Cause-Related Marketing and Ethnocentrism: The Moderating Effects of Geographic Scope and Perceived Economic Threat

Optimization for Sustainable Train Shunting Services Using DMAIC Cycle

Railway operations is a complicated field that requires a specialized team to operate trains safely and effectively. The focus of this paper was on a Middle Eastern-based railway company to understand the current train shunting process at the north–south passenger line and investigate possible issues in order to resolve them. The aim of this paper is to go through the DMAIC cycle and use it to define, measure, analyze and recommend improvements to enhance and control the current process. The results show that the bottleneck process can be greatly improved and optimized by fixing the root causes identified by the cause and effect diagram, which should positively contribute to increasing the overall performance of train operations and provide more time to maintain the trains.

Consumer ethnocentrism under the circumstances of the COVID 19 virus pandemic

Background: The new circumstances of life due to the proclamation of the COVID 19 virus pandemic have caused numerous changes both in general people's lives and in consumption. Purpose: The aim of this paper is to identify changes in the degree of consumer ethnocentrism when choosing products during the COVID 19 virus pandemic, compared to the period before its occurrence. In addition, differences in consumer preferences for certain domestic products and services before and during the pandemic were analyzed. The paper also deals with differences in ethnocentric tendencies during the pandemic between different socio-demographic consumer segments. Study design/methodology/approach: The primary data were collected from 176 respondents by using the survey method. A paired samples t test is used for hypotheses testing. Independent samples t test and Anova, post hoc Scheffe test, were conducted for analysing differences in ethnocentric tendencies between observed consumer segments during the pandemic. Findings/conclusions: Higher level of consumer ethnocentrism is confirmed in period during the pandemic, especially when it comes to choice of domestic medical products. On the other hand, lower level of consumer ethnocentrism is observed for fashion products and insurance during the pandemic. Older consumers and pensioners exhibit stronger ethnocentric tendencies during the pandemic. Limitations/future research: The main limitation of the paper relates to the use of only a few of the 17 statements within the CET scale for measuring ethnocentric tendencies before and during the pandemic. Also, the research did not cover all categories of domestic products and services. According to the limitations, future studies are recommended to fully apply the CET scale for measuring consumer ethnocentrism. Also, the recommendation is to observe higher number of categories of products and services, and to break down the categories into several subcategories. Finally, future studies can also include some of the determinants of consumer ethnocentrism in the research model.