Conceptualizing product quality: the case of wine

Abstract

This study investigated wine drinkers' perspectives on how product quality is conceptualized. The research was carried out because the dominant paradigm for quality within the marketing literature is perceived quality, and as such it is important to understand how consumers construct frameworks to understand quality and specifically whether they share this perception of the particular importance of the notion of perceived quality. Qualitative processes were used to obtain data from 60 informants. The findings indicate that consumers can adopt subjective or objective frameworks, with some also leaning towards relative and absolute quality positions. These conflicting frameworks are resolved by using an interactionist perspective, which allows quality to mediate the varying quality correlates noted in the marketing literature.