Measuring the influence of customer-based store brand equity in the purchase intention

[EN] Store brands account for and important market share in the Spain and a further increase in expected in the next years due to the downturn. However, there is lack of research on store brand customer-based Brand Equity. This study attempts to propose an integrated model of Brand Equity in store or retailer brands, based on Aaker s well-known conceptual model. We propose a consumer-based model, including the main sources or dimensions of Brand Equity and considering the intention to purchase as a consequence. Based on a sample of 362 consumers and 5 store brands, structural equation modeling is used to test research hypotheses. The results obtained reveal that store brand awareness, loyalty along with store brand perceived quality have a significant influence on consumers intention to purchase store brands. Our study suggests that marketers and marketing managers from retailing companies should carefully consider the Brand Equity components when designing their brand strategies, and develop marketing activities in order to enhance their brands awareness.

Medición del valor de marca desde un enfoque formativo

[ES] Las empresas necesitan medir el valor de sus marcas para poder tomar las mejores decisiones tácticas y estratégicas relativas a estos activos intangibles. Es por ello que este trabajo desarrolla un instrumento de medida del valor de marca utilizando un enfoque formativo. A diferencia de investigaciones anteriores, este estudio propone un modelo formativo de orden superior y valida empíricamente dicha conceptualización en dos países, España y el Reino Unido.

Shedding light on TQM: some research findings

Over the last decad , the paradigm of Total Quality Management (TQM) has been successfully forged in our business world. TQM may be defined as something that is both complex and ambiguous; nevertheless, some key elements or principles can be mentioned which are common to all of them: customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, commitment and leadership on the part of top management, involvement and support on the part of employees, teamwork, measurement via indicators and feedback. There are, in short, two main reasons for it having spread so widely: on the one hand, the successful diffusion of ISO 9000 standards for the implementation and certification of quality management systems, standards that have been associated to the TQM paradigm, and, on the other, the also successful diffusion of self evaluation models such as the EFQM promoted by the European Foundation for Quality Management and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the USA, promoted by the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. However, the quality movement is not without its problems as far as its mid and long term development is concerned. In this book some research findings related to these issues are presented.

Measurement of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air by fluorescence spectroscopic techniques

250 p. + anexos

Virtual Sensors for On-line Wheel Wear and Part Roughness Measurement in the Grinding Process

Grinding is an advanced machining process for the manufacturing of valuable complex and accurate parts for high added value sectors such as aerospace, wind generation, etc. Due to the extremely severe conditions inside grinding machines, critical process variables such as part surface finish or grinding wheel wear cannot be easily and cheaply measured on-line. In this paper a virtual sensor for on-line monitoring of those variables is presented. The sensor is based on the modelling ability of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) for stochastic and non-linear processes such as grinding; the selected architecture is the Layer-Recurrent neural network. The sensor makes use of the relation between the variables to be measured and power consumption in the wheel spindle, which can be easily measured. A sensor calibration methodology is presented, and the levels of error that can be expected are discussed. Validation of the new sensor is carried out by comparing the sensor's results with actual measurements carried out in an industrial grinding machine. Results show excellent estimation performance for both wheel wear and surface roughness. In the case of wheel wear, the absolute error is within the range of microns (average value 32 mu m). In the case of surface finish, the absolute error is well below R-a 1 mu m (average value 0.32 mu m). The present approach can be easily generalized to other grinding operations.