In the introductory paragraph, the new business climate in Eastern European countries is seen against the background of the different viewpoints that have characterised the evolution of the East/West relationships. The implications of the dramatic changes which have transformed the centrally planned economies and their relationships between the State and society are briefly discussed. The main part of the paper is concerned with the different ways in which Western companies can enter the Eastern European markets and develop their business relations there. The positive and negative aspects of export/import, collaborative agreements (with special reference to joint-ventures) and wholly owned subsidiaries are analyzed. While the old regulations no longer apply to the economic structures, the new mechanisms are not yet fully in place. This causes a series of problems, and creates a series of opportunities. The last section deals with the conduct of Italian firms. The continuity in responding to local needs, the experience gained in dealing with local environments, and the flexibility of business approaches have been instrumental for the increasing share gained by the Italians in the Eastern markets.
The paper is divided in two parts. The first part discusses the demographic, economic and cultural aspects that stand behind the growing importance of elderly people as consumers of goods and services. Elderly people are not a homogeneous lot. The same reasons (demographic, economic and cultural) that explain their relevance in the market place, also account for their heterogeneity as consumers. The way people age is an even more fundamental factor which explains the variability of attitudes and behaviours. The second part of the article describes the research design and the results obtained from a study, mainly of a qualitative nature, carried out on the senior market in The Netherlands. After desk research on trends of the Dutch population, a lifestyle survey was conducted on two groups of citizens: one over 65 and the other between 25 and 40 years of age. The data, grouped under four headings: Activities, Happiness/Satisfaction, Social Skills, and Concern for Time, are presented in their similarities and differences. Special attention is devoted to the issue of Time Perception, assessed in both groups through a Semantic Differential exercise, in which the orientation towards the Past, the Present and the Future was tested. Composite Factor Scores, Distance from the Origin, Inter concept Distances, and Cultural Intensity were quantified, thus permitting an understanding of the subjectsâ feelings towards each of the three temporal dimensions. The difference between the older and the younger group are not very great. Contrary to intuitive thinking, the elderly people are more future - oriented than the younger group. The marketing implications of this, and of the other findings of the research, are briefly discussed in the conclusion, at the end of the paper.
An experimental study on attitudes towards time and on the behavioural implications of such attitudes was conducted on 46 staff members of an Italian bank. The methods used were a Semantic Differential (SD) composed of three stimulus words (the past, the present and the future) and twelve adjectival scales, as well as in depth interviews aiming at providing a character-profile of the subjects. The results indicated that the largest grouping of subjects could be considered past-oriented. The second group fell into the category of future-oriented and the third group was made up by present-oriented individuals. For a minority, time dimensions were blurred and no specific orientation prevailed. Other SD measurements permitted to obtain a more articulate picture of the nature of attitudes toward time.
The paper presents the case of a Dutch theatre facing the problem of revising the range of seat categories, and of setting the ticket prices on the basis of sales records and of consumer demand. Demand was analysed through interviews aiming at finding out consumer perceptions of seats characteristics. "Visibility", "acoustics", "sitting comfort" and "surrounding space" were identified as the main attributes. Their j.n.d.'s were analysed according to Weber-Fechner law. As a result of the study, the number of seat categories was reduced from 9 to 3, and prices were rearranged according to research results and company policy.
The exercise of summing up the content of these three days of work - in which 23 papers were presented, and a great number of contributions were made in the debates - requires a review of the topics discussed, and the injection into them of some personal views, with the positive and negative results that a subjective approach of this kind usually brings about.
This paper deals with people's attitudes toward nations and vacations. Attitudes were detected and measured in terms of the affective meaning of concepts. Such issues are not trivial, since people may evaluate highly (or poorly) a given country, and yet not evaluate highly (or poorly) the idea of spending their vacations in that country. The terms evaluation, potency and activity are to be understood in the specific sense given to them by Osgood et al. in the Semantic Differential (SD) technique. In our case, the SD technique was applied in 1982 to two different, and yet comparable, groups of Italian and Dutch individuals (students between 20 and 25 years of age) with regard to the following nations, and vacations in such nations: Belgium, Holland, West Germany, Italy, Spain, France, USA, USSR.
Here in Amsterdam, were prediction is the main theme, the possibilities and the limits of forecasting have been presented in relation to changes in social values, with specific emphasis on the ways and means in which policy makers can use the range of our techniques. Relevant cases were related to such topics as market planning, future research and scenarios, political preference and consumers' expectations, women's attitudes and role changes, and some counter-marketing in the area of smoking and drinking habits. An innovation in the range of subjects was traffic and transportation, with five papers on specific aspects of the general theme.
This paper deals with the concept of time perception and with specific research carried out to assess and measure some of the problems related to the temporal orientation of a city. Unlike chronological time, which is based on a universal, independent-of-life concept of time, the subjective perception of time is a cultural phenomenon based on the awareness and feelings that different people, groups and communities manifest in relation to the flow and duration of time. The research was conducted in 1977 on a sample of 259 adult citizens of Palermo. The technique adopted was the Semantic Differential, to find out the cognitive meaning of several concepts, including "the past", "the present" and "the future". Measurements of the direction of judgements, their intensity and their distances from other concepts provided a sufficiently broad framework for an analytical approach to the problems.
As stated in the programme, the aim of this Seminar was to illustrate and discuss recent trends and experiences in segmentation and taxonomic techniques.
Two sets of basic questions are typically faced by all manufacturing companies which want to sell their products abroad: 1a. to sell the same products that are sold on the domestic market also on the foreign markets without any particular adaptation, or 1b. to have different product policies for each country or area; 2a. to apply the same marketing communication and price strategies at home and abroad, or 2b. to adapt such strategies to the local (i.e. different) conditions.