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Much of the research conducted in logistics/SCM has focused on satisfaction/retention of customers. This has left a critical gap for managers: before customers can be satisfied and ultimately retained, a purchase choice of logistics services has to occur. To date, very little research has addressed how logistics customers make purchase choice decisions about logistics services. The purpose of this paper, using logistics research methods, is to introduce adaptive choice modelling (ACM) to address this gap and put forth a research method that is useful for academic researchers and logistics/SCM managers.

This paper provides an overview of ACM, along with a discussion of its important research advantages, limitations, and practical applications. Additionally, an empirical demonstration of this research technique is provided to illustrate how academic researchers and logistics managers can use ACM to better understand the decision‐making process of customers when selecting logistics services.

In order to demonstrate this research technique, a research project was designed and implemented that analyzed the choice process of consumers selecting parcel carriers to ship a textbook. The results show that price, speed of delivery, and tracking are the three most important variables in the selection decision. The results also show that consumers are not homogeneous, but can be divided into five distinct need‐based segments. Recognizing and understanding the nature of these segments should help managers better meet the needs of parcel shippers.

The main research limitation with this study is that it is based on a convenience sample; thus future research will need to replicate this study to confirm the research findings. However, the ultimate purpose of the study is to present a new research method and discuss how to apply this method, so that logistics/SCM practitioners and academic researchers can better understand customers of logistics/SCM services. Thus, while the nature of the sample is a limitation, it should be viewed in this context.

While conjoint analysis has existed for decades, this technique has rarely been implemented by logistics/SCM researchers and practitioners. Instead, logistics/SCM researchers and practitioners have focused more on retention methods and have virtually ignored modelling the actual purchase choice of logistics/SCM services. New advancements in conjoint analysis, specifically the ACM approach, have many important and unique advantages and applications for logistics/SCM researchers and practitioners. ACM has not been used in a logistics/SCM context.

This study aims to examine the environmental attributes relevant to older people's preferences for neighbourhood open spaces. It also aims to explore the association between the relative importance of different environmental attributes and personal and social characteristics in a sample of older people covering a range of geographic locations in the UK.

Choice‐based conjoint analysis (CBC) was used to obtain responses from a sample of 237 older people (60 years +) living in the UK. A total of 13 environmental attributes were identified from earlier qualitative and quantitative studies. Participants were asked to choose a preferred park from a pair of hypothetical neighbourhood parks differing on four of the attributes presented in a questionnaire. The questionnaire included 14 such tasks.

The results suggest that older people preferred a neighbourhood park which is without nuisance, has cafes and toilets, many trees and plants, light traffic en route, wildlife to watch, and is well maintained. Analyses also reveal that whether or not people live alone, and their functional capabilities in getting around, make a difference in the way they place importance on attributes.

The findings can assist those involved in designing and managing outdoor environments to identify salient environmental attributes and prioritise interventions aimed at improving access to, and use of, outdoor spaces for older adults. The approach aids understanding of what is likely to maximise preference and use of open spaces in different segments of the older population.

Conjoint analysis procedures are some of the best tools available for determining importance or relative value of attributes of complex environments from the user point of view. The CBC analysis has been employed for the first time in this study to explore the relative importance of such attributes of open spaces for older adults.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the relative importance of four main attributes of food products for consumer’s choice. These are price, taste, environmental friendliness and healthfulness, tested across hedonic and utilitarian food products (milk and ice-cream). The weighting of attributes involved in food choices is a complex phenomenon, as consumers must consider contradictory requirements when making their choices. Consumers’ decision-making processes might also be influenced by food category. Some food products are mostly consumed for pleasure, whereas others are consumed because of their nutritional value.

The study employs a choice-based conjoint technique, which addresses how consumers make trade-offs across a set of product attributes.

The results indicate that price and taste attributes are rated as the most important for both hedonic and utilitarian food products. However, when the authors group consumers according to their product preferences, the relative importance of product attributes changes. Specifically, the importance of environmental friendliness and healthfulness is much higher among the health-conscious and environmentally conscious segments than for other segments.

To the knowledge, this is the first study comparing the importance of this combination of product attributes (price, taste, calorie content and eco-label) across hedonic and utilitarian foods in a choice-based conjoint setting. Moreover, a new way of grouping consumers according to their ethical-value profiles enables the authors to create a psychographic description of these segments, and to relate it to their food attribute preferences.

As an alternative to hiring financial specialists or investment consultants, robo-advisors offer financially automated investment services. This study aims to investigate how robo-advisors' service attributes, risk attitude and financial self-efficacy influence customers' choice preferences of adopting robo-advisors.

Two hundred fifty-one online surveys were used to collect data, and choice-based conjoint analysis was conducted.

Results show that increasing annual fees negatively impact customers' choice preferences. Promotion, general investment education and additional human assistance have a positive impact. Furthermore, risk-seeking and risk-averse customers require more human assistance than risk-neutral customer and customers with high levels of financial self-efficacy prefer more general investment education and additional human assistance than those with lower levels. In addition, customers in the older age group prefer promotion, general investment education and additional human assistance, while wealthy customers prefer lower annual fees, higher general investment education and more additional human assistance compared to middle-class and low-income groups.

This study contributes to robo-advisor providers to provide appropriate service attributes for each customer group.

This research draws upon decision-making theory to study job choice decisions. Past studies measured job choice as a single-stage, compositional process addressing the weights and part-worth utilities of a selected number of job and organizational attributes. However, the presence of noncompensatory attributes and whether the utilities and weights attached to the attributes vary among applicants have not been addressed. The authors posit that a conjoint analysis is an accurate methodological technique to explain job choice and overcome these limitations.

Using a random sample of 571 participants, we conducted an adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis to estimate the weighted utilities of eight employer attributes and a cluster analysis to identify differences in preferences among employee profiles.

The results reveal that the use of the conjoint technique contributes to the literature in two ways. First, the results demonstrate the relevance of nonnegotiable attributes in the design of job offers. The results show that Salary, Flexibility and Ethics serve as cutoff points. Second, the results highlight the importance of considering the latent preferences of applicants in crafting effective job offers and adequately segmenting job applicants. More specifically, the following three groups are identified: Career-seeking applicants, Sustainability-oriented applicants and Pragmatic applicants.

The managerial implications of this study are relevant for HR and employer brand managers since a better understanding of the job-choice process and implementing a decompositional method to understand applicants' preferences could allow firms to provide more customized and relevant job offers to employees of interest.

This study concludes that to implement efficient employer-attraction branding strategies, employers should understand the attributes considered noncompensatory by their employee target audience, promote the most valued/important attributes to ensure that job offers are customized to fit employees' underlying preferences, and devise trade-off strategies among compensatory attributes.

Currently, it is unclear how omnichannel retailers can create a last mile offer that is both attractive and sustainable from an economic and environmental point of view. The purpose of this paper is to explore to which extent consumers are willing to adopt last mile options that are more sustainable and how these options should be composed to remain attractive.

To this end, the authors surveyed a representative sample of Belgian consumers, using choice-based conjoint experiments, and analysed their preferences structures.

Consumers’ preference goes out to free, next day delivery to an address of choice, on regular office hours during the week. However, when free delivery and return are offered, consumers are willing to collect their orders themselves or wait longer for their orders to arrive.

The research findings are important for retailers that (plan to) operate an omnichannel model. For omnichannel retailers with a dense store network, the results indicate that consumers accept their store network as pick-up and return locations, allowing retailers to create a more efficient and sustainable supply chain in which their online and offline activities can be combined.

The research findings contribute to current literature and practice by combining “planet” and “profit” components of sustainability in last mile transport and applying it in the novel omnichannel environment.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the online preference structures of consumers.

Novel choice‐based conjoint experiments are used and are administered online. A select group of high net worth online grocery shoppers are examined. Both qualitative and quantitative procedures are used to determine the most frequently cited attributes affecting online patronage.

Whilst there is no single attribute on which a retailer could develop a competitive edge, a significant market advantage can be gained by being simultaneously “best in class” on the top four attributes.

This research approach has significant practical application to a wide range of strategic marketing questions.

These findings give focus to the management task facing marketing executives in the UK multichannel grocery market. How these findings might be used within a marketing plan is illustrated.

The purpose of this paper is to understand consumer preferences for green vehicles with low fuel consumption and emission. It will examine six important vehicle attributes, including fuel efficiency and CO₂ emissions, and determine the impacts of increasing demand for green attributes on the domestic car industry in Sweden.

Responses to an adaptive choice-based conjoint experiment from a sample of 100 residents in Northern Sweden were analyzed using monotone regression and market simulation.

The authors found that consumer preferences were sensitive to changes in fuel efficiency and emission levels. However, engine power was the most important attribute for existing owners whereas price was the most important one for potential customers, while both market segments valued emission more than fuel efficiency. Also, the domestic producer will benefit from both an increase in market size and market share if all new vehicles have higher fuel efficiency but its market share will decrease if all new vehicles have lower CO₂ emissions.

Although promoting green vehicle purchase is beneficial for the environment, policy makers also need to balance this benefit against any potential adverse effect on the domestic industry and the economy. This study will provide evidence-based recommendations to increase the share of green cars in new vehicle purchase, and thus contribute to improving the environment. Moreover, it will also predict the changes in the market shares of different vehicles, and the potential impact on the domestic automobile manufacturing sector and the economy.

This study will contribute significantly to the understanding of consumer preferences by exploring the preferences of a sample of consumers from a country with a well-established alternative fuel and green car market but has adverse weather and driving conditions and a domestic automobile manufacturing industry. It will also examine the differences in preference between existing owners and potential green car buyers. Finally, it will simulate the effects of changing fuel efficiency and emission levels on consumer utility and preference shares to predict changes in market share of different vehicles, and thus the potential impact on the domestic automobile manufacturing sector and the economy.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the preferred communication channels to foster energy conservation behaviour among office building users. Energy demand from the commercial sector in Malaysia is, at 33.2 per cent, the highest after the industry sector, at 45.1 per cent. The country’s progress in actively practising energy conservation is lacking, despite various energy conservation programmes having been launched in recent years. A large amount of energy is wasted by users’ poor energy conservation behaviour. To market voluntary energy conservation behaviour, the delivery of energy conservation messages using the appropriate communication channels remains an important strategy.

This paper involves two-stage data collection. The communication categories associated with a set of channels identified from expert interview serve as the basis for the second stage of empirical data gathering using conjoint analysis. A choice-based conjoint analysis assisted by Sawtooth Software is used to analyse the 525 usable empirical data gathered from a final questionnaire survey among the office building users in Malaysia.

This paper has identified five communication categories associated with a total of 19 channels. The mass media is acknowledged as the most preferred communication channel among office building users in the marketing of energy conservation behaviour, while the least preferred channel to communicate energy conservation information is audio-visual media.

This study contributes to existing literature with a novel case in Malaysia office building by identifying the preferred combination of communication channels in fostering energy conservation behaviour. The findings could benefit the building managers in marketing energy conservation behaviour among office building users to effectively achieve the desired change for sustainable development.

This study aims to enhance the understanding of competency requirements of supply chain planners and analysts (SCP&As) and identify different personal preferences of hiring managers toward job candidates’ competency profiles.

A total of 243 supply chain managers with hiring experience participated in an adaptive choice-based conjoint experiment to uncover the relative importance of six competency attributes, namely, analytical and problem-solving ability, interpersonal skills, general management skills, computer/IT skills, supply chain management (SCM) knowledge and industry experience.

SCM knowledge and analytical and problem-solving ability were identified as the most important competencies and were considered three times more important than general management skills. Based on convergent cluster and ensemble analysis, two types of hiring managers were identified. The first group is characterized by a pronounced preference for job candidates with extensive SCM knowledge. In contrast, the second group’s members prefer candidates with a more balanced competency profile.

The authors’ findings help companies to facilitate a better person–job fit, a key determinant of employee performance and job satisfaction.