Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path Approach in the Study of Consumer and Organizational Behaviors

บทคัดย่อ

This article underpins on a literature review i.e. of the Buddhist Canons of knowledge, that traces the roots of the study of people’s behaviours back to 2500-plus years old, and empirically shows the intellectual and utility power of the Noble Eightfold Path, represented as a process configuration framework, to guide the study of organizational and consumer behaviours. This article also shows how the model embraces and integrates well-known contemporary theories of behaviours, owed to the works of Schwartz and Howard’s (1981) Norm Activation Theory (NAT) and Ajzen’s (1991) Theory of Planned Behaviour. Three broad-based hypotheses are posited for questionnaire-based empirical validation purposes. The five cases include a social enterprise case in Indonesia, branded coffee chain study in Thailand, hospital patient perceptions of the services, employee perceptions in a construction material trading organization in Chiang Rai, and the construction industry in Chiang Rai. Specifically, this research conceptualizes and empirically validate a model of Buddhist epistemological base for modelling behavioural processes, and provides a bridge to connect the disciplines of organizational and consumer behaviours, and psychology to Buddhism. Three significant patterns of the structural relationships linking the behavioural units of interest, both for consumer and organizational behavioural dynamics, and their flows, are explained and empirically supported by use of multiple regression techniques. First, based on behavioural encounters, by either the consumers or the employees, the perceptions, affection and experiences formed are shown statistically significant able to influence the view-formation (i.e. manifested either in terms of personal norm, brand image, brand trust, or attitude), and in turn, on the second, the various facets of the views formed, in relevant to the researched phenomena and the application context, are shown statistically significant able to influence thought or intention (i.e. loyalty, commitment), and behaviours (i.e. characterized by the continuing purchase of consumers, or corporate citizenship behaviours or engagement of the employees in organization). Third, the multiple regression analysis supports the dynamic interactions or correlational relationships among the variables of the perceptions and affections of the experiences encountered.