D91 - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision MakingReturn

According to the previous research about consumer behaviour, adding a decoy option to a choice set often increases the individual’s preference for one option over the other original option. The literature discusses the information format as one of the moderating factors with qualitative and pictorial information possibly weakening the decoy effect. To test this, this contribution uses the washing machine scenario of decoy effect previously examined where the decoy effect was found to not influence the consumer behaviour. In this paper, the experimental conditions were broadened when it comes to the image format accompanying the alternative description to examine the influence of specific images on the consumer choices to explain the previously reported failure to detect the decoy effect. In total, choices of 959 respondents from a set of the washing machines were collected and analysed using Chi-squared test. The current results indeed indicate the positive decoy effect when the product image was variable in the study design. However, no evidence was found that respondents’ choices would be directly influenced by the product image.

Business creation theories were rarely explored with stages that precede the final intention to start a business. Therefore, this paper aimed to examine what factors impact the final decision to start a business and what factors just lead to a more favourable perception of a business opportunity. Several theories recognized by literature like the theory of planned behaviour, traits, cognitive biases, and risk attitudes were tested. Moreover, the explanatory power of these theories to entrepreneurship compared to innovative (leadership) practices was tested. When examining multiple regression models, it was shown that above mentioned theories predict entrepreneurship as well as innovative practices. Model that involved business creation theories predicting opportunity evaluation was significant. Among predictors of opportunity evaluation, it was shown that unrealistic optimism, risk attitudes as well as traits or theory of planned behaviour did contribute to the prediction of opportunity evaluation. When testing multiple regression model of the final decision to invest in the business opportunity, it was shown that it solely depends on risk perception. No theories other than risk perception predicted the decision to start a business. From the multiple regression model explaining innovative practices, it was shown that traits and positive illusions significantly added to the prediction of innovative practices. Overall findings contribute to the debate of entrepreneurship predictors and suggest that the final decision to start a business is rather determined by risk perception. The results suggest that risk perception is the factor, which may distinguish entrepreneurs from others that incline to entrepreneurship but may not found their own business and rather be innovative on the job. This study emphasizes that cognitive phenomena are applicable in explaining entrepreneurial intention and those qualities may be addressed by entrepreneurial education.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic brought the focus on the shift in the consumer habits, consumption and spending, as well as the new sides consumers‘ (ir)rationality, especially in the terms of the panic stock-up purchases and herd behaviour. In this paper, we use the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to empirically test the bias in the consumer judgments. Using a simple survey experiment among college students, the difference in their willingness to pay monthly for a life insurance under the COVID-19 frame and general, non-COVID-19 frame is examined. According to the obtained results, it was found out the subjects were willing to pay higher amount for the insurance when the question was framed by the COVID-19 context. This result generally supports the previously found empirical evidence on the influence of the judgment heuristics, importance of the context frame and the consumer irrationality. Practical implications for small and medium enterprises are discussed at the end of the paper.

The article aims to discover consumer preferences concerning luxury skincare products by applying the multivariate statistical method, a conjoint analysis. The main aim is to identify the significant attributes of products influencing consumer behaviour in terms of purchase, use, motivation, and a general approach to the luxury skincare product segment on the Czech market. The main sources for primary data are questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews with representatives of companies operating in this sector. According to the initial analysis, four of the most significant attributes were determined that apply to consumer behaviour within this sector and the product in question: the possibility of product sampling, point of sale advice, product price, and level of the special offer. Using the conjoint analysis, these attributes were incorporated into individual model cards and subsequently offered to consumers for rating. The final sample of 1,104 respondents rated the offered product variants of skincare products, with the result that that the most preferred factors were  price and amount of the special offer, as opposed to less-preferred products offering sampling and point of sale advice. Simultaneously, the data showed that consumers gave most preference to the lowest price and the highest special offer.

According to the previous research about consumer behaviour, adding a decoy option (inferior option) to a set of original options often increases the individual’s preference for one option over the other original option. In this paper, the possible impact of income as a traditional demographic factor on the phenomenon is explored and discussed in the case of two product categories: washing machines and gym season-tickets. The analysed data were obtained in an online experiment with 260 participants where the presence of the decoy effect has been confirmed for the two mentioned product categories. The effect sizes for consumer groups based on the income level are tested by Chi-squared test. It was found out that not all income categories display the decoy effect and the income categories which exhibited the decoy effect differed between the two examined product categories. The strength of the decoy effect was proved to be dependent on the income category.

When faced with the choice problem involving two products each superior in a different dimension, an addition of an asymmetrically dominated alternative into the choice set might shift the consumer’s preferences towards the dominant alternative. In this article, the effect of asymmetrically dominated alternatives is explored on a sample of Czech consumers involving four different product categories – lunch meals, vacation destinations, gym season tickets, and washing machines. The research question is whether there might be any significant differences in the strength of the effect on choices of Czech consumers. The analyzed data were obtained in an experiment with 260 participants and the effect sizes are tested by the Chi-squared test. The presence of the decoy effect is confirmed only for two product categories, washing machines, and gym season tickets. For the remaining two product categories the effect was not confirmed. This study and its findings test the theory of consumer decision making about the decoy effects in the case of specific products and implications for business considering using the decoy effect are made.

The theme of the paper is contemporary perception and attitudes of citizens towards the issue of poverty in the micro-region Karvina. The theoretical part describes the current issue of poverty within the European Union with the specification to the Czech Republic. Primarily it is a presentation of the current causes that can lead to poverty in European society. Further space is also devoted to preventive tools of the poverty in the Czech Republic. The content of the second part of the paper is research that has been realized and evaluated in 2017. The aim of the research is the perception and classification an own living standard of the citizens of the Karvina micro-region and the attitudes of citizens towards socially demographic groups that are at risk of poverty and social exclusion. The results of the research are interesting in that they do not always confirmed the theoretical conclusions and hypotheses. In conclusion of the paper are summarized the most important findings from the theoretical and research part.