The International Advertising of Italian Food Products: An Empirical Study of the Made in Italy Effects on English-Speaking Consumers

openQuesta tesi esplora l'impatto del fenomeno "Made in Italy" sui consumatori di lingua inglese, principalmente nel Regno Unito e negli Stati Uniti. Con un'enfasi sull'importanza dei fattori culturali e personali, del Country-of-Origin effect e della lingua, lo studio mira a scoprire come i prodotti italiani vengano pubblicizzati all'estero per evocare un senso di lusso, eleganza, tradizione e artigianato. Attraverso un sondaggio empirico distribuito tra giugno e luglio 2023, in cui vengono utilizzate una pubblicità originale del marchio Gorgonzola DOP in inglese e una creata ad hoc in inglese e italiano, la ricerca esamina le percezioni dei consumatori e le connessioni emotive con l'etichetta "Made in Italy". Lo studio dimostra come la lingua italiana venga considerata dai consumatori un marcatore del Country-of-Origin effect, e come essa influenzi in positivo la percezione del prodotto pubblicizzato e il comportamento del consumatore. Si prevede che i risultati contribuiranno alla conoscenza del comportamento dei consumatori e del marketing internazionale, fornendo preziosi spunti alle aziende per sfruttare l'attrattiva dei prodotti italiani nei mercati di lingua inglese. Nel complesso, lo studio mira a approfondire la comprensione del marketing interculturale e del suo impatto sulle tendenze globali dei consumatori.This thesis explores the impact of the "Made in Italy" phenomenon on English-speaking consumers, primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States. With an emphasis on the importance of cultural and personal factors, the Country-of-Origin effect, and language, the study aims to uncover how Italian products are advertised abroad to evoke a sense of luxury, elegance, tradition, and craftsmanship. Through an empirical survey distributed between June and July 2023, featuring both an original advertisement for Gorgonzola DOP in English and a specially created one in English and Italian, the research examines consumers' perceptions and emotional connections with the "Made in Italy" label. The study demonstrates how the Italian language is considered by consumers as a marker of the Country-of-Origin effect and how it positively influences the perception of the advertised product and consumer behavior. It is expected that the results will contribute to the understanding of consumer behavior and international marketing, providing valuable insights for companies looking to leverage the appeal of Italian products in English-speaking markets. Overall, the study aims to deepen the understanding of intercultural marketing and its impact on global consumer trends

Characterizing and Detecting Unrevealed Elements of Network Systems

This dissertation addresses the problem of discovering and characterizing unknown elements in network systems. Klir (1985) provides a general definition of a system as “... a set of some things and a relation among the things (p. 4). A system, where the `things\u27, i.e. nodes, are related through links is a network system (Klir, 1985). The nodes can represent a range of entities such as machines or people (Pearl, 2001; Wasserman & Faust, 1994). Likewise, links can represent abstract relationships such as causal influence or more visible ties such as roads (Pearl, 1988, pp. 50-51; Wasserman & Faust, 1994; Winston, 1994, p. 394). It is not uncommon to have incomplete knowledge of network systems due to either passive circumstances, e.g. limited resources to observe a network, active circumstances, e.g. intentional acts of concealment, or some combination of active and passive influences (McCormick & Owen, 2000, p. 175; National Research Council, 2005, pp. 7, 11). This research provides statistical and graph theoretic approaches for such situations, including those in which nodes are causally related (Geiger & Pearl, 1990, pp. 3, 10; Glymour, Scheines, Spirtes, & Kelly, 1987, pp. 75-86, 178183; Murphy, 1998; Verma & Pearl, 1991, pp. 257, 260, 264-265). A related aspect of this research is accuracy assessment. It is possible an analyst could fail to detect a network element, or be aware of network elements, but incorrectly conclude the associated network system structure (Borgatti, Carley, & Krackhardt, 2006). The possibilities require assessment of the accuracy of the observed and conjectured network systems, and this research provides a means to do so (Cavallo & Klir, 1979, p. 143; Kelly, 1957, p. 968)

Local Probability Distributions in Bayesian Networks: Knowledge Elicitation and Inference

Bayesian networks (BNs) have proven to be a modeling framework capable of capturing uncertain knowledge and have been applied successfully in many domains for over 25 years. The strength of Bayesian networks lies in the graceful combination of probability theory and a graphical structure representing probabilistic dependencies among domain variables in a compact manner that is intuitive for humans. One major challenge related to building practical BN models is specification of conditional probability distributions. The number of probability distributions in a conditional probability table for a given variable is exponential in its number of parent nodes, so that defining them becomes problematic or even impossible from a practical standpoint. The objective of this dissertation is to develop a better understanding of models for compact representations of local probability distributions. The hypothesis is that such models should allow for building larger models more efficiently and lead to a wider range of BN applications

Entrepreneurship at Country Level : Economic and Non-Economic Determinants

This book investigates the rate of occupational entrepreneurship at country level, either measured by the number of business owners as a percentage of the labor force, or by some metric of the dynamics of entrepreneurship such as 'nascent entrepreneurship' and new business start-ups. Historical case studies set the stage for a multidisciplinary framework for explaining the rate of entrepreneurship. Based upon several strands of literature, this framework is built around an occupational choice model while linking the individual, the firm and the aggregate level. Technological, economic, demographic, cultural and institutional factors act as entrepreneurial framework conditions. In addition, feedback mechanisms are elaborated. Empirical investigations carried out against the background of this framework show that dissatisfaction, uncertainty avoidance and social security entitlements affect the rate of entrepreneurship. In addition, either a negative or a U-shaped influence of the level of economic development is found, while dummy variables for recent decades suggest a positive impact of global trends such as the ICT revolution, deregulation and the onset of a 'network economy'.

AGM 25 years: twenty-five years of research in belief change

The 1985 paper by Carlos Alchourrón (1931–1996), Peter Gärdenfors, and David Makinson (AGM), “On the Logic of Theory Change: Partial Meet Contraction and Revision Functions” was the starting-point of a large and rapidly growing literature that employs formal models in the investigation of changes in belief states and databases. In this review, the first twenty five years of this development are summarized. The topics covered include equivalent characterizations of AGM operations, extended representations of the belief states, change operators not included in the original framework, iterated change, applications of the model, its connections with other formal frameworks, computatibility of AGM operations, and criticism of the model.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio