Marc Despontin

The conceptualization and empirical validation of web site user satisfaction

This article addresses the concern for effective web site design by means of the conceptualization and empirical validation of a web site user satisfaction construct. Based on IS success theory, hypermedia design theory, a qualitative exploratory pilot study, and a quantitative online critical incident technique, we introduce and define the construct of web site user satisfaction, explore its dimensionality, provide empirical validation of the construct and its underlying dimensionality, develop a standardized instrument with desirable psychometric properties for measuring WUS, and explore the measures theoretical and practical application.

A grounded theory of world wide web search behaviour

The behaviours and underlying motivations of consumers and business people surfing the World Wide Web (WWW) are presently not well understood. Furthermore, until now no empirical studies have offered any scientifically sound guidance to marketing communication strategists as to using this interactive medium. Therefore, the authors have conducted an exploratory multiple-case study of this interactive behaviour and its underlying motivations. Consumers and business people were observed unobtrusively while navigating the WWW. During a retrospective in-depth interview, the underlying motivations were probed and the respondent was confronted with video images of his/her own navigation behaviour. The analysis and interpretation of these two sources of data resulted in the development of a grounded theory of search and surf behaviour on the WWW by linking the behaviour and motivations with the visited websites. The following five behavioural search scenarios were discovered from the data: exploratory surfing, wi...

Regional multiple objective quantitative economic policy: a Belgian model

Abstract Already thirty years ago, L.R. Klein [10], R. Frisch [5], J. Tinbergen [16] and H. Theil [13] introduced the subject of quantitative economic policy. More recently, multiple objective decision making has been suggested for the quantitative determination of macro-economic policy. In this paper we present an application of multiple criteria interactive linear programming for policy analysis on the regional level. The multiregional economic model considered distinguishes the nine Belgian provinces and emphasizes on the interrelations between them.

Multi-attribute decision making by consumers associations

Abstract Many consumers associations provide their readers with comparative tests in their magazines. In this paper, three multiple criteria decision methods are compared on 49 sets of products in order to study the coherence and the stability of the results.

Multiregional Economic Policy-Modelling

In our experiments of policy-modelling with a multiregional econometric model for Belgium (Despontin 1981, 1982), both optimal control theory, using a classical symmetric quadratic penalty function, as multiple criteria linear programming methods were used to solve multiregional quantitative economic policy problems.