Services are becoming increasingly important. Almost two-thirds of the world’s total economic output is accounted for by services. Moreover, the leisure services industry is one of the fastest growing industries around the world. The global growth rate was more than 6% per year in the last five years. The global leisure services industry is expected to be worth $3.4 trillion by 2010, with a growth rate of 6.1% for the 2005-2010 period. Marketers should focus on value-creating processes that involve customers as co-creators of value, because marketers cannot create or deliver customer value alone. Therefore, assessing consumers’ value perceptions can provide informative feedback that marketers can use to adjust their market offerings and meet consumers’ needs and expectations more effectively. This replication study investigated the application and relevance of Petrick’s (2002:119) SERV-PERVAL scale as a measure of consumers’ perceptions of service value in mid-scale restaurants. The SERV-PERVAL scale measures five dimensions of perceived value, namely perceived quality, emotional response, monetary price, behavioural price and reputation. The results should assist marketers to decide how best to influence overall value perceptions and favourable behavioural intentions amongst target markets through understanding how consumers make purchase decisions based on their perceptions of value. First, a conceptual framework of the relationships between perceived value and its antecedents and consequences was synthesised from the leisure marketing literature. Then the study surveyed students at the University of Pretoria and asked them to report their perceptions of a dining experience at a mid-scale restaurant. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyse the data. Two multiple regression models were tested. The findings provided support for the conceptual framework, as well as evidence for the relevance of utilising the SERV-PERVAL scale to measure the value perceptions of South African restaurant patrons. The significance of the two multiple regression models, analysed in the replicated study, was established. Seven hypotheses were tested. In only two cases, the null hypotheses could not be rejected in favour of the alternative hypotheses. The results of the first multiple regression model indicate that consumers' emotional response is the best predictor of their overall perceptions of value. Thus, mid-scale restaurant managers should enhance the pleasurable attributes of the service experience (e.g., background music; interior decoration and lighting; air-conditioning and scent) in order to enhance the consumer's dining experience. The results of the second multiple regression model indicate that consumers' perceived value is a better predictor of consumers' favourable behavioural intentions than satisfaction. An implication for managers is that they can increase their consumers' perceptions of value by enhancing the pleasurable attributes that consumers' experience, a well as the quality and the monetary price of services as perceived by the consumers. It is also important to maintain the level of the services' behavioural price and reputation perceived by consumers. However, managers need to identify the attributes that add pleasure to their target customers and understand how to employ them effectively. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Marketing Management / MCom / Unrestricted

Powering Kenya's agricultural economy, the Kenyan flower industry is prided as an example of successful African integration into global agricultural trade. Export markets are bifurcated due to a marked shift from the Dutch flower auctions and an increase in trade within 'direct markets' which includes supermarkets and florists. While flower production is dominated by a few vertically integrated, large scale flower farms (>100 ha), mid-scale (20-80 hectares) and small-scale (>0.25 hectares) flower farms which are the focus of the thesis, face a unique set of challenges in terms of navigating access to the more stable direct markets. The overall narrative is that even in a buyer-driven market, Kenyan cut flower producers at the mid and small scale have agency, and they exercise their bargaining power for favourable export access by diversification and differentiation in strategies and networks. Two meta-narratives framing the sector coalesce around the development angle which showcases contestations around labour and environmental abuses and the political economy angle focusing on governance structures and power relations of production. This thesis goes deeper than these meta narratives by introducing micro-level, relational perspectives using the GPN framework, and asks what strategies Kenyan mid and small scale cut flower producers employ to navigate the shifts in export markets as producers diversify from the Dutch auctions towards supermarkets. My findings identify diversification as the common factor in mid and small scale producers' strategies for securing a range of lucrative export markets. Producers' enhance their bargaining power to access diverse markets through adaptable production, relationally through collective action, and in the regulatory sphere by circumvention, compliance or contestation for more favourable 'rules of the game'. Going beyond labour and environmental analyses, the thesis uniquely analyses the knowledge economy originating from the cut flower sector as an undertheorized aspect of its development impact.

Media and consumer attention has propelled local food to prominence, and a significant price premium has signaled its potential as a value-added option for family farms looking to transition from commodity production. Many of these farms –entering an unfamiliar market– have been selling local food in groups, to share risks and investments. This strategy has introduced a scale of production and operations to the marketplace that could challenge some of the basic premises of the local food contract. This research project was premised on the notion that the local food movement –dominated by small-scale production and direct marketing– appears to be governed by a set of principles that would be tested by the introduction of farms and farm groups of increasing scale. To understand the implications –for these farm families, local food marketing groups, and growing local food systems– this research sought to address whether these groups would adopt a more conventional approach to meet their needs, and fit their scale, or change their approach and practices to conform to the requirements and expectations established by the principles of governance that characterize local food systems. ‘Local beef’ chains from across Ontario were selected to capture a range of operational and geographic scale. Interviews with farmers and coordinators investigated the extent to which scale –at farm and group level– affected motivations, as well as group governance decisions. The research found that increased group scale limits the range of options available, and magnifies pressures towards conventionalization. Transition to larger scale favours governance based on surveillance and discipline, and suffers from lack of infrastructure that would facilitate mid-scale aggregation, distribution, and the development of bridging capital. Farmers who had direct input into decisions invested more time and effort, but also identified more strongly with their group. Farmers who marketed through larger-scale intermediary-led groups faced fewer costs, but were treated as commodity input suppliers, and were less engaged in the group’s success. Most farmers did not see these intermediary-led groups as a long-term solution, and looked instead to policy solutions, or other alternative marketing models – including smaller-scale regional intermediaries.