The influence of celebrities on the conspicuous consumption of Saudi youth

Technological developments are things that must be followed by companies to achieve a competitive advantage to improve performance. To achieve and improve performance, companies need active employee engagement by encouraging motivation and fulfilling their job satisfaction. This study aims to analyze the effect of motivation and job satisfaction on performance with employee engagement as a mediating variable. The research sample is Information Technology (IT) companies located in the cities of Jakarta and Bandung, Indonesia. Research respondents are system developers who handle system development activities for a project or part of an ongoing project. By using the convenience sampling technique 103 responses were obtained from IT developers. The research model analysis method uses Partial Least Square (PLS) with SMART PLS Ver 3.0 software. Empirical findings prove that motivation has a positive effect on the performance of IT employees, while job satisfaction is independent. Employee engagement does not directly affect employee performance, but the effect of mediation through motivation and job satisfaction can have a significant effect on employee performance. The research findings have managerial implications, in increasing high employee involvement, motivation needs to be encouraged to be more active and innovative, and facilitate the achievement of the desired results.

Acknowledgment
This study was made possible because of the full support of the Region III Education Service Institute (LL-DIKTI III), the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia, and the Research Center at Mercu Buana University, Jakarta.

Materialism has been given great attention in the consumer behavior literature. How materialistic tendencies are shaped by advertising has also been documented. Yet, the impact of consumers’ materialism on their perceptions of ads is not clearly understood. The goal of this research is to examine the relationship between an individual’s materialism and his/her perceptions of various kinds of advertising. Using four specific advertising appeals (i.e., interpersonal, prestige/status, achievement, and appearance-related), attitudes toward the ad, and thoughts elicited by the advertisement were measured and compared across high and low materialism groups. Significant differences were found between respondents from the two groups with respect to the evaluation of each type of appeal. When prestige/status, achievement, and appearance-related appeals were used in advertising, they were evaluated more favorably by consumers with high levels of materialism than by consumers with low levels of materialism. In contrast, advertising that used an interpersonal appeal was viewed more favorably by consumers with low levels of materialism. The results of this research provide implications for marketers on three perspectives: the furthering of our conceptualization of the materialism construct, the design of promotional communication for specific target markets, and the public policy dimension of targeting consumers more vulnerable to certain appeals.

The paper is based on information which is a combination of store advertisement and consumers’ path inside the store along with product information. With this information, the authors find how advertisement affects the behavior of consumers when making the decision. The findings suggest that advertisement has a small impact on customers inside the stores. Null effect is determined, and one standard deviation in advertising has an impact on store traffic by 1.2%. But the impact at a lower end of the model is observed. One standard deviation in advertisement has impacted the store sales by 8.4%. Based on further data mining, the research has found that there is no significant improvement in the number of customers, but the increase in sales is because of the higher quantity of purchases by the existing consumers. However, the effect of advertisement on products placed in the same or nearby shelf is not found, the impact on product varieties in the same segment is also not found. Based on these research findings, the authors find the right approach towards advertisement.
The research is limited to consumers of retail industry in a Tier 3 Indian city of a developing geographic segment only.