An Examination of the Use of Unacceptable Levels in Conjoint Analysis

Abstract

Unacceptable levels in conjoint analysis are studied using both a full profile method and Sawtooth Software's Adaptive Conjoint Analysis. The utility of an unacceptable level was set equal to a value that would have been assigned if the unacceptable levels question was not asked, but the respondent treated that level as unacceptable. With ACA, this resulted in a model with ( a ) superior predictive power relative to a model that eliminates alternatives with unacceptable levels and ( b ) equivalent predictive power to a compensatory model that does not consider unacceptable levels. Furthermore, in this application, this was accomplished even though the respondent was presented with approximately 30 percent fewer paired comparison observations.