Tangible Attributes Research Articles

Retail store image: a means‐end approach

Retail store image has been shown to play an important role in store patronage, and it is widely accepted that psychological factors have a significant role in store image formation. Past research has often involved the measurement of tangible attributes, or links between store images and consumers’ self‐images. This study was undertaken to move to the next stage by exploring the link between perceived store image and the personal values which underlie behavioural choices. Fashion retailing was selected as an appropriate research domain because of the well‐established associations between clothing choice, personality, self concept, and personal values. Means‐end theory and laddering methodology were employed in interviews with 30 female respondents. The hedonic values of “enjoyment and happiness” and “quality of life” were found to be the terminal values most sought by consumers in association with store image. These were linked through the consequence “nice feeling” to the tangible attributes of “price”, “quality” and “reputation”. The study illustrates an application of means‐end methodology in a retail environment, and the results provide a platform for fashion store image and positioning strategies. Suggestions for further research are made.

Effective Models for Measuring Students' Attitudes Toward the Marketing Education Program

The author used two attitude-measuring models in compare the attributes of the marketing education program, tangible or symbolic, in terms of their relative importance to students' attitudes toward the program. The data were analyzed by using multiple regression. The findings are that students' attitudes are more closely related to the program's tangible attributes than to the symbolic attributes. However, the relationship to the symbolic attributes, although secondary, is significant. The findings should facilitate in developing a promotional campaign which will incorporate and emphasize the significantly important tangible and symbolic attributes of the program. The findings also demonstrate the effectiveness of the models to measure student attitudes in any vocational area.

Factors for evaluating factory automation projects – inferences from an Indian survey

Globally, manufacturing facilities are constantly being upgraded in order to provide competitive advantages. Parunndekar observes that Indian manufacturing firms have recognized the importance of automating their production systems to meet the challenges posed by the pluralistic market. However, adoption of such automation projects involves large investments and a strategic management style. Meredith and Suresh state that any financial investment in economic activities requires a justification for the purpose of committing capital. The introduction of automation projects (AP) can, and many would say should, include changes in the prevailing management style and in the organizational culture of a firm. Thus, the decision‐making process with regard to the selection of AP is quite complex, because the commercial success of the firm is highly dependent on the mechanics of such a process. In addition to the obvious quantitative benefits accruing from the introduction of AP, they can offer a large number of qualitative (intangible) benefits. Datta et al. observed that these are generally difficult to quantify. Researchers have attempted to convert the relative importance of qualitative benefits into priority weights (PW) for procedures involving the selection and evaluation of AP. Mohanty states that project selection and evaluation involve decisions that are critical to the profitability, growth and survival of the manufacturing firm in the increasingly competitive global scenario. Such decisions are complex and require analysis of tangible and intangible attributes.

Quality attributes used by customers, managers and service providers in university foodservice

The purpose of this study was to identify and quantify the attributes that are used to measure service quality in university foodservice by customers, managers, and service providers. A service quality survey instrument was developed and pilot tested. The instrument included five point rating and importance scales of twenty-eight attributes. Surveys were distributed using convenience sampling techniques to the four state universities in Kentucky who were non-contract operations and members of NACUFS. Surveys were returned by 61 managers, 75 service providers and 1047 customers, representing response rates of 81.3%, 69.4% and 83.7%. Data analysis included univariate statistics on the attitude and behavior item scores, reliability of the items using Cronbach's coefficient alpha, and a principal factor analysis of the attitude scale using an orthogonal varimax rotation. Tangible attributes were rated highest by the customer, including available seating, convenient locations, neat and clean employees. The attributes that were rated the most important also related to the tangible dimension of service quality. Factor analysis of customer surveys identified four factors, described as product, information, facility, and people. The highest mean quality rating scores by employees were variety in types of services, available seating, clean and neat employees, convenient operating hours, and food preparation presents no health hazards. Importance rating for employees were skewed in the very important range. The two most important attributes were related to safety and sanitation. This study represented an initial investigation into quality attributes used by managers, service providers and customers in university foodservice. The limited sample that was studied indicated that the tangible attributes of quality represent the most important dimension when evaluating quality in a university foodservice setting.

Understanding the Factors Influencing Ski Destination Choice: A Means-End Analytic Approach

A variety of factors have been examined to understand and explain destination choice behavior, ranging from the relatively tangible attributes of products, to the intangible benefits, needs, and personal values people seek to satisfy through their choice behavior. Means-end theory provides a logical framework and methodology for relating these tangible and intangible elements. This paper provides an overview of means-end theory and its methodology, illustrates its application in a destination choice setting, and discusses some of the implications offered by the means-end perspective for future leisure and tourism research.

Competitive context and price as moderators of country of origin preferences

In a lab experiment setting, subjects exercised product choices in which country of origin and other variables were manipulated. Findings suggest that consumers are more wary of products from less developed countries when the financial risk is higher and when they are seeking a product with superior tangible attributes. However, within a given product class, manipulating price did not produce interaction effects with country of origin.

Accounting for Intangibles in a Present Worth Comparison of Advanced Power Generation Alternatives

A methodology is described which considers both tangible and intangible attributes of advanced electric power generation cycles. It enables an assessment to be made of the costs and benefits to be derived from developing each of the cycles.

Oil Power in the Middle East

The 1973 Middle East oil embargo resulted in a changed relationship between some oil-producing countries and some oil-consuming countries. It has raised to a new status Iran and Saudi Arabia, who have oil in quantity, and who have set out to translate it into various tangible and intangible attributes of power. The practice of independent diplomacy and the knowledge of the relationship of oil to political power did not come overnight to Iran or to Saudi Arabia. Both had traditions that made a policy of self-assertion quite natural once the means were at hand to carry it out. But the experience of the two countries has been different, and each is considered separately in this paper. Iran and Saudi Arabia, with their unprecedented oil income, have set ambitious goals and have begun to move toward them. They are speaking with a stronger voice in regional and world affairs, and they are being listened to. Their limitations and uncertainties are discussed in detail. Relationships that the USA has made with Middle East countries are of concern to other nations of the world. The author says he has argued that producer--consumer relations ''rest on a situation of fragility on each side .more » . . The oil producers cannot push the industrial countries to the wall without doing great harm to themselves. The latter cannot use force to seize the oil wells, or economic warfare to bludgeon the producers into submission without upsetting many applecarts, including their own.'' (MCW)« less

DECISION ANALYSIS FOR THE RIVER WALK EXPANSION IN SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS1

ABSTRACT: The San Antonio River Walk is considered a unique tourist attraction as well as an urban rejuvenation catalyst for San Antonio, Texas. This utilization of the mile‐long horseshoe bend in the downtown area of San Antonio is as successful and imaginative as can be found in the United States. Testimony is very strong from San Antonio voters and outside visitors of the great social and economic value of the River Walk. This overwhelming success has led to plans for expansion of the present River Walk. The River Walk expansion decision should not be evaluated merely on a benefit‐cost ratio. It has become the recommendation of the Water Resources Council that intangible attributes such as recreational values and social impacts should be considered as well as tangible attributes such as cost. This prevailing attitude has highlighted the application of decision analysis techniques with multiattribute utility ratings. Decision analysis is a systematic solution procedure which can be used to crystallize a complicated decision problem into manageable subproblems by ranking the decision alternatives in accordance with cardinal utility values attached to their consequences. Recent advances in multiattribute utility theory allow a decision maker to weigh utility assessment over tangible and intangible attributes according to their relative importance. This insures that the intangible attributes will receive due consideration in the final decision‐making.

Significados no Sapato Clássico Masculino

Este artigo apresenta pesquisa acerca das interpretações de dois grupos etários de homens sobre o sapato clássico masculino descrevendo os significados associados ao produto segundo as dimensões pragmática e emocional. A metodologia incluiu coleta de dados em duas fases com questionários estruturados e entrevistas aplicados a 122 pessoas. Na primeira fase, os significados foram classificados segundo o modelo da Interação Significante. Na segunda fase, foram estabelecidas correlações entre os significados e os atributos físicos e visuais do produto. Dez modelos de sapatos foram apresentados aos participantes voluntários. Os resultados da Fase 1 identificaram 171 valores semânticos: 65% correspondem à dimensão emocional e 35% correspondem à dimensão pragmática. A Fase 2 revelou que as correlações entre os significados e os atributos dos produtos referem-se principalmente à forma, ao material e à cor. O estudo concluiu que os significados no sapato clássico masculino despertam mais associações relacionadas à memória afetiva, à tradição e aos valores culturais dos respondentes que suas qualidades pragmáticas relacionadas à materialidade e ao caráter utilitário.

Range of Acquaintance and of Repute as Factors in Prestige Rating Methods of Studying Social Status

EXPLORATION of status systems within American communities has become a preoccupation of social scientists. Rossi has grouped the methods used for this task into subjective and objective types.' The first type records the assessments made by community residents of each other, on the assumption that in the last analysis expresses conventional definitions of relative position. The objective approach derives a community hierarchy from differential possession of such tangible attributes as income or occupation. The present study concerned with the subjective approach to status measurement, examining particularly the consistency with which different raters assign ranks. Corollary to this analysis, an effort made to throw light upon three topics: 1) the influence of the extent of acquaintance and the status of the judge upon the distribution of families he able to rate, 2) the effects of the judge's status upon the correlation of his ratings with those of the same families by other judges, and 3) the influence of the ratee's traits upon his chances of being known to the judges. While a total of 24 judges were used, the present analysis centers upon the four (called Q, U, V, and W) who endeavored to rate every family.2 The proportion of the total 1500 (white) families in the community who were rated by these four judges ranged from 64 to 91 percent. Thus if only one judge had been used, one-tenth to nearly two-fifths of the families would not have been placed at all. Moreover, the prestige was perceived quite diversely by the four judges (Table 1). Mr. U has a marked middle emphasis, while Mr. V regards the various classes as being of about the same size; and both of these judges assign many more families to an upper level than do Mr. Q or Mr. W. That these diversities in perspective are not wholly a reflection of selective acquaintance demonstrated by the second panel of Table 1 which deals only with the 743 families rated by all four judges. To rely upon a single judge's distributions of the families in the community (or even, as will be shown, an average of four or more ratings) for correlation with other aspects of community structure would inject a large element of unreliability into the study. Nor there any conclusive basis, even after we have all four sets of judgments to guide us, for preferring one or two sets of ratings. Perhaps the distribution bell-shaped, as Mr. W concludes; perhaps, however, a community of 1500 families has a skewed distribution (as viewed by Mr. U). The fact that occupations in the community are distributed rather evenly among the several levels does not warrant reliance upon the similar distribution supplied by Mr. V. Two major hazards jeopardize any choice among these different estimates of distribution: 1) the unknown distribution of the unrated families, 2) the varying degrees of inconsistency among rankings at different segments of the scale. In examining inconsistency among the judges the first step was to plot the six inter-rater comparisons of judgments. Since space does not permit a display of these tables, the two extreme comparisons are summarized. The closest agreement was between Mr. Q and Mr. W: they agreed on the placement of 33 percent of the families, * Revision of a paper read before the sixteenth annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, Chattanooga, Tennessee, March 27, 1953. P. H. Rossi, Latent Structure Analysis and Research on Social Stratification (doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1951), p. 88. 2 In order to measure consistency among raters it was necessary to have all ratings upon a common basis. Accordingly it was stipulated that the families were to be grouped in seven categories. (It was pointed out that people commonly use such terms as: They are 'the cream of the town,' They are just good substantial people, and They are at the bottom of the ladder, in talking about community position or social class. Each judge was asked to place the families in some one of the seven groups.) The objective of this study not to determine what the class system of the community is but the extent to which judges agree in their assessments of status.