Sustainability Theses
Marcus Coleman, Master’s Thesis, 2009. Major Professor: Dave Weatherspoon
In an industry dominated by multiple product introductions differentiated at the attribute level, carbonated soft drinks (CSDs) experience demand pressure from all aspects of the beverage industry that go beyond CSDs. The main objective of this paper is to analyze demand for new and sector leading CSDs, which are characterized by multiple product consumer purchasing behavior, firm promotional activity and differentiation at the attribute level. Given the many unique strategies for innovation in CSD new product introductions (NPIs), it is imperative to find out just how effective firm innovation strategies are in using NPIs to stimulate and revitalize demand for CSDs. Using the linear approximate version of the almost ideal demand system that incorporates product attributes through distance metrics, the results of this study show how consumers react to price increases in both NPIs and sector leading CSDs. The combination of the information gained from both the own-price and cross-price elasticity results as well as the attribute results indicate the relative instability in demand found across the CSD industry, particularly for NPIs. Despite the instability, the results also provide information for product attribute categories where strategies can be formulated to aide in improving the longevity of the CSD industry.
Martin Angula, Master’s Thesis, 2010. Major Professor: Dave Weatherspoon
Sustainable coffee certification initiatives have created a fast growing niche market that promises to ameliorate smallholder coffee producers’ hardships brought about by low coffee commodity prices in recent years. The current debate has focused on whether these initiatives are accessible, especially by smallholder farmers and whether they indeed deliver on this promise, with certification costs believed to constitute an entry barrier. However, evidence has emerged that even when free certification has been given to smallholder coffee farmers, some farmers continue to sell certified coffee in the conventional coffee markets. This study uses a double hurdle model to identify those factors that shape coffee growers choice of marketing channel and sales volume decisions once a marketing channel has been selected. The study concludes that labor availability (own and hired) and the size of farm holding are the main constraints to both participation in the sustainable coffee marketing channel and the sales volume to this channel. Revenue from crop sales other than coffee is also an important determinant of participation and sales volume. Age was the only demographic factor that was found to be statistically significantly related to participation and sales volume.
