Please, talk about it! When hotel popularity boosts preferences

Many consumers post on-line reviews, affecting the average evaluation of products and services. Yet, little is known about the importance of the number of reviews for consumer decision making. We conducted an on-line experiment (n= 168) to assess the joint impact of the average evaluation, a measure of quality, and the number of reviews, a measure of popularity, on hotel preference. The results show that consumers' preference increases with the number of reviews, independently of the average evaluation being high or low. This is not what one would expect from an informational point of view, and review websites fail to take this pattern into account. This novel result is mediated by demographics: young people, and in particular young males, are less affected by popularity, relying more on quality. We suggest the adoption of appropriate ranking mechanisms to fit consumer preferences. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd

The Virtual Customer

Communication and information technologies are adding new capabilities for rapid and inexpensive customer input to all stages of the product development (PD) process. In this article we review six web-based methods of customer input as examples of the improved Internet capabilities of communication, conceptualization, and computation. For each method we give examples of user-interfaces, initial applications, and validity tests. We critique the applicability of the methods for use in the various stages of PD and discuss how they complement existing methods. For example, during the fuzzy front end of PD the information pump enables customers to interact with each other in a web-based game that provides incentives for truth-telling and thinking hard, thus providing new ways for customers to verbalize the product features that are important to them. Fast polyhedral adaptive conjoint estimation enables PD teams to screen larger numbers of product features inexpensively to identify and measure the importance of the most promising features for further development. Meanwhile, interactive web-based conjoint analysis interfaces are moving this proven set of methods to the web while exploiting new capabilities to present products, features, product use, and marketing elements in streaming multimedia representations. User design exploits the interactivity of the web to enable users to design their own virtual products thus enabling the PD team to understand complex feature interactions and enabling customers to learn their own preferences for new products. These methods can be valuable for identifying opportunities, improving the design and engineering of products, and testing ideas and concepts much earlier in the process when less time and money is at risk. As products move toward pretesting and testing, virtual concept testing on the web enables PD teams to test concepts without actually building the product. Further, by combining virtual concepts and the ability of customers to interact with one another in a stock-market-like game, securities trading of concepts provides a novel way to identify winning concepts. Prototypes of all six methods are available and have been tested with real products and real customers. These tests demonstrate reliability for web-based conjoint analysis, polyhedral methods, virtual concept testing, and stock-market-like trading; external validity for web-based conjoint analysis and polyhedral methods; and consistency for web-based conjoint analysis vs. user design. We report on these tests, commercial applications, and other evaluations.Center for Innovation in Product Development and the MIT Center for eBusines

Engaging the public in healthcare decision-making: quantifying preferences for healthcare through citizens' juries

Introduction The optimal approach to engage the public in healthcare decision-making is unclear. Approaches range from deliberative citizens’ juries to large population surveys using discrete choice experiments. This study promotes public engagement and quantifies preferences in two key areas of relevance to the industry partners to identify which approach is most informative for informing healthcare policy. Methods and analysis The key areas identified are optimising appropriate use of emergency care and prioritising patients for bariatric surgery. Three citizens’ juries will be undertaken—two in Queensland to address each key issue and one in Adelaide to repeat the bariatric surgery deliberations with a different sample. Jurors will be given a choice experiment before the jury, immediately following the jury and at approximately 1 month following the jury. Control groups for each jury will be given the choice experiment at the same time points to test for convergence. Samples of healthcare decision-makers will be given the choice experiment as will two large samples of the population. Jury and control group participants will be recruited from the Queensland electoral roll and newspaper advertisements in Adelaide. Population samples will be recruited from a large research panel. Jury processes will be analysed qualitatively and choice experiments will be analysed using multinomial logit models and its more generalised forms. Comparisons between preferences across jurors predeliberation and postdeliberation, control participants, healthcare decision-makers and the general public will be undertaken for each key issue

Understanding best practices in control engineering education using the concept of TPACK

This study aimed to design an integrated pedagogical approach to advance introductory Process Control Engineering Education through the application of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, and evaluating its impact on student learning. The research is initially being undertaken at Nottingham Trent University, UK but we will next adapt it to a case study in Libya. This paper aims to strengthen the teaching of introductory Process Control by using appropriate approach es in universities to improve the learning outcomes for students. From this work a new schematic for teaching Process Control ha s be en developed and, moreover, a thoughtful best practice in introducing Process Control in engineering education can be developed

A Pilot Study of Technology Adoption: an Analysis of Consumers' Preference on Future Online Grocery Service

. The huge number of smartphone users in Indonesia is the main reason that most of new online retailers choose to develop mobile application-market based grocery. However, online grocery goes through sluggish rate of development due to minimum level on adoption of technology by consumers. The most barriers in adopting this technology are difficulties in transaction, late deliveries, incomplete information, and difficulties with site navigation and complex procedure also security in money transaction. Through literature review, this study attempts to go further to elaborate mobile application online grocery features that can be applied to promote an increasing online grocery service adoption. Based on the finding, the best combination features which more likely support customers to perceived convenience in using online grocery service is mobile application that contain nutritional quality information, allows customers to search the product by its attribute, provide order status tracker that allows customers to trace their groceries and provide cash on delivery service as payment method

Marketing Strategy Telkom Internet Protocol Televison (IPTV) To Increase Subscribers Number for Area Operation Bandung

Business transformation transfigured fromvoice communication to multimedia (Voice, Data andVideo) is not inevitable in the current telecommunicationsindustry. Telkom develops IPTV (Internet ProtocolTelevision) as an effort to revitalize the Fixed Wirelinebusiness in the middle of the changing landscape of thetelecommunications industry. This IPTV service utilizesthe existing network of fixed wire telephone network(Fixed Wireline). On this technology, one cable can be usedfor various data transmission services, including voice,data and video. Since the commercialization on the early2012, sales performance has decline 37% on the fistquarter and continue to decline in the next month.Referring to the business issue and challenges of the futuretelecommunications business competition, Telkom seeks todevelop a New Wave Telkom Business through IPTVService in an effort to make it as a new revenue generatorreplacing the Fixed Wireline business that has entered thestage of maturity.Business issue exploration aim to identify strengths,weaknesses, opportunities and challenges that occur inTelkom IPTV services in Bandung city, so that the root ofthe problem can be identified. The steps taken in theprocess are collecting secondary data analysis, analyzingbusiness issue exploratory, market research to potentialcustomers, proposing marketing strategy communicationand implementation of IPTV services by Telkom. Based onthe analysis from root of the problem, Telkom IPTVservice marketing activities which are conducted isconsidered incomprehensive and is not on target, thereforeit is necessary to design a marketing strategy that cananswer the root of the problems which are occurred.Proposed business solution includes the application of theMarketing Mix which emphizes on Integrated MarketingCommunication. With the implementation of businesssolutions, such as increasing awareness to target market,marketing communication emphasize on servicedifferentiation, Utilization of Existing Customer Base andSales Bundling Concept can solve existing businessproblems.Keywords: IPTV, Market Penetration, Integrated MarketingCommunication

Real estate stock selection and attribute preferences

The majority of studies that explore property portfolio construction and management strategies utilise highly aggregated ex-post data, but stock selection is known to be a significant determinant of portfolio performance. Thus, here we look at stock selection, focusing on the choices faced by investors, necessitating the collection and analysis of primary data, carried out utilising conjoint analysis. This represents a new step in property research, with the data collection undertaken using a simulation exercise. This enables fund managers to make hypothetical purchase decisions, viewing properties comprising a realistic bundle of attributes and making complex contemporaneous trade-offs between attributes, subject to their stated market and economic forecasts and sector specialism. In total 51 fund managers were surveyed, producing 918 purchase decisions for analysis, with additional data collected regarding fund and personal characteristics. The results reveal that ‘fixed’ property characteristics (location and obsolescence) are dominant in the decision-making process, over and above ‘manageable’ tenant and lease characteristics which can be explicitly included within models of probabilities of income variation. This reveals investors are making ex-ante risk judgements and are considering post acquisition risk management strategies. The study also reveals that behavioural factors affect acquisition decisions

Investigating the Value of Privacy in Online Social Networks: Conjoint Analysis

Popularity of Online Social Networks has been recently overshadowed by the privacy problems they pose. Users are getting increasingly vigilant concerning information they disclose and are strongly opposing the use of their information for commercial purposes. Nevertheless, as long as the network is offered to users for free, providers have little choice but to generate revenue through personalized advertising to remain financially viable. Our study empirically investigates the ways out of this deadlock. Using conjoint analysis we find that privacy is indeed important for users. We identify three groups of users with different utility patterns: Unconcerned Socializers, Control-conscious Socializers and Privacy-concerned. Our results provide relevant insights into how network providers can capitalize on different user preferences by specifically addressing the needs of distinct groups in the form of various premium accounts. Overall, our study is the first attempt to assess the value of privacy in monetary terms in this context