published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business / Master / Master of Philosophy

These days, milk substitute products are getting more popular and exist together with milk on the market. These substitute products are appreciated by consumers due to animal welfare, environmental or health related reasons. The purpose of the investigation was to make assumptions about the future situation of farmers and which demographic, personal, sociological, cultural and psychological determinants have an impact on Swedish consumers purchasing substitute products. The proposed methodology to reveal the impact of those factors was a qualitative research. Ten semi-structured interviews with residents of Västra Götaland, aimed to gain a deeper and better understanding of the reasons for consumption of milk substitute products, were conducted in total. The existing theory and scientific articles about demographic, personal, sociological, cultural and psychological determinants of consumer behavior, in terms of food choice and consumption, were used to create an interview guide and also to compare the collected primary data in the end. Participants were asked questions regarding their demography, lifestyle, awareness and perception of milk substitute products and other reasons for their consumption of milk substitutes. The findings revealed that demographic factors such as age and gender seemed to have an impact on the consumer behavior. Moreover, personal and psychological factors were revealed to have a significant impact on the consumption behavior. In particular lifestyle, perception, attitudes and motivations, knowledge and learning had a significant influence on Swedish consumers and their food consumption behavior. Regarding sociological factors it was discovered that friends had a significant influence on food consumption. Cultural determinants were also important to consider. However, they did not have a significant influence on the participants. The findings also revealed that health and animal welfare were the main reasons for changing the consumption. Interestingly, no participant started to consume these products due to environmental reasons in the beginning. The strong competition of milk and milk substitute products on the market is most likely to continue. The future situation for farmers will look different and might get more critical as milk consumption in Sweden could change. This small scale research does not make it possible to generalize the revealed findings. Nevertheless, this qualitative investigation provided the basis for future research in the field of consumer behavior towards substitute products.

In this dissertation I focus on two considerations that influence the product strategy of a firm. The first is consumers’ choice and its influence on a firm’s product offering, and the second is the interaction between durable products and their contingent consumables. First, I study the assortment planning problem for a firm; I illustrate the complexity of solving this product selection problem, present simple solutions for some commonly used choice models, and develop heuristics for other practically motivated models. Second, I study the incentives of a durable goods monopolist when she can lock-in consumers through a contingent consumable. Adopting a lock-in strategy has two interesting effects on the incentives of a durable goods manufacturer. On one hand, by locking-in consumers to its consumable, a durable goods monopolist can curb its temptation to reduce durable prices over time, thereby mitigating the classic time inconsistency problem. On the other hand, lock-in will create a hold-up issue and adversely affect consumers’ expectations of future prices for the consumable. My research demonstrates the trade-off between time inconsistency and hold-up, and derives insights about the conditions under which a lock-in strategy can be effective. I further analyze the trade-off between time inconsistency and hold-up associated with lock-in in the presence of consumable stock-piling. My findings indicate in the presence of consumer stock-piling, lock-in has an effect similar to that of competition in the consumables market: they help to dampen the hold-up problem that arises from lock-in and at the same time increase the manufacturer’s incentive to reduce durable prices over time. / text

Consumers evaluate products in the market place using their senses and often form mental representations of product properties. These mental representations have been studied extensively. Imagery has been shown to interact with perception within many perceptual modalities including vision, auditory, olfactory, and motor. This dissertation draws on the vast visual imagery literature to examine imagery in the haptic, or touch, modality. Two studies were undertaken to examine the relationship between haptic imagery and haptic perception The first study is based on studies from cognitive psychology that have used similar methods for examining visual imagery and visual perception. In study 1, sighted and visually impaired participants were asked to evaluate objects haptically, to form a haptic image of that object during a short interval, and then to compare the haptic image to a second object. In Study 2, sighted and visually impaired participants listened to five radio advertisements containing imagery phrases from multiple modalities. After listening to the advertisements, participants were asked to recall the ad content and assess both the ad and the product while haptically evaluating the product in the ad. Though results were mixed and further exploration will be necessary, these studies offer broad implications for consumer use of haptic imagery in shopping environments. The implications for both sighted and blind consumers are discussed.

Researchers in marketing have concluded that behavior intentions are not a very good predictor of behavior. It has been suggested that unexpected situations may be causing much of the inconsistency between intentions and behavior. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which unexpected situations affect behavior intention - behavior inconsistency. Fifty seven housholds from Tucson, Arizona were studied. For each household, information concerning intended consumption of fifteen foods and beverages was collected. This information included: attitudes toward the foods, social norm effects, past behavior, and intended consumption over the next seven days. In addition, the expectation of thirteen situations occurring and their expected influence on consumption was measured. Seven days later, the subjects were asked to report their actual consumption of the fifteen food products and the actual occurrence and influence of the thirteen situations. In addition to self-reports, garbage analysis was used to measure past behavior and consumption during the seven day experimental period. Correlation and regression analyses were used to assess the extent to which unexpected situations influenced the inconsistency in behavior. The results indicated that unexpected situations do explain some of the inconsistency between intentions and behavior. Unexpected situations explained an average (across products) of between 5.8% and 14.1%, and as much as 53.5% of the variance in behavior inconsistency. However, the influence of situational variables was quite different for each product. In addition, it was found that the amount of inconsistency explained by the situational variables. An interesting findings was that the simple unexpected occurrence or nonoccurrence of a situation also exlained behavior inconsistency, indicating subjective effects of situations are not required to explain behavior. These results have several important implications. First, objectively based measures of situations can be used to explain some types of consumer behavior. This makes situational variables much easier for managers to monitor and control. Situational variables were also found to have generalizable effects across individuals, again indicating that situational variables may be easier for managers to use than was previously supposed. Finally, this research indicates that it would be useful to include situational variables into behavior intentions models, especially when intentions and behavior are not closely related.

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Maisto produktų kokybė - tai savybių, sąlygojančių jo tinkamumą tenkinti tam tikrus vartotojo poreikius pagal išreikštą ar numanomą paskirtį, visuma. Lietuvoje, kaip ir visame pasaulyje, vis didesnis dėmesys yra skiriamas maisto produktų kokybei dėl naujo pirkėjų požiūrio į maistą bei žmonių susirūpinimo aplinkos tarša bei įtaka sveikatai, bei galimybės pasirinkti produktus esant didelei produktų gausai ir įvairovei. Darbo tikslas. Įvertinti Panevėžio miesto mokytojų požiūrį į maisto produktų kokybę ir jo sąsajas su subjektyviu sveikatos vertinimu. Tyrimo metodika. Anoniminės anketinės apklausos pagalba buvo siekiama išsiaiškinti mokytojų požiūrį į maisto produktų kokybę ir sąsajas su subjektyviu sveikatos vertinimu. Tyrime dalyvavo 450 Panevėžio miesto mokyklų mokytojai (amžiaus vidurkis – 45,34 ± 9,06 m.). Atsakymų į anketos klausimus dažnis – 67,1 proc. Rezultatai. Panevėžio miesto mokytojams, nepriklausomai nuo amžiaus, pagrindiniai šaltiniai, kurie daugiausia suteikė žinių apie mitybą buvo specializuoti leidiniai (nuo 28 proc. iki 44 proc.), produkto etiketė (nuo 28 proc. iki 30 proc.) ir laikraščiai (nuo 25 proc. iki 38 proc.), jaunesniems nei 35 metų mokytojams internetas (27,5 proc.). Nepriklausomai nuo amžiaus mokytojai mano, kad kokybiškas maisto produktas tai natūralus (nuo 63 proc. iki 80 proc.) ir ekologiškas (nuo 59 proc. iki 64 proc.). Apie neigiamą riebalų poveikį širdies ir kraujagyslių sistemai dažniau žinojo mokytojai nuo 35 iki 54 metų, o apie tai... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Foods’ quality – the unit of characteristics that determines its availability to meet the particular consumer’s requirements according to predictable purpose. In Lithuania, as in the whole World, a very big attention is paid to food quality. There is a new viewpoint of customers to food. People take care of environmental damage and its influence upon human health. People also take care of possibility to choose products especially when plenty and variety is observed. Aim of the study. To appreciate the attitude of teachers in Panevėžys towards foods’ quality and its links with health. Methods. Anonymous questionnaire: 450 teachers from Panevėžys schools were involved in the research (average – 45,34 ± 9,06 years old.). Frequency of the answers to questionnaire – 67,1% Results. The main sources about nourishment containing the most information for teachers from Panevėžys, independently to age, were problem-oriented publications (28% - 44%), label of the product (28% - 30%.) and newspapers (25% - 38%), for younger than 35 years old teachers – WWW (27,5%). Teachers independently to age are thinking that qualitative foodstuffs are natural (63% - 80%) and ecological (59% - 64%). 35 – 54 years old teachers know about negative influence of fats on heart and blood-vessels system. Oulder than 55 years old teachers know that some of the solid fats have also negative influence and it is not necessary to eat meat every day. Younger than 35 years old teacher know that salt damages... [to full text]

This study's primary aim is to explain Urban Adult Chinese Consumers' preference between foreign and Chinese products. It examines how Country of Origin (COO), Consumer Ethnocentrism (CE) and Consumer Animosity (CA) influence Urban Adult Chinese Consumers' product preference and willingness to buy. The existing knowledge is divided on this issue. By reviewing the relevant literature, it is clear that there are two completely different approaches of investigating the impact of COO on Chinese consumers. The researcher of this current study classified the two opposing methods as 'the simplistic approach' and 'the cautious approach'. Studies follow 'the simplistic approach' firmly believe Chinese consumers overwhelmingly evaluate foreign products positively and they have a strong preference for foreign products. Research follows 'the cautious approach' argues that Chinese consumers' complexity and internal differences cannot be ignored, some of them prefer Chinese products and they cannot be simply considered as in favour of foreign products. Past studies all concluded that Chinese consumers hold low to moderate level of CE beliefs. However, two investigations concluded Chinese consumers harbour strong animosity towards the Japanese. This study follows the philosophical understanding of pragmatism. The research questions are the most important factors that determine the research strategy and quantitative and qualitative methods can complement each other to address the research problem. This study employs a concurrent embedded mixed methods research strategy that consists of a street survey and semi-structured interviews. Due to the distribution pattern of the quantitative data, this study used non-parametric analysis methods including: Chi-Square Test for Independence, Spearman's Rank Order Correlations, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis Test. The qualitative section of the investigation focuses on four issues: how Urban Adult Chinese Consumers (UACC) determine whether a product is foreign or Chinese, sources and background of animosity, the impact of domestic alternatives and areas for Chinese products to improve. This study discovered that UACC's preference between foreign and Chinese products remain divided. They cannot be simply considered overwhelmingly in favour of foreign products or prefer Chinese products. For those UACC have a preference for foreign products, quality and design are the main two reasons. Desire to support China's domestic industry and patriotism are the main driving forces behind some UACC's preference of Chinese products. UACC holds low to moderate level of CE beliefs, which suggests they are worldminded consumers that capable of evaluate foreign products based on merits, without strong negative bias. UACC have strong animosity towards the Japanese, but antagonistic sentiments towards the Americans and French are relatively low. There are complex sources of animosity and this study identified a wide range of factors that contributed to UACC's strong animosity towards the Japanese. The main area of original contribution of this study concentrates on Consumer Animosity. It discovered a wide range of sources of animosity towards the Japanese and constructed an enhanced animosity model.

The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of alternative advertising presentation formats, and the quantity of information presented in advertisements in overcoming possible information-processing deficits in senior adults that could affect their recall of ad attributes and brand name, the cognitive responses generated, and attitude toward the ad. In addition, the study examined the effectiveness of retirement status as a classification or segmentation variable in comparison with the use of the more traditional classification variable, chronological age. A convenience sample of senior adult volunteers from church groups, social clubs, and civic organizations from the local area were randomly assigned to one of nine experimental conditions. The experiment utilized a simulated magazine to test the effects of presentation formats (3 levels), and quantity of information (3 levels) on senior adult's recall, cognitive responses and attitude toward the test ads. Covariates (gender, wealth, education, activity level, health, and income) were used to reduce variance. The findings clearly indicate that the presentation format of the can ad adversely affected the memory of some senior adults. In addition, the results were significantly different across the different age levels. Retirement status was less beneficial than chronological age in the current study, but did reveal a marginally significant difference between seniors due to the number of attributes contained in the test ads. The implication of findings for advertisers and those who design marketing communications for seniors are numerous, and relate to the marketer's communication goals. Senior adults may prefer print media, but the inappropriate use of presentation format and the number of product attributes in the ads could have an adverse and significant impact when communicating with senior adults. Recognition of the information-processing differences of senior adults would result in more effective marketing communications for this rapidly growing and important segment of our society.