Article

Consumers' Value Perceptions of E-customization: A Model Incorporating Information Framing and Product Type

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Abstract

Purpose – Despite significant business spending in areas such as personalization tools and add-on options representing levels of product attributes, most marketers do not know the amount of value that is directly attributable to their e-customization strategies. This study aims to offer an in-depth investigation of consumers' value perceptions of e-customization and their relationship with perceived sufficiency of information and cognitive cost. The context effects on value perception in e-customization are studied together with antecedent constructs. Design/methodology/approach – The research consists of a 2×2 between-subjects factorial design. The full model is tested using multiple-group structural equation modeling analysis to verify the significance of the inter-relationships between constructs, as well as the main and the interaction effects of two experimental factors (product information framing and product type). Findings – The experimental results showed that perceived e-customization value does not simply stem from the ability to “narrow-cast” content more specifically related to a shopper's interests (i.e. anticipated fulfillment value). Rather, this value also stems from the dynamic flexibility of the information system and its ability to entertain and educate during the information dissemination process (i.e. process value and knowledge value). Furthermore, when the customization framing features are better matched with product type characteristics, e-customization seemed to increase value in ways that are difficult to achieve in conventional shopping environments. Originality/value – By testing the proposed structural model simultaneously with two experimental factors of product type and information framing, this work is the first to address the question of context effects on value creation in an area of increasing substantive importance.

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... The literature on MC products has adopted primarily an individual and utilitarian perspective to examine how it can fit consumers' preferences and solve their problems (Franke and Piller, 2004;Jiang et al., 2014;Terwiesch et al., 2007). Products also can provide self-expressive or symbolic benefits for the consumer (Aaker, 1999;Belk, 1981), however, limited MC research has focused on the social aspect of how MC toolkits help consumers to express themselves to others and how such design freedom affects consumers' perceived value of self-designed products. ...
... The literature on MC toolkits has adopted a utilitarian perspective to examine how such kits provide customer value. The major benefit of using MC toolkits is their ability to fit consumers' preferences and to address their concerns (Franke et al., 2010;Jiang et al., 2014;Terwiesch et al., 2007). From a social perspective, self-designed products that are consumed publicly should provide symbolic and social value through the product's ability for self-expression (Aaker, 1999;Belk, 1981). ...
... Second, this research extends studies of the IKEA effect into the area of self-expressive MC for products consumed publicly. Prior research focused mainly on the utilitarian benefit of selfdesigned products through their better ability to fit consumers' preference than do standardized products (Jiang et al., 2014;Terwiesch et al., 2007), but only a few studies addressed the social and symbolic value of self-designed products through enhanced ability for self-expression (Kaiser et al., 2017;Yoo and Park, 2016). This research confirms the existence of the IKEA effect in self-expressive MC and shows that the benefit of self-expression is a crucial underlying mechanism for this effect. ...
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... The advantages of the attribute-oriented presentation, compared with the alternatives-oriented one, were further examined by Valenzuela et al. (2009), who found that the attribute-oriented presentation reduces decision-making difficulties during product customization and increases customer satisfaction with the configured product. Jiang et al. (2014Jiang et al. ( , 2015) considered a third way of presenting product information during the configuration process, that is, the bundle-based presentation, in which customers are presented with several packages, each one containing a number of combinations of product attributes and attribute values, and consumers have to select one combination for every package. Jiang et al. (2014) found that for certain types of products, consumers perceive the product information provided during the configuration process as more adequate in terms of quantity and relevance in bundle-based presentations than in attribute-oriented presentations. ...
... Jiang et al. (2014Jiang et al. ( , 2015) considered a third way of presenting product information during the configuration process, that is, the bundle-based presentation, in which customers are presented with several packages, each one containing a number of combinations of product attributes and attribute values, and consumers have to select one combination for every package. Jiang et al. (2014) found that for certain types of products, consumers perceive the product information provided during the configuration process as more adequate in terms of quantity and relevance in bundle-based presentations than in attribute-oriented presentations. Greater information adequacy, in turn, proved to enhance consumer- perceived preference fit as well as the benefits of the configuration process per se, such as personal gratification, fun, and increased knowledge about the product ( Jiang et al., 2014). ...
... Jiang et al. (2014) found that for certain types of products, consumers perceive the product information provided during the configuration process as more adequate in terms of quantity and relevance in bundle-based presentations than in attribute-oriented presentations. Greater information adequacy, in turn, proved to enhance consumer- perceived preference fit as well as the benefits of the configuration process per se, such as personal gratification, fun, and increased knowledge about the product ( Jiang et al., 2014). ...
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... The advantages of the attribute-oriented presentation, compared with the alternatives-oriented one, were further examined by Valenzuela et al. (2009), who found that the attribute-oriented presentation reduces decision-making difficulties during product customization and increases customer satisfaction with the configured product. Jiang et al. (2014Jiang et al. ( , 2015) considered a third way of presenting product information during the configuration process, that is, the bundle-based presentation, in which customers are presented with several packages, each one containing a number of combinations of product attributes and attribute values, and consumers have to select one combination for every package. Jiang et al. (2014) found that for certain types of products, consumers perceive the product information provided during the configuration process as more adequate in terms of quantity and relevance in bundle-based presentations than in attribute-oriented presentations. ...
... Jiang et al. (2014) found that for certain types of products, consumers perceive the product information provided during the configuration process as more adequate in terms of quantity and relevance in bundle-based presentations than in attribute-oriented presentations. Greater information adequacy, in turn, proved to enhance consumerperceived preference fit as well as the benefits of the configuration process per se, such as personal gratification, fun, and increased knowledge about the product ( Jiang et al., 2014). Other characteristics of an SC that were found to improve customer satisfaction with the configured product are those studied by Chang and his co-authors, namely, the provision of examples of product configurations that customers could easily reproduce ( ), and the provision of cues that are compatible with the product category under consideration ( ). ...
... The ability of an SC to adapt the description of a company's product space to the individual characteristics of a potential customer as well as to the situational characteristics of his/her using of the SC Source: Trentin et al. (2014) Table I. SC capabilities product; increasing customer-perceived preference fit, that is, the consumer-perceived UT of purchasing the product; and delivering benefits related to the configuration process per se rather than to the possession of the product ( Franke et al., 2010;Trentin et al., 2014;Jiang et al., 2014). What this debate is still lacking, however, are studies specifically devoted to addressing the question of which characteristics an (online) SC should have in order to enhance the other two consumer-perceived benefits of owning a configured product, that is, uniqueness and SE. ...
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Manufacturers that adopt mass customization are paying a growing attention to understanding not only how product customization can be delivered efficiently, but also how this strategy can create value for their customers. As reported in literature, the customer-perceived value of a mass-customized product also depends on the uniqueness and self-expressiveness benefits that a customer may experience above and beyond the traditionally considered utility of possessing a product that fits with the customer's functional and aesthetical needs. Increasing customer-perceived value by delivering uniqueness and selfexpressiveness benefits can therefore be one key in augmenting the customer's willingness to pay for a mass-customized product. This paper conceptually develops and empirically tests the hypotheses that five sales-configurator capabilities previously defined in literature increase uniqueness and self-expressiveness benefits of a mass-customized product, in addition to the traditionally considered utilitarian benefit. The hypothesized relationships have been tested by analyzing self-customization experiences made by engineering students using a set of real Web-based sales configurators of different consumer goods. The analysis results show that easy comparison, flexible navigation and focused navigation capabilities have a positive impact on each of the considered benefits, while user-friendly product space description and benefit-cost communication capabilities have a positive impact on utilitarian benefit only. The findings of this study complement previous research results on what characteristics sales configurators should have to increase consumer-perceived benefits of mass customization.
... Epistemic value refers to the utility obtained from products/services' ability to "arouse curiosity, provide novelty, and satisfy a desire for knowledge (Sheth et al., 1991, p. 162)." It relates to a product's ability to fulfill consumers' desire for novelty, providing educational and informational benefits to consumers (Jiang et al., 2014). Epistemic value is especially important for experiential services (Babin et al., 1994;Sheth et al., 1991) including food services. ...
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This study aims to investigate various types of values consumers experience within the meal kit delivery context, their influences on satisfaction and word-of-mouth (WOM), and the moderating effects of demographics between consumer values and satisfaction with a mixed-method approach. The qualitative study employed a critical incident technique that analyzed consumers' online reviews, resulting in 285 critical incidents. The analysis revealed five themes of consumer value unique to the meal kit usage, including excellence, convenience, monetary value, epistemic value, and self-esteem. The quantitative study from an online survey of 300 consumers used a structural equation modeling, which provided support for the influences of the five consumer values on satisfaction, subsequently enhancing consumers' WOM behavior. Besides, the multi-group analysis revealed that the impacts of consumer values on satisfaction depended on their marital status and household income. This study contributes to the consumer behavior literature in three areas. First, it expands the consumer value literature by identifying multiple dimensions of consumption values unique to meal kit delivery that gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, this study contributes to the consumer satisfaction and loyalty literature by demonstrating the impacts of different dimensions of values on consumer responses. Lastly, it expands our knowledge of consumer demographic characteristics that change the dynamics between consumer values and satisfaction. The findings provide valuable insights into the fast-growing meal kit industry and allow the service providers to better align their products/service attributes with the values consumers appreciate.
... In turn, greater utility is obtained [34], and the perceived effort and process enjoyment in the process of customer customization promote the improvement of customer hedonic value [35]. Jiang et al. also demonstrated that customer engagement platform customization can promote consumers' creativity and derive hedonic value from it, thereby improving customer satisfaction [36]. ...
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As an important customer value strategy for enterprise development, customer customization is of great significance to the growth of customer satisfaction and enterprise revenue. Since the 80s of the 20th century, many scholars have carried out extensive research on the definition of customer customization and the research mechanism. In recent years, with the vigorous development of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud technology, customer customization is facing new opportunities and challenges. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a systematic review of the customer's customized Chinese and English literature. This paper systematically sorts out and comprehensively analyzes the customer customization strategy from three aspects: the connotation, mode and influence results of customer customization, and looks forward to the future research direction.
... Finally, PV presents an overall evaluation of a product's utility and benefits, such as convenience, price, and time cost (37). A product or service's PV is generally determined by its monetary cost or price in conjunction with the quality of the offering (38). When the benefits are perceived to be larger than the price, PV will positively affect PI (39). ...
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... More specific works can be found on points addressed by Trentin et al. e.g. on flexible navigation, user-friendly space description, side-by-side product comparison [17,22,16,9,15]. Kamies et al. [11] and Valenzuela [21] demonstrate the advantages of attribute-based views for the presentation of items in configurators whereas Jiang et al. promote bundle views [10]. Finally, other more specific concerns like impact of the verbosity of price display [7], rich visualisation [16] and user feedback (e.g. ...
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The Adaptive Decision Maker argues that people use a variety of strategies to make judgments and choices. The authors introduce a model that shows how decision makers balance effort and accuracy considerations and predicts which strategy a person will use in a given situation. A series of experiments testing the model are presented, and the authors analyse how the model can lead to improved decisions and opportunities for further research.
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The author reviews how methods developed within the information integration paradigm can be used to study consumers’ overall evaluations of choice alternatives. Methods are presented for determining the adequacy of several common model forms used to represent overall evaluations: adding, multiplying, and multilinear. Often, more than one integration model can be reconciled with the data by altering one's assumptions about the subjective values of the independent variables and about the relationship between private, unobservable overall evaluations and the overt numerical ratings that index them. Also, different integration models lead to parameter estimates (e.g., part worths) of varying levels of uniqueness and interattribute comparability. Emphasis is given to pinpointing the sorts of evidence and experimental designs that enable one to distinguish empirically among alternative model forms and psychological interpretations of the data—and, conversely, to what interpretations cannot be distinguished empirically—given only overall evaluations of a set of choice alternatives that vary along two or more attribute dimensions. Finally, the methods described are compared with model diagnosis procedures more commonly used in marketing and consumer research, including compositional correlational techniques and decompositional methods of conjoint measurement.
Article
New procedures are developed and illustrated for the analysis of experimental data with particular emphasis on MANOVA and MANCOVA designs. The authors begin with one-way designs, including overall tests of significance, step-down analyses, and the use of latent variables. Next they describe a general test of homogeneity and consider a procedure that is applicable even under conditions of heterogeneity. Two-way designs then are derived as special cases of the more general n-way case. Finally, advantages and disadvantages of the new methods are considered.
Article
The authors address the role of marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments (CMEs). Their approach considers hypermedia CMEs to be large-scale (i.e., national or global) networked environments, of which the World Wide Web on the Internet is the first and current global implementation. They introduce marketers to this revolutionary new medium, propose a structural model of consumer navigation behavior in a CME that incorporates the notion of flow, and examine a series of research issues and marketing implications that follow from the model.
Article
This paper defines hedonic consumption as those facets of consumer behavior that relate to the multisensory, fantasy and emotive aspects of product usage experience. After delineating these concepts, their theoretical antecedents are traced, followed by a discussion of differences between the traditional and hedonic views, methodological implications of the latter approach, and behavioral propositions in four substantive areas relevant to hedonic consumption—mental constructs, product classes, product usage and individual differences. Conclusions concern the usefulness of the hedonic perspective in supplementing and extending marketing research on consumer behavior.
Article
The physical form or design of a product is an unquestioned determinant of its marketplace success. A good design attracts consumers to a product, communicates to them, and adds value to the product by increasing the quality of the usage experiences associated with it. Nevertheless, the topic of product design is rarely, if ever, encountered in marketing journals. To bring needed attention to the subject of product design and enable researchers to better investigate design issues, the author introduces a conceptual model and several propositions that describe how the form of a product relates to consumers’ psychological and behavioral responses. After presenting this model, the author describes numerous strategic implications and research directions.
Article
The statistical tests used in the analysis of structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error are examined. A drawback of the commonly applied chi square test, in addition to the known problems related to sample size and power, is that it may indicate an increasing correspondence between the hypothesized model and the observed data as both the measurement properties and the relationship between constructs decline. Further, and contrary to common assertion, the risk of making a Type II error can be substantial even when the sample size is large. Moreover, the present testing methods are unable to assess a model's explanatory power. To overcome these problems, the authors develop and apply a testing system based on measures of shared variance within the structural model, measurement model, and overall model.
Article
A critical element in the evolution of a fundamental body of knowledge in marketing, as well as for improved marketing practice, is the development of better measures of the variables with which marketers work. In this article an approach is outlined by which this goal can be achieved and portions of the approach are illustrated in terms of a job satisfaction measure.
Article
This paper reviews prior applications of structural equation modeling in four major marketing journals (the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and the Journal of Consumer Research) between 1977 and 1994. After documenting and characterizing the number of applications over time, we discuss important methodological issues related to structural equation modeling and assess the quality of previous applications in terms of three aspects: issues related to the initial specification of theoretical models of interest; issues related to data screening prior to model estimation and testing; and issues related to the estimation and testing of theoretical models on empirical data. On the basis of our findings, we identify problem areas and suggest avenues for improvement.
Article
To address the trade-off between new product innovativeness and speed to market caused by customer participation activities, the author differentiates two dimensions of customer participation - customer participation as an information resource (CPI) and customer participation as a codeveloper (CPC) - and explores the moderating effects of downstream customer network connectivity and new product development process interdependence and complexity. Matched data collected from 143 customer-component manufacturer dyads indicate that CPI has a negative influence on innovativeness when downstream customer network connectivity is high but a positive effect when it is low. In contrast, CPI has a positive effect on speed to market when downstream customer network connectivity is high and no significant effect when it is low. In addition, CPC undermines new product speed to market when process interdependence is high. In contrast, CPC can improve new product speed to market but hurt new product innovativeness when process interdependence is low. The results of this article provide specific managerial guidelines as to how to manage customer participation to improve new product innovativeness and speed to market.
Article
Manufacturers must accurately understand user needs in order to develop successful products‐but the task is becoming steadily more difficult as user needs change more rapidly, and as firms increasingly seek to serve “markets of one.” User toolkits for innovation allow manufacturers to actually abandon their attempts to understand user needs in detail in favor of transferring need‐related aspects of product and service development to users along with an appropriate toolkit. User toolkits for innovation are specific to given product or service type and to a specified production system. Within those general constraints, they give users real freedom to innovate, allowing them to develop their custom product via iterative trial‐and‐error. That is, users can create a preliminary design, simulate or prototype it, evaluate its functioning in their own use environment, and then iteratively improve it until satisfied. As the concept is evolving, toolkits guide the user to insure that the completed design can be produced on the intended production system without change. Pioneering applications in areas ranging from the development of custom integrated circuits to the development of custom foods show that user toolkits for innovation can be much more effective than traditional, manufacturer‐based development methods.
Article
New procedures are developed and illustrated for the analysis of experimental data with particular emphasis on MANOVA and MANCOVA designs. The authors begin with one-way designs, including overall tests of significance, step-down analyses, and the use of latent variables. Next they describe a general test of homogeneity and consider a procedure that is applicable even under conditions of heterogeneity. Two-way designs then are derived as special cases of the more general n-way case. Finally, advantages and disadvantages of the new methods are considered.
Article
Thirty male Wistar rats, which were previously trained in a Skinner box with left and right lever press, were administered one of three conditions: escapable, yoked inescapable, and no shocks. Twenty-four hours after the treatment, the rats were tested in a Skinner box on the appetitive left-right single alternation discrimination task between two levers. Results showed that the rats pretreated with inescapable shock responded significantly less during an initial stage of the task than the subjects with escapable shock and the no shock controls; motivational deficit was found in the inescapable group. In a later stage, however, the rate of correct response in the inescapable group was significantly lower than those in the other groups despite no significant difference in the number of responses was found among the groups. The results indicates that exposure to uncontrollability produced associative deficits; associative retardation is the main factor of the effects of uncontrollable shock. The generality of associative factors in the learned helplessness effects is discussed in relation to other studies which employed different types of learning task.
Article
Marketing activities nowadays frequently involve personalizing product offers to consumers' individually-measured preferences. Because preferences are often ill defined, responses to customized offers may depend on how easy it is for consumers to identify the preferences they stated in the measurement task. A series of experiments shows that the likelihood of choosing a personalized recommendation that matches measured preferences most closely is greater with measurement tasks that allow consumers to identify their stated preferences more easily (i.e., transparent tasks). However, this difference in choice likelihood due to task transparency is only observed for novices (vs. experts), and making the identification of stated preferences more difficult eliminates the effect by decreasing the choice likelihood following more (vs. less) transparent tasks. Lastly, we identify consumers' understanding of their own preferences as the mechanism underlying the task transparency effect. Our findings provide evidence that individuals must be able to "see through" or understand the construction of their preferences in order to maximize utility.
Article
According to uniqueness theory (Snyder & Fromkin, 1980), persons are motivated to maintain a sense of specialness as they define themselves on various important self-related dimensions relative to others. The need for uniqueness may vary across differing situations and persons; as such, a high need for uniqueness may be related to (a) forces in a given situation that promote an extreme sense of high similarity and (b) dispositional factors that influence the high need for uniqueness across a variety of situations. Because commodities are an important source for defining one's sense of self in Western culture, it is reasoned that scarce products provide a vehicle for establishing one's specialness when the need for uniqueness is activated. In support of this contention, studies in which product scarcity (low vs. high) is crossed with need for uniqueness (low vs. high) have typically produced an interaction such that the high-need for uniqueness persons are especially attracted to scarce products (Lynn, 1991). Factors that should further amplify this predicted interaction are explored, along with the implications of this interaction for American society, including a possible cycle in which the consumer may be caught in the continued search for new and special products. The need for uniqueness explanation for the valuation of scarce commodities is compared with other theoretical explanations.
Article
Commentators offer different perspectives on and reactions to the target article's [Simonson, I. (2008). Will I like a “medium” pillow: Another look at constructed and inherent preferences. Journal of Consumer Psychology] reassessment of research and findings used to support the conclusion that preferences are inherently constructive and of the inherent preference concept. Focusing on the latter, this reply elaborates on and develops the notion of inherent preferences. Even before tasting a licorice candy or chili peppers for the first time, trying out the Nintendo Wii, and so on, the degree of dis/like for such objects is assumed to be largely determined, though such dispositions might be masked by context and other forces of construction. Dormant inherent preferences are not un/conscious and are not implicit or explicit, stored attitudes. They are likely to evolve while still dormant, due to changes in preference components that determine the overall disposition to like the composite object. I conclude with a discussion of the falsifiability and the study of inherent preferences.
Article
Do not be seduced by the allure of mass customization. Carefully assess the technology and the market demand before committing your company to such a strategy.
Article
Manufacturers must accurately understand user needs in order to develop successful products–but the task is becoming steadily more difficult as user needs change more rapidly, and as firms increasingly seek to serve “markets of one.” User toolkits for innovation allow manufacturers to actually abandon their attempts to understand user needs in detail in favor of transferring need-related aspects of product and service development to users along with an appropriate toolkit.User toolkits for innovation are specific to given product or service type and to a specified production system. Within those general constraints, they give users real freedom to innovate, allowing them to develop their custom product via iterative trial-and-error. That is, users can create a preliminary design, simulate or prototype it, evaluate its functioning in their own use environment, and then iteratively improve it until satisfied. As the concept is evolving, toolkits guide the user to insure that the completed design can be produced on the intended production system without change.Pioneering applications in areas ranging from the development of custom integrated circuits to the development of custom foods show that user toolkits for innovation can be much more effective than traditional, manufacturer-based development methods.
Article
We propose that consumer preferences are often systematically influenced by preference fluency, i.e., the subjective feeling that forming a preference is easy or difficult. In five studies, we manipulated the fluency of preference formation by presenting descriptions in an easy or difficult to read font (Studies 1 and 2) or by asking participants to think of few vs. many reasons for their choice (Studies 3 to 5). As predicted, subjective experiences of difficulty increased choice deferral (Studies 1 to 3) and the selection of a compromise option (Studies 4 and 5), unless consumers were induced to attribute the experience to an unrelated cause. Unlike studies of decision conflict, these effects were obtained without changing the attributes of the alternatives or the composition of the choice sets. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the results. Understanding the factors that determine which options consumers choose and whether they make rather than defer purchase decisions is critical for the development of marketing strategies. A major contribution of behavioral decision research has been to establish the notion of uncertain preferences, the idea that consumer preferences are not well defined but rather constructed in the process of making a choice. This constructive viewpoint suggests that different tasks and
Article
Abstract In this conceptual paper, we propose that the next stage of evolution of mass customization is customerization– a buyer-centric company,strategy that combines mass customization with customized marketing. Spurred by the growth of Internet and related technologies, many leading companies (e.g., Dell) are beginning to deploy customerization on a large scale. In this paper we define customerization,and describe how it is different from the related strategies of mass customization, personalization,and one-to-one marketing. We also describe the opportunities and challenges companies,face in deploying a customerization strategy, and the potential benefits that they might realize. ,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,
Article
This article is concerned with measures of fit of a model. Two types of error involved in fitting a model are considered. The first is error of approximation which involves the fit of the model, with optimally chosen but unknown parameter values, to the population covariance matrix. The second is overall error which involves the fit of the model, with parameter values estimated from the sample, to the population covariance matrix. Measures of the two types of error are proposed and point and interval estimates of the measures are suggested. These measures take the number of parameters in the model into account in order to avoid penalizing parsimonious models. Practical difficulties associated with the usual tests of exact fit or a model are discussed and a test of “close fit” of a model is suggested.
Article
The statistical tests used in the analysis of structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error are examined. A drawback of the commonly applied chi square test, in addition to the known problems related to sample size and power, is that it may indicate an increasing correspondence between the hypothesized model and the observed data as both the measurement properties and the relationship between constructs decline. Further, and contrary to common assertion, the risk of making a Type II error can be substantial even when the sample size is large. Moreover, the present testing methods are unable to assess a model's explanatory power. To overcome these problems, the authors develop and apply a testing system based on measures of shared variance within the structural model, measurement model, and overall model.
Article
A critical element in the evolution of a fundamental body of knowledge in marketing, as well as for improved marketing practice, is the development of better measures of the variables with which marketers work. In this article an approach is outlined by which this goal can be achieved and portions of the approach are illustrated in terms of a job satisfaction measure.
Article
This paper defines hedonic consumption as those facets of consumer behavior that relate to the multisensory, fantasy and emotive aspects of product usage experience. After delineating these concepts, their theoretical antecedents are traced, followed by a discussion of differences between the traditional and hedonic views, methodological implications of the latter approach, and behavioral propositions in four substantive areas relevant to hedonic consumption-mental constructs, product classes, product usage and individual differences. Conclusions concern the usefulness of the hedonic perspective in supplementing and extending marketing research on consumer behavior.
Article
The authors propose that consumer choices are often systematically influenced by preference fluency (i.e., the subjective feeling that forming a preference for a specific option is easy or difficult). Four studies manipulate the fluency of preference formation by presenting descriptions in an easy- or difficult-to- read font (Study 1) or by asking participants to think of few versus many reasons for their choice (Studies 2-4). As the authors predict, subjective experiences of difficulty increase choice deferral (Studies 1 and 2) and the selection of a compromise option (Studies 3 and 4), unless consumers are induced to attribute the experience to an unrelated cause. Unlike studies of decision conflict, these effects are obtained without changing the attributes of the alternatives, the composition of the choice sets, or the reference points. The authors discuss the,theoretical and practical implications of the results.
Article
Traditionally, executives have assumed that trade-offs – high quality or low cost, efficiency or customization – are inevitable. In defining their businesses, the choice has always been seen in terms of mass production of inexpensive, commodity-like products or services (the assembly line) on the one hand, and on the other hand, premium-priced, individually-tailored, highly differentiated offerings (the “job shop”). But the notion that such trade-offs and choices are permanent, inevitable business realities is fading as a new management paradigm – mass customization – emerges. Mass customization consists of cutting-edge management methods and tools that give companies the ability to produce customized, affordable, high-quality goods and services, but with the shorter cycle times and lower costs historically associated with mass production and standardization. Proposes that much of the power of mass customization, like total quality management before it, lies in its visionary and strategic implications. Also delineates an exploratory diagnostic framework to help companies assess the potential for mass customization as an explicit strategy in their industries. The key dimensions of this framework are customer sensitivity, process amenability, competitive environment, and organizational readiness.
Article
Introduction, 99. — I. Some general features of rational choice, 100.— II. The essential simplifications, 103. — III. Existence and uniqueness of solutions, 111. — IV. Further comments on dynamics, 113. — V. Conclusion, 114. — Appendix, 115.