Search results

This article aims to clarify the issue of project risk management techniques and describes one such “tool” which provides an assessment of the true level of investment risks. This predictive tool provides the combination of a conventional critical path activity network approach with full allowance for the interactive effects of the project variables which contribute to uncertainty.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

Writing just a few years ago in The New York Times Book Review (January 10, 1982), Edwin McDowell, publishing correspondent of the Times, discussed what he termed “The Paperback Evolution”: the substantive changes in paperback book publishing that had occurred in the nearly half century since the “paperback revolution” of the 1930s, when Robert DeGraff launched his enormously successful Pocket Books line and spawned a host of imitators of not only his products but of his pioneering, entrepreneurial distribution tactics—probably the biggest factor in the success of the Pocket Books line. A little more than three years later, McDowell wrote another column on paperbacks in the NYTBR (September 28, 1985), and this time he entitled his article “Turmoil in the Racks: The Second Paperback Revolution.” What had happened during that brief period that made him see this type of publishing going from “evolutionary” to “revolutionary,” and what implications does such radical change have for the library collection‐building process—if any? For answers to these questions, a look at paperback publishing, particularly mass market, over the last decade or so is in order.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of self-purchasing versus gift-giving situations on the importance of product cues and the moderating effect of brand schematicity.

Data were collected via an online survey of 285 French consumers for wine and 139 French consumers for whisky. The interaction effect of the gift-giving situation and brand schematicity on the importance of product cues was then investigated.

The results differed, depending on the importance of brand cue. For the whisky category (high brand importance), brand schematicity had no influence on the importance of cues. For the wine category (low brand importance), brand schematicity moderated the influence of the gift-giving situation on the importance of extrinsic cues such as commercial brand. Brand schematicity and the situation of gift-giving also influence the number of important cues which consumers take into account when making their choice. In low-involvement purchasing situations, brand-aschematic consumers use fewer choice criteria than brand-schematic consumers, whereas in high-involvement purchasing situations, regardless of their level of brand schematicity, consumers use the same number of criteria to make their selection.

When the commercial brand is a salient cue and regardless of the purchasing situation, it is important to provide information on the brand to consumers through any format, such as social media, leaflets, flash codes, in-store digital display, etc. When the commercial brand is not a salient cue, brand schematicity may be relevant to a segment of consumers because this consumer profile may need more information and will focus on the commercial brand. Brand managers could develop a specific approach to schematic consumers based on brand content, for example, brand managers could provide marketing materials (e.g. leaflets, flash codes, mobile apps) to retail store managers explaining the origin and value of the commercial brand. Consumers could also be provided with digital devices (such as tablets), which they could use to search for information according to these cues before choosing their product. Social media and online brand community could also provide more details about the brand and may provide an interactive area for discussions with consumers.

There has been little research on the effect of brand schematicity on the importance of product cues. To the authors’ knowledge, the interaction between brand schematicity and purchase according to product category has not previously been studied. The influence of brand schematicity changes depending on the importance given to brand cues.