Engineer

The aim of this study is to analyze the antecedents of urban waste recycling behavior. To achieve this goal, a concrete urban waste management program was chosen. The study focuses on the Selective Collection Program (SCP) in Zaragoza, a medium-sized city in northeastern Spain. The research starts with a conceptual model in which the variables that potentially affect recycling behavior can be classified into two groups: incentives and barriers. Moreover, the sociode-mographic characteristics of the individuals are included in our study. Given that the proposed model requires specification of latent variables or constructs, the analysis is based on the Structural Equation Models (SEM) methodology. The results revealed that environmental awareness, knowledge of the environmental impact of urban waste, and the positive perception of management by local government exercise a positive effect on individual recycling behavior, while perceived personal difficulties (space and time availability) and distance to and from the container have a negative effect. As regards sociodemographic variables, this study found that annual family income sustains a negative relationship with recycling behavior, while age maintains a positive one. The results obtained clearly show the important role that the public authorities play, especially municipal governments, in achieving the waste recycling objectives established in accordance with international legislation.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the potential of price-information-seeking behaviour (PISB) as a basis for pricing differentiation in the retail grocery market. Based on a model developed by , we analyse the presence of consumer clusters showing differences in their PISB and the possibility of identifying a particular pro le for each of the clusters. The cluster analysis identi ed two clearly separated clusters: high and low intensity price-information seekers. Based on this clustering, a discriminant analysis revealed that some of the independent variables proved to be good descriptors of the consumer pro le of the clusters. The joint consideration of the clusters and their pro les allows us to provide some managerial implications for retailers.

The objective of this study is to offer a model of the formation process of loyalty towards the services provided by retail food companies. Speci cally, the case of a Spanish company, which is a leader in the retail food market is taken. The company operates using different retail formats, and it has customers with various levels of loyalty and behavioural patterns. The research tries to determine implications for managing the loyalty towards the company. Different customer groups are analysed. Four working hypotheses are proposed and contrasted through the formulation and estimation of two theoretical models or conceptual maps. After the empirical analysis, the proposed models show a good t, and the formulated hypotheses are con rmed. By using this kind of modelling, the companies that operate under the considered framework may reach signi cant conclusions prior to making decisions in the area of customer retention.

The objectives are to provide a model to estimate the amount of varied behaviour (VB) of retail customers that might be controlled by managers, and to find if the store format determines differences in the potential level of controllable VB, and in the management tools. We apply a multi-sample SEM estimation of the management model to the operation of a grocery multi-format retailer. The first finding is that the VB is only partially determined by the managerial action. The second major finding is that the store format determines differences in the amount of controllable VB and in its management. r * What are the antecedents of customer varied behaviour? * How much of the varied behaviour of regular customers could be addressed by retail managers?

The aim of this study is to analyse price information seeking behaviour (PISB) in the retail grocery market. More speci"cally, we test the explanatory power of a number of variables on PISB, applying the premises implicit in the model proposed by Urbany et al. (1996, Journal of Marketing 60, 91}104). The main conclusions drawn are: (i) in contrast to the proposals in the literature, neither the items considered as economic savings, nor those considered as the search limitations perceived by the consumer show any common structure; (ii) the greatest predictive power is shown by human ability; (iii) whilst psychosocial bene"ts also show a signi"cant predictive power, it is only the market maven that shows a positive and signi"cant coe$cient; (iv) the higher the age of the consumer, the greater his/her tendency to compare prices.

The aim of this study is to analyze the antecedents of urban waste recycling behavior. To achieve this goal, a concrete urban waste management program was chosen. The study focuses on the Selective Collection Program (SCP) in Zaragoza, a medium-sized city in northeastern Spain. The research starts with a conceptual model in which the variables that potentially affect recycling behavior can be classified into two groups: incentives and barriers. Moreover, the sociodemographic characteristics of the individuals are included in our study. Given that the proposed model requires specification of latent variables or constructs, the analysis is based on the Structural Equation Models (SEM) methodology. The results revealed that environmental awareness, knowledge of the environmental impact of urban waste, and the positive perception of management by local government exercise a positive effect on individual recycling behavior, while perceived personal difficulties (space and time availability) and distance to and from the container have a negative effect. As regards sociodemographic variables, this study found that annual family income sustains a negative relationship with recycling behavior, while age maintains a positive one. The results obtained clearly show the important role that the public authorities play, especially municipal governments, in achieving the waste recycling objectives established in accordance with international legislation.

The objective of this study is to offer a model of the formation process of loyalty towards the services provided by retail food companies. Specifically, the case of a Spanish company, which is a leader in the retail food market is taken. The company operates using different retail formats, and it has customers with various levels of loyalty and behavioural patterns. The research tries to determine implications for managing the loyalty towards the company. Different customer groups are analysed. Four working hypotheses are proposed and contrasted through the formulation and estimation of two theoretical models or conceptual maps. After the empirical analysis, the proposed models show a good fit, and the formulated hypotheses are confirmed. By using this kind of modelling, the companies that operate under the considered framework may reach significant conclusions prior to making decisions in the area of customer retention.