3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The influence of consumer decision-making styles on impulsive and careless buying of eco-friendly products(2016) Tshabalala, Zamani Sibusisiwe; Tshabalala, Sibusisiwe ZamaniThe South African eco-friendly products industry is still growing. With the growth potential existing in this industry, it is evident that marketing practitioners and producers alike need to understand the consumer dynamics involved in order to ensure that the sales of ecofriendly products increase. The growth potential that the researcher refers to is also confirmed by other researchers in their recent work (Sonnenberg, Jacobs, and Momberg, 2014). Eco-friendly products range from eco-friendly shopping bags, green clothing, solar powered electronics, and recyclable goods to name a few. As consumers change to be more environmentally conscious, their choices in products will be influenced by various factors including their decision-making styles. The “eco-friendly” or “going green” terms are commonly used globally for those products that consumers choose to buy because of their minimum negative impact on the environment. The decision-making styles that are most influential when South African consumers buy these products must be known by the relevant marketing practitioners within the South African context in order to ensure that they their strategies gain traction and also influence buying behaviour. Relevant branding and positioning strategies must be implemented by the relevant organisations in order to differentiate their eco-friendly products from others that are available to consumers as the market becomes more competitive with local and international brands being sold online and in retail shops. Investment into ensuring that these products are well-known will decrease the level of impulsive and careless buying of these products as the brands are currently not highly differentiated to the South African consumers. This study sourced primary quantitative data from consumers that buy and use eco-friendly products; a survey questionnaire was used in order to understand the influence of decision-making styles on the careless and impulsive buying of eco-friendly products. The findings of this study will enable the researcher to put forward the results that will demonstrate which decision-making styles mostly influence impulsive and careless buying 2 of eco-friendly products. Practitioners will be able to identify which dynamics to focus on when formulating their marketing strategies in order to effectively differentiate their respective products to consumersItem Social media factors impacting purchase intention of mobile devices amongst working Generation Y in South Africa(2017) Funde, LesegoWord-of-mouth (WOM) has been seen to be one of the most powerful resources of transmitting information. Progression in Information technology and the rise of online social network sites have changed the way information is being conveyed. This phenomenon sways consumers as this effortlessly accessible information could significantly influence their consumption decision. The purpose of this paper is to investigate Social Media factors impacting purchase intention of mobile devices amongst Working Generation Y in South Africa. The target population for this study was defined those who are between ages of 24-35 years of age and are employed. This paper relies on a quantitative analysis of the results gathered through an online survey. Measurement of items have been adapted from existing scales found in the marketing literature. Researchers reviewed the items for validity and readability. A multiple regression model procedure and Structural Equation Model is applied to test the relationship between independent and dependent variables. The research model was tested using a sample of 250 people who are South Africa’s Working Generation Y consumers and are regular social network users. Based on the resulted yielded from this research paper, it is reasonable to argue that consumer engagement will affect eWOM which may influence consumer purchase intentions. The paper outlines ways to promote a brand effectively through online consumer communities’ also known as virtual communities, as well as general guidelines for website and forum moderators for facilitating such presentation in a manner useful to the members of their online communities. While there is a substantial research stream that examines the branding of consumer’s goods and an increasing literature on product brands, little is known about social media, brand image and purchase intention in the context of online communications. This paper therefore extends existing measurement of these variables.Item The impact of mobile banking on the bottom of the pyramid consumers in South Africa(2017) Tshabalala, ThobileMenstrual Hygiene Management is a process of keeping clean by girls and women through washing, changing and disposal of sanitary protection during their monthly periods. When schools provide a conducive environment for girls to manage their menses, girls become empowered and confident to participate in education without fear and embarrassment. Lasi High school in Mpolonjeni constituency is a rural school in low income settings whose girls like many girls in the area have to manage their monthly menstruation. The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences and practices of rural school girls in Mpolonjeni community in managing their menses. A qualitative exploratory and descriptive study was undertaken through focus group discussions. The researcher managed to purposively select a sample of two focus groups with ten participants, each, three teachers and the Deputy Head Teacher. The study finding reveals that girls experience a number of challenges when managing their menses in the school setting which the school administration is not entirely aware of. Some of the issues raised by the girls can be addressed without unreasonable costs implications but through empathy and general support. The study recommends a further investigation for Education and school policies that will enhance enabling school environments to support girls in managing menstruation at school.Item Risks and motivation in the use of social network sites: an empirical study of university students(2016) Nkwe, NugiSocial Network Sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Piniterest and Google+ have made it easy for youth to communicate, produce and share information. Using SNS has become a daily activity for many youth and young adults around the world, including South Africa. The use of SNS by youth may be motivated by needs for safety, belonging, self-esteem and self-actualization, and others such as enjoyment. Yet, the use of SNS by youth may also carry a number of risks. They include risks to violations of privacy, social and psychological risks that may harm the user’s self-image, as well as time and financial risks resulting from excessive SNS usage. The purpose of this study is to understand the tension between risks and motivation in the use of SNS by university students. To do so, this study developed an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Multi-dimensional risk and motivation constructs were examined for their interactions with TAM constructs of perceived ease of use and perceive usefulness and their effects on SNS usage intentions and actual usage were examined. To test the model, a non-probability convenience sampling method was adopted using students from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Five hundred and fifteen students participated in the study. The ages ranged between 18 and 34 years, 26% males and 74% females took part in the study, and included students from 1st year through to 4th year undergraduate or Honours level. Facebook was found to be the most used SNS. Approximately 80% of respondents reported accessing SNS on their mobile phones and 66% reported being always connected. More than 25% of respondents were actively using SNS for more than 3 hours a day, with 35% using less than one hour per day. Interestingly, only 35% reported having public profiles although 10% did not know whether their profiles were public or private, and nearly 40% of respondents knew less than half the “friends” they were connected to on SNS Partial least squares approach to structured equation modelling was used to test the hypothesised research model. Results showed that motivation influences perceived usefulness (β=0.239, p<0.001) and perceived ease of use (β=0.319, p<0.001) positively. The results suggest that when motivations such as enjoyment and need to belong are high, SNS will be perceived as useful and easy to use. Risk was found to have a negative influence on perceived usefulness (β=-0.0764, p<0.05) and perceived ease of use (β=-0.3265, p<0.001). The results show that when risks are considered high, users are likely to increase their vigilance and consequently will report SNS as less easy to use. Moreover, as a result of risk users may find the SNS less useful. Perceived usefulness (β=0.295, p<0.001) influences intention to use SNS positively. This suggests that when SNS is useful to users, they will have intentions to use it. Intention to use SNS is also influenced by perceived ease of use (β=0.0396, p<0.01). An easy to use SNS will make users want to use it, as opposed to one considered more complex and requiring more effort. Motivation (β=0.281, p<0.001) was found to have more of an effect than risk (β=-0.071, p<0.05) on intentions to use. Respondents thus appear to recognize some risks associated with SNS use, but they appear to be driven more by motivations and less by risk avoidance when deciding on SNS usage. The study will have implications for researchers, SNS providers and users. The results of the study have implications for how researchers conceptualize risk and motivation. The study shows how different dimensions of risk and dimensions of motivation affect the overall risk and overall motivation construct respectively. Currently SNS providers may not have deep understanding of the risks which hinder the use of SNS and motivations which drive the use of SNS. Providers will be better informed to design SNS that are less risky and where possible mitigate the risks. Results also show that SNS providers should not only mitigate risks but also provide online social networks that better fulfil motivational needs of youth. Users will be aware of different risks they are exposing themselves to by using SNS. Since users will be aware of the different types of risks, they can be vigilante when using SNS.Item Brand equity as a predictor of repurchase intention of male branded cosmetic products in South Africa(2016) Pather, PraveshniThe cosmetic industry over the years has proven to be one of the fastest growing and most profitable industries globally. In the male cosmetic industry, male grooming, metrosexual and dapper trends have rapidly expanded across global communities and, in recent years, have become a leading trend amongst South African men. These emerging trends subsequently shaped the way businesses and companies expanded product lines and developed marketing strategies. It is imperative that we understand what marketing capabilities companies require to stay abreast of local trends in order to gain a market share and strong brand presence in these expanding categories. Companies invest significant financial resources on marketing in order to have a compelling value proposition against competitors. Understanding the customer and what aspects of brand equity resonate with customers would ensure that companies have a streamlined customer centric marketing plan that meets the customers’ needs and addresses the accurate emotional touch points to capture the customer and encourage resilient repurchase intention. Four hypotheses are posited and in order to empirically test them a sample data set of 208 was collected in South Africa. The results indicate that brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality and brand association positively influences repurchase intention of male branded cosmetic products in South Africa in a significant way. Drawing from the study’s findings, managerial implications are discussed and limitations and future research directions are suggested.Item Providing value-added services to cellphone contract clients - a hybrid recommendation approach(2016) Ndlovu, MpumeleloThere is stiff competition for customers and market share in the South African telecommunications industry amongst the four predominant mobile service providers, namely Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom Mobile. The First National Bank (FNB) through one of its entities, FNB Connect, has also joined this intensely competitive environment. These companies face a constant challenge of having to come up with new and innovative ways of attracting new customers and retaining their current ones. Cell C has embarked on a good strategy of claiming solid market share and growing itself against the competition by using the Private Label Promotions (PLP) group, a leading BEE Level 3 company that provides a variety of business solutions, to market GetMore, its value-added service package. A recommender system could be used to suggest and promote the items available in this package to existing and potential clients (users). There are different approaches to recommendation, the most widely used ones being the collaborative and content-based recommendation. The collaborative filtering approach uses the ratings of other users to recommend the items the current (active) user might like. In the content-based approach, items are recommended in terms of their content similarity to items a user has previously liked, or elements that have matched a user’s attributes (features). Hybrid recommendation approaches are used To eliminate the drawbacks individually associated with the CF and CBF approaches and to leverage their advantages. One of the aims of this research was to design and implement a prototype hybrid recommender system that would be used to recommend Cell C’s GetMore package to current and potential subscribers. The system was to implement matrix factorisation (collaborative) and cosine similarity (content-based) techniques. Several experiments were conducted to evaluate its performance and quality. The metrics used included Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) and Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC). We expected the proposed hybrid recommender system would leverage the advantages provided by its different components and demonstrate its effectiveness in providing Cell C’s customers with accurate and meaningful recommendations of its GetMore package services. Keywords: Content-based Recommendation, Collaborative Recommendation, Hybrid Recommendation, Cosine Similarity, Matrix Factorisation, Association Rule Mining, J48 Classifier, Decision Table, Naive Bayes, Simple K-means, Expectation Maximization, Farthest First, Predictive AprioriItem Evaluation of goods & services among white and black consumers(1991) Cambitzi, CreonThe research investigated the evaluation of common goods and services by white and black consumers, and to determine where similarities and dissimilarities between these two segments existed. A review of the literature on consumer behaviour, with specific reference to decision making models, and a series of in depth interviews enabled the expansion of the Zeithaml (1981) set of constructs by a factor of two. A questionnaire was developed and administered to white and black employees of well known local firms in a variety of industries. Hypothesis testing enabled validation of the expanded set of constructs, and the comparison of white and black evaluative differences, while correspondence ;analysis determined the key evaluative dimensions. Important new dimensions discovered included Convenience, Loyalty and Reception. An invaluable method of clustering was found in the /chi squared trees technique. The results indicated that black consumers are significantly less experienced in the use and evaluation of common services compared to their white counterparts. As a result of this inexperience, a much less sophisticated set of key evaluative constructs are relied upon in the decision process. Both segments appear to be /ciware of generally higher risks associated with services, but are less prone to invest effort in information gathering prior to purchase. The white segment purchases services based on their convenience, whilst the black segment faces equal inconvenience for any purchase. The most significant marketing implications drawn were firstly, the need to appreciate consumer perceptual similarities across, and differences within, goods and services categories. Secondly, marketers need very different strategies for the black segment.