Thesis (M.S.H.T.M.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisors: Srikanth Beldona and Francis Kwanza, Dept. of Hotel, Restaurant, & Institutional Management. Includes bibliographical references.

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En se basant principalement sur des études effectuées dans un contexte organisationnel, la littérature montre que l'intégration des canaux est la clef de réussite de toute expérience multicanal. Toutefois, très peu d'études se sont intéressées au point de vue du consommateur multicanal à ce sujet. Le consommateur multicanal est-il sensible aux efforts d'intégration des firmes multicanal ? Si oui, accorde-t-il la même importance à toutes les dimensions de l'intégration ? S'attend-t-il à une intégration parfaite des canaux de distribution d'une enseigne ? Pour répondre à ces questions, cette recherche propose un modèle intégrateur des principales dimensions de l'intégration perçue des canaux de distribution, élaboré sur la base d'une étude qualitative exploratoire. Son objectif consiste à déterminer l'impact de chacune d'entre elles sur l'évaluation globale de l'intégration, la confiance dans l'enseigne et les intentions de comportements multicanal. Nous avons choisi comme champ d'application pour le test de ce modèle, le cas des click and mortar de la filière de l'habillement et du prêt-à-porter. L'étude quantitative nous a permis de tester et de valider trois échelles de mesure élaborées dans le cadre de cette recherche. Il s'agit de l'échelle multidimensionnelle de l'intégration perçue des canaux, de l'échelle bidimensionnelle de l'évaluation globale de l'intégration et de l'échelle unidimensionnelle de l'intention d'achat cross-canal. Nous avons également adopté une approche comparative entre shoppers et clients multicanal. Elle nous a montré que les shoppers diffèrent des clients au niveau de certaines variables du modèle. De plus, les résultats empiriques nous ont permis de montrer l'impact des dimensions perçues de l'intégration dans la formation de l'évaluation globale de l'intégration, de la confiance dans l'enseigne et par conséquent des intentions de comportements multicanal. / Most based on an organizational context, previous studies show that channel integration is the key to succeed every multichannel experience. However, very few studies have focused on the consumer perspective. So does multichannel integration matter for the multichannel consumer? If so, does he find that all dimensions of integration are important? Does he expect a seamless integration of channels? To answer these questions, this research proposes an integrative model of the most important perceived integration dimensions of retailing channels. It has been developed on the basis of a literature review and a qualitative study. It aims to show the impact of each perceived integration dimension on the global evaluation of integration, trust and multichannel behaviors intentions. The quantitative study allowed us to test and validate three new-developed scales: perceived channel integration, global evaluation of integration and cross-channel purchasing intention. We have also compared multichannel shoppers and multichannel customers and showed that shoppers are different from customers. Moreover, the empirical results have shown and explained the impact of integration perceived dimensions on global evaluation of the integration, on trust and, therefore, on multichannel behaviours intentions.

Globally, the ever increasing consumer interest in multichannel audio is a major factor driving the research intent in soundfield reconstruction and compression. The popularity of the well commercialized 5.1 surround sound system and its 6-Channel audio has been strongly supported by the advent of powerful storage medium, DVD, as well as the use of efficient telecommunication techniques. However, this popularity has also revealed potential problems in the development of soundfield systems. Firstly, currently available soundfield systems have rather poor compatibility with irregular speaker arrangements. Secondly, bandwidth requirement is dramatically increased for multichannel audio representation with good temporal and spatial fidelity. This master???s thesis addresses these two major issues in soundfield systems. It introduces a new approach to analyze and sysnthesize soundfield, and compares this approach with currently popular systems. To facilitate this comparison, the behavior of soundfield has been reviewed from both physical and psychoacoustic perspectives, along with an extensive study of past and present soundfield systems and multichannel audio compression algorithms. The 1th order High Spatial Resolution (HSR) soundfield recording and reproduction has been implemented in this project, and subjectively evaluated using a series of MUSHRA tests to finalize the comparison.

John P. Costas. / "March 1, 1951." "This report is essentially the same as a doctoral thesis in the Deprtment of Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology." / Army Signal Corps Contract No. W-36-039 sc-100 Project No. 8-102B-0. Dept. of the Army Project No. 3-99-10-022.

Multichannel marketing is the practice of simultaneously offering information, goods, services, and support to customers through two or more synchronized channels. In this dissertation, I develop an integrated framework of multichannel marketing and develop models to assist managers in their marketing resource allocation decisions. In the first essay of the dissertation, I investigate the factors that drive customers multichannel shopping behavior and identify its consequences for retailers. In the second essay, I build on this work and develop a model that enables firms to optimize their allocation of marketing resources across different customer-channel segments. In the first essay, I develop a framework comprising the factors that drive consumers’ channel choice, the consequences of channel choice, and their implications for managing channel equity. The results show that customer-channel choice is driven in a nonlinear fashion by a customer demographic variable such as age and is also influenced by consumer shopping traits such as number of categories bought and the duration of relationship with a retailer. I show that by controlling for the moderating effects of channel-category associations, the influence of customers’ demographics and shopping traits on their channel choices can vary significantly across product categories. Importantly, the results show that multichannel shoppers buy more often, buy more items, and spend considerably more than single channel shoppers. The channel equity of multichannel customers is nearly twice that of the closest single channel customers (online or offline). In the second essay, I propose a model for optimal allocation of marketing efforts across multiple customer-channel segments. I first develop a set of models for consumer response to marketing efforts for each channel-customer segment. This set comprises four models, the first for purchase frequency, the second for purchase quantity, the third for product return behavior, and the fourth for contribution margin of purchase. The results show that customers’ responses to firm marketing efforts vary significantly across the customer-channel segments. They also suggest that marketing efforts influence purchase frequency, purchase quantity and monetary value in different ways. The resource allocation results show that profits can be substantially improved by reallocating marketing efforts across the different customer-channel segments.

Multichannel marketing is the practice of simultaneously offering information, goods, services, and support to customers through two or more synchronized channels. In this dissertation, I develop an integrated framework of multichannel marketing and develop models to assist managers in their marketing resource allocation decisions. In the first essay of the dissertation, I investigate the factors that drive customers multichannel shopping behavior and identify its consequences for retailers. In the second essay, I build on this work and develop a model that enables firms to optimize their allocation of marketing resources across different customer-channel segments. In the first essay, I develop a framework comprising the factors that drive consumers’ channel choice, the consequences of channel choice, and their implications for managing channel equity. The results show that customer-channel choice is driven in a nonlinear fashion by a customer demographic variable such as age and is also influenced by consumer shopping traits such as number of categories bought and the duration of relationship with a retailer. I show that by controlling for the moderating effects of channel-category associations, the influence of customers’ demographics and shopping traits on their channel choices can vary significantly across product categories. Importantly, the results show that multichannel shoppers buy more often, buy more items, and spend considerably more than single channel shoppers. The channel equity of multichannel customers is nearly twice that of the closest single channel customers (online or offline). In the second essay, I propose a model for optimal allocation of marketing efforts across multiple customer-channel segments. I first develop a set of models for consumer response to marketing efforts for each channel-customer segment. This set comprises four models, the first for purchase frequency, the second for purchase quantity, the third for product return behavior, and the fourth for contribution margin of purchase. The results show that customers’ responses to firm marketing efforts vary significantly across the customer-channel segments. They also suggest that marketing efforts influence purchase frequency, purchase quantity and monetary value in different ways. The resource allocation results show that profits can be substantially improved by reallocating marketing efforts across the different customer-channel segments.

No description available.

In this dissertation, analysis and design of the efficient Medium Access Control (MAC) sub-layer schemes are considered for Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANE~s). The contributions of this study are three-fold. First, an analytical model based on Markov chain is developed in order to investigate the performance of the MAC sub-layer of the IEEE 802.11p for vehicular communications. The results indicate that single channel MAC sub-layers may not be adequate for the future Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). The analytical model is validated with the results from simulation-based analysis. Performance analysis based on simulations is given on MAC metrics such as throughput, access delay, packet delivery. Second, a multi-channel MAC protocol is proposed and comprehensively analyzed in terms of channel utilizing and Quality of service (QoS) differentiation for dense VANETs. It is demonstrated that the proposed scheme, namely Asynchronous Multichannel MAC with Distributed TDMA (AMCMACD), improves the system performance in terms of throughput, packet delivery rate, collision rate on service channels, load balancing, and service differentiation for dense vehicular networks. Third, to cope with the interference from contention with neighbours within two hops in large-scale networks, a Large-scale Asynchronous Multichannel MAC (LS-AMCMAC) is proposed. The proposed scheme outperforms other benchmark multichannel MAC schemes in large-scale networks, in terms of throughput, channel utilization, dissemination of emergency messages, and the collision rates on control and service channels.

Globally, the ever increasing consumer interest in multichannel audio is a major factor driving the research intent in soundfield reconstruction and compression. The popularity of the well commercialized 5.1 surround sound system and its 6-Channel audio has been strongly supported by the advent of powerful storage medium, DVD, as well as the use of efficient telecommunication techniques. However, this popularity has also revealed potential problems in the development of soundfield systems. Firstly, currently available soundfield systems have rather poor compatibility with irregular speaker arrangements. Secondly, bandwidth requirement is dramatically increased for multichannel audio representation with good temporal and spatial fidelity. This master???s thesis addresses these two major issues in soundfield systems. It introduces a new approach to analyze and sysnthesize soundfield, and compares this approach with currently popular systems. To facilitate this comparison, the behavior of soundfield has been reviewed from both physical and psychoacoustic perspectives, along with an extensive study of past and present soundfield systems and multichannel audio compression algorithms. The 1th order High Spatial Resolution (HSR) soundfield recording and reproduction has been implemented in this project, and subjectively evaluated using a series of MUSHRA tests to finalize the comparison.