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This study aims to examine the phenomenon of consumers' willingness to give permission to receive short message service (SMS) advertisements. The purpose of this research is threefold: to better understand the phenomenon of consumers' willingness to give permission to receive text message (SMS) advertisements, to provide empirical data that supports our understanding, and to develop and test a basic model of consumers' willingness to give permission to receive SMS advertisements.

The study utilised a multi‐method research approach with both qualitative and quantitative data – via focus group and scenario‐based survey.

The results show that even if the relevance of the advertisement is high it does not on its own make consumers give permission; it needs to be combined with the control over opt‐in conditions to assure consumers and gain permission. Regarding brand familiarity, this appears to have little impact on consumers' willingness to give permission to receive SMS advertisements. The opt‐in conditions valued the most are: the possibility to withdraw at any time, personal data disclosure only with consent, and mobile phone operators as a primary advertising filter.

The principal contribution of the paper is in furthering our understanding of the concept of permission as related to the emerging topic of SMS advertising. The paper provides evidence and data triangulation in an area that so far has had little empirical investigation.

Human needs and motivation are a central tenet of marketing discourse. In this exploratory study we attempt to understand the factors that drive individuals' higher‐order human needs in a relatively new electronic marketing context, that of virtual worlds.

The study employs the higher‐order needs from Abraham Maslow's hierarchy (i.e. belonging, esteem and self‐actualization) and a series of drivers related to the characteristics of the virtual world medium, personality characteristics, channel interaction, and demographic criteria. Data is collected via a survey delivered in Second Life (n=404) and analyzed using PLS path modeling.

Arousal, pleasure, and individualism act as particularly potent drivers of higher‐order needs in virtual world channels, while channel intensity, affinity for technology and gender act as lesser drivers.

An understanding of personal motivations affords us an insight into consumers' needs and wants and is a useful precursor to targeting them and in effectively fulfilling these needs. This has implications not only in a single channel but across multiple channels.

This study represents one of the first attempts to better understand consumer behavior in virtual world channels, and, by so doing, better inform our understanding of personal needs in the modern multi‐channel environment.

Online trust is one of the key obstacles to vendors succeeding on the internet medium; a lack of trust is likely to discourage online consumers from participating in e‐commerce. This research aims to investigate how online consumers develop their initial trust and purchase intentions. The research in conducted in the context of Taiwanese online bookstores.

The research examines consumers' online initial trust by using four major categories of determinants: perceived technology, perceived risk, company competency, and trust propensity. It also investigates the impacts of both online initial trust and familiarity with online purchasing on purchase intention. The research model is statistically tested using the web sites of four online bookstores in Taiwan. The web site selected by each respondent is unfamiliar.

It is found that perceived usefulness, perceived security, perceived privacy, perceived good reputation, and willingness to customise are the important antecedents to online initial trust. It is also discovered that different levels of trust propensity moderate perceptions toward the web site and online with respect to online initial trust, including perceived usefulness, perceived security, perceived privacy, perceived good reputation, and willingness to customise. Both online initial trust and familiarity with online purchasing have a positive impact on purchase intention.

The research provides insight into the development of online initial trust by consumers, and the relationships between online initial trust and purchase intention. The research model was created and then tested in the context of online bookshops in Taiwan.

As organizations have begun increasingly to communicate and interact with consumers via the Web, so the appropriate design of offerings has become a central issue. Attracting and retaining consumers requires acute understanding of the requirements of users and appropriate tailoring of solutions. Recently, the development of Web offerings has moved beyond the commercial domain to government, both national and international. This paper examines the results of a quality survey of a Web site provided by the OECD. The site is examined before and after a major redesign process. The instrument, WebQual, draws on previous work in Web site usability, information quality, and service interaction quality to provide a rounded framework for assessing e‐commerce and e‐government offerings. The metrics and findings demonstrate not only the strengths and weaknesses of the sites, but also the different impressions of users in member countries. These findings have implications for e‐government Web site offerings.

The application of the Internet to traditional business and administrative activities has introduced considerable digitisation and process automation. One key area of development from a research perspective is the use of electronic (e‐)surveys, based on Internet technology. E‐surveys can bring many benefits from a research perspective, including extremely low marginal costs, automation of processes, and the ability to collect and manage very large samples. However, experience in the use of e‐surveys has found considerable challenges in achieving a quality sample frame and response rates. This paper explores the development of an e‐survey tool for assessing information needs of growth enterprises in Brazil. A key learning from the use of the survey is the use of control methods for both improving the response rate, and, as a consequence, the sample frame.

Discusses the progress that has been made nationally with quality rehabilitation services for people with physical disabilities in terms of competence, respect, choice, accessibility and responsiveness. Finds implementation to be patchy, but gives examples of good practice. Suggests quality measures for hospital and community care components of rehabilitation services.

This research sets about discovering if it is possible to identify distinct, practice‐relevant and addressable clusters by means of selected criteria for constructing typologies – such as psychographic, culturally‐specific and purchasing behaviour‐relevant features – which permit an online supplier to efficiently and effectively focus on attractive consumer segments.

To answer the research question, the study conducted an online survey with 1,011 participants. The respondents were from three countries, each with culturally‐distinct features: France, Germany and the US. Underpinning the research are theoretically‐secured constructs of purchasing behaviour on the internet.

Cluster analysis confirmed the outstanding validity of a three‐cluster‐solution (97.7 per cent score) – risk‐averse doubters, open‐minded online shoppers, and reserved information‐seekers. Discriminant analysis shows that certain constructs, particularly “neuroticism”, “willingness to buy” and “shopping pleasure”, separate the clusters best.

An extension of our clustering approach to more countries and especially non‐western cultures promises interesting results. Furthermore, researchers are encouraged to enlarge the catalogue of clustering variables to allow an even more specific fine‐tuning of the main clusters identified in this research.

The classification created provides the potential for a much closer fit between a company's goods and services and heterogeneous customer needs.

The principal contribution of the paper is the identification of three different clusters of internet users. This can be of good use for shaping internet marketing, particularly by virtue of the likely stability over time from cultural and personality characteristics.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a conceptual model to predict the determinants of online channel use in a multi‐channel environment.

A case study of a free, multi‐channel entertainment magazine is used to statistically analyse a proposed model of customers' channel use (n=224) using an online survey of real consumers.

The findings in the paper confirm a number of determinants of consumer attitudes. Subjective norms and consumer attitudes positively affect behavioural intention to use and intentions directly relate to actual use. The results also indicate that three constructs (i.e. enjoyment, marketing efforts and age), one from each three main determinant groups (i.e. marketing variables, individual difference variables and channel attributes), are likely to be an accurate predictor of consumer attitudes.

The paper shows that enjoyment was an important factor among the younger, socially aware and somewhat hedonistically‐oriented consumers of the magazine. Firms should track consumer preferences from registration and then should try to create activities that give consumers enjoyment. Linking together of marketing efforts is very important. Advertising can be a great opportunity to grow online operations. Search engines and the use of incentives (prizes) can be useful in this regard. Firms should also advertise their web site through the offline channel or any places that can reach target consumers. A good mix of offline and online advertising can present a message and reinforce it for consumers in different channels.

This paper contributes towards understanding consumer behaviour in the online channel use context in a multi‐channel environment.