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The purpose of this is study is to identify sources of demand growth for apparel in the US based on consumer demographic profiles, regions, and product characteristics.

A two‐step procedure was utilized to model, estimate, and analyze purchasing decision and consumer demand for nine apparel products (male shirts, shorts, jeans and slacks and female slacks, skirts, shorts, dresses and jeans). This study is based on a survey conducted by the American shoppers' panel, which collects consumption data of various garments, socioeconomic profiles, and product characteristics.

The results indicate that purchase decisions are determined by garments' own prices, age, female employment, gender, regions, and the presence of children. The study also shows evidence that the effect of product‐specific pricing strategies would be limited to the targeted products and the origin of the product has minimal effect on consumer expenditures on apparel.

This study is one of the few that have used disaggregated apparel products and detailed demographic factors, thus has clear marketing implications and can be useful to the apparel industry.

Mutual funds in India have not been as favourable investment alternatives as in developed countries, as assets under management of mutual funds to gross domestic product in India have been 7-8 per cent compared to 37 per cent globally. Further, investor base of mutual funds has been narrow, as retail investors constitute 98 per cent of folios but contributed only 58 per cent of investments in September 2014. To broaden the investor base for mutual funds in India, it remains imperative to understand the determinants of investment behaviour of investors towards mutual funds. This study aims to achieve this objective.

Based on the theory of planned behaviour, the study examined the effect of awareness, attitude (perception for outcome) and socioeconomic conditions of an investor on his investment behaviour towards mutual funds with the logit model. The results are based on 450 valid responses from the primary survey in Delhi-NCR.

The research provided that investment behaviour could be explained with awareness, perception and socioeconomic characteristics of individual investors. Better awareness related to various aspects of mutual funds will have a positive effect on investment in mutual funds. Contrary to belief, risk perception for mutual funds had no effect on the investment decision. Further, socioeconomic characteristics such as age, gender, occupation, income and education of investors had an impact on the awareness about mutual funds.

As the study has been confined to Delhi-NCR, it should be considered a pilot study and needs to be replicated in other states of India to have more robust results.

The study has implications for mutual funds and regulators. The study highlights a lack of awareness about mutual funds among particular sections of society as a reason for non-investment in mutual funds. The mutual funds and regulators need to focus on females, older age groups and middle-income groups in their efforts to improve their awareness about mutual funds. This would improve their investor base and flow of funds in mutual funds. Furthermore, the process of investment in mutual funds needs to simplified.

In an Indian context, this study has been the first attempt to understand the systematic relation between actual investment behaviour towards mutual funds and various determinants such as socioeconomic characteristics, awareness and attitude (perception) about mutual funds.

The purpose of this paper is to determine redesigned product profiles to maximize Erzurum Civil cheese consumption satisfaction of Turkish consumers under an ordinal utility approach.

Data were obtained from a survey conducted in Erzurum in 2014. A conjoint analysis was used to determine the utilities of each level along with the relative importance of Erzurum Civil cheese attributes for measuring the consumption satisfaction as an indicator of the purchase decision and priorities of Turkish consumers.

The results of the study clearly highlighted that Erzurum Civil cheese consumption satisfaction was maximized with the augmented and actual product images redesigned by a private-labelled and local-branded simple product with the highest and medium prices based on organic production techniques for heavy and light consumers, respectively. However, medium consumers appreciated the core benefit obtained from the credence quality attributes supported by the generic branded simple cheese with the lowest price purchased directly from the farmstead villages. Eventually, these marketing tactics and strategies could increase demand, maximizing the cheese consumption and satisfaction of Turkish consumers in each cluster. They could also provide greater consumption satisfaction to Turkish consumers as well as bigger marginal contributions to the market dynamics of the food supply chain.

This study was the first research conducted on Erzurum Civil cheese consumption satisfaction of Turkish consumers using innovative approaches and brand designations, such as Protected Designation of Origin, Protected Geographical Indication, and Traditional Specialty Guaranteed in Turkey using the conjoint and k-mean cluster analyses techniques.

This article demonstrates the application of geodemographic segmentation to the service industry by using commercial banking as a case example.

Data were collected through self‐administered questionnaires. Two sets of variables were used to profile market segments.

Study results indicate that there are substantial differences between customers of local and national US banks in their evaluation of the relative importance of bank service charges and overall confidence in the bank. Compared to national banks, local banks were evaluated more positively by customers in areas such as extra services offered by the bank, image of the bank, and convenience of the bank.

More focused and concentrated marketing strategies are suggested to achieve better local bank performance.

Puerto Rico (PR) is among the US jurisdictions with the lowest passing rates on the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam (National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA), 2016, 2017). No prior studies have addressed this issue. To fill this gap, the authors conducted a survey among candidates to examine the factors perceived as challenges on the exam. The authors also studied the relationship between respondents’ individual, educational, and CPA exam-related characteristics and the likelihood of success on the exam. Results reveal there are three factors perceived by respondents as their main challenges: level of technical difficulty, cost of the exam, and not enough time to study for the exam. Additional analysis indicates that age, major Grade Point Average, weekly study hours, and the time interval between graduation and the first attempt at the exam are significant factors that affect the passing rates on the exam. These findings suggest that a combination of individual, educational, and exam-related factors affect Puerto Rican candidates’ results on the exam. The socioeconomic background of PR may heighten the impact of such factors. Considering that the accounting profession is always adapting to the evolutionary demands of the business environment, these results may contribute to the development of adequate measures in support of Puerto Rican and other minorities with diverse backgrounds.

This paper aims to study how diabetics/pre-diabetics (D) and non-diabetic (regular consumers of sweeteners (C) or not (NC)) perceive and consume sweetened processed food in Brazil.

A cross-sectional study (n = 2,204) was carried out to gather information about: consumption of 14 sweetened food/beverage categories, perception of sugar/sweeteners (check-all-that-apply (CATA) test), understanding of sugar claims and socioeconomic/demographic/consume profile. Chi-square test/Fisher exact tests were used to analyze the contingency tables. CATA test results were evaluated using Cochran Q test, RV coefficient and Kruskal-Wallis test.

Results revealed that although diabetics/pre-diabetics consumed less sugary products than non-diabetics (p < 0.001), >50.0% of them preferred sugary candies, bakeries, ready-to-drink fruit juice, ice cream, chocolate and ready-to-eat desserts. D, NC and C similarly perceived (RV = 0.99) sugar (sensory desirable, but penalized due to its health impact), naturally extracted sweeteners (opposite description of sugar) and chemically synthesized sweeteners (penalized by sensory and health impacts). Regarding the claims, those that mean the absence of sugar were correctly understood for = 90.0% participants, while incorrect interpretations were observed for “containing sugars from own ingredients” (42.7%) and “light on sugar” (21.0%), without differences between consumer groups (p = 0.93).

This study was carried out with a convenience sample.

Results can be applied to support food policies and educational campaigns (improving consumer information on processed sweetened foods) and to guide product development in the food industry.

This is the first study to evaluate the Brazilians’ behavior regarding the perception of sugar and sweeteners, the choice of different sweetened processed food, and understanding of sugar claims.

This paper aims to propose a dynamic multidimensional approach to identify the middle class and then to reliably study the structural changes that have marked it in terms of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and aspirations.

This study uses Moroccan data from the 2007 and 2014 household expenditure surveys. The method consists in applying a factor analysis of mixed data on a set of variables inspired by Bourdieu’s concepts of social space and forms of capital, then performing a hierarchical ascending classification consolidated by the k-means clustering, along with adopting the same indicators and weighting for both years studied to ensure reliable comparison.

The classification results identified three social classes whose changing size reveals a decline of the lower class and an expansion of the upper and middle classes. Some characteristics of the middle class are becoming close to those of the upper class, like fertility behavior, while a significant gap remains between the two classes in other characteristics, like education. Moreover, middle-class perceptions reflect their downgrading, confirming that the so-called decline of the middle class is more related to feelings than to objective realities.

Middle class studies are generally based on a single criterion (income or consumption) with somewhat arbitrary boundaries that are often ill-suited to developing countries. This paper proposes a new dynamic multidimensional approach to overcome these problems while adopting a new technique for reliable intertemporal comparisons.

A woman's nutritional status significantly determines her overall well-being. The authors critically examine the trends — including socioeconomic disparities — in undernutrition among Muslim women in India, a notably socio-economically disadvantaged group. The authors also investigate trends and variations across the dimensions of caste, place of residence (rural/urban), education, economic status and geographic regions.

The analysis leverages the nationally representative National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) of India conducted between 1998 and 2021. The authors examined poor–rich ratios, concentration indices, disparity ratios and predicted probabilities of being underweight (captured using Body Mass Index).

From 1998 to 2021, there has been a decline in undernutrition prevalence among Muslim women. However, stark socioeconomic variations persist. While the prevalence has decreased over time across all socioeconomic groups, disparities — both within and between groups — remain significant and, in many cases, have expanded. For certain socioeconomic subgroups (e.g. Muslim women with no formal education or those in the Central and Northeast regions), the disparity doubled between 1998 and 2021. In regions like the South, where undernutrition prevalence is low or has reduced, disparities remain significant and generally have increased.

To the authors’ knowledge, the study is the first to provide a comprehensive examination of the prevalence, trends and socioeconomic disparities in undernutrition among Muslim women in India over the past two decades.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-04-2023-0320

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the factors that influence the mindset of youth in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in choosing entrepreneurship as their future employment. It also suggests the pathway to improve the role of the universities as strategic drivers in inducing an entrepreneurial mindset.

An exhaustive literature review of extant research followed by an exploratory study was conducted. Furthermore, to understand factors influencing the role of universities, interpretive structural modelling methodology is applied to evolve a hierarchy-based relationship among the strategic factors.

The results of empirical research suggest that young people in the UAE rank entrepreneurship as their first employment choice. However, most of them have not attended any formal entrepreneurship-related course in school or in college. The study also suggests that individual and environmental factors influence the entrepreneurial mindset of both males and females in the UAE. The structural model developed in the study indicates that to give an impetus to the entrepreneurial mindset, the government must create a supporting environment with UAE universities playing the role of a catalyst.

Professional entrepreneurship instruction is seen as a strategic tool to stimulate financial and societal growth. The results could provide insights for both entrepreneurship educators and policymakers and will boost their commitment to promote the entrepreneurial mindset within UAE society by enhancing and developing traits associated with entrepreneurial success. The results support recognition of the factors that induce educational programmes and economic incentives targeted at the development of sustainable entrepreneurial culture and ventures in the UAE.

The study is an effort to highlight the role of higher education in envisaging and cultivating entrepreneurs in a fast-growing developing country through a survey and a hierarchy-based model.

The objective of this study is to ascertain the financial literacy (FL) of the farmers in three South Asian economies (India, Bangladesh and Pakistan). Further, an effort was made to explore various demographic and socioeconomic antecedents of FL of the farmers.

The study used secondary data of 11,025, 782 and 657 farmers from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively from Financial Inclusion Insights (2017) database. “Big five” FL questions were used to measure the FL of the farmers. Appropriate statistical techniques and censored Tobit regression were used to identify the determinants of such FL.

Bangladeshi farmers (48.75%: Moderate) were found to exhibit greater FL as compared to Pakistani (38.96%: Poor) and Indian (32.61%: Poor) farmers. The outcome of the study revealed that the farm ownership and educational attainment of the farmers significantly determined FL of the farmers in all three Asian countries. Financial confidence and gender were observed to exacerbate a positive influence on the level of FL of farmers belonging to India and Pakistan. Age, marital status, financial inclusion and economic status were found to be the major determinants of FL of Indian farmers.

There is a dearth of studies in the scholarship examining the FL of farmers in both developed and developing economies. The present study makes an original contribution to the literature by unearthing FL amongst farmers and its determinants in three South Asian economies using a large sample of 12,464 farmers for the first time.

The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2022-0776