Combining verbal analysis protocol and wireless audiovisual observation to examine consumers' supermarket shopping behaviour

The study investigates the benefits of using a verbal analysis protocol combined with wireless audiovisual observation technology to collect information about consumer behaviour in real‐life environments. A sample of consumers (n = 36) were given a task to select food products in 11 different categories in a supermarket. Combining methods enabled simultaneous collection of multiple forms of qualitative and quantitative data by recording data simultaneously from different perspectives: the consumer's visual range; the wider shopping environment, to provide context; the consumer's verbalizations. Qualitative data on extrinsic and intrinsic factors that affect decision making and quantitative data on product selection time were taken as an example of rich and real‐time data obtained using the combined methods. Audiovisual material was analysed by Usability Test Software 2.0, verbal analysis data were sorted by a database programme and quantitative data were processed using SPSS 17.0. The study design provided sensitive verification of the nature of consumer interaction with the shopping environment: e.g. during the product selection time (average 23 ± 10 s/product), the interaction with the environment varied between individuals and among products selected. The approach represents a useful technique to enable the value of consumer input to direct innovation in consumer‐oriented product development. It also offers new perspectives to consumers and authorities and related organizations to understand shopping behaviour and the role of critical factors behind the food choices at the supermarket.     

An evaluation of the management of the Finnish employment service

This paper analyses the efficiency of the Finnish Employment Service's management in selecting unemployed individuals who are offered a job. The database used considers short-term unemployed individuals who face the same labour market conditions in 1996. Duration analysis with a Weibull model has been performed in order to study the determinants of the transition probability from unemployment into employment and the impact of receiving job offers through the Employment Service (ES). In order to carry this out, it has been taken into account that the reception of such job offers may be endogenous because the ES selects the individuals who will receive the offers. The empirical results suggest that the decisions made by the ES are adequate in the sense that they increase the benefit of society, compared with a random assignment of the vacancies offered through the ES. Moreover, the effects of the other determinants depend on whether the individual receives offers. The results also point out that individuals who receive no offers through the ES are more likely, as time passes by, to be discouraged in searching for a job than those who do.     

Management priorities of digital health service start-ups in California

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - Digitalisation has revolutionised health service delivery, which has provided global business opportunities for start-ups that specialise in...     

A Conditional Approach to Measure Mortality Reductions Due to Cancer Screening

The prevailing lack of consensus about the comparative harms and benefits of cancer screening stems, in part, from the inappropriate calculations of the expected mortality impact of a sustained screening programme. There is an inherent, and often substantial, time lag from the time of screening until the resulting mortality reductions begin, reach their maximum and ultimately end. However, the cumulative mortality reduction reported in a randomised screening trial is typically calculated over an arbitrarily defined follow‐up period, including follow‐up time where the mortality impact is yet to realise or where it has already been exhausted. Because of this, the cumulative reduction cannot be used for projecting the mortality impact expected from a sustained screening programme. For this purpose, we propose a new measure, the time‐specific probability of being helped by screening, given that the cancer would have proven fatal otherwise. This can be decomposed into round‐specific impacts, which in turn can be parametrised and estimated from the trial data. This represents a major shift in quantifying the benefits due to a sustained screening programme, based on statistical evidence extracted from existing trial data. We illustrate our approach using data from screening trials in lung and colorectal cancers.