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Assignment 1

Tentative TOPIC Title:  Consumption of WKU  students according to GIPMINDER Data set.

 Research Purpose/Statement:

           The  purpose of the study is to describe basic consumption level of WKU students  and analyze students’ consumption psychology. In addition, it will be a great help in exploring how WKU students  manage their money matters.

After looking through the codebook for the GAPMINDER study,  I have decided that I am particularly interested consumption of WKU students.  I am not sure which variables I will use regarding WKU students, so for now I  will include all of the relevant variables in my personal codebook.

   Research

Sub-objectives:

  Research Questions:

1. To describe the personal information of respondents

  What is the  personal information of Wenzhou-Kean University students with the respect of?

  Age

  Gender

  Living expenses       from family per month

  2. To describe students’ Basic information of consumption  and preference

  What is the consumption level of Wenzhou-Kean University  students in terms of (¥)?

  1000-2000

  2000-3000

  3000-4000

  4000+

  What is the  consumption preference of Wenzhou-Kean University students in the aspect of

a. Food

b. Education

c. Entertainment

d. Daily use

e. Clothes and  Beauty

f.  Exercise

g. Relationship  with lover

Why do students  prefer consume in this aspect?

 3. To describe the attitudes of WKU students towards  consumption

 What are the views  of Wenzhou-Kean University students towards consumption with the respect of

  Scrimp or Care less about price

  Under what       circumstances will be stimulated to consume

  How do  Wenzhou-Kean University students form this type of consumption attitude?

4. To describe the ability of WKU students manage money

  How do  Wenzhou-Kean University students spend money?

 What ways do  Wenzhou-Kean University students manage money matters?

 Hypotheses

Ha1: There are significant differences in consumption level  and consumption preference between male and female.

Ha2: The discount of goods will greatly stimulate students’  consumption.

Ha3: WKU students are lack of the financial awareness.

   Conceptual Framework

                 Consumption      level

·            Specific amount of      money

                                      Consumption      behavior

·            Consumer preference

·            Consumer psychology

Factors

Online      shopping

Sino-foreign      cooperative university

                       Demographic      Profile

·            Age

·            Gender

·            Living expenses      from family per month

               Consumption attitude

         Money      management

·            Financial      management

Operational Definitions

 Consumption level:

            The use of goods and services of exchange value (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2003).

 Consumer behavior:   Consumer behavior is a study of individuals, groups  or organizations and all activities related to goods and services, such as  purchases and placements, including consumer feedback on mood, mind and  behavior before and after these activities. (Chand, 2012).  

Consumer preference:

The subjective tastes of individual consumers. (Weedmark,  2018)

Consumer psychology:

           All activities associated with the purchase,  use and disposal of goods and services, including the consumer's emotional,  mental and behavioral responses that precede or follow these activities. (Kardes, Cronley & Cline, 2011)

Online shopping:

           The act of purchasing products or services over the  Internet. (BusinessDictionary, 2018)

Sino-foreign  cooperative university:

           The legally independent entities formed as joint ventures  between Chinese universities and international partners. (Xiao, 2018)

Consumption attitude:

           A  psychological tendency to give a certain level of approval or disapproval to  a particular consumer entity (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993)

 Money management:  The process of  budgeting, saving, investing, spending, or supervising the use of capital by  individuals or groups (Chen, 2017).  

 Review of Related Literature and Studies

 Consumption level:

The first element to describe the consumption is to acquire  how much they spend money per month which means the consumption level,  commonly refers to as “the using up of goods and services having an  exchangeable value” (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2003). From the aspects of  consumption level of particular things, there are a mass of researches.  According to Haider, See and Elmenreich (2016), in the scheme with adaptive  price rate, the charge is based on the actual consumption of consumers. The  relationship between the breast cancer risk and the alcohol consumption level  has also been made by Touvier and his colleges (2013). These relationships  make it valuable to study, and help develop the consumer behavior.

 Consumption level towards college students:

University  students as a special group of people, they have their own consumption  activities but they are not very mature. College students are particularly  susceptible to consumerism (Ware, 2002). Because the immaturity of college  students, it is easy to be affected by the current popular consumption  concept, so as to make some abnormal consumption behavior. Moreover, this  article also demonstrates the point that the higher the consumption level of  college students, the more products the consumer market provides them.  Different family backgrounds and different consumption concepts will lead to  the diversity of college students' consumption level. Therefore, there is a  great deal of concerns and diversities about college students' consumption  levels Research has been completed or is under way.

  Consumer behavior:

           Consumer  behavior is a study of individuals, groups or organizations and all  activities related to goods and services, such as purchases and placements,  including consumer feedback on mood, mind and behavior before and after these  activities. (Chand, 2012). The  reasons that influence consumer behavior can be explored from many different  perspectives.

           Advances  in technology have accelerated the adoption of dynamic pricing practices in  sectors such as retail, aviation and hotels, and trained consumers to time  purchases in anticipation of future discount strategies (Wei & Zhang,  2017). Consumer behavior is also highly concerned in management science. The  reason is that mastering the consumer behavior can grasp the purchase  psychology of consumers and their latest trends, thus helping the Marketing  Department to increase sales. This is only a small aspect of consumer  behavior. In this era of highly developed capital, consumers have become a  significant group in the economy, and consumer behavior has been studied in  various fields.                                                                                                        

 Consumer behavior of college students:

           As a  special consumer group, college students are more susceptible to external  influences on their consumption behaviors, which leads to changes in goods,  time and value they consume. Compulsive shopping and social networking among  college students may be linked to credit card debt. In addition, impulse  buying, another type of buying behavior, may also affect debt (Wang &  Xiao, 2008). Furthermore, financial educators working with college students  have many opportunities to teach students about the pitfalls of accumulating  credit card debt and strategies for preventing compulsive and impulsive buying.

 Consumer preference:

           Consumer preference is defined as “all activities  associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services,  including the consumer's emotional, mental and behavioral responses that  precede or follow these activities” (Weedmark, 2018) As a  discipline, consumer preference is  influenced by consumer’s objective and mental condition, it can be regarded  as the description of consumer behavior analysis. (Foxal, 2001)

Consumer preference in academic performances:

Consumer preference is a very complex and flexible study which can refer to individual and  organizational consumers. In marketing, it can be divided into several  aspects, purchase activities, use or consumption activities and disposal  activities. (Kardes, 2011) Purchase activities describe how consumers obtain  the services and products and all behaviors leading to the consumption  decision. Use or consumption activities refers to when, where, who and how of  consumption. And disposal activities concerns the way of consumers managing  products which including reselling activities. It’s a significant challenge  for marketing people to understand and learn to lead consumption preference  in the consumer market. In a broad sense, mastering consumer preference  requires both understanding of how consumption decisions are made and how  services and products are consumed. (Lynn & Angeline, 2011). However,  consumers are described as “active decision-makers”, there are plenty of  different variables influencing the consumers’ behaviors which based on their  internal condition, like disposable income or budget, personal taste and  emotion; some external condition, like advertisement and culture.

Consumer preference was heavily influenced by motivation  research in the early 1930s and it had been widely used by advertising  industry and the discipline of psychology. More recently, researchers use new  technologies and tools which including ethnography, photo-elicitation  techniques and phenomenological interviewing to study consumer preference.  Today, consumer preference has become an important sub-discipline within  marketing. (Tadajewski, 2009)

 Consumer psychology

           Consumer psychology is all activities associated with the  purchase, use and disposal of goods and services, including the consumer's  emotional, mental and behavioral responses that precede or follow these  activities. (Kardes, Cronley & Cline, 2011)

Consumer psychology is an interesting topic in the marking.  It is the reason why in a market the highest-price products are always in  sight and why many store have some  special offers for limited time.  All of these marketing strategies are related to consumer psychology, seller  can manipulate customer thoughts by using advantage of consumer psychology. (Natalie, 2018)

 Consumer psychology of college students:

As the development of internet and online shopping,  consumption is becoming easier and faster that past. This “fast and easy  process” reduce university students’ psychological pressure of consumption.  More and more college students choose to use credits cards and application to  shop anytime and everywhere they want. Therefore, it cause a phenomena of  excessive consumption and impulsive consumption among the modern Chinese  college students. However, most university in China have not started public  courses or basic courses on financial knowledge, financial management methods  and consumption concepts, so that students cannot control their own  consumption desire. (Bai, 2016) Both study and education of consumer  psychology are greatly needed in China.

 Online  shopping:

Online shopping is defined as the  act of purchasing products or services over the Internet.  (BusinessDictionary, 2018) As we discussed before, online shopping and other  electronic tools deeply influence consumers’ behaviors. Some statistics show that international sales in Asia  and Pacific areas increased over 30% and made $433 billion revenue in 2012.  And the largest online shopping day  in the world created by China—Singles Day, which sales at US$9.3 billion just  in Alibaba's sites.  (Custer, 2014) Online shopping puts new  challenges and variables in global economy which encourage more new studies  and researches in the economy areas.

 Online environment’s influences on consumer behavior:

Different from  real economy, digital economy has  more convenient and advanced method and more selective options for consumer  to participate in the market.  Therefore, people in online environment may not strongly controlled  and influenced by brand and firm, and they will more focus on quality,  service, recommendations, online reviews and other information. People also  get used to use mobile phone and computers to shopping, so that digital  environment deeply influence people’s mind and consumption behavior. Most  people become more interactive and can influence other potential buyers by  online reviews.  (Kannan,  Alice, 2017).

Besides, modern college students are more likely be influenced  by the online shopping. Because college students may not familiar with the  city which their college located in and they are proficient in using  computer.

Sino-foreign cooperative  university:

           “Sino-foreign cooperative joint ventures—a flexible legal  partnership between Chinese entities and foreign companies—are an effective  way that businesses secure a foothold in China.” (Xiao, 2018) Recently, more  and more Chinese students prefer study aboard and try to find a job in other  countries. According to a recent Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE) report,  in 2017 more than 608,400 Chinese students—the highest  number in China’s history—chose to pursue higher education in a foreign  country. With Chinese students’ growing demand for a more international education  experience, colleges and universities around the world are looking for  opportunity to make a foothold in China. Therefore, international university  begin to establish similar partnerships as Sino-foreign cooperative joint  ventures—Sino-foreign cooperative university. Now there are about 9  cooperative university in China and the number is rising every year.                                                                

 Advantages of Sino-Foreign cooperative university

Most co-host foreign institutions have abundant history and  experience that the host Chinese universities. The foreign universities of  the cooperative university nearly 1.8 times older than their Chinese  counterparts. (U.S. News & World Report, 2018)  Which means this new type of university can  provide students in China better educational resources and international  environment. In addition, by using international education resources  university can effectively enhance international competition level of  domestic teachers through mutual integration and influence.

In a word, current Sino-foreign cooperative education is  the outcome of the development of international trade over the world and the  international education trade in China. Since the globalization tendency is  unstoppable and the demand for qualified international talent increasing  sharply, Sino-foreign cooperative education plays a significant role in  promoting the sustainable development of international education trade in  China. (Yan, 2014)

 Consumption attitude:

             Following Eagly and Chaiken (1993), consumption attitude can be  defined as a psychological tendency to give a certain level of approval or  disapproval to a particular consumer entity. In modern life, it is very  important for a sales company to predict the trend of consumers. Therefore,  how to grasp consumers' tendency has become a popular topic.

Since consumer attitudes are specific to the consumer  sector, they are better predictors of consumer behavior than more general  factors (Wang, Dou&Zhou, 2008). This research also mentions that Consumer  attitudes have a significant impact on the adoption of new products. Consumer acceptance of market innovation is negatively correlated  with attitudes toward existing products, positively related to self-determination  and preferences for high-tech products. Besides, the degree of influence of consumer attitudes  depends on the demographic characteristics of consumers. The effect was more  pronounced among older, lower-income consumers.

 In addition, Green  consumption attitude is also widely advocated in the contemporary society.  Take Hydrogen-Electric motorcycle for example, according to Chen and Hsieh  (2012), the belief that consumers develop in daily life needs correct green  consumption attitude before it can be further developed into the purchase  intention of hydrogen electric motorcycle. Similar researches have been made  about consumption attitude.     Money management:  We can find out from the  definition that  Money management can also be defined  as “investment management” and “investment portfolio management” (Chen, 2017). Money management plays  an important role in the rapid development of modern economy. No matter the  old or the middle-aged, even the children, as long as they have a certain  amount of money, they want to maximize their financial condition.  There are also many  researches on the relationship between money management and other objects.  Based on Archuleta’ research (2013), increasing Shared roles, Shared goals  and values, financial role satisfaction, and reducing harsh startup and  deadlock were important predictors of relationship satisfaction. Family  income increase, common goals and values increase, financial role  satisfaction increase, age and marriage age increase are important predictors  of financial satisfaction.     Money management of college  students:  

College graduates' debt levels have increased significantly  over the past decade (Palmer, Bliss, Goetz &Moorman, 2010).   The study found that high debt levels have a major impact on  society, as some college graduates with debt burdens are currently less  flexible when looking for work.

Credit card are now using extremely frequent among college  students. Take this for a money management example, according to Singh,  Rylander and Mims (2016), one has a positive attitude toward the credit card  company and has responsible credit use behavior, while the other has the  opposite attitude and behavior. In addition, College administrators should do  more to educate students about credit cards, especially undergraduates.

People's psychology condition and financial management also  have a great relationship. According to Sages, Britt and Cumbie (2013),  spending outside of income, difficulty paying bills due to insufficient  income, and reaching credit card limits are all behaviors that are  significantly associated with anxiety.

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