The Delphi process retains the advantage of having several judges while removing the biasing effects that might occur during face-to-face interaction. The basic approach has been to collect anonymous judgements by mail questionnaire. For example, the members independently generate their ideas to answer the first questionnaire and return it. The staff members summarise the responses as the group consensus and feed this summary back along with a second questionnaire for reassessment. Based on this feedback, the respondents independently evaluate their earlier responses. The underlying belief is that the consensus estimate results in a better decision after several rounds of anonymous group judgement. While it is possible to continue the procedure for several rounds, essentially no significant change occurs after the second round of estimation.
The Nominal Group Technique (NGT)
NGT has gained increasing recognition in health, social service, education, industry, and government organisations. The term Nominal Group Technique was adopted by earlier researchers to refer to processes that bring people together but do not allow them to communicate verbally. Thus, the collection of people is a group nominally, or in name only. In its present form, NGT actually combines both verbal and non-verbal stages.
Basically, NGT is a structured group meeting that proceeds as follows: a group of 7 to 10 individuals sit around a table but do not speak to one another. Rather, each person writes ideas on a pad of paper. After five minutes, a structured sharing of ideas takes place. Each person around the table presents one idea. A person designated as recorder writes the ideas on a flip chart in full view of the entire group. This continues until all of the participants indicate that they have no further ideas to share. There is still no discussion.
The output of this phase is usually a list of between 18 and 25 ideas. The next phase involves structured discussion in which each idea receives attention before a vote is taken. This is achieved by asking for clarification or stating the degree of sup-port for each idea listed on the flip chart. The next stage involves independent voting in which each participant privately selects priorities by ranking or voting. The group decision is the mathematically pooled outcome of the individual votes.
Both the Delphi technique and NGT are relatively new, but each has had an excellent record of success. Basic differences between them are:
Delphi participants are typically anonymous to one another. While NGT participants become acquainted.
NGT participants meet face-to-face around a table, while Delphi participants are physically distant and never meet face to face.
In the Delphi process, all communication between participants is by way, of written questionnaires and feedback from the monitoring staff. In NGT, communication is direct between participants.
Practical considerations, of course, often influence which technique is used. For example, such factors as the number of working hours available, costs, and the physical proximity of participants's influences which technique is selected.
Text 4
Types of Buying Decision Behaviour
Consumer decision making varies with the type of buying decision. There are great differences between buying toothpaste, a tennis racket, an expensive camera, and a new car. The more complex decisions are likely to involve more buying participants and more buyer deliberation. There are three types of buying behaviour.
) Routine Response Behaviour
Routine response behaviour, the simpliest type of buying behaviour, occurs when consumers buy low-cost, frequently purchased items. These buyers have very few decisions to make — they know a lot about the product class and major brands available, and they have fairly clear preferences among the brands. However, they do not always buy the same brand; stockouts, special deals, or simply a wish for variety may override any brand loyalty. In general, buyers do not give much thought, search, or time to the purchase. The goods in this class are often called low-involvement goods. For example, you don't spend a lot of time and effort choosing your laundry detergent, or your gas station. You usually just pick one of the brands or places you use regularly.
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