Examining consumer food waste through grocery retailers' customer data: Segments and practical implications

Grocery retailers have a large amount of societally relevant data on food purchases in their databases, which they have traditionally used merely for marketing purposes. However, despite the potential, the data have so far been rarely used in sustainability-related research. This study addresses a key sustainability challenge—the reduction of food waste—by using retailers' customer data and a questionnaire. This paper's purpose is to identify and analyse household food waste segments and discuss their actual purchasing behaviour patterns. By doing so, we also illustrate and exemplify the potential use of customer loyalty card data to address global challenges related to food at the consumer level. The study utilizes an extensive data set of food purchases together with a survey of self-reported reasons for food waste in households. Utilizing cluster analysis, Phase 1 identifies six household segments: no food waste; trust in date labels; safety first; occasional wasters; overpurchasers and overpreparers; and family first. These segments differ in their sociodemographic and purchase profiles. In Phase 2, these segments' purchasing behaviour is examined further by applying tree-based methods. This study contributes to food waste research and studies on sustainable retailing. It also has practical implications for how retailers can facilitate household food waste reduction.     

Resolving Group Choice Paradoxes Using Probabilistic and Fuzzy Concepts

The standard assumption of modern social choice theory is that the individuals are endowed with complete and transitive preference relations over the decision alternatives. A large number of incompatibility results has been achieved regarding aggregation of these kinds of preferences. Yet, most voting procedures make no use of this information. Instead they essentially cut down the information provided by the voters. In this paper we deal with some alternatives to the complete and transitive voter preference assumption. Particular attention is paid to imprecise notions: probabilistic and fuzzy preference relations. Rather than establishing new impossibility results, our focus is in resolving various voting paradoxes using imprecise preference concepts.     

Differentiating growing ventures from non-growth firms

This is the first step of the studies examining which factors differentiate growing from the non-growth firms. Four hypothesis of new firm performance will be tested with logistic regression method. Venture growth, measured by the growth of turnover, will be explained by entrepreneurial characteristics and motivation, and interaction between the firm and environment. The longitudinal study concentrates on the 86 responses, half of these responses (43) were classified as growing and the other half as non-growth firms. Personality characteristics and environmental factors do not explain the growth but experience, training and motivation are important variables that differentiate growing ventures from non-growth firms.     

More hedonic versus less hedonic consumption behaviour in advanced internet bank services

Finnish internet banking can be considered as one of the most advanced in the world. This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the consumer characteristics in this sector. In the context of internet bank services the paper compares and contrasts two sets of consumers: those who prefer a more experiential view of consumption (more hedonic consumers) with those who believe in a less experiential view of consumption (less hedonic consumers). It was found that important differences exist between these two groups of consumers. Specifically, more hedonically orientated consumers place greater value on almost every proposed service dimension than the less hedonic consumers. These more hedonic consumers tend to be younger people, however, with lower education and income level and thus they do not appear to be an appealing target market for banks. In contrast, less hedonic consumers are found to be a more lucrative target market, even though they prefer basic services that concentrate on the core function of internet banking. The results have profound implications for internet bank services. Banks should focus on an improved functional operation of the services on the internet and cater more to the customers who find it effective and efficient.     

Assessment of hidden and future customer needs in Finnish business‐to‐business companies

The development of new products should be based on the needs expected to exist even several years ahead – at the moment of market introduction and during the whole lifecycle of the product. To develop successful new products in the toughening business environment, companies should be able to surpass customers' expectations and to assess emerging customer needs proactively. Early, thorough understanding of the customer's real needs, including the assessment of hidden and future customer needs and requirements, plays a very important role in the successful development of new products.
The purpose of our paper is to study the assessment of new (hidden and future) customer needs for product development in Finnish business‐to‐business companies. We have carried out a survey in 93 Finnish business‐to‐business companies and SBUs to study their common problems in the assessment of unrecognized customer needs and potentially effective ways in clarifying new customer needs and dealing with important problems. On the basis of the results, we propose several possible ways to facilitate the assessment of unrecognized customer needs.     

A responsive voting system

To say that a democratic system of government ought to be responsive to the opinions of the citizens sounds like a truism which could hardly be expected to generate much controversy. Yet, the notion of responsiveness turns out to be open to several nonequivalent interpretations: Condorcet-consistency, monotonicity, invulnerability to the no-show paradox, to name the most important ones. Several results have been achieved to establish incompatibilities between these properties. We shall review some of these and discuss some similar notions and their relationships with those just mentioned.Received: 5 August 2003, Accepted: 19 March 2004, JEL Classification: D70This work has been supported by the Academy of Finland and the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation. The author is grateful to Donald G. Saari for perceptive comments on an earlier version. Also the comments of Elina Kestilä, Kai A. Konrad, Maria Suojanen, Matti Wiberg and an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged.     

On Invariant Coordinate System (ICS) Functionals

Equivariance and invariance issues often arise in multivariate statistical analysis. Statistical procedures have to be modified sometimes to obtain an affine equivariant or invariant version. This is often done by preprocessing the data, e.g., by standardizing the multivariate data or by transforming the data to an invariant coordinate system (ICS). In this paper, standardization of multivariate distributions and characteristics of ICS functionals and statistics are examined. Also, invariances up to some groups of transformations are discussed. Constructions of ICS functionals are addressed. In particular, the construction based on the use of two scatter matrix functionals presented by Tyler et al. (2009) and direct definitions based on the approach presented by Chaudhuri & Sengupta (1993) are examined. Diverse applications of ICS functionals are discussed.     

Migration and Labour Market Adjustment: Empirical evidence from Finland 1985‐90

This paper addresses the question of the role of migration as an adjustment process by analysing the relationship between unemployment and labour force mobility. The empirical analysis deals with long-distance migration in Finland in the period 1985-90. When considered within a multivariate setting in which personal and place characteristics are held constant, the results show that higher origin unemployment rates increase outmigration, but not particularly for unemployed workers. Three outcomes are deduced from the results. First, the equilibrating process of interregional migration is slow-although working in the right direction-and becomes steadily slower as regional unemployment differentials fall. Secondly, the size of high-unemployment regions, as measured in terms of the labour force, decreases during the adjustment process as employed persons also leave the region. Thirdly, high-unemployment regions in particular lose their young and educated workers. The danger of the process of cumulative causation is great in these regions.