Chris Baumann

Prediction of attitude and behavioural intentions in retail banking

Purpose – This research seeks to explore the factors predicting customer loyalty in retail banking. Loyalty was measured in terms of a customers willingness to recommend a bank and their intention to remain with their main bank short‐term (in the next six months) and long‐term (from six months to five years).Design/methodology/approach – The study was based on a mail survey of 1,951 individuals. Potential predictors were drawn from the literature and included in three separate regression models to model different types of loyalty.Findings – The results indicate that willingness to recommend is best predicted by affective attitude, overall satisfaction and empathy. Short‐term behavioural intentions, however, were best predicted by overall satisfaction and responsiveness, while long‐term intentions were predicted by overall satisfaction, affective attitude and empathy. The three models explained a substantial amount of the variation in the dependent variables: 71 per cent for willingness to recommend, 43 p...

Modelling customer loyalty in financial services: A hybrid of formative and reflective constructs

Purpose – Customer loyalty is a focal concern for marketers who seek to identify its antecedents and causal structure with the aim of better understanding, predicting and managing loyalty. The purpose of this paper is to model both current behaviour (measured as share of wallet) and future intentions as measures of customer loyalty, to quantify the link between current and future behaviour.Design/methodology/approach – A hybrid model, combining reflective and formative constructs, was developed, moving away from the traditional “reflective only” approach to explain customer loyalty. New predictors such as variety seeking, “resistance to change” and risk taking behaviour were tested to explain loyalty.Findings – While “risk” is traditionally viewed as a key variable in financial services, this study finds that variety seeking and “resistance to change” predicted current behaviour and future behavioural intentions better than risk. Higher explanatory power and better model fit was found for a hybrid model c...

The role of culture, competitiveness and economic performance in explaining academic performance: a global market analysis for international student segmentation

A nations culture, competitiveness and economic performance explain academic performance. Partial Least Squares (PLS) testing of 2252 students shows culture affects competitiveness and academic performance. Culture and economic performance each explain 32%; competitiveness 36%. The model predicts academic performance when culture, competitiveness and economic performance vary. A three-tier market categorisation enhances academic performance.

Share of wallet in retail banking : a comparison of Caucasians in Canada and Australia vis-à-vis Chinese in China and overseas Chinese

Purpose – This study aims to investigate investing and borrowing behavior in retail banking between ethnic groups, specifically the Caucasians vis‐a‐vis the Chinese.Design/methodology/approach – A total sample of 645 Caucasians and Chinese in Australia, Canada and China were tested for their level of business assigned to their main banks, defined as share of wallet (SOW) in this study. The study applied multivariate analyses.Findings – No significant differences were found between the ethnic Chinese in Australia and Canada in comparison to their counterparts in mainland China, or compared with the Caucasians in Australia and Canada. This finding of convergence suggests that ethnic Chinese have adapted to the local banking behavior. The ethnic Chinese in Australia and Canada assigned 81‐88 percent of their assets to their main banks, in comparison to only 72 percent for their counterparts in China and 73 percent for the Caucasians. As such, the ethnic Chinese in Australia and Canada have developed their ow...

Competitiveness and workforce performance: Asia vis-à-vis the “West”

Purpose The purpose of this eight-country study is to examine what drives performance at the individual worker’s level and compare the explanatory power of such drivers between emerging, newly developed and developed markets around the globe. Design/methodology/approach The study combines established behavioural theory developed in a Western context with three factors anticipated to be most relevant in Asia (competitive attitude, willingness to serve and speed) as drivers of workforce performance. Four thousand working and middle-class respondents from eight countries were sampled. The associations were tested using structural equation modelling, and workforce performance was measured using univariate analysis. Findings Three country clusters emerged from the research: emerging economies in Asia (Indonesia, India), where the three factors powerfully explain performance; “Confucian orbit countries” (China, Japan, Korea), where the factors explain 81-93 per cent; and highly developed Western countries (the USA, the UK, Germany), where the factors account for only 20-29 per cent. Practical implications As well as providing a framework for modelling workforce performance, particularly in Asian countries, the findings indicate that workforce performance should be incorporated in performance indexes. The findings as to which drivers best explain workforce performance in each country can inform workforce recruitment and management, as well as the location of businesses and outsourcing. Originality/value For the first time, the study addresses the anomaly between economic growth and development experienced by Asian countries and their relatively low rankings in global competitiveness indexes by making the link between workforce performance and country performance.

Work ethic formed by pedagogical approach: evolution of institutional approach to education and competitiveness

Abstract The literature establishes that education drives competitiveness and economic performance, but the extent education impacts ‘work ethic’ remains untested. Our study analyses panel data from 10 countries to ascertain the pedagogical approach’s role in forming work ethic. The model explains 10–37% of work ethic, suggesting the pedagogical approach in education does influence work ethic. Given East Asia’s recent performance economically and educationally, Western countries soon turn to that region to understand how education systems instil work ethic through discipline and focus on academic performance. Asia and the West need to consider the role educational institutions play towards countries’ economic objectives.

Corporate social responsibility in financial services: A comparison of Chinese and East Asian banks vis‐à‐vis American banks

Purpose – This study compares the associations between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and brand value in the financial services industry in East Asia and the USA.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 84 major banks in East Asia (China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) and the USA is used to test the links between CSR and brand value using ANOVA and multiple regressions.Findings – Brand value is positively related to CSR for the entire sample, but is associated with distinctively different CSR factors depending on the geographic markets. In Japan and South Korea brand value is associated with a banks appreciation for its employees, while in China, brand value is linked to a focus on the community. East Asias culture is rooted in Confucianism, a philosophy that emphasises caring for the “greater good” (i.e. for the community) and for ones subordinates. In contrast, Americans are more concerned with “green” issues, and subsequently caring for the environment is associated with brand va...

Developing a new model for tracking brand equity as a measure of marketing effectiveness

Measuring the performance of marketing initiatives has been a long standing problem. Marketing performance can be measured from different perspectives such as effectiveness or efficiency. This study emphasising on effectiveness considers brand equity as a measure of marketing effectiveness. Reviewing the literature we address brand equity shortcomings and discuss them in terms of four categories: subjectivity of metrics, auditability of survey-based data, shortterm/long-term horizon, and tracking versus measuring. The weaknesses exposed above in the measurement and tracking of brand equity suggest that a different approach is needed. This paper proposes a new methodology for tracking brand equity by employing objective behavioural metrics rather than subjective intangible measures. Such an approach would be based on the use of firms’ internal data to track the changes in brand equity by tracking the changes in its behavioural metrics in the long-term period.

Graduate Business Education: Profiling Successful Students and Its Relevance for Marketing and Recruitment Policy

The authors conducted an analysis of 1,049 graduates from post-graduate business programs at an Australian university primarily to determine whether students from nonbusiness backgrounds, after completing a business preparation program, perform at the same academic level as students with prior studies in business. The authors found that students from business and nonbusiness backgrounds perform equally well. Another objective was to test the associations between additional student-related variables and academic performance for profiling successful postgraduate students. The authors found that younger postgraduate students and those who are more proficient in English achieve higher GPA scores. Student profiling is relevant for determining marketing and recruitment policy.

School Discipline, School Uniforms and Academic Performance.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of school discipline in achieving academic performance. The study aims to clarify the role of permissive vis-a-vis authoritative teaching styles with an overarching hypothesis that better discipline leads to better academic performance. The authors also probe whether uniformed students have better discipline. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyse Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment data on school discipline dimensions: students listening well, noise levels, teacher waiting time, students working well, class start time. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc analysis on five geographic groups established by Baumann and Winzar (2016) was applied to test for geographic differences (Europe, Americas, Far East Asia, Rest of Asia, Anglo-Saxon cluster) in school discipline. ANOVA was further used to test for school discipline and academic performance. Third, t-tests on fi...