Charles Vincent

Consumers decide which aerosol product to purchase depending upon its different features or attributes. The importance that consumers give to each attribute, however, differs from one consumer to another. The ability to identify the importance of different attributes of aerosols from the consumers’ perspective is essential for improving an existing brand or launching a completely new brand of aerosol. The purpose of this study is to identify feasible offerings of aerosols from a company’s point of view and the positioning of a comparatively new brand of room air freshener among all other existing brands in the capital city of Bihar (Patna) in India.

The study makes use of conjoint analysis and the multidimensional scaling technique to identify (a) the attributes of the room air freshener and their corresponding levels from the consumers’ perspective, (b) the importance of each attribute of the room air freshener and its contribution in influencing the consumers’ purchase decision, (c) the best and the worst combinations of attributes and their levels from the consumers’ point of view, and (d) the potential opportunities for the new brand of room air freshener in the perceptual map of the consumers’ mind.

In spite of growing literature on bank efficiency across the world for last one decade, the Peruvian banking sector is almost neglected by researchers. This paper uses the technique of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to investigate the efficiency of Peruvian banks for the period spanning 2000 to 2009 and benchmark the currently existing banks based on their super efficiency scores over a period of time. Further, in-depth analysis for currently existing banks for latest two years is conducted to check the robustness of DEA efficiency scores and the potential improvement of inputs and outputs for inefficient banks to indicate by how much and in what areas an inefficient bank needs to improve in order to be efficient. Our finding shows an increasing trend in technical efficiency during the period 2000-2009 which gives an indication of an affirmative gesture about the effect of the reform process in the Peruvian banking sector. On an average, the multinational banks are performing better than domestic banks throughout the period except in the year 2007 during which there has been sharp decline in efficiency performance of both the groups, possibly as a result of global financial turmoil. The application of jackknifing analysis with appropriate statistical tool shows that the DEA efficiency scores are robust. Among the 14 currently existing banks, Banco Ripley and Banco Santander Peru turned out as the best performers whereas, Banco Azteca is the worst performer, followed by Interbank and Banco de Comercio. Further, our finding suggests that the inefficient banks require more rigorous policies and strategic implementation to potentially improve more loans as well as other earning assets so as to improve efficiencies as par with their best practice banks.

Genetic algorithm (GA) approach is developed for solving the P-model of chance constrained data envelopment analysis (CCDEA) problems, which include the concept of ‘‘Satisficing’’. Problems here include cases in which inputs and outputs are stochastic, as well as cases in which only the outputs are
stochastic. The basic solution technique for the above has so far been deriving ‘‘deterministic equivalents’’, which is difficult for all stochastic parameters as there are no compact methods available. In the proposed approach, the stochastic objective function and chance constraints are directly used
within the genetic process. The feasibility of chance constraints are checked by stochastic simulation techniques. A case of Indian banking sector has been presented to illustrate the above approach.

Consumers decide which aerosol product to purchase depending upon its different features or attributes. The importance that consumers give to each attribute, however, differs from one consumer to another. The ability to identify the importance of different attributes of aerosols from the consumers’ perspective is essential for improving an existing brand or launching a completely new brand of aerosol. The purpose of this study is to identify feasible offerings of aerosols from a company’s point of view and the positioning of a comparatively new brand of room air freshener among all other existing brands in the capital city of Bihar (Patna) in India. The study makes use of conjoint analysis and the multidimensional scaling technique to identify (a) the attributes of the room air freshener and their corresponding levels from the consumers’ perspective, (b) the importance of each attribute of the room air freshener and its contribution in influencing the consumers’
purchase decision, (c) the best and the worst combinations of attributes and their levels from the consumers’ point of view, and (d) the potential opportunities for the new brand of room air freshener in the perceptual map of the consumers’ mind. Keywords: conjoint analysis, MDS, aerosol product

Structural redundancies in mathematical programming models are nothing uncommon and nonlinear programming problems are no exception. Over the past few decades numerous papers have been written on redundancy. Redundancy in constraints and variables are usually studied in a class of mathematical programming problems. However, main emphasis has so far been given only to linear programming problems. In this paper, an algorithm that identifies redundant objective function(s) and redundant constraint(s) simultaneously in multi-objective nonlinear stochastic fractional programming problems is provided. A solution procedure is also illustrated with numerical examples. The proposed algorithm reduces the number of nonlinear fractional objective functions and constraints in cases where redundancy exists.

Purpose – This study aims to find the differences in the service quality (if any) between two types of banks, namely conventional and Islamic, in terms of common critical factors after re-examining the SERVQUAL model, originally pioneered by Parasuraman. Further, the technique of dominance analysis is used to examine the relative importance of the critical  factors in closing up the overall service quality gap in these two types of banks.
Design/methodology/approach – The sample is made up of 308 bank customers, consisting of the customers from both Islamic and conventional banks from different parts of Malaysia. The data have been collected by using the structured questionnaire, which consists of three parts. Part 1 deals with consumers’ usage of banking channels and their banking behaviour. Part 2 contains 26 statements related to service quality dimensions based on past literature. Finally, Part 3 contains the questions related to the socio-demographic profiles of respondents.
Findings – The modified SERVQUALmodel consists of four critical factors (dimensions) as detected by factor analysis: tangibility, reliability, competence, and convenience. The results reveal that the expectations on competence and convenience are significantly different between conventional banks and Islamic banks, whereas the perceptions on tangibility and convenience are found to be significantly
different between these two types of banks. The application of dominance analysis in the SERVQUAL model indicates that the difference between the two types of banks is in terms of degree and not pattern.
Competence and convenience are found to be the relatively more dominating factors in both the types of banks. These two dimensions together can help to reduce the overall service quality gap to an extent of 72 per cent in the case of conventional banks and 85 per cent in the case of Islamic banks.
Originality/value – The application of dominance analysis in the SERVQUAL model could be more meaningful in determining the relative importance of the factors when dimensions are interdependent. It permits direct comparison of measures and allows one to predict the level of influence of one factor in comparison with other factors. The study could be quite useful from the policy perspective in providing
the guidelines to develop proper strategies and acknowledge the changes in customers’ banking behaviour more quickly.