Innovation is a process that involves searching for new information. This paper builds upon theoretical insights on individual and organizational learning and proposes a knowledge based model of how actors search for information when confronted with innovation. The model takes into account...

This paper presents a model-based analysis of the introduction of green products, which are products with low environmental impacts. Both consumers and firms are simulated as populations of agents who differ in their behavioural characteristics. Model experiments illustrate the influence of...

This paper investigates the factors affecting product class involvement for food. Factors affecting specific aspects of involvement are also explored. The aim is to determine the factors that affect involvement with food and sketch the profile of consumers more likely to be involved or not...

Asymmetric information is at the heart of situations involving trust. In the case of B2C Internet commerce, the information asymmetry typically relates to the difficulty that consumers have of distinguishing between "trustworthy" and "untrustworthy" Web merchants. The impasse can be resolved by...

Competition in public utility sectors has been encouraged in recent years throughout Europe. In this paper we try and analyse the welfare effects of these reforms in Italy, with particular attention to water and energy goods. The first step is to introduce a sensible measure of affordability of...

Understanding consumer behaviour is of vital importance to consumer oriented e-business models today. In this paper we study the relationships between consumer perceptions of risk and trust and the attitude towards purchasing at a consumer-to-consumer electronic marketplace. Typical for...

Abstract This paper examines whether a holistic element affected the valuations of visitors to the Anne Frank House, an en-site historical museum. The holistic approach views a museum as a whole entity and not as the sum of individual items. For the purposes of our research, we developed a new...

Tourism is becoming an important sector with a great impact on economic development. Tourists form a heterogeneous group of visitors with significantly different spending patterns. This paper addresses the economic importance of a particular class of tourists, viz. those visiting friends and...

Evolution of consumers' preferences has been recognized by many scholars as being key to understanding technological change. However, mainstream economics cannot account for the seemingly irrational behavior of consumers based on changes in taste – consumer theory lacks exibility and accuracy...