Overlapping Clustering - A New Methodology for Product Positioning (From Blockmodel Techniques for Criminal Justice Research - Final Report, Appendix I, 1981, by Phipps Arabie - See NCJ-88432)

• NCJ Number: 88439
• Author(s): P Arabie; J D Carroll; W DeSarbo; J Wind
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 28 pages
• Grant Number(s): 78-NI-AX-0142; SOC 76-24512
• Sponsoring Agency: National Science Foundation; National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This paper presents an overlapping clustering model, ADCLUS (ADditive CLUStering) (Shepard and Arabie, 1979), which can be used in marketing studies to handle situations where products/subjects can belong to more than one group or cluster simultaneously.

Abstract

Theoretical justification for and an application of the approach are provided, using the MAPCLUS (MAthematical Programming CLUStering) algorithm (Arabie and Carroll, 1980) for fitting the ADCLUS model. Most clustering techniques employed in product positioning and market segmentation studies render mutually exclusive equivalence classes of the relevant products or subjects space. Such classificatory techniques are thus restricted to the extent that they preclude, overlap between subsets or equivalence classes. Figures, equations, and 28 references are supplied. (Author abstract modified)