Ordinal Evaluation: A New Perspective on Country Images

Abstract

Abstract. We present a novel use of ordinal evaluation (OrdEval) algorithm as a promising technique to study various marketing phenomena. OrdEval algorithm has originated in data mining and is a general tool to analyze data with ordinal attributes, including surveys. Its many favorable features, including context sensitivity, ability to exploit meaning of ordered features and ordered response, and robustness to noise and missing values in the data, offer marketing practitioners a perspective, not available with classical analytical toolbox. We present a case study applying OrdEval algorithm on country-of-origin (COO) information. We demonstrate some interesting advantages it has to offer and show how to extract and interpret new insights allowing marketing practitioners to further optimize the management of products abroad. Data for the empirical study was gathered by means of 1225 questionnaires. Results indicate that, contrary to the classical view on COO-effects, the processing of country-related cognitions, affects and conations is a non-linear and asymmetric phenomenon. The practical implications of this finding for marketers are discussed more in detail.

Assessment of surveys for the management of hospital clinical pharmacy services

“…Robnik-Šikonja and Vanhoof [19] offered as a solution to several of the above stated goals with OrdEval algorithm and showed its use on a business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) customer satisfaction problem. Later the approach was successfully applied in country of origin analysis [20], hearing aid selection [21], and supplier selection in public sector [22]. In contrast to these applications of OrdEval in marketing context, our work introduces OrdEval to the HR management and to the medical domain, where the goals stated above are also highly relevant.…”

“…The OrdEval algorithm [19,20] is an analytical tool for evaluation of the importance and impact of various factors in the given survey. In the analysis of customer satisfaction data for a particular product/service, OrdEval can determine the importance of each product's feature on overall customer satisfaction, and can also indicate the thresholds where satisfaction with the individual feature starts having a strong positive or negative impact on overall satisfaction.…”