Seeing through a Glass Onion: broadening and deepening formative research in social marketing through a mixed methods approach

ABSTRACT

The purpose of formative research in social marketing is to understand the target audience to generate consumer insight, which informs the planning, development and initial implementation of social marketing programmes. Focus groups, interviews or surveys, all of which are self-report methods, are the most commonly reported methods employed in formative research. Reliance on a relatively narrow range of methods may constrain understanding and insight gained during formative research. This paper challenges social marketers to mix methods or use multiple methods and research perspectives to generate a broader understanding of the consumer and the context in which they behave. A case study is used to demonstrate how mixed methods were used in a formative research study to inform the development of a social marketing programme designed to change eating behaviour. Challenges of mixed methods are detailed along with recommendations for future research.     

Perceptions of older consumers regarding food packaging as a prerequisite for its improvement: A case study of Polish market

In many societies, the scale of demographic change associated with increased longevity has the potential to influence the market for consumer goods. As a result, continuous improvement in packaging design that takes into account the needs of older people should become an important challenge for both packaging producers and product manufacturers. Due to the fact that there is limited research concerning the design of food packaging for older people, the aim of the study was to identify the expectations of this group of consumers in this respect. Milk packaging was selected as a model subject of study. Factors influencing older consumers and their buying patterns when purchasing milk have been thoroughly examined. The research was conducted among people over the age of 60 with the use of three methods: a questionnaire (600 subjects), an in‐depth interview (60 subjects) and eye tracking (30 subjects). The results of the study show that older consumers have specific preferences regarding packaging type and design. When considering milk packaging, for example, they prefer glass bottles, simple graphics and font and subdued colours. They most frequently look for information concerning the product's expiration date, its producer's name and its composition. Eye tracking revealed that the older the consumers are, the more problems with finding expiration date they have. The time required to find such information, however, strongly depends on where exactly the expiration date is printed on the packaging. The preferred place in this case is the top of the bottle. Older consumers identify product's brand with the name of the producer. Moreover, the absence of the term ‘ingredients’: on the milk packaging oftentimes causes confusion among older people, who are concerned about potential food additive content.     

Working Holiday Tourist Learning: Scale Development and Validation

The purpose of this study is to explore the learning of working holiday tourists (WHTs) and to develop a relevant scale. Firstly, in-depth interviews and content analysis were employed to generate the initial items. Secondly, 11 factors were extracted from an exploratory factor analysis with 273 samples. Thirdly, a confirmatory factor analysis with 522 samples was performed to identify the validity of the WHT learning scale. The results show that the 11-factor and 35-item WHT learning scale has good fit, reliability and validity. The findings expand the current knowledge of tourist learning and working holidays, and provide marketing implications and suggestions for future research.     

Abstraction and product categories as explanatory variables for food consumption

This study sets out to explore variation in the consumer choice structure in relation to three types of products with different levels of search, experience and credence attributes. The decision structures of rice, wine and functional food (experience, search and credence products) consumers were explored by means of laddering. The results suggest the presence of an emotional component in foods that increases in complexity (becomes more abstract) with the number of credence attributes. The findings recommend adjusting the complexity of advertising campaigns and product positioning to the type of product being promoted.     

Core processes and applicant reactions to the employment interview: an exploratory study in Greece

This research explores the employment interview in Greece with two aims: first, to look at the practice of the employment interview from the interviewer perspective, exploring a number of issues, which have been identified as important for increasing interview's effectiveness and second, to look at the role of interviewers' characteristics on applicant reactions and their behavioral intentions to the actual interview, using two independent samples of interviewers (N = 131) and actual job applicants (N = 122), respectively. The results of the first study were quite supportive regarding the effective use of the employment interview in Greece. In the second study, interviewers' personal characteristics were related to applicants' post-interview attitudes and intentions, although this relationship was fully mediated by the overall perception of the interview held by the job applicant. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Kids on board: methodological challenges,concerns and clarifications when including young children's voices in tourism research

A knowledge gap exists concerning the dearth of children's voices in tourism research. One of the main reasons for this is attributed to the methodological challenges that confront researchers when interacting with child respondents. Based on a recent study conducted with young children between the ages of 5 and 6 years, this article discusses five methodological issues to contemplate prior to conducting research with children. This article raises important considerations for children's developmental phase, the use of appropriate props and prompts during data collection, and the positionality and pre-requisites of the researcher when designing methodologies for research with children.     

多模卫星信号仿真器上位机软件设计与实现

运用面向对象和多线程的技术,在VC++6.0环境下对GPS/GLONASS/BD1三模卫星信号仿真器上位机软件进行了设计与开发,重点分析并完成了多导航系统时空统一、导航电文生成、卫星与用户的伪距仿真和用户轨迹计算等功能模块,实现了统一时基模式下三模卫星信号的高逼真仿真.商业接收机的实验结果表明,该仿真软件操控灵活,与下位机连接合成的信号逼真度高,为各类接收机的性能检测提供了有益支持.     

Business characteristics and efficiency of rural tourism enterprises: an empirical study from China

The booming rural tourism (RT) has broadened ways for rural revitalization and poverty alleviation strategy in China. Rural tourism enterprises (RTEs), as the core operator and a hinge delivering its benefits to rural communities, play a critical role in the achievement of RT expectation on rural revitalization. To address the research gap in business characteristics and efficiency of RTEs, and make the theoretical contribution to rural business and tourism management, this study collected and analyzed the business data with investors or managers of 60 national-class RTEs in Jiangsu Province, north Yangtze River Delta of China. The results showed that business characteristics of RTEs varied with their property, business strategy, and rural industrial base. Flexible and sustainable business operation and comprehensive regional development have a profound influence on business efficiency that presented multi spatial disparity from inter-regional and intra-regional views, respectively. In addition, the political and practical implications on rural business and RTEs for research and practice were also discussed.     

Exports in the strategy of multinational enterprises

Using data from a sample of 329 multinational firms, this paper analyses the impact of increases in foreign production on exports from the parent firm. The relationship between internal exports and foreign production is positive at all feasible levels of foreign production, although the impact on extra-group exports may be negative. These effects may be swamped by changes in relative international competitiveness between firms of the same nationality and industry group. The importance of these findings for multinational firms is that anticipation of these effects can reduce costs of reallocation of resources for the parent, firm and the results illustrate the wide remaining scope for further internationalization even among the world's largest firms. The impact of foreign production on home country employment is likely to remain positive so long as the firm's international competiveness can be improved.