| Summary: | This dissertation consists of three essays related to positioning issues in product-service
firms. A product-service firm is defined as a company which is responsible for providing
both the physical product and the associated services of an offering. This situation is
typical of many companies manufacturing industrial and commercial products. The first
essay develops a game theoretic analysis of two firms competing in a two-dimensional
product market. Firms compete on price and both product dimensions. Models in corporating
alternative differentiation assumptions (vertical, horizontal, and mixed) are
analyzed with the results indicating the prevalence of maximum differentiation on one
product dimension and minimum differentiation on the other. In the second essay, many
of the assumptions of the economic models are relaxed in the development of a model
which assesses the issue of how a product-service firm should choose its offering improvement
strategy. The model addresses the strategic question of whether to invest in product
or service improvements. In the third essay, one component of the model outlined in the
second essay is developed further and an empirical application is undertaken. This essay
develops an individual level customer decision model which estimates an individual's
brand preferences as a function of brands' perceptual locations and prices. The model
performed well in an empirical study of the western Canada combine harvester market. === Business, Sauder School of === Graduate
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