8% were American. 9.7% were European and 6.7% were Japanese. The majority used s-commerce to purchase tickets for entertainment (44.5%) and 67% had been using s-commerce for more than two years. The study shows that transaction safety (.480) and reputation (.450) both at the .01 level of significance, most contribute to trust in an s-commerce platform. The combination of all seven factors explains .784 of all variation in the sample with regard to trust in s-commerce. This is statistically significant at the .05 level of confidence and shows that purchase intentions can be explained by the seven-factor model the researchers created (Kim, Park, 2013). The model of s-commerce security and reliability therefore is statistically sound and applies to the South Korean social e-commerce industry. Study limitation include the lack of cross-sectional design definition and the development of an effective control group to measure dependent variable correlation to the trust measure. Another limitation is the lack of global applicability of results and lack of orthogonal support for each of the groups shown in the results. Overall the model is ideally suited for South Korea yet lacks enough statistical validity to be extrapolated on a broader context.

Critical Analysis of Evaluation of international Brand Alliances: Brand Order and Consumer Ethnocentrism

In the study Evaluation of international Brand Alliances: Brand Order and Consumer Ethnocentrism (Li, He, 2013) the authors are concentrating on the aspects of how ethnocentrism as they relate to the relative levels of growth throughout a nations; economy. The authors have found that the greater the economic growth, the less ethnocentric citizens are in preferring one brand over another (Li, He, 2013).

The study methodology includes two real brands that were based on fictitious brand alliances with known companies in Taiwan, the nation where the research as completed. The two brands were Heineken from the Netherlands, and Uni-President from Taiwan. Both brands are extremely well-known in the Taiwanese market and served as the basis of the comparison of ethnocentrism. The authors defined a methodology specifically designed to capture preferences for the Taiwanese brand over the well-known beer brand from the Netherlands. The methodology was also designed to reflect the employment of Taiwanese relative to the profits going to the Netherlands-based company. The survey instrument were printed questionnaires administered to two respondent populations.

The demographics of the survey included 46.9% of all respondents in the 20 to 30-year-old age group and 53.1% over 30. 56.4% were male and 44% were female in group one and 53.1% were male and 46.9% were female in group two., The surveys were presented both in English and Chinese and the respondents were given the opportunity to comment on the open-ended questions as well. The first set of respondents were based on Taiwan and the second in the United States.

The survey results indicated that the Taiwanese were less ethnocentric by at a statistically significant level than the Americans (Li, He, 2013). The study also showed that consumer ethnocentrism was also highest for native brands relative to tangential brands form mainland China as well (Li, He, 2013). The researchers noted that the greater the level of economic growth and stability of a country, the lower the ethnocentrism and more open adoption of international brands (Li, He, 2013). Brands weren't seen as a threat but as an addition to the overall experience of the consumers living in these nations. The study limitations included a lack of statistical quality control over each group in the sample. Selection and screening of respondents by brand loyalty and affinity was also not completed as well. Due to these factors this study is not considered statistically valid on a global level.

Critical Analysis of Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM): How Connecting Social Analytics to Business Analytics

enhances Customer care and Loyalty

The ongoing evolution of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) continues to show potential for unifying the social networks and social media platforms individuals and companies rely on daily to communicate. The intent of the study Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM): How Connecting Social Analytics to Business Analytics enhances Customer care and Loyalty (Nadeem, 2012) is to ascertain how effective the nascent field of Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) is and how it is progressing over time. The implications on greater Lifetime Customer Value (CLV), reduced churn and higher overall profitability are the goals of the analysis the researcher has in completing the study.

The methodology for the study is based primarily on a literature review of the latest SCRM studies, in addition to interviews with the leading experts...

The study methodology also makes use of secondary data from a primary research study completed by Baird and Parasnis (2011). This study forms the foundation of the analysis and shows the results of interviews with 1,056 consumers located throughout the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and France. Respondent incomes were between $25,000 and $100K and also included a subsegment of 351 business executives in the countries mentioned. The researchers on this specific project concentrated on measuring the impact of social media and SCRM as a strategy in the nations defined in the sample. The consumer segment of the analysis captured the impact of SCRM on their purchasing strategies and behavior.
The impact of SCRM on the purchasing cycles of consumers showed that the effects of Facebook advertising was negligible, however the updates and tweets on pricing data was valuable and led to increased sales (Nadeem, 2012). The respondents also mentioned that they had a better grasp of the key differentiators of each brand on social media after communicating with them via SCRM systems. The companies tracked in the study showed higher sales as a result of SCRM systems on most commodity-based products, and shorter evaluation cycles on the more expensive, highly differentiated products (Nadeem, 2012). The study has several significant limitations in that the data is secondary are the researchers are attempting to add it into a framework for the evaluation of SCRM as an overall strategy. It also lacks a clarity of focus on the overall value of SCRM to consumers as well in terms of bettering their lives with more efficient use of branding information.

Critical Analysis of A Cross-Cultural Study of Consumer Ethnocentrism between China and the U.S.

The study A Cross-Cultural Study of Consumer Ethnocentrism between China and the U.S. (Tsai, Lee, Song, 2013) is designed based on the hypothesis that American consumers are more ethnocentric that Chinese consumers. Like the previous study of Taiwanese consumers (Li, He, 2013) this study is designed to capture the level of ethnocentrism between American and Chinese consumers specifically quantifying the areas of nationalism, patriotism, internationalism, age, gender and education (Tsai, Lee, Song, 2013). The researchers contend that the greater the level of globalized integration of a given company the lower the level of ethnocentrism.

The methodology is based on a series of online user panels located in the U.S. And Beijing, China during April through June, 2011. These consumer panels are specifically designed to allow for greater capture of specific nuances around ethnocentric purchasing behavior. The Web-based survey is designed to capture four constructs of patriotism, nationalism, internationalism, and consumer ethnocentrism (Li, He, 2013). In terms of demographics a total of 506 American and 564 Chinese consumers were contacted with the female-to-male ratio (46.4:53.6) being very close to the actual U.S. Census figures for 2011. The American respondents were relatively young (18 -- 45 years old), predominantly white (91.7%), and from nearly every income segment and education level. The Chinese sample has 57.1% total women which is a higher concentration than China actually has according ot its census (Li, He, 2013).

The results show a paradox of consumer ethnocentrism. On the one hand the greater the level of development in a given nation the higher the ethnocentrism, yet the more economically uncertain a nation is, the same level of ethnocentrism can emerge (Li, He, 2013). Ethnocentrism and national pride including patriotism is more of a force in established nations that have a collective confidence, in addition to those nations with stronger economies. This shows that Chinese consumers don't differentiate or discriminate in terms of which brands they purchase based on the nationality of the producer alone while Americans do (Li, He, 2013). The study lacks statistical validity from a global perspective in that the survey samples are not representative of other nations. Using the Likert scales the measure attitudinal levels relative to nationalism and patriotism by brands is also not as accurate as discrete pricing analysis as well.

Discussion

What unifies the diverse set of studies in this analysis is how critical it is for marketers to concentrate first on the customer experience they are delivering by unifying cultural, personal, social and psychological aspects of consumer behavior. As can be seen from the studies of how social media is changing how consumers portray their brand loyalty (Hollenbeck, Kaikati, 2012) to the motivations consumers have for finding and sharing pricing data (Diaz, 2013) social media is transforming every aspect of customer behavior today.

Integral ot all of these factors is also…