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This paper aims to outline the fundamental assumptions regarding the laddering methodology (Reynolds and Gutman), examine how some “hard” laddering approaches meet or violate these assumptions, provide a review and comparison of a series of studies using “soft” and “hard” laddering approaches to examine the hierarchical structure of means‐end theory, and assess if the discrepant conclusions from this series of studies may be attributed to violations of the fundamental assumptions of the laddering methodology.

A series of published empirical works using “hard” and “soft” laddering approaches, which aim to examine the hierarchical structure of means‐end theory (Gutman), are reviewed and compared to integrate research findings and to examine discrepancies. Discrepant conclusions, which appear to be attributable to violations of the assumptions underlying the laddering methodology, are explored through a reanalysis and reclassification of the content codes.

The paper validates the case for laddering and the care needed to gauge how conclusions can be affected when violations of fundamental assumptions of the laddering methodology occur.

Means‐end chain research and, more specifically, the laddering methodology are in need of investigations that assess the importance of its underlying assumptions. Additional work validating both the “hard” and “soft” laddering approaches is also needed.

Results of means‐end research are more interpretable and less ambiguous when the fundamental assumptions of the laddering methodology are met. In practice, means‐end theory benefits managers by providing a useful structure to aid in the interpretation of laddering data.

This paper outlines the fundamental assumptions regarding the laddering methodology to provide methodological guidelines for laddering researchers. This paper also reviews the academic literature examining the hierarchical structure of means‐end theory and explores how violations of the fundamental assumptions of the laddering methodology may impact research findings.

To retain consumer attention and increase purchasing rates, many e-commerce vendors have adopted content-based recommender systems. However, apart from text-based documents, there is little theoretical background guiding element selection, resulting in a limited content analysis problem. Another inherent problem is overspecialization. The purpose of this paper is to establish a value-based recommendation methodology for identifying favorable attributes, benefits, and values on the basis of means-end chain theory. The identified elements and the relationships between them were utilized to construct a recommender system without incurring either problem.

This study adopted soft laddering and content analysis to collect popular elements. The relationships between the elements were established by using a hard laddering online questionnaire. The elements and the relationships were utilized to build a hierarchical value map (HVM). A mathematical model was then devised on the basis of the HVM to predict user preferences of attributes.

The results of a performance comparison showed that the proposed method outperformed the content-based attribute recommendation method and a hybrid method by 39 and 68 percent, respectively.

Although hybrid methods have been proposed to resolve the problem of overspecialization in content-based recommender systems, such methods have incurred “cold start” and “sparsity” problems. The proposed method can provide recommendations without causing these problems while outperforming the content-based and hybrid approaches.

The present study aims to use the qualitative approach of soft laddering to gather insight into both risk perception and subsequent marketing strategies of medical tourism. Medical tourism has recently started to spark interest of marketing researchers and has been a frequently discussed topic by both journalists and physicians. Nevertheless, there are only few marketing studies offering in-depth research on the phenomenon of medical tourism. In the present article, we will concentrate on the central notion of risk inherent to any medical procedure and a fortiori to surgery in the so-called Third World countries. Because medical tourism is a product to be sold to costumers, the perceived risk needs to be dealt with on the marketing level.

In the present study, the qualitative approach of soft laddering was used with 23 participants from France and 22 participants from Quebec to gather insight into both risk perception and subsequent marketing strategies of medical tourism.

The results show significant differences in consumer behavior between the two nationalities involved. We will see how these differences are related to underlying values as well as different reasons and constraints to purchase.

The results could help developed countries’ government to implement health policy.

Qualitative research does not often use soft laddering, which was used in this paper. Moreover, this qualitative approach has some advantages as the number of chains, as well as the frequencies of selection and the diversity of elements quoted by consumers (kinds of risks, values and consequences of the choices made).

The purpose of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of the attributes of effective complaint management in business‐to‐business relationships, and to reveal the underlying benefits that buying organizations are looking for when complaining.

A semi‐standardized qualitative technique called laddering was applied successfully to an online environment with 22 representatives of companies in the manufacturing industry participating.

The resulting hierarchical value map displays 13 attributes which exemplify the complaint resolution management expectations. A total of 14 constructs represent consequences of such resolution activities, while four constructs can be interpreted as values. Take “Quick action” is the most important of the expected attributes and behaviours of complaint resolution management. Four consequences seem to dominate the assessment: Financial benefits, Prevention of future problems, Solution, and Effective resolution handling. “Maintain supplier relationships” appears as a dominant value in the perceptions of respondents, with half of them mentioning this as an end.

Owing to the exploratory nature of the study in general and the scope and size of its sample in particular, the findings are tentative in nature. The study involved a group of representatives of large UK manufacturing companies with complaint handling responsibilities and so the results cannot be generalised.

The findings enrich the existing limited stock of knowledge on complaint management in business relationships by developing a deeper understanding of the attributes that complaining customer companies desire from suppliers, as well as the underlying business logic (i.e. values) for these expectations. The quality of the results also suggests that the laddering questionnaire technique can be transferred effectively to an online environment.

The purpose of this research is to aim to develop a deeper understanding of the teaching qualities of effective lecturers that students desire and to uncover the constructs that underlie these desire expectations and reveal the underlying benefits for which students look.

A semi‐standardized qualitative technique called laddering was applied that allows researchers to reach deeper levels of reality and to reveal the reasons behind the reasons. The study was conducted amongst teacher education students at a large German University of Education and laddering questionnaires were handed out to 53 students enrolled in a business management course.

The exploratory study gave a valuable first insight into the desired qualities of lecturers. In particular, the study results indicate that students want lecturers to be knowledgeable, enthusiastic, approachable, and friendly. Students predominantly want to encounter valuable teaching experiences to be able to pass tests and to be prepared for their profession. This study also showed that students are mainly concerned about vocational aspects of their studies and are less interested in their subject.

Owing to the exploratory nature of the study and the scope and size of its sample, the results outlined are tentative in nature. As the study involved only a single group of university students from one university, the results cannot be generalized to the student population as a whole.

The study was the first to successfully apply the means‐end approach and the laddering technique to the issue of service quality in higher education. The study has, hopefully, opened up an area of research and methodology that could provide considerable further benefits for researchers interested in this topic.

Vegetarian diets are increasingly common worldwide. Vegetarianism is no longer just related to food, but rather it evokes a deeper meaning, such as environmental sustainability and animal welfare. In Western cultures, many studies have examined how vegetarians' motivations relate to animal welfare, health and environmentalism. However, there is little research in this area in Asia, especially in South Korea, despite a growing number of vegetarians. This study identifies the hierarchical value maps (HVMs) of vegetarians to clarify why people choose to become vegetarians and investigates the negative aspects of these dietary types.

The authors conducted in-depth, one-to-one laddering interviews with 33 vegetarians in South Korea based on the means-end chain theory. The laddering technique is a qualitative approach to determining connections between attributes, consequences and values.

Vegetarians tend to value an ethical lifestyle, sustainable future, ecological circulation, responsibility for nature, respect for life, respect for the weak and quality of life. HVM differs slightly among groups by the type of vegetarianism (vegan vs non-vegan vegetarians) and sex (females vs males). The most dominant cognitive structures toward vegetarian diets were “meat-free,” “no factory farming,” and “plant-based” (attributes); “health,” “environment-friendly” and “animal-friendly” (consequences); and “quality of life,” “ethical life,” and “sustainable future” (values).

This study offers insights into the motivations of Korean vegetarians, and they are not culturally different from those of Westerners as they relate to animals, the environment and health.

Although the basic idea of benefit segmentation lies in using causal, as opposed to descriptive, factors as segmentation criteria, most of the empirical studies do not differentiate between product attributes and the benefit sought by consumers. The objectives of this article are to clarify the distinction between attributes and benefits sought, and to apply a modified laddering technique, based on means‐end theory to use the elicited benefits to form benefit segments. A comparison with attribute‐based segments demonstrates that means‐end chains provide a powerful tool for “true” benefit segmentation.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the motivational tensions underlying mobile shopping (m-shopping) behaviours. The authors focus on consumer motivations and the pursuit of life end goals with respect to m-shopping.

Based on the means-end chain theory, hard-laddering approach was used to elicit associations between attributes, consequences and values from 251 online participants. Content analysis was used to develop a hierarchical value map “mapping” these associations to uncover underlying values for m-shopping.

Mobile shoppers are motivated by their self-actualisation needs (self-focused) and/or social needs (other-focused). Participants’ response contradictions reflected internal complexities and ambivalences during their purchasing decisions. Decisions are based on their concerns around security, time, technological or financial.

This study provides managerial insights into retail marketing and strategies. Marketers should consider creating user-friendly applications by researching the customer journey experience, heightening security measures and ensuring that added-value offers are clearly communicated to meet consumers’ personal values and motivations.

The paper presents an original conceptual contribution of personal values related to m-shopping as desires for self-empowerment, altruism and relationships with others, self-fulfilment and hedonism and possible consumer internal conflicts.

This chapter focuses on individuals’ mental representations of complex decision problems in transportation. An overview of approaches and techniques in this recent area of research is given as well as an illustration. The illustration concerns an application of CNET (causal network elicitation technique) to measure mental representations in a shopping activity scheduling task. The presence of an online shopping alternative is varied to investigate the influence of an online alternative on how individuals represent the choice problem.

Mental-model and means-ends-chain theories are discussed. These theories state that individuals when faced with a decision problem construct a mental representation of the choice alternatives by activating relevant parts of their broader causal knowledge that allow them to evaluate consequences regarding their existing needs. Furthermore, these theories emphasise that situational and person dependence of this process can explain observed variability in preferences of travellers.

The results indicate that considerable variation exists between individuals in terms of both the complexity, and the attributes and benefits that are activated in the mental representation of the choice problem. Presence of an online alternative has an influence on the benefits that individuals consider important. The impact is however small.

The chapter provides an overview of recent developments in the study of mental representations underlying choice behaviour. Traditionally, this has been the exclusive domain of qualitative research methods. The techniques reviewed enable larger samples and a formal representation of mental representations. Thus, the approach can help to better understand preference heterogeneity and incorporate this in (transport) choice models.