Social Stratification and Consumer Behaviour in Kerala-A Study with Special Reference to Consumer Durables

Department of Applied Economics, Cochin University of Science and Technology

Influence of personality factors on the consumption of personal care products

This research was undertaken with the primary objective of explaining differences in consumption of personal care products using personality variables. Several streams of research reported were reviewed and a conceptual model was developed. Theories on the relationship between self concept and behaviour was reviewed and the need to use individual difference variables to conceptualize and measure the salient dimensions of the self were emphasized. Theories relating to social comparison, eating disorders, role of idealized media images in shaping the self-concept, evidence on cosmetic surgery and persuasibility were reviewed in the study. These came from diverse fields like social psychology, use of cosmetics, women studies, media studies, self-concept literature in psychology and consumer research, and marketing. From the review three basic dimensions, namely self-evaluation, self-awareness and persuasibility were identified and they were posited to be related to consumption. Several personality variables from these conceptual domains were identified and factor analysis confirmed the expected structure fitting the basic theoretical dimensions. Demographic variables like gender and income were also considered.It was found that self-awareness measured by the variable public self-consciousness explain differences in consumption of personal care products. The relationship between public self-consciousness and consumption was found to be most conspicuous in cases of poor self-, evaluation measured by self-esteem. Susceptibility to advertising also was found to explain differences in consumption.From the research, it may be concluded that personality variables are useful for explaining consumption and they must be used together to explain and understand the process. There may not be obvious and conspicuous links between individual measures and behaviour in marketing. However, when used in proper combination and with the help oftheoretical models personality offers considerable explanatory power as illustrated in the seventy five percent accuracy rate of prediction obtained in binary logistic regression.

Legal Protection for Consumer of Pharmaceutical Products

The overall focus of the thesis involves the legal protection for consumers of pharmaceutical products.The work on “Legal Protection for Consumers of Pharmaceutical Products” is undertaken to study the legal framework that is existing for this purpose and the functioning of regulating mechanism that is envisaged under it. The purpose of the study is to analyse how far these measures are effective in adequately protecting various aspects of consumer interest. Methodology adopted for the study is analytical.The present study revealed that the theory of freedom of contract is only an ideal relevant when the parties are assumed to be on equal footing.In a more complicated social and economic society, it ceased to have any relevance. Many countries in the world enacted legislations to protect the consumers of pharmaceutical products.The meaning of ‘consumers of drugs’ provided in the law is inclusive and not exhaustive one. The definition of ‘drug’ as interpreted by the courts is comprehensive enough to take in it not only medicines but also substances. The meaning of the word substances has been widened by the interpretation of the courts so as to include all the things used in treatment.The definition of the word ‘consumer’ has been liberally interpreted by the courts so as to provide protective net to a large section of the public.The studies subsequent to this report also revealed that there is a shortage of essential drugs necessary to cure local diseases like tuberculosis and malaria where as drugs containing vitamins and other combinations which are more profitable for the manufacturers are produced and marketed in abundance.The study of the provisions in this regard revealed that the duty of the drug controlling authorities is confined to scrutinize the data of the clinical test already conducted by the sponsor of the drug.Study of the clinical trial procedure under the U.S. law revealed that there is a continuous supervision over clinical trials and controls are provided on the treatment use of an investigational productStudy of the clinical trial procedure under the U.S. law revealed that there is a continuous supervision over clinical trials and controls are provided on the treatment use of an investigational product.the study of the provisions of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and the rules framed under it revealed that the law in this regard is comprehensive to protect the consumer provided it is sufficiently supported by adequately equipped enforcement machinery.

Model Development and Validation for Studying Consumer Preferences of Car Owners

Globalization and liberalization, with the entry of many prominent foreign manufacturers, changed the automobile scenario in India, since early 1990‟s. Manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Hyundai, Renault, Mitsubishi, Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Nissan set up their manufacturing units in India in joint venture with their Indian counterpart companies, by making use of the Foreign Direct Investment policy of the Government of India, These manufacturers started capturing the hearts of Indian car customers with their choice of technological and innovative product features, with quality and reliability. With the multiplicity of choices available to the Indian passenger car buyers, it drastically changed the way the car purchase scenario in India and particularly in the State of Kerala. This transformed the automobile scene from a sellers‟ market to buyers‟ market. Car customers started developing their own personal preferences and purchasing patterns, which were hitherto unknown in the Indian automobile segment. The main purpose of this paper is to come up with the identification of possible parameters and a framework development, that influence the consumer purchase behaviour patterns of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala, so that further research could be done, based on the framework and the identified parameters

Conceptualisation Of Model For Studying Consumer Purchase Behaviour Of Passenger Cars

Automobile Industry in India is influenced by the presence of national and multi-national manufacturers. The presence of many manufacturers and brands in the state provides many choices to the customer. The current market for car manufacturers has been transformed from a monopoly of one or two manufacturers in the seventies to oligopoly of many manufacturers in the current marketing scenario. The main objective of the research paper is to explore and conceptualize various parameters and develop a model, which influence the purchase patterns of passenger cars in the State of Kerala. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to come up with a model, which shall facilitate further study on the consumer purchase behaviour patterns of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala, India. The author intends to undertake further quantitative analysis to verify and validate the model so developed. The main methods used for this paper are secondary research on available material, depth interview of car dealers, car financing agencies and car owners in the city of Cochin, in Kerala State in India. The depth interviews were conducted with the use of prepared questionnaire for car dealers, car customers and car financing agencies. The findings resulted in the identification of the parameters that influence the consumer purchase behaviour of passenger cars and the formulation of the model, which will be the basis for the further research of the author. The paper will be of tremendous value to the existing and new car manufacturers both indigenous and foreign, to formalize and strategies their policies towards an effective marketing strategy, so as to market their models in the State, which is known for its high literacy, consumerism and higher educational penetration

Impact of Quality on Ethics and Social Responsibility in Marketing, in Industries in Kerala in the present Indian Scenario

The paper ‘Impact of Quality on Ethics and Social Responsibility in Marketing in Industries in Kerala in the present Indian scenario’ highlights the observations, based on a descriptive research carried out in five leading industries in Kerala, in the private and public sector. Ethics and social responsibilities, practiced in these industries, are reflected in the results of the survey conducted on specific queries like awareness of products/services provided by them, total understanding of the requirements of the customer, open discussion on technical matters, accountability of employees to the society and social needs, consumer ethics vis a vis business ethics etc. Team working goes a long way, in building relations, which in turn, results in a progressive and effective marketing strategy. This assumes paramount importance, considering the severe competition we are facing in the light of liberalization, privatization and globalization, which encompasses the globe. The prediction of India becoming a lead nation, along with USA, China and Japan, in this decade, can get fructified only if we follow a very high standards of ethics and social responsibility, in all domains including marketing. Organizations like TRW.Rane, Sundaram Fasteners, TVS Motors, in Chennai are a few among others in India, who have achieved the highest distinction in quality viz Deming Prize, and these demonstrate their commitment to quality, society and humanity at large. Cost effectiveness, without jeopardizing quality has become the need of the hour and MRTP has become history. This trait is being brought out through the survey and the results speak for themselves. Unethical practices like switch and bait, not only brings shame to the organization, and country but also results in the company getting wiped out from the market. Adherence to standards like ISO 14000 helps to maintain the minimum level of social responsibility and environmental friendliness. Like quality audit, safety audit etc, social audit is being insisted in all progressive countries to ensure that the organization comply with the minimum statutory requirements. The paper also touches upon Corporate Social Responsibility practiced in the industries and this becomes crystal clear through their commitment to improve the community. Green Marketing lays a lot of importance on the three Rs of environmentalism viz Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The objective of any business is to achieve optimal profit and this is possible only by reducing the cost as well as waste. In this context, management tools like brainstorming, suggestion schemes, benchmarking etc becomes helpful. These characteristics are brought out through the analysis of survey results. The conclusions drawn throw a lot of information on the desirable practices with respect to Ethics and Social Responsibility in Marketing

Developing a Theoretical Framework for a Study on the Impact of Advertising Credibility of Consumer Healthcare Products

The tough competition in the global and national markets and new trends in consumerism resulted in an increase in the volume of advertisements. Sometimes advertisers are successful in achieving their intended objectives with a particular advertisement and sometimes they are not .These factors contributed a lot towards the decision making problems of advertising agencies with regard to the selection of appropriate advertising strategies and tactics. The tough competition and large volume of advertising make the consumers confused and this even created doubts in the minds of consumers about the genuineness and reliability of manufacturers and products. These factors caused a query regarding the active role of credibility element in advertising. The proposed study examines the effects of advertising credibility in consumer health care non durable product advertising on communication effect, purchase behavior and ad skepticism. This paper examines the need for the study of advertising credibility and reviews the advertising- consumer behaviour- credibility – healthcare theories which form a basis for the study. It identifies the different components and dimensions of advertising credibility and the importance of communication effect, purchase behavior and ad skepticism. It also studies the relevance of credibility in the consumer healthcare products advertising and suggests a Theoretical Framework for the proposed study

Dominant partial least square factors of consumer purchase behaviour of passenger cars

Globalization and liberalization, with the entry of many prominent foreign manufacturers, changed the automobile scenario in India, since early 1990’s. World Leaders in automobile manufacturing such as Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Hyundai, Renault, Mitsubishi, Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Nissan set up their manufacturing units in India in joint venture with their Indian counterpart companies, by making use of the Foreign Direct Investment policy of the Government of India, These manufacturers started capturing the hearts of Indian car customers with their choice of technological and innovative product features, with quality and reliability. With the multiplicity of choices available to the Indian passenger car buyers, it drastically changed the way the car purchase scenario in India and particularly in the State of Kerala. This transformed the automobile scene from a sellers’ market to buyers’ market. Car customers started developing their own personal preferences and purchasing patterns, which were hitherto unknown in the Indian automobile segment. The main purpose of this paper is to develop a model with major variables, which influence the consumer purchase behaviour of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala. Though there are innumerable studies conducted in other countries, there are very few thesis and research work conducted to study the consumer behaviour of the passenger car industry in India and specifically in the State of Kerala. The results of the research contribute to the practical knowledge base of the automobile industry, specifically to the passenger car segment. It has also a great contributory value addition to the manufacturers and dealers for customizing their marketing plans in the State

Dominant Mean Percentage Score Factors Of The Consumer Purchase Behaviour Of Passenger Cars

Globalization and liberalization, with the entry of many prominent foreign manufacturers, changed the automobile scenario in India, since early 1990’s. World Leaders in automobile manufacturing such as Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Hyundai, Renault, Mitsubishi, Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Nissan set up their manufacturing units in India in joint venture with their Indian counterpart companies, by making use of the Foreign Direct Investment policy of the Government of India, These manufacturers started capturing the hearts of Indian car customers with their choice of technological and innovative product features, with quality and reliability. With the multiplicity of choices available to the Indian passenger car buyers, it drastically changed the way the car purchase scenario in India and particularly in the State of Kerala. This transformed the automobile scene from a sellers’ market to buyers’ market. Car customers started developing their own personal preferences and purchasing patterns, which were hitherto unknown in the Indian automobile segment. The main purpose of this paper is to come up with the identification of possible parameters and a framework development, that influence the consumer purchase behaviour patterns of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala, so that further research could be done, based on the framework and the identified parameters.

Sustainability and Consumer Preference of Wild Caught Ornamental Fishes from Kerala: Scope of Certification

The Indian ornamental fish industry is divided into two-the domestic market and the export market. 90% of the freshwater ornamental fish exported from India are wild caught indigenous species. The study formed the criteria and indicators assessing the sustainability of wild caught ornamental fish exported from India. These indicators were then analyzed for their interactions, connections, linkages and relationships using cognitive mapping. The work is first of its kind in the ornamental fisheries

Labelling schemes for organic food: Consumer attitudes, preferences and willingness-to-pay in six European countries

Since July 2010, all pre-packed organic food produced in the European Union (EU) must carry the new mandatory EU logo for organic food. Voluntary organic labels (such as national governmental logos and logos of private farmers’ associations and control bodies) can still be used, but only in addition to the mandatory EU logo. This change in the regulatory environment of organic labelling raises a number of questions regarding consumer preferences for different kinds of organic certification logos, which the present dissertation addressed. The first objective was to explore and analyse consumer perceptions, attitudes, preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) regarding different voluntary organic labels. The second objective was to investigate consumer perceptions and attitudes towards a mandatory EU logo. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of consumer research in six European countries was employed including focus group discussions, choice experiments and structured interviews. Based on the empirical results, recommendations are drawn for different actors in the organic sector.

Context as a Service

In the vision of Mark Weiser on ubiquitous computing, computers are disappearing from the focus of the users and are seamlessly interacting with other computers and users in order to provide information and services. This shift of computers away from direct computer interaction requires another way of applications to interact without bothering the user. Context is the information which can be used to characterize the situation of persons, locations, or other objects relevant for the applications. Context-aware applications are capable of monitoring and exploiting knowledge about external operating conditions. These applications can adapt their behaviour based on the retrieved information and thus to replace (at least a certain amount) the missing user interactions. Context awareness can be assumed to be an important ingredient for applications in ubiquitous computing environments. However, context management in ubiquitous computing environments must reflect the specific characteristics of these environments, for example distribution, mobility, resource-constrained devices, and heterogeneity of context sources. Modern mobile devices are equipped with fast processors, sufficient memory, and with several sensors, like Global Positioning System (GPS) sensor, light sensor, or accelerometer. Since many applications in ubiquitous computing environments can exploit context information for enhancing their service to the user, these devices are highly useful for context-aware applications in ubiquitous computing environments. Additionally, context reasoners and external context providers can be incorporated. It is possible that several context sensors, reasoners and context providers offer the same type of information. However, the information providers can differ in quality levels (e.g. accuracy), representations (e.g. position represented in coordinates and as an address) of the offered information, and costs (like battery consumption) for providing the information. In order to simplify the development of context-aware applications, the developers should be able to transparently access context information without bothering with underlying context accessing techniques and distribution aspects. They should rather be able to express which kind of information they require, which quality criteria this information should fulfil, and how much the provision of this information should cost (not only monetary cost but also energy or performance usage). For this purpose, application developers as well as developers of context providers need a common language and vocabulary to specify which information they require respectively they provide. These descriptions respectively criteria have to be matched. For a matching of these descriptions, it is likely that a transformation of the provided information is needed to fulfil the criteria of the context-aware application. As it is possible that more than one provider fulfils the criteria, a selection process is required. In this process the system has to trade off the provided quality of context and required costs of the context provider against the quality of context requested by the context consumer. This selection allows to turn on context sources only if required. Explicitly selecting context services and thereby dynamically activating and deactivating the local context provider has the advantage that also the resource consumption is reduced as especially unused context sensors are deactivated. One promising solution is a middleware providing appropriate support in consideration of the principles of service-oriented computing like loose coupling, abstraction, reusability, or discoverability of context providers. This allows us to abstract context sensors, context reasoners and also external context providers as context services. In this thesis we present our solution consisting of a context model and ontology, a context offer and query language, a comprehensive matching and mediation process and a selection service. Especially the matching and mediation process and the selection service differ from the existing works. The matching and mediation process allows an autonomous establishment of mediation processes in order to transfer information from an offered representation into a requested representation. In difference to other approaches, the selection service selects not only a service for a service request, it rather selects a set of services in order to fulfil all requests which also facilitates the sharing of services. The approach is extensively reviewed regarding the different requirements and a set of demonstrators shows its usability in real-world scenarios.

Public and student awareness science: recreational science as a catalyst

When discussing the traditional and new missions of higher education (1996 Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the 21st Century) Jacques Delors stated that "Excessive attraction to social sciences has broken equilibrium of available graduates for workforce, thus causing doubts of graduates and employers on the quality of knowledge provided by higher education". Likewise, when discussing the progress of science and technology, the 1998 UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education concluded that "Another challenge concerts the latest advancements of Science, the sine qua non of sustainable development"; and that “with Information Technology, the unavoidable invasion of virtual reality has increased the distance between industrial and developing countries". Recreational Science has a long tradition all over the Educational World; it aims to show the basic aspects of Science, aims to entertain, and aims to induce thinking. Until a few years ago, this field of knowledge consisted of a few books, a few kits and other classical (yet innovative) ways to popularize the knowledge of Nature and the laws governing it. In Spain, the interest for recreational science has increased in the last years. First, new recreational books are being published and found in bookstores. Second the number of Science-related museums and exhibits is increasing. And third, new television shows are produced and new short science-based, superficial sketches are found in variety programs. However, actual programs in Spanish television dealing seriously with Science are scarce. Recreational Science, especially that related to physical phenomena like light or motion, is generally found at Science Museums because special equipment is required. On the contrary, Science related mathematics, quizzes and puzzles use to gather into books, e.g. the extensive collections by Martin Gardner. However, lately Science podcasts have entered the field of science communication. Not only traditional science journals and television channels are providing audio and video podcasts, but new websites deal exclusively with science podcasts, in particular on Recreational Science. In this communication we discuss the above mentioned trends and show our experience in the last two years in participating at Science Fairs and university-sponsored events to attract students to science and technology careers. We show a combination of real examples (e.g., mathemagic), imagination, use of information technology, and use of social networks. We present as well an experience on designing a computational, interactive tool to promote chemistry among high school, prospective students using computers ("Dancing with Bionanomolecules"). Like the concepts related to Web 2.0, it has been already proposed that a new framework for communication of science is emerging, i.e., Science Communication 2.0, where people and institutions develop new innovative ways to explain science topics to diverse publics – and where Recreational Science is likely to play a leading role

Morphological awareness intervention : does severity play a role in spelling-reading improvement?

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Las comunidades virtuales como una herramienta para la perdurabilidad empresarial

Las compañías desde su creación, están en la constante búsqueda de la perdurabilidad en el tiempo; es decir buscan el desarrollo sostenible de su negocio y para esto se encuentran con el reto no solo de mantener el personal idóneo y motivado, sino de hacer seguimiento y gestión a sus finanzas, adquirir nuevas tecnologías y generar nuevos productos o negocios, acordes a las necesidades de sus clientes. La implementación de nuevas tecnologías como la Web 2.0, han facilitado a las organizaciones esta tarea; gracias a la retroalimentación y mejora permanente de los productos, que se obtiene a través de la interacción con los clientes, en las plataformas virtuales donde se tiene la posibilidad de: Comercializar, mercadear y publicitar un producto, además de crear prototipos, conocer intereses, necesidades y gustos, que retroalimentan de manera positiva o negativa a la compañía en procesos de preventa y postventa. A través de este estudio exploratorio, se pretende sensibilizar a los directivos de las diferentes organizaciones, frente a la importancia del uso e implementación de nuevas tecnologías como Second Life, una herramienta practica, económica y eficiente para obtener mayor reconocimiento de la marca y lograr competitividad en el mercado global. Teniendo claridad que parte del éxito que se consiga con la implementación de esta herramienta, está determinado por el cambio en la estructura de la compañía y el modelo mental del CEO o líder.