by Paul E. Green I am honored and pleased to respond to authors request to write a Fore word for this excellent collection of essays on conjoint analysis and related topics. While a number of survey articles and sporadic book chapters have appeared on the subject, to the best of my knowledge this book represents the first volume of contributed essays on conjoint analysis. The book re flects not only the geographical diversity of its contributors but also the variety and depth of their topics. The development of conjoint analysis and its application to marketing and business research is noteworthy, both in its eclectic roots (psychometrics, statistics, operations research, economics) and the fact that its development reflects the efforts of a large variety of professionals -academics, market ing research consultants, industry practitioners, and software developers. Reasons for the early success and diffusion of conjoint analysis are not hard to find. First, by the early sixties, precursory psychometric techniques (e.g., multidimensional scaling and correspondence analysis, cluster analy sis, and general multivariate techniques) had already shown their value in practical business research and application. Second, conjoint analysis pro vided a new and powerful array of methods for tackling the important problem of representing and predicting buyer preference judgments and choice behavior-clearly a major problem area in marketing.

In order for food businesses, scientists and policy makers to develop successful products, services and policies, it is essential that they understand food consumers and how they decide which products to buy. Food consumer behaviour is the result of various factors, including the motivations of different consumers, the attributes of specific foods, and the environment in which food choices occur. Recognising diversity between individual consumers, different stages of life, and different cultural contexts is increasingly important as markets become increasingly diverse and international.The book begins with a comprehensive introduction and analysis of the key drivers of consumer food choices, such as the environment and sensory product features. Part two examines the role of consumers' attitudes towards quality and marketing, and their views on food preparation and technology. Part three covers cultural and individual differences in food choice as well as addressing potentially influential factors such as age and gender. Important topics such as public health and methods to change consumers' preferences for unhealthy foods are discussed in part four. The final section concludes with advice on developing coherent safety policies and the consumers' responsibility for food production and consumption.Understanding consumers of food products is a standard reference for all those in the food industry concerned with product development and regulation. - Develop an understanding of buyer behaviour to assist developing successful products - Recognise the diversity between consumers and learn how to cater for their needs - Covers cultural and individual differences in food choice

The acceptance and preference of the sensory properties of foods are among the most important criteria determining food choice. Sensory perception and our response to food products, and finally food choice itself, are affected by a myriad of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The pressing question is, how do these factors specifically affect our acceptance and preference for foods, both in and of themselves, and in combination in various contexts, both fundamental and applied? In addition, which factors overall play the largest role in how we perceive and behave towards food in daily life? Finally, how can these factors be utilized to affect our preferences and final acceptance of real food and food products from industrial production and beyond for healthier eating? A closer look at trends in research showcasing the influence that these factors and our senses have on our perception and affective response to food products and our food choices is timely. Thus, in this Special Issue collection “Consumer Preferences and Acceptance of Food Products”, we bring together articles which encompass the wide scope of multidisciplinary research in the space related to the determination of key factors involved linked to fundamental interactions, cross-modal effects in different contexts and eating scenarios, as well as studies that utilize unique study design approaches and methodologies.

This volume provides a complete record of presentations made at Industrial Engineering, Management Science and Applications 2015 (ICIMSA 2015), and provides the reader with a snapshot of current knowledge and state-of-the-art results in industrial engineering, management science and applications. The goal of ICIMSA is to provide an excellent international forum for researchers and practitioners from both academia and industry to share cutting-edge developments in the field and to exchange and distribute the latest research and theories from the international community. The conference is held every year, making it an ideal platform for people to share their views and experiences in industrial engineering, management science and applications related fields.

The creation and management of customer relationships is fundamental to the practice of marketing. Marketers have long maintained a keen interest in relationships: what they are, why they are formed, what effects they have on consumers and the marketplace, how they can be measured and when and how they evolve and decline. While marketing research has a long tradition in the study of business relationships between manufacturers and suppliers and buyers and sellers, attention in the past decade has expanded to the relationships that form between consumers and their brands (such as products, stores, celebrities, companies or countries). The aim of this book is to advance knowledge about consumer-brand relationships by disseminating new research that pushes beyond theory, to applications and practical implications of brand relationships that businesses can apply to their own marketing strategies. With contributions from an impressive array of scholars from around the world, this volume will provide students and researchers with a useful launch pad for further research in this blossoming area.

At this point in time, there is no generally accepted methodology for explaining and predicting human behavior given a product choice situation. This is true despite the critical importance of such meth odology to marketing, transportation and urban planning. While the social sciences provide numerous theories to be tested and the mathe matical and statistical procedures exist in general to do so, at this point, no single unified theory has emerged. It is generally accepted that to explain product choice behav ior,products must be described in terms of attributes. Using anyone of a number of procedures, it is possible to obtain measurements on the attributes of the products under consideration. However, there is no generally accepted methodology. Given the attribute profiles of two products, in order to explain and predict preference, it is necessary to determine the relative importance of each of the product attributes. Once again, there is no generally accepted methodology. There are two basic approaches: The first, called the attitudinal approach, obtains importance measure ments directly from respondents using one of many scaling techniques; the second, termed the inferential method endeavors to infer impor tances from product preference and attribute data. Since it is gen erally felt that respondents are unwilling and/or unable to provide meaningful importance measurements, the inferential method is most widely accepted.

​​This volume includes the full proceedings from the 2004 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference held in Vancouver, Canada, entitled Assessing the Different Roles of Marketing Theory and Practice in the Jaws of Economic Uncertainty. It include papers aimed to create awareness of the issues, trends, and advances associated with current marketing theories and practices. Founded in 1971, the Academy of Marketing Science is an international organization dedicated to promoting timely explorations of phenomena related to the science of marketing in theory, research, and practice. Among its services to members and the community at large, the Academy offers conferences, congresses and symposia that attract delegates from around the world. Presentations from these events are published in this Proceedings series, which offers a comprehensive archive of volumes reflecting the evolution of the field. Volumes deliver cutting-edge research and insights, complementing the Academy’s flagship journals, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review. Volumes are edited by leading scholars and practitioners across a wide range of subject areas in marketing science.​