What is the nature of motives, goals, and desires that prompt consumption behaviours? Why do consumers buy and consume particular products, brands and services from the multitude of alternatives afforded by their environments? How do consumers think and feel about their cravings? This book provides provocative answers to all of these questions. It brings together an international collection of authors from a variety of disciplines; they offer new and critical perspectives, summarize key findings and provide important theoretical frameworks to guide the reader through the subject.

The book is unique in its focus and its multifaceted approach. Anyone interested in consumption and consumer behaviour and research will find fascinating and important insights to illuminate the subject.

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What role does consumption play in Japanese lives that are more than study, work and shopping? How have those lives changed since World War II as Japan has wrestled with the meaning of white-collar careers, women spreading their wings, changing family values, a shrinking birth rate, an aging population? This book explores Japan through the eyes of Japanese researchers and discovers patterns of change that are both uniquely Japanese and shared by consumers in other advanced industrial nations.

What role does consumption play in Japanese lives that are more than study, work and shopping? How have those lives changed since World War II as Japan has wrestled with the meaning of white-collar careers, women spreading their wings, changing family values, a shrinking birth rate, an aging population? This book explores Japan through the eyes of Japanese researchers and discovers patterns of change that are both uniquely Japanese and shared by consumers in other advanced industrial nations.

Examines consumer decision-making on products and services of variable quality at the level of retail markets. Addresses for the first time consumer-producer interaction at the level of the individual consumer; issues of quality, consumption experience, and willingness-to-pay, as exhibited by individual consumers; and how these issues affect the decision-making process.

Ronny Someck is an enormously popular poet and radio host in Israel. Born in Iraq, he spent his childhood in a transit camp for new immigrants. This is his first full-length book to appear in English; his Sephardi voice is rich with slang, hot music, street gangsters and army commandos, and the odors of falafel and schwarma. In what other poet could we find Tarzan, Marilyn Monroe, and cowboys battling with Rabbi Yehuda Halevi for the hearts and souls of Israelis?

Nearly 85 years ago, Wesley Clair Mitchell, the acknowledged leader of American economists during the first half of this century, wrote: "Important as the art of spending is, we have developed less skill in its practice than in the practice of making money. Common sense forbids our wasting dollars earned by irksome efforts; and yet we are notoriously extravagant. Ignorance of qualities, uncertainty of taste, lack of accounting, carelessness about pricesa. Many of us scarcely know what becomes of our moneya." More than ever, in our world of ever-increasing credit card debt, lenient bankruptcy laws, and runaway consumption, these words still ring true. This collection of Mitchell's essays, makes it easier for today's and tomorrow's economists and social scientists to become acquainted with Mitchell's many contributions to the study of the American economy. Regrettably, the passage of time can blur and even obliterate the reputation and achievements of yesterday's leaders of ideas and actions. Although the National Bureau of Economic Research, which Mitchell helped to found and which he led in the 1920s and 1930s, remains a leading research institution, relatively few of its associates, who represent the elite among U.S. academic economists, have any first-hand acquaintance with Mitchell's work. Eli Ginzberg rounds out this edition with Mitchell's comprehensive analysis of "Business Cycles," first published in 1929, an area that commanded most of his scholarly efforts. Ginzberg's essay on Mitchell, written in 1931 and published for the first time in 1997, serves as an appropriate introduction to this new edition. His afterword contains remarks delivered at the 50th anniversary of Mitchell's death at the meeting of the Allied Social Sciences Association held in Chicago early in 1998, a telling tribute to this undisputed giant in the field. "Wesley Clair Mitchell" (1874u1948) held major teaching posts at the University of California and Columbia University. One of the most eminent U.S. economists, Mitchell focused much of his research on the statistical investigation of business cycles. His two major works are "Business Cycles (1913) and Business Cycles: The Problem at its Setting, (1927). Eli Ginzberg" is A. Barton Hepburn Professor Emeritus at the Graduate School of Business, and Director of the Eisenhower Center for the Conservation of Human Resources at Columbia University.

This far-reaching study shows that operating efficiencies are not what are driving today's unrelenting bank merger mania. It suggests that bank mergers and consolidation may have effects that are contrary to consumer and non-financial business interests, such as lower rates of interest, increasing fees, and tighter credit constraints. Dymski recommends several new policies to apply to the evaluation of prospective mergers.

This far-reaching study shows that operating efficiencies are not what are driving today's unrelenting bank merger mania. It suggests that bank mergers and consolidation may have effects that are contrary to consumer and non-financial business interests, such as lower rates of interest, increasing fees, and tighter credit constraints. Dymski recommends several new policies to apply to the evaluation of prospective mergers.

Consumer research has traditionally focused on issues of epistemology in the collection and analysis of data. As a consequence, the crisis in representation which has radically reshaped understanding in the social sciences, has, so far, had very little impact on consumer research. This book redresses the balance with an investigation of representation and constructions of 'truth' in consumer research. Subjects covered include:
* construction of the researcher and consumer voice
* quantitative tools and representation
* advertising narratives
* poetic representation of consumer experience
* the crisis in the crisis concept
* consumer-oriented ethnographic research.
The essays are written by experts from Britain and the United States and draw on a broad range of theoretical approaches.

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Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research

There are more people over 50 than ever before, with numbers likely to continue to rise. They are wealthier, healthier and happier than our old stereotypical images lead us to believe, yet this segment of the market is under-researched. In Understanding the Older Consumer, Barrie Gunter provides a detailed examination of the demographic, behavioural and psychological profiles of this group. He shows that without the responsibilities of loans and child raising and with better financial provision than in previous years, the over-50s represent a powerful spending force. In order to reach this group, marketers need to know how best to target advertising and respond to the changes that have occurred. Understanding the Older Consumer provides a wealth of information on older people's lifestyles and leisure, their interest in the mass media, their perceptions of advertising and their shopping preferences that will be invaluable to students of marketing, media and social psychology.

The Active Consumer discusses how consumers seem to delight in trying new solutions and exploring new combinatory possibilities. This book provides an economic-theoretical understanding of this phenomenon and the many ways in which innovation can structure consumer choice. The authors show from different points of view how central novelty can be in consumer behaviour, how it relates to technical change and how new consumer capabilities are developed and organized.

Presenting a unique study of shopping, the life of shopping centres and the nature of shoppers, this book offers new understanding of the significance of place and the construction of identity. From an historical and thematic survey of the nature of consumer societies and their implications for identity, the authors examine the commercial and historical background of two London shopping centres - Brent Cross and Wood Green. Drawing on their own primary research on shoppers from particular streets, focus groups and survey questionnaires, the authors examine particular issues that arise in the action of locating identity through shopping.
Shopping, Place and Identity engages with key debates in contemporary consumption and identity studies, yet presents a firmly grounded study that will complement the more speculative writing about shopping, place and identity that has developed in recent years.

Children as Consumers explores how children become socialised into the consumer society, how they respond to advertising and other sales promotions, what they like and dislike, what they believe and disbelieve, and whether they need to be protected through special legislation and regulation.
Children as Consumers will have wide appeal to students of psychology, sociology and media studies. It will also be useful to professionals inadvertising and marketing, media commentators and business studies students.

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The essays in "Border Fetishisms" explore the cultural, commercial, political and erotic dimensions that distinguish fetish formations in fractured colonial and postcolonial spaces. Spanning such topics as Surinamese conversion to Christianity to shoplifting in Georgian England, to face the fetish, the contributors neither demagicalize the fetish nor normalize the commodity. Instead, they call for the inclusion of material things -- as fetishes or not -- within the experience of human sufferings and joy.
Contributors: Robert J. Foster, Webb Keane, Susan Leg6~ne, Annelies Moors, Peter Pels, William Pietz, Adela Pinch, Patricia Spyer, Peter Stallybrass, Michael Taussig.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415918561

Understanding Green Consumer Behaviour examines basic aspects of the workings of the human mind, focusing on the thought processes involved when consumers make decisions about environmentally-friendly products.
The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on insights from management theory, psychology and anthropology, as well as the results of the author's own extensive field research. It provides a detailed account of the complex factors involved in 'green' consumerism.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203444035

Households are one of the main sources of waste and of other environmental impacts. This is a study of domestic consumption. Drawing on empirical research largely from The Netherlands, it takes households as consumer units and examines the entire household metabolism. This includes the way domestic demand can influence where and how goods and services are produced, resource flows through households, and the differential impacts of different lifestyles. It shows both what would constitute sustainable domestic consumption and how far there is to go to achieve this.

This is a detailed study of the material lives of the middle classes in the pre-industrial era, a period which saw considerable growth in consumption. Lorna Weatherill has brought her highly important survey up-to-date in the light of new research. She provides a new introduction and bibliography, taking account of the latest academic writing and methodological advances, including computing, and offers further conclusions about her work and its place in current literature.
Three main types of documentation are used to construct the overall picture: diaries, household accounts, and probate inventories. In investigating these sources she interprets the social meaning of material goods; and then goes on to relate this evidence to the social structures of Britain by wealth, status and locality.
Breaking new ground in focusing on households and the use of probate inventories, Weatherill has provided a book which gives both a general account of the domestic environment of the period, and a scholarly analysis of the data on consumption patterns.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203442296

Goods are imbued with meanings and uses by their producers. When they are exported, they can act as a means of communication or domination. However, there is no guarantee that the intentions of the producer will be recognized, much less respected, by the consumer from another culture. This guide to the cultural implications of the globalization of a consumer society addresses topics ranging from the clothing of colonial subjects in South Africa and the rise of the "hypermarket" in Argentina, to the presentation of culture in international tourist hotels. Through their examination of cultural imperialism and cultural appropriation of the representation of "otherness" and identity, the contributors show how the increasingly global flow of goods and images challenges the very idea of the "cultural border" and creates new spaces for cultural invention.

Buy This Book is an important contribution to the history and understanding of consumption and advertising. This book brings together an outstanding collection of writing on the study of advertising, consumer practices and the future directions of research.
Advertising and Consumption constitutes an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers and students. The essays are based on new textual and ethnographic research and engage with existing theoretical and historical work to form a volume which is a challenging companion to studies in this field.

Goods are imbued with meanings and uses by their producers. When they are exported, they can act as a means of communication or domination. However, there is no guarantee that the intentions of the producer will be recognized, much less respected, by the consumer from another culture. Cross-Cultural Consumption is a fascinating guide to the cultural implications of the globalization of a consumer society. The chapters address topics ranging from the clothing of colonial subjects in South Africa and the rise of the hypermarket in Argentina, to the presentation of culture in international tourist hotels. Through their examination of cultural imperialism and cultural appropriation of the representation of otherness and identity, Howes and his contributors show how the increasingly global flow of goods and images challenges the very idea of the cultural border and creates new spaces for cultural invention. Marian Bredin, Concordia University, Constance Classen, Jean Comaroff, University of Chicago, Mary Crain, University of Barcelona, Carol Handrickson, Marlboro Colleg

As the "information superhighway" moves into the home through interactive media, enhanced telecom services, and hybrid appliances, interest continually grows in how consumers adopt and use Information Technology (IT), the strategies IT marketers use to reach consumers, and the public policies that help and protect consumers. USE COPY FROM THIS POINT ON FOR GENERAL CATALOGS... This book presents a unique collection of papers dealing with the demand side issues of new information technologies in the home. The contributors are from business, academia, and the public policy sector and represent many disciplines including communication, marketing, economics, psychology, engineering, and information systems.
This book provides one of the best introductions to complex issues such as:
* business forces that will shape "Home IT" of the future;
* industry structure of the future "Infotainment" mega-business;
* factors affecting consumer adoption and use of IT;
* international differences in the management of the IT sector; and
* public policies that will shape the deployment and use of IT.

The study of consumption and its relationship to cultural and social values has become a vibrant and important field in recent years. Hitherto however, relatively few detailed and full length works on this topic have been published. In what will become a seminal volume, this book examines retail selling in various historical contexts and locations, as both an activity at once 'mundane' and almost universal. The book introduces the reader to the existing literature relevant to the subject; and explores the widespread perceptions of moral ambiguity surrounding the practice of selling consumer goods - ranging from concerns about the adulteration of goods, to fears about sharp practice on the part of retailers - and places such concerns in the context of wider societal values and ideas. The ambivalence towards retail selling and sellers is also a central focus of the collection, focussing on the attempts by retailers to develop selling techniques and successful practices of salesmanship, and at the same time establish widely-shared understandings of 'good' retailing. The book also delves into the more dubious practices of retail selling, including practices on the margin of legality, the issue of credit and changing attitudes towards debt. Uniquely the book examines how sales techniques relate to the wider context of a whole shopping 'experience' or shopping environment. Taken as a whole, this volume will provide a first port of call for students, researchers and others interested in exploring consumer cultures, and the cultural norms and practices involved in the sale of consumer goods in various historical periods and geographical contexts.

Three hundred years ago people made most of what they used, or got it in trade from their neighbours. Now, no one seems to make anything, and we buy what we need from shops. Gifts and Commodities describes the cultural and historical process of these changes and looks at the rise of consumer society in Britain and the United States. It investigates the ways that people think about and relate to objects in twentieth-century culture, at how those relationships have developed, and the social meanings they have for relations with others.

Using aspects of anthropology and sociology to describe the importance of shopping and gift-giving in our lives and in western economies, Gifts and Commodities:
* traces the development of shopping and retailing practices, and the emergence of modern notions of objects and the self
* brings together a wealth of information on the history of the retail trade
* examines the reality of the distinctions we draw between the impersonal economic sphere and personal social sphere
* offers a fully interdisciplinary study of the links we forge between ourselves, our social groups and the commodities we buy and give.