Products are successfully designed only when they are in accord with the users’ emotional needs. A systematic research approach is aimed to propose that physiological metrics can be effectively used to assess user emotion and behavior intention based on an eye tracker and neurophysiological approach. Forty participants (20 males and 20 females, mean age=35.6, SD=6.38, range 21-48 years), were recruited from college campuses and communities to conduct an eye tracker and electroencephalography (EEG) experiment with the presented stimuli (images of SUVs). The study uses partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the model hypotheses. The results show a strong and significant relationship between eye tracker metrics, neurophysiological metrics, user affective responses, and behavior intention. These findings could enable industrial counselors, professional product designers, and academics to categorize users’ emotional needs that can be subsequently incorporated into final product design.

While product design is intrinsically linked to brand building and to the definition of luxury, consumers’ sensitivity to luxury products and to design is usually addressed separately. Yet, for optimal marketing-oriented decisions, they need to be brought together. Furthermore, while design is intrinsically linked to luxury, little research focused on its influence on the symbolic and the economic value of brands. This research specifically delves into the mechanisms behind how brand-level attitudes can be influenced by product-level sensitivity to product design. Building on the value theory, it investigates to what extent the product design enhances luxury brands value. Based on a data set collected on 125 individuals, a partial least square analysis was used. It contributes and extends literature on branding, design and luxury in three distinct ways. Firstly, this research distinguishes two antecedents of the product design that are the social and the individual drivers. Secondly, it reveals the mediating role of the product design between social and individual drivers, on one hand, and luxury brands symbolic value (through brand love and brand equity), on the other hand. Thirdly, it confirms the creation of economic value through the positive influence on willingness to pay a premium price. In terms of managerial implications, this study reveals the importance for luxury brands to develop sensory branding through product design. It especially points out the added-value of design for luxury brands’ equity, its role in fostering brand love and in increasing luxury brands turnover.

The strategic stakes of differentiation are so great for companies that the adequacy between aesthetic perception of the products and functional benefits for consumers must be taken into account (Alba and Williams, 2013; Bloch, 1995; Reimann et al., 2010). In order to examine the consumer's aesthetic perception, we tested an exploratory measurement scale of aesthetic style (Lagier, 2006), which we first validated for different kinds of products. Exploratory and confirmatory analysis of this scale were conducted and obtained results which proved the stability of the scale for design products. The three dimensions of the factor analysis can be interpreted within the conceptual framework of the perception of design products. We effectively find two clearly distinct dimensions which measure: “affective intensity” and “tolerance for ambiguity”. The last dimension is composed of items which fall both in the domain of “cognitive differentiation” and “cognitive discrimination”. To segment our sample and quantify the different profiles of aesthetic style, eight groups of consumers were formed from the scores on the three dimensions. Finally, the structure of aesthetic style on consumer preference for four design objects was also tested. We seek to show that our scale can also explain the choice for some objects. A one-way ANOVA was conducted to determine whether there were significant differences in preference for each object based on intensity scores of affective intensity, cognitive discrimination/differentiation and tolerance for ambiguity. Our measurement scale of aesthetic style, in the context of this test, explained consumer preference for some design objects.

Introduction For a long time, firms have been improving product function, performance, price-performance ratio (hereinafter uniformly referred to as functional aspects of product design), and product appearance. Nevertheless, the current market situation is that many products in the same category are similar in quality, price and appearance. Product homogeneity leads to excess supply, and this situation is objectively long-standing. For consumers, positive emotions often play a key role in their purchase decisions. Yet, when most products seem to be similar, it is difficult to evoke more positive emotions of consumers to increase their willingness to pay. This paper shows that besides product appearance and functional aspects of product design, the connotations of product aesthetics should also be focused. In other words, aesthetic aspects of product design should include both product appearance and connotations. Connotations, as deep meaning inside product aesthetics, can evoke either consumers’ memories of the past or imagination of new creative ideas, or both (e.g., Starry night umbrella by MoMA Design Store, Sakura Masking Tape by Bande). Although the contents of memory recall or imagination might differ across consumers, positive emotions evoked in that process will increase willingness to pay. A new conceptual model is proposed in this paper, which shows that functional aspects, product appearance, and the connotations of product aesthetics could cause different psychological activities, and positive emotions evoked in those processes can enhance willingness to pay. When most products tend to be similar, the connotations of product aesthetics could be a promising area for firms today to make their products distinctive and increase their market share. Product Design and Consumer Emotions (1) Elements of Product Design Product design is considered as the set of properties of a product, including both functional and aesthetic aspects (e.g., Homburg, Schwemmle, & Kuehnl, 2015; Jindal, Sarangee, Echambadi, & Lee, 2016; Luchs & Swan, 2011). Functional aspects of product design consist of function, performance, and price-performance ratio. Aesthetic aspects mainly refer to product appearance, consisting of visual elements such as color, shape, and material. (2) Relationship between Product Design and Consumer Emotions Previous research shows that functional aspects of product design could evoke positive emotions like satisfaction, and aesthetic aspects could please our senses and make us feel delight (e.g., Bloch 1995; Chitturi, Raghunathan, & Mahajan, 2008). Furthermore, Norman (2004) points out that emotional factors can be the key to the success of product design. If a product could evoke consumers’ positive emotions, those emotions would arouse willingness to pay. If not, consumers might not have the desire to buy it. The Connotations of Product Aesthetics Evoking Positive Emotions of Consumers As Barnard (2005) suggests, as the deep level of meaning, connotations refer to one’s feelings or thoughts caused by a design. This paper proposes that the connotations in product aesthetics could either remind consumers of their past experiences or trigger their imagination to think about new creative ideas, or both. Emotional resonance could be achieved and finally facilitate purchase behaviors. In our daily lives, there are many products that have not only beautiful appearances but also the connotations of product aesthetics. For instance, Starry Night Umbrella by MoMA Design Store (Figure 1). MoMA Design Store released an umbrella patterned with stars, the moon and the sky that swirl, which reminds consumers of the masterpiece The Starry Night (1889) by Vincent Van Gogh. When encountering this umbrella, consumers who love the works of Van Gogh will have positive emotions and a strong desire to buy it. Cherry Blossom Masking Tape by Bande (Figure 2). Bande, a Japanese masking tape brand, launched a masking tape with sakura (cherry blossom in Japanese) petals design. Its real-like floral design can remind consumers of spring or their own stories with cherry blossom and trigger their imagination to come up with lots of creative ideas such as using it to decorate their diaries, laptops, furniture, and so on. Besides the original function of tapes, the connotations inside product aesthetics could encourage consumers to think creatively and feel happy. A Conceptual Model of Product Design, Positive Emotions, and Market Share This paper proposes a conceptual model (Figure 3), showing that different aspects of product design can evoke consumer emotions and those positive emotions have a positive effect on willingness to pay. First, functional aspects of product design are very important. Consumers compare function, performance, and price-performance ratio among many products, which is considered as a process of rational thinking. Products with high qualities and affordable prices can make consumers feel satisfied. Positive emotions (E1) evoked by functional aspects can enhance the willingness to pay and bring firms market share (S1). Then, on the bases of functional aspects, firms use different colors, shapes, and materials to make product appearance attractive. Sophisticated appearances of products can please the senses of consumers and evoke positive emotions (E2). That could increase their desires to buy and bring more market share (S2) for firms. Nevertheless, these two parts are what most firms can do today. To make products distinctive, firms should add connotations into aesthetic aspects of product design, which can trigger consumers’ memory recall of their past experiences or their imagination of new creative ideas, or both. Although the contents of recall and imagination are different across consumer, the arousal of positive emotions (E3) will enhance willingness to pay and finally bring new market share (S3). Thus, two equations derived are as follows: Positive Emotions = E1+E2+E3 Market share =S1+S2+S3 If firms take all these aspects of product design into consideration, their products will evoke consumers’ positive emotions adequately to increase willingness to pay, and help firms occupy more market share from fierce market competition. General Discussions On the market today, lots of products have beautiful appearances and seem to be similar in functional aspects of product design. To make products distinctive, this paper considers that firms should also attach importance to the connotations of product aesthetics. The connotations will remind consumers of their past experiences or let them imagine new creative ideas, or both. Positive emotions evoked during that process increase willingness to pay. That is a promising area for firms today to gain more consumers and new market share. Since the connotations of product aesthetics could be influenced by factors such as age and culture, it is important for marketers to investigate and analyze consumers’ understandings of aesthetics from different ages and cultures, then feed it back to designers to help them design successful products in the future.

Marketers increasingly develop strategies to benefit from the potentials of the mobile internet and related technologies. Digitally enhanced product packaging is one prominent example for this evolution and QR (quick response) codes currently give this trend an appearance. QR codes enable manufacturers to provide consumers - despite the limited space on the product package - with comprehensive product information. And consumers increasingly request additional product information, for instance, to monitor environmental factors before purchasing products. Hence, while marketers nowadays regularly use QR codes on product packages to provide consumers with additional product information, they complain about the low usage rates and finally about the effectiveness of QR codes. Extant literature provides little guidance on consumer responses towards these marketing stimuli and, in particular, on how the mere presence of QR codes on product packages affects consumer behavioral and behavior-related responses. Existing research unexceptionally explores how marketers can motivate consumers to scan QR codes (Okazaki et al., 2012; Okazaki et al., 2017) and thus draws a one-sided picture of how marketers can benefit from QR codes. To enrich extant knowledge, this research uses information processing and environmental theory to offer insights into whether and how QR codes on product packages affect consumer product purchasing. The findings of an experimental study illustrate that QR codes affect consumer product purchases by inducing product- and vendor-related cognitive beliefs. In particular, the presence of QR codes on product packaging strengthens consumers’ perceptions about product quality and vendor innovativeness which then positively translate into purchase intentions. Hence, QR codes displayed on product packaging indirectly shape product purchasing. In sum, this research broadens the previous focus on usage-related outcomes by considering how and why QR codes affect consumer purchasing.

Although several researchers have investigated atypical naming effects with respect to food and color names, no research has examined atypical names in the context of apparel products. In this research, we investigated the way in which atypical clothing names influence consumers’ mental imagery, followed by consumers’ evaluations, compared to typical clothing names. We also investigated the moderating effect of the clothing design’s visual complexity. An experimental design was used with 2 name (atypical vs. typical name) × 2 levels of visual complexity (complex vs. simple design) between-subjects design. A total of 292 responses were collected. The results showed that the atypical name was more effective than were the typical one in influencing consumer’s attitudes and purchase intentions. Also, we found significant interaction effects of visual complexity and names on consumers’ evaluations, which are mediated by mental imagery. For clothes with a simple design, the atypical clothing name increased mental imagery, followed by product attitudes and purchase intentions, more than the typical name did. In contrast, when participants were presented with a garment with a complex design, typical and atypical names did not have different effects on consumers’ evaluations of the garment through their mental imagery. The findings of this study help marketers understand better the way in which consumers process certain names associated with a garment’s design cognitively, and therefore, improve their ability to name garments strategically depending on their design details.

This paper builds on issues that surround the interface between entrepreneurial and digital marketing. In particular, it proposes a conceptual framework that relates digital market knowledge, market representation and decision making in the context of entrepreneurial SMEs. Thus, the paper contributes to the understanding of how entrepreneurs deal with digital market knowledge, and how such knowledge contributes to changes in representing markets and decision making. A growing awareness of the importance of entrepreneurship and innovation to marketing, and of marketing to successful entrepreneurship, has led to attempts to combine the two disciplines as “entrepreneurial marketing”. Scholars debate on the role of marketing in the entrepreneurial process (Schindehutte et al., 2009), and consider the marketing content of the entrepreneurial role (Guercini, 2012). It is argued that entrepreneurial marketing emphasizes the adaptation of marketing to forms that are appropriate to small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), even if entrepreneurial relates more in general to the marketing-entrepreneurship interface and the idea that marketing and entrepreneurship are fundamentally intertwined and necessary to the other. Marketing and the entrepreneurship take place in a context in which information technologies, data communication and data processing technologies are tools to manipulate, organize, transmit, and store information in digital form. More specifically, one of the major changes undergone by traditional marketing is determined by the emergence of digital marketing, which provides several tools and metrics, such as web analytics, for decision makers. However, it is yet not sufficiently clear how entrepreneurs deal with this type of knowledge emerging in a digital context, and how they use it in their decision making. The paper proposes a cross-case analysis based on in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs from SMEs in the fashion industry, a relevant empirical context that has experienced, before others, the implementation of digital marketing strategies. The analysis suggests the existence of different entrepreneurial profiles based on the approach adopted in dealing with digital market knowledge, as well as the existence of different types of relationships between entrepreneurs and digital market knowledge and alternative consequences in terms of decision-making processes.

While previous research has demonstrated the effect of implicit theories (i.e. the belief whether human attributes are fixed or malleable) on attitudes and behaviors in many domains, such a relationship has not been investigated in the domain of beauty. In this research, we examine the effect of implicit theories of beauty on how consumers access their actual versus ideal self, and how they experiment the self, in turn influencing brand variety seeking. We theorize that believing beauty is fixed (versus malleable) would make the ideal, desired self more accessible, as entity theorists tend to orient more towards performance goals, ones that ensure the desired judgments (Dweck, Hong, & Chiu, 1993) while incremental theorists strive to enhance their ability (i.e. learning goals) (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). In an experiment using a reaction time task, we found that participants who were primed with an incremental theory of beauty (i.e. beauty is malleable) took longer to react to words that describe their ideal self compared to words that describe their actual self. On the contrary, participants who were primed with the entity theory of beauty (i.e. beauty is fixed) reacted towards ideal self related words as quick as the actual self related words. Results from this experiment shows that when people believe is fixed, their ideal self is as accessible as their actual self. Believing beauty is fixed activates the yearn to possess characteristics that one desires, making the ideal, desired self more accessible. We further examined the effect of implicit theories of beauty on experimenting tendency and brand variety seeking, as experimenting different looks by using cosmetic products might be a way to experience multiple ideal selves. With a sample of over 1200 female consumers in four countries, including two Asian countries (Indonesia and Thailand) and two Western countries (the UK and Australia), we found a consistent pattern that the beauty is fixed (vs. malleable) belief is associated with greater tendency to experiment with beauty looks, which in turn leads to higher variety seeking of beauty brands. This result demonstrated that beauty essentialism can be a universal mechanism that drive behaviour in a beauty domain. Our finding provides insights for the marketing of beauty products. We show that beauty essentialism is a factor that drives consumer’s desire for their ideal self, similarly drives the tendency to experiment with new makeup looks as a way to express the multiple ideal selves. The belief whether beauty is fixed or malleable is thus a factor that customer segmentation can be based on. Further, communicating the message that beauty is fixed might motivate the consumers to try out new makeup products. Our findings further shed lights on some of the strategies that are currently implemented by companies. For instance, does Dove’s Real Beauty campaign really encourage consumers to embrace their actual beauty, or does it in fact make them desire for the ideal beauty even more?

Internet represents an increasingly relevant marketing channel for reaching foreign countries (Sinkovics, Sinkovics, & Jean, 2013). The aim of this paper is to understand how Western firms can exploit digital platforms to enter and sell their products in the contradictory market of China: more advanced than the Western one but also with many restrictions. Drawing from a literature about Internet as communications (Bilby, Reid, & Brennan, 2016) and sales channel (Bai, McColl, & Moore, 2017; Deng & Wang, 2016; Petersen, Welch, & Liesch, 2002), we develop three propositions to be tested in China. We carry out a qualitative research based on interviews with seven key informants operating in the Chinese market. Findings discuss the peculiarities of the Chinese digital environment. We confirm that dealing with Internet in China is different from other countries, therefore even if companies already have competences related to web marketing, they need to (re)learn how to use it and adapt their marketing strategies. Moreover, despite the growing role of the Internet as retailing channel in the Chinese market, we find that digital platforms do not substitute local distributors because of their primary in guanxi established. Internet has not substituted existing channel intermediaries but it has been rather added to them in a omnichannel strategy

The cosmetic industry has been rapidly expanding over the last decades. The industry itself generates about $230 billion each year and is consumed daily by 90% of female consumers. Despite its weight in the economy, consumer research has largely neglected the specificity of beauty products and consumption. The first aim of this paper is thus to offer an integrative conceptual framework to better understand beauty consumption from a consumer psychology point of view, incorporating findings from evolutionary, cognitive and cultural psychology. The second aim is to encourage consumer research on the topic by offering a research agenda taking into consideration different dimensions of beauty perception. This working paper is based on a critical and systematic literature review conducted on the topic of beauty in cognitive, evolutionary and cultural psychology. Whilst the beauty industry is booming, a gap exists in the consumer research literature in terms of understanding the applications of traditional evolutionary, cognitive and crosscultural research on the topic. This working paper introduces a framework and agenda to understand, frame, and study beauty in consumer research. On the basis of the literature reviewed, we propose a model with two decision-making systems related to beautyrelated cognition and behaviors: an impulsive decision-making system and a socially constructed decision-making system. In the impulsive decision-making system, sexual selection and cognitive mechanisms function simultaneously. We expect impulsive buying behavior to occur when consumers are exposed to highly aesthetic packaging of beauty products. In the socially constructed decision-making system, consumers choose certain brands depending on the brand image being aligned with the consumer’s cultural perception of beauty. We argue that decision-making behavior is reflective, as opposed to impulsive. Finally, we argue that both systems are mutually reinforcing and need to be better integrated into further studies looking at beauty consumption.

It is a fact that the present online technologies have empowered consumers not only to share their positive service experiences they have had with a firm on the Internet, but also to express their negative views online via multiple platforms by using varied online communication features (OCFs) (e.g. status updates, comments, chats, reviews, and feedback forms). With that, this study employed the concept of online features affordances, such as response expectation, identifiability (of complainants), and content visibility, based on a novel conceptualization through the lens of uses and gratifications (U&G) theory from a varied perspective. Hence, by modelling consumers’ motivation to complain about brand via online in conjunction with the selected OCF affordances, this study investigated their joint impact on consumers’ emotions and intentions towards the defaulting firm upon making an online complaint. The data were analysed by using correspondence analysis and structural equation modelling approaches. As a result, this study revealed that consumers’ motivation to complain and their interactions with affordances (but not the affordances themselves) exemplify a significant effect upon influencing the intention towards the (defaulting) firm after disclosing a negative service incident. In particular, content visibility and response expectation appear to display an impact on redress-seeking and egoistic complainants, respectively. These findings, hence, provide relevant insights for firms to manage their complaint channels and to address online customer feedback in a more effective manner for mutual benefits. Furthermore, this study happens to be the first of its kind to weigh in OCFs as the concerned media and further proposes a design-based affordance view of OCFs in explaining their influence on both consumers and brands.

People want to watch a sports game which cannot anticipate the result until the end of the game. Sometimes, however, excessive tension of contest lowers the interest of audience. Vast amount of existing researches have focused on finding explanation about what makes a difference of the preference level of suspense among sports fans and where is the optimal level of suspense. We apply Expected Utility Theory and Prospect theory to illustrate the expected utility of sports spectators. According to our findings, if someone someone who is satisfied more when the cheering team wins, he or she may prefer lopsided match than close match. And fans who support winning team, which means team which wins often, prefer lopsided match to close match because they forecast their team will win more than fans who support losing team, which means team which loses often. We manipulate the level of satisfaction when the cheering team wins (S) and subjective forecasted probability of win before the game (Q) of respondents and measure the utility of them toward difference game aspect (P) to verify our hypothesis. This study was carried out to investigate how the satisfaction of sports spectators will change according to the change of the game aspect. In particular, research model was set up using the Expected Utility Theory and Prospect Theory of economics. The use of economics models to explain sports consumer behavior is different from that of previous studies, and consumers' prior expectations can affect the current game viewing based on Prospect Theory is another contribution of this research.

In an increasingly globalized world, consumers are continuously exposed to global products in their domestic markets. As a result, companies are seeking ways to adapt their business in order to target the global consumer segment, which is favorably disposed to global market offerings (Papadopoulos & Martin Martin, 2011). Research on conceptualizing consumers’ positive dispositions towards global products is burgeoning, with a number of researchers focusing on the role of global/local consumer identities (i.e. Tu, Khare, & Zhang, 2012). Global identity implies that a person identifies with the entire human kind and feels as a resident of the entire world (Cannon & Yaprak, 2002), and consequently has a more positive view toward globalization and shows more interest into global events (Guo, 2013). Local identity, on the contrary, derives from the overall awareness of belonging to a community that shares the same national values and cultural norms (Thompson, 2001). Empirical evidence shows that global and local identities positively influence the evaluations and willingness to purchase global and local brands, respectively (Verlegh, 2007; Zhang & Khare, 2009). Despite the growing academic focus on consumers’ location-based identities (i.e. global/local) and their impact on consumer decision making, research on this topic is mainly focusing on tangible products, ignoring how digitalization has transformed the international marketing landscape. Drawing on social identity theory and the existing literature with regards to how global/local identity is influencing consumers’ disposition towards global products, this paper considers the case of global digital products. In particular, we aim to investigate whether global and local consumer identities influence the usage of two of the most famous global Social Network Sites (SNSs), namely Facebook and Instagram. Combining existing literature on global consumer culture and marketing of SNSs, we develop and empirically test a set of hypotheses with two samples of Facebook and Instagram users from Austria and Thailand. The choice of these specific countries allows us to explore whether consumers with global or local identities behave similarly in marketplaces characterized by completely different settings regarding the availability and use of SNSs.

Over the past decade, the field of sport exercise in China gets increasingly popular, resulting in a nationwide exercise fashion (Schulenkorf, Sherry, & Rowe, 2016; Yu, Li, Liu, & Su, 2015). With this new emerging shift, this study tested the proposed structural model, and specifically tested the mediating effects of dimensions of sport team attachment between runners’ team satisfaction and their runner team building behaviors (Morhart, Herzog, & Tomczak, 2009). With a sample size of 301, three dimensions of team attachment, team identity, social bonding, and team expectation were found to be significant influencing runners’ in-role team building behavior and participation in the development of this runner team. Other important findings and implications were further discussed.

Today, hundreds of millions of people spectate eSports. eSports fans are spending their time watching live internet broadcasts, referred to as streams, on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. With the high levels of interaction and the live-broadcasting nature, eSports streaming consumption lead to a significant effect on eSports industry (Sjöblom & Hamari, 2017). As a result, eSport has been growing definitely as a viable spectator sport (Bornemark, 2013). In the line with it, drone racing is gaining popularity as a sport type where players control drones, typically radio-controlled aircrafts equipped with cameras, by wearing head-mounted displays (HMD) showing the live stream camera feed of first person view point from the drones. Recently, drone racing has been recognized as a new type of eSports since it involves digital communication technology, specifically virtual reality (VR) technology, and cutting edge computing and control engineering to produce aircrafts that are capable of speeds in excess of 150 Kilometer per hour and acceleration as fast as F1 cars. In essence, drone racing combines VR gaming with real world action to create a new genre, Mixed Reality Sports. The uniqueness of drone racing comes from the first person perspective. Due to first person view display glasses, pilots immerse into their drones; they experience the feeling of sitting on the nose of the drone. Furthermore, the immersive experience can be shared with the spectators through the first person view video that the pilots see. Drone racing provides its spectators this type of unique immersive experience, but the problem is that spectators of first person view drone racing can easily get motion sickness/VR sickness. Moreover, spectators can easily miss out on what is happening and thus need some structure to the experience (Hemb, 2017). A proper system is needed to provide unprecedented immersive experiences to them and VR technology can provide more optimal views for spectating drone race. However, there are only a few studies on what drone racing spectators want to see and how they enjoy VR content of drone racing. Therefore, the goal of this study is to assess and evaluate drone racing spectating. A series of spectating modes (mirroring, 3D and VR) is assessed in a series of experiments and user testing sessions to determine the preferred mode for spectating drone racing VR content and analyze the relationships between spectating modes and level of audience immersion and presence.

Although researchers have explored mobile commerce (e.g. Ngai & Gunasekaran, 2007), literature on diffusion and adoption of digital innovations lacks an investigation of late adoption and possible solutions to avoid late adoption. This study applies fsQCA and proposes that disparate configurations of causal factors (resistance to innovation, skepticism, traditional mindset, perceived risk, and product simplicity) are equifinal to predict the negation of late adoption of mobile taxi app [mytaxi]. The first path suggests that lower perceived risk and lower resistance to innovation result in the negation of late adoption of the mobile application my taxi. The second and third configurations show that low level of perceived risk with low level of skepticism or low level of perceived risk with low level of traditional mindset also result in negation of late adoption. These three paths are aligned with existing literature, which presents resistance to innovation, skepticism and traditional mindset as characteristics of late adopters (Jahanmir and Lages, 2016; Laukkanen, 2016; Moore, 2014). Finally, low level of resistance to innovation with low level of traditional mindset, low level of skepticism, and low level of perceived product simplicity also lead to the negation of late adoption. This finding is also in line with prior research regarding late adopters’ preference for simple product (Jahanmir and Lages, 2016). The study also presents managerial implications. Results show that in order to avoid late adoption, firms should primarily focus on lowering consumers’ perceived risk as well as their resistance toward their digital innovations. Shifting consumers’ focus from risk to utility and performance of the digitized products is one way of lowering their resistance and increasing the rate of adoption.

The purpose of the current study was to deduct the factors for e-sports and to develop measurement scale of each images of those factors so as to establish the concept of esports. In order to achieve the aforementioned purpose, the study was conducted through three steps: (1) deduction of the elementary/principal factors which were based on the literature investigation and in-depth interview of experts and general public, (2) conducting first survey and exploratory factor analysis, and (3) conducting secondary survey followed by confirmatory factor analysis. In the first step, in order to develop and identify measurement scales, images concerning e-sports, game and sports perceived by consumers and related items used in the extant literature were investigated. Additionally, in order to verify the face and content validity of deducted items, in-depth interview of experts, professional gamers, professors of Sports Science, doctoral students, people in charge, general public and etc was conducted. And in the second step, the survey with those confirmed items scales were conducted and with the results derived from the survey, the exploratory factor analysis for measuring images consisting e-sports were also conducted. Finally, in the third step, secondary survey based on the results derived from the exploratory factor analysis were conducted and in order to test uni-dimensionality of the measurement tool with the results emanated from the secondary survey, confirmatory factor analysis were conducted. Through aforementioned three steps, the current study confirmed the image factors consisting e-sports which are comprised of six positive factors (i.e., sociality, entertainingness, aestheticness, leisureness, education, and stress relief) and five negative factors (i.e., addictiveness, violence, commercial viability/marketability, and closedness).

Personalizing banner ads or embedding ads with specific data signals or triggers, such as – personal characteristics, past behaviours, etc. is believed to improve customer response or Click Through Rate (CTR) since, embedding ads with viewers/recipients’ personal data or characteristics make ads more appealing and relevant to users (Lambrecht & Tucker, 2013). However, evidence also exists in literature that personalization can be ineffective as the usage of customers’ personal data can trigger off privacy concerns causing them to ignore such ads (van Doorn & Hoekstra, 2013). Investigations exploring suitability and effectiveness of ad personalization report that factors such as advertised product, data used for personalizing may influence the effectiveness of personalized ads (De Keyzer, Dens, & De Pelsmacker, 2015; Goldfarb & Tucker, 2011; van Doorn & Hoekstra, 2013). In this research we examine the impact of personalization triggers (PTs) on click through rate (CTR) of online banner ads across cultures. CTR data for 1345 unique ad copies (personalized) of an international hotel group screened in Japan and Middle East countries was used for this study. Data analyses revealed significant impact of PTs on CTRs. Analyses further revealed that – 1) usage of past purchase data impacts the CTR negatively, implying that customers respond negatively to ads showing hotel properties that they have previously visited/stayed in; 2) usage of search history data has a significant positive impact on CTR, suggesting that customers respond favourably towards ads showing hotel properties in destinations revealed from their search history. Interestingly, culture specific data such as local language elicit different responses in different cultures. While in Japan, language personalised ads i.e., ads in Japanese language fared poorly (negative impact on CTR) as compared to ads in English language (positive impact on CTR); in the Middle East it was the ads in English language that fared poorly (negative impact on CTR) compared to ads in Arabic. These results strongly suggest that the knowledge of PTs influence CTR and combining them with the right creative elements would help advertisers in improving customer engagement with ads, have a positive impact on CTR and even improve customer conversion. This would imply better returns for the resources spent on digital advertising. Findings from the study are true and reflective of the PTs (membership, brand affinity, destination, language) used in the ad campaign under study and limited to the cultures investigated. Future studies exploring other PTs in online hotel ads would help marketers in making a more informed decision while selecting data signals or PTs for personalizing digital banner ads for hotel brands.

Recent headlines predict that artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics and other aspects of cognitive computing will be the next fundamental drivers of economic growth (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2017). We have evidenced several success stories in the recent years, such as those of Google and Facebook, wherein novel business opportunities have evolved based on data-driven business innovations. Our directional poll among companies, however, reveals that at present, only few companies have the keys to successfully harness these possibilities. Even fever companies seem to be successful in running profitable business based on data-driven business innovations. Company’s capability to create data-driven business relates to company’s overall capability to innovate. Therefore, this research builds a conceptual model of barriers to data-driven business innovations and proposes that a deeper understanding of innovation barriers can assist companies in becoming closer to the possibilities that data-driven business innovations can enable. As Hadjimanolis (2003) suggests, the first step in overcoming innovation barriers is to understand such barriers. Consequently, we identify technology-related, organizational, environmental and people-related i.e. attitudinal barriers and examine how these relate to company’s capability to create data-driven business innovations. Specifically, technology-related barriers may originate from the company’s existing practices and predominant technological standards. Organizational barriers reflect the company’s inability to integrate new patterns of behavior into the established routines and practices (Sheth & Ram, 1987). Environmental barriers refer to various types of hampering factors that are external to a company. Environmental barriers are caused by the company’s external environment and thus company has relatively limited possibilities to influence and overcome such factors. Attitudinal barriers are people-related perceptual barriers that can be studied at the individual level, and if necessary, separately for managers and employees (Hadjimanolis, 2003). Future research will pursue to build an empirical model to examine how these different barriers are related to company’s capability to create business based on data-driven innovations.

Customer-owned touch points have emerged as a central context for customers to interact with one another on social media (Lemon and Verhoef 2016). Empirical research on firms’ presence and behaviour in these forums is limited, especially as regards how this presence affects customer experiences. This study is an attempt to address this this gap, analysing customer experiences from such forums using self-determination theory as a lens. The results show that companies’ efforts to control the discussions in such forums have a negative impact on customers' cognitive experiences. However, firms’ intervention is welcomed when the intention is to add value to customers in these forums, and allow customers to retain the feeling self-efficacy, and social affiliation and autonomy (Ryan and Deci 2002).