RePEc: Research Papers in Economics

Purpose: The paper analyzes consumer attitudes and related behavior towards organic products and determines the factors affecting consumer attitudes towards organic products andLithuanian consumers' choices. Methodology: Previous scientific works are analyzed and generalized in order to provide scientific substantiation for the research. A questionnaire survey is provided in order to approve the theoretically established factors in the Lithuanian market of organic products. The questionnaire is comprised of 23 statements representing eight latent variables: six possible reasons for the choice of an organic product (health issues; environmental concerns; food safety and quality; economic reasons; social reasons; psychological reasons) and two possible outcomes (intentions to choose organic products; actual organic product purchases). The survey results are based on the answers of 269 respondents representing the population of the four biggest cities in Lithuania. Findings: The results indicate the structural differences between theory and its application for the Lithuanian market; therefore, the factors are reestablished. The research results show the high level of Lithuanian consumers’ environmental consciousness; also, a willingness to share information relating to environmental issues with friends; and active engagement in sharing information about environmentally related issues. However, consumer awareness of the relationship between organic products, and health and quality issues is lower, indicating the necessity to be managed. Also, consumers do not express high agreement that organic products have to be more expensive; they do not intend to pay a higher price for them. Research results show that Lithuanian consumers do not choose organic products often and they also do not express conformable behavior (resulting from organic product purchases). Implications for theory and practice: The research results enable the ability to compose a clear framework of Lithuanian consumer attitudes and behavior towards organic products. The established factors affecting consumer attitudes and behavior can be further explored and modeled according to different market situations. Originality and value: Based on the results, companies can elaborate on effective marketing strategies fostering consumer attitudes and behavior in a particular way.

Low‐cost carriers (LCCs) have been growing by 11.4% in revenue passenger kilometers over 2017 and changed the airline industry radically. It drove down prices in the industry. Southwest Airlines (USA) designed the LCC blueprint model, and Ryanair copied it within Europe, followed by other airlines. This research aims to fulfill the gap in contemporary research upon LCC successfulness in Europe by a description of the current situation within Europe (2018 and January 2019) and the development issues it faced, which are mapped by the Ishikawa fishbone diagram. Furthermore, to rank the airlines on strength and vulnerability, The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) methodology was used for meeting LCC characteristics and airline success. By comparison of meeting the LCC characteristics and the rank of the successfulness, the results of the TOPSIS analysis showed that the airlines meeting the most LCCs characteristics are seemingly less vulnerable to the development issues that airlines are facing, as Wizz Air and Ryanair are meeting most characteristics and are the most successful. Concluded is that airlines meeting the most LCC characteristics are the least vulnerable to current issues. However, major disruptions can still form an issue and limit growth. This research can be useful for comparing and positioning airlines in the market, based on issues and operational choices.

This paper aims to gain further understanding of the barriers that prevent tourists at tourist destinations from recycling. Methodologically, a survey was carried out with a questionnaire, reaching 371 units through a convenience sampling procedure on the island of Gran Canaria. The measuring instruments consisted of a Likert ‘beliefs’ scale, comprising statements related to a wide range of recycling barriers, as well as both sociodemographic and situational information. Firstly, we performed an exploratory factor analysis on the barriers scale, and several obstacles to recycling were identified, such as a lack of knowledge and familiarity, blaming of the system of collection, assumed incompatibility with a relaxing holiday, erroneous beliefs about environmental usefulness, disregard towards the place being visited and a certain sense of detachment, the non-existence of incentives, and an unwillingness to comply with perceived demands. Secondly, by means of ANOVA tests, we measured the causal relationship between these barriers to recycling and the tourists’ sociodemographic and situational profiles. The practical implications shed light on how to overcome the difficulties that occur for the tourist at the destination with regards to recycling, by considering the tourists’ beliefs and their sociodemographic and situational background.

The approach defines the process of conducting an empirical research of the travel behavior patterns of residents of Vilnius city. It defines survey methodology and important mobility parameters such as activity sequences and their probabilities of homogeneous urban population segments during the weekday. This empirical research is based on a travel diary survey that was planned and executed in cooperation with Vilnius Municipality during preparation of sustainable mobility plan. The following work describes the research object, the questionnaire design, sampling strategy and the analysis of results based on characteristics of respondents. An innovative activity sequence-focused travel behavior research approach designed to collect data for a tour-based travel demand model.

Green products, clean energy, energy union, green buildings, eco-innovations, environment-related, and similar initiatives and policies have become very popular and widely applied all over the world. A pleasant built environment (parks, flowerbeds, beautiful buildings) and a repulsive environment (noise, polluted surroundings) influence a buyer’s outlook on an advertisement differently. An aesthetic, comfortable, and clean built environment evokes positive emotional states, not only at the time of housing selection and purchase but during the building’s life cycle as well. Potential housing buyers always feel comfortable in certain built environments, and they are inclined to spend more time there. The issues needing answers are how to measure the segmentation/physiological indicators (crowd composition by gender and age groups), as well as the emotional (happy, sad, angry, valence) and physiological (heart rate) states of potential homebuyers realistically, to produce an integrated evaluation of such data and offer buyers rational, green, and energy efficient housing alternatives. To achieve this purpose, the Multisensory, green and energy efficient housing neuromarketing method was developed to generate the necessary conditions. Here, around 200 million multisensory data recordings (emotional and physiological states) were accumulated, and the environmental air pollution (CO, NO2, PM10, volatile organic compounds) and noise pollution were investigated. Specific green and energy efficient building case studies appear in this article to demonstrate the developed method clearly. The obtained research results are in line with those from previous and current studies, which state that the interrelation of environmental responsiveness and age forms an inverse U and that an interest in green and energy efficient housing depends on age.

Research background: Research and measurement of sentiments, and the integration of methods for sentiment analysis in forecasting models or trading strategies for financial markets are gaining increasing attention at present. The theories that claim it is difficult to predict the individual investor’s decision also claim that individual investors cause market instability due to their irrationality. The existing instability increases the need for scientific research. Purpose of the article: This paper is dedicated to establishing a link between the individual investors’ behavior, which is expressed as sentiments, and the market dynamic, and is evaluated in the stock market. This article hypothesizes that the dynamics in the market is unequivocally related to the individual investor’s sentiments, and that this relationship occurs when the sentiments are expressed strongly and are unlimited.

Abstract – This paper evaluates the Eastern and Central EU regions according to the efficiency level of innovation systems by application of nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA). The most technologically inefficient NUTS2 regions of Central and Eastern EU are identified. The governmental institutions in these regions should enforce a higher level of regional innovative activity, as regional potential to create a higher value to the economy with current resources has not been reached yet.