Measuring perceived pre-purchase risk for a new industrial product

Risk is an important element in industrial adoption decisions. This paper proposes a method to investigate how different group of individuals influencing the adoption of a new industrial product differ in their assessment of the risks. Two dimensions of risk are distinguished: (1) the likelihood that adoption of the new product will have undesirable consequences, and (2) the perceived intensity of these consequences both at the organizational and at the individual level. Purchase consequences are measured in terms of product economics and product reliability. Multivariate analysis of variance is used to assess how decision participants differ in their assessment of risk components. An attempt is made to assess the relative importance of these various components in the formation of individual preferences. The implications of the analysis for the development of better industrial marketing strategies are discussed.     

Inter-threshold resource planning for public higher educational systems

Efforts to design comprehensive systems of long-range resource planning for public colleges and universities in the United States are frustrated in the sense that most states follow a social demand approach to educational planning. Literally thousands of decision makers—including students, parents, formal administrators and faculty members-affect the overall behavior of the system. Nevertheless, more and more states are creating centralized higher educational coordinating agencies to conduct long-range planning and to recommend policies for the future development of the higher educational system. This paper describes research which has attempted to link together three decision thresholds in the resource planning process. These are (a) academic departments or colleges which are combined into (b) a total college or university, which is one part of (c) a state system of higher education containing several colleges and universities.     

Barriers to the upgrade cycle in a commodity process industry: evidence from the UK packaging industry

Attempting to move away from commodity‐based products into higher value added ones remains one of the key challenges for research and development (R&D) managers. This paper focuses on developing an understanding of these challenges in the UK packaging industry. The research presents evidence from the case of a single firm, within this process industry, that produces commodity products. The paper contributes to Lager's product degradation–upgrade cycle, which illustrates how functional products degrade into commodities unless product functionalities are continually improved. We characterise the ‘upgrade’ aspect within this model. The paper presents the findings of a 3‐year research project with one of the largest packaging manufacturers in Europe. Five barriers are uncovered that hinder firms attempting to increase the level of product differentiation in order to ‘upgrade’.