Corporate social reporting preferences in a developing country : evidence from Iran

This paper provides new empirical evidence regarding corporate social responsibility information needs, perceptions and preferences in a developing country, Iran. While there is substantial research which has examined CSR practice, little reference has been made to the needs of major ‘users’ in developing countries. Results show that users of CSR information favor the corporate annual report as the primary disclosure source. They identified information about environment as the most important CSR information. While respondents believe that the level of CSR information provided is insufficient, the overall levels of understandability and credibility are acceptable. Users also indicated that they would prefer to have government as opposed to professional regulations governing CSR disclosure. This is a significant examination specifically directed at major users of CSR information in Iran; the findings presented in this paper contribute as a platform for the evolution of CSR disclosure guidelines in developing countries.

Investigating well-being, work limitations and preferences for self-management education and peer support among younger people with hip and knee osteoarthritis: protocol for a cross-sectional study

Introduction: 

The effects of familiarity and group size on mating preferences in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata

In recent years, it has become evident that frequency dependence in the attractiveness of a particular phenotype to mates can contribute to the maintenance of polymorphism. However, these preferences for rare and unfamiliar male phenotypes have only been demonstrated in small, controlled experiments. Here, we tested the preference for unfamiliar mates in groups of six to 96 individuals over 13 days, in the guppy (Poecilia reticulata). We observed individual behaviour in situ to test whether fish discriminate two unfamiliar individuals among many familiar ones. We found that unfamiliar males and females were preferred over the familiar fishes in all groups and that this effect decayed over time. Increasing group sizes and levels of sexual activity did not hamper the preference for unfamiliar mates, providing further support for the role of frequency dependent mate choice in the maintenance of trait polymorphism in natural populations.

The Big Five and brand personality: investigating the impact of consumer personality on preferences towards particular brand personality

The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between consumer personality and brand personality as measured by constructs refl ecting The Big Five dimensions in the context of fashion products. The fi ndings of the study show that some dimensions of The Big Five constructs are signifi cantly related to preferences on particular dimensions of brand personality. It was found that consumers who exhibit a Conscientious personality demonstrate preferences towards ‘ Trusted ’ brands. In contrast, those who are Extrovert in nature are motivated by ‘ Sociable ’ brands. Findings related to gender reveal that male and female consumers differ in how they express their personality when it comes to brand personality. Male respondents who are dominant on the Neuroticism dimension prefer ‘ Trusted ’ brand, whereas ‘ Trusted ’ brand is preferred by females who are dominant on the Conscientiousness dimension. The results of this study will inform brand managers about how to tailor specifi c marketing strategies such that brand personalities communicated to consumers are congruent with their personalities.

Predicting brand preferences: an examination of the predictive power of consumer personality and values in the Australian fashion market

Purpose –
This paper aims to examine and compare the strength of personality and values in predicting brand preferences. It seeks to accomplish three main objectives. First, it will evaluate the strength of personality and values in predicting consumers' brand preferences. Second, it will examine whether values exercise a mediating role between personality and brand preferences. Finally, it will examine the mediating role of prestige sensitivity in influencing brand preferences.

Design/methodology/approach – 

A conceptual model of consumer personality-brand preferences relationship

There have been a significant number of studies that investigate the antecedents to customers in forming their brand preferences. However, there is a dearth of research devoted to examining the role of customer personality in marketing. This conceptual paper attempts to cover this gap through examining the relationships between consumer personality and brand preference. We developed a conceptual model which is based on the Big Five theory of personality and show how this could be applied to the marketing context. It is proposed that human personality has a significant relationship with brand preferences.

Testing the single-peakedness of other-regarding preferences

We test an implication that is common to all prominent theories of outcome-based other-regarding preferences: the ordinal preference ranking of an agent over a finite number of alternatives lying on any straight line in the space of material payoffs to oneself and some other agent must be single-peaked or single-plateaued. An incentive compatible mechanism is used to elicit strict preference rankings of subjects over a finite set of alternatives in decision tasks based on dictator and trust games. Violations of single-peakedness range from a low of 19% to a high of 46% across the six main treatments. Other-regarding subjects violate single-peakedness significantly more often than self-regarding subjects. The presence of equal-split in the set of alternatives increases the number of violations. We argue that the violations cannot be explained by appealing to the relative ease of reporting certain rankings or as errors from the theoretical benchmark.