It is necessary in a multilingual survey to ensure the comparability of the data, no matter in which language it was collected. For purely closed-ended (multiple-choice) questions this is moderately straightforward, and depends largly on an accurate translation of the questionnaire. For open-ended questions, however, in which a free discursive or verbatim response is invited, answers given in different languages may be compared only after some form of translation. This translation is normally achieved by referring the verbatim responses back to a multi-lingual code-frame. The translation of this code-frame may well lie on the critical path of the data analysis: it is certainly a translation which cannot be completed until all the data is in. Advancing technology, particularly in the field of Computational Linguistics, allows us to consider another approach. This is to translate automatically the verbatim responses themselves before coding. Machine Translation (MT) has had some spectacular failures in the past, and is only just beginning to give useful results in particular restricted contexts.
Little is known about behaviour, attitudes and expectations of these financial intermediaries, because usually all marketing research has been focused on the ultimate consumers. Therefore, a survey among 174 Dutch financial intermediaries was carried out in 1980. Purpose of this study was to assess the characteristics, profile, attitudes and future expectations of the financial intermediary.
Based on systematic typology analyses, seven clearly defined types of attitudes towards technology today and in the future were elaborated. A negative attitude towards technology is not an attitude that is widely distributed. Individual groups display it in varying forms, with the number of technology promoters (today still) being greater than the number of technology detractors. But the promoters show diverse insecurities, nagging doubts and prejudices. These result mostly on the basis of insufficient information - in misunderstandings and uneasiness all the way to fear. As a consequence, the promoters of technology need to do two things: They must make themselves better understood than they were in the past in order to make technology more transparent for most people. Two recently conducted advertising campaigns will exemplify how the discussion and the dialogue with wide sections of the population can be taken up again to preclude any worsening of the attitude towards technology.
Based on systematic typology analyses, seven clearly defined types of attitudes towards technology today and in the future were elaborated. A negative attitude towards technology is not an attitude that is widely distributed. Individual groups display it in varying forms, with the number of technology promoters (today still) being greater than the number of technology detractors. But the promoters show diverse insecurities, nagging doubts and prejudices. These result mostly on the basis of insufficient information - in misunderstandings and uneasiness all the way to fear. As a consequence, the promoters of technology need to do two things: They must make themselves better understood than they were in the past in order to make technology more transparent for most people. Two recently conducted advertising campaigns will exemplify how the discussion and the dialogue with wide sections of the population can be taken up again to preclude any worsening of the attitude towards technology.
I shall divide my presentation into two parts. Part one will cover in a concise form the energy balance in the Federal Republic of Germany, and part two will cover the situation after the first energy crisis in detail and discuss how, by means of market research, an attempt was made to analyse the consumer attitude and the impact of his change in attitude on petroleum products.
I shall divide my presentation into two parts. Part one will cover in a concise form the energy balance in the Federal Republic of Germany, and part two will cover the situation after the first energy crisis in detail and discuss how, by means of market research, an attempt was made to analyse the consumer attitude and the impact of his change in attitude on petroleum products.
The purpose of this paper is to provide information about the basic characteristics and potential applications of the SINUS Everyday Life Research Program which explores new ground both in terms of theory and methodology. Initially, the research program was developed as a result of the dissatisfaction with the traditional approaches commonly used in empirical social research. These approaches are not sensitive enough to capture the diversity and complexity of the respondents' everyday-life experiences particularly with regard to changing attitudes and values.
The purpose of this paper is to provide information about the basic characteristics and potential applications of the SINUS Everyday Life Research Program which explores new ground both in terms of theory and methodology. Initially, the research program was developed as a result of the dissatisfaction with the traditional approaches commonly used in empirical social research. These approaches are not sensitive enough to capture the diversity and complexity of the respondents' everyday-life experiences particularly with regard to changing attitudes and values.
The first study discussed was undertaken by Consumers' Association (CA) on behalf of the Environment and Consumer Protection Service of the EEC. This was essentially a small-scale methodological exercise, CA's brief being to recommend to the EEC a survey design which could generate data on consumers' concerns and complaints which would have a validity both within and between EEC countries. The second study was carried out by Research Services Ltd. (RSL) for the National Consumer Council (NCC). It was a large-scale personal interview study undertaken with the aim of assessing consumers' perceptions of the experiences and problems they face in their day-to-day lives and of exploring the importance attached to them. The detailed and largely precoded questionnaire carried an extensive range of potential problem areas including, for example, housing, transport, education and shopping. The paper compares and contrasts the two studies and prefaces this methodological assessment with a note on the problems associated with assessing 'satisfaction'. Brief results from both studies are presented, and the paper concludes with a consideration of possible future research and of the precision needed in defining study aims before a research design can be finalised.
A case history of the development of a 12 nation survey from its national origins to international execution and completion. It is an illustration of the continuing problem facing international researchers of how to conduct research that is actionable by both central and local managements. This paper deals with the considerations surrounding a survey into the developing breakfast cereal market in Europe, and the evolution of research from a national to an international basis. There is a discussion of the objectives behind the KELLOGG commissioning and specification of the survey, and of how the knowledge from individual country research was integrated into an international survey.
This paper suggests a model for strategic marketing planning in times of shortages, and outlines the information requirements that are necessary as input to the model. This paper is based on the available literature, as well as on an exhaustive study of shortage cases and related industry responses that have been reported so far. The proposed model consists of four strategies. The choice of the appropriate strategy in a given shortage situation will be made on the basis of the relative values of 28 indicators, which also serve as a list of research requirements for the application of the model.
In the first part, the various possible physical constraints on economic growth are analysed The conclusion is that there are no absolute physical limits to food production and that there is no universal or absolute physical scarcity of raw materials. The real problem is access to these raw materials due to their uneven geographical distribution which creates political risks of discrimination. The second part then examines the macro-economic and social constraints on economic growth. The list of such constraints is an impressive long one: insufficient private investment, balance of payments deficits, inflation, increasing costs, changes in competitive positions, changing social values, institutional sclerosis, etc. which seem to be more important than physical constraints. In the third part, various possible or plausible future macro-economic growth scenarios (frameworks/orders of magnitude up to the year 2000) are presented in a tentative/speculative way. The conclusion is that the most plausible scenario seems to be a moderate one with elements of slow growth. Finally, the fourth part investigates the basic characteristics society -in opposition to the consumer one- towards which the industrial societies seem to be slowly evolving during the next of a conserver developed twenty years.