Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2008. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-130)

Low Emission Vehicles (LEVs) represent a car classification which utilizes advancements in automotive technology to address policy objectives associated with energy security and greenhouse gas emissions. The effectiveness of LEVs at addressing these objectives will not only depend on their technical performance but also on their levels of adoption by consumers. With LEVs encompassing cars which are significantly different compared to conventional market options, the understanding of consumer response to these vehicles remains limited. This thesis addresses this limitation in existing knowledge by providing a detailed examination of consumer demand for LEVs in the UK. Through the application of psychometric methods, this thesis assesses the influence of socio-psychological constructs over LEV preference. A bespoke conceptual framework has been developed to provide insights regarding the influence of attitudes, emotions and values. This framework was applied to the design of a self completion household questionnaire distributed over the cities of Newcastle upon Tyne and Dundee. The meanings placed on car ownership are measured alongside the concept of innovativeness to determine if these traits are likely to hinder or advance LEV adoption. Additionally, past research has tended to consider consumer demand for LEVs at a market level perspective with little attention given to social stratification. This thesis advances knowledge in this area by producing a structural analysis of the emerging market for LEVs. Noteworthy consumer segments are identified, described and compared according to their socio-psychological profiles, socio-economic characteristics and LEV preferences. Principle results of the thesis are that socio-psychological constructs account for a greater degree of variance compared to socio-economic characteristics when explaining evaluations of LEVs. The propensity to consider cars through symbolic, emotive and functional meanings tends to decrease assessments made concerning the functional capabilities of LEVs. The concept of innovativeness displays a positive influence over preferences towards LEVs indicating that these vehicles are being considered as innovations. Moreover, heterogeneous consumer segments with unique socio-psychological and demographic profiles are emerging in the LEV market. These segments display a range of LEV preference structures from those which hold high preferences and are likely to characterize early adopters to those which exhibit low preferences and are likely to represent non-adopters.

Thesis (M.A. in communication)--Washington State University, June 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-118).

A key question that marketers and salespeople face is based on the dilemma of which customer to pursue and which not. This choice has far reaching effects in both company success. Investigating a client’s seriousness to make a purchase at the time of an enquiry is key. This will assist the firm in determining which future clients offer the firm the most potential value in sales turnover and company profits. By taking the client’s background and history into consideration the marketer has the opportunity to determine which clients have or have not previously committed to the firm and which did not. By profiling the customer, providing a yardstick against which one can measure probability of a purchase can be developed. New or prospective customer against those attributes of customers can then be benchmarked against the attributes that attest to whether interest and intention to purchase can be converted into a sale. Identifying these customers who will be most likely to make a purchase is a very important area of study for any business that focuses on the marketing and sales of products or services. Having an accurate profile of potential customers, of who will buy and who will not, will play a key role in the success of any organization. The focus of this study will be on investigating the profile of a potential customer/company as a benchmark for sales lead qualification. The profile will also be a precursor to determining the lifetime value of the prospective customer. Profiling of high sales potential customers is a management issue. It directly influences the number of hours key personnel in the sales department spend on key tasks, which can alternatively be spent more productively on other projects.

Thesis (M.A.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Rick L. Bunch; submitted to the Dept. of Geography. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 17, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 66-68).

M.Tech. Business Administration. Business School / The study was undertaken to assess the consumers' willingness to pay a premium price for organic food, with the focus on the Bryanston Organic and Natural market. Understanding the consumers' demand for organic food in South Africa is becoming increasingly important as the consumers' attitudes and preferences strongly influence the direction of the producers' and food retailers' strategies. The quantitative data were collected by means of structured interviews and questionnaires using closed-ended questions, and were analysed with SPSS 20. The results revealed that females with high education and income levels aged 30 years and above are likely to pay a premium price for organic food. Most of the consumers were satisfied with the premium price of the organic food. The more important the buying of organic food is regarded, the more are buyers willing to purchase it, even if the price continues to rise. Most of the consumers indicated that the price of organic food is affordable and makes no real difference when compared to the price of conventionally-produced food. The main significant barrier to the purchase of organic food was identified as its limited availability at convenient locations. The study concluded by providing useful information on marketing and economic business sense to producers and retailers, and also of understanding the potential profitability of organic food, especially for local producers and retailers.

Customer profiling has recently gained much recognition in the e-commerce domain because of the benefits it is capable of bringing to online business. Customer profiling has been implemented in various systems development approaches such as in a client-server environment. Recently there has been an increase in the number of organisations adopting and implementing e-commerce systems using service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles. This research set out to determine how a customer profile can be implemented using open source SOA implementation tools, and how SOA-based customer profiles can be utilised to provide appropriate personalisation in an SOA environment. The research further endeavoured to complete a comparative study on customer profile implementation in two different architectures, namely SOA and client-server. An extensive literature review was conducted on SOA, customer profiling and e-commerce systems development. SOA enabling technologies, such as, web services, enterprise service bus (ESB) and open source Sun Java SOA implementation tools, for example, Open ESB, GlassFish application server and Netbeans IDE were analysed. A Java web services-based customer profiling system was prototyped following SOA design principles. An end-user evaluation survey was conducted using eye tracking with a sample of 30 participants. The evaluation was done on two e-commerce systems with the same interface but running on two different customer profile back-ends, SOA and client-server. The results show that participants did not experience significant difference between the two systems, however, eye tracking results showed a significant difference between the two systems. The research concluded that customer profiling using SOA offers more benefits than implementations using other architectures such as client-server. SOA component-based development proved to be easier to manage, develop, integrate and improves interoperability between different technologies. The research brought together necessary techniques and technologies that organisations can use to implement SOA. Using SOA, organisations can integrate and utilise different technologies seamlessly to achieve business goals.

Marketers must be able to categorize consumers according to some definable characteristics in order to help tailor their marketing effort. Black consumers are usually grouped into one homogenous group even though some of them are immigrants. The segmenting of the different ethnic groups needs to be modified to include different cultures among the same ethnic group. This thesis compares the differences of these subgroups in beliefs, attitudes and past purchase behaviors in response to direct marketing advertising.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that facilitates wirelesscommunication. It is being widely used for access control purposes to aid administration ofservices. As with most wireless technologies, RFID has its challenges, due to its medium (radio waves) of communication, which makes it susceptible to signal interception and other possible attacks. The goal of this project is to investigate the insecurities in the implementation of the RFID system in transit (Storstockholms Lokaltrafik, Stockholm) systems. Due to the nature of the system, spatial information about consumers are accumulated over time thereby attracting some level of interests either legitimate or illegitimate, and raising some concerns. This thesis, takes into consideration the vulnerabilities of the RFID system and the potential security risks consumers of the system are exposed to, a detailed analysis is carried out on the existing infrastructure with the goal of exposing the shortcomings of the systems and proposing mitigating solutions. After an extensive work, seven (7) threats to privacy and security of RFID users were elaborated. Also discussion, about how different legislations around the world enforced data handling regulations in relation to commuter data, is carried out. Finally, most recent threats to consumer privacy are taken into consideration, as well as security in the mass transit field to put together a list of recommended safe practices. The work shows that RFID does pose significant threat to consumer privacy. One might argue that RFID has its benefits in its various implementations. However the fact remains that there are issues with regards to privacy that must to be addressed.

M. Tech. Tourism and Hospitality Management / The objective of this research is to compile a comprehensive profile of the passengers of Airlink which is a South African domestic airline. The other objectives are to explore the marketing process and behavioural description of Airlink's customers.