Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Agricultural Communication, Education and Leadership

The COVID-19 pandemic thoroughly disrupted the U.S. food supply chain, ushered in a new set of social norms, and reoriented how individuals interacted with each other. A need to find how severely these phenomena changed during and since the pandemic continues to exist. Existing literature suggests significant shifts in social norms and social exchange occurred because of the pandemic. But a gap in research exists in understanding the nuances of these shifts and their continued alterations. This study sought to understand food purchasing behavior changes during the pandemic and how social exchange and adherence to pandemic-time social norms were valued. This study also created a comprehensive chart creating a timeline through the pandemic of how social exchange and social norms shifted through the pandemic. Through this study, an investigation of food purchasing trends and experiences from before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic was conducted. To examine social exchange and social norms, a non-experimental quantitative study was conducted using Social Exchange Theory and Social Norms as guides. A convenience sample of 419 primary U.S. household food purchasers was taken via online survey offered on Amazon's Mechanical Turk service. The results of this study indicate a significant relationship between time during the pandemic and adherence to social norms and willingness and desire of social exchange. Findings of this study suggest the pandemic caused temporary higher adherence to social norms and an eventual drop in social exchange. This study supported SN and SET through its findings of social norms adherence and social exchange changes in relation to social norms. Further research of the relationship between SET and SN during the pandemic and other crises should be conducted.

Committee: Joy Rumble (Advisor); Kareem Usher (Committee Member); Emily Buck (Committee Member) Subjects: Agriculture; Behavioral Psychology; Behavioral Sciences; Communication; Economic Theory; Economics; Food Science; Sociology; Urban Planning

Doctor of Engineering, Cleveland State University, 2010, Fenn College of Engineering

EPP+ or Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Plus is a Environmentally Preferable Purchasing program with incorporated a unique Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) scoring system which implemented at NASA, Glenn Research Center. A protocol has been developed to aid in selecting among products based on principles of Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The protocol has been developed for use at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) but is intended to benefit anyone wishing to make sustainable purchasing decision. The protocol was designed as a web-based application which evaluates the life cycle factors, affirmative procurements, price, and performance of products that impact or benefit the environment and human health. There were 2 parts in the development of the EPP+ protocol. The first part was the development of product scoring system guidelines. All products are to be scored using a numerical rating system for each value. A numeric-based rating system has been developed by applying the priorities of the environmental protection and management policies for the purchase of products for GRC. These rating are then multiplied by a weighting factor which is a numeric value between 0 and 1.0. During the product evaluation process, weighting factors are again set according to the importance and priorities set by the Environmental Management Office (EMO). Second part was the development of the EPP+ computer software or protocol (ASP.net format). This protocol produces a score for a product based on a series of ratings and weighting factors given by the expert user. Following the same sequence of operation, various products can be scored and compared, and a list can be prepared for the products that qualify as environmentally preferable products. The lists of products are intended to be offered to contractors and other GRC personnel for their applications. Since the product score is a numeric value, it is easy for a non-expert person to underst (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Walter Kocher PhD (Committee Chair); L. Kenneth Keys PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Paul A. Bosela PhD (Committee Member); Yung-Tse Hung PhD (Committee Member); Robert Wei PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Engineering

Master of Business Administration, The Ohio State University, 1950, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2008, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Business Administration, The Ohio State University, 1960, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1971, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Food Science and Technology

Traditional sensory consumer testing methodologies utilize testing environments and procedures that are extensively controlled to reduce potential bias during sensory evaluations. However, when consumers make real life purchasing decisions, they are presented with a plethora of information (e.g. marketing claims, certifications, etc.) to utilize in the decision-making process. This contextual information is subsequently lost during the traditional approach to sensory consumer testing. The phenomenon of lost contextual information during the sensory evaluation process may contribute to the fact that despite a wide range of sensory testing methodologies, there is an abundantly high failure rate of new food products when launched in market. To address the loss of contextually relevant information within the traditional sensory testing paradigm, the work presented herein aims to introduce product specific contextual information via the usage of Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs). A DCE is a method that allows for the simultaneous evaluation of multiple product attributes to determine consumer preferences for specific product attributes and levels. However, despite the widespread usage of DCEs across various fields of research, its implementation with sensory consumer research is spare, and sensory attributes are rarely incorporated within the experimental framework. This research aims to incorporate sensory attributes within the DCE framework and to compare the results obtained against traditional sensory methods to determine the viability of a DCE as an alternative testing methodology within sensory consumer testing. The initial investigation into utilizing DCEs within the sensory consumer testing space is presented in Chapter 3. Homogenized puree from the North American Pawpaw fruit was separated and treated to create three distinct taste levels to control for confounding sensory perceptions allowing for a direct comparison against traditional sensory methodologie (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Christopher Simons (Advisor); Monica Giusti (Committee Member); Rafael Jimenez-Flores (Committee Member); Guilherme Signorini (Committee Member) Subjects: Food Science

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Human Ecology: Fashion and Retail Studies

This study delves into the global market dynamics of sustainable home textiles, particularly analyzing how environmental concerns, online reviews, and pricing influence Generation Z's purchasing decisions. As global demand for eco-friendly products increases post-COVID pandemic, understanding these factors is crucial for engaging the growing market of young, environmentally-conscious consumers. Conducted through a survey targeting individuals aged 18-27, the study assesses how these key factors shape their buying behaviors. The analysis confirms that environmental awareness strongly correlates with this demographic's motivation to purchase sustainable textiles. Additionally, online reviews emerge as a crucial determinant in shaping purchasing decisions, indicating the importance of digital feedback in the consumer journey. Furthermore, the study highlights that price sensitivity plays a significant role in influencing Generation Z's choices, pointing to a balance between cost and sustainability as a pivotal aspect of their purchasing criteria. These findings suggest that businesses in the home textile industry should prioritize clear environmental communications, manage online reputations carefully, and consider pricing strategies to engage Generation Z consumers effectively.

Committee: Tasha Lewis Dr (Advisor); Julie Hillery Dr (Committee Member); V. Ann Paulins Dr (Committee Chair) Subjects: Home Economics; Sustainability; Textile Research

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2023, Allied Health Sciences: Nutrition

Background/Purpose: Food purchasing data may be an important assessment tool to identify healthful and problematic eating behaviors. Associations between food purchasing data and dietary intake to evaluate diet quality haven't been rigorously assessed. This study examined concordance between electronic food purchasing data and dietary intake collected from primary household food shoppers (n=20) of a major Midwest supermarket chain for measures of dietary quality. Methods: Food purchasing data were retrieved from participants' supermarket loyalty card for a 2-week shopping period. Dietary intake data were collected over the same 2-week period for 3 non-consecutive days. Data were analyzed for dietary quality (DASH score) and food serving/nutrient densities and compared for concordance, degree of difference, and moderators of difference between measures. Results: Concordance between food purchasing and dietary intake data for DASH score was poor (pc<0.2) for most food/nutrient densities, with low concordance for nuts (pc=.26) and meat (pc=.21). Dairy showed moderate agreement between measures (pc=0.52). Paired t-test showed significant differences between measures for added sugar (p=<0.001), meats (p=<0.001) and carbohydrates (p=0.001). BMI was a significant negative moderator of differences between measures for added sugar and sweets (p = 0.05 and p = 0.04, respectively). Conclusion: These data suggest that electronic food purchasing data collected from a supermarket loyalty card may not be a useful tool for characterizing the quality of overall dietary intake. Further research with a larger sample and inclusion of food purchasing data from restaurants and other sources is warranted to confirm these findings.

Committee: Seung-Yeon Lee Ph.D. (Committee Member); Sarah Couch Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Nutrition

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 1949, Curriculum and Teaching

Committee: John E. Gee (Advisor) Subjects: Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Business Administration

This dissertation addresses the relative importance of price and non-price criteria in sourcing decisions from three distinct perspectives. Each essay is motivated by the same problem: that organizations tend to unintentionally overweight cost minimization objectives in their sourcing decisions. In the first of three essays, I show that excessively price-based decision-making is a widespread problem in sourcing. To do this, I combined two sources of data on contract awards by the US federal government. I applied coarsened exact matching to identify cases where contracts were awarded using different criteria in similar situations. I then used logistic regression to show that when non-price criteria are weighted more heavily, the same contractor is more likely to receive awards for similar work in the future. This relationship is absent when there is a requirement for the decision-maker to provide written justification for the use of the more price-based approach, allowing me to infer a solution to the problem identified. In the second essay, I investigate whether the procurement profession's identity influences the relative importance of price in supplier selection decisions. I first conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with current practitioners, eliciting their comments on: their level of identification with the procurement profession; procurement's group image; others' perceptions of procurement's group image; and, procurement's status within their organization. Drawing from the observed variation in responses, I designed and conducted a scenario-based experiment. I find that strong identification with the procurement profession can contribute to more price-based sourcing decisions. In the third essay, I expand my focus from procurement professionals to a broader set of professions that commonly contribute to sourcing decisions: supply management, engineering, and marketing. Seeking to understand how these different perspectives influence (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John Gray (Advisor); James Hill (Advisor); Christian Blanco (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Management; Operations Research

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, City and Regional Planning

The lack of access to affordable and healthy food is cited as a significant reason for health disparities in society and threatens public health. For decades, trends in the urbanization and food retail sector have left a considerable part of the society deprived of affordable and healthy food outlets in their neighborhoods. This is especially the case for low-income groups and people of color. In addition to the uneven spatial distribution of healthy and affordable food outlets, defining food access in itself is a very complex task. This complexity makes developing strategies to solve food access issues in society challenging. People's or households' decisions regarding where to shop, how far to travel, and what to purchase, as well as different individual and household attributes, ranging from where they live to how much they value diet, are all important. Hence, the following dissertation aims to examine the different characteristics that impact where households shop, how far they travel, and what they purchase. The goal is to broaden our understanding of food access. The dissertation includes three different studies using information from the USDA's National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) dataset. Specifically, the first study addresses food store choice of shoppers, including their ability to access the nearest healthy store (supermarket/superstore), unhealthy stores (gas station, convenience store, dollar store), and other healthy stores (specialty stores, farmers' markets, medium to large grocery stores). The first study highlights how price and distance matter for selecting the nearest healthy store. When the nearest healthy store is a far distance, shoppers are driven to purchase at nearby stores, which may be unhealthy or small healthy stores, such as a grocery store. The second study examines factors that affect the distances household travel for food. The surrounding food environment is associated with total real traveled miles (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Bernadette Hanlon (Advisor) Subjects: Urban Planning

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2020, Allied Health Sciences: Nutrition

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death in the United States, and poor diet is associated with increased CVD risk. Nutrition education and skills are necessary for individuals to make the proper food choices for optimal heart health. Electronic purchasing data has become popular in recent years as a means of influencing consumer buying behavior. Supermarket purchasing data can be made available to health professionals, including dietitians, who work in store-based health clinics, but to-date has not been compiled into consumer-friendly figures and metrics. The utility of purchasing data as a counseling tool has also not undergone scientific study. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess consumers' acceptability of visualizing their food purchases in a biweekly “snapshot” and the utility of this tool for guiding the purchase of heart healthy foods. This mixed-methods study was conducted with participants that had completed an ongoing, industry-sponsored dietary education trial. For the present study, these participants were invited to complete a questionnaire and focus group centered on the acceptability and utility of the “snapshot” tool, which were explored using thematic analysis of verbatim transcripts from the focus groups. A total of 19 participants completed the study. Themes identified related to (1) Value of the snapshot tool; (2) Dietitian as essential for snapshot utility; (3) Desired changes to the snapshot; and (4) Desire for access. Overall, participants found that the food purchasing snapshot was a valuable, easily understood education tool to increase dietary awareness. They also found that it was useful in combination with counseling from a registered dietitian, yet it could be enhanced by providing access outside of the counseling setting, distinguishing DASH-friendly from DASH-unfriendly products, and increasing personalization.

Committee: Sarah Couch Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Seung-Yeon Lee Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Nutrition

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Business Administration

Strategic supply chain planning under uncertainty has obtained significant attention in both practice and academia over the last few years. While there have been a number of analytical studies, empirical research on the effect of uncertainty in different dimensions on individual decision-making is rather limited. In three essays, we model how human decision-making gets affected by various aspects of uncertainty on both upstream and downstream level. Numerous studies have separately examined either the impact of demand or supply uncertainty on ordering decisions, although little empirical work has focused on distinguishing these effects when both are present. Accordingly, in our first essay we focus on settings in which both uncertainties exist simultaneously, with the intent of shedding light on these possible distinctions. We leverage a controlled laboratory experiment in a modified newsvendor setting with two suppliers of varying levels of dependability and cost. While the impact of demand uncertainty appears consistent with prior results, the impact of supply uncertainty is more nuanced. Decision‐makers are drawn to the reliable supplier in the high‐supply‐uncertainty case, subsequently simplifying order decision making and decreasing deviation from optimality. Supply uncertainty also appears to impose limits on the extent to which experiential learning benefits optimal ordering choice. In the second essay, we study the effect of a service-reward mechanism – an endogenous relationship between prior service level and current demand – on managerial decision-making in both single-period newsvendor and a multi-period serial supply chain activity. We conduct two controlled laboratory experiments using two fundamental supply chain models: the newsvendor and the beer game. Our empirical results suggest that the service-reward mechanism significantly and systematically elevates order levels and order variability in a manner that increases departure from optimal orderin (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Elliot Bendoly (Committee Chair); Ken Boyer (Committee Co-Chair); Nathan Craig (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1983, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Operations Research

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1971, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Business Administration

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1967, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Business Administration

MS, Kent State University, 2016, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Health Sciences

The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics of organic food buyers among college students (N = 980). This study also examined perception and knowledge between organic food purchasers and non-purchasers. An anonymous electronic survey was distributed through the university's email system. The email invitation to participate was sent to 8,927 university students. The survey consisted of five sections designed to investigate: (a) demographics, (b) purchasing, (c) availability, (d) perception, (e) knowledge. There were significant between buyers and non-buyers of organic food as buyers had a higher mean knowledge of organic food than non-buyers. Chi-square and t-tests were used to run significances between buyers and non-buyers to examine perception, knowledge, and demographics. Results also indicated that as both groups perceive organic food as healthier and nutritionally superior to organic food, barriers stand in the way of purchasing such as cost. There was no significant knowledge difference between buyers and non-buyers. Data showed the most significant reasons buyers do purchase organic food is due to being health conscious (76%) and also for nutritional quality (64%). Results indicated that both groups cited websites as the highest used resource to learn about organic food. Results also indicated that gender did not have an effect on purchasing organic food but class ranking did have a significant effect. Data also showed significance between ethnicity and purchasing organic food.

Committee: Eun-Jeong (Angie) Ha (Advisor); Karen Gordon (Committee Member); Jamie Matthews (Committee Member) Subjects: Nutrition

Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Ohio University, 2015, Business Administration

Through in-depth multi-site case study, this research explores evolving trends of corporate sustainability in buyer-supplier relationships in the textile industry with respect to three areas: social and environmental supplier criteria, prevalence of communication strategies, and perception of competitive advantage. Findings show U.S.-based textile suppliers may perceive that communicating about sustainability is less relevant to competitive positioning. Conversely, textile firms with international operations demonstrated higher levels of sustainability communications proactivity. Overall results provide relationships to examine in future research.

Committee: Ana Rosado Feger Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Business Administration; Communication; Environmental Studies; Sustainability; Textile Research

Master of Environmental Science, Miami University, 2014, Environmental Sciences

This practicum project used existing literature on sustainable fashion to create a nomological network around the variable of interest, sustainable fashion consumption. The objective was to understand why there is a gap between individuals' attitude toward sustainable apparel and their actual actions when purchasing sustainable apparel. The results show that the consumption of sustainable fashion can be directly or indirectly related to five categories -- attitude, knowledge, ethics, price and advertising. Each category examined based on variables that relate to sustainable fashion consumption. Some of the variables, such as fashion orientation, product brand, and awareness about apparel production were found to impact consumers' behaviors to buy sustainable fashion. Other variables such as individuality, price premiums, and environmental messages in advertisements either do not influence or negatively impact consumers' purchasing behavior. Marketing strategies for increasing the sale of sustainable clothing are suggested including understanding consumer environmental concerns and targeting fashion leaders.

Committee: Robert Dahlstrom PhD (Committee Member); Dan Heitger PhD (Committee Member); Suzanne Zazycki (Advisor) Subjects: Marketing; Sustainability