Browsing by Author "Radford, Scott"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Consumer perceptions of sustainability as a product attribute
    (2012) Simpson, Bonnie Jean K.; Radford, Scott
    This dissertation examines the construct of sustainability, its role as a product attribute, and the influence of situational factors on sustainable product decisions. While past research in sustainable behaviours has largely focused on measuring and identifying individual difference variables that will influence behaviours, this dissertation examines marketing controlled situational variables, such as product, promotion and signals of credibility, which may encourage greater engagement with sustainable initiatives, thus expanding the traditional focus on individual differences. In three essays that employ three different methods, this research contributes to sustainability and marketing literatures as it elucidates consumer perceptions of sustainability, highlights the influence of situational factors, and examines the effectiveness of persuasion techniques in highly skeptical consumer domains. Collectively the results support the argument that a one­dimensional environmental operationalization of sustainability may be underestimating the importance of the other dimensions in consumer perceptions. Additionally, the research supports the argument for the consideration of marketing-controlled situational variables in the study of sustainable consumer behaviours. The role of confidence is presented as means of countering consumer skepticism in the domain of sustainable products, and the moderating influence of skepticism on the persuasive effects of credibility signals is demonstrated.
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    Examining the Role of Inequality in Security Consumption
    (2022-12-20) Novakowski, Dallas; Mourali, Mehdi; Agarwal, James; Radford, Scott; Goode, Miranda; Gibbs Van Brunschot, Erin
    A growing body of evidence suggests that economic inequality causes humans to take more risks and engage in aggressive behaviours. In a ‘winner-takes-all’ environment, risky activities such as gambling, lying, and crime can be a person’s only means of keeping up with competitors and accessing contested resources. There is comparatively little research investigating whether people anticipate risk-taking and conflict from their neighbors in unequal environments. An informative context for examining the distrust-inducing effects of inequality is the security market, which offers goods that protect customers from the actions of malicious agents. For instance, barred windows are purchased because they (supposedly) protect consumers from break-ins. Given the costly nature of these security products, security consumption is generally only worthwhile if a consumer expects that other people have harmful intentions. This project provides evidence that economic inequality increases consumers’ willingness to purchase security products through three studies: 1) experimental manipulations of inequality in an economic game context, 2) experimental manipulations of distributional fairness and income visibility, and 3) multilevel analyses of the effects of nation-level inequality (k = 32) on individuals’ consumption of security goods (n = 79,776).
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    Fostering Student Success in Online Courses
    (Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, 2023) Aparicio-Ting, Fabiola; Arcellana-Panlilio, Mayi; Bensler, Heather; Brown, Barbara; Clancy, Tracey; Dyjur, Patti; Radford, Scott; Redwood, Chene; Roberts, Verena; Sabbaghan, Soroush; Schroeder, Meadow; Summers, Mindi; Tézli, Annette; Wilks, Leighton; Wright, Alysia
    The pandemic had a disruptive impact on teaching and learning in higher education. For many, the transition to online learning presented enormous challenges, individually and collectively. Many of us sought immediate strategies to support student learning and success in an online context. We experienced many successes and failures along the way. This Guide provides an inspiring collection of scholarly reflections and approaches to supporting meaningful course learning opportunities for students and postsecondary educators, in online environments. The guide contains nine chapters contributed by members of the Teaching Academy from across disciplines involved in undergraduate and/or graduate instruction, writing solo or with collaborators, to highlight an aspect of their teaching that leverages the online environment to enhance student learning. Each of these chapters offers sage, pragmatic descriptions of course contexts, design considerations, and implementation, for online assessments (Chapter 1, 4), for innovative learning activities (Chapter 2, 6), for flexible course design (Chapter 5, 7), for engaging large classes (Chapter 8), for facilitating group work (Chapter 9), and for intentionally addressing the need for students to flourish (Chapter 3). Importantly, for the reader, each chapter shares the wisdom of practice of the author/s, discussing implications of use and giving concrete recommendations for those who are thinking of applying similar strategies.
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    Three Essays on Customers in Waits.
    (2022-03) Lin, Yizhe; Agarwal, James; Mourali, Mehdi; Radford, Scott; Yang, Zhiyong; McGrath, Daniel
    Waiting is an important topic that deserves more scholarly examination given its ubiquity, its substantial impact, and its diversity and complexity. This thesis attempts to offer firms potential solutions to waiting issues by investigating customers’ perceptions, thoughts, emotions, intentions, and behaviors in waits. Specifically, I examine customers’ perceptions and responses to waits in the service (Essay 1), customers’ decision-making about waiting for new products (Essay 2), and customers’ intention to delay their redemptions of rewards in loyalty programs (Essay 3). The selection of these three waiting scenarios covers the diversity inherent in waiting issues and yet sharing a commonality of ‘delay’. In the first essay, I propose that customers see service waits as both an inherent component of the service and an extra cost to the service, and I examine how these two perspectives shape customers’ responses to service waits. In the second essay, I found that customers’ decision to wait for the future product could be influenced by whether the product is introduced with an emphasis on hedonic or utilitarian aspect, and I reveal two distinct underlying mechanisms for the effect. In the third essay, I investigate customers’ redemption from the goal theory perspective, and I compare strategic customers, who delay redemptions for larger rewards, to non-strategic customers in the model.