Consumer Perceptions of Tesco Own Brands: the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom

Relatively little is known about the consumer perceptions of own brands in the newly emerging markets of central and eastern Europe. This paper attempts to fill a gap in knowledge by investigating various aspects of consumer perceptions of Tesco own brands in the Czech Republic. The key data for this research was collected by structured questionnaires from Tesco supermarket customers in the Czech Republic and the UK. Non probability quota sampling was used and the sample was stratified according to gender, age and income. The results of the research indicate that the general view of Tesco own brands is slightly less positive among Czech than British customers. However, significant differences emerge when these are examined in terms of income. Increases in income lead to a decrease in the favourability with which own brands are viewed in the Czech Republic - the opposite to the position in the UK The age of consumers was also found to be significant, although there is not a linear trend. No strong correlation was found to exist between gender and any of the characteristics under investigation. The sample was limited in size (n = 100 in each country). In depth interviewing would be necessary to assess consumer attitudes further. The results of this research may help Tesco in relation to its general expansion in central and eastern Europe and its brand building in particular. The originality of the paper relates to its study of consumer behaviour in one of the emerging markets of central and eastern Europe

Czech wine consumers: maturing with age?

The purpose of this study is to identify the most important motivations for drinking wine and the factors influencing wine purchase in the Czech Republic and to ascertain if there are significant differences between genders and age groups. An online survey was conducted, using e-mail and social networks, of wine consumers in one of the 14 regions of the Czech Republic. This resulted in a sample of n=237. Spearman’s correlation test was conducted to find correlations between wine consumption and age and the chi-square test for differences between genders. Four motivations were found to be significantly correlated with age – to be sociable, to be respected, because wine is considered healthy and because it belongs with a nice meal, as well as seven factors affecting wine purchase – label, provenance, brand/producer, vintage, design of the bottle, recommendations of salesperson and a preference for the lowest priced wines. As the majority of respondents came from one of the 14 Czech regions, generalizations for the whole Czech Republic cannot be made. It is recommended that future work should include more complex segmentation. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the Czech wine market, where very little research has been conducted so far, as well as by exploring the influence of age on the motivation for wine consumption

Transition Economies in the Middle East: the Syrian Experience

There have been no in depth studies of post Socialist transition in the Middle East. Syria’s experience is therefore a useful one to explore given its historically important role in the region. The Socialist economic policy followed in Syria from 1963 to the early 1990s is outlined. The Syrian economic transition was in two phases: an incremental liberalization phase and a transition to Social Market Economy phase. During both phases, Syrian policy makers showed a preference for a gradualist approach to economic transition, rather than a big-bang approach. This was facilitated by oil revenues and subsidies from the Gulf states. The Syrian experience therefore has its own distinct characteristics, as well as elements in common with the transitions in other post Socialist economies

Political risk assessment in the Czech Republic

This paper seeks to conceptualise a new approach to the identification of the factors influencing the adoption of a political risk assessment (PRA) function. The research population will comprise a convenience sample of Czech international firms. The information whether or not a firm has set up a PRA function will be obtained via a questionnaire survey. By making use of firm value maximization and risk aversion and considering the rationale for risk management activities: (i) reducing the expected costs of financial distress; (ii) reducing the risk premiums payable to various partners; (iii) increasing investment possibilities; and (iv) reducing expected tax payments, we develop a number of determinants which be employed in PRA studie

Corruption, Social Trust and Transition: the Case of the Czech Republic

The purpose of this paper is to propose research into corruption and social trust and their effect on businesses in transition economies with special reference to the Czech Republic. The literature review discusses the concepts of corruption and social trust and provides an explanation of how these can be used, in the case of the Czech Republic, when investigating the influence of these two phenomena on businesses operating in this environment. The discussion is augmented by a preliminary analysis based on secondary data obtained from Transparency International, the World Values Survey, the World Bank and the Polity IV project. This suggests that the assumptions derived from the literature review are valid. The paper concludes by proposing a methodology for further research

Photograph - Gardner-Webb College Arch Cartoon

Cartoon of graduates under the Gardner-Webb College Arch.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gardner-webb-buildings-and-grounds-arch/1026/thumbnail.jp

Anchor methods for DIF detection: A comparison of the iterative forward, backward, constant and all-other anchor class

In the analysis of differential item functioning (DIF) using item response theory (IRT), a common metric is necessary to compare item parameters between groups of test-takers. In the Rasch model, the same restriction is placed on the item parameters in each group in order to define a common metric. However, the question how the items in the restriction - termed anchor items - are selected appropriately is still a major challenge. This article proposes a conceptual framework for categorizing anchor methods: The anchor class to describe characteristics of the anchor methods and the anchor selection strategy to guide how the anchor items are determined. Furthermore, a new anchor class termed the iterative forward anchor class is proposed. Several anchor classes are implemented with two different anchor selection strategies (the all-other and the single-anchor selection strategy) and are compared in an extensive simulation study. The results show that the newly proposed anchor class combined with the single-anchor selection strategy is superior in situations where no prior knowledge about the direction of DIF is available. Moreover, it is shown that the proportion of DIF items in the anchor - rather than the fact whether the anchor includes DIF items at all (termed contamination in previous studies) - is crucial for suitable DIF analysis

News clipping - The Anchor Volume 39

News clipping depicting the the O. Max Gardner Buildinghttps://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gardner-webb-buildings-and-grounds-o-max-gardner-building/1004/thumbnail.jp

Design and Evaluation of Standard Telerobotic Control Software

This thesis represents the first implementation of a proposed Air Force standard telerobotic control architecture. This architecture was developed by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology under contract to the Air Force Materiel Command Robotics and Automation Center of Excellence (RACE) as the Unified Telerobotics Architecture Project (UTAP). The AFIT Robotics and Automation Applications Group (RAAG) Lab B facility computational structure was redesigned to be compliant with the UTAP architecture. This thesis shows that the UTAP specification to be implementable. However, if the underlying operating system does not support generic message passing, an interface layer must be implemented to access operating system functions. The UTAP compliant controller implemented the robot servo control, object knowledge base, and user interface components of the specification. The controller performed adequately although there was degradation in the performance as evidenced by increased error during trajectories. We believe this error can be reduced by re-tuning the controller gains. Further study of the UTAP specification is recommended: additional functions such as external sensor readings should be added; implementation of the specification on different operating systems and robot platforms will prove the transportability of the specification