古川 一郎

The theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein (1977)) is one of the most well known concepts used in quantitative analysis in marketing research. In addition to its simple structure, predictive power, and diagnostic information associated with marketing actions, it includes two clearly distinct independent factors, that is, attitude and social norm for the intention of choice alternatives. Because characteristics of this model are so attractive and flexible, the theory of reasoned action model can be adapted from collectivistic regions to individualistic regions. However, we have little knowledge about whether or not this model works satisfactorily in strong group-oriented countries where social norms can surpass individual attitudes for choice alternatives (which is the definition of a group-oriented society). In this paper, data collected from Japan, China and Taiwan were analyzed using factor analysis and structural equation modeling. By investigating the empirical results with a focus on the effect of personal relationship classification, we show that care should be exercised in using the reasoned action model in countries that have strong group-orientation.

Chinese "face," as a complex social and psychological phenomenon, has attracted much attention from the fields of sociology and psychology. However, in the field of consumer behavior, research about how mianzi (face) affects consumer behavior is lacking. Moreover, research on the connotations of sub-dimension of mianzi (face), that is, lian and mian as well as their influences on consumer behavior is seldom seen. Based on the grounded theory, using focus group interviews and the self-report method, this study extracted scenario sentences of lian and mian, initially forming a preliminary scale with 14 positive items and 20 negative items concerning lian and mian. Moreover, by using close-ended questionnaire originated from previous grounded theory in terms of Chinese face, this study validated the discrepancy between "mian" and "lian." Besides the discrepancy between "mian" and "lian" also appeared in consumer perception about product category and country-of-origin image. © 2011 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.