Esta tesis estudia cómo la afinidad de producto y la afinidad de marca, en una estrategia de co-branding, afectan la preferencia del consumidor. Mediante un análisis de regresión se comprueba que ambas influyen de manera estadísticamente significativa sobre la preferencia del consumidor. Se investiga, también, la interacción entre la afinidad de producto y la afinidad de marca y se comprueba que no existe evidencia estadística que lo confirme. Si bien la afinidad de producto y la afinidad de marca afectan de forma significativa a la preferencia por separado, no existe interacción manifiesta entre ellas. Finalmente, se comprueba qué afecta más a la preferencia, la afinidad de producto o la afinidad de marca. Se mide su importancia relativa y se concluye que la afinidad de producto tiene un peso relativo mayor en la preferencia que la afinidad de marca / The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relationship that product fit and brand fit have with consumer preference in co-branding. Product combinations were determined by whether they fit or not using the input from 60 subjects, through surveys. Then, brand combinations were designed based on the input from another set of 60 subjects who decided which brands from those product combinations fit and which did not fit. Four final combinations were formed. The combinations included products and brands that fit, products that fit with brands that did not fit, products that did not fit with brands that fit and products with brands that did not fit. A final questionnaire was distributed to 178 university students to find the preferences on the four combinations. Then, through a conjoint analysis it was possible to find the relationship between product and brand fit and consumer preference. The results revealed that both, product and brand fit, significantly influence consumer preference. It also indicates that the effect of product fit on preference is greater than the effect of brand fit. Finally, the results did not support the expectation that there would be an interaction effect between product and brand fit.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第20719号 / 農博第2248号 / 新制||農||1054(附属図書館) / 学位論文||H29||N5085(農学部図書室) / 京都大学大学院農学研究科森林科学専攻 / (主査)教授 神﨑 護, 教授 吉岡 崇仁, 准教授 仲村 匡司 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DGAM

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Carta al editor. / Revisión por pares

The issue of work-life balance and work-life conflict has become increasingly important as the relationship between employer and employee becomes more flexible. This situation has blurred the line between what was once clearly the place of work and the place of life. Various studies have found evidence linking poor work-life balance to increased rates of adverse health outcomes, increasing the need for organisational cultures, policies, and interventions to better address the phenomenon’s underlying antecedents, mediators, and aggravators. However, knowledge of these mechanisms has often remained limited, and many have called for greater expansion of the individual characteristics that get accounted for in research and intervention design. Using a mixed-methods approach in a Swedish context, it was explored whether conservatism (social + economic) was one of these characteristics, testing for a significant relationship with work-life conflict. The quantitative findings (linear regression) showed a significant and positive relationship between social conservatism and work-life conflict. In contrast, economic conservatism had a significant and negative relationship with work-life conflict. These relationships held while controlling for demographics (age, sex, living status), psycho-social characteristics (class identity, emotional stability, work-life satisfaction), and occupational characteristics (working hours, education, job demands and control). The qualitative aspect explored different causes and strategies of work-life conflict across low, medium, and high self-rated conservatives, using content analysis to find any latent differences. The qualitative findings suggest that individuals higher in conservatism prefer strategies to cope with work-life conflict that focus more on order and stability compared to those lower. The overall findings have implications for research and policy that address work-life balance issues. It also suggests there is room to expand our traditional conceptualisation of conservatism as a general tendency beyond any political system of thought.

This manuscript reports on an exploration of whether shade provision is valued by urban users of cycling infrastructure. A description of the elicitation process has been outlined in order to build a general but detailed analysis of the different stages included in the exercise of attribute elicitation. As a departure point, a thorough literature review was conducted in order to establish a state of the art’s scenario. Different kinds of attributes that have been evaluated previously within discrete choice experiments and other relatable methods linked to bicycle commuting and bike route choices were compiled, however, shade appeared as an overlooked attribute. From this, a theoretical and methodological approach based on welfare economics and, the concept of willingness to pay as an indicator of shade provision’s value is proposed for the context of Neiva, Colombia, a medium size city in a developing country. Preliminary focus groups were conducted to build a surveying tool for eliciting the proposed attribute and gathered more contextual information. Finally, a pilot survey was launched in order to test the perceived value of shade and its importance for commuters. Special attention is devoted to the description of how the tools and methods were used in order to help future efforts. Several sets of data and information were reviewed and contrasted in order to build an accurate image of the current status of shade within the local commuters’ minds, what barriers were found while executing the research plan, and what can be some important implications for future urban planning studies and sustainable mobility research. Several different commuting conditions and individual realities were found, nonetheless, the existence of valuing shade provision was pervasive across all the surveyed university students and graduated staff. Furthermore, the benefits were perceived as socially broad, even by motorized, non-walking, and cycling commuters. Other valuable insights were found, like the effect of corruption when asking for policy implementation, further research needs to be conducted due to sampling limitations, the scarcity of previous research aimed at the subject, and for gathering more information about how acknowledging the attribute might be potentially critical for the future.

Förståelse och intresset för mat och måltid ökar explosionsartat vilket medför större krav pålivsmedelsprodukter och upplevelser av en måltid där en produkt står i centrum.Produktutvecklare och gastronomer arbetar ständigt för att producera smakfulla livsmedelsom både är klimatsmarta och uppfyller konsumenternas krav på smak. Inomlivsmedelsindustrin görs det kontinuerligt sensoriska bedömningar för att diskuterasensoriska egenskaper i livsmedelsprodukter. Men hur kommunicerar vi vår sensoriskaupplevelse av livsmedelsprodukter så precist som möjligt? Ett verktyg för att kommunicerasin upplevelse kan vara standardiserade sensoriska bedömning, vilket innebär att man skapartydliga riktlinjer för ett specifikt produktområde, vilket således kan användas för attidentifiera sensoriska egenskaper i en livsmedelsprodukt. Magisteruppsatsen syftar till en litteraturstudie som bygger på en kvalitativ innehållsanalysbaserad på 14 artiklar. Målet med innehållsanalysen var att komma fram till relevantasensoriska egenskapsord inom ramen för veganska och vegetariska livsmedelsprodukter. Ienlighet med de framtagna egenskapsorden kunde ett sensoriskt ramverk upprättas vilketsåledes också resulterar i tydliga smakprofiler och egenskaper för produktområdet. Avsiktenmed att ta fram ett semantiskt ramverk av denna sort var att förenkla smakprovningar inomOrkla Foods Sverige och på så vis utveckla ett enhetligt språk för produktområdet. Avslutningsvis går det att argumentera för att ett semantiskt ramverk med tydligaegenskapsord kan komma att underlätta processen inom produktutveckling, jämförelser avprodukter och dylikt. Trots att det inte går att utesluta människans subjektiva åsikt ochfysiska obalanser sinsemellan, är ett semantiskt ramverk ett relevant verktyg i avseende attförenkla kommunikationen och beskrivningen av veganska eller vegetariskalivsmedelsprodukt.

Denna studie undersöker kunders totalt upplevda servicekvalitet gällande enfastighetsmäklare och hans eller hennes tjänster. Syftet är att undersöka det upplevda värdethos privatpersoner som har köpt eller sålt en privatbostad via en fastighetsmäklare. Även hurkunder utvärderar och fattar beslut i ett framtida val av fastighetsmäklare kommer attundersökas. Studien bygger på en så kallad gapanalys som är utformad av Parasuraman et al.(1985). Med hjälp av denna modell kan skillnader mellan förväntningar och den faktisktupplevda servicekvaliteten kunna mätas. Med denna undersökning vill vi identifiera de hinderoch förbättringar som krävs för att främja kompetens och kunskap inomfastighetsmäklarbranschen. Studien är baserad på en kvalitativ forskningsmetod därsemistrukturerade intervjuer har använts. Totalt har tio intervjuer genomförts, fem medsäljare och fem med köpare. Resultatet visade att kunder ville att fastighetsmäklaren blandannat skulle vara kommunikativ, besitta kunskap, ha en personlig kemi, vara professionell,trevlig, ärlig, trygg, tillmötesgående samt ge ett bra första intryck. Resultatet visade även påen markant skillnad i säljarnas respektive köparnas förväntningar där säljarna har mer fokuspå ärlighet, personkemi och bra slutpris, medan köparna lägger mer fokus vidfastighetsmäklarens kunnighet. Slutligen visar studien att det kan uppstå ett så kallat “gap”mellan förväntad och upplevd servicekvalitet beroende på om man har fått en positiv ellernegativ total upplevelse. / This study investigates customers' overall perceived service quality regarding a real estateagent and his or hers services. The purpose is to examine the perceived value amongindividuals who have bought or sold a private residence through a real estate agent. The studyexplores how customers evaluate and make decisions in a future choice of real estate agent.The study is based on a so-called gap analysis developed by Parasuraman et al. (1985). Thismodel allows measuring the differences between expectations and the actual perceivedservice quality. Through this study, we aim to identify the barriers and improvementsrequired to promote competence and knowledge within the real estate brokerage industry.The study is based on a qualitative research method using semi-structured interviews. A totalof ten interviews were conducted, five with sellers and five with buyers. The results showedthat customers wanted the real estate agent to be communicative, knowledgeable, have apersonal chemistry, be professional, friendly, honest, trustworthy, accommodating, and makea good first impression. The results also revealed a significant difference in expectationsbetween sellers and buyers, with sellers placing more emphasis on honesty, personalchemistry, and a good final price, while buyers focused more on the agent's expertise. Finally,the study demonstrates that a "gap" can occur between expected and perceived service qualitydepending on whether one has had a positive or negative overall experience.

Past research has not evaluated the effectiveness of a remote behavior skills training (BST) package with pre-service special education teachers’ implementation of a multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessment (PA). Thus, this research was needed to evaluate the effectiveness of a remote BST package on pre-service special education teacher’s implementation of a MSWO PA. This study was conducted to first, evaluate the effects of pre-service special education teachers’ fidelity of conducting a MSWO PA using remote BST and next, to evaluate the intervention gains maintained over time, and last to determine if pre-service special education teachers believe the MSWO PA results in favorable social validity measures. The components of behavioral skills training used were remote instruction, remote video modeling, a remote quiz, and feedback. Results suggest that a remote BST package is a useful training strategy when teaching pre-service special education teachers PA. During 1-week follow-up across participants, each participant maintained their skills of implementation. Keywords: video conferencing, remote, BST, MSWO, multiple stimulus without replacement, preference assessment / Applied Behavioral Analysis

This dissertation investigates how the magnetic properties of strontium hexaferrite change upon the substitution of foreign atoms at the Fe sites. Strontium hexaferrite, SrFe12O19 is a commonly used hard magnetic material and is produced in large quantities (around 500,000 tons per year). For different applications of strontium hexaferrite, its magnetic properties can be tuned by a proper substitution of the foreign atoms. Experimental screening for a proper substitution is a cost-intensive and time-consuming process, whereas computationally it can be done more efficiently. We used the ‘density functional theory’ a first principles based method to study substituted strontium hexaferrite. The site occupancies of the substituted atoms were estimated by calculating the substitution energies of different configurations. The formation probabilities of configurations were used to calculate the magnetic properties of substituted strontium hexaferrite. In the first study, Al-substituted strontium hexaferrite, SrFe12-xAl x O19, with x = 0.5 and x = 1.0 were investigated. It was found that at the annealing temperature the nonmagnetic Al+3 ions preferentially replace Fe+3 ions from the 12k and 2a sites. We found that the magnetization decreases and the magnetic anisotropy field increases as the fraction, x of the Al atoms increases. In the second study, SrFe12-x Gax O19 and SrFe12-x Inx O19 with x = 0.5 and x = 1.0 were investigated. In the case of SrFe12-x Gax O19, the sites where Ga+3 ions prefer to enter are: 12k, 2a, and 4f1. For SrFe12-x Inx O19, In+3 ions most likely to occupy the 12k, 4f1, and 4f2 sites. In both cases the magnetization was found to decrease slightly as the fraction of substituted atom increases. The magnetic anisotropy field increased for SrFe12-x Gax O19, and decreased for SrFe12-x Inx O19 as the concentration of substituted atoms increased. In the third study, 23 elements (M) were screened for their possible substitution in strontium hexaferrite, SrFe12-x Mx O19 with x = 0.5. In each case the site preference of the substituted atom and the magnetic properties were calculated. We found that Bi, Ge, Sb, Sn, and Sc can effectively increase the magnetization, and Cr, P, Co, Al, Ga, and Ti can increase the anisotropy field when substituted into strontium hexaferrite.

This study employed a stated choice experiment survey to identify southeastern U.S. farmers’ preferences for contracts to produce Giant Miscanthus. We developed a more theoretically consistent framework which takes into account risk preference and perception information and also accounts for heterogeneous status-quo alternatives. Results from our Random Parameter Logit model indicated that price per ton of harvested Giant Miscanthus, biorefinery harvest, and establishment cost-share all had significant positive effects on the probability of a producer accepting a contract to produce Giant Miscanthus, whereas contract length had a significant negative effect. Our analysis also found evidence of significant preference heterogeneity in producers’ preferences for biorefinery harvest, yield insurance, and contract length. We also found that incorporating risk perception and risk preference information, as well as accounting for heterogeneous status-quo alternatives in the decision framework improved overall model performance even though the respective individual coefficients for these variables were not statistically significant.