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In this paper, we seek to study four options of exit decisions and strategies for Social Venture Entrepreneurs. Due to the small number of practicing Social Venture Investors and Entrepreneurs currently using the Social Venture Entrepreneurship model, data were collected from a heterogeneous group of founders and managers of social ventures across the Netherlands, sub-Saharan Africa, the United States and Asia. The study relies on a conjoint experiment on exit scenarios in which respondents were asked to decide on exit decisions they regarded as preferred or most probable under various conditions. Results from the descriptive analysis show that the founders are highly unlikely to exit. In the event of exit, Mergers and Acquisition (M&A) and Management Buy-out (MBO)/Internal Succession (IS) are the most preferred and probable exit routes that these founders are likely to take. Results from the conjoint analysis indicate that social impact is the most important factor in the decision of the founder of social ventures to exit. This study contributes to the broadening of our understanding on which exit decision models and strategies are likely to hold and become sustainable for practicing Social Venture Entrepreneurs.

TikTok influencer videos are becoming increasingly popular for promotional purposes and are appealing to adolescents. Yet, the products' level of integration into the storyline of such videos influences their recognizability as advertisements, which is concerning as they expose adolescents to unhealthy social media food marketing, leading to unhealthy consumption. This study investigated whether a sponsorship disclosure in a TikTok influencer video with different levels of product-plot integration increases adolescents' persuasion knowledge and impacts their brand outcomes. This between-subjects 2 × 2 experiment included 245 Dutch adolescents with a mean age of 13.6 (SD = 1.42). Participants watched a TikTok video in which the brand Doritos was shown passively or integrated into the storyline, with or without a disclosure. The sponsorship disclosure significantly increased recognition of advertising (F(241) = 4.48, p = .035) and understanding of persuasive intent (F(241) = 13.28, p =

Recently, situation researchers have developed taxonomies of situation-perception dimensions, also called situation characteristics. Situation-perception dimensions reflect how individuals psychologically interpret situations and predict subsequent behaviour. Similarly, in appraisal theories of emotion, appraisal dimensions have helped to understand how individuals evaluate situations according to their goals, and how these evaluations lead to emotions and subsequent behaviours. Surprisingly, thus far these two lines of research have hardly been linked. To reduce potential jangle fallacies, we examine the conceptual and empirical correspondence between situation perception and appraisal in daily-life situations (Study 1) and in emotional situations (Study 2). In each study, 550 UK participants recalled a recently experienced situation and rated the situation on ten situation-perception dimensions and on ten appraisal dimensions. The findings reveal overlap between situation perception and appraisal in five higher-order dimensions: Valence, Task-related effort, Familiarity, Negative interaction, and Positive interaction. Additionally, situation perception and appraisal overlap in predicting experienced emotions. Together, these findings suggest that there is considerable overlap between situation perception and appraisal, and that it may be worthwhile to link these two research fields.

Health claims and symbols are a convenient tool when it comes to the marketing of foods and they should, in theory, support consumers in making informed food choices, ideally in choosing healthier food products. However, not much is known about their actual impact on consumer behaviour. CLYMBOL ("The Role of health-related CLaims and sYMBOLs in consumer behaviour") is an EU-funded project aiming to study how health claims and symbols influence consumer understanding, purchase and consumption behaviour. During a 4-year period, a wide range of research studies have been conducted across Europe, in order to analyse European consumer behaviour in the context of health claims and symbols. Results of the studies will provide a basis for recommendations for stakeholders such as policy makers, the food industry and consumer and patient organisations.

To prevent disease and optimise health, nutrition advice is personalised based on an individuals’ lifestyle, health status and/or genetics. Although due to its high degree of personal relevance personalised nutrition advice is highly beneficial, the adoption of such advice may be hindered by the fact that it requires disclosure of personal and sensitive health information which induces the potential risk of privacy loss. This thesis investigates individuals’ intention to adopt personalised nutrition advice from the perspective of a trade-off between perceived privacy risk and perceived personalisation benefit. To understand this trade-off knowledge regarding factors that affect individuals’ perceptions of privacy risk and personalisation benefit is key. This thesis studies such factors by addressing three research lines: 1) How does service design affect the risk-benefit trade-off?; 2) What is the cognitive process behind the risk-benefit trade-off?; 3) How is the cognitive process that drives the risk-benefit trade-off affected by self-regulation? An overview of personalised nutrition services currently available in the market place shows that the design of personalised nutrition services mainly differs in terms of service providers, the used communication channels, advice scope, and advice frequency (Chapter 2). The required personal information hardly differs between services, with information related to lifestyle and health status being most common. When compared to lifestyle and health status, perceptions of privacy risk increase when a personalised nutrition service requires genotypic information (Chapters 3 and 4). Disclosure of genotypic information does, however, not increase perceptions of personalisation benefit. Furthermore, perceptions of personalisation benefit increase and perceptions of privacy risk decrease when a personalised nutrition service allows for face-to-face communication. In addition, perceptions of personalisation benefit increase when services provide regular follow-up and combined dietary advice with physical activity. The cognitive process is driven by the trustworthiness and competence of service providers (Chapters 3 and 4). The more trustworthy a service provider seems to be the more control individuals perceive to have over the disclosed personal information, which reduces perceptions of privacy risk. In terms of competence, service providers that induce high perception of competence increase the extent to which a personalised nutrition service is perceived as effective, which in turn amplifies individuals’ perceptions of personalisation benefit. Within the trade-off between perceived privacy risk and perceived personalisation benefit, benefits weigh heavier than risks independent of individuals’ nationality. Whether individuals eat healthily by volition (i.e. autonomous motivation) or because they feel forced to do so (i.e. controlled motivation) affects the extent to which perceived privacy risk, perceived personalisation benefit, and their determinants predict adoption intention (Chapter 5). Within this cognitive process, high levels of autonomous motivation strengthen relations related to perceived personalisation benefit and weaken relations related to perceived privacy risk. In contrast to autonomous motivation, high levels of controlled motivation strengthen relations related to perceived privacy risk and weaken relations related to perceived personalisation benefit. Autonomous individuals therefore seem to pay more attention to personalisation benefit, while controlled individuals seem to pay more attention to privacy risk. The trustworthiness of a service provider is relevant to all, regardless the level of autonomous or controlled motivation. Individual’s motivation to either prevent negative outcomes (i.e. prevention focus) or promote positive outcomes (i.e. promotion focus), called regulatory focus also affects perceptions of privacy risk and personalisation benefit (Chapter 6). The effect of the different regulatory foci on perceptions of privacy risk and personalisation benefit occurs through the interaction between an individual’s regulatory focus and the timing of health outcomes. Individuals focused on prevention have lower perceptions of privacy risk and higher perceptions of personalisation benefit when health outcomes are immediate rather than delayed. In the case of individuals with a promotion focus offering immediate or delayed health outcomes does not affect perceptions of privacy risk or perceptions of personalisation benefit. Overall, this thesis shows that individuals’ intention to adopt personalised nutrition advice mainly depends on perceptions of personalisation benefit, which are largely determined by one’s confidence in the effectiveness of the personalised nutrition service. Individual differences related to motivations do, however, affect the extent to which perceived personalisation benefit determines adoption intention.

The need for more effective interventions to combat the obesity problem has been expressed by many public health experts. While consumer support is important for intervention effectiveness, little is known about why consumers accept or do not accept food choice interventions. The present thesis therefore aims to examine the process underlying acceptance of intervention strategies for healthy food choices. Particularly the role that intervention characteristics (e.g. the source and the location of an intervention) and individual characteristics (i.e. consumers’ perceived barriers for behaviour) play in this process is investigated. Three research questions are formulated: 1) What are the drivers of consumer acceptance of intervention strategies for healthy food choices?; 2) How do consumers’ barriers for healthy food choices influence both food choices in real-life and acceptance of interventions?; 3) How does intervention intrusiveness influence acceptance and effectiveness of intervention strategies for healthy food choices? General beliefs about the obesity problem and intervention-specific beliefs are identified as the main drivers of intervention acceptance in the food domain (Chapter 2). General beliefs comprised both people’s ideas about the magnitude of the obesity problem and the responsibility for food choices that consumers make. Intervention-specific beliefs, on the other hand, concerned people’s perceptions of whether an intervention will be effective, both personally and societally, in stimulating healthy food choices (perceived effectiveness) as well as whether the intervention is a fair way of stimulating healthier choices (perceived fairness). Consumers’ motivation-related barriers are associated strongest with real-life food choices, with higher levels of motivation to choose healthy foods being related to higher proportions of healthy choices (Chapter 3). Barriers related to the perceived opportunity and ability to choose healthy foods are associated less strongly with real-life choices, with higher levels of opportunity and ability being related to higher proportions of healthy food choices. Three distinct barrier profiles regarding choosing healthy foods are identified: the no-barrier profile (consisting of those who perceive to have no barriers), the lack-of-opportunity profile (consisting of those who perceive to lack opportunity), and the lack-of-motivation profile (consisting of those who report not being motivated). Consumers with a no-barrier profile or a lack-of-opportunity profile perceive interventions to be more effective, more fair, and more acceptable than those with a lack-of-motivation profile (Chapter 4 and 5). Acceptance of less intrusive interventions, such as calorie information provision, is higher than those of more intrusive interventions, such as elimination of unhealthy choices, both in hypothetical (Chapter 4) and realistic (Chapter 5) settings. In the hypothetical setting, the effect of intrusiveness on acceptance is mediated by both the perceived effectiveness and the perceived fairness of interventions: the more consumers perceive an intervention to be effective and fair, the more they accept it (Chapter 4). In the realistic setting, the effect of perceived intrusiveness on acceptance is mediated only by the perceived fairness of interventions (Chapter 5). In a vending machine setting, the implementation of an intervention that eliminates 50% of unhealthy choices leads to higher proportions of healthy choices than the implementation of less intrusive interventions (providing calorie information through labelling and not intervening at all). Since acceptance does not differ between these interventions (Chapter 5), elimination of unhealthy choices appears to be the best way to stimulate consumers to make healthy choices. Overall, this thesis show that consumers’ general- and intervention-specific beliefs drive acceptance of intervention strategies for healthy food choices. Intervention intrusiveness partly influences acceptance, depending on the setting in which consumers are confronted with them (hypothetical vs. realistic). Furthermore, barriers that consumers perceive to have in relation to choosing healthy foods impact acceptance of interventions as well. These insights provide implications for policy makers, both in terms of the development and the communication of intervention strategies for healthy food choices.

Sustainable development in global food markets is hindered by the discrepancy between positive consumer attitudes towards sustainable development or sustainability and the lack of corresponding sustainable consumption by a majority of consumers. Apparently for many (light user) consumers the ‘importance’ of ‘sustainability’ has a meaning that is not directly translated into purchases. The cognitive and motivational perceptual structures of sustainability among light users of sustainable products are empirically compared to the Brundlandt definition (needs of future generations) and the Triple-P-Baseline (people, planet, prosperity) definition of sustainability. Results show that light users cognitively can distinguish between the social and temporal dimensions of the Brundlandt definition, as well as the people, planet and prosperity dimensions of the Triple-P definition of sustainability. In the motivational structure of light users of sustainable products, all attributes that do not offer direct and personal benefits are collapsed into a single dimension. This single dimension explains purchases more parsimoniously than a more complex structure, and is itself explained by a set of psychographic predictors that appears to be related to identity. Perceived relevance and determinance are two distinct constructs, underlying the overall concept of attribute importance. Attribute relevance is commonly measured by self-reported importance in a Likert type scale. In order to measure attribute determinance a survey based measure is developed. In an empirical survey (N=1543) determinance of sustainability related product attributes is measured through a set of forced choice items and contrasted to self-reported relevance of those attributes. In line with expectations, a priori determinance predicts sustainable food choice more efficiently than perceived relevance. Determinance of sustainability related product attributes can be predicted by future temporal orientation, independently of relevance of these attributes. These results support an interpretation of the attitude to behaviour gap in terms of construal level theory, and this theory allows for testable hypotheses on low construal motivators that should induce light users to purchase sustainable products. Sustainable consumption is viewed as a dilemma between choices for immediate (low construal) benefits and choices that avoid long-term collective (high construal) harm. Identity theory suggests that self-confirmation could be a driving motive behind the performance of norm-congruent sustainable behaviour. Through identity people may acquire the intrinsic motivation to carry out pro-environmental behaviour. This view is tested in two empirical studies in The Netherlands. The first study shows that sustainable identity predicts sustainable preference, and that the effect of identity on preference is partly mediated by self-confirmation motives. The second study confirms that sustainable identity influences the determinance of sustainable attributes, and through this determinance has an impact on sustainable product choice. This effect is partly mediated by stated relevance of these attributes. Sustainable certification signals positive sustainable quality of a product, but fail to create massive demand for such products. Based on regulatory focus theory and prospect theory it is argued that negative signalling of low sustainable quality would have a stronger effect on the adoption of sustainable products than the current positive signalling of high sustainable quality. The effects of positive vs. negative signalling of high vs. low sustainable quality on attitude and preference formation are tested in three experimental studies. Results show (1) that negative labelling has a larger effect on attitude and preference than positive labelling, (2) that the effect of labelling is enhanced by regulatory fit, and (3) that the effect of labelling is mediated by personal norms, whereas any additional direct effect of environmental concern on preference formation is negligible. Overall the present thesis suggests that the attitude to behaviour gap in sustainable consumption can be explained as a conflict between high construal motives for the abstract and distant goals of sustainable development and the low construal motives that drive daily consumption. Activating low construal motives for sustainable consumption, be it intrinsic motives to affirm a sustainable self-concept or loss aversion motives, increases sustainable consumer behaviour. Applying these insights to marketing decision making opens a new line of research into the individual, corporate, and institutional drivers that may contribute to the sustainable development of global food markets.

Key Words: Social Venture Entrepreneurs, Exit, Ownership Social Venture Entrepreneurs invest in local and mostly bottom of pyramid (BoPs), and more so in developing economies. Different understanding and meanings given to the term exit and ownership, by social venture entrepreneurs and local communities with varied cultural business practices, are highlighted in this thesis. Results from this thesis show that it is important to factor in local and cultural practices into current social venture business models. This will help to ensure the sustainability and scale up of social ventures. The study explores exit options within business and development management literature. There were limited scientific related social entrepreneurship literatures on the subject matter at the inception of this study. The choice to conduct a qualitative case study was made in order to bring to out the forms and meanings of exit, as well as perceived exit, and ownership forms expected or anticipated by both the social venture entrepreneur and related stakeholders, such as communities and local partners, covered in this study

Together, the chapters in this thesis show that although the default is to rely on affect, in attitude formation toward unfamiliar attitude objects, people are able to draw on cognitive inferences provided that there are enough cues available (e.g. product context, high Need for Cognition, or being more often exposed). In addition, whether people rely on affect or cognition depends on which process is the easiest. The attitude component which is decisive in the attitude formation process requires the least elaborate process. This thesis contributes to a better process understanding as both affective-cognitive and deliberative-intuitive dimensions were simultaneously studied. Finally, it is concluded that attitudes toward unfamiliar attitude objects, in this case nanotechnology applications, are still subject to change. This has implications for communication about new technologies, as it is important to address both affective and cognitive aspects.

Keywords: Base of the pyramid, Bottom of the pyramid, Supply chains, Export market integration, Market learning, Developing and Emerging countries, Exploitation and Exploration, Institutional arrangements, Transaction cost economics, Livelihood performance, BoP producers Abstract Organizing supply chains that are based in producer groups that live in conditions of widespread poverty and weak institutional support (sometimes referred to as the Base of the Pyramid [BoP] producers) is challenging. These challenges have predominantly been studied in the development literature, while the marketing perspective has received less attention. Drawing on both transaction cost and market learning theories, the thesis integrates producers’ opportunity exploitation and exploration processes with the institutional framework adopted in the development literature to understand producers’ integration with export markets. Overall, the findings show that exploitation mediates between drivers investigated by development economists (quality of infrastructure, microcredit, and community culture) and integration with export markets. The results show that BoP producers’ export market integration also depends on the institutional arrangements that exporting companies offer. The results indicate that contrary to more-developed settings like those in Western Europe and Northern America, there is no need to develop both opportunity exploration and exploitation in environments characterized by scarce opportunities with relatively high purchasing powers. The findings imply that developing competencies that enable to produce the demanded quality are crucial in seizing export market integration opportunities.

For many people, food intake management is a challenging process, as food is always in abundance and the appetite control system is challenged and potentially overpowered by habits, routines and cues in the external environment. The present thesis focuses on satiation and satiety expectations and inferences as a guide for food intake, both within and across consumption episodes. More specifically, the role of physiological cues, claims on food packages and packaging design in the development of satiation/ satiety expectations and their effect on food intake is studied. This thesis takes as a starting point that feedback from previous consumption experiences is important for the development of satiety and satiation expectations. In addition, it is expected that satiation and satiety expectations also can be inferred ‘on the spot’, either explicitly (as from satiety claims), but potential also implicitly and more intuitively (as from packaging design and other factors in the eating context).

This study is a result of the interdisciplinary project Co-Innovation for Quality in African Food Chains (CoQA). The objective of the research was to improve the quality of pasteurised pineapple juice taking the characteristics of the Beninese pineapple marketing system into account. The specific objectives were to: (i) evaluate the adaptation of Beninese pineapple marketing system to the introduction of the pasteurised pineapple juice business; (ii) assess the extent to which pineapples with physical damage (i.e., of potential less quality) can be used for pineapple juice production; (iii) review the present state-of-the-art on the effect of processing on pineapple juice quality and (iv) evaluate the effect of pasteurisation on the microbiological, physicochemical and nutritional quality of pineapple juice. Chapter 2 of this thesis revealed that wholesalers are the main suppliers to both consumer-merchants and juice manufacturers. However, juice manufacturers’ preferences are different from those of consumer-merchants. More specifically, juice manufacturers prefer large pineapples from 'Kona Sugarloaf' variety and believe that pineapples with physical damage can be used to produce pasteurised pineapple juice. This offers wholesalers the opportunity to sell pineapples that are not demanded by consumer-merchants, but it was found that wholesalers are not engaged in any specific sorting and grading activities to fulfill the wants of the pineapple juice manufacturers. We learned that the reason for the lack of adaptation of the system is caused by the lack of responsiveness of wholesalers due to such factors. The results imply that, in the development context, the adaptation of the marketing system to a development intervention needs to be managed and the effects of interventions need to be considered beyond the primary target group. In other words, complementary marketing interventions should focus on the other actors of the marketing system. As juice manufacturers considered pineapples with physical damage as a possible raw material for pineapple juice production, the possibility of using pineapples with physical damage for pineapple juice production was investigated in chapter 3. Experiments were designed to simulate different types of physical damage and the damaged pineapples were stored for up to 9 days. Physically damaged pineapples stored for up to 9 days at 20 °C showed no adverse effects on the physicochemical characteristics and vitamin C content of fresh pineapple juice (Chapter 3). This suggests that pineapples with those characteristics are suitable for the production of pasteurised juice. Pasteurisation is widely used in juice production. Yet, few studies have investigated the effect of pasteurisation on the quality of pineapple juice (Chapter 4). Due to insufficient proof that pasteurisation has a negative effect on the pineapple juice quality as demonstrated in other juices (Chapter 4), the effect of pasteurisation on the microbiological (mainly yeasts), physicochemical (pH, degree Brix, organic acids, sugars content) and nutritional (vitamin C) quality was investigated in the range of 55 °C to 95 °C. It was found that yeast inactivation in pineapple juice could be described by the Weibull model. The desired 6 log reduction was achieved at 65 °C for 2 min. This result proved that pineapple juice does not need to be pasteurised at a high temperature (85 °C - 20 min) as it is generally applied in Benin and other countries to ensure juice safety. While not expected, vitamin C, the most important nutritional compound in pineapple juice, proved to be stable under the heat treatments investigated in this research. Actually, the degradation rate of vitamin C was below 20 %. Because of this stability, it was not possible to do a kinetic analysis. The physicochemical attributes of pineapple juice, such as pH, degree Brix, organic acid content, were not affected by the pasteurisation treatment. However, at 95 °C, a decrease of sucrose and a simultaneous increase of fructose and glucose contents was noticed, which will probably increase the sweetness of the juice but at the same time favour the Maillard reaction. The fact that HMF was detected in pineapple juice after 30 min at 95 °C, illustrates that the Maillard reaction can affect pineapple juice quality at higher temperatures and longer heat treatments (Chapter 5). Ultimately, pineapple juice should be pasteurised for 2 min at 65 °C to preserve its nutritional (vitamin C) and sensorial quality (colour, taste). Finally, all findings were integrated in chapter 6 and were discussed from an integrative perspective. The thesis has implications for further developing the industry. Currently, the pineapple juice industry is segmented because juice manufacturers differ in many ways. They are living in different locations, have different financial capabilities, different knowledge about juice processing techniques and as a result, they produce pasteurised pineapple juice that is variable in quality. In order to improve their pineapple juice quality and to increase their market access, juice manufacturers can be trained on better pineapple sourcing and pasteurisation techniques. Working more closely together, they can produce products at comparable quality levels using their own equipment. Juice manufacturers who are not willing to collaborate that way can continue to produce and improve their pineapple juice quality by taking the recommendations from this thesis into account.

Consumers eat at various sequential occasions throughout the day. The current thesis addresses the question of how one consumption episode can affect the amount of consumption at a subsequent episode. The thesis focuses specifically on how the social context during a consumption episode affects subsequent consumption, and on when consumers rely on hunger and satiety cues in sequential consumption episodes. Dit proefschrift richt zich op de vraag hoe een consumptiemoment de hoeveelheid consumptie op een later moment kan beïnvloeden. Gedurende de dag eten consumenten op verschillende momenten. Specifiek richt dit proefschrift zich op de vraag hoe de sociale context van een consumptie-episode latere consumptie beïnvloedt en op de vraag wanneer consumenten zich laten leiden door honger en verzadigingssignalen in opeenvolgende consumptiemomenten.

Pastoralists are people who, for their livelihood, depend on livestock raising using the natural pasture. Sustainability of pastoralist production is important for their livelihood as well as to the supply of animal-based protein. However, concerns with the pastoralist production system have also been voiced, particularly, on the ecological implications of the system. As a consequence, sustainability of the pastoral system and pastoralists that operate therein is a central issue in many debates among development practitioners, academics, and policy makers). Central to this debate is whether pastoralists can be expected to adapt their livestock production strategies to the varying availability of natural resources (i.e., pasture and water). Thus, herd size management in terms of stocking and destocking of livestock by pastoralists has become a central issue in the debate. The stocking and destocking decision in anticipation of changing external conditions can be conceived of as a marketing challenge to pastoralists, not only contributing to their livelihood and profit, but also to the sustainability of the system. As such, markets (and therefore, marketing) relates not only to economic and social aspects of sustainability, but also to the ecological aspects. This study investigates whether and how marketing can contribute to the sustainability of pastoralists. For this purpose, four lines of research are explored: (1) Is pastoralism in principle a sustainable production system?; If so under which conditions is such system sustainable?, (2) How does marketing relate to the conditions under which pastoralism is sustainable?, (3) Which concepts from the marketing literature can generate insights that potentially contribute to the sustainability of pastoralism?, and (4) How do these concepts empirically relate to the social and economic aspects of sustainability and to the resource dilemma that characterizes the ecological aspect of pastoralists’ sustainability? The thesis indicates that marketing can help pastoralists to strengthen their livelihood and to adapt to changing natural conditions through strategic selling and buying of livestock. In that respect only strategic marketing with a central view on the creation of customer value can contribute to economic, social and ecological sustainability at the same time. Thus, the thesis shows evidence that if pursued with a strategic intent marketing is a viable tool also for the sustainable development of the pastoralist system. Market orientation (in terms of customer orientation and interfunctional coordination) is in that respect the key concept. The thesis also contributes to the literature on the role of marketing in emerging economies indicating that market orientation theory is not restricted to formal economies with bounded organizations, but generalizable to informal economies such as pastoralists. To help pastoralists to live in a sustainable manner, policy should support their adaptation along the lines of the market by not just strengthening market integration, but by advocating and facilitating a market orientation.

Despite the fact that in the developed countries food safety standards are higher than ever, food safety incidents continue to occur frequently. The accumulation of food safety incidents might affect general consumer confidence in the safety of food. Therefore, in this thesis, the concept of general consumer confidence in the safety of food is further conceptualised, and embedded within an integrative framework that incorporates both its antecedents and consequences. General consumer confidence in the safety of food is determined by 1) consumer trust in societal actors, 2) consumer recall of food safety incidents and media coverage, 3) the perceived safety of different product groups, and 4) socio-demographic and personality characteristics. The behavioural consequences of general consumer confidence relate to information search and particular food choice behaviours. A measure for general consumer confidence in the safety of food is developed, showing that the construct consists of two distinct, although correlated, dimensions: optimism and pessimism. In the thesis, the construct of general consumer confidence in the safety of food is validated within its nomological network. The results show that optimism and pessimism are activated by different sources, and that consumer trust in societal actors, and consumer perceptions of the safety of meat are the strongest determinants of general consumer confidence in the safety of food. The framework is shown to be stable over time, and found to be applicable to an international context. In terms of the relationship between general consumer confidence in the safety of food and its behavioural consequences, it is shown that consumers low in general confidence in the safety of food are more likely to revert to specific risk relief strategies. A more in depth analysis of the role of trust in societal actors in shaping general consumer confidence in the safety of food, shows that the strength of the relationship between trust and general consumer confidence in the safety of food depends on the specific food chain actor, the specific dimension of trust, as well as the specific combinations between actors and different dimensions of trust. Overall, this thesis has extended existing research that largely focused on consumer perceptions of specific food-related hazards, by developing and validating an integrative framework of general consumer confidence in the safety of food. This research informs stakeholders that share responsibility on food safety about how confidence develops in the complex environment of the food production system, and provides risk managers and communicators, as well as other stakeholders, with important insights and tools to better respond to consumer concerns about food safety issues.

Innovative developments in technology, such as the emergence of genomics as a plant breeding practice, hold the potential to change the supply side of the market. The success of these practices not only depends on the improved efficiency and effectiveness it brings, but also on how well they are aligned with consumer perceptions and practices in the market place. This stresses the importance of making the voice of the consumer heard early on in the development and application of these innovative plant breeding practices. The aim of this thesis is therefore to contribute to a better understanding of the consumer behavior perspective in the development of new tomato varieties based on plant genomics. The first chapter provides the theoretical basis for the four empirical chapters that follow. In this chapter, quality guidance models are discussed that take the consumer as a starting point in the product development. It also includes the role of information, about the product technology, on consumer perception and acceptance of both the technology and the products it brings about. Chapter 2 develops an elaboration of the Quality Guidance Model to more explicitly include the so-called credence attribute perceptions of consumers as a yardstick for product development. The results confirm that credence attribute perceptions need to be taken into account when the purpose is to develop consumer preferred products. Chapter 3 explores the extent to which the positioning of plant breeding technologies affect consumer preferences and shows that this effect primarily operates through making the credence attribute perceptions more salient in the consumer decision process. Chapter 4 explores consumer images for different plant breeding practices in more detail and shows that initial images of genomics may change as a result of further information exchange and elaboration. The final empirical chapter in this thesis (chapter 5) explores how mode of thought and reference point in the decision process affects consumer evaluation. Contrary to expectation it shows that only mode of thought (conscious versus unconscious thought) has an effect on consumer evaluation. Chapter 6 summarizes the results of the previous chapters and describes the implications and limitations of the research. Overall, the results of this thesis contribute to a better recognition of consumer perspective in the development of new plant varieties and subsequently suggest several ways to improve the consumer perspective into this process.

Nutrigenomics is a recent discipline within nutrition sciences that aims at understanding how food components influence health status by affecting gene expression to eventually help maintain health and prevent disease. Nutrigenomics science has a potential consumer application in the form of so-called personalised nutrition: tailored dietary advice or even personalised food products that help consumers to select foods that are optimally aligned with their genetic constitution. However, due to the fact that nutrigenomics is an emerging science and personalised nutrition is still at an early stage of development, the views of both expert and lay stakeholders on the meaning, potential, and acceptability of personalised nutrition may still be divergent and developing. This dissertation takes up the challenge of understanding and anticipating public acceptance of nutrigenomics-based personalised nutrition. It aims to answer the central research question: What determines public acceptance of nutrigenomics-based personalised nutrition? For this purpose, three lines of research are explored: development of a conceptual research framework from existing literature, expert views on the future of personalised nutrition, and consumer evaluations of different scenarios under which personalised nutrition might enter the market place. The thesis’ theoretical contribution lies in an in-depth analysis of the concept of personalisation using marketing and consumer behaviour literature (chapter 2), and the development of a conceptual framework for consumer acceptance of food innovations (chapter 3). Empirically, results from a consumer study within a representative sample of Dutch consumers (chapter 5) reveal that freedom of choice, clear advantages, ease of applying personalised nutrition, and consensus among experts are important factors in enhancing consumer acceptance. However, the research in this thesis also shows that experts have not yet reached the necessary consensus on the scope and potential of nutrigenomics (chapter 4), and that experts do not expect that it will be easy for consumers to incorporate personalised nutrition into their daily lives (chapter 6). These, and other, issues can serve as inspiration for future research, as well as the further refinement of the generic framework for consumer acceptance of food innovations. In conclusion, this thesis contributes to a better understanding of how public acceptance of the scientific innovation of nutrigenomics-based personalised nutrition comes about. It shows how issues critical for the further development of such an emerging science and the innovations arising from it can be systematically identified and addressed.

Keywords: people, profit, planet, marketing channels, contracts, sustainability, quality,LakeVictoria, conjointanalysis.Sustainable development hinges on a combined focus of its impact on society (people), the environment (planet) and to its economic value (profit). Increasingly, it is being recognized that these people, profit and planet dimensions are interlinked and an important challenge for public and private policy is to take them jointly into account. This inter-linkage is particularly evident in international channels that build on scarce natural resources from developing countries, which is the focus of this thesis. Specifically, we focus on how international marketing channels can be organized in order to enhance the balance between the people, profit and planet dimensions of the sustainable development such that small-scale primary producers from developing economies are integrated into the international marketing channels in a way that adds to the profitability of the channel and the welfare of the local communities, without compromising the sustainability of natural resources. We focus on contracts as mechanism to stimulate welfare, sustainability and quality at primary stages of the channel. We apply a number of theoretical approaches namely transaction costs economics, social - and network theory, and property rights theory to develop and test arguments for contracts to stimulate sustainable and quality-enhancing practices. We undertook both case study and conjoint analysis to develop and test our arguments.A situational analysis of the context in which primary producers operate lead to a conclusion that primary producers (i.e., fishermen) fail to implement sustainable and quality-enhancing practices because of major bottlenecks that they face such as the degradation of natural resources (i.e., fisheries), limited access to production facilities, information asymmetries and ineffective enforcement. An empirical analysis at fishermen and middlemen levels shows that they are open to contracts as mechanisms to stimulate sustainable and quality-enhancing practices. This is true especially if such contracts provide production facilities, price information, bring fishermen closer to international channels and allow private policy enforcement of sustainable practices. However, both fishermen and middlemen have idiosyncratic preferences for the particular types of contracts. This implies that they should be offered a choice among different contracts. An analysis of channel members in the downstream part of the channel show that in order to create a situation in which fishermen and middlemen are engaged in sustainability and quality-enhancing contracts, downstream channel members and other stakeholders should be engaged in and/or support micro-projects that may enable fishermen to solve the market failures that they face. The channel members farther downstream however may need stakeholder pressure, e.g. from special interest groups to be involved in addressing the market failures in the upstream.

New products that deliver added consumer value contribute significantly to the success of companies. In the numerous studies of new product performance over the years, consensus has developed that understanding consumer needs is of paramount strategic value, especially in the early stages of the product development process. During these early stages, the product has not yet been specified and the aim is to search for novel product ideas from a marketing and technological perspective. Despite their importance, several studies indicate that consumer research methodologies are underutilised in the early stages of new product development. The aim of this thesis is to analyse key issues and develop and illustrate appropriate consumer research methodology at early stages of the new product development process, as this is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of successful product development projects.Consumer research can be confirmative in its focus of testing new product concepts before launch and in this way prevents unjustified investments. Consumer research can also be proactive in that it aims to identify new product ideas that deliver against consumer needs that are not yet fulfilled by products currently in the market. Successful new product development requires a balance between both types of consumer research. The research in this thesis focuses on the optimal application of both types of consumer research in the early stages of the development process, in particular in providing guidance in generating and validating new product concepts. In the first chapter, the importance of new product development is presented and key factors of success and failure are discussed. Specially, the need for consumer research in the early stages is considered and criteria for effective strategic consumer research are outlined.In chapter 2, ten frequently used methods and techniques to uncover unmet consumer needs and wants are critically reviewed. Each of the following empirical chapters focuses on a specific aspect of the problems associated with selecting and implementing appropriate consumer research in the early stages of the product development process. Chapter 3 presents a framework which allows obtaining relevant consumer and expert feedback in an early stage of the product development process. By systematically generating and rigorously screening a large set of product concepts both inside (experts) and outside (consumers) the company, the framework shows the extent to which experts and consumer agree about new product opportunities and in this way prevents that high potential opportunities are overlooked.Chapter 4 illustrates the problem of successful functional food innovation. This chapter provides insight in a number of strategic decisions that have to be taken in the early stages of the development process in relation to health claim formulation, segment determination and product selection. Chapter 5 provides a comprehensive conceptual and empirical comparison of internal and external preference analysis. In addition to a comparison on statistical criteria, this study explicitly takes the end-user perspective into account by comparing both techniques on various end-user criteria. The final empirical chapter in this thesis (chapter 6) studies the added value of the innovation templates approach in generating and screening new product ideas. Chapter 7 summarizes the results of the previous chapters and describes the limitations of this thesis. Overall, the results of this thesis contribute to the better recognition of the importance of consumer research in early stages of new product development and suggest methodologies that could support effective marketing-R&D interfacing early in the process.

Demand chain management (DCM) is a business philosophy which objectives to understand customer demand and meeting this demand with possible alternatives through the deployment of chain processes. DCM is a new paradigm in the business terrain, and it was defined in this study as: the business practice aimed at understanding and managing the customer demand and at aligning all activities throughout the chain that simultaneously create both customer and enterprise values. DCM is an extension of SCM, but with a strong emphasis on demand management due to the incorporation of the market orientation perspective on its concept. It goes beyond extant SCM literature because it considers the customer as the point of origin of any business activity, and comprises both demand orientation strategy (which is the source of business effectiveness) and supply oriented strategy (which is source of business efficiency). DCM contributes for the business thinking by acknowledging that efficiency is necessary but not sufficient forbringing improvements in the enterprise's level of competitiveness. As DCM is a newly-formed concept the knowledge to bring it into reality is still scarce. The aim of this thesis is to empirical analyse the concept of DCM and propose tools for its implementation. The problem statement reads as:How can DCM be brought into reality? In the course of this study we responded four major research questions: 1)Is DCM an answer to what is happening in business? 2) How to cope with demand differentiation for making DCM explicit and actionable? 3) How can consumer demand be identified and quantified in a format that is actionable for demand chain design? And 4) What steps and trade-offs are required for the implementation of DCM?The empirical setting of this thesis is theRio Grandedo Sul beef business.Rio Grandedo Sul is located in the South of Brazil, near to the board ofUruguayandArgentina. Livestock production is one of the most important agriculture activities and the state has the highest per capita beef consumption inBrazil. Despite that most companies are still commodity oriented and price primacy has been the key feature in the competitive context, nowadays strategies such as segmentation and branding have started to play a role in the business. In the last decade new competitors have entered the local market, a new pattern of beef distribution has emerged as a result of the concentration of supermarkets, and consumers have become more selective about where they buy, what they buy and the price they pay for the products. Many small and medium-sized companies are striving to survive, while others have been extremely successful because they have identified specific market segments and tailored the supply chain to match the requirements of these segments. Consequently, theRio Grandedo Sul beef business seems particularly suited to illustrate the applicability of DCM as conceptualized in the first chapter of this thesis.The first chapter introduces the research and describes the key developments observed in the contemporary business and in the extant literature that made us to formulate the problem statement and the research questions. Chapter 2 starts with an overview of the business system changes that have taken place in the past few decades. In addition, this chapter deals with the concepts of supply chain management and its evolution into demand chain management. To illustrate this, a case study incorporating the two different types of business orientation based on the beef chain inRio Grandedo Sul is presented along with a description of the key differences between DCM and SCM paradigms. Chapter 3 presents a study to determine the consumer goal structure triggered by three situational variables associated with the consumption situation, namely: the hedonic focus, the utilitarian focus, and conspicuousness. First the conceptual model linking consumer values and benefits with the three situational variables is presented. After this, the hypotheses are formulated and tested. Overall, this chapter shows that (1) some values are significantly associated with the three situational dimensions, (2) some values, as well as the perceived hedonic orientation and conspicuousness of consumption situations have a direct main effect on the benefits sought, and (3) values sometimes moderate the effects of situational dimensions on benefits sought. Through making these relationships explicit the chapter contributes for understanding the demand heterogeneity, which is an essential step for turning demand chain a reality. Chapter 4 presents a sequential benefit-feature segmentation model appropriated for designing responses in the demand chain according to specific segment needs. The chapter starts with an overview of market segmentation theory, and thus advances the sequential model. The sequential model was tested against the benefit segmentation approach and feature segmentation approach in terms of statistical properties and usefulness for managers' decision-making in the beef chain. In conclusion, this chapter shows that benefit-feature importance segmentation yields more homogeneous and actionable segments, and may hold promise as a tool to improve market segmentation for strategy design in the chain arena. Chapter 5 describes a demand chain design framework. The framework was built on the basis of quality function deployment (QFD) and involves six closely interrelated steps: market demand identification; choosing segments; translation of segment demand into chain processes; breaking processes into chain tasks and assets; coordination mechanism delineation and; chain members' selection. Chapter 6 consists of the conclusions and implications of the study. Then, limitations and future avenues for research in the area of DCM are presented. Overall, the results of this thesis contribute to a better conceptualization of DCM and suggest tools that could support its implementation.

This thesis aims at gaining a deeper understanding of how consumers perceive product newness and how perceived newness affects the market success of new product introductions. It builds on theories in psychology that identified "collative" variables closely associated with newness perceptions on the part of the consumer. AIso, it explores the effect of newness on market success after one year and the pattem of market success during that time period.It is hypothesized that perceived newness is a two-dimensional (rather than unitary) construct and that its two dimensions, (1) mere perception of newness and (2) perceived complexity, have different effects on product liking and market success over time. Consistent with our hypotheses, product liking linearly decreases with perceived complexity and cross section analysis reveals the same relationship with market success after one year. The hypothesized inverted-U shaped relationship does not hold in the case of product liking as it linearly increases with perceived incongruity (i.e. mere newness perception). In contrast, and consistent with our hypothesis, cross section analysis reveals an inverted-U relationship between perceived incongruity and market success after one year. Over time, the keyfindingsfrom this work emphasize that high perceived product complexity is a disadvantage to new product success in the short run. However, market success of complex products increases over time once initial rejection is overcome (i.e. learning to like). In addition, the mere perception of newness does not appear to have a significant effect on the shape of the diffusion curve. Finally, for a given product, qualitative comparisons between countries suggest that incongruity and complexity may differentially participate to overall newness and therefore affect liking.Overall, the thesis reveals the importance of considering product newness as a twodimensional construct since each of these dimensions brings in key information to explain consumers' response to innovative products.