Conjoint Choice Experiment Research Articles

An Analysis of Household Consumption of Dairy Products

Household consumption of dairy products is one the major component in the total sales of the Albanian dairy industry. Therefore, understanding the factors which may significantly influence household consumption is important in the planning of farmers, processors and manufacturers. Consumers' responses to changes in price and non-price factors are basic to an economic analysis of almost all the policy decisions related to industry or government programs. Forecasting the future direction of household consumption, and how that direction might be modified through industry efforts or by national programs and policies, requires information on the relationships among prices, incomes, household characteristics and consumer demand. This study focuses on households as consuming units, explains and analyzes their purchasing behavior for dairy products. As milk is a very important component of the Albanians diet, this study explores consumer preferences for milk in Albania and also tries to determine consumers profiles based on their preferences and socio-demographic factors. To reach these objectives, this research designed a conjoint choice experiment survey and collected primary data in the most populated cities of Albania. This study provides useful information to different stakeholders including milk producers and importers. The milk industry and its marketers may benefit from this information by using it to strategically market their milk to different groups.

What defines the success of maps and additional information on a multi-hazard platform?

Triggered by technical progress that has allowed for the combining of information about natural, anthropogenic and socionatural hazards, numerous multi-hazard platforms have been established over the last years. Despite their increasing use, surprisingly, little research has been conducted evaluating how the public perceives of the hazard information provided by these multi-hazard platforms. Because most of them use maps on the start page, we were especially interested in the different approaches towards presenting multiple hazards and towards compiling the contents of the hazard announcements attached to the maps. With an online conjoint choice experiment (N = 768, fully randomised design), we tested different start page designs and hazard announcements representing the diversity of elements used in multi-hazard platforms. The alternatives were randomly displayed as pairs to the participants (between-subjects design), asking them to first rate the alternatives separately and then to choose which of the two they preferred. Our main results are that the participants prefer a start page consisting of a single map with textual information about the current hazards below the map. In addition, they prefer hazard classifications with four or five hazard categories. Moreover, the participants appreciate the embedding of a sharing function in the hazard announcements. Finally, the participants prefer a combination of textual and pictured behavioural recommendations. To conclude, the results indicate that the design of information provided on multi-hazard platforms indeed affects the public's preferences. Therefore, in parallel to the continuous improvement of scientific-technical products, the communication and perception of these products should be systematically examined too.

Analysis of urban consumer preferences for honey in the context of a transition economy – A case study for Albania

Summary This paper aims to analyze urban consumer preferences for Albanian honey, focusing on key product attributes such as origin, type, location and price, using a conjoint choice experiment and latent class approach. Origin and location-landscape were found to be the most important factors for most surveyed consumers. Albanian consumers prefer honey produced in mountainous forests and on pastures. Moreover, multi-flower honey is preferred compared to chestnuts honey. These results can be used to producers’ advantage when local branding and well-perceived certification (e.g., producer associations’ brands) would be applied in order to increase the consumer awareness and strengthen the intrinsic features of the product especially for small producers. Labeling should be clear and emphasize the origin as well as the natural landscape where beehives are kept. Furthermore, in its regionalization economic development policy, the government may consider supporting honey produced from the mountainous areas.

The Trade Market of Meat, Slaughterhouses in Albania

Slaughterhouses are an important element in the management of meat product in Albania, such as the study on the functioning of their form is very necessary, we decided to analyze the steps pose passing meat product in Albania. As meat is a very important component of the Albanians diet, this study is based on data of customers for the product meat. We will treat terms of product quality meat that is, the standards applied in the marketing of this product. To reach these objectives, this study designed a conjoint choice experiment survey and collected primary data in the most populated cities of Albania. The meat industry and its marketers may benefit from this information by using it to strategically market their meat to different groups.This study refers to the informality that occurs mainly in meat products in Albania, especially for the district of Tirana, specifically the Tirana-Kavaja area.The study will encourage meat shops or slaughterhouses not to be part of the informality that we slaughter until the sale to the consumer. The relevance of the research lies in the way the meat product is traded. Keywords: Classification, Data Mining, Machine Learning, Predictive analysis, Social Networking Spam, Spam detection. DOI : 10.7176/JESD/10-18-02 Publication date :September 30 th 2019

How Fairness-Consciousness Affects Consumerss Willingness-to-Pay for Fair Product Attributes: Insights From an Advanced Estimation Approach

Corporate social responsibility activities, such as a company’s adherence to fair trade (FT) standards, are known to affect consumers’ purchase behavior. In this study, we therefore investigate whether the inclusion of an FT label will pay off for companies by determining consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the FT label attribute. In contrast with the recent literature, we use a model that simultaneously accommodates unobserved and observed consumer heterogeneity and estimates consumers’ individual WTP values directly in WTP space. We also focus on the German orange juice market and use empirical data from a conjoint choice experiment that enter an individual parameter hierarchical multinomial logit model. We found an average willingness-to-pay for an FT label of 36 Eurocents and identified several factors for WTP differences.

Assessing consumer preferences and willingness to pay for organic tomatoes in Albania: a conjoint choice experiment study

Albania has potential for developing the organic agriculture sector; however, it is a new industry and constraints abound including lack of consumer preferences information for organic food. Knowledge on consumer preferences and behaviour toward organic (bio) products is crucial for market development benefiting potential entrepreneurs and government policies. They need to know the preference for preferred product attributes and willingness to pay. Tomato, which is the most important vegetable in terms of consumption and production in Albania, is the subject of this study. A conjoint choice experiment with the most important product attributes: production type (bio vs. conventional), production system (open field vs. greenhouse), origin and price were used to design the choice surveys. Four distinct classes have been identified as significant using latent class analysis. The classes are summarized as: bio-ready consumers, price sensitive consumers, variety seeking consumers and quality seeking consumers. Origin played a small influence on preference. Education and income did show some influence on preference for organic tomatoes. Although the organic food market in Albania is in its infancy stage, organic tomatoes are clearly preferred and many consumers are willing to pay a premium price.

Efficient Design and Analysis for a Selective Choice Process

Variable selection is a decision heuristic that describes a selective choice process in which choices are made on the basis of only a subset of product attributes while the presence of other (“inactive”) attributes plays no active role in the decision. Within this context, the authors address two integrated topics that have received scant attention: the efficient design of choice experiments and the analysis of data that arises from a selective choice process. The authors propose a new dual-objective compound design criterion that incorporates prior information for the joint purpose of efficiently estimating the effects of the active attributes and detecting the effects of attributes labeled as inactive that may turn out to be active. The approach leverages self-stated auxiliary data as prior information both for individual-level customized design construction and in a heterogeneous variable selection model. The authors demonstrate the efficiency advantages of the approach relative to design benchmarks and highlight practical implications using both simulated data and actual data from a conjoint choice experiment in which individual designs were customized instantaneously using self-stated active-inactive attribute status.

Willingness to Pay for Agricultural Environmental Safety: Evidence from a Survey of Milan, Italy, Residents

The widespread use of pesticides in agriculture provides a particularly complex pattern of multidimensional negative side-effects, ranging from food safety related effects to the deterioration of farmland ecosystems. The assessment of the economic implications of such negative processes is fraught with many uncertainties. This paper presents results of an empirical study recently conducted in the North of Italy aimed at estimating the value of reducing the multiple impacts of pesticide use. A statistical technique known as conjoint choice experiment is used here in combination with contingent valuation techniques. The experimental design of choice modelling provides a natural tool to attach a monetary value to negative environmental effects associated with agrochemicals use. In particular, the paper addresses the reduction of farmland biodiversity, groundwater contamination and human intoxication. The resulting estimates show that, on average, respondents are prone to accept substantial willingness to pay premia for agricultural goods (in particular, foodstuff) produced in environmentally benign ways.

Consumer Impacts for the Milk Production in Albania (Descriptive Analysis)

As milk is a very important component of the Albanians diet, this study explores consumer preferences for milk in Albania and also tries to determine consumers types based on their preferences and socio-demographic factors. To reach these objectives, this study designed a conjoint choice experiment survey and collected primary data in the most populated cities of Albania. The milk industry and its marketers may benefit from this information by using it to strategically market their milk to different groups. A sample size of 200 questionnaires are realized with dairy consumers in two important areas, mainly Tirana and Durres. Is considered on appropriate size to ensure data safes and reliables for attributed milk analysis. Interviews were mainly taken from occasional consumers. Tirana and Durresi are two most populated cities, were selected for the study the ours sample, because we thought that in these two cities is more concentrated the large power purchasing. For conducting, this study consulted a wide literature which considered studies and comparative data for the consumption milk in Albania. The study is conducted mainly in two major cities in Albania, Tirana and Durresi. The selection of sample is randomly. The main objectives of this study are the identification and evaluation of customer preferences based on different attributes of milk, and evaluation of the willingness to pay by the customer depending socio-economic features. Another objective is also the dairy market survey and analysis of trends over the years. Dairy Market segmentation in customer classes based on their preferences towards product and measuring the impact of socio-demographic variables in consumer willingness to buy milk product. These constitute key objectives of our scientific paper which helped us to highlight and meet the desires and preferences of consumers interviewed. METHODOLOGY The study (the sample), is localized in two most populated cities in Albania, Durres and Tirana. The basis of the study was the accumulations data, obtained from the realization of directly at the consumers of milk. In this study, the realization of the questionnaire and data processing are realized in the period March 2015 to February 2016. The average time duration of the interview with a customer was 15 to 25 minutes. During the interview, customers, are taken in consideration, all the questions of our questionnaire ranging from gender, age, birthplace, residence, income ... etc, through random selection of our sample. During processing and data entry into the program, it was found that 200 respondents (except one of them) to both areas of Tirana and Durres, sportsmanship and fun answered questions asked by our questionnaire.

Drivers of internationalization success: a conjoint choice experiment on German SME managers

Internationalization is a common growth strategy for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, SMEs face several challenges within the internationalization process. As SMEs are characterized by limited resources, managers are constantly involved in a decision-making process concerning the allocation of the SMEs’ resources. Therefore, internationalization can be understood as a complex, multidimensional decision process. Based on a set of 2244 internationalization decisions made by German SME managers, the present study examines how eight strategic and structural factors drive the perceived international success of SMEs. When applying conjoint choice analysis, the results suggest that especially equity financing in the internationalization process, an appropriate market selection as well as proactive motives, and a long-term scope can drive SMEs’ international success. Moreover, it becomes evident that strategic factors are more relevant for successful internationalization than structural factors.

Efficient Design and Analysis for a Selective Choice Process

Variable selection is a decision heuristic that describes a selective choice process — choices are made based on only a subset of product attributes while the presence of other (inactive) attributes plays no active role in the decision. Within this context, the authors address two integrated topics that have received scant attention: the efficient design of choice experiments and the analysis of data arising from a selective choice process. The authors propose a new dual-objective compound design criterion that incorporates prior information for the joint purpose of efficient estimation of the effects of the active attributes and detection of the effects of attributes stated as inactive but may turn out to be active. The approach leverages self-stated auxiliary data as prior information both for individual-level customized design construction and in a heterogeneous variable selection model. The authors demonstrate the efficiency advantages of the approach relative to design benchmarks and highlight practical implications using both simulated data and actual data from a conjoint choice experiment where individual designs were customized on-the-fly using self-stated active-inactive attribute status.

Distance and perceptions of risk in internationalization decisions

This study examines top managers’ risk perceptions in internationalization decisions. 126 CEOs and top managers responsible for internationalization in companies with headquarters in Germany, Switzerland, or Austria took part in our experiment. Applying random utility theory in a conjoint choice experiment enables the measurement of top managers’ preferences for target countries and entry modes. Country-specific measures of geographic, cultural, economic, and political distances serve as covariates to explain country preferences and to quantify the effect on internationalization decisions. Our results show that distance dimensions are the primary drivers of risk assessment, whereas entry-mode choice is secondary. Internationalization may therefore be a hierarchical decision in which managers choose target market (and risk profile) and view entry-mode choice as subordinate to other environmental factors.

Seafood Purchasing Preferences of Hawaii Chefs: Comparing Actual Purchase to Stated Preferences From Conjoint Choice Experiment

This study investigated if Hawaii chefs use wild seafood products over farm-raised and local over imports. Chefs were asked to estimate their purchases for shrimp, tuna, mahimahi, and salmon. Chefs were also asked to choose products within conjoint choice experiments to indirectly determine their preferences. Price is the most important attribute for shrimp. Hawaii chefs would prefer wild and farm-raised local, fresh shrimp if it were competitively priced over low-priced imported and frozen alternatives. This result can be useful for the shrimp aquaculture industry in Hawaii. The low importance of production method when purchasing seafood should be further explored.

Monetized value of the environmental, health and resource externalities of soy biodiesel

This study monetizes the life cycle environmental damage, human health risk, and resource depletion externalities associated with the production and use of biodiesel fuels from soybean feedstock. Applying a framework that couples life cycle damage measurements with social preferences elicited from a conjoint choice experiment allows for comparison of petrodiesel and biodiesel's external damages. The results of the study reveal that production and consumption of soybean based biodiesels produce improvements in environmental, health and resource impacts of $0.27 per gallon relative to petrodiesel for a 20% blend and $3.14 per gallon for a 100% blend.

Analysis of Consumer Preferences for Table Olives—The Case of Albanian Urban Consumers

The table olive production sector is undergoing rapid changes, as the government is undertaking an ambitious program supporting the expansion of olive grove plantations. Despite the increase in domestic production, imports of table olives are still high, due to constraints in quantity and quality of domestically supplied olives. In the context of import substitution strategy, embraced by producers and policy-makers, it is important to analyze the consumer preferences for table olives. The objective of this paper is to segment the table olive market according to preferences for table olives attributes, and assess willingness to pay for the main product attributes, applying Conjoint Choice Experiment (CCE) and Latent Class Analysis to collect and analyze the data. The research results show a strong consumer preference for domestic table olives whereas preferences for other attributes and willingness to pay vary between consumer groups.

Factors that Affect Willingness to Pay for Red Wines in China

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the impact of education on Chinese consumers' willingness to pay for domestically produced and imported red wines. It uses a conjoint choice experiment and survey data gathered from China's major red wine market in Beijing. A conditional logit and a mixed logit model suggest that (1) Chinese consumers are sensitive to price change and they seek reasonably priced, aged, and branded wines; (2) high-end French wines are the most preferred wines; (3) if education is not considered, consumers are willing to pay a premium to switch from a Chinese wine to a California wine; (4) if education is considered, consumers prefer Chinese wines better than California wines; and (5) a group of job-preparing school graduates is willing to pay a premium for California wines. Our new data show that a new consumer segment with a weaker educational background is an emerging red wine consumption group.

Predicting new service adoption with conjoint analysis: external validity of BDM-based incentive-aligned and dual-response choice designs

In this paper, we compare the standard, single-response choice-based conjoint (CBC) approach with three extended CBC procedures in terms of their external predictive validity and their ability to realistically capture consumers’ willingness to pay: (1) an incentive-aligned CBC mechanism (IA-CBC), (2) a dual-response CBC procedure (DR-CBC), and (3) an incentive-aligned dual-response CBC approach (IA-DR-CBC). Our empirical study features a unique sample of 2,679 music consumers who participated in a conjoint choice experiment prior to the market entry of a new music streaming service. To judge the predictive accuracy, we contacted the same respondents again 5 months after the launch and compared the predictions with the actual adoption decisions. The results demonstrate that IA-CBC and DR-CBC both increase the predictive accuracy. This result is promising because IA-CBC is not applicable to every research context so that DR-CBC provides a viable alternative. While we do not find an additional external validity improvement through the combination of both extensions, the IA-DR-CBC approach yields the most realistic willingness-to-pay estimates and should therefore be preferred when incentive alignment is feasible.

Beyond demographics: human value orientation as a predictor of heterogeneity in student housing preferences

In the Netherlands, there is currently both a quantitative and a qualitative shortage in student housing. New housing units need to be built to accommodate the growing population of students, and existing ones need to be adapted to better fit the students’ needs. However, whilst housing preferences are studied extensively in the literature, less research has focused on the housing needs of students. In the current study, students’ housing preferences, and individual differences within these preferences, were studied with the use of a conjoint choice experiment. Within this experiment, hypothetical student houses were defined by systematically varying nine housing characteristics: price, size, kitchen sharing, bathroom sharing, cycling time to city centre, cycling time to campus, outdoor space, walking time to supermarket, and walking time to park. The participants were asked to select the most preferred housing from multiple sets of two student houses. A total of 589 completed online questionnaires were analysed. With the use of a mixed logit model, the importance and influence of the housing characteristics and taste heterogeneity was measured. Individual differences were explained with the use of socio-demographics and human values. The results show that heterogeneity is present in the housing preferences of students. These differences can be explained partly by socio-demographics and human values. Human values are thought to give additional understanding of differences in students’ housing preferences on top of socio-demographics.

Stakeholders' Preferences and Adaptive Behaviour in Retail-Location Choice Decisions

The changing role of urban planning in the Netherlands from regulatory to public–private development planning implies the need to gain insight into multistakeholder decision making in a spatial planning context. In this paper we show the importance of unravelling influence structures that affect individual stakeholder decisions. For this purpose we looked at the Dutch retail planning context, where recently the responsibility for planning decisions has been deputed to local governments and peripheral retail planning restrictions have been relaxed. As a result, at present, local governments, real-estate developers, and retail firms jointly decide on the location of new retail facilities. It is assumed that each stakeholder's attitude towards peripheral retail planning is influenced by the preference structures of other stakeholders and may reflect their professional background. We focus on adaptive behaviour, the phenomenon that a decision maker adjusts his or her preferences towards specific preferences of other stakeholders in order to move to consensus. We provide a method for measuring this adaptive behaviour, based on existing random utility choice modelling techniques. To assess preferences of stakeholders for peripheral retail planning options as well as their adaptive behaviour, three groups of stakeholders (real-estate developers, retail organizations, and local governments) were invited to take part in a web-based conjoint choice experiment. It was found that all stakeholders show rather conservative behaviour regarding peripheral retail development, especially with respect to fashion. Adaptive behaviour appeared to be cooperative and significant: Stakeholders tend to (temporarily) increase preferences for alternative plans preferred by the other stakeholders. Developers appeared to be the most adaptive in their decision behaviour. Taking into consideration adaptive behaviour may help to improve existing multistakeholder decision models.

Preferences Evaluation With a Choice Experiment on Cultural Heritage Tourism

This work focuses on the elicitation of tourist preferences from an economic evaluation standpoint and in relation to the Royal Savoy’s Residences, a cultural network included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. After analyzing the visits to the Metropolitan Museum System of Turin City (Italy), a conjoint choice experiment was implemented, where future scenarios of public/private supply were defined by a certain number of tour packages, characterized by different services and prices. The results emphasize the complementarity of the transport rather than the food and wine services. The research also tries to give some suggestions about the understanding, measurement and evaluation of tourist behavior, opening new possibilities for future research directions in the area of the on-site tourist experience.