that they have given some thought to the problem, but are less favorable 

 than others in this group because they are not sure that they want to balance 

 receipts and fluid sales for economic reasons alone. 



Group 2 — - The next group consisted of the 18 per cent who in general 

 were favorable to this type of balancing operation but undecided about 

 their reasons. The major difference between members of this group and Group 

 1 is that they have not weighed the alternatives in the different sub-areas 

 and therefore were undecided about the reason for wanting to balance milk 

 receipts and fluid sales. They were certain that personal reasons were not 

 sufficient justification, but undecided on the influence of market restrictions 

 and economic factors. It may be that this group balances receipts and fluid 

 sales because of custom, but has not considered why it is desirable. 



Group 3. — The remaining group of 8.5 per cent whose members were 

 favorable to balancing milk receipts with fluid sales in the general area were 

 also decided in their preference for this type of operation. While they were 

 not as strongly favorable as the previous two groups, they have given more 

 thought to the question and have reached the decision that the personal and 

 market restrictive sub-areas were not factors on which they would determine 

 the issue. They have decided that economic factors are the only justification 

 for balancing receipts and fluid sales. 



Group 4 — The final group of 21.5 per cent were those who were unfavor- 

 able to this kind of balancing. The group was broken into two sub-groups 

 to determine why they were unfavorable. About 18 per cent of all respondents 

 were decided that for profit maximization, balancing milk receipts with fluid 

 sales would be desirable, but they were just as decided that market restric- 

 tions may not make it a desirable procedure. Furthermore, they were decided 

 that personal reasons do not encourage balancing receipts with fluid sales. 

 This conflict of economic desirability and market restrictive and personal 

 undesirability accounts for the undecided nature of the unfavorable response 

 in the general content area. The remaining 3.5 per cent of all respondents 

 were unfavorable to balancing on a fluid sales basis for economic reasons 

 but were undecided. Likewise, they were undecided about their unfavorable 

 attitude in the market restrictive sub-area. The uncertainty in their unfavor- 

 able attitude in both of these sub-areas accounted for the undecided nature 

 of the general response. 



Implications of the Attitude Investigation 



In a business enterprise such as milk processing one would expect to find 

 that profit maximization is a major reason for the method of balancing fol- 

 lowed. The attitude analysis indicated that profit maximization was the most 

 important factor influencing the attitudes of independent milk dealers. The 

 investigation showed that 96.5 per cent of these dealers were of the opinion 

 that it was more economical to balance receipts with fluid sales instead of 

 selling milk to other dealers or manufacturing milk products. Market restric- 

 tions and personal preferences were factors sufficiently important to lower 

 the percentage of dealers favorable to balancing receipts with fluid sales to 

 78.5 per cent. 



Another finding that is not discernible from the information thus far pre- 

 sented was that ownership of manufacturing facilities had no influence on 



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