An empirical study of the differences in consumer behavior in an Dissertation

An empirical study of the differences in consumer behavior in an e-commerce environment compared to the traditional commerce - Dissertation Example One area of social concern that technology seem have gained much grounds today is business in general and marketing to be specific. When technology was ‘born’ at first, little did anyone think that it was going to grow beyond being used for office and secretarial purposes into becoming a tool for buying and selling: courtesy the internet! The internet has actually come to be an integrated invention that has coalesced the functions and activities of almost every major invention before it. To this effect, Leiner et al (2011) notes that â€Å"The Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications world like nothing before. The invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio, and computer set the stage for this unprecedented integration of capabilities.† Before the advent of the internet and even in its early days, general marketing trend of people was typically influenced by doing business with traditional stores. In those days, one came into contact with produ cts and services because one traveled some distance. Again, one bargained for prices of goods and services by meeting the manager in person. Today, all such bureaucracies have changed because of a new phenomenon of marketing known as electronic shopping, simply referred to as e-shopping. With e-shopping, people just have to click the button of a mouse in the comfort of wherever they are and they get a list of as many products as they want. Again, technology has made it possible that one does not have to walk to a particular shop to get things bought and payments made. All these are done via the internet. And of course, the ease with which e-shopping comes has greatly affected consumer behaviour. According to the University of Delaware (2006), â€Å"buying Behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products.† This research work is therefore dedicated to giving an empirical study of the differences in consumer behavior in an e-commerce en vironment compared to the "traditional" commerce. Specifically, consumer behaviour among students of a selected university shall be examined to ascertain the effects that the online shopping has had on their consumer behavior. To this effect, students buying behaviour on electronics shall be critically examined in relation to electronic shopping. Research Aim The primary aim of this research work is to find out whether consumers buy differently online as compared with traditional way of doing business. Then if they do, the researcher will be concerned with finding out factors that influence their decisions. Specific Objectives In other to achieve the broader research aim set above, the researcher has developed the following specific objectives. It is the hope of the researcher that the achievement of these specific objectives would lead to the achievement of the wider researcher aim. The specific objectives are as follows: 1. To explain what consumer behaviour is 2. To find out the different types of consumer behaviour 3. To explain what electronic business is in general and what electronic shopping is to be specific 4. To distinguish between factors that influence consumer behaviour with traditional businesses and factors that influence consumer behaviour with electronic business. 5. To discuss the role of electronic business/shopping in ensuring business growth 6. To find out the positive influence of e-shopping on consumer behavior

Business Ethics Enron case Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Business Ethics Enron case - Essay Example It has dominated the business world in many divisions such as; natural resources, plastics, power, steel, broadband and principal investments. The men who were responsible of Enron’s demise were Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andrew Fastow. According to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs Enron commited high risk accounting, and disclose too many information about their cashflow. They hid their loss to attract investors for them to keep investing in the company. No one in the company reveal the truth until the social analyst starts to do some research because some of its data just do not make sense and found out the fraud that Enron had been committing. The company can had been falsely registering profit with its value increasing at a dizzying figure of 10 billion to 65 billion. But these unfounded profits have its price as it adversely affected the lives of those who invested in the company because they never got their mon ey back. The fraudulent and unethical business practice of Enron can be traced back to its leadership. Leadership at Enron took a twisted turn when it became obsessed with increasing the value of its stock prices. Its sense of excellence also became crooked as reinforced and perpetuated by its leadership. It promoted a corporate culture of callousness when it arbitrarily ranked half of its employees as non-performer which it will eventually fire. The other half remaining may have remained in the company but adopted a corporate value system that is virulently greedy and fraudulent as promoted and reinforced by its leadership through its performance appraisals. The culture of a company is one of the basic aspect of an organization and often, its behaviors are often based on that corporate culture. At Enron, the company culture has a structure where they place the individuals who have a higher position at the upper level of the office, and ordinary workers who have less power in the co mpany occupy the ground level of the office. This company structure reflects that people who can better adapt with Enron’s unethical business practice will control most of the activites, and create a decision and others who cannot will be relegated as subordinates. This culture of giving too much power on people who are unethical promotes the culture of fraud in th eorganization where greed is encouraged and money became the central value of the organization that they no longer care about the environment as long they gain money. As a company Enron does not have positive control environment â€Å" the tone or culture of a firm the control environemnt sets the tone of organization, influencing its people†. (Hartman and Desjardin Pg. 539). In my point of view the negative control environment that Enron company sets it is to make their workers adapt with the situation of the company that they work 12 hours per day only thinking of how to make a billion profit to the compan y by doing fraudulent on the stakesholder. This practice alone of inducing employees to work all day long and forgo other aspects of their lives such as family and social lives is not healthy. Duty care does not also exist in its organizational structure. Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andrew Fastow does not apply the duty of care aspect to on their decision. â€Å"Duty of care involves the exercise of reasonalble care by board member... their management responsibilities and comply with the law†