Michelle Hough

Crisis Planning in Small Businesses:: Importance, Impetus and Indifference

This study examines crisis planning in a survey of small businesses. It specifically focuses on the perceived importance of crisis planning by small business managers. In particular, we investigate whether the experience of an actual crisis event by a business generates concern for future crises, if concern is generated more from the occurrence of a crisis event or from the presence of a crisis management team. Results of the study indicate that crisis planning receives little attention in the small businesses surveyed, and for most small business managers, an actual crisis event must occur before crisis planning becomes a concern. Concern for crises is generated by experiencing crisis events, rather than by the presence of crisis management teams. It was found that even those businesses that had previously experienced crises did not have crisis management teams.

Email end users and spam: relations of gender and age group to attitudes and actions

Abstract As the problem of spam email increases, we examined users’ attitudes toward and experience with spam as a function of gender and age. College-age, working-age, and retirement-age men and women were surveyed. Most respondents strongly disliked receiving spam yet took few actions against it. There were fewer gender differences than predicted, but age was a significant predictor of several responses. Retirement age men rated themselves as significantly lower in expertise than did working age men, and the oldest and youngest age groups took fewer actions against spam, used the computer less often, and spent fewer hours online than did the working age respondents. Older respondents were more likely than younger ones to report making a purchase as a result of a spam email and received the same amount of spam as other age groups in spite of lower overall use of the computer. The results suggest both that older computer users may be more vulnerable to spam, and that the usability of email for all users may be threatened by the inability of users to effectively take action against spam.

Increasing elder consumer interactions with information technology

Purpose – Advances in health care are enabling individuals to live longer, healthier lives. Although the use of information technology can improve the quality of life for the elderly, many older consumers choose to limit their interactions with information technology and so may be denied its potential benefits for enhancing quality of life. This paper seeks to explore factors impacting the engagement of consumers aged 65 and older with higher forms of IT, primarily PCs and the internet, and to examine the potential effectiveness of marketing methods toward improving diffusion and increasing engagement.Design/methodology/approach – Citing published research and using previously known models (TAM and Trocchia and Jandas interaction themes) the study highlights possible ways of using marketing tools to increase elder consumer interaction with IT.Findings – Marketers should focus efforts on reference group affiliation, nature of social relations, perception of reality, and physical dexterity as the interacti...

Uses and Gratifications of Digital Signage and Relationships with User Interface

본 연구는 디지털 사이니지의 이용과 충족과 관련된 동기 요인을 탐색하고 이용과 충족이 유저인터페이스에 미치는 영향 관계를 제안한 연구 모델을 검증하는 것을 목적으로 한다. 표본은 미국의 이용자들을 대상으로 아마존 엠터크를 활용하여 일반인 표본을 수집하였다. 연구결과 디지털 사이니지의 동기 요인은 편리한 정보(convenient information), 오락(entertainment), 혜택(benefits)이라는 것을 알았다. 이러한 이용과 충족 동기 요인들은 유저 인터페이스의 어포던스 지각과 통제에 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 유저 인터페이스 요인 사이에서의 관계를 보면 어포던스가 통제에 영향을 미치고 통제는 디지털 사이니지 경험에 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 추가적으로 이용과 충족 요인 중 혜택 요인은 디지털 사이니지 이용 경험에 직접적으로 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 결과는 디지털 사이니지 연구자들과 옥외광고 담당자들에게 의미 있는 시사점을 제공하고 있다.ABSTRACT This study explores motivational factors related to digital signage (DS) uses and gratification and evaluates the viability of a suggested research model incorporating user interface. We found convenient information, entertainment, and benefits to be motivational factors of DS uses and gratification. These factors influenced the perceived affordance and active control of user interface. Among user interface constructs, affordance affected active control, which in turn influenced user experiences of DS. In addition, this study found that the factor of benefits also directly influenced user experiences. These results reveal important insights to DS researchers as well as to out-of-home advertisers and marketers.

Cultural Differences among Young Adult Consumers in Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea

ABSTRACT This study examines Northeast Asian consumer cultural dimensions and their differences by using Hong Kong, Japanese, and Korean college students as initial data points. While the cultural dimensions of Northeast Asia cannot be represented fully by this limited analysis, these data points provide preliminary insights toward more thoroughly mapping Northeast Asian culture. Common cultural dimensions of normativeness, communitarianism, conservatism, personality expression, and connectedness were identified in this study. Statistically significant differences were found in communitarianism (p < .01), conservatism (p < .001), and connectedness (p < .001). Specifically, Korea is higher than Japan in communitarianism, and Korea and Hong Kong are higher than Japan in conservatism. For connectedness, Japan and Hong Kong are higher than Korea. Also, differences in consumer culture are found. Japan is lower than Korea and Hong Kong in perceptions of promotion and additional values. Korea is higher than Hong Kong and Japan in emotional advertising.