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1 – 10 of over 6000This paper reviews the current literature on theoretical and methodological issues in discrete choice experiments, which have been widely used in non-market value analysis, such…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper reviews the current literature on theoretical and methodological issues in discrete choice experiments, which have been widely used in non-market value analysis, such as elicitation of residents' attitudes toward recreation or biodiversity conservation of forests.
Design/methodology/approach
We review the literature, and attribute the possible biases in choice experiments to theoretical and empirical aspects. Particularly, we introduce regret minimization as an alternative to random utility theory and sheds light on incentive compatibility, status quo, attributes non-attendance, cognitive load, experimental design, survey methods, estimation strategies and other issues.
Findings
The practitioners should pay attention to many issues when carrying out choice experiments in order to avoid possible biases. Many alternatives in theoretical foundations, experimental designs, estimation strategies and even explanations should be taken into account in practice in order to obtain robust results.
Originality/value
The paper summarizes the recent developments in methodological and empirical issues of choice experiments and points out the pitfalls and future directions both theoretically and empirically.
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Blair Biggar, Viktorija Kesaite, Daria Ukhova and Heather Wardle
Despite increasingly persuasive women-focused marketing of gambling products, there has only been limited investigation around women sports betting. Men remain the focus of much…
Abstract
Despite increasingly persuasive women-focused marketing of gambling products, there has only been limited investigation around women sports betting. Men remain the focus of much of the conversation about sports betting as they have generally been found to be the most active sports bettors and the most at risk of experiencing harms associated with their behaviour. This chapter aims to fill this gap by exploring the characteristics of young women sports bettors in the United Kingdom and the relationship between sports betting and the experience of gambling harms. To do this, we created two models of analysis. Our analysis is based on data from the first wave (2019) of the Emerging Adults Gambling Survey (EAGS) dataset (n = 3,549). The EAGS is a non-probability longitudinal survey that includes individuals between the ages of 16 and 24 who were residents in Britain at the time of data collection. Firstly, we examined the associations between women sports bettors and several factors identified as important predictors of sports betting. Secondly, we sought to understand the relationship between women's sports betting and the harms associated with this activity. From these models, we found that women's sports betting was most reliably predicted according to fandom and peer influence. We also found that women sports bettors were more at risk of experiencing harms associated with difficulties with family and friends than women gamblers using other products.
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Sarah Yuliarini, Ku Nor Izah Bt Ku Ismail and Tantri Bararoh
Environmental Accounting (EA) practices have developed rapidly in some countries and have a positive impact on their organizations. Sustainability report (SR) as an indicator of…
Abstract
Environmental Accounting (EA) practices have developed rapidly in some countries and have a positive impact on their organizations. Sustainability report (SR) as an indicator of EA practices helps company gain a better reputation and it is set by management. However, some ASEAN countries including Indonesia do not have relevant accounting standards on the environment. EA practice is still not widely known in Indonesia, although, internationally there have been standards that provide guidelines for aspect of the environment such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Another aspect in GRI is remuneration. Remuneration is part of personnel cost which is a motivation about the positive effects of EA practices to disclose management concern. This research introduces a tool to evaluate a remuneration structure and the consistency of EA practices in the Sustainability Report.
Jakov Jandrić, Rick Delbridge and Paolo Quattrone
The increasing push towards centralisation and bureaucratisation in higher education, further exacerbated by the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, calls for a better…
Abstract
The increasing push towards centralisation and bureaucratisation in higher education, further exacerbated by the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, calls for a better understanding of the nature of collegiality in contemporary universities. We address this issue by looking into the necessary conditions and barriers to sustaining a collegiate environment. The empirical focus is on academics, academic leaders and professional support staff at Anonymous Business School (ABS), a department in a large civic UK university. We interviewed 32 participants across the school, ranging from early-career academics to experienced professors and members of department leadership teams. The findings suggest multiple emerging perspectives on collegiality, with features of horizontal collegiality perceived as key to successful academic responses to the crisis. The findings also indicate how sustaining a collegiate environment within the department requires both choice and effort from leadership and from staff, particularly when decision-making is primarily located at the centre of the university. The choice and effort made across different collegiate pockets contribute to the department becoming an ‘island of collegiality’ within the increasingly centralised and bureaucratised university hierarchy. In this sense, the actions of the department leadership to establish supporting mechanisms, and the actions of the staff to, in turn, embrace and build interpersonal relationships and professional identities, are key to sustaining a collegiate environment.
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Alice Stiletto and Samuele Trestini
Using a generic cheese as an anchor product, in this study consumers' preferences for different EU quality schemes have been investigated. Specifically, the study aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
Using a generic cheese as an anchor product, in this study consumers' preferences for different EU quality schemes have been investigated. Specifically, the study aims to understand whether “Protected Designation of Origin” (PDO), “Organic” and “Mountain Product” labels are independent or if there are some synergies existing between them, questioning – at the same time – whether this alleged exchange of value plays a positive or negative role in terms of consumers' willingness to pay.
Design/methodology/approach
A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted on 600 Italian consumers performing a random parameter logit model. The respondents were representative of the Italian population in terms of age, gender and geographical distribution. Consumers' preferences for the presence of “Organic” and “Mountain product” labels were assessed in the DCE, together with the effect of price, for both PDO and generic cheeses.
Findings
Consumers are willing to pay a premium in price for “Organic” and “Mountain Product” per se, for cheese with and without the PDO denomination. Considering the interaction effects, results showed that the combined use of “Organic” and “Mountain Product” labels do not decrease consumers' intention to buy. However, when applied on a PDO product, these attributes generate a lower consumers' willingness to pay in comparison with the generic ones, highlighting a possible overlapping between them.
Originality/value
Despite the abundant literature on EU quality schemes in many food categories, this study represents one of the first attempts to measure the interaction effect between different EU quality schemes.
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Flavio Boccia, Letizia Alvino and Daniela Covino
Packaging and labelling have become essential to how food manufacturers generate and deliver value to customers. The information displayed on the packaging can be used to…
Abstract
Purpose
Packaging and labelling have become essential to how food manufacturers generate and deliver value to customers. The information displayed on the packaging can be used to communicate to customers the properties and unique characteristics of a food product (e.g. nutrients, calories and country of origin). To achieve communication goals effectively, manufacturers need to understand how consumers evaluate products based on their attributes. In particular, companies should be aware of which specific product attributes affect consumer buying behaviour and which product attributes are more critical during food assessment. So, the paper aims to investigate consumer's behaviuor linked to typical product attributes indicated on the packaging.
Design/methodology/approach
The present study examines consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for a cherry jam with different attributes (brand, type of production method and price) on a sample of 2,166 Italian respondents through a choice experiment using a random parameter logit-error component model.
Findings
The results showed that WTP for jams can be affected by attributes such as brand, price and production methods; precisely, they indicated that the level of naturalness in the production process constitutes the main element for the consumer’s choice; however, the considerable weight that price and brand have in influencing the purchasing behaviour of the food consumer was still confirmed: in fact, a p-value of less than 0.05 was found in all cases.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that assesses the effect of different types of production on WTP for food products. In addition, this study also reflects on the importance of the level of education for consumer choice.
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Anupama Sukhu and Anil Bilgihan
The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of service recovery experiences on customer engagement in negative word-of-mouth (WOM) in the hotel industry and explore…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of service recovery experiences on customer engagement in negative word-of-mouth (WOM) in the hotel industry and explore the psychological motives and mediating mechanisms driving consumer behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
A scenario-based experimental design on Qualtrics was used, with a pre-test (N = 200). The main study data were collected using Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform.
Findings
Findings reveal that negative service experiences lead to higher engagement in negative WOM compared to positive and satisfactory recovery service experiences. Even well-executed recovery efforts may not completely eliminate negative WOM. The mediating role of emotional responses is substantiated, as heightened negative service experiences result in more intense negative emotional responses, leading to increased engagement in negative WOM.
Originality/value
The study emphasizes the importance of service recovery strategies and the need for businesses to consistently strive for exceptional service quality. It also highlights the complexity of customer reactions to service experiences, suggesting that further research is needed to explore the factors that minimize negative WOM across various service contexts.
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Pierre Jinghong Liang, Madhav Rajan and Korok Ray
This paper aims to explore the design of management teams when the critical task facing individual managers is monitoring the performance of worker teams and producing performance…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the design of management teams when the critical task facing individual managers is monitoring the performance of worker teams and producing performance measures under uncertain information environments.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use a multi-agent LEN framework – linear contract, exponential utility and normal density – to model the incentive provision and organizational design.
Findings
The main lesson is that the use of performance measures under uncertainty is greatly affected by the potential for free-riding in the very monitoring activities which generate the measures to begin with. Accordingly, the value of having a management team, that is the incremental benefit of having a second manager, depends on the monitoring technology. Of particular importance are the potential free-riding in monitoring effort among multiple managers and synergies gained from having more than one manager, such as correlation among the performance measures produced or improvement due to splitting workers pool into separate groups for each manager to monitor separately.
Originality/value
The paper pushes this line of research further by explicitly modeling the endogenous process of signal generation within a rich economic environment. In this environment, number of workers being evaluated and number of managers who produce the signals are both endogenous. Furthermore, both workers and managers are subject to moral hazard problem. In particular, the managers suffer from potential free-riding problems but may benefit from synergistic forces due to team monitoring.
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Alice Stiletto, Elisa Giampietri and Samuele Trestini
The present study aims at analysing consumer preferences for the pomegranate fruit, focussing on the effect of ready-to-eat format (i.e. packaged arils) on the purchasing choice…
Abstract
Purpose
The present study aims at analysing consumer preferences for the pomegranate fruit, focussing on the effect of ready-to-eat format (i.e. packaged arils) on the purchasing choice, together with several products’ attributes as the origin, the packaging typology and the price.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a choice experiment (CE) among 626 Italian consumers from Veneto region through an online survey. The study estimates both a conditional logit (CL) and a latent class logit model (LCM).
Findings
By segmenting the sample based on the heterogeneous preferences of consumers, it can distinguish “eco-friendly consumers”, “time-saving lovers”, “nationalists” and “price sensitive” subjects. Interestingly, the marginal willingness to pay for ready-to-eat arils is positive for the “time-saving lovers” that are mainly young consumers. The Italian origin has always a positive effect on the choice, whereas a negative effect is found for the price. Finally, the eco-friendly package has both a negative and a positive effect.
Research limitations/implications
The sample of this study is not representative of the population and the CE has a hypothetical nature. It follows that further research will link the economic analysis to a consumer test on a more representative sample.
Practical implications
This study can be useful for the pomegranate producers and the industry because it provides original evidence that could drive their business and marketing strategies, for instance, the preference for ready-to-eat arils.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first seeking to determine the factors that affect consumers' preferences for pomegranate arils.
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Rosina Wanyama, Theda Gödecke, Matthias Jager and Matin Qaim
Micronutrient malnutrition is a public health problem in many developing countries, especially in the poorest population segments. Fortification and other food-based approaches…
Abstract
Purpose
Micronutrient malnutrition is a public health problem in many developing countries, especially in the poorest population segments. Fortification and other food-based approaches, such as using more nutritious ingredients in processing, could help to address this problem, but little is known about poor consumers’ attitudes toward nutritionally enhanced foods. The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether poor consumers in Africa would purchase foods with more nutritious ingredients and the related willingness and ability to pay.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey and choice experiment were conducted with 600 randomly selected households in the poorest neighborhoods of Nairobi (Kenya) and Kampala (Uganda). Participants were asked to choose between various alternatives of porridge flour with different types of nutritional attributes. The data were analyzed with mixed logit models. Porridge flour is widely consumed among the urban poor, so that the example can also provide interesting broader lessons.
Findings
Poor consumers welcome foods that are micronutrient-fortified or include new types of nutritious ingredients. However, willingness to pay for nutritional attributes is small. New ingredients that are perceived to have little effect on taste and appearance are seen more positively than ingredients that may change food products more notably.
Practical implications
New nutritionally enhanced foods have good potential in markets for the poor, if they build on local consumption habits and are not associated with significant price increases.
Originality/value
This is among the first studies to explicitly analyze poor consumers’ preferences for nutritionally enhanced foods.
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