Are You a Chocolate Lover? An Investigation of the Repurchase Behavior of Chocolate Consumers

This study aimed to understand the factors affecting repurchase behavior of chocolate brands and, consequently, customer retention and acquisition. The study adopted a qualitative, inductive approach using in-depth interviews with 31 Australian consumers. The factors identified in the extant literature as antecedents of customers’ repurchase intention in the chocolate industry, including brand recognition, sales promotion, product price value, variety, taste, texture, size, packaging, and customer satisfaction, were confirmed. The results also indicated that functional value, product selection value, self-gratification value, socialization value, and transactional value were also considered during the consumer decision-making process. Implications for practitioners are provided.     

Stores

Summary There is scope and incentive for stores to endogenously arise in an exchange economy when agents possess different levels of bargaining power and coalition formation is costly. In the absence of stores, agents face a trading lottery where the expected outcome for an individual agent depends upon his relative bargaining strength. By setting appropriate, preannounced prices, a store can profitably offer relatively weak bargainers trading opportunities which they prefer to the trading lottery. While relatively weak bargainers are attracted to the store, relatively strong bargainers prefer the trading lottery to the store. Thus, the simultaneous existence of barter and mediated trade is explained.The work reported here was conceived while both authors were visiting the University of Southern California. We thank Martine Quinzii and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.     

An Empirical Segmentation of Users of Mobile Banking Apps

Digital technologies have squeezed the entire world into a small frame. Trade and transactions never stop, and they go where the customer is. Marketers must reinvent their strategies and toolkits to win in this hyper-connected world. Companies are creating new and improved ways for engaging and involving their consumers, and one significant tool now used by companies for these purposes is the app. Mobile phones have registered the highest growth among all technological evolutions, and mobile apps are proliferating. Apps are being used across a diverse range of industry verticals, including banking, e-commerce, travel, and tourism. This article studies a set of twenty different banking apps and segments consumers based on their adoption and usage of the apps. This article emphasizes the role of mobile technologies to change established channels and banking services, and also analyzes how the Indian banking sector has benefited from the adoption of mobile apps.     

Growth models and analysis of development

This paper deals with remnants of neoclassical elements in Keynesian and post- Keynesian throught, and attempts to demonstrate that the elimination of these elements from our modes of thinking would not impoverish economic analysis as a means of solving real problems.In the Keynesian analysis the causation from investment to savings is exhibited in terms of income determination. When put in terms of a capital theory model, the vector of savings is represented in two ways: firstly, real savings, and secondly, counterpart real savings. The former coincides with the investment vector and the latter with the vector of consumption goods foregone for diverting resources towards equipment making. Thus the Keynesian causation in capital theory terms makes the concept of national savings as an independent variable redundant.The Robinsonian causation in a golden age with full employment and its reversal of direction in a steady state with non-employment are then considered. But in each of these, variables like rate of savings and output-capital ratio are found to be dormat variables. They are termed as null variables which, being of no account in both full-employment and unemployment situations, could, without loss, be deleted from the repertory of analytical tools. The Harrod formula of warranted rate of growth, when put in causal form, thus becomes a redundant portion of economics of growth. The real determinants of the growth rate and real wage rate on which the analysis of growth or of development should be based, are also depicted.     

Paternalism, Limited Paternalism and the Pontius Pilate Plight When Researching Children

Recognizing the immense purchasing power of children, marketing researchers often gather information from them. Given the vulnerability of these children as research subjects, this paper explores the different ethical standards that marketing researchers could adopt in their research efforts. The Paternalistic Ethical Standard and the Limited Paternalistic Ethical Standard are discussed and the ethical quandary known as the Pontius Pilate Plight is identified in the context of the latter standard. An enhanced version of the Limited Paternalistic Standard is suggested as an ethical guide for marketing researchers. Based on interviews with professional marketing researchers to gauge the applicability of the proposed standard, managerial implications are identified.     

Linkages Between Switching Barriers and Service Recovery Evaluation: An Indian Exploration

ABSTRACT

This study attempts to investigate the relationship between switching barriers and service recovery evaluation of consumers in Indian context. Empirical findings of the present study provided useful insights. The primary statistical techniques used in the study were correlation analysis and exploratory factor analysis. A total of 347 respondents completed the field survey, and the survey was conducted in Dehradun, Uttrakhand. It was found from the results of correlation analysis that compensation and promptness constructs had comparatively high correlation coefficients with overall service recovery evaluation in comparison to employee behavior construct. Another insightful finding of the study provided evidence for a significant relationship between service recovery evaluation and positive switching barriers, but at the same time there was no evidence for a relationship between service recovery evaluation and negative switching barriers.     

Strategic learning and entry-equilibrium

This paper describes the nature of equilibrium for a dynamic game between a monopolist and an entrant who adopts a learning strategy for cost reduction. The learning process is characterized as a continuous-time Poisson process where each success reduces a part of the entrant's cost difference with the incumbent. The entrant chooses a stream of expenditure after every success to control the instant probability of the next success. The techniques of semi-Markov decision processes are used to characterize equilibrium learning decisions at every stage, distribution of entry times, and the effects of subsidies, technical progress, etc. on pre-entry and post-entry learning strategies.     

Value versus Glamour

The fragility of the CAPM has led to a resurgence of research that frequently uses trading strategies based on sorting procedures to uncover relations between firm characteristics (such as “value” or “glamour”) and equity returns. We examine the propensity of these strategies to generate statistically and economically significant profits due to our familiarity with the data. Under plausible assumptions, data snooping can account for up to 50 percent of the in‐sample relations between firm characteristics and returns uncovered using single (one‐way) sorts. The biases can be much larger if we simultaneously condition returns on two (or more) characteristics.     

Technological acquisitions and the innovation performance of acquiring firms: a longitudinal study

This paper examines the impact of acquisitions on the subsequent innovation performance of acquiring firms in the chemicals industry. We distinguish between technological acquisitions, acquisitions in which technology is a component of the acquired firm's assets, and nontechnological acquisitions: acquisitions that do not involve a technological component. We develop a framework relating acquisitions to firm innovation performance and develop a set of measures for quantifying the technological inputs a firm obtains through acquisitions. We find that within technological acquisitions absolute size of the acquired knowledge base enhances innovation performance, while relative size of the acquired knowledge base reduces innovation output. The relatedness of acquired and acquiring knowledge bases has a nonlinear impact on innovation output. Nontechnological acquisitions do not have a significant effect on subsequent innovation output. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Market structure and the demand for veterinary services in India

The livestock sector is emerging as one of the fastest growing agricultural sub‐sectors in India and the expectations are that this growth could further accelerate due to growing incomes and the high income elasticity of demand for livestock products. Given the size and relatively equitable distribution of livestock in India, this presents an excellent opportunity for the country to boost rural incomes and accelerate the pace of poverty reduction. But, successful capitalisation of such opportunities requires a policy regime that facilitates growth in productivity at the farm level as well as in the processing sector. The productive potential of animals depends crucially on the quality of nutrition, genetic material and the animal health system, and on all these counts, India has a poor record. The public sector continues to be the primary provider of veterinary services, and the deteriorating fiscal situation of most state governments is making it extremely difficult to either expand the reach of these services or improve the quality of service delivery. Although, on efficiency grounds, there is good rationale for commercialised delivery of these services, serious concerns prevail in India about the equity implications of private sector delivery or full cost recovery within the government system. Evaluation of the desirability of user fees or private delivery of livestock services requires an understanding of the factors influencing the demand for these services. This paper examines the nature of demand for veterinary services in three states of India and presents first estimates of demand elasticities for veterinary services. The results indicate that price is not an important determinant of the decision to use these services. Also, practically no variation is found in price elasticities across income groups. These results suggest that the fears of sharp declines in the use of these services as a result of full cost recovery and/or private sector delivery are unfounded.