City brand strategies play an important part in building strong identities for cities and also for effective promotional campaigns. The purpose of this research is to analyze in more depth the dimensions of the City Brand Personality of Iași, as identified in previous research. The objectives of the present study are to: (1) understand the impact of each dimension upon the entire construct; (2) identify the possible connections between the perception of the city brand personality and the perceptions on particular city features; (3) identify the possible inter-connections between the resulting dimensions. An Independent Samples t test, Discriminant analysis, and Correlations and Regressions analysis were conducted. The dimension Peacefulness/Sincerity has the highest positive impact, while the dimension Malignacy has the lowest negative impact. Respondents who consider the city to be relatively young rate the personality features better for the dimensions of Peacefulness/Sincerity and Competence. Competence and Peacefulness/Sincerity are strongly related. Improving the perception of features composing the Competence dimension leads to an improvement of the entire City Brand Personality. Future research could specifically identify the types of sustainable activities that could be associated with the desired personality traits.

Little attention has been paid to why consumers choose to purchase goods and services from the informal economy. Similarly, few studies have been conducted on consumer behaviour in relation to informal markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the article is to evaluate, for the first time, whether the COVID-19 pandemic influenced consumer behaviour in relation to the informal economy. Qualitative evidence collected in Iași, Romania, is reported. The finding is that the most important motives for purchasing goods and services from the informal economy are related to social ends, such as supporting local businesses, maintaining relationships with others, and enhancing sustainable development. The novel finding of this research is that community exchange in the form of mutual aid and reciprocity is not activated only for friends, neighbours, kin or work colleagues but also for local businesses facing financial difficulties. The customers are displaying solidarity and empathy for their situation. As such, this article adds to previous findings indicating that the motivation of lower cost is not the universal rationale for purchasing from the informal economy as many consumers choose to make purchases from informal market driven by social rationales. The paper ends by discussing the policy implications of the findings.

Volunteering is a way to express civic behavior, including pro-environmental behavior such as buying products with recycled content. The purpose of this research is to understand the differences between individuals involved in volunteering activities and individuals who have never been involved in volunteering activities. In order to do this, dimensions are analyzed by categories of public: the general public, individuals involved in volunteering activities (volunteers), and individuals who have never been involved in volunteering activities (non-volunteers). Qualitative methods, based on in-depth interviews; and quantitative methods, based on Anova, Independent Samples T tests, factor analyses, and regression analyses have been combined. The sample included 469 respondents. The general dimensions of buying decisions are: product features, social values, promotions, low risk, uniqueness, and affordable price. The volunteers’ dimensions of buying decisions are product features, social values, uniqueness, benefits, and promotions. The non-volunteers’ dimensions of buying decisions are product features, uniqueness, credibility support, promotions, and low risk. In the conclusions section, implications are presented using specific communication for each of the three public categories, based on important resulting dimensions for each public.

Although major advances have been made in relation to explaining the supply side of the informal economy, this is not the case for the demand-side of the informal economy. This study analyses for the first time the purchasers of undeclared goods and services in the healthcare sector. To evaluate the purchase of undeclared healthcare goods and services, logistic regression analysis and robustness tests are used on 3048 interviews in Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta. The finding is that an important share of the purchasers make this type of purchase unknowingly. However, no difference in terms of socio-economics characteristics of those who knowingly and those who unknowingly made purchases of undeclared healthcare goods and services was identified. Meanwhile a significant influence of trust (in government and in other citizens) has been identified in relation to those who made these purchases knowingly. As such, policy measures aimed at decreasing unknowing purchases and at nurturing trust are discussed in the concluding section.

The purpose of the research is to identify the factors affecting online satisfaction. As a research method, we applied a quantitative survey based on a questionnaire. The sample consists of 532, students at Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, aged between 19-26 years, who buy online various products from the Internet. In order to identify the dimensions of online satisfaction, we used exploratory factor analysis with SPSS 17.0, with Principal Components as extraction type and Varimax as rotation method. Nine dimensions of online satisfaction were identified, namely: products corresponding to the online description, good price, comfort, easily accessible information, personal data security, good design, support, personalization, and website awareness.

This study is based on the hypothesis that one year of study difference between students underlines different evaluations of the dimensions of commercial presentation websites’ credibility. The objectives of this study are: (-) highlighting significant differences of credibility dimensions evaluation between second and third year of study students; (-) highlighting the dimensions considered to be important by the second year of study students; (-) highlighting the dimensions considered to be important by the third year of study students. For presentation commercial Websites, as approached by this study, second year of study students consider “site-user connection” and “information support” as important dimensions; for the same category of Websites, third year of study students consider “ease of use”, “real world feel” and “site-etiquette” as important dimensions.