A STUDY ON CONSUMER TYPES OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISEijeronline.com/documents/volumes/2019/Sept - Oct 2019...2.2 Values, Attitudes, and Life Styles VALS (Values, Attitudes and Life styles)

A STUDY ON CONSUMER TYPES OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISE Tzu-Huan Chuang

1, Yu-Che Wang

2 and Chiu-Chi Wei

3*

1 Ph.D. Program of Technology Management

Chung Hua University, Taiwan 2 Department of Business Administration

Chung Hua University, Taiwan 3 Department of Industrial Management

Chung Hua University, Taiwan

*Corresponding author, E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Capitalism of free economic development has been the mainstream in global economic markets.

Although it has effectively contributed to increases in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in many

countries, but the coercive practices in the pursuit of economic growth have given rise to certain side

effects. In view of this, experts and scholars believe that social enterprises can resolve related social

problems brought about by the overdevelopment. Although social enterprises can indeed resolve some

social problems, whether they possess self-sufficiency competency remains questionable. In this study,

the Children-Are-Us Foundation was adopted as the research case, and exploration and analyses were

carried out through the use of TVALS (Taiwan Value, Attitude and Living Scale), in the hope of gaining

an insight into the consumer types of social enterprise.

Analysis results show that consumer are generally divided into three major groups, of which the

hipsters comprise the highest number of people and are more receptive to advertising marketing

stimuli. Therefore, targeting effective marketing for the group with this living attitude, the Foundation

should integrate media exposure where appropriate and adopt more intuitive and visible charity

marketing approaches to attract consumers. Additionally, it is suggested that the competent authority

engage in cross-industry matching assistance as soon as possible, targeting non-profit organizations

resorting to social enterprising or agencies managing shelter workshops, as well as appropriately

making relevant bill amendments in order to make room for social enterprises to improve

self-sufficiency and survival rates.

Keywords: Social Enterprise, TVALS, Marketing Strategy

1. Background

With the prevalence of capitalism, most governments opt for the free

development of economic activities in the capital market. Although it can effectively

boost the overall social economy and GDP growth, as far as many countries are

concerned, the profit-oriented economic model has also brought about some negative

effects on the society, such as oligopoly enterprises monopolizing the economy, labor

and capital opposition, the economic structure of M-form society, and many other

problems.

Many economists have put forward various economic models or social mutual

assistance advice, hoping to cater to the vulnerable class emerging from economic

Tzu-Huan Chuang, Yu-Che Wang and Chiu-Chi Wei , Int. Jou Eco. Res, 2019, V10 i5, 11 – 28 ISSN:2229-6158

IJER – September – October 2019 available online @ www.ijeronline.com

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mailto:[email protected]

development. However, limited by the law or enterprises’ profitability policy, a

considerable area of fuzziness exists between social welfare and economic

development (OECD, 1999), which has in turn led to the emergence of NPO

organizations that further promote profit-driven social enterprises and dedicated to

improving social problems through the strengthen of sustainable management.

(Borzaga and Defourny, 2004)

According to a report of Social UP in 2017, there are more than 11 million social

enterprise employees under the EU, accounting for approximately 6% of the entire

employment population in Europe. In the SEUK2017 report, it is stated that the

United Kingdom is the country with the most flourishing social enterprises, about

70,000 in total, up to one million employees, with the annual output value of 240

million euros, accounting for 5% of the GDP in the United Kingdom. Among them,

one third of the social enterprise entrepreneurs or employees are more disadvantaged

groups in terms of social employment, such as African-American women, those with

physical and mental disabilities, etc. This has a positive correlation with past notion

that social enterprises can resolve social issues through business models and form

social trends. (Dart, 2004)

Although the output value has increased considerably compared to past years, a

cash flow-based analysis on enterprise profitability shows 59% of funds come from

government subsidies. Hence, whether social enterprises can achieve self-sufficiency

and even sustainable management remains questionable (SEUK, 2017). Foster and

Bradach (2005) and Jay (2013) believed that although social enterprises have indeed

resolved social problems, the adequacy remains back on the economic side, thus

failing to form the cycle of sustainable management. Past researches on social

enterprises mostly focused on social goodness and policy formulation. However, to

fully contemplate from the perspective of commercialization, the target group must be

understood to formulate strategies (Kotler and Keller, 2005).

In this study, the TVALS model proposed by Wang and Chow (2017) was

deployed to explore employment-oriented social enterprise management. The most

well-known shelter workshop in Taiwan, The-Children-Are-Us Foundation was

adopted as the research object. Through questionnaire surveys and analyses, it is

expected that the TVALS model can be used to identify consumer groups and aid

social enterprises in providing practical and feasible marketing practices for their

target consumers. In the future, it can also be promoted to other employment-oriented

social enterprises as a reference for market promotion. In addition to increasing the

actual turnovers of social enterprises, it will assist in promoting the long-term

business cycle of social enterprises.



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2. Literature Review

This section explores the related literatures, including social enterprises and

VALS Model and description of case.

2.1 Social Enterprises

The term social enterprise derived from the socioeconomic transformation of

tangible or intangible resource exchanges among mutual-aid assistance groups in

Europe. Although the term social enterprise still have no explicit definitions and

business scope, any organization whose founding principle is to resolve social gap

and unemployment issues through business models and whose objective is not to

pursue profit maximization can be called social enterprises (OECD, 1999).

Although social enterprises are fundamentally social welfare based, their

practices are actually business model oriented. Hence, the regulatory definitions

targeting social enterprises vary from nation to nation. Among the legal norms at

present, the United Kingdom, the first to promote social enterprise laws has become

the paradigm of legal references (Social Enterprise UK) for many countries.

Subsequently, the social welfare company bill in the United States have been

implemented in over 30 States (Benefit Corporation, 2019). In Asia, Korea promoted

“Law on the Promotion of Social Enterprises” in 2006 to become the leader in social

enterprise regulations in Asian regions (KoSEA,2019). Currently, Taiwan’s social

enterprise regulations are still undergoing legislation planning, but in view of the

current social enterprise model, market segmentation is done by traditional non-profit

organizations and for-profit organizations.

The classification of social enterprises is mostly based on the social enterprise

spectrum put forth by Dees (1999). He believed that there is no fixed standard for

classifying social enterprises. Instead, the classification should be based on the

enterprises’ own objectives, motivations, operational methods and stakeholders,

including beneficiaries, capital sources, manpower and providers. If NGOs and

traditional for-profit enterprises are the two ends of the spectrum, true social

enterprises should only belong to the mixed-type enterprise category in the spectrum.

Hence, Dees (1999) believed that mixed-type social enterprises should be divided into

the five types below: (1) full philanthropy support, (2) partial self-sufficiency, (3)

cash flow self-sufficiency, (4) operating expense self-sufficiency, (5) full-scale

commercialization.



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Figure 1. Mixed-type Social Enterprises

Due to cultural differences, the United States classifies social enterprises based

on the concept of the third sector, thus the inclination towards social venturing. As for

Europe, due to its mutual aid community background in the past and early regulatory

setup, the classification is more detailed, with different aspects targeted. In this study,

the social enterprise classification of Cheng (2007) was adopted: commercialized

social enterprises, social venture enterprises, implementation of corporate social

responsibility, and social cooperatives. In addition, commercialized society

The-Children-Are-Us Foundation was selected as the case for research analysis.

2.2 Values, Attitudes, and Life Styles

VALS (Values, Attitudes and Life styles) is a consumer clustering system jointly

researched by Mitchell (1978) and SRI International (SBI, 2018). With the demand

theory and social personality concept of Maslow (1954) as the basis, consumers have

been grouped based on the demographic variable background, in the hope of more

explicitly depicting consumer clusters. Additionally, targeting effective customer

groups, more accurate marketing strategies have been formulated (Beatty, Homer, &

Kahle, 1988). VALS classifies into nine categories based on living resources and

consumption motivation and according to level of consumption, gender, education

level, consumption motivation, and other dimensions, enabling marketing personnel

to perform more accurate marketing analyses based on the preferences of the category

groups. Thus, VALS has been deemed by the marketing industry as the best

breakthrough tool of the 1980s for market research. Since the initial design overly

focused on group activities and consumer interests, the marketing predictions showed

deviations. Hence, the categories were reviewed in 1989, reclassifying the consumer

groups into eight types (as shown in Figure 2).



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Figure 2. VALS

Since VALS and national cultural background are closely related, the US VALS

standard cannot be directly substituted as analysis tools in other countries. Japan’s

JVALS was jointly developed by SBI and Japanese information integration

company-NTT Data; in China, the CVALS framework model was proposed by Wu in

2005. In consideration to the cultural barriers between VALS and translation language

differences, this study employed TVALS (Table 1 and Figure 3) proposed by Wang

and Chow (2017) as the research framework, with social enterprises also as the

marketing targets of consumer groups, thereby fulfilling the practical significance of

this study.

The research of Wang and Chow (2017) shows that Hipsters and Audiences are

the major consumer groups of social enterprises. They share the common

characteristics of high education, more spontaneous consumption attitude, and high

living, diet, and health requirements. Other than the three living characteristics, region

is also a dimension to be taken into consideration. The higher the degree of

urbanization of a region, the higher the consumer’s degree of social enterprise

acceptance.

Innovators

o

Thinkers

o

Believers

o

Achievers

o

Strivers

o

Experiencers

o

Makers

o

Survivors

o

Ideals Achievement Self-Expression

High Resources

High Innovations

Low Resources

Low Innovations



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Table 1. TVALS

Profession Style Definition

Blue Collar Simplifiers

Lower education level

Moderate living and diet requirements, mainly with an

economic orientation

Lower trend pursuit concept

White Collar

Health-care

Considerably low education level in this work scope due

to higher age

The highest living, diet, and health concept

The lowest trend pursuit concept

Seeker

High education level

Pursuit of self-achievement and family recognition

Low living, diet, and health concept.

Moderate pursuit of fashion concept

The males comprising more in consumer group

Audience


Pursuit of self and social value recognition

High living, diet, and health concept

Higher fashion pursuit concept

More spontaneous consumption attitude

Self-employed

Housekeeper

Medium to high education level

High family life recognition


Moderate fashion pursuit

More spontaneous consumption attitude

Mostly female homemakers

Hipsters



The highest fashion pursuit concept

The most spontaneous consumption attitude



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Figure 3. TVALS

2.3 Description of Case

The-Children-Are-Us Foundation was founded on June 29th

, 1995 by

enthusiastic parents of those with mental disabilities. The purpose of the foundation is

to uphold lifelong care or the mentally disabled and lifetime education as the core and

adhere by the mission of paving the way toward dignified living for the mentally

disabled and the joy of existence, overcome obstacles through love and care, and

bring out the potential of Children-Are-Us to return to mainstream society, thereby

changing the lives of those with mental disabilities.

Children-Are-Us are those with mental disabilities must undergo long-term

rehabilitation and education to lead an independent life. However, long-term training

is required to enter the general workplace. The Foundation gives emphasis to turning

Children-Are-Us from service receivers into service providers and from resource

consumers into resource creators through management with an abundance of

innovative thinking and perseverance, rather than resorting to seclusion. The CAUF

has already established a warm and independent image, becoming a synonym of the

“mentally disabled” in Taiwan. Its baking business under social enterprise trend in

Taiwan is a much talked about social enterprise paradigm in Taiwan.

At present, the Foundation has Taipei, Hsinchu and Kaohsiung branches. Under

each branch are the Social Welfare Department and the Business Department. The

Head Office is located in Kaohsiung, under which are the General Business Division,

the Public Affairs Division, the Secretary Division, the Financial and Accounting

Division, and Administrative Planning Division, the Procurement Division, and the

Educational status

Profession Discreet consumers

Casual consumers

Blue Collar White Collar Self-employed

Simples Health-cares

Seekers

Audiences

Housekeepers

Hipsters



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General Affairs Division. The organizational characteristics and principles are

according to jurisdiction. Secondly, the Social Welfare Department and the Business

Department have a parallel setup (CAUF, 2018).

3. Research Method

This study aims to gain an insight into specific customer groups of

Children-Are-Us Foundation, Therefore, the CAUF (Children Are Us Foundation)

consumers were included as research participants. In reference to researches on VALS,

CVALS, and TVALS and the consumer behaviors of customers, the questionnaire is a

multi-item list (Table 2). A pre-test was conducted on 20 consumers, including civil

servants, students, and Managerial positions. Formal questionnaire is issued only after

filtering out questions with reliability and validity.

Due to time and space constraints, the questionnaire targeted the consumer group

aged above 20. The questionnaires include online questionnaire and physical

questionnaire at Hsinchu’s The-Children-Are-Us Restaurant. The questionnaire was

conducted from May 1st, 2019 to May 15

th, 2019. A total of 150 copies were

distributed, of which 117 copies were recovered (recovery rate of 78%). The online

questionnaires was done through the cake survey online questionnaire system, 208

copies were recovered. After eliminating 19 invalid or repeatedly filled out copies,

306 questionnaire copies were obtained for analysis. The questionnaire survey results

underwent analysis using IBM SPSS21 Version. The 5-point Likert scale was used in

all the questions in the scales.

4. Research Analysis

This section covers the analysis and discussion of recovered questionnaires.

4.1 Reliability and Validity Analysis

Since TVALS was a newer questionnaire, reliability analysis was first carried out.

In this study, “Cronbach α of above 0.8 indicates high consistency” defined by

Nunnally (1978) was used. Good consistency was between 0.6 and 0.8 but not less

than 0.5. Table 2 shows that α values of the questions in the questionnaire all

exceeded 0.6, indicating the good reliability of the questionnaire. The living attitude

dimension was used in this study for Principle Component Analysis and Factor

Analysis. With the KMO value of 0.746, the Bartlett value of 0.000, six factors were

extracted. The dimension naming and question classification are as shown in Table 2

below:



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Table 2. Questionnaire Reliability

Factors Question Cronbach α

New life

achievement

awareness

1 I have high expectations of my own

achievements. .736

2 I like to draw the attention of others. .733

3 It is important for my family to think I am

successful. .737

4 I have longing for highly developed countries

(e.g. The United States, Japan). .740

5 I like a romantic attitude towards life. .730

Advertising

awareness

1 Advertising is an indispensable part of my life. .734

2 I pay much attention to advertising on streets. .718

3 I often read advertisements in newspapers and

magazines. .719

4 I like all the advertisements and programs on

TV. .732

Fashion trend

awareness

1 Between practicality and fashion, I choose

fashion. .734

2 I like to pursue popular, fashionable or new

things. .715

3 I am the first person to purchase a newly

released product. .730

Price

evaluation

concept

1 I compare prices before making a purchase. .764

2 I am cautious when it comes to my spending. .773

Family life

awareness

1 My family is more important than my career. .753

2 I like spending time with my family. .747

Spontaneity

awareness

judgement

1 I sometimes buy things I don’t need to keep

myself entertained. .755

2 I often do things on impulse. .754

Consumer

consumption

factors

1

I purchase The-Children-Are-Us products

because it aids in the sustainable management of

The -Children-Are-Us Corporation. .750

2 I purchase The-Children-Are-Us products

because they are trustworthy. .714

3


because purchasing them gives me a sense of

satisfaction. .746

4


because I am attracted by the marketing

approach. .756

5 I think The-Children-Are-Us products have good

quality and come with a diversity of choices. .712

6 I think The-Children-Are-Us products can be

conveniently purchased. .723

7 I think The-Children-Are-Us products are .737



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reasonably priced.

8

I think the service experience at the time of

purchasing The-Children-Are-Us products is

good. .736

9 I will purchase The-Children-Are-Us Products

again. .723

Customer

satisfaction

1 I will recommend The-Children-Are-Us

products to others. .841

2 I sometimes buy things I don’t need to keep

myself entertained. .841

4.2 Cluster Analysis and Descriptive Statistics

The clustering in this study aims to explore the backgrounds and living attitudes

of consumers, with the K-Means clustering chosen as the clustering method. The

cluster value at the time of clustering into three groups was 1429; therefore,

three-group clustering was selected.

The cluster descriptive statistics are as shown in Table 3, including gender, age,

education, occupation, and income. In the gender section: group 1 has the highest

proportion of males (40.8%), group 2 has the highest proportion of females (78.8%);

age proportions are relatively older, Group 2 is the youngest, and Group 3 is

concentrated in 30-39 years; The highest and lowest educational ratios are

concentrated in Group 1; the career Group 1 is the group with the highest proportion

of business operators, the Group 2 is the homemakers and the students, and the Group

3 is the labor service and professional technical position. Income can be compared to

occupational distribution, Group 1 is relatively high income, and Group 2 has the

lowest income.

The average of the various facet factors in Table 4 shows that the two aspects of

the new life attitude and family consciousness are not much different among the three

groups. The advertising awareness and popular consciousness are relatively low in

group 1, but the cost consciousness is the highest among the three groups. Spontaneity

awareness is to get a higher score in Group 2.

Table 5 shows the analysis of demographic variables and clustering results by

ANOVA. It is hoped that the differences between demographic variables among

groups can be understood. The three groups were found to have significant differences

in gender, age and occupation. The gender was significantly higher in G1 and G2. As

shown in Table 3, G1 was the most male and G2 was the female. Age is significantly

different between G2 and G3. The main component of G2 is 20-29 years old, while

G3 is mainly 30-39 years old. Although G1 is older, it may be due to the small

number of G1. There are significant differences with other groups. The occupational

part also has significant differences in G2 and G3. The G2 occupational distribution is

mainly for students and family management, while the G3 is for professional and



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technical jobs. Although the occupational part is significant, the income of each group

has not reached a significant difference, probably because the difference between the

main income Less 625 and the 1,250-1,875 range is not as large as the difference.

Based on the results of Tables 3, 4 and 5, Table 6 provides a characteristic

analysis of the statistical results presented by the three groups. There were 77 in group

1, accounting for 23.2% of the questionnaires. The group had the highest proportion

of males, the highest average age, the largest difference in academic qualifications,

the lowest awareness of advertising and epidemic, and the highest cost consciousness.

There were 99 in group 2, accounting for 32.4% of the questionnaires. The proportion

of women is the highest, the age is the lowest, the occupation is more students and

family management, the income is relatively low, and the sense of sexuality is the

highest; the group 3 has 136, accounting for 44.4% of the questionnaire, the

occupation is professional technical and blue collar, advertising awareness The most

popular awareness and the lowest cost awareness.

Table 3. Cluster Descriptive Statistics

Gender

1(71) 2(99) 3(136)

N % N % N %

Male 29 40.8 21 21.2 48 35.3

Female 42 59.2 78 78.8 88 64.7

Age

1(71) 2(99) 3(136)

N % N % N %

20-29 29 40.8 58 58.6 57 41.9

30-39 27 38 28 28.3 56 41.2

40-49 9 12.7 8 8.1 12 8.8

50-59 5 7 5 5.1 10 7.4

60-64 1 1.4 1 .7

Education

1(71) 2(99) 3(136)

N % N % N %

junior high 0 0 0 0 0 0

senior high 4 5.6 3 3 4 2.9

university 39 54.9 65 65.7 88 64.7

graduate institute 28 39.4 31 31.3 44 32.4

Career

1(71) 2(99) 3(136)



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N % N % N %

Military

personnel/civil

servants/teachers 11 15.5 11 11.1 21 15.4

Enterprise proprietors 3 4.2 1 1.0 3 2.2

Managerial positions 7 9.9 3 3.0 16 11.8

Professional technical

positions 12 16.9 19 19.2 29 21.3

Affairs positions 9 12.7 14 14.1 19 14.0

Labor service

positions 3 4.2 6 6.1 11 8.1

Self-employed

workers 4 5.6 5 5.1 2 1.5

Servicing industry

sales positions 6 8.5 2 2.0 9 6.6

Homemakers 5 7.0 8 8.1 6 4.4

Students 9 12.7 27 27.3 20 14.7

Other 2 2.8 3 3.0 0 0

Marriage

1(71) 2(99) 3(136)

N % N % N %

Unmarried 45 63.4 70 70.7 89 65.4

married 24 33.8 29 29.3 45 33.1

Married but single 2 2.8 2 1.5

Income(USD)

1(71) 2(99) 3(136)

N % N % N %

Less 625 14 19.7 33 33.3 24 17.6

625-1,250 27 38.0 42 42.4 55 40.4

1,250-1,875 17 23.9 12 12.1 37 27.2

1,875-2,500 5 7.0 5 5.1 10 7.4

2,500-3,125 3 4.2 2 2.0 2 1.5

3,125-3,750 1 1.4 0 0 2 1.5

3,750-4,175 4 5.6 5 5.1 6 4.4

Table 4. Means of Cluster

New

living

attitude

Advertising

awareness

Fashion

awareness

Spending

awareness

Family

awareness

Spontaneity

awareness

G1 3.648 3.123 2.479 4.014 3.796 3.134

G2 3.552 3.863 4.513 3.768 3.641 3.394

G3 3.590 3.877 4.557 3.691 3.757 3.165



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Table 5. ANOVA of Cluster Descriptive Statistics

F Significance Post-hoc

Gender 4.340 .014 G1>G2

G1 Male is higher, G2 Female is higher

Age 3.267 .039 G2>G3

G2 is the youngest, G3 is in 30-39

Education .240 .787

Career 5.182 .006 G2>G3

G2 is student and homemakers

Income 2.570 .078

Table 6. Characteristics of Cluster

N % Cluster description

G1 77 23.2%

The group with the greatest difference in education

The group with the highest ratio of males.

Higher average age

The highest ratio of enterprise proprietors

The group with the highest income

Lowest advertising and fashion awareness

Highest spending and lower spontaneity awareness

A higher family awareness

G2 99 32.4%

The highest ratio of females

The group with the lowest age

University comprising the majority in education level

More students and homemakers in occupation

Relatively lower income

The highest spontaneity awareness

G3 136 44.4%

More professional technical positions and blue collar

The majority fall under the age of 30-39 years old

Medium income

The highest advertising and fashion awareness

The lowest spending awareness

4.3 Correlation Analysis

Table 3 shows that in the clustering, the demographic variables that appeared

include: gender, age, income, education level, and occupation, which are five more

obvious demographic variables. Therefore, these five demographic variables and six

dimensions were used to carry out the T-test or ANOVA in order to understand which

demographic variables and life attitude dimension showed reciprocal influence.



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4.3.1 Whole-sample Correlation Analysis

In this section, the whole sample was used for the living value attitude

significance test. Independent samples T-test and ANOVA were used. In addition,

since the main samples did not exceed 1000, post-hoc comparison was done using two

methods, namely, the Tukey Method and the Duncan Method. Tables 7 to 11 show the

dimension difference analysis results.

Table 7. Significance Test of Gender

Dimension Gender

F Significance

New living attitude 1.028 .312

Advertising awareness .001 .975

Fashion awareness 2.032 .155

Spending awareness 1.659 .199

Family awareness 2.080 .150

Spontaneity awareness .294 .588

Table 8. Significance Test of Age

Dimension F Significance Post-hoc

New life attitude 3.073 .010 2 >1

Age 20-29 > Age 30-39

Advertising

awareness .785 .561

Fashion

awareness .622 .683

Spending

awareness 1.499 .190

Family


Spontaneity


Table 9. Significance Test of Income


New life attitude 1.211 .300

Advertising


Fashion

awareness .980 .439

Spending

awareness .498 .810

Family


Spontaneity


2>3

625-1,250 > 1,250-1,875



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Table 10. Significance Test of Education Level



Advertising


2>4

Senior high school>graduate

school

Fashion

awareness .079 .924

Spending


Family

awareness .365 .695

Spontaneity


3>4

University>graduate school

Table 11. ANOVA of Occupations and Dimensions



1>6>4

Civil servants>Labor service

>Professional technical positions

Advertising

awareness .796 .633

Fashion


Spending


Family


Spontaneity


Table 7 shows that there is no significant difference between gender and dimension, but

the difference is significant between age and new life attitude (F=3.073, p=0.01<0.05) (Table

8), especially, between age 20-29 and age 30-39. Table 9 reveals that a significant difference

between income and spontaneity awareness (F=2.302, p=0.035<0.05), and it is significant

between income 625-1,250 and 1,250-1,875. On the other hands, Table 10 shows that

advertising awareness (F=7.830, p=0.000) and spontaneity consciousness (F=6.036, p=0.003)

are both significantly different for different educational level. For advertising awareness, the

degree of influence between high school and graduate school is significantly different. For the

consciousness of the spontaneity, people with university background is higher than that with

graduate degree. Table 11 is the ANOVA of occupations, and it is found that the new life

attitude (F = 2.711, p = 0.003) is significantly different between military personnel/civil

servants/teachers, labor service positions and professional technical positions, and the

military personnel/civil servants/teachers.



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5. Conclusion

According to the analysis, the six consumer groups of TVALS were compared,

and results show that the clustering generally coincide with TVALS and the six

groups. However, the respective still show some differences, which may be due to the

fact that the social enterprises in the questionnaire of Wang and Chow (2017) covered

more aspects, including environmentally friendly social enterprises, employment

friendly social enterprises, and social enterprises in remote areas. This study only

targeted the vulnerable employment friendly enterprises, and also the limitations on

the questionnaire distribution time and region, thus results were slightly different.

The analysis shows that new life attitude, advertising attitude, and spontaneity

attitude showed differences in education level and occupation. However, the new life

attitude dimension did not especially receive a high score in the description of

clustering characteristics. Hence, if possible, the marketing strategy should focus on

contemplating two dimensions: advertising attitude and spontaneity attitude. In

particular, the effect of advertising attitude produced better influence on senior high

school education, which coincide with the conclusions drawn from The Third-Person

Effect and demographic variables proposed by Davison (1983). The research by

Srivastava (2010) also shows that the groups with lower education were susceptible to

advertising, which in turn affected the shopping related decision-making. The group

with higher spontaneity attitude said they were likely to develop the urge to buy

impulsively. It was found that the spontaneity attitude of university education was

higher than that of higher than graduate school, which coincides with the finding in

the research of Shahjehan et al. (2012) that the higher the education level, the less

likely to buy on impulse. Since those with senior high school education were higher in

age and mostly married, they tended to have more considerations for expenditures,

thus their less likelihood to buy on impulse.

Although social enterprises are those that incorporate entrepreneurship,

innovation, and technological approaches, attempting to improve social problems and

enhance social influence through co-creation. However, not all problems can be

solved through social enterprises. Although business management skills are

prerequisites to the sustainable management of social enterprises, they are not the

keys to success. The-Children-Are-Us Foundation had generally hired social workers

or counselors as professional managers in the past. However, as far as shelter

workshops are concerned, humanitarian care is deemed more appropriate.

Nevertheless, due to their commercial professionalism inadequacy, operational gaps

have resulted. From the standpoint of consumers, the focus lies in whether the overall

value of the enterprise is recognized by consumers. Thus, the marketing of social

enterprises remains the key.



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Documents

A STUDY ON CONSUMER TYPES OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISEijeronline.com/documents/volumes/2019/Sept - Oct 2019...2.2 Values, Attitudes, and Life Styles VALS (Values, Attitudes and Life styles)