Business Commons^™

Consumer Measures Of Local Food System Performance And Shopping Behavior Across Covid, Azita Varziri

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This dissertation consists of three essays: In the first essay, we utilize a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to measure the residents’ perceptions of the local food system performance. Local food system (LFS) components are classified into related measures that may help explain the overall performance scores provided. LFS performance measures are explored across 15 different communities in the U.S. South. The second essay explores the awareness and performance differences toward farmers markets, including the markets themselves and the corresponding local food product quality, product diversity, and markets infrastructure across different age-range groups and community sizes in Southern states. Finally, in …

When Should Sales Managers Get Involved In Their Salesteams' Transactions, Daniel E. Chavez

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

The existing literature on sales teams explores various aspects of team members and their effects on sales performance. The literature on sales management has described how managers can promote better results from salespeople. The question at the intersection of these two streams of literature – if managers should be part of sales teams -- has not been addressed and is what we explore. Using data from a Fortune 1,000 firm that operates automotive service stores across the US we test these effects. The data presents a natural experiment as sales teams with different compositions are assigned randomly to the customers. …

Two Essays On Food Environment, Nutrition, And Food Insecurity, Suliman Abdulaziz Almojel

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

A healthy food environment is fundamental to good health. It contributes to the reduction of obesity and the development of healthy eating habits. In spite of this, many people in the United States (US) have been hypnotized to become obese due to the current food environment. Recently, the US has consistently ranked high in the world in terms of obesity. The rising rate is symptomatic of consuming unhealthy diets. Besides, the double-edged crisis of the US food environment and obesity poses a major threat to food security and public health. Therefore, studying the US food environment is important to sustain …

Deselling: Cross-Selling Without Upsetting Customers, Molly R. Burchett

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

To boost revenue, many firms are encouraging their service salespeople to cross-sell while providing a service; but cross-selling can upset customers. How, then, may firms effectively cross-sell without upsetting customers? The authors address this question by introducing the concept of deselling behaviors, defined as service salespeople’s actions that are incongruent with persuasive intent. They combine insights gleaned from 101 inconspicuous, fly-on-the-wall videos of actual service salesperson-customer exchanges with theoretical underpinnings of the persuasion knowledge model and reactance theory to advance a novel conceptual framework of deselling behaviors. Their framework advances prior literature by illuminating three unique sets of deselling …

Consumer Embarrassment – A Meta-Analytic Review And Experimental Examination, Alexander H. Ziegler

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

This dissertation consists of two essays that discuss the influence of embarrassment on consumers. In the first essay, I examine consumers’ coping responses to embarrassment in a meta-analytic review. In essay two, I utilize an experimental approach to investigate the impact of embarrassing encounters on unrelated consumers who merely observe the situation.

In the first essay, the meta-analysis is guided by findings in the literature that demonstrate embarrassment can both promote and detract from consumer well-being. However, despite being investigated for decades, little is known about how consumers cope with embarrassing situations, and when and why consumers respond in positive …

Venue Managers And Meeting Planners: A Combined Perspective Of Their Roles, Relationships, And Attributes Necessary For Hosting A Successful Meeting, Maame Afua Offeibea Adu

Theses and Dissertations--Retailing and Tourism Management

The purpose of this research was to gain the perspectives of venue managers and meeting planners on their roles in the meetings industry, their relationship with each other and attributes needed to host a successful meeting. An online survey was conducted involving these two stakeholders to define their roles, assess the strength of their relationship and identify attributes based on their experience with working together and hosting meetings. Results showed that venue managers and meeting planners are essential to the hosting of successful meetings. It also indicated that venue managers are willing to build and maintain stronger relationships with meeting …

Quitting Together: Formative Research To Develop A Social Marketing Plan For Smoking Cessation Among Women In A Residential Treatment Facility For Substance Abuse Recovery, August D. Anderson

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Both smoking addiction and illicit substance abuse are prevalent issues in the United States today. Furthermore, these are issues that have significant impact on women’s health and mental state. Despite research that shows that smoking cessation coupled with substance abuse recovery can decrease likelihood of relapse post-recovery, few substance abuse recovery facilities today offer smoking cessation programming options. To address the issue of smoking addiction on top of substance abuse recovery, formative research was conducted through this study to determine the underlying causes of smoking habits coupled with recovery efforts and the attitudes. Through focus group sessions with women in …

An Exploration Of Organizational Buying Behavior In The Public Sector, Kevin S. Chase

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

This dissertation begins with a comprehensive examination of the current state of research regarding organizational buying behavior. Through this review we identify a significant gap in our existing knowledge regarding organizational buying behavior in the public sector. Due to the high level of impact that government purchasing has on the economy, and the nuances that differentiate public from private sector purchasing practices, I further explore organizational buying behavior in the public sector to make the following contributions.

First, I highlight the common practice in business-to-government (B2G) and business-to-business (B2B) transactions where buyers limit suppliers’ access to them during the buying …

The Impact Of Childhood Socioeconomic Status On Adult Reactions Toward Quantity Surcharges, Wenjing Li

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

Quantity surcharges have been widespread in the marketplace for decades. However, little is known about what kinds of consumers and under what conditions they are more likely to be impacted by this pricing practice. The current research contributes to the existing literature by investigating how a person’s childhood socioeconomic status affects their reaction toward quantity surcharges during adulthood. Across four studies, we find that childhood socioeconomic status has a positive impact on the purchase of a large and surcharged package size. However, when the economic conditions are threatening, the positive effect of childhood socioeconomic status disappears. The current research also …

Determining Millennial Food Buying Preferences: Based On Product Marketing With “Buzzwords”, Victoria N. Hamilton

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

This research focuses on the importance on the Millennial Generation and their perceptions of food buzzwords. Since the Millennial Generation is the largest group purchasing and preparing their own foods, the food industry is becoming dependent on their buying preferences. A survey reflected the participants’ demographics and their buying preferences based on a series of food buzzwords when they are purchasing foods. Results show the Millennial Generation prefers “local” buzzwords. As the Millennial Generation continues to purchase foods for themselves and their families, it can be expected their choices will encourage others to do the same based on their family …

Legitimacy Of Local Food In The U.S. Market: Comparative Consumer Perspectives, Ali Asgari

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Measures of legitimacy have been described in terms of four legitimacy types, regulatory, normative, cognitive, and industry. This study provides one of the first and only empirical examinations of legitimacy, particularly with an application to local foods and sheds light on how consumers view various types of legitimacy related to local food. To apply the concept of legitimacy to local foods marketing, we take an empirical survey asking about consumer perspectives of local food, along with different shopping behavior questions.

Using cumulative logit models, results of the legitimacy models suggest that core consumers are more likely to place a high …

Characteristics Of United States Seafood Consumers, Suliman Almojel

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

In this thesis, I conducted an analysis of the consumption patterns associated with demographic and socio-economic characteristics, using Tobit and double-hurdle models. Data were collected for 11,574 households from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for the year of 2014. Specific determinants included household size, age, income, gender, education, race, region, marital status, and whether the household lived in a coastal state. The results reveal that seafood expenditures are sequential decisions. Asian racial groups, households headed by married couples, a large number of members in households, higher income households, and households residing in the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts were variables …

Home Cooking And Willingness To Pay: Local Blueberry Pancake, Muffin, And Banana Bread Mixes In A Take-And-Bake Experiment, Yves T. Ilunga

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This study explores measurable factors that influence consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for locally produced blueberry mixes: pancake mix, muffin mix and banana bread mix. The innovative aspect of this study is that the experiment took place at participants’ home. The post-preparation survey used a payment card approach to elicit WTP for each product tried as well as for the hypothetical third product not tried. A total of 101 out of 102 participants (99.01%) completed the process and returned the survey. Participants were instructed to prepare the products at home, sample the prepared product, and then evaluate the product and …

Economic Considerations Of Aggressively Treating The Influenza Virus In Equines, Charlotte R. Hansen

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

The equine influenza virus is a significant cause of respiratory disease in horses. Even though horses generally recover from this virus, sometimes horses with equine influenza develop secondary bacterial infections which can cause severe pneumonia, thereby increasing recovery times. Owners and managers are faced with the decision of whether to delay preventative treatment in hopes of the horse avoids contracting a secondary bacterial infection (“wait and see”) or aggressively treat the horse with an antibiotic in hopes of avoiding a serious infection (“treat now”). From a decision making standpoint, the economic considerations include explicit treatment costs as well as nonmonetary …

Price Analysis Under Production Differentiation In Green Coffee Markets, Xi-Le Li

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

To better understand the world green coffee market especially from the perspective of the coffee producing countries, I study three topics to overview and identify a puzzle: why growing differentiation of the coffee industry in final product markets has not been reflected in a similar pattern of differentiation to coffee farmers.

My first essay is a descriptive overview of the world coffee market, based on the framework and definition of competitiveness to understand both the demand and supply side of the coffee market. This paper then focuses on product differentiation as the source of competitiveness in the industry. Coffee as …

Assessing The Production Revenues And Forecasting Models Of Lexington Children's Theatre Productions, 1998–2004 And 2008–2014, Shea Henning Bartlett

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This paper assesses the accuracy of the ticket sales and revenue forecasting model used by Lexington Children’s Theatre, a Central Kentucky Performing Arts non-profit. Research suggests that if bias is present in the models, it could be a result of the Optimism Bias, which is a tendency for humans to predict favorable outcomes. Recent data seems to suggest that humans may also act pessimistically with forecasts if the endgame would work in their favor.

"The Lexington Children’s Theatre provided data for 108 productions over a twelve-year span from 1998 – 2014. Using a series of regression models, I found that …

Modeling Large-Scale Cross Effect In Co-Purchase Incidence: Comparing Artificial Neural Network Techniques And Multivariate Probit Modeling, Zhiguo Yang

Theses and Dissertations--Business Administration

This dissertation examines cross-category effects in consumer purchases from the big data and analytics perspectives. It uses data from Nielsen Consumer Panel and Scanner databases for its investigations. With big data analytics it becomes possible to examine the cross effects of many product categories on each other. The number of categories whose cross effects are studied is called category scale or just scale in this dissertation. The larger the category scale the higher the number of categories whose cross effects are studied. This dissertation extends research on models of cross effects by (1) examining the performance of MVP model across …

From Grapes To Wine To Brands To Culture: A Qualitative Study Of Kentucky Wineries And Kentucky Wine Producers, Benjamin J. Triana

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The Kentucky wine industry has grown from six wineries in 1999 to more than sixty wineries as of 2013. However, the industry has reached a crucial point in its development as funds allotted from the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement ended in 2014. As a result, Kentucky wine producers must navigate the demands of local, regional, national, and international wine markets without the same amount of economic support provided in the early stages of the industry’s development.

The purpose of this study was to investigate (1) how Kentucky wine producers use cultural associations to manage their brands, (2) communicate with multiple …

The Influence Of Affect On Product Evaluations And Enduring Consumption Enjoyment, James A. Mead

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

This dissertation consists of two essays on the influence of affect on consumer intentions and behavioral responses. In the first essay, the influence of negative affect on consumer satiation is investigated. In the second essay, the influence of conceptual fluency, a positive affective response of “feeling right” during advertising evaluations, evoked by the structural properties of memory networks, is identified.

In the first essay, how anticipated consumption variety influences consumers’ affective responses to slow satiation in the present is investigated. Prior research has focused on how cognitive appraisals of present variety influence consumers’ satiation rates. However, in addition to cognitively …

Two Essays On The Recommendation Behavior Of Multi-Line Salespeople, Sarah R. Magnotta

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

This dissertation consists of two essays in which we examine the recommendation behavior of multi-line salespeople. Multi-line salespeople are those who are able to choose among overlapping, competing manufacturers’ products to make a recommendation to their customers. In this dissertation, we seek to explain why and how multi-line salespeople may recommend particular products to their customers.

In the first essay, we examine why salespeople may recommend a particular product. Manufacturers frequently face the challenge of motivating distributor salespeople to focus efforts on their products rather than on their competitors’. Thus, manufacturers often rely on outcome (e.g., rewards) and behavior (e.g., …

The Effects Of Food Safety Standards On Trade And Welfare: The Case Of Eu Shrimp Imports, Xiaoqian Li

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This research explores the link between a gravity model and welfare frameworks and then applies the quantitative model system to analyze how trade and welfare is affected by the Minimum Required Performance Limits (MRPL) in the shrimp importing market of European Union.

The quantitative model system consists of two parts: first, this study uses the “phi-ness” gravity model to investigate the trade effects of MRPL on EU shrimp market. The “phi-ness” gravity model partitions the standard variables to avoid biased estimation caused by the correlation between time and country fixed effects and policy variables. The Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) …

A Multivariate Analysis Of Consumers’ Beliefs, Attitudes, And Behaviors Associated With Locally Produced Food And Farmers’ Market Patronage, Sara Williamson

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

While farmers’ market vendors rely on loyal and frequent patrons to purchase their products, it is unclear how the intrinsic differences among farmers’ market shoppers serve as indicators of potential shopping frequency at farmers’ markets. The objectives of this thesis are to identify consumers’ intrinsic values associated with characteristics of local foods, examine how these values are reflected in consumption behaviors among farmers' market shoppers, and explore the relationship between consumption activities and shopping frequency at farmers' markets. Results suggest that the differences between frequent and infrequent farmers’ market shoppers could be explained by the individual’s levels of high and …

The Effects Of Country Of Origin Image And Patriotism On Consumer Preference For Domestic Versus Imported Beef, Thong Meas

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Country of origin (COO) effect is a well-researched topic in the international marketing literature. It is well recognized that consumers are biased against imports, due to consumer ethnocentrism or patriotism tendency. However, the research on COO effects also suggests that consumers form certain image of origin countries (COO image) and favorable image, be it associated with the countries, their people, or general product quality, improves the evaluation and acceptance of foreign imports.

The publications related to COO effects which focus on consumer durables are abundant. However, the contrasting COO effects on food products are much less investigated. This study surveys …

How Do Consumers Use Social Shopping Websites? The Impact Of Social Endorsements, Pei Xu

Theses and Dissertations--Business Administration

Social endorsements are user-generated endorsements of products or services, such as “likes” and personal collections, in an online social platform. We examine the effect of prior social endorsements on subsequent users’ tendency to endorse or examine a product in a social shopping context, where a social platform connect consumers and enable a collaborative shopping experience. This research consists of two parts. In part I, we identify two ways prior social endorsements can affect subsequent user behavior: as a crowd endorsement, which is an aggregate number of endorsements a product receives for anyone who comes across the product, and as …

Using Inoculation Messages To Protect “Stay In The Market” Beliefs During Financial Crises, Lindsay Lyles Dillingham

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

This paper focuses on the problem of collapsed “stay in the market” (SIM) beliefs during financial crises. The primary purpose of this investigation was to ascertain whether or not inoculation messages represent a viable communication strategy to preemptively protect SIM beliefs during forthcoming financial crises. Ancillary purposes of this study were to further investigate the role of print and video crises, explicit instructions regarding post-inoculation talk (PIT), and gain and loss frame inoculation messages on the inoculation process. This study used a between subjects factorial design (3 x 2 plus four additional conditions) to explore ten hypotheses. Data collected from …

Political Ideology And Consumer Preferences, Adam Farmer

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

Despite continued polarization along political party lines, it remains unclear how differences in political ideology impact the choices consumers make. The results of seven studies indicate that political ideology profoundly influences the way consumers think and behave. Liberals and conservatives are systematically drawn to distinct choice preferences where liberals prefer hedonic, novel, and desirable options, while conservatives prefer utilitarian, status quo, and feasible options. These findings are robust for multiple measures of political ideology across multiple choice sets. Differences in behavior are explained by the amount of deliberation used for a given decision. Liberals deliberate more than conservatives as they …

Evolutionary Motives And Consumer Food Choice In Romantic Relationships, William Robert (Rob) Richerson Iii

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

This research examines the evolutionary eating patterns of consumers when eating with those they are in relationships with, moving beyond eating decisions made in isolation or in the presence of strangers. Across three studies, unique patterns of consumption emerge when males and females are in different stages of romantic relationships. I demonstrate that the evolutionary motives of mate acquisition and mate retention drive eating patterns for relationship partners relative to their gender. I show that females match the eating habits of males at early stages in the relationship but are more independent later in the relationship, while males match eating …

Brand Analyses Of Global Brands Versus Local Brand In Indian Apparel Consumer Market, Aniket Sengupta

Theses and Dissertations--Retailing and Tourism Management

The purpose of this study was to conduct brand analyses on global brands in comparison to local retailers in India taking into account the regional differences and Indian consumers’ affinity towards global brands. The study has derived its conceptual framework from previous work done by Lee, Knight, and Kim (2008) and Bhardwaj, Kumar and Youn-Kyung (2010) with some added attributes. Quantitative data included a sample of 194 subjects where the sampling was conducted randomly as well as the involvement of convenient method to analyze the brands in real-world scenario. The survey involved the questionnaire which was utilized in previous researches …

Dimensions And Validation Of Perceived Message Sensation Value Scale For Print Messages, Lisanne F. M. Grant

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The purpose of this research project was to develop a reliable and valid scale to assess the perceived message sensation value (PMSV) of print messages. The goal of this project was accomplished by conducting two studies. Study one involved collecting 397 undergraduate students’ responses to one high and one low sensation value anti-smoking message, while for study two, 284 undergraduate students’ responses to one high and one low sensation value anti-crystal meth message were collected. The results of the studies highlighted that the PMSV of a print message can be assessed using three dimensions (emotional arousal, novelty, and dramatic impact) …

Analyzing The Presence Of Marketing In Campus Recreation Departments, Amy Gibson

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The University of Kentucky’s Campus Recreation department is currently operating without professional marketing personnel to promote the programs and services the facility offers. With the university expanding campus housing for incoming students, the question of how activity spaces will accommodate and reach out to these students is certainly one to consider.

I conducted this research with the aim of analyzing the importance of marketing in Campus Recreation facilities and to see if marketing efforts have an effect on facility usage by participants. The department began conducting surveys in 2010 to assess its programs and services in order to determine student …