Showing papers on "Quality (business) published in 1971"

Price, brand name, and product composition characteristics as determinants of perceived quality.

Abstract: While price and brand image have both been found to be determiners of product quality perception, the potency of these two cues has never been directly compared. Moreover, those studies which found price to be a determiner of perceived quality manipulated only price information, without permitting actual composition characteristics to vary across brands. A 2X2X2X3 factorial experiment, using 136 adult male beer drinkers, and four test beers, examined the effects of price, composition differences, and brand image cues on the perception of beer quality. Price was found to serve as an indicant of product quality when it was the only cue available but not when embedded in a multicue setting. Brand image had a stronger effect upon quality perception, particularly for brands with strong positive images. In addition, it was found that neither price nor brand name had significant effects on perceived quality except when product composition characteristics were allowed to vary between product samples. Last, in contrast to earlier findings, the data suggest that beer drinkers possess at least some ability to distinguish among different brands of beer on the basis of composition (i.e., taste and aroma) cues alone. As the literature on perceived risk (cf. Cox, 1967) clearly demonstrates, consumer purchase decisions are frequently made under conditions of varying uncertainty regarding the product and its attributes. To reduce such uncertainty, consumers seek and process information regarding the product and generally attempt to form accurate impressions of it. Given that products may be viewed "as an array of cues," the "consumer's task in evaluating a product is to use cues from the array as the basis for making judgments about the product (Cox, 1962, p. 413)." One impression usually of considerable importance to the consumer is the product's (or brand's) quality. Cues relevant to forming impressions of quality include (a) price; (b) product composition characteristics such as taste, aroma, color, style, and size; (c) packaging; (d) brand, manufacturer (i.e., corporate), and store image; (e) advertising; (f) word-ofmouth reports; and (g) past purchase experi

Is There a Generalized Price-Quality Relationship?

Abstract: There is much evidence that a relationship exists between a product's price and its perceived quality [8, 9, 12, 13]. However, no study gives evidence that the pricequality relationship can be generalized to various products with varying prices and consumer purchasing patterns. Furthermore, some studies [8, 13] have relied on an implied price-quality relationship derived from a forced choice situation, and only one study [12] did not use price as the sole determinant. The possibility that other factors influence the perception of quality is largely ignored.

Price, Quality and Advertising Competition: An Econometric Investigation of the United Kingdom Car Market

Abstract: This paper seeks to explain the behaviour of an oligopolistic market, the United Kingdom market for cars, over the late 1950s and through the 1960s. Our primary concern is to explain market-share behaviour and thus establish the form of the demand function faced by the individual firm or by the separate divisions of such a firm. Given such information, we will be able to estimate the degree of monopoly in the industry by determining the mark-up of price over marginal costand, thereby, make some estimate of the size of the welfare loss associated with monopoly. The main obstacle to the capture of the parameters of demand functions facing specific firms is the problem of allowing for the qualitative differences among the products of different firms or divisions of firms both at a point in time and through time. Quality differences and quality changes are integrated by using a technique developed in a previous paper [3],2 The car market shows a substantial degree of product differentiation, objectively through differences in the bundles of characteristics offered in different models, and subjectively through advertising. The technique used for integrating differences in specification involves deriving implicit prices for each of the qualitative attributes, and then synthesizing the expected price for a model with a specific set of these attributes. The difference between actual and expected price is then the quality-adjusted price for the model in question. As well as explaining market-share movements for the different car manufacturers in terms of variations in price, quality and advertising, we will also, simultaneously, be concerned with the determinants of advertising appropriations. We are thus allowing for advertising to influence consumer decisions about the variety of car to be purchased, but we are also allowing for current sales to have a feedback on current managerial decisions about the level of advertising expenditure. We are assuming there is no feed-back from current sales and current advertising policy to current price and quality decisions. The prices of new cars are typically announced in October (at the Motor Show) prior to the model year and show little tendency to fluctuate during the year. Similarly, the gestation period for any substantial change in specification will typically be in excess of one year. Model changes

Carrying capacity: maintaining outdoor recreation quality

Abstract: A discussion of (1) what is meant by the concept of recreational carrying capacity; (2) what is known about capacities in terms of both how resources and experience of visitors are affected by recreational use; and (3) what alternative procedures the administrator can use to manage both resources and visitors for capacity.

Leaf protein: its agronomy, preparation, quality and use,

Abstract: Leaf protein: its agronomy, preparation, quality and use , Leaf protein: its agronomy, preparation, quality and use , مرکز فناوری اطلاعات و اطلاع رسانی کشاورزی

Measuring the quality of sociological research : problems in the use of the science citation zndex

Abstract: The problem of assessing the " quality " of scientific publications has long been a major impediment to progress in the sociology of science. Most researchers have typically paid homage to the belief that quantity of output is not the equivalent of quality and have then gone ahead and used publication counts anyway (Coler, 1963 : There seemed to be no practicable way to measure the quality of large numbers of papers or the life's work of large numbers of scientists. The invention of the Science Citation Index (SCI) a few years ago provides a new and reliable tool to measure the significance of individual scientists' contributions. Starting in 1961, the SCI has listed all biblio-graphic references appearing in an increasingly large number of journals.2 The number of citations an individual receives may be tabulated and used as an indicator of the relative scientific significance or " quality " of that in-dividual's publications. Until now the SCI has not included sociology journals in its files, but director Eugene Garfield informs us that in 1970 the SCI file will include major sociology journals. References made in these journals will also be added to the 1961 and the 1964-1969 files. Thus, we will be able to count the number of references made in recent years to any particular article, book, or sociologist, and we will be able to quickly generate lists of these facts3 This thank Professor Merton for his helpful suggestions and for his criticism of an earlier draft of this paper, identified as publication number A413 of the Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University. l Researchers have had difficulty in estimating the significance of even a small number of papers. Although a panel of judges is often used, problems of standardization of evaluation criteria and individual biases of evaluators are frequently encountered. Virtually all important journals in the natural sciences are included. 3Even though the SCI files include only references made in journals, they include citations to all books or other publications cited in the journals. It is doubtful that the citation patterns in journal articles will differ substantially from the citation patterns in books. We would guess that there would be a high correlation between the number of an author's journal publications and the number of hi's books. February 1971 should lead to major advances in the sociology of sociology. In practically all studies of the social organization …

College Dropout Identification: A Case Study.

Abstract: The process of selecting and evaluating high school students for the scarce openings in our colleges goes on continuously. The process may be informal interviews and personal judgment being the major ingredients; or it may be a highly structured mathematical process, most often using regression-correlation techniques. Neither method has been distinguished by its success. The shortcomings of the subjective approach are obvious: too often the interview is hurried and the important indicators of possible success in college are not uncovered. The structured research has most often been an attempt to predict future quality point averages using prior data. The reasons for the lack of previous success in the structured research are twofold: 1.) Regression-correlation is only suitable when the prior data is adequately separated; and 2.) The premise upon which the technique is based is not suitable: that is, that it is possible to rank students in a significant manner to predict future success or failure. Rather t...

Marketing Science in the Age of Aquarius

Abstract: Relevance is one of today's key criteria by which the value of people and institutions is judged. Is the science of marketing relevant to the problems and issues concerning the quality of man's lif...

Participative Management: Quality vs. Quantity:

Abstract: The theory of participative management has held the spotlight of debate in management literature. This article examines the purposes of participative management and, using different systems and models, discusses its advantages and disadvantages.

The Application of Behavioral Conditioning Procedures to the Problems of Quality Control

Abstract: Rather than only emphasizing statistical techniques to control performance quality, it is suggested that modification of performance quality may readily be understood as the behavioral consequences...

An initial operational problem oriented medical record system: for storage, manipulation and retrieval of medical data

Abstract: The ultimate role of the computer in the delivery of health services has yet to be defined. There may be profound implications in terms of quality of medical care, efficiency, economics of care, and medical research. Final judgments as to advisability and economic feasibility await the implementation of prototype total medical information systems and further technical developments directed toward lowering the high cost of currently developing systems. Development of less expensive hardware and real-time application of the present hardware and software must go on in parallel. We have been involved in the latter, and an experimental time-shared medical information system has been developed for storing and retrieving the total medical record, including both the narrative and the numeric data. This development has integrated the Problem Oriented Medical Record, a means of organizing medical data around a patient's problems, with a touch sensitive cathode ray tube terminal that allows structured input (with additional keyboard entry capability) by directly interfaced medical users (in particular the physician and the nurse).

The need for quality filters in information systems.

Abstract: Science serves its readers as a forum for the presentation and discussion of important issues related to the advancement of science, including the presentation of minority or conflicting points of view, rather than by publishing only material on which a consensus has been reached. Accordingly , all articles published in Science-including editorials, news and comment, and book reviews-are signed and reflect the individual views of the authors and not official points of view adopted by the AAAS or the institutions with which the authors are affiliated. The American Psychological Association has just launched a new communications system which \"distributes descriptions of problems, ideas, research findings and methods with minimal editorial processing. The responsibility for assessing the quality of the material rests primarily with the author.\" One of its main virtues is that it has a maximum delay of 65 days from input to circulation, whereas journals have a lag that runs to about a year. Its main weakness is that it compounds the information explosion by circulating more material, some of which might otherwise never have seen the light of day. Other professional associations also have provided their respective disciplines with information systems that ease the circulation and retrieval of material (usually only published material). Typically, the systems have little or no quality control. Any paper that meets some very loosely defined criteria (for example, it is in psychology) is circulated, and the potential user is provided with no clues as to the relative merit of each item. It might seem that the user would be delighted at having all the material he wishes at his fingertips, but actually much of his time is being wasted as a high proportion of the mnaterial circulated and retrieved is without discernible value. In the informal \"system\" the new devices seek to replace, users seek out, chiefly, material whose reputation has been communicated by word of mouth or by frequent references in the literature. This system may have caused occasional duplication of research and occasional failure by a researcher to take into account some previous relevant findings. But what is frequently overlooked is that this informal system of data retrieval is highly selective and hence very economical. It seems a hopeless task to raise the standards of the tens of thousands of scientific and scholarly publications. But the information circulation and retrieval systems are very small in number, usually supported by public funds, …

The picturephone® system: Service standards

Abstract: We describe in this paper the fundamental requirements of a visual telephone service These lead to a basic physical configuration of the station equipment The picture standards are chosen to provide the visual adjunct at no greater cost than is necessary to secure most of the possible enhancement of direct conversation Transmission standards are established with the objective of limiting to an acceptable range the difference in quality between the image as viewed at the originating station and as received over the longest connection possible in the network

Citation indexing for research and development management

Abstract: This paper reviews a number of studies of the correlation between the number of citations and the article quality and concludes that citation patterns do reflect the intellectual links between publications and that number of citations does correlate with quality of work.

Unconventional superspeed computer systems

Abstract: As machine systems grow in complexity to provide ever higher quality and quantity of service, increasing attention has to be paid to aspects of computing which are not the requirements for problem solving, but rather demands imposed by the handling technique prescribed for earlier machines!