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The characteristics of consumer attitudes in the food market in Hungary
43-49Views:202The objective of our research was to examine the health status and health behaviour of the Hungarian population in relation of food consumption by identifying relationships between the underlying factors. In our research we used the objective factors from secondary data concerning nutritional status and body image as a framework for the interpretation of the examined relationship of eating attitudes and body attitudes. We chose survey as our test method, it was carried out on a national representative sample of 1000 people. After the examination of the factor structure of the two attitude measuring questionnaire, five consumer groups have been identified by the cluster analysis. The five clusters are: Uncontrolled Impulse Eaters, Dissatisfied Tense, Uninterested, Overweight Impulse Eaters and Conscious Consumers. This segmentation based on eating attitudes and body attitudes could serve as a guidance for health marketing experts and the manufacturers of health protective food to determine and address their target group.
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The Attitudes of Pete Program Applicants Towards Information and Communication Technologies
75-80Views:268As information and communication technology has permeated all aspects of life education cannot be considered an exception either. The schools of the 21st century require the use of the latest digital devices whose effectiveness is greatly determined by the motivation, ICT-related attitude, and the respective competences of teachers managing and directing the given teaching and learning process. Since P.E. also requires the use of information and communication devices it would be crucial that prospective teachers develop a positive attitude toward such equipment. The present research aims at exploring the attitudes of students applying to P.E. teacher programs at the Eszterházy Károly University toward such instruments and approaches. Additional research objectives include the exploration of potential correlation between the sex of the applicants and the respective attitudes. Our inquiry utilized the questionnaire method and the computer-based attitude scale was completed by a sample of 130 applicants in the 2016/2017 and the 2017/2018 academic years. Our research concluded that both men and women maintain a positive attitude toward the use of digital devices, or the tools of information and communication technology. Students representing both sexes consider the computer as a valuable learning device promoting the efficiency of the knowledge acquisition process. Furthermore, a significantly greater proportion of male respondents stated that they were capable of repairing computer problems emerging during use than that of their female counterparts. At the same time men are less apprehensive to use computers during instruction and this attitude appears to be an indispensable requirement for the application of ICT devices in class. The research can contribute to a deeper exploration of the given field along with performing a gap filling function as such examination has not yet been conducted among applicants to P.E. programs provided by higher education institutions in Hungary.
JEL Classification: Z2, I23
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Graduate students’ opinions about entrepreneurship as an employment opportunity
23-29Views:190One of the most unwanted and unavoidable consequences of the economic recession is the high rate of unemployment. Graduate students in Croatia are faced with lack of employment possibilities, and for some of them the self-employment looks like a good solution. In this paper, we investigate attitudes and intentions of graduate students at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Agriculture regarding to selfemployment. Most of the surveyed students are in the age between 21 and 25 years, and they have already got some kind of knowledge about entrepreneurship during the formal education. In addition, majority of them have the experience of part-time jobs. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model was used to find out to which extent students’ attitudes and experience influence their expressed self-employment intentions. The results revealed that Zagreb students’ scores are close but somewhat lower than the same scores found in the comparable study from Australia. This goes for the investigated variables: (1) previous entrepreneurial experience (PEE), perceived desirability of selfemployment (PDSE), perceived entrepreneurial self-efficacy (PESE) and self-employment intentions (SEI). It was found that the score on the PEE is significantly related to scores on the PDSE (p=0.000), and PESE (p=0.000), which means that the experience positively influence respondents’ attitudes on self-employment and self-efficacy. There is also a statistically significant difference in the on the SEI with respect to the PDSE (ANOVA F=9.804, p=0.000): respondents that consider self-employment more desirable expressed higher intention to perform it. The PDSE was found as the most influencing model variable in regards to the self-employment intention. The results points out the importance of previous experience, role models and positive attitudes towards self-employment in the process of the entrepreneurship development in young, educated population.
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Risk and risk management in Hungarian sheep production
61-65Views:187The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the risk attitudes of Hungarian sheep producers regarding the changes they have had to go through since the political changes of 1989–1990. Moreover, the objective of this study is to strengthen the empirical basis for risk analysis by identifying the importance of farmers’ risk attitudes. The results of a nationwide survey of over 500 sheep farmers presented a framework of risk attitudes, risk sources and applied risk management techniques of livestock producers.
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Demographic and lifestyle attributes with a fundamental role in food supplement consumption (exploratory research)
181-185Views:183The worldwide proportion of food supplement consumers has been steadily increasing, more than 50% of the Hungarian population tends to buy at least one type of dietary supplement. In most cases, the purchase and consumption of food supplements are not based on medical indications but depends on consumers’ individual decisions. The study of consumer groups enables the investigation of typicalities which have an impact on attitudes related to the consumption of food additives. The present study explores the demographical factors determining the global consumption of dietary supplements by secondary research. It sought to explore the typical features of consumer lifestyles in line with the research findings, based on previously specified criteria, through qualitative focus group examinations. My study focused on subjects who bought and purchased at least one type of food supplement in the previous year and placed a high emphasis on healthy diet and lifestyle in their everyday lives. The consumption of dietary supplements indicates growth with age and it is more common among women. Consumers with higher qualifications and incomes tend to buy products with vitamins and minerals in a greater proportion. The identification of nutrition factors revealed that the proportion of those who do not need extra nutrient intake is high among food supplement consumers. It is primarily true of women having a healthy lifestyle (they typically consume high amounts of vegetables and fruits, they are physically active, non-smokers and do not use alcohol); moreover, their socio-economic status is typically high. The findings of my quantitative research suggest that the purchase and consumption of dietary supplements are most characteristic of the “Successful”, “Quality oriented- successful” and “Loyal to the brand - modest” groups in the lifestyle-based consumer segments. The investigated sample showed ambiguous attitudes towards product quality and willingness to pay in all the three batches. Nevertheless, it can be established, when consumers buy food supplements, brand sensitivity proves to be a dominant factor in addition to - typically Hungarian - price sensitivity. Based on lifestyle factors, the current research may bring us closer to the exploration of the motivational and attitude patterns of consumers’ food supplement purchases.
JEL Code: I12, M31
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Consumer attitudes and preferences about the pork meat in Hungary (based on cluster analysis)
151-158Views:290In my study I wish to investigate the fact that how the pork consumption of Hungary changed during the last years. This study focuses on consumer’s attitudes about (pork) meat, what do they think about the healthness of the different meat type, what are the strengths and weaknesses of pork meat, what are the main features of good quality pork meat, what are the major pork purchase influencing factors and what are the favourite food of the respondents from pork meat etc. Then I analyze the tendency of these values (cross tabs, bar/pie charts, means, Chi-square), where can be found significant differences, and make a cluster analysis to identify the pork consumers in Hungary.
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Analysis of consumer habits and attitudes on the Hungarian beef and rabbit market
67-70Views:232As a consortium partner the authors took part in a research project aiming at the development of high added value, healthy and environment friendly animal products. From among the products developed by the consortium (rabbit meat, omega3-fatty acid enriched beef, goose liver from non forcible feeding, selenium-, vitamin-E and natural color enriched eggs) the present study describes the results concerning beef and rabbit meat. The given products are chosen because they are produced in and exported from Hungary in considerable quantities and their competitiveness can be further improved. In order to able to map the consumer preferences a 300 count nationwide, representative, questionnaire based survey was designed and performed. Actual products were tested by focus groups and professional interviews. Beside the specific features of the products a common character is that the marketing strategy focuses on the distinctive nutritional benefits and other quality parameters that seem to be of crucial importance for the targeted consumer segment. Their unique character and health protecting effects make their branding and using community labeling easy. Their positioning points toward the prestige products therefore consumers tend to accept higher prices. In marketing communication the image building advertisement can be a common goal.
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Consumption habits of “Free range chicken” in Hungary
69-73Views:208Poultry is highly ranked in theWorld meat production and consumption (it accounted for 32% in 2007), and, in the past 20 years it was growing with an annual rate of 3–6%, higher than in case of any other meat-types. This tendency is also valid for Hungary: poultry has the largest share (29.8 kg/person/year, 47%) in the domestic meat consumption since 2000, which is among the EU top (KSH, 2007). As the result of the animal health and nutrition scandals, the EU animal welfare and quality requirements and the advancements in health consciousness the Master-Good group launched the production, processing and trade of free-range poultry under the brand “Free-range chicken”. The new products had good consumer responses, because at present 1.5% of the processed chicken in Hungary (25 tons/week) is under this brand. As it regards the future of this product, we can expect the decrease of the current 1.5 times higher production price over broiler chicken, due to the increasing energy, labour and other cost items, thus the increase of the domestic consumption by 25–30% per annum can be foreseen. Besides the growth in domestic demand, increasing foreign consumer demand can also be expected because of the space requirement of the production. Summarising the above mentioned: „Free range chicken” can be one of the most successful products of the Hungarian poultry industry. In order to realise the prognosis mentioned above, it is inevitable to learn the consumer attitudes towards the brand. A primary market research programme supported by the Master Good group has been launched to study the main features of the domestic chicken meat consumption – including the „Free-range chicken” as highlighted brand. The primary aim of the research was the complete assessment and evaluation of the Hungarian chicken consumption habits and the identification of the possible take-off points. The research undertaken resulted basic information concerning the internal structure of the Hungarian poultry consumption (including that of the „Free-range chicken”), the potential consumer groups and their requirements, provided information on the consumers’knowledge of the products and identified the elements of the consumers’ judgements. This will serve as basis for a marketing communication programme to increase the domestic „Free-range chicken” consumption.
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Analysis the advanced ICT usage of the Hungarian SME sector for preparing a domestic agri-food research
147-153Views:190In the Hungarian agro-food sector SMEs have a key role but regarding the tendency of the performance of SME sector, comparing to EU-28 average, the performance of Hungarian SME sector has gradually worsened between 2008 and 2015 while the EU average has an increasing trend. ICT can help enterprises and this article is an overview of the ICT situation of Hungarian SMEs. It is important to analyse in detail the ICT usage characteristics of agro SMEs in the food supply chain because these ICT devices, tools and services are crucial to smooth the information flow within the chain. For all these reasons our work aims to find out how Hungarian agro-food SMEs use ICT and how ICT adoption affect their business procedures, performance and development. A striking observation to emerge from the data comparison is the difference among SMEs and large enterprises regarding the usage of the different basic and advanced ICT solutions. A much bigger percent of large companies use advanced ICT then SMEs and mainly small enterprises are lagging behind as the attitudes of medium sized enterprises are rather similar to the large ones. In Hungary small enterprises in agro-food industry are in difficult financial state and for them free Cloud Computing services can offer good opportunities as they do not have initial costs. ICT adoption is very important to them as ICT sector is a dynamically growing sector and if customers and partners of an enterprise adapt faster to these technological innovations, it may have a negative effect on the different processes, performance and financial results of the organisation. In this article our aim was to determine the main question groups for our questionnaire which focus mainly on ICT solutions supporting the quality of communication and relationship between partners. As the basic IT tools are available in the major part even in the SMEs besides large companies, the two main issues will be the usage of advanced online services and the usage of high quality ICT solutions.
JEL Code: M15
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Consumer approach of health and ayurveda
113-118Views:151The aim of this study was to explore the differences of health interpretation between people with ayurvedic approach and non ayurvedic but health conscious approach. While Ayurveda has a holistic approach to health, the European medicine focuses on its physical aspects (bio-medicinal model). Although theoretically a complex interpretation of health (bio-psycho-social model) is the most accepted in Hungary, we examined whether it prevails on a practical level. We carried out a representative survey (N=1000) to examine the health-related knowledge and behaviour of the Hungarian population. To achieve deeper understanding of the subject, we carried out two focus group discussions. We selected health conscious people in the first group and ayurvedic oriented people in the second group to compare their attitudes towards health. The results showed that the majority of the Hungarian population (83,2%) have recognised that health is more than a bio-medicinal approach, it is built up of physical, psychological, mental and social factors, but in most cases we found huge gaps between recognition and action. During discussions the ayurvedic oriented group construed an interpretation that contained all the five health dimensions of WHO and mentioned spirituality as an additional dimension, while the health conscious group mainly emphasized physical health. We also asked the participants about their own health behaviour and found the same pattern. It can be stated that the Hungarian population theoretically admits an integrative model of health but it does not appear in their health behaviour. It seems that ayurvedic orientation contributes to bringing knowledge to practice. Ayurvedic oriented people have a more complex interpretation of health and are willing to do more for their health, so they are a good target group for prevention campaigns and health care services. It also suggests that the spread of ayurvedic approach could contribute to better health behaviour in Hungary.
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The study of group and team management in agribusiness companies
75-77Views:164For almost three decades now that the operation of groups and teams became highlighted by scientific examinations and widespread acknowledged leverage for improving corporate efficiency and effectiveness. Much is known about general conditions of operation, still little is known about managerial attitudes, behaviour in operating them. Considering the agribusiness sector, we have hundreds of years of traditions; although operational rules, internal properties, managerial aspects are poorly acknowledged. The Department of Management of University of Debrecen has been conducting research in this field for many years now. Its research program enabled me to work out a questionnaire for surveying agribusiness organizations so that I could identify major and typical characteristics of performance groups. In this article I intend to more precisely describe internal rules, relations and characteristics of this phenomenon.
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Organic tourism as a tool to raise healthy tourism destinations: an investigation in Turkey
69-76Views:336The aim of the paper is to specify the items that effect the importance of organic tourism both for human life and sustainable tourism destinations. The fundamental point of the study is to focus on organic farming both as a tool for welfare of the destinations and their importance and potential for the upcoming future of healthy generations using the data collected from segments of the society such as administrators, non-governmental organization members and farmers. The study is also based on an extensive secondary research analyzing the diverse literature regarding the organic/ecological/sustainable/destination tourism. The results are supplemented by semi-structured interviews. To date, many people have been interested in visiting villages and having an experience in living farms. This tourism activity is combined with facilities to create potent economic force to small villages. Besides, consuming organic food is one of the most important attitudes to live healthier and longer by being or working in the farms or villages as a visitor which creates a new era in tourism named as organic tourism. Organic tourism primarily targets tourists, tours organized for the purpose of health, relaxation activities, agriculture education, culture and gastronomy. The research offers a practical help for farmers, local governors, local people (especially villagers), tour operators and visitors fleeing from the intensity of city life in the light of the findings.
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The choice between conventional and organic farming. A Hungarian example
55-58Views:175The paper deals with organic produce in one of the largest and, concerning organic production one of the most diffused counties in Hungary, Pest County located in the north-central part of the country. Factors influencing farmers’decision on adopting or not e.g. farm size, farm type, location, structure, market for organic products, existence of organic AEM were analysed. Hypotheses based on previous empirical literature were tested by a model explicitly accounting for the effects of farm-specific variables like age, education, size of farms and share of rented land. Logit model was estimated on a cross-section data set of Hungarian farmers for the period 2007. It appears that education has a positive impact on the choice between conventional and organic farming, and, the size of the farm in hectares has a negative effect on this choice.Age and some general considerations on environmental friendly technologies do not have a significant effect on choice between conventional and organic farming.
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A study on consumer habits in the dietary supplements market
5-12Views:674There has been a continuous increase in the proportion of consumers using dietary supplements worldwide. Evidence based on former surveys suggests that in Hungary more than half of the population buy at least one type of dietary supplement (hereinafter DS). By using secondary research, the authors of the present paper examine the demographic factors determining the consumption of DS on a global scale. Consumption of DS increases with age and is more frequent among women. Consumers with higher qualifications and income tend to buy products containing vitamins and minerals to a greater degree. In the vast majority of cases the purchase and consumption of DS is based on consumers’ personal preferences and decisions, rather than on their physicians’ advice. It has been found that a high percentage of DS consumers probably do not even need any extra nutrient intake. In our primary research (N=1000) the specific attitudes to and characteristics of DS consumption among Hungarian adults are analysed on the basis of on a nationally representative survey. First, we identify the most important reasons which encourage consumers to buy DS. Consumer awareness concerning DS with a particular vitamin and mineral content and of other sources is examined, and we also assess the consumption of the product which is the most popular. The current paper attempts to identify the outlets Hungarian consumers typically buy DS from, and also what resources they use to keep themselves informed about these products. Consumers who admittedly reported (regular) consumption of a certain kind of DS product 6 months prior to the survey are further examined in relation to certain additional issues. The results of our survey provide an accurate picture of the DS consumption habits of the Hungarian population.
JEL CODE: I12, M31
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Interventions to encourage sustainable consumption
51-58Views:537Sustainable consumption is hampered by a discrepancy between consumers’ attitudes and their actual behaviour in the market place. Psychological construal level theory provides an explanation for the attitude to behaviour gap as a motivational conflict between high and low level of mental construal. Based on self-determination theory it is argued that this motivational conflict presupposes extrinsic motivation for sustainable behaviour. Based on self-regulatory styles, the present paper identifies and illustrates four types of intervention strategies that can cater for extrinsic motivation for sustainable development among light users. The underlying mechanisms of these interventions suggest that the transition from external to internal regulation is catalysed by social feedback.
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Economic aspects of an agricultural innovation – precision crop production
51-57Views:236Innovation in agriculture ensures the wide-spread use of the latest, up-to-date technology. Such new technology is precision farming in crop production, which serves as a validation of the criteria of environmental and economic sustainability. The economic applicability of precision crop production depends on several factors.Among them the following aspects must be emphasized: the size of the farm, the characteristics of the production structure, the current input-output prices and their tendencies, the investment needed for transitioning to precision technology and its capital source, the level of professional knowledge and the managerial attitudes of the farm. I have examined the economic relations between potential savings in chemicals on EU level. It has been found that after switching to precision farming, the active ingredient use for fertilizers can be reduced by 340 thousand tons at the same expected yield level in an optimistic scenario in the EU-27, while the savings in pesticide use can be 30 thousand tons (calculating with the current dose-level). If approximately 30% of the crop producing and mixed farms over 16 ESU adopt this new technology, this will diminish environmental loads by up to 10-35%. The majority of farms characterized by greater output and size can be based on their own equipment but it might as well be presumed that smaller farms can turn to precision farming not based on their own investment. They can buy the technical service from providers, they can establish producer cooperation, for example in the frame of machinery rings. At a certain farm size and farming intensity precision crop production is a real, environmentally friendly farming strategy, with the help of which the farm can reach earnings that cover at least the economic conditions of simple reproduction.
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The influence of employment modes on employee turnover and agri-business performance: a case for Hunyani farm in the Zvimba district, Zimbabwe
17-27Views:333The labour intensive nature of Zimbabwean agriculture demands that farmers meet excessive labour requirements, at the same time keeping labour costs as low as possible to guarantee profits and achieve maximum business performance. This study, carried through a questionnaire survey, at the Hunyani Matura Farm, in the Zvimba district of Zimbabwe between from October 2017 to March 2018, investigated the effect of employment mode on turnover and agri-business performance. Data collected from the participants, was compared with the information from secondary source documents. From the results temporary workers performed better than permanent workers and they cited problems of low wages, poor working conditions, high work targets, inequality in work allocation, job insecurity and constant shuffling. Temporary workers had higher turnover and turnover intentions than permanent workers. Temporary employment mode had a positive
effect on agri-business performance. This study recommends the use of permanent employment mode on key positions like forepersons, stores persons and supervisors, and temporary employment mode on general farm tasks, while seasonal contracts were seen good for skill demanding operations such as tobacco seedbed establishment, tobacco reaping and curing and grading. A ccareful selection of employment modes reduces inequalities and unhealthy attitudes at work and improves on farm business performance.JEL Classification: Q12
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