Mass customization (MC) constitutes a promising strategy for companies which aim to provide products which are better adapted to individual customers' aesthetic and functional preferences. Drawing on commodity theory, we argue that the perceived uniqueness of a self-designed product is a second driver of utility in MC. We find that in addition to the significant effect of aesthetic and functional fit, the perceived uniqueness of a self-designed product (1) contributes independently to the utility a customer experiences, and (2) that this effect is moderated by the consumer's need for uniqueness. In product categories which can serve this counterconformity motive for consumers, this suggests that MC toolkits should be constructed with the objective of facilitating the creation of unique products as well as providing affirmative feedback that this uniqueness has been achieved. (authors' abstract)

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent R. Amanor-Boadu / While understanding consumer decisions about food choices is complex, the nature of wines makes it even more difficult to decipher how consumers arrive at their choices. Given the perceived importance of "local", how willing are consumers to pay for locally-produced wine? And, what characteristics of the wine influence the premium that consumers pay for it? These are the two related questions that this research seeks to address. The research uses a case study approach to explore how five wine characteristics of local Kansas wine influence the premium consumers are willing to pay. The five characteristics are appearance, aroma, body, taste and finish. The study uses four pairs of wine in the following groups: sweet white, dry white, semi-sweet red and dry red. Each pair is made up of a Kansas wine and a non-Kansas wine. A very well-defined set of focus group participants were invited to taste these wine without knowing the identity of the wines and score them according to their characteristics and then provide an indication of how much they are willing to pay. The case results indicate that the focus group participants were willing to discount Kansas wines in all cases of the four pairs. The factors affecting the discount were finish for sweet white wines, appearance for sweet red wines, taste and aroma for dry white and dry red wines. The implication of this exploratory case study is that while most local residents proclaim their willingness to pay a premium for local wines, when tested against national or international competitors, consumers are unwilling to pay a premium for these local wines because the local wines lack the desired quality the international wines have. The information is important because it provides direction for an entrepreneur seeking to develop local wines to focus on understanding and addressing the characteristics which influence consumers' willingness to pay a premium even as she determines which particular wines current players in the local Kansas industry has the potential to be competitive if they address the characteristics upon which they are penalized by consumers. This, despite this being an exploratory case study, it provides important direction for entrepreneurial action.

Extending the retirement age is becoming an inevitable trend given the extension of the population’s life expectancy, the need to reduce the financial burden of pensions, the increase in the utilization rate of human capital, the impetus to alleviate labor market shortages, and other social problems. Increasing numbers of countries are beginning to impose extended retirement policies. For instance, the United States, South Korea, Canada and the Nordic countries, among others, have all taken measures to delay retirement. However, the general social recognition is not high. The age of the elderly, education level and individual lifestyle have a significant impact on policies of delayed retirement age. A situation of severe aging puts the future pension system at risk, based on the interests of the country, delayed retirement can help to maximize human capital and relieve a country’s financial pressure. From an individual perspective, extending the retirement age may reduce provisions for elderly people. This study, based on the previous literature review, conducted a survey of people in Halmstad to analyze local citizens’ perception of delayed retirement and the influencing factors behind this. The results indicate that willingness for delayed retirement among the people studied is not very high, with reasons varying across different types of respondents.

This project focuses on organization members that use communication as their principle tool for carrying out job duties and responsibilities. More specifically, this study examines the factors that impact the communication of inside and outside sales representatives. The goal of this research is to investigate willingness to communicate, communication apprehension, and self-esteem in daily life and in organizational settings. A total of 87 participants completed questionnaires congruent with these three topics. Previous literature concerning willingness to communicate, communication apprehension, and self esteem were examined to explore relevant information concerning each topic. Results suggest that differences in men and women and willingness to communicate in daily life or communication apprehension are not highly significant. Yet, there is a slight significance in differences when comparing sex and willingness to communicate in the workplace. A longitudinal study of self-esteem and goal success proved self-esteem was not a significant variable when discussing goal attainment within an organization. Future research should explore other variables that could affect willingness to communicate, communication apprehension, and self-esteem to better understand communication within the workplace.

Public recognition of the value of wetlands has risen quickly over the past 25 years and numerous policies and programs have been developed to address threats to the quantity and quality of wetlands. However, management of wetland resources located on private land often involves a perceived conflict between social and private interests since landowners usually cannot benefit economically from keeping wetlands on site unless they convert them to alternative uses such as agricultural crops. In order to avoid further degradation and ensure the various environmental benefits wetlands provide, there is a need for government intervention by delivering effective policies. This will be realized through an effective economic valuation process for wetland benefits.<p> This thesis investigates wetland and riparian zones management, with greater emphasis placed on the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of Saskatchewan where the majority of the land is privately owned. Using data from a survey of landowners, the perceived cost of conserving wetland and associated riparian zones is quantified through their willingness to accept (WTA) compensation for a proposed 10-year economic incentive-based program. In addition, the role of landowner and farm characteristics on this perceived cost of conservation has also been assessed. As indicated by the results from two probit models that were developed, per acre payment has a significant positive effect on the probability a landowner will accept the program offer; the average payment respondents required being $32.58/acre. Other factors such as the landowners previous experience dealing with the wetland, personal preferences correlated with economic benefits and landowners who have an heir to take over the farm are also found to have significant impact on their participation decision. For those respondents who did not complete the WTA question, past relative experience, knowledge about wetlands, age, and the agricultural region the farm is located are revealed to be factors that affect to the provision of an explicit answer.

Research gap: Reputation is seen as an important asset for companies and can create competitive advantages. Within business-to-business the reputation of the company is argued to affect the relationship between buyers and suppliers and although the area is stressed to be important, it is still under-researched. Previous literature is not aligning when it comes to the importance of reputation and the duration of the relationship and it also states trust to have impact on important parts of the relationship, such as affective commitment and the willingness to invest. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis was to measure to what extent the duration of a buyer-supplier relationship affects trust, and to what extent trust affects the affective commitment and willingness to invest, when the reputation of the supplier was negative as the outcome of adverse publicity. Hypothesis: H1a; H1b: The duration of buyer-supplier relationship has a positive impact on Trust (integrity or benevolence) if the reputation of the supplier is negative H2a; H2b: Trust (integrity or benevolence) has a positive impact on affective Commitment, if the reputation of the supplier is negative H3a; H3b: Trust (integrity or benevolence) has a positive impact on willingness to invest if the reputation of the supplier is negative Method: The study had a quantitative approach and collected the data by a questionnaire sent to manufacturing business-to-business companies by email. 462 companies were contacted which resulted in 72 usable answers. Conclusion:The buyer-supplier relationship was not to a significantly extent affected by negative reputation and the duration of the relationship was not differing to a substantially extent. The different trust increased the buyers’ affective commitment and willingness to invest which demonstrates the importance of trust in the relationship due to negative reputation.

Public recognition of the value of wetlands has risen quickly over the past 25 years and numerous policies and programs have been developed to address threats to the quantity and quality of wetlands. However, management of wetland resources located on private land often involves a perceived conflict between social and private interests since landowners usually cannot benefit economically from keeping wetlands on site unless they convert them to alternative uses such as agricultural crops. In order to avoid further degradation and ensure the various environmental benefits wetlands provide, there is a need for government intervention by delivering effective policies. This will be realized through an effective economic valuation process for wetland benefits.<p> This thesis investigates wetland and riparian zones management, with greater emphasis placed on the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of Saskatchewan where the majority of the land is privately owned. Using data from a survey of landowners, the perceived cost of conserving wetland and associated riparian zones is quantified through their willingness to accept (WTA) compensation for a proposed 10-year economic incentive-based program. In addition, the role of landowner and farm characteristics on this perceived cost of conservation has also been assessed. As indicated by the results from two probit models that were developed, per acre payment has a significant positive effect on the probability a landowner will accept the program offer; the average payment respondents required being $32.58/acre. Other factors such as the landowners previous experience dealing with the wetland, personal preferences correlated with economic benefits and landowners who have an heir to take over the farm are also found to have significant impact on their participation decision. For those respondents who did not complete the WTA question, past relative experience, knowledge about wetlands, age, and the agricultural region the farm is located are revealed to be factors that affect to the provision of an explicit answer.

The technology is changing fast in current business environment, today¡¦s success maybe will be gone by tomorrow. Therefore, the organization needs to keep learning and innovating to survive. To become a willing sharing and creation organization, the firm needs to gather all the knowledge in department, group and each employee. The key success of knowledge sharning is the employee¡¦s willingness of sharning knowledge. The knowledge is created through people¡¦s interation and the knowledge sharing is built on people¡¦s relation. The purpose of this rearch is to explor the employee¡¦s knowledge sharing willingness through social network approach. In the other hand, the psychological ownership could bring positive work attitude. Therefore the moderating effect of psychological ownership to social network and knowledge sharing willingness will be discussed as well. The target groups of this study are production or technology related departments of high technology companies. The samples are engineers, deputy engineers and supervisors. The total valid samples are 7 companies, 13 departments and 159 employees. Research method includes social network analysis software Ucinet and Hierarchical Regression Analysis. The result shows psychological ownership could raise the engineers¡¦ knowledge sharing willingness and moderate the relationship between in-degree centrality of advice network and knowledge sharing willingness. The findings are as follows: 1. Network degree centrality of internal advice network does not affect knowledge sharing willingness. 2. Psychological ownership positively and significantly affected knowledge sharing willingness. 3. Psychological ownership as the moderator positively and significantly affected the network degree centrality of internal advice network and knowledge sharing willingness partially.

In an era of increasing competition, many organizations seek growth through expansion into foreign markets. And it means there is more and more growth in need of the organizations to transfer skills and develop organizational staff. The use of expatriate is an important human resource option which enables skill transfer and the development of new market. There are more interactions between Taiwan and Mainland China with the rapid growth economics in Mainland China in the recent years. It still has the difference in designing the expatriate compensation compared to the western theory due to the similar history background, culture and language. This study is to explore how the design of the expatriate compensation affects the willingness of expatriation in the case of the Taiwanese expatriates to Mainland China. It tends to understand the company and employee¡¦s view through the questionnaire in the design of the expatriate compensation. Furthermore, it will try to understand the future trend and development of the expatriate compensation from Taiwan to Mainland China.

Benefits and consequences of controversial products are debated in the public arena for the protection of consumers and to evaluate the market decisions made by industry and government. The food industry continues to develop new foods as well as processes to bring food to the market. Some of these processes bring to issue the safety of the products or the impact on the market, workers, or environment. Such controversial products or processes include BSE (mad cow disease), genetically modified organisms (GMO), antibiotics, pesticides, carbon monoxide modified atmosphere packaging, and food irradiation. This thesis sets out with the objective of understanding, developing, and utilizing methodologies similar to those used in other contingent valuation studies to evaluate how consumers are influenced by varying information using food irradiation as a focus subject. Food irradiation is a technological food process that continues to be debated and much information favoring and opposing it is readily available to the public, making it a suitable subject about which to study information effects and consumer acceptance. To accomplish this objective, consumers were surveyed in grocery stores in the state of Texas during the spring of 2006. As irradiated foods are not currently widely available, a hypothetical product, irradiated mangoes, was used to elicit information from survey participants. The survey was comprised of two parts. First general information regarding consumer knowledge and trust of food irradiation as well as willingness to pay (WTP) was collected. Second, varying information regarding food irradiation (positive, negative, or mixed) was presented and questioning was reaccomplished. Evaluation of the survey data was made in three papers, each comprising its own chapter in this thesis. The first paper evaluates consumers’ initial trust and knowledge of food irradiation and how these factors interact with information in changing WTP. The second paper assesses responses for a “cheap talk” effect. Cheap talk is informing consumers of the existence of hypothetical bias in studies of this type with the goal being to reduce this bias to real life response equivalence. The third paper evaluates not only WTP, but also how consumer trust is affected by varying forms of information.