Alexandra Ganglmair-Wooliscroft

Subjective Well-Being of Different Consumer Lifestyle Segments

The enhancement of quality of life (QoL) is one of marketing’s contributions to society. It is frequently investigated using Subjective Well-Being (SWB)—a concept that focuses on individual’s perceived QoL. Consumer lifestyle segments are a modern day stratification tool that explores how people choose to use available resources to express and develop their status in a society. How SWB varies across New Zealand’s consumer lifestyle segments and potential explanations for the differences in perceived levels of satisfaction is investigated. While overall levels of SWB are influenced by available resources, the characteristics of lifestyle segments provide richer explanations for perceived differences in well-being. This information is useful for policy makers as a first stage to diagnose problems and to develop strategies. Ultimately, lifestyle segmentation may provide an effective basis for targeting interventions aimed at raising SWB in particular population groups.

Applying the international wellbeing index to investigate subjective wellbeing of New Zealanders with European and with Maori heritage

Abstract The International Wellbeing Index (IWI), a global measure for investigating subjective wellbeing, consists of a Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) and a National Wellbeing Index (NWI). The index is applied to the two largest ethnic populations in New Zealand—New Zealanders with European heritage and New Zealanders with Maori heritage. Psychometric characteristics of the IWI for both subsamples compare favourably to those found in other countries. However, for both subsamples, the absolute value of reported subjective wellbeing is lower than expected. Consistent with other social indicators, New Zealanders with Maori heritage show even lower values of PWI and NWI than New Zealanders with European heritage.

A comparison of affective response to consumption in two contexts

This paper applies Rasch Modelling, as an alternative measurement paradigm to the dominant Classical Test Theory, when investigating Affective Response to Consumption (ARC) — a construct examining unfavourable/favourable post-consumption emotions. ARC has been applied in two situations; when investigating experiences with a cell-phone provider and experiences of passengers on an excursion train. Although psychometric properties of the applications are comparable and favourable, a number of emotional terms included in the scale as well as their position differ, emphasizing the importance of context and semantics in post-consumption emotion measurement.

“Part of Me”: National Parks Integration Into the Extended Self of Domestic Tourists

Places, like national parks, provide value and meaning that helps define visitors’ identity. Grounded in the self-concept literature, this study explores the degree to which national parks are integrated into the extended self of domestic tourists. Contributing to limited research exploring extended self in a quantitative way, an extended self scale is adapted to measure place extended self, the degree to which place is integrated into the extended self. Using national parks in New Zealand, it is found that while the intensity to which places are integrated into the extended self varies widely across a population, it shows a low rate of decay over time. Consistent with previous research, personal benefits related to health and social life and also benefits related to existence value of national parks are important explanatory factors for the reported intensity of the destination’s integration into the extended self.

Ethical behaviour on holiday and at home: combining behaviour in two contexts

ABSTRACT Ethical consumption behaviour, on holiday and at home, is required to minimize future environmental and social damage. Ethical consumption is a prominent issue in the media and in academic research, but ethical behaviours remain limited among the general population. This research explores whether an underlying propensity to act ethically can be extended to behaviour across two life contexts, Ethical Tourist Behaviour (ETB) and Everyday Ethical Consumption Behaviour (ECB). We also examine whether ethical behaviour decreases on holiday as suggested by previous research. Using the Rasch Model, ethical behaviour on holiday and at home is combined into one ETB/ECB continuum and ethical behaviours in both life contexts are directly compared. In line with other research, our subjects undertake only a limited number of ethical behaviours, on holiday and at home. We find that tourists engage in ethical behaviours, but spill-over of ethical behaviour across the two contexts only occurs between situationally/environmentally similar behaviours, ethical behaviours whose underlying barriers are of similar difficulty in both life contexts. These results and this methodology can be used by tourism managers and policy-makers to explore current ethical behaviour and offer the next ethical steps to citizens.

Growth, Excess and Opportunities: Marketing Systems’ Contributions to Society

Exchange is seen through all living entities, but marketing systems and their complexity are one of the aspects that separate humans from other animals. Our marketing systems are complex and require trust in remote, and often never met or personally encountered, individuals. These marketing systems have significantly contributed to the development of humanity and our increasing length of life and standard of living. But, in the Western world we have gone beyond satisfying the needs of humans to an era of excess consumption that negatively impacts on not just our current environment and society, but our potential futures. At the same time vast numbers of people remain under provided for by marketing systems, living short lives with a low standard of living. Discussing the development of marketing systems and our current era of excess this paper provides a call to macromarketing researcher. It asks for research on big topics that will define the future of humanity, and potentially whether there will be one at all.

TOURIST INNOVATIVENESS & ETHICAL TOURIST BEHAVIOR

Ethical consumption, including ethical tourist behavior, is of growing importance to governments, companies and consumers and consumers increasingly act accordingly (Sheth, Sethia, & Srinivas, 2010). Most ethical tourist behaviors conform to service industry characteristics, being intangible, heterogeneous and fusing production and consumption. Adopting ethical tourist behaviors (ETBs) requires activities, practices or ideas that consumers perceive as new, components that are key characteristics of innovations (Goldsmith, d’Hauteville, & Flynn, 1998; Rogers & Shoemaker, 1971). Studies frequently explore environmentally friendly behavior of a specific tourist segment - existing eco-tourists (Dolnicar, Laesser, & Matus, 2010) and limit their focus to environmental issues. In line with the World Tourism Organization’s conceptualization that highlights the importance of environmental, cultural and sociological aspects (http://ethics.unwto.org/en/content/global-code-ethics-tourism), this research uses the term ethical tourist behavior and investigates the concept using a sample of ordinary tourists. Consumer innovativeness has been defined as the “degree to which an individual is relatively earlier in adopting an innovation than other members of his system” (Rogers and Shoemaker, 1971, p. 27). Innovativeness, the propensity to adopt, is focusing on an individual’s behavior relative to other people in a population (Goldsmith & Hofacker, 1991; Im, Bayus, & Mason, 2003). Diffusion of innovation, investigating the spread of an innovation through the population, is frequently modeled using an S-curve (Rogers, 1995). ETB includes a wide range of activities with the behavior expected to be cumulative; for example somebody who chooses to stay in tourist accommodations with environmental certification is also likely to recycle. Cumulative patterns fit the Rasch Model (RM) (Rasch 1960/80). Well established in education and psychology, the model gains increasing attention in marketing (for example Ewing, Salzberger, & Sinkovics, 2005; Ganglmair-Wooliscroft & Wooliscroft, 2013; Salzberger & Koller, 2013; Wooliscroft, Ganglmair-Wooliscroft, & Noone, 2014). The probabilistic RM is based on a mathematically elegant equation (Bond & Fox, 2007), specifying that people who undertake more extreme ethical tourist behavior will also have a higher probability of engaging in (and subsequently agreeing to or endorsing a) comparably easier ethical tourist behavior. Item Characteristic Curves (Bond & Fox, 2007) embody the theoretical curve for an item’s endorsability. If empirical answer patterns follow the theoretical curve (and a number of other fit statistics are satisfactory) the item fits requirements of the Rasch Model. This study develops an ETB hierarchy and explores parallels between characteristics of Rasch Modelling (Rasch, 1960/80) and the Adoption of Innovation (Rogers, 1995). Additionally, the study explores variables influencing the level of ETB, representing actualized ethical tourist innovativeness. The final ETB hierarchy contains of 27 ethical tourist behaviors that relate to a wide range of holidays. Using a cross-sectional sample of 322 respondents, representative of the population, the research finds that ethical tourist behavior diffuses through the population in a structured, ordered sequence, providing support for parallels between the Diffusion of Innovation Model (Rogers, 1995) and Rasch Model’s ICC characteristics. Most respondents undertake only a small range of ethical tourist behaviors, indicating that many ethical issues are at a very early stage of the diffusion process. The level of ethical tourist behavior adaption – operationalized through respondent’s position on the ETB hierarchy is influenced by high importance of universalism, age and gender.