Environmental factors and product adaptation in Middle Eastern markets : the experience of Australian companies

This paper examines the impact that environmental factors have on the decision of Australian companies to adapt products for Middle Eastern markets. It  concludes that of all product aspects, labeling requires the greatest amount of adaptation and that socio-cultural factors have the greatest influence on overall product adaptation. Furthermore, environmental factors impact on product   adaptation in different ways, reflected in the adaptation of different aspects of the overall product.

Using the juster scale to predict adoption of an innovative product

The Juster scale - a simple, self-reported measure of purchase probability, has been shown to be effective in predicting consumers' future purchasing behaviours. Purchase probability scales have often been shown to be better predictors of future behaviour than purchase intentions measures, the more widely used method. The vast majority of studies though have used the scale to predict the purchase of products or services the consumer is already familiar with. This research looks at how accurately the Juster scale can predict early adoption of an innovative new product prior to its’ launch. In a longitudinal study of market behaviour, these predictions are compared to actual adoption rates. The results show that there is only a moderate level of correlation between purchase probability scores and actual adoption behaviour, in both the short and long term, but they are better than intention measures. The main difficulty in predicting adoption behaviour seems to stem from consumers inability to foresee intervening situational factors, rather than inaccuracies in the probability scale itself.

The application of a reinforcement learning agent to a multi-product manufacturing facility

An intelligent agent-based scheduling system, consisting of a reinforcement learning agent and a simulation model has been developed and tested on a classic scheduling problem. The production facility studied is a multiproduct serial line subject to stochastic failure. The agent goal is to minimise total production costs, through selection of job sequence and batch size. To explore state space the agent used reinforcement learning. By applying an independent inventory control policy for each product, the agent successfully identified optimal operating policies for a real production facility.

Redesign of a multimedia course to reflect process not product

Universities are moving towards an environment of online teaching and learning. This is impacting the revision of degree programmes. A multimedia design course was revised to reflect and improve the design process inherent within multimedia production. The course was analyzed and revised using a critical reflection process. The outcome of the evaluation indicated that students were more satisfied but they had not grasped some of the fundamental concepts of design, and further revision of the course was needed for delivering materials and teaching in an online environment. The recommendation from the teaching team was to explore the range of research methods to formally revise the course again for future improvements to teaching practice and effective learning.

From product centricism to systems-wide education design: making corporate technology systems work for the learning organisation

Deakin University has established a major integrated corporate technology infrastructure in the last two years to enhance and bring together its distance education and on-campus education. This environment has been called Deakin Online. With Deakin Online rapidly developing, efforts are beginning to focus more fundamentally on how the potentials of the environment can be realised to create enduring teaching and learning value. This search must be understood in the context of the University’s commitment to the values of relevance, responsiveness and innovation. The question is: how can these values be realised in the digitally-based evolving educational enterprise using the new corporate technologies and new concepts of organisational structure and function? We argue for the transforming role of the academic teacher and new forms of open academic collegiality as being critical to realise strategic and enduring educational value. Moreover, change in role and process needs to be grounded in more systemic organisation and program-wide approaches to designing and working within the new contemporary learning environments. We believe the shift from the dangers of product centricism to system-wide education design modelling situating e-learning within broader curricular and pedagogical concerns represents the best strategy to create enduring educational benefits for all stakeholder groups (notably academic teachers and their learners) while preserving teachers’ sense of agency in the changing learning environments of higher education.

An analysis of the involvement-commitment relationship across product categories

An involvement-commitment-loyalty model is proposed and tested with AMOS. The results for fast-moving-consumer-goods (fmcg) are consistent with the theory. Ego involvement influences purchase involvement, which influences brand commitment, which influences customer loyalty. The results for the more ego-involved service of hair stylists, however, showed a different result. Purchase loyalty did not mediate the relationship between ego involvement and brand commitment, but instead ego involvement had a direct relationship with brand commitment.

Applying a reconfigurable multi-agent scheduler to product distribution

More intelligent scheduling methods are required for manufacturing scheduling due to the move to more agile systems. Multi-agent methods are one such approach. This paper describes the application of a reconfigurable multi-agent scheduler to the problem of allocating orders to warehouses in a distribution supply chain. This multi-agent system was originally developed for allocation of orders to machines in a highly reconfigurable manufacturing system and this work was aimed at investigating the ease of applying this same scheduler to other problems. It was found that this new application was readily achieved because of the modular structure of the scheduler. This paper shows how the application to the new problem was achieved.

New product development process in the Australian grocery market

This paper examines the new product development processes in the Australian grocery market and provides a new product development process that can be applied to large, medium and small grocery organisations. The research findings highlight the importance of senior management support during the new product development process. This support is a key factor in the performance of the new product development activity and the proposed new product development process for Australian grocery organisations emphasises senior management's role as a key element in the new product development process.

Consumer choice, information product quality, and market implications

The paper concerns with the peculiarities of consumer choice in information product markets. This is a multidisciplinary study based on both information system research and microeconomic theory. An extension is introduced to the conventional general theory of consumer choice for explicitly taking into account the impact of information product quality on consumer behaviour. Multiple quality characteristics, considered against the price of product, are an essential reason for consumer choice of high tech product in general and information product in particular. We assume that consumers are able to aggregate their preferences of multiple product characteristics into a product preference order. On the supply side, the product quality characteristics incur costs. In the case of information product, those costs are the costs of the first copy, and marginal costs are near zero. All of the above constitute the distinctive characteristics of the competitive mechanism in the digital economy and in information product markets. A model, based on the game theory is used to consider two special cases. The first one deals with monopolistic competition for a share of the market with a limited number of customers. Conditions are derived for IT firm survival. The second one considers conditions at which a monopoly is able to successfully introduce a new version if its information product.

The composition of brand knowledge across product categories

This research reported in this paper tested the composition of the brand knowledge construct across three product categories. The brand knowledge construct was tested for a fast-moving consumer good (fmcg), a service, and a durable good. A quasi-experimental method was utilised, with the order of recall manipulated. Respondents undertook a free recall exercise using category cues, and then completed multi-item measures of brand knowledge. This exercise was repeated for each product category. A usable sample of 270 responses was gained. Analysis of the data found that respondents utilised different components of the knowledge construct depending on the product category being recalled. In addition, the order of recall (fmcg or durable first) affected the recall performance for later categories. Recall performance was highest for the durable category, which indicated that respondents may have been delving into different memory stores, and accessing long-term memory for durable good recall. This paper makes a contribution to the field of branding by providing a test of the knowledge structure across three product categories, and indicating the components that contribute to knowledge for each category. These findings have implications for advertising design, and the formation of links to brands in memory by advertisers, for use in later recall episodes.

Growth and product quality of European eel (Anguilla anguilla) as affected by dietary protein and lipid sources

A 12-week feeding trial was undertaken to evaluate the effects of partial replacement of marine raw materials in the diet with soybean meal and beef tallow on growth and product quality of European eel (Anguilla anguilla ). Based on growth, feed efficiency and chemical composition, soybean meal was found to be an unsuitable ingredient for eel diets as a substitute for fishmeal (25% on a protein basis), probably because of the low digestibility of its carbohydrate content. However, beef tallow can be used to replace 50% of fish oil without reduction in growth, provided that digestible carbohydrates are present in the diet. No major effects of protein and lipid sources in the diet were found on fillet chemical composition. Sensory analysis revealed no significant differences between fish fed the control and the experimental diets, with the exception of salty taste which was significantly higher in fish fed combined soybean meal and beef tallow compared with fish fed the control diet.