|
| ||
|
|
||
Actual Behaviour (actual + behaviour)
Selected AbstractsCombining Stated and Revealed Preferences on Typical Food Products: The Case of Dry-Cured Ham in SpainJOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2010Helena Resano-Ezcaray C25; D12; Q13; Q18 Abstract An extensive body of research concerns the valuation of EU certification schemes of quality based on the origin of food products. This literature focuses mainly on stated preferences (SPs) and reported behaviours by the consumers. We combine consumers' SPs, obtained through a conjoint ranking experiment, with revealed preferences (RP), obtained through a retail scanner database. We evaluate SPs as predictors of RP, and investigate whether SPs and RPs are consistent. Dry-cured ham in Spain is chosen as the anchor product, mainly because of its broad customer base and long history of origin certification. A ,trick' nested logit model with non-identical and identical samples of consumers is estimated to answer each of the objectives. Results show that, irrespective of the analysed samples, SP can predict general market trends and choices but not accurately predict market shares, and that consumers' actual behaviour is partly consistent with their SPs. We find that consumers prefer ham produced in Teruel, compared with unspecified Spanish origin. Quality Certification and a Distributor's Brand are preferred over the alternatives of no quality label or identified with a brand owned by the producer. Interestingly, SPs for the Quality Certification and the distributor's brand lead to an over- and under-estimation, respectively, of the market share. [source] Perceived trustworthiness of online shopsJOURNAL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Issue 1 2008Oliver B. Büttner Trust has been found to be crucial for consumer behaviour towards online shops. However, existing studies on the role of trust in electronic commerce are mainly based on ad hoc scales to measure trustworthiness, merely rely on self-reported consequences of trust such as intention to buy, and focus on low-risk products. In a web-based study, 634 participants interacted with a provider of medical goods, that is a simulated online pharmacy. The study develops and employs a psychometrically sound scale for assessing perceived trustworthiness of online shops. Moreover, it examines the impact of trustworthiness on both consumers' intended and actual behaviour towards online shops. Results show that trustworthiness promotes both intention to buy and actual financial risk taking. Perceived risk was not found to moderate the relationship between trustworthiness and intention to buy. Instead, trustworthiness partially mediated the influence of perceived risk on intention to buy. The results from the scale development challenge multidimensional conceptualizations of trust; comparing this finding with other studies suggests that the duration of the relationship might moderate the dimensionality of trust. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Estimating negotiator performance without preference information,JOURNAL OF MULTI CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS, Issue 5-6 2005Rudolf Vetschera Abstract In empirical studies of negotiation support systems, it is often not possible to elicit utility functions from experimental subjects, since this would lead to undesired interventions into their behaviour. The present paper develops several methods to evaluate the performance of negotiators in multi-issue negotiations without referring to their utility functions. Data collected in negotiation experiments with the NSS Inspire is used to empirically test the match of these measures to the performance measured by utility functions elicited from the subjects. Main results of this empirical analysis are: (1) the possibilities of outside observers to evaluate the performance of negotiators without knowing their utility functions are rather limited; (2) measures using only ordinal information perform as well as measures using cardinal information; (3) taking into account observed behaviour during negotiation does not improve the fit to utilities. These results can in part be attributed to the fact that actual behaviour observed during the negotiation is incompatible with utility functions elicited in Inspire. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Direkte Demokratie, Steuermoral und Steuerhinterziehung: Erfahrungen aus der SchweizPERSPEKTIVEN DER WIRTSCHAFTSPOLITIK, Issue 1 2007Gebhard Kirchgässner Especially in German-speaking countries, tax morale is often mixed with tax compliance. But the first is a moral conviction while the second denotes actual behaviour, and both do not necessarily need to be congruent. Then it is shown how direct popular rights empower Swiss citizens to influence their tax burden. Finally, we discuss the impact of direct popular rights on tax morale and on tax compliance as well as the impact of the trust between citizens and tax authorities on the latter. It is shown that direct democracy leads to higher tax morale and compliance, even if tax morale is today rather low in Switzerland compared to other countries. [source] The ,New Terrorism': Revolution or Evolution?POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 2 2009Antony Field It is essential to understand the concept of the ,new terrorism', since it has fostered a paradigm shift in the way that academics, policy makers and counter-terrorism professionals conceive of the contemporary threat. Capturing the notion that there has been a revolutionary change in the nature of terrorism, it now plays a pre-eminent role in shaping counter-terrorism policy. However, despite the attractive simplicity of the concept, there are good reasons to question the assumption that the actual behaviour of terrorist groups has fundamentally altered. Indeed, an analysis of the history of terrorism shows that many of the supposed hallmarks of the ,new terrorism' have been seen in the past. As a consequence, the concept of the ,new terrorism' should be viewed with some scepticism, as it unduly exaggerates the unprecedented nature of the contemporary terrorist threat and needlessly leads policy makers to reject the relevance of historical counter-terrorism lessons. [source] THE EU COMITOLOGY SYSTEM: WHAT ROLE FOR THE COMMISSION?PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 2 2010GIJS JAN BRANDSMA The literature on comitology has largely ignored the European Commission's actual behaviour in the daily workings of the numerous comitology committees that were designed to control it. On the basis of survey data of Danish and Dutch representatives on nearly all comitology committees, this paper investigates the Commission's role in the system. We find that the Commission acts both as a mediator and as a policy advocate, but to varying degrees. We take a first step towards understanding this behaviour by an inspection of four arguments found in the literature on comitology and the Commission: the constraining or enabling impact of the comitology procedures; the institutional position of the responsible Directorate-General; the nature of the cases dealt with by the committees and, finally, the intensity of the member states' preferences in relation to the committees' cases. In comitology, each of these arguments shapes the mediating or the advocating behaviour of the Commission. [source] Is Charisma Hyper-Romanticism?APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2007Empirical Evidence from New Data, a Meta-Analysis In prior research, mixed results were obtained with respect to the relationship between Romance of Leadership and the perception of transformational leadership. In this paper, we first present new studies originating from different contexts (students and employees) and different countries and, second, we meta-analyse these studies together with prior studies in order to shed light on the relationship between Romance of Leadership and the perception of transformational leadership. In the meta-analysis, we considered the following moderators: field/employees vs. experimental/student samples, geographical region, and type of assessment of transformational leadership. The results indicate a positive relationship between Romance of Leadership and the perception of transformational leadership. Only the moderating effect of region of origin was significant. In line with social constructivism and information processing approaches of leadership, our results indicate that the perception of leadership comprises more than merely the actual behaviour the leader exhibits. Des résultats contradictoires ont été obtenus dans le passé en ce qui concerne la relation entre la Romance du Leadership et la perception du leadership transformationnel. Dans cet article, nous présentons d'abord de nouvelles recherches portant sur des populations différentes (des étudiants ou des salariés) provenant de plusieurs pays, puis dans un second temps nous effectuons une méta-analyse regroupant ces travaux et des études antérieures afin d'y voir plus clair dans la relation entre la Romance du Leadership et la perception du leadership transformationnel. On a, dans la méta-analyse, pris en considération les variables régulatrices suivantes: l'origine géographique des échantillons d'étudiants (travaux expérimentaux) ou de salariés (enquêtes sur le terrain) et le type d'évaluation du leadership transformationnel. Les résultats vont dans le sens d'une relation positive entre la Romance du Leadership et la perception du leadership transformationnel. Il n'y a que la région d'origine qui présente un effet régulateur significatif. Dans la continuité du constructivisme social et des travaux concevant le leadership comme un traitement de l'information, nos résultats indiquent que la perception du leadership dépasse le comportement observable du leader. [source] Erfahrungen mit dem Spannungs-Verformungsverhalten von mit Geogittern bewehrten StützkonstruktionenBAUTECHNIK, Issue 11 2007Florian Bussert Dr.-Ing. Seit mehreren Jahrzehnten hat sich der Bau geokunststoffbewehrter Erdkörper erfolgreich bewährt. Die Errichtung der Stützkonstruktionen auf stark wechselndem oder gering tragfähigem Untergrund, bei hohen Verkehrslasten oder großen Konstruktionshöhen hat sich vielfach als äußerst ökonomische und ökologische Alternative zu klassischen Bauweisen bewiesen. Um Erfahrungen mit einer neuen Bauweise zu sammeln, wird häufig die sogenannte Beobachtungsmethode angewandt, d.h., das Spannungs-Verformungs-Verhalten wird sowohl während der Erstellung als auch in der ersten Nutzungsphase des Bauwerks messtechnisch ermittelt. Aus diesen Messergebnissen wird deutlich, dass auch bei hoher Beanspruchung der Konstruktionen die Gesamtverformungen kleiner sind als erwartet. Vor allem die gemessenen Dehnungen der Geogitter sind kleiner als die berechneten Werte. Das derzeit verwendete Konzept zur Abschätzung der Dehnungen scheint damit weit entfernt vom tatsächlichen Verhalten derartiger Konstruktionen. Die Erfahrungen von ausgeführten Baumaßnahmen werden vorgestellt und die Ergebnisse diskutiert. Experiences with the tension deformation behaviour of retaining structures reinforced with geosynthetics. Since several decades the application of geosynthetic-reinforced earth bodies successfully worked. The establishment of the retaining structures on strongly changing or small load-carrying underground, with high live loads or large construction heights proved itself often as extremely economic and ecological alternative to classical building methods. In order to gain experiences with a new building method, frequently the so-called observation method is used, which means the stress-deformation behaviour becomes both while the construction and the first utilization phase of the building is determined by measuring techniques. From these results of measurement it becomes clear that also when high loaded the total deformations of the constructions are smaller than expected. From all the measured results the deformations of the geosynthetics are smaller than the analyzed values. The concept for the estimation of the deformations, used at present, seems far thereby from the actual behaviour of such constructions. The experiences of completed structures are presented and the results are discussed. [source] | ||||||||||