scholarly journals The role of expert judgments in wine quality assessment: the mismatch between chemical, sensorial and extrinsic cues

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Parga-Dans ◽  
Pablo Alonso González ◽  
Raimundo Otero-Enríquez
Keyword(s):  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
Wine Quality ◽  
Significant Information ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Intrinsic Cues ◽  
Volatile Acidity ◽  
Extrinsic Cues ◽  
Expert Assessments ◽  
Wine Market ◽  
Quality Assessments

Purpose The complexity in determining the quality of a credence good like wine increases due to the lack of mandatory ingredient labeling. This has generated a significant information asymmetry in the wine market, leading consumers to delegate their purchase decisions to expert rankings and wine guides. This paper explores whether expert assessments reduce the information asymmetry caused by the absence of ingredient labeling in the wine market.Design/methodology/approach By employing analysis of variance (ANOVA) in a sample of 304 wines included in the Wine Guide of the Spanish Consumers Organization (OCU), this paper assesses the extent to which expert assessments based on sensory evaluations converge with the objective cues provided by laboratory analysis in wine quality evaluations.Findings Results reveal a mismatch between expert assessments and laboratory analyses. Chemical aspects such as SO2 levels or volatile acidity, sensorial factors such as intensity and persistence, and extrinsic variables such as the region of origin or wine type play an important role in the quality ranking of wines.Originality/value These findings call for the inclusion of objective intrinsic cues in expert sensory assessments to provide consumers reliable information about wines and to resolve the apparent dissonances in wine quality assessments.

Country‐of‐origin effects on Chinese wine consumers

2006 ◽  
Vol 108 (5) ◽  
pp. 396-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Balestrini ◽  
Paul Gamble
Keyword(s):  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Production Method ◽  
Chinese Consumers ◽  
Wine Quality ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Intrinsic Cues ◽  
Extrinsic Cues ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Chinese Wine ◽  
Purchasing Behaviour

PurposeThe paper seeks to examine Chinese consumers' wine‐purchasing behaviour and, more especially, the importance of country of origin (COO) effects in the evaluation and assessment of wine quality and as it relates to decision making for wine purchases.Design/methodology/approachThe data for this study were collected in 2004 through an interviewer‐administered, structured questionnaire targeted at randomly selected wine buyers in the ChangNing district of Shanghai (China). Chinese consumers tend to purchase wine primarily for sensorial reasons, consuming it on social occasions. Wine has never acquired the connotations of being merely a thirst‐quenching drink as it did in some European countries. They are also attracted to wine for its health benefits.FindingsIt was found that Chinese consumers are more likely to use extrinsic cues than intrinsic cues to evaluate wine quality. Thus, COO information is a significantly more important cue than price for Chinese consumers as a quality cue. However, there appears to be no significant difference in the importance of COO and brand in this regard. Wine is a complex product – small differences in any one of a huge range of variables, from the weather, through the grape, the production method, the storage and even the bottling can affect quality. As might be expected in a market that is relatively under‐developed and which has a smaller experience of wine drinking than some other parts of the world, Chinese consumers pay much more attention to COO when they purchase wine for special occasions, where their choice is exposed to the judgment of others. By contrast, when purchasing wine for their own private consumption, COO assumes a lesser importance.Originality/valueThis research can significantly help wine marketers to develop more effective positioning strategies in China. It will also help in the development of pricing and promotional decisions.

Consumer Sensory Evaluations of Wine Quality: The Respective Influence of Price and Country of Origin

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Veale ◽  
Pascale Quester
Keyword(s):  
Fractional Factorial Design ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Jel Classification ◽  
Fractional Factorial ◽  
Wine Quality ◽  
Consumer Evaluations ◽  
Intrinsic Cues ◽  
Taste Testing ◽  
Extrinsic Cues

AbstractThe purpose of the study was to investigate the respective influences of price and country of origin as extrinsic cues on consumer evaluations of wine quality when all intrinsic cues are experienced through sensory perception. Taste testing experiments were conducted (N = 263) using Chardonnay as the test product in a 3 (country of origin, COO) × 3 (price) × 3 (acid level) conjoint analysis fractional factorial design. Price and COO were both found to be more important contributors to perception of wine quality than taste. Reliance on extrinsic cues was found to remain extremely robust even when all intrinsic cues were available through sensory experience for respondent evaluation. The research demonstrated that even when evaluating a product through consumption, consumer belief in the price/value schema dominates quality assessment. These findings mean that marketers cannot assume that intrinsic product attributes, even when experienced, will be weighted and interpreted accurately by consumers. The research significantly advances our understanding of consumers' use of extrinsic cues (price and COO specifically), and their respective influence in their determination of both expected and experienced quality. (JEL Classification: Q11, D12, M31)

Correlates of customer loyalty to financial institutions: a case study

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 218-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ugur Yavas ◽  
Emin Babakus ◽  
George D. Deitz ◽  
Subhash Jha
Keyword(s):  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Customer Loyalty ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Causal Inferences ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Intrinsic Cues ◽  
Extrinsic Cues ◽  
Structural Relationships ◽  
National Bank

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the relative efficacies of intrinsic and extrinsic cues as drivers of customer loyalty to financial institutions between male and female bank customers. Design/methodology/approach – A large-scale survey of 872 customers of a national bank serves as the study setting. Findings – Results showed that extrinsic cues were the more effective correlates of customer loyalty and that gender does not moderate the relationships between image cues and customer loyalty. Research limitations/implications – The cross-sectional nature of the current study does not allow causal inferences. Therefore, future studies should adopt longitudinal designs. Practical implications – Results suggest that, although transmitting a favorable image through extrinsic cues is critical, nevertheless, intrinsic cues (interactions among customers and bank personnel) should not be ignored. To reinforce this not only among current customers but also among potential customers, banks should use advertisements featuring favorable testimonials. Originality/value – Empirical research in the banking services literature pertaining to the efficacies of intrinsic and extrinsic cues in forming customer loyalty is scarce. This study fills in the void. Also, in determining if the relationships between image and customer loyalty vary by gender, the authors not only looked at male versus female differences on the basis of average construct scores but also examined the structural relationships among the constructs.

The valuation and pricing of information assets

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Adler ◽  
Carolyn Stringer ◽  
Max Yap
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Decision Tool ◽  
Significant Information ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Daunting Task ◽  
Tree Diagram ◽  
Conceptual Paper ◽  
Information Assets

Purpose The valuation and pricing of information assets often presents managers with substantial challenges. Information assets are usually highly unique, lack objective price benchmarks, have a high potential for piracy, can be simultaneously accessed and enjoyed by multiple users and generally feature significant information asymmetry between sellers and buyers. This paper aims to discuss five methods that can be used to value/price information assets. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper that draws and builds upon the multidisciplinary pricing literature. Findings A tree diagram, one that matches particular combinations of information asset features with each of the five methods, is presented to assist practitioners with their choice of valuation/pricing method. Originality/value The pricing of information assets is a challenging and even daunting task. The linkages specified by the paper’s model, and in particular its matching of information asset characteristics with specific valuation/pricing methods, offers a decision tool that does not currently exist. This tool is capable of supporting practitioner decision-making and highlights avenues for future scholarly research.

Anything but typical: how consumers evaluate origin products based on their cues

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie Spielmann
Keyword(s):  
Product Category ◽  
Elaboration Likelihood ◽  
Product Evaluations ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Consumer Evaluations ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Intrinsic Cues ◽  
Extrinsic Cues ◽  
Likelihood Model ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose – A recent stream of research has focused on typicality associations – those that bring origins and products together. Most of the research has focused on typical products but atypical products have received very little attention, even though they are more and more present on the market. As it has yet to be reviewed, the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic product cues and product evaluations is examined in this paper for typical and atypical origin products. Design/methodology/approach – Wine was used as the stimulus, and consumer evaluations of typical and atypical wines were reviewed. Consumers were segmented based on their knowledge of the product category. French respondents (n = 370) participated in an online questionnaire regarding the product cues they found most important, depending on if the wine was from the New World or the Old World. Findings – The results show that extrinsic cues are just as important as intrinsic cues in the evaluation of origin products, contrary to what prior research suggests. Furthermore, consumer knowledge moderates the evaluations of origin products; the results empirically confirms the theoretical country of origin – elaboration likelihood model (CoO-ELM) proposed by Bloemer et al. (2009) for atypical origin products, but show typical products are evaluated differently. Originality/value – This is the first study that empirically tests the CoO-ELM and includes the added dimension of typicality. The results allow for a better understanding of consumer perceptions of origin products and their cues.

Regulation and information asymmetry

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn McLaughlin ◽  
Assem Safieddine
Keyword(s):  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
Stock Returns ◽  
Operating Performance ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Information Asymmetries ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Industrial Firms ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Regulated Utilities

PurposeThis paper seeks to examine the potential for regulation to reduce information asymmetries between firm insiders and outside investors.Design/methodology/approachExtensive prior research has established that there are substantial effects of information asymmetry in seasoned equity offers (SEOs). The paper tests for a mitigating effect of regulation on such information asymmetries by examining differences in long‐run operating performance, changes in that performance, and announcement‐period stock returns between unregulated industrial firms and regulated utilities that issue seasoned equity. The authors also segment the samples by firm size, since smaller firms are likely to have greater asymmetries.FindingsConsistent with regulated utility firms having lower levels of information asymmetry, they have superior changes in abnormal operating performance than industrial firms pre‐ to post‐issue and their announcement period returns are significantly less negative. These findings are most pronounced for the smallest firms, firms likely to have the greatest information asymmetries and where regulation could have its greatest effect.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper does not examine costs of regulation. Thus, future research could seek to measure the cost/benefit trade‐off of regulation in reducing information asymmetry. Also, future research could examine cross‐sectional differences between different industries and regulated utilities.Practical implicationsRegulation reduces information asymmetry. Thus, regulation or mandated disclosure may be appropriate in industries/markets where information asymmetry is severe.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to compare the operating performance of regulated and unregulated SEO firms.

Curbing electronic shopper perceived opportunism and encouraging trust

2017 ◽  
Vol 117 (10) ◽  
pp. 2210-2226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia San-Martín ◽  
Nadia Jimenez
Keyword(s):  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
External Quality ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Quality Signals ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Relevant Factors ◽  
Analyze Data

Purpose Consumers can face a situation of information asymmetry in electronic shopping (ES). The purpose of this paper to examine the relationships between: relational variables such as satisfaction, trust and perceived opportunism; and website cues (cognitive signals such as security and personalization, and experiential signals, such as design and entertainment). Design/methodology/approach The paper opted for the structural equation methodology to analyze data collected from 447 Spanish e-shoppers. Findings Results show different factors that relate to satisfaction, trust and perceived opportunism in ES. Satisfactory experience with ES and entertainment emerge as the most relevant factors to achieve trust and prevent perceived opportunism in e-commerce. Originality/value The five contributions of this study are: the introduction of variables from several theoretical approaches to the study of an agency problem in e-commerce; the study of different ways to gain buyer trust and reduce perceived opportunism in an electronic shopper-vendor relationship; the application of signaling theory as part of the process of helping the principal (e-shopper) to solve their shopping problem in a context of information asymmetry; the analysis of the impact of external cues from e-vendor/site, which allows for a comparison between internal experiences and external quality signals; and the study of entertainment as an important hedonic variable in order to have satisfied and confident e-shoppers.

Block trading, information asymmetry, and the informativeness of trading

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ningning Pan ◽  
Hongquan Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Stock Return ◽  
High Frequency Data ◽  
Individual Investors ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Frequency Data ◽  
Information Effect ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Two Measures

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how block trading and asymmetric information contribute to the firm-specific information measured by the stock return synchronicity. Based on China stock market which is dominated by individual investors, this study focus on whether traders of block trading, which are usually institutional investors, are “information trader.” Design/methodology/approach – Based on the high frequency data, the paper constructs two measures of information asymmetry, intraday measure and inter-day measure. Then the paper constructs a multiple regression model and examine how block trading and information asymmetry contribute to the firm-specific information measured by the stock return synchronicity. Findings – The results show that: on the one hand, block trading transmits more firm-specific information, and can reduce the synchronicity; on the other hand, when the degree of information asymmetry is higher, block trading contains more firm-specific information and has a stronger effect on synchronicity. The effect of information asymmetry specifically displays as: block trading during the first half-hour of the trading day has a stronger effect on synchronicity; and block trading occurred in the days with publicly announced trading information has greater impact on synchronicity. Practical implications – The conclusions have important practical implications: for market regulators, monitoring for block trading can improve the recognition and prevention of insider trading; for individual investors, especially the risk aversion investors, recognition of intraday and inter-day information asymmetry is beneficial for them to avoid the risk of asymmetric information. Originality/value – First, the domestic and foreign research mostly concentrated impact of block trading on stock prices. However, reasons of stock price changes include the information effect and non-information effect, this paper selects stock return synchronicity as firm-specific information measure, and mainly focus on the information effect of block trading. Second, based on the high frequency data, the paper constructs two measures of information asymmetry, intraday measure and inter-day measure. Compared with general measure of information asymmetry, such as firm size, earnings quality, the two measures based on high frequency data are more precisely.

Information asymmetry and equity issue decision of low-leverage firms

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (11) ◽  
pp. 1330-1346
Author(s):  
Bipin Sony ◽  
Saumitra Bhaduri
Keyword(s):  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
Equity Issue ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Equity Issues ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
Tangible Assets ◽  
Credit History ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Role Of Information

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of information asymmetry in the equity issue decision of two categories of Indian firms with distinct levels of information asymmetry – levered firms and unlevered firms. Design/methodology/approach This paper proposes a novel empirical approach to compare these two categories of firms. Levered firms exposed to the debt markets are under the scrutiny of lenders, reducing their information asymmetry problems. On the other hand, unlevered firms, which are smaller firms with fewer tangible assets and no credit history suffers more information problems. The authors use a propensity score matching method to identify firms that share similar firm-specific characteristics in these groups and compare equity issues to analyze the impact of information asymmetry. Findings The results show that information asymmetry plays a key role in the equity issue decision of Indian firms. Additionally, the authors find that the trends and characteristics of low-leverage (LL) firms in India are comparable to the LL from developed economies, which is consistent with the findings that they face more information problems. Originality/value Unlike the conventional approach of using proxy variables to capture information asymmetry, this study uses a novel framework where the authors compare the equity issue decision of similar firms in two categories with different degrees of information asymmetry.

Identifying the determinants of Malaysian corporate Sukuk rating

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 432-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Amirah Borhan ◽  
Noryati Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
Small Sample Size ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Significant Variable ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Rating Agencies ◽  
High Level ◽  
Rating Category

Purpose This study aims to identify the determinants of Malaysian corporate Sukuk rating and attempts to find out which determinant has the most significant impact. Design/methodology/approach The framework tries to establish a relationship between firm’s size, profitability, Sukuk guarantee status and types of Sukuk with Sukuk rating from the perspective of Agency Theory and Information Asymmetry Theory. The data consist of 43 Sukuk issuances from 2006 to 2015. Multinomial Logistic Regression Model is then used to find out the significant determinants of Sukuk rating. Findings The study found that only three variables significantly impact Sukuk rating. The results show that a guaranteed Sukuk Ijarah or a guaranteed Sukuk Musyarakah that is issued by a highly profitable firm has a higher likelihood of getting rating AAA or rating AA as compared to getting rating A. A type of Sukuk, particularly Sukuk Murabahah, is the most significant variable influencing Sukuk rating. However, firm size is not a significant determinant of Sukuk rating in the context of this study. Research limitations implications The first limitation of the study is the relatively small sample size. Second, the study only tested four independent variables. Practical implications Several implications are derived from the results of the study. First, new firms that are planning to issue Sukuk should consistently maintain a high level of profit and consider issuing debt-based Sukuk to ensure that the issued Sukuk have higher rating. To increase the likelihood of getting higher rating, they should also consider providing a third-party guarantor. As for existing Sukuk issuers that are in lower rating category, they should increase their profitability to be upgraded to higher rating category. Second, risk-adverse investors should invest in highly profitable, guaranteed and debt-based Sukuk, as these Sukuk are likely to be in higher rating category and provide guarantee in terms of capital payments during liquidation or bankruptcy. Third, to reduce information asymmetry, policymakers should make it compulsory for all Sukuk issuers to have their Sukuk rated annually and make it mandatory for all rating agencies in Malaysia to publish their Sukuk rating methodologies. Originality/value This paper helps to expand the limited existing literature about the determinants of Sukuk rating, particularly for the Malaysian corporate Sukuk.

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