respondents. In total, 100 families have been chosen from each of these countries. The data were collected by the snowball sampling method across 11 different products and four decision-making stages.

The results of this research show that cultural assimilation does have an influence on parental perceptions of teen's influence on family decision making. Chinese immigrants' teenage children in New Zealand were perceived as having more influence within the family than their peers in Chinese families living in China.

The research used a sample size of only 100 respondents from each country. Furthermore, it used snowball sampling and mid-income group families only.

These findings help marketers to gain a better understanding of the influence of cultural assimilation, and use specific marketing communication and promotion strategies.

The paper empirically demonstrates that Chinese parents living in China and Chinese immigrant parents living in New Zealand perceive their children's involvement in family purchase decision differently. Chinese immigrant parents perceive that their children are becoming assimilated with New Zealand culture. This is the first ever study done on Chinese Immigrant families living in New Zealand and Chinese families living in China by collecting and using the cross-culture data from New Zealand and China.

First, this study expands knowledge on the strategic decision process dimension decision-making speed by analyzing decision-making speed and two possible antecedents in a purchasing context. Second, it takes an additional step toward clarifying the relationship between strategic and lateral integration. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the potential mediating effect of lateral purchasing integration on the relationship between strategic purchasing integration and purchasing decision-making speed.

This research analyzes survey data of 152 firms from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland using covariance-based structural equation modeling.

The results of the structural equation model provide strong support for the hypothesized relationships. Strategic purchasing integration drives lateral purchasing integration, which in turn positively influences purchasing decision-making speed.

This study focusses solely on internal types of integration. A logical next step would be to further enrich the model by including external dimensions, such as supplier or customer integration.

This study should help managers gain a better understanding of the relationship between strategic and lateral purchasing integration, highlighting their positive impact on decision-making speed. Decision-making speed is particularly important for companies operating in volatile markets and time-constrained business environments.

This study offers new insights into the theoretical and empirical connection between intra-organizational purchasing integration, unpacked as strategic purchasing integration and lateral purchasing integration, and purchasing decision-making speed. Furthermore, it offers insights into decision-making speed in a purchasing context.

With the growth of online shopping, during which consumers are not able to touch products, there is much for researchers and marketers to learn about the underlying role of the need for touch (NFT) in driving online shopping decisions. Consumers' emotional state prior to purchase is considered a situational variable that affects their attitude and behaviour. This study explores the effects of consumers' NFT and pre-purchase emotional states on their online decision-making behaviour, examining perceived quality, confidence in product judgment and intention to purchase.

A field experiment was conducted using a scenario presenting buying a sweater as a real purchase opportunity available to participants. A convenience sample of two hundred ninety-eight university students at a university in the southeast of France was used in this study. A 2 (NFT: high/low determined by a median split) × 2 (emotional states: high/low level) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to further examine the interaction of NFT and emotional states in consumer decision making.

The results indicate that autotelic NFT and positive emotional states experienced before shopping have an impact on consumers' decisions in relation to perceived quality, confidence in product judgment and intention to purchase. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that instrumental vs autotelic NFT affects consumer decision making, with mixed support found for negative emotional states acting as possible moderators.

This study advances the NFT field and leads to insights regarding online consumer purchase decision making by exploring instrumental vs autotelic NFT and pre-purchase emotional states as antecedents of consumer decisions.

The purpose of this study is to explore the hospitality franchise purchase decision-making process undertaken by franchisees in Macau as an emerging tourism destination and the role of national culture on purchasing a franchise brand and selecting a potential franchisor.

Semi-structured in-depth interviews with 18 franchisees in Macau, who purchased international and domestic hospitality franchise brands, were conducted to understand the feelings, attitudes and motivation of franchisees toward purchasing a hospitality franchise.

The study reveals that national culture can play an important role in franchisees’ decision-making process. Personal networks of friends and family (guanxi) are very influential in introducing and steering aspiring entrepreneurs toward franchising as an option to realize their ambitions, although there may be some limitations to franchisees with this approach. Guanxi was also found to be particularly relevant during negotiations and franchisees’ post-purchase reviews.

International franchisors should understand the importance of guanxi at different stages of the franchisees’ decision-making process. Franchisees should realize how a reliance on guanxi might negatively affect their efforts to undertake sufficient research to thoroughly evaluate the franchisor offer before contract signature.

A comprehensive hospitality franchisee decision-making purchase framework is developed, which includes the cultural context and cultural values. Guanxi, in particular, affects the franchisee decision-making process.

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.

Although considerable consumer research has focused on family purchase decision‐making in families in Western countries, only limited attention has been paid to family purchase decision‐making within Eastern cultures. This study was designed to explore for the possible differences and similarities in spousal influences in different cultural environments by comparing Singaporean family purchase decision‐making process to that of US families.

Quota sampling was adopted to generate primary data for the examination of Singaporean spousal influence in family purchase decision‐making; data previously reported on US spousal families was used to compare with the primary data collected in Singapore.

Differences in marital values between Singaporean husbands and wives were found to be associated with differences in perceived patterns of influence throughout the family decision‐making process. The findings indicate that family purchase decision‐making is a culture‐specific phenomenon. The study found that the level of egalitarianism, which usually indicates a more syncratic or cooperative family purchase decision‐making, was associated positively with higher levels of education and income.

This study revealed a positive relationship between joint decisions and the level of egalitarianism, however, such evidence is still limited. To depend the understanding of spousal influences in family purchase decision‐making in different cultural environments, future research may need to go beyond demographics to include more cognitive, psychological as well as social environmental factors, such as the involvement level, the time a spouse spent alone for shopping, the love, affection, trust and confidence a spouse would have for or earned from another spouse, the importance a spouse would attach to his or her marriage and family, etc.

The paper offers insight into family purchase decision‐making within Easlern countries.

The purpose of this paper is to develop taxonomy of sourcing decision-making (SDM) archetypes and explore how different contextual factors influence these archetypes when global sourcing of complex components is considered a viable option.

A multiple case study approach with five in-depth cases is employed. In total, 19 interviews as well as publicly available and internal data from large buying firms headquartered in Austria and Germany were collected and analyzed.

The results reveal three different SDM archetypes which are described in detail (i.e. “consensus,” “argumentation” and “cabal”). Furthermore, it is found that these archetypes are mainly influenced by three contextual factors: sourcing maturity, product complexity and leadership style. The final model comprises six propositions which illustrate how these contextual factors determine companies’ SDM archetypes.

The study contributes to theory development at the intersection of organizational buying behavior and the (global) SDM literature. Thereby, it answers the call for more rigorous investigation of the influence of contextual factors on SDM processes.

The findings enable practitioners to better understand and consequently manage SDM processes and their outcomes. By supporting decision-makers in identifying SDM archetypes, this study allows sourcing managers and teams to make better decisions by avoiding problems that occur in situations in which the preferred decision-making type would result in suboptimal decisions.

The study provides a first step toward taxonomy of SDM archetypes and is among the first that explores their underlying contextual factors.

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate a scale to determine the consumer’s level of decision-making self-efficacy for a high-involved service purchase, specifically the purchase of medical insurance. One question to ask is how service providers can help consumers purchase the services that best meet their needs? Before interventions can occur, it is necessary to benchmark consumers’ perceptions of their own decision-making control and abilities.

A scale that measures consumers’ service decision-making self-efficacy was developed using the principles established for scale development validation. A four-study approach was used to reach the research objective.

The research consisted of four studies designed to: generate items to measure consumer service decision-making self-efficacy (CSDMSE); purify the scale and assess its dimensionality (second-order structure); establish the reliability and validity of the scale; and establish norms to provide details on its usefulness for aiding consumers with service purchases. The scale was found to be a higher-order construct, comprising three lower-order constructs.

Research suggests that consumer self-efficacy may affect their decision-making. The greater the consumer’s self-efficacy for decision-making tasks, the more efficient the decision-making process strategies are expected to be. This is the purpose for which the CSDMSE scale measure was created: to understand how, where and when service professionals can assist consumers with making appropriate service-related decisions and purchases.