The importance of consumer attitudes towards products and classes of products in determining purchase behaviour is well established. The bias of consumers towards domestic goods, i.e., ethnocentrism, offers a vital clue to strategies of global corporations. Extensive debates and movements on this issue argue that it has a moral side as well. This paper attempts to explore the attitude Indians harbour towards consumption of domestic vis-à-vis foreign goods. The data from the study suggests tendency towards ethnocentrism that exists in Indians. It matches the level as found in the US and other developed countries. Moreover, the data suggests that ethnocentrism in Indians does not vary significantly with the selected levels of education, age and gender. In sum, this tendency is spread uniformly amongst socio-demographic groups selected for the study

No abstract

It has been a challenge to map the efficacy of marketing communications in building stronger brands on social media. Given the paucity of research in this area, the present study offers a holistic model that maps the effect of social media marketing (hereinafter SMMEs) on consumer response via building brand equity and brand trust. This study was conducted on customers of major brands of smartphones in India. The data were collected from 318 consumers who visited fan pages of the selected brands of smartphones. The current study examines how SMMEs influence customer behavior via brand equity and trust. Additionally, the study examines how brand equity and brand trust interact during the process. The current study's findings indicate that brand equity partially mediates the effect of SMMEs on customer response. On the other hand, SMMEs do not succeed in converting brand trust into customer response. Further, brand equity fully mediates SMMEs' effect on brand trust. Finally, the results also show that the effect of brand equity on customer response is partially mediated by brand trust. Toward the end, study dwells on its practical implications and limitations.

Purpose In the backdrop of job demands-resources model, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of selected job resources (job autonomy and rewards and recognition) and job demands (problem with work) on innovative work behaviour through the mediation of employee engagement in the higher education sector of India. Design/methodology/approach The sample consists of randomly selected 275 teachers from higher education institutions from a city in India. This study used PLS-SEM for data analysis. Findings The results suggest that employee engagement associates closely with innovative work behaviour. Job autonomy, one of the resources, affects innovative work behaviour directly and its effect does not move via employee engagement. Further, reward and recognition does not impact innovative work behaviour directly, rather, its effect moves through employee engagement. Finally, the work suggests that employee engagement mediates between selected job resources and job demands and innovative work behaviour. Research limitations/implications This study can be extended to include more demands and resources which are unique to academic institutions. For example, a transparent career path to all teachers or a high-octane research culture can serve as a boon. Additionally, their interaction effect can also be studied. The present study being a cross-sectional study, at best, offers a snap-shot view of relationship among the variables. Practical implications This study shall help organizations to use job resources and job demands to enhance teachers’ engagement and innovative work behaviour. Specifically, results of this study offer a reason to academic institutions to give more autonomy and rewards to their teachers to eke out innovative work behaviour. Social implications Firstly, this study will have a positive outcome for students who will be the prime beneficiaries of innovative work behaviour of teachers. Secondly, broadly the society and its constituents will get benefited by improvement in research outcomes. Originality/value The outcome of this study proposes that job autonomy and reward and recognition do not connect with employee engagement and innovative work behaviour in a known way.

No abstract