1,720,960 research outputs found
Consumer acceptance of cultured meat: some hints from Italy
No full textPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the current literature on consumer acceptance of
cultured meat and to investigate the main factors that might affect it.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from a sample of 490 consumers in Italy, using a webbased
survey. The empirical analysis follows an exploratory approach based on the training and checking of a
random forest model.
Findings – An important finding of this study concerns the overall positive perception of cultured meat on the
part of the interviewees in a country that is the fifth-largest meat producer at the European level. Age,
environmental and ethical issues, and scepticism about new food technologies are the most important factors
that guide consumer acceptance of cultured meat. The results suggest that in order to increase cultured meat
acceptance it would be important to inform and educate consumers towards new food and new food production
methods.
Research limitations/implications – The sample analysed in this study is not representative of the whole
national population, as it happens in most papers dealing with new food.
Originality/value – Although the conclusions of this exploratory study cannot be over-generalized, the
results provide interesting insights on how to increase cultured meat acceptance in view of the possible
development of a new market for cultured meat
Young Consumers’ Preferences for Natural Wine: An Italian Exploratory Study
No full textAlthough much has been written about sustainable wine con sumption, the topic of young consumers’ (age 18–39 years) preferences for natural wine in Italy has been poorly explored. Through an online survey of 640 Italian respondents, we investigate the characteristics that affect consumption of natural wine in Italy. First, a factor analysis was applied to reduce data to a smaller set of summary variables. A probit regression model was then used to explore the effects and evaluate the relative importance of identified factors on participants’ willingness to consume natural wine. The results reveal that being female, in the older age cohort (25–39 years), and being consumer of certified wine and/or biodynamic wine significantly increase the probability of drinking natural wine. The findings also showed that health benefits, natural product interest, previous experience with natural wine, and positive perception of natural wine also drive young consumers of natural wine
Market Opportunities for Hay Milk: Factors Influencing Perceptions among Italian Consumers
No full textCentral and South Italy are characterized by small-scale dairy farms and growing aban donment by farmers for other, better-paid, off-farm jobs. New marketing concepts for milk can be
one solution to remunerate mountain farmers for their efforts. This study investigates the potential
market for hay milk in Italy. In particular, we want to understand which variables drive the people’s
willingness to consume hay milk, and if the European food quality certification schemes impact on
people’s willingness to consume milk from hay-fed cows. Data were collected from a sample of
consumers from Central and South Italy (n = 331) using a web-based survey. Later, a discrete choice
probit model was applied. The main results indicate that aspects as curiosity, the production place
of food, the local culinary traditions, label, and environmental issues play an important role in the
people’s consumption intentions for milk from hay-fed cows. Moreover, the survey highlights that
the respondents had positive opinion towards hay milk and highlighted some important marketing
implications for the Italian milk sector. The study findings could encourage discussion about a
niche market to boost local growth, initiating a process of improving livelihoods, certification of
products, and use of the marketing tools addressed towards a specific milk consumer’s profile. In
other words, the study could provide useful implications for food manufacturers and facilitate the
design of marketing strategies for hay milk produced in Central and South Italy
Absence of symbolic and sustainable aspects in recommendations for healthy eating: a qualitative analysis of food-based dietary guidelines
No full textObjectiveWas analyzed the contents of the main messages of food-based dietary guidelines to promote healthy eating, identifying nutritional, symbolic, and sustainable recommendations.MethodsFood-based dietary guidelines from 90 different countries were analyzed. These guidelines were selected from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization database. For data extraction, all messages were exported to the Nvivo software and, after repeated readings, were grouped into predefined categories and corresponding dimensions based on the literature. The categories were created according to the mixed model, that is, they were created before data analysis was performed, but modified if necessary.ResultsWas identified 1,982 messages grouped into the following dimensions: nutritional (n=73.9%); sustainable (3.2%); symbolic (3.3%), and others (19.7%). All food-based dietary guidelines addressed nutritional aspects, and the most frequent recommendation was regarding the consumption of fats, followed by the consumption of salt and vegetables and fruits, cited by at least 75 food-based dietary guidelines. Less than half (n=40) of the food-based dietary guidelines addressed sustainable or symbolic aspects of food and 13 of the food-based dietary guidelines addressed both aspects. However, these messages represented only 6.5% of the total messages in the documents.ConclusionThe recommendations for healthy eating in the food-based dietary guidelines are incipient in terms of sustainable and symbolic issues. Recommendations for adopting healthy diets need to consider the completeness of the food and its various combinations, dietary patterns, and the factors associated with their consumption, as well as the individual's relations with food, environment, and society
Exploring consumers' willingness to eat insects in Italy
No full textPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the main factors that may affect Italian consumers’
willingness to eat insects. Italy is a fairly special case among Western countries: in many Italian regions, there
is old traditional food with insects.
Design/methodology/approach – Data come from a sample of 456 consumers living in four Italian regions.
The empirical investigation involves several steps: modification of class distributions to obtain a balanced sample;
model estimation using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator; model evaluation using out-of-sample
classification performance measures; and estimation of the “effect” of each explanatory variable via average
predictive comparisons. The uncertainty associated with the whole procedure is evaluated using the bootstrap.
Findings – The interviewed consumers are generally unwilling to eat insect-based food. However, factors
such as previous experience, taste expectations and attitude towards both new food experiences and
sustainable food play an important role in shaping individual inclination towards eating insects.
Research limitations/implications – The sample analysed in this study is not representative of the whole
national population, as it happens in most papers dealing with entomophagy.
Originality/value – The paper revisits the issue using a relatively large sample and sophisticated statistical
methods. The likely average effect of each explanatory variable is estimated and discussed in detail. The
results provide interesting insights on how to approach a hypothetical Italian consumer in view of the
possible development of a new market for edible insects
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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