Marija Kuzmanovic

A Conjoint-based approach to student evaluations of teaching performance

In recent years, the need for greater accountability and improvement in teachings quality has become a major issue in higher education. The results of student evaluation of teaching are increasingly used to make judgments about teaching quality, career advancement, and the funding of teaching itself. An important component of any such student evaluation is the communication of rating results in a manner that allows for fair and meaningful interpretations and comparisons of results by a wide range of evaluation users. In this paper, an approach for a more objective evaluation of university teachers is proposed, one which is based on previously obtained conjoint analysis data concerning criteria importance from a students point of view. Therein, an illustrative example is given to demonstrate the efficiency and practical usage of such a proposed approach.

Conjoint-Based Approach to Location Choice in the Retail Industry: Conceptual Framework

Retailers need to think about shoppers, not just about format, as understanding the shoppers’ dynamics holds the key to such a business. Retailers should create new delivery formats that can cater to consumers. The choice of a store location has a profound effect on the entire business life of a retail operation. A bad choice may all but guarantee failure; a good choice success (Jain, 2009).

THREE-STAGE ENTRY GAME: THE STRATEGIC EFFECTS OF ADVERTISING

This paper analyzes the effects of investment in advertising in the three-stage entry game model with one incumbent and one potential entrant firm. It is shown that if a game theory is applied, under particular conditions, advertising can be used as a strategic weapon in the market entry game. Depending on the level of the advertising interaction factor, conditions for over-investment in advertising for strategic purposes are given. Furthermore, three specific cases are analyzed: strictly predatory advertising, informative advertising and the case when one firms advertising cannot directly influence the other firms profit. For each of them, depending on the costs of advertising and marginal costs, equilibrium is determined, and conditions under which it is possible to deter the entry are given. It is shown that if the value of the advertising interaction factor increases, power of using advertising as a weapon to deter entry into the market decreases. Thus, in the case of informative advertising, advertising cannot be used as a tool for deterring entry into the market, while in the case of predatory advertising, it can. Also, we have proved that in the case of strictly informative advertising an over-investment never occurs, while in the two other cases, there is always over-investment either to deter or to accommodate the entry.