Coupled with the outcome focus, although the important role of children within family purchasing has been acknowledged, many researchers have neglected to include children directly as respondents.  Taken together, these conceptual and methodological issues highlighted the need for in-depth qualitative research exploring family purchasing.  The research aimed to explore the nature of child influence in terms of children’s role within the family purchase process, the influence behaviour adopted by children, and their role in aspects of the purchase process such as communications.  The methods adopted included the collection of bibliographic data, an in-depth interview with parents and children separately, and the completion of a decision mapping tool, followed by a family interview. The research revealed a number of important findings.  An overarching theme concerned the complexity of family purchase decision making.  There were multiple patterns of decision making found which reflect the numerous factors that impact on and influence this important purchasing unit.  Critically, factors other than product were seen to have a key impact on child influence.  The children in all of the respondent families were found to have direct influence over the purchases discussed.  Rather than living up to the ‘pester power’ stereotype commonly portrayed in the media, the children demonstrated a range of sophisticated behaviours, underpinned by the use of knowledge and information.  The children also played an active role within family purchase communication.

Today's consumer attitude and behaviour are increasingly driven by quality, safety and health consciousnessF. rom the producer viewpoint, quality control has evolved from an efficiency challenge to a tremendous opportunity by building competitive advantages through pursuing relationships based on an integrated chain approach with quality guarantees. To succeed in today's competitive agri-food marketplace, two options are available: organise production more efficiently and work more consumeroriented in order to meet consumer requirements. During recent years, several concepts like Organic and PDO/PGI labels, and the ISO and HACCP schemes, embodied into the wider Supply Chain Management, or Total Quality Management initiatives, have been introduced. All these concepts share the objectives of adding value to the entire chain, of releasing competitive advantages and a better performance of the chain through increasedr esponsivenessto consumern eeds,w ants and demands. The research at hand addresses questions related to collecting valuable information at consumer level, since this is the prerequisite for the practical application of the aforementioned concepts by industries such as the olive oil industry. The work focuses on assessing both the quality perception of olive oil and the attitude of consumers to olive oil quality assurance schemes. The central theme of the study is the domestic consumer as an alternative source of profit and competitiveness for the high quality olive oil firms. This is be achieved through the identification of a quality and healthconscious urban segment and the explanation of its purchasing motives and behaviour by relating quality olive oil attributes to its personal values. Instead of following a "positivistic" way of clearly presenting the research hypotheses, a description of the wider environment surrounding the quality-conscious consumer internationally is chosen. In this mostly "phenomenological" way, ideas about the quality consumer are implied through induction from data. The methodological nature of the study is two-dimensional. The horizontal "conjoint analysis" dimension is used to quantitatively prove the findings of the vertical "laddering method" qualitative dimension, which develops quality consumers' psychographic profile and predicts purchase behaviour.

A marketer is faced with one fundamental issue in developing brand marketing strategy: a choice between adopting an Image marketing strategy as recommended by David Oglivy versus influencing consumer choice through a Unique Selling Proposition as recommended by Rosser Reeves. In simpler terms using an emotional vs. functional/rational appeal. To help make this decision, the marketer must research consumer motivations and determine for his product/service category whether consumer choice of a brand is based on its image or on its functional attributes.[...] / Un specialiste de marketing doit faire face a un aboutissement fondamental lorsquTil met au point une strategie de marketing: un choix entre d’une part l’adoption d’une strategie mettant en valeur lfimage d!un certain produit, comme le recommende David Oglivy, et d*autre part 1Tinfluence du choix du consommateur au moyen d!une proposition de vente exceptionnelle, comme le recom- -mende Rosser Reeves. En termes plus simples, lTattrait de l’emotionnel contre l’attrait du rationnel/fontionnel. Afin de l1aider a prendre cette decision, le specialiste de marketing doit etudier les motivations du consommateur et determiner pour la categorie de son produit/service si le choix du consommateur pour une cer- -tame marque est base sur son aspect ou sur ses qualites fonctionnelles.[...]

We study the effect of strategic consumer behavior on pricing, inventory decisions, and inventory release policies of a monopoly retailer selling a single product over two periods facing uncertain demand. We consider the following three-stage two-period dynamic pricing game. In the first stage the retailer sets his inventory level and inventory release policy; in the second stage the retailer faces uncertain demand that consists of both myopic and strategic consumers. The former type of consumers purchase the good if their valuations exceed the posted price, while the latter type of consumers consider future realizations of prices, and hence their future surplus, before deciding when to purchase the good; in the third stage, the retailer releases its remaining inventory according to the release policy chosen in the first stage. Game theory is employed to model strategic decisions in this setting. Each of the strategies available to the players in this setting (the consumers and the retailer) are solved backward to yield the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium, which allows us to derive the equilibrium pricing policies. This work provides three primary contributions to the fields of dynamic pricing and revenue management. First, if, in the third stage, inventory is released to clear the market, then the presence of strategic consumers may be beneficial for the retailer. Second, we find the optimal inventory release strategy when retailers have capacity limitation. Lastly, we numerically demonstrate the retailer's optimal decisions of both inventory level and the inventory release strategy. We find that market clearance mechanism and intermediate supply strategy may emerge as the retailers optimal choice.

Consumers and Canadian poultry processors were interviewed to understand the overall perception of bone-in chicken meat and to gain insight on the defect of black bone discoloration, a color defect that appears in cooked bone-in chicken. Through the consumer science technique of laddering, food safety, eating quality, price, health and convenience were revealed as the most important values associated with chicken meat. Poultry processors agreed upon the importance of food safety. Black bone discoloration did not greatly influence consumer acceptance of broiler meat, nor did it appear to negatively impact the poultry industry as complaints were reported rarely. Modifying broiler bone growth rate through dietary treatments did not significantly (P>0.05) alter the sensory properties of the meat or reduce the incidence of discoloration. Overall, black bone discoloration is not perceived as a major problem for the poultry industry in Canada. In order to maintain consumer demand, poultry producers should focus on the food safety aspect of their products. / Food Science and Technology

Modularity is a means of managing product complexity by arranging components into hierarchical independent subassemblies of common purpose. It offers advantages to manufacturers and producers and is assumed to benefit users as well. The producers have received most of the focus, however. Designers must be able to ensure the needs of both parties are being met but too little is known about users' responses to modular designs and the designer's role in handling modularity. This thesis demonstrates that modularity has an impact on users. The research specifically focused on aspects of modularity available to users. It consisted of three phases: a review of existing literature, an interview phase, and a survey phase. The interview phase elicited common terms for discussing modularity in consumer products. The survey tested the traits that emerged. Both phases used object pairs with similar purpose but differing in degree of modularity. During the interview phase, participants were shown pictures of eight pairs of objects and asked questions about their use and maintenance. They were then asked to generate a series of word pairs, opposing descriptors that could be used to distinguish the two variants. The most commonly occurring pairs were transformed into survey questions. The survey used the same set of object pairs, each accompanied by descriptive phrases built around the traits elicited from the interviews. Survey participants were asked to identify which of the two variants was best described by each phrase and the strength of that association. The responses indicated that modularity generally increases users' perceptions of complexity, presence of replaceable parts, and versatility. Modularity also diminished perceptions of durability, ease of maintenance, and ease of use. Investigation of object groupings, both predefined and emergent in the data, revealed additional context sensitive relationships. Several traits also demonstrated strong correlations with each other. Establishing these relationships is necessary to convert assumptions into knowns before research can continue. This thesis offers designers insight into the expectations surrounding modular design. As manufacturers continue to push modular design, designers will need to understand its impact on end users to ensure the needs of all stakeholders are being met.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii, 1968. / Bibliography: leaves 385-386. / vii, 386 l graphs, tables

The aim of this research is to find out what’s attitude Swedish consumers have to Chinese food. The questionnaires based on the Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ) are handed out to 100 Swedish respondents in order to investigate their motivation on Chinese food choice. 78 questionnaires which were filled completely were selected for this study. Eleven factors involved in the questionnaire are labeled health, mood, convenience, sensory appeal, natural content, price, weight control, familiarity, image of China, culture and safety. The information from two semi-structured interviews with Chinese food suppliers showed Swedish consumers’ attitude to Chinese food in another angles. The ABC model and Balance Theory are seen as the theoretical basis for empirical research analysis. The eating habits of Swedish and Chinese are compared to show their difference which influence consumers on food choice more or less. According to the result of the questionnaire survey, Swedish consumers have positive attitude to Chinese food on factors of health, sensory appeal, natural content, safety, price and mood and relative negative attitude on factors of convenience, familiarity and image of China. This outcome is confirmed by the information collected from interviews. Most Swedish consumers choose Chinese food from information processing perspectives; few of them are from behavioral learning processing; some of them are from hedonic consumption perspective. The relationship among Swedes, Chinese food and China is unstable at present time. Swedes do not know much about China and they are not familiar with Chinese food either. Competitors of Chinese food in Sweden such as Thai food, Japanese sushi and west fast food are important aspects which disperse people’s attention and enlarge their food choice range.

Thesis (PhDBusinessAdministration)--University of South Australia, 2004.

Thesis (MStatistics)--University of South Australia, 2000