On the Varieties of Diversity: Ideological Variations in Attitudes Toward, and Understandings of Diversity

Three studies explore the possibility that attitudes toward “diversity” are multidimensional rather than unidimensional and that ideological differences in diversity attitudes vary as a function of diversity subtype. Study 1 ( n = 1,001) revealed that the factor structure of attitudes toward 23 diverse community features was bidimensional. Factors involving demographic and viewpoint diversity emerged. Conservatives reported more positive attitudes toward viewpoint diversity, and liberals more positive attitudes toward demographic diversity. Study 2 ( n = 1,012) replicated Study 1 findings, and extended Study 1 results by showing attitudes toward the general concept of diversity predicted attitudes toward demographic diversity but not viewpoint diversity. In Study 3, 386 participants rated how relevant a set of features was to their prototypical understanding of diversity. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed people discriminate between viewpoint, demographic, and consumer diversity. Conservatives perceived viewpoint features as more relevant to “diversity,” whereas liberals perceived demographic features as more relevant.

A study on sweet corn buying behaviour of consumers

The present study is intended to understand the buying behaviour of sweet corn consumers. For the study Hyderabad and Vijayawada cities were purposively considering the markets for sweet corn and consumer diversity. A representative sample of sixty sweet corn consumers were selected by using simple random sampling technique from the market. The collected data was analyzed by using appropriate tools like percentage and frequencies and Garrett’s ranking. From the investigation it was found that majority of sample consumers preferred to buy sweet corn in raw cob form compared to other forms. Frequency of consumption of sweet corn details revealed that greater percentage of sample consumers were consuming once in a month followed by occasional consumption. Out of the total sample consumer 45 per cent informed that the average monthly consumption is 10-20 cobs. The top preferred reasons for sweet corn purchase were good taste and healthy food. Most preferred place by respondent consumers to purchase sweet corn cobs was from road side vendors followed by small grocery stores.

Business Models for Technology-Intensive Supply Chains

Technology and intellectual property play increasingly critical roles in emerging supply chains by endowing products with sought-after capabilities. In such technology-intensive supply chains, the technology invented by an upstream firm must be embedded in a subsystem that is then integrated into a full system. The technology providers’ prevalent royalty-driven business model has gotten complicated in this multilateral supply chain, prompting formal research attention. Moreover, providers also consider forward integration into manufacturing to monetize their intellectual property. We characterize the appropriateness of different business model decisions for markets, which may have varying levels of consumer diversity and competitive intensity at intermediate layers. For the technology provider, our key results show that a subsystem base royalty approach is the optimal business model when dealing with monopolistic intermediaries or having a low degree of consumer diversity. However, a full-system base royalty business model becomes increasingly optimal when the intermediate supply chains face competition and consumer diversity increases. We present conditions under which the technology provider may want to forward integrate. Our formulation and results are relevant to technology providers, policy makers, and industry groups engaged in the prevailing heated global discussion on royalty base. This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management.