Kent L. Granzin

Influencing consumers’ selection of domestic versus imported products: Implications for marketing based on a model of helping behavior

Recent marketing campaigns have urged American consumers to “Buy American.” Marketers can improve the success of their campaigns if they understand the network of influences that lead American consumers to help threatened domestic workers. Consumers’ cooperation in purchasing domestic products may be viewed as a form of help for American workers whose jobs are threatened by the success of imported products. This study presents a model designed to explain consumers’ willingness to help these workers. Survey data were subjected to structural equation analysis to test the model. Results confirmed willingness to help is influenced by the salience of the problem, identification with the workers, inequity of the situation, felt similarity with the workers, empathy with the workers, and the costs of helping. These findings suggest ways to market the Buy American theme.

Americans’ Choice of Domestic over Foreign Products: A Matter of Helping Behavior?

Abstract Increasing sales of imported products in the United States have cost the jobs of many American workers, leading labor unions and other industry groups to promote a “Buy American” theme to American consumers. As a means of explaining consumers’ purchase of domestic products, this study developed and tested a model comprising constructs from the literature related to helping behavior. Findings based on survey data and structural equation analysis showed that purchase of domestic products is negatively related to consumers’ perceived costs of helping, and positively related to internalized responsibility for helping, a feeling of sharing a common fate with the workers, a perception of similarity with the workers, a social concern for members of the society, an ethnocentric orientation, and patriotism. These findings hold implications for both promoting the “Buy American” theme and for future research into the subject.

Motivational Influences on “Buy Domestic” Purchasing: Marketing Management Implications from a Study of Two Nations

“Buy domestic” promotions in various countries often urge citizens to help domestic workers whose jobs are threatened by imports. To explain why purchasers might engage in buy domestic purchase activities, the authors develop and test a model that features six explanatory constructs drawn from previous behavioral research about why people help distressed victims. The authors use multiple-group structural equation analysis of survey data from Portugal and the United States to test the model. The results strongly support the model and are quite consistent for both nations. In both nations, supportive purchase-related behavior increases as purchasers feel competent to help; believe that the threat from imports is salient; perceive social influences that support helping; hold values that derogate foreigners but support domestic citizens; and, for the United States only, perceive lower personal costs of helping. These findings suggest implications for buy domestic promotions.

Consumer logistics: Conceptualization, pertinent issues and a proposed program for research

This article provides a basic conceptual foundation for a new field of study that considers the decisions and activities of consumers within a logistics framework. Five subsystems in industrial logistics, as suggested by Bowersox (1978), furnish the conceptual underpinnings for this work. The article explores various issues related to a program of study of the field of consumer logistics, and it proposes problems to be investigated, as well as means for their investigation.

A New Explanation for Students’ Course Evaluation Tendencies

This study of the student course evaluation process discovered significant correlations between course ratings and variables representing commitment and course-end attitudes toward the course. It found relationships of lesser significance for attitude change measures, while demographics provided generally nonsignificant correlations. Stepwise regression equations developed for their power to predict course ratings relied most heavily on course-end attitude variables. Factor analysis of the variable set revealed 6 factors underlying the course evaluation structure studied, and this analysis guided formulation of new regression equations having reduced predictive power but greater independence among included predictor variables. Conclusions focused on the study’s contributions to understanding the course evaluation process and suggested steps an instructor might take to improve his ratings.

Using channels constructs to explain dealers' willingness to help manufactures combat counterfeiting

Abstract A manufacturer seeking to manage a program to combat counterfeiting of its products must have the help of its dealers in implementing the policies and procedures of the program. We report the findings of a structural investigation into the influence of dependence, control, channel conflict, and satisfaction on the dealers willingness to help an auto parts manufacturer combat counterfeiting. Data were supplied by a sample of managers of auto parts stores selected from Yellow Page listings in the southern United States. The results of the analysis support the fit between the data and the model as a whole, and four of the eight direct effects and eight of nine total effects are supported. The findings lead to the conclusion that a manufacturer can engender cooperativeness by nurturing satisfaction and dependence in manufacturer-dealer relationships. Further, management practices that induce higher satisfaction and dependence, but lower conflict and control, will enhance a manufacturers ability to gain the help of retailers.

Economic Development and Channel Structure: A Multinational Study

Scholars have often conceptualized a relationship between economic development and channel structure, but the few empirical investigations have been severely limited in scope. This study conceptualizes a multidimensional relationship in terms of eight domains of development and three elements of channel structure. An empirical test of the conceptualization used secondary data on economic development and primary data on the structure of the channel for cereal grains from 53 countries. Based on 17 measures of development, the findings indicate all eight domains are related to at least one of these elements of channel structure: wholesaler size, retailer size, or channel length.

Benefit segmentation in the restaurant industry

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between personal values, demographics, life style, concern for nutrition, eating patterns, restaurant patronage patterns, and required benefits. To accomplish this, consumers were first clustered into four segments based on benefits sought in food preparation and food consumption. Second, univariate ANOVA and discriminant analysis are used to determine the nature of the hypothesized relationships. It was found that benefits are influenced by demographics, personal values, concernfor nutrition, and eating patterns. The data also suggest that required benefits influence restaurant patronage patterns.

Consistency Theory as an Explanation of Students’ Course Evaluation Tendencies

In an attempt to gain insight into factors influencing college course evaluations, 759 students were questioned at both the beginning and end of the term concerning their feelings about the instructor and course, and about their expectations concerning their grade achievement. Propensity to revise grade expectation over the term did not relate to propensity to revise course evaluation. Those who did revise grade expectation, however, significantly more often than not shifted their evaluation in the same direction. This change in expected grade related more closely to evaluation change than did measures employing grade deserved and actual grade received

End-User Contribution to Logistics Value Co-Creation: A Series of Exploratory Studies

ABSTRACT Recently, retailers have been investing in technology-based platforms such as mobile applications to involve more of their customers in logistical value co-creation activities. Therefore, it would be important to guide these efforts by providing the retailers with a list of various consumer logistics value co-creation activities and help them better organize their technological investments by categorizing these functions. The objective of this study is to explore the logistics activities through which the end users can contribute to co-creation of value based on the notions of Service-Dominant Logic. A series of 4 exploratory survey studies revealed 10 end-user logistics functions and important implications for practice.