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This paper presents a model of government saving in order to examine several questions regarding the personal and professional saving preferences or inclinations of a national sample of local government finance managers. First, is personal propensity to save related to a preference for local government saving? Second, is personal propensity to spend related to the finance managers' opinions about their local government's spending? Third, what are the determinants of finance managers' propensity to save or spend, both personally and for their local government? Results confirm that finance managers have a personal propensity to save and a positive view toward local government saving. The opposite, propensity to spend, is also influenced by personal preference. Determinants of these behaviors are explored.

This paper aims to examine whether social comparison in a prior, nonconsumption circumstance (e.g. in an academic setting) affects consumers’ materialism and subsequent spending propensity, and explores the incidental feeling of envy as the underlying mechanism.

Four experiments have been conducted to test these hypotheses. Study 1 manipulated social comparison in an academic domain, and measured undergraduate students’ materialism after they compared themselves to a superior student or to an inferior student. Study 2 used a recall task to manipulate social comparison and examine the mediating role of envy. Study 3 examined which of the two types of envy (benign or malicious) affected materialism. Study 4 examined the downstream consequences on spending propensity in both public and private consumption contexts.

The results suggest that consumers place greater importance on material goods and are more likely to spend money on publicly visible products after making upward social comparisons than after making downward social comparisons or no comparisons. Furthermore, envy acts as the mediator for the observed effect of incidental social comparison on materialism.

First, this study improves our understanding of the consequences of social comparison and envy by demonstrating that incidental envy (both benign and malicious) experienced in a prior, unrelated social comparison can motivate materialistic pursuits. Second, the present research contributes to the compensatory consumption literature by revealing that, in a social comparison context, envy is the affective underpinning that gives rise to the motivation to engage in compensatory consumer behavior. Third, the findings also enrich materialism research by exploring an important situational antecedent in driving materialistic orientation.

Spending constraints in state budgets have resulted in a need to evaluate the effects of alternative budgeting techniques. We study public school administrations, where improvements in budgetary processes could help align system goals with reduced levels of funding. A budgeting technique, called strategic budgeting (SB), emphasizing information symmetry and mutual monitoring, is investigated in a nonprofit setting by comparing it to a traditional budgeting (TB) method. The experiment finds that the effect of reduced spending previously discovered in a corporate setting are also evident in a not-for-profit setting. Results indicated an overall cost savings with SB of almost 25 percent. Public school administrators made spending decisions in a hypothetical three-year task and provided comments to justify their decisions. These comments along with anecdotal evidence from prior field research indicate that collaborative characteristics in a budget format may reduce unnecessary spending.

Prior research indicates that incorporating information symmetry into budgeting processes can reduce slack. This study investigates a new budgeting format, Strategic Budgeting, which incorporates information symmetry via mutual monitoring through a “group budget buffer”, or pool, that supports funding non-budgeted expenditures. Department managers must seek approval from other managers to use pooled funds. We compare this budget format to a traditional format, which does not incorporate information symmetry, and investigate differences in spending decisions among managers. The results overwhelmingly show that groups using Strategic Budgeting spent less of a budget excess than those using Traditional Budgeting. The effect of the availability of unspent funds for a subsequent year's budget was also compared, with results indicating that this factor may potentially mitigate benefits gained from information symmetry over time. This study is the first to experimentally examine the effects of this new type of budgeting technique, as compared to Traditional Budgeting, on managerial budgeting behavior.

This paper aims to investigate the macroeconomic effects of Qard-al-Hasan (QH) as a tool of monetary policy (MP) and its effectiveness in achieving full employment and price stability in the economy.

QH-based MP and its effects on major macroeconomic variables are examined on theoretical ground by using the standard aggregate output and aggregate expenditure model within the framework of Islamic economic principles.

QH-based MP positively influences real sectors of the economy and increases output, and the economy returns to full employment. QH provides the lowest possible borrowing costs across the economy and thus triggers rightward shift in aggregate supply curve and thus increases output and lowers price level. In addition, increase in output eliminates excess demand or shortages and thus maintains price stability. Furthermore, QH-based MP also increases exportable surplus and exports, decreases imports as well as increases inflow of funds and foreign currency reserves with the Central Bank and thus makes MP more effective.

QH-based MP is usually expansionary MP, and as such, it can be argued that there is a probability that QH-based MP may lead to higher inflation rate. However, in this study, it has been shown with real world data in Table II, that 23 countries in Group 1 have pursued zero or negative interest rate policy and their experiences mitigate such probability.

This is, perhaps, the first paper that presents a complete model of QH as a tool of MP with fully explained transmission mechanism. This is new contribution in the literature of Islamic finance where theoretical model on QH is systematically developed and applied as an effective tool of MP in attaining full employment and price stability. This model of QH-based MP can unfold a new horizon of uninterrupted economic growth, full employment and price stability by increasing output and employment, as well as by eliminating excess demand or shortages.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate on the social wellbeing aspects of human sustainability. Linked to this is the investigation on how economic stability and social wellbeing are interactively integrated together to establish the stability along with sustainability. What is the nature of the global financial architecture? Why has it defied formation? Have the underlying theory of financial economic theory, its variables and indicators, and axioms of man and society in their midst, denied the actualization of the intended institution? How can the global stability and well-being criterion be established from coordinated level of global socioeconomic consciousness?

A generalized evaluation model addressing the “as is” and the “as it ought to be” scenarios is formalized. An illustrative empirical example is provided to chart such a method of empirics using the episteme of unity of knowledge and its various ramifications.

Thus, there is a general perspective overarching the selection of theory, variables and their inter-causal consequences that the global financial architecture cannot answer. The institutional structure envisioned thereby is not representative of the lateral aggregation of membership in prevailing socioeconomic understanding. Instead, a complex yet unifying aggregation is carried out to receive its global acceptance? The episteme of unity of knowledge (Tawhid) in the Islamic perspective along with its methodological formalism and empirical and strategic implications for sustainable global financial stability is presented as the unique and universal alternative.

More empirical analysis can be carried out by extending the critical portfolio variables and collecting data on them as required.

The paper evaluates the roots of human deprivation in an uncertain global order as being based on a quaint way of understanding socio-scientific reality and applying human consciousness toward its reconstruction. The paper then proposes an alternative and applied perspective of the opposite methodological worldview premised on unity of knowledge and unity of the world-system. This epistemology is referred to as Tawhid, meaning the oneness of God represented by organic unity in the order of everything.

Within the world-system, complex as it is, abide the epistemological foundations of economic, financial and social thought. Thereby, the analytical extraction derived from the episteme of unity of knowledge (Tawhid) exemplifies the ethical reconstruction and its application in rigorous ways to attain sustained global financial and social stability.

This paper has suggested that under the prevailing paradigm of thought and its institutionalism the future of global financial stability is not sustainable as it has proved in the recent past. Yet there is a different epistemological way of rethinking the world-system in general in its interconnected dimensions and taking the specific example of the financial economy. Upon such new reconstruction, an entirely new methodological and strategic worldview can be established. This is the methodological worldview of unity of knowledge and its formalism.

The case study has several objectives: to gauge the evaluation of the direct-to-consumer industry in the economy of India, to analyse the competition of the brands, to ascertain the evolution of smaller direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands on the purchasing capacity of consumers, to analyse challenges in branding in Tier 2 and 3 cities and to evaluate the strategic branding decisions of Mamaearth.

During her pregnancy, Ghazal Alagh and her husband Varun Alagh, the co-founders of Mamaearth, were looking for some good and natural products for their baby’s skincare. However, she could not find products that were 100% safe. Hence, as a concerned mother, she started using a few hands-on home remedies for her baby, which were 100% organic, and then the idea clicked to her to start a baby care brand named Mamaearth, which later also included personal care products. The company started as a DTC/internet-first brand in 2016, which only used to sell products online without any intermediaries when it was still trying to make its way in the market and was aware of the stiff competition by giants such as Hindustan Unilever and Proctor & Gamble, who were ruling the market for decades. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the market saw a shift in consumer buying patterns. There was greater use of e-commerce touch points for shopping, as various digital platforms such as the official site of products, social media and mobile platforms were used by consumers during the pandemic, leading to digitalization in buying and digitalization of consumer shopping journey. These technology platforms were expected to play a substantial role in reaching and creating consumer awareness, transaction and retention post-COVID according to reports by Deloitte 2020. Moreover, such a shift in behaviour amidst the COVID-19 pandemic shot up sales of this DTC brand and made itself the big shot it is today, where they were looking to get into an initial public offering in just seven years of its launch. They re-evaluated their strategy, which helped them become the biggest brand in no time.

This case study is suitable for Doctor of Philosophy students.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Previous research on salesperson-customer proximity has yielded mixed results, with some studies documenting positive proximity effects on shopping responses and others demonstrating the reverse. To reconcile such mixed findings, this paper aims to test whether and how salesperson proximity influences a series of key customer outcomes in actual retail settings using sample sizes that are considerably larger than most former investigations.

We conducted two high-powered field studies (N = 1,312) to test whether salesperson‐customer proximity influences consumers’ purchase behavior and store loyalty. Moreover, we investigated whether the short-term effects on purchase behavior were moderated by the extent to which the consumption context had a clear connection to consumers’ own bodies.

Salesperson proximity increased purchase incidence and spending in consumption contexts with a bodily basis (e.g. clothes, beauty, health), suggesting that consumers “buy their way out” in these contexts when a salesperson is violating their personal space. If anything, such proximity had a negative impact on consumers’ purchase behavior in contexts that lacked a clear bodily connection (e.g. building materials, furniture, books). Moreover, the link between proximity and consumer responses was mediated by discomfort, such that a salesperson standing close-by (vs farther away) increased discomfort, with negative downstream effects on shopping responses. Importantly, the authors found opposite proximity effects on short-term metrics (purchase incidence and spending) and long-term outcomes (store loyalty).

Drawing on the nonverbal communication literature and theories on processing fluency, the current work introduces a theoretically relevant boundary condition for the effects of salesperson-customer proximity on consumers’ purchase behavior. Specifically, the bodily basis of the consumption context is discussed as a novel moderator, which may help to explain the mixed findings in this stream of research.

Salesperson-customer proximity may serve as a strategic sales tactic to improve short-term revenue in settings that are closely tied to consumers’ own bodies and characterized by one-time purchases. However, as salesperson proximity was found to be associated with lower store loyalty, irrespective of whether the shopping setting had a bodily basis, the risk of violating consumers’ personal space may have costly consequences from a long-term perspective.

The present field studies make three central contributions. First, we introduce a novel moderator for proximity effects in various sales and service settings. Second, we test the focal hypotheses with much higher statistical power than most existing proximity studies. Finally, we document that salesperson-customer proximity ironically yields opposite results on short-term metrics and long-term outcomes, thus underscoring the importance of not solely focusing on sales effectiveness when training frontline employees.

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors influencing the financial attitudes of Indian women and then classifying Indian women based on these attitudes. These clusters are then studied for their characteristics.

Literature reviewed led to the identification of variables influencing financial attitude of women. Nine of these variables (anxiety, interest in financial issues, intuitive decisions, precautionary saving, free spending, materialistic and fatalistic attitude, propensity to plan for long and short-term financial goals) were put through confirmatory factor analysis. These factors were then used as a basis for cluster analysis. The study was conducted in the city of Nashik, India, in 2014-2015, using convenience sampling. A self-reported questionnaire was used for the survey.

Results of the study showed that only a third of the respondents did not buy any financial products. The most preferred financial products of Indian women were fixed deposits and insurance policies. Four clusters of women were identified, based on their financial attitudes – judicious consumers, conservative consumers, acquisitive consumers, unsure consumers. An analysis of the dispersion of the clusters shows that interest in financial issues has the greatest influence in the formation of clusters followed by the propensity to plan and materialistic attitude. Fatalistic attitude had the least influence in the formation of clusters.

The current study uses convenience sampling which is non-probability-based sampling and hence, lack generalizability of results. The sample for the current study is small, given the resource availability of the researcher and the unwillingness of women to participate in the survey.

The paper provides important insights for the marketers of financial services, in understanding the women consumers in the expanding Indian market.

An understanding of the women consumers would help marketers develop products and financial literacy programs that suit the requirements of each specific group. By doing so the programs and communcation would be more effective.

This paper discusses the financial attitudes and behavior of Indian women and further clusters these women based on their financial attitudes.