This paper is conducted to support Korean game development companies to enter the MSNG market in China. According to preceding researches, the life-cycle of MSNG is under 3 months. Short-term of the MSNG's life-cycle raises the problems of low profits or deficit of companies managed to enter the Chinese market. Therefore, it needs to lead MSNG users to continuos use to extend the life-cycle. The plan to extend the life-cycle is likely to be a critical factor to be survived in Chinese market. The commitment is considered as the factor to make usage of MSNG longer by researchers. This paper also infers that the plan to keep MSNG user's commitment continuos develops their perceived functional value, emotional value and social value, with the reasonal, emotional and psychological point of view. We make a effort to reveal the relationships among factors through 318 data from Chinese MSNG users. Futhermore we would like to suggest that the companies consider continuos usage intention of MSNG users as the critical factor which makes a profit based on the result of this survey and propose the direction of future researches from the limit of this paper.

The global online game market remarkably has been growing by each year and its profitability has been increasing as well. The online game companies, however, are facing a big trouble. Although a great number of online games have been so popular fast, they would have been disappeared fast because they have not made their players reuse repeatedly. The successful game companies need to attract the players continuously and make sustainable profit by making a longer product life-cycle. Fun has been regarded as an antecedent of intention to play games and game satisfaction in most of prior research of online game or the motive to play games. But fun in these researches was dealt in a view of short term. The fun which can get the players to replay and make relationship with the game companies needs to be investigated in terms of long-term. Therefore we examine the fun as a key antecedent of the drivers of customer equity in game companies. The multiplayer online battle arena(MOBA) games such as league of legend(LOL, Riot games), DOTA Ⅱ (Nexon), CHAOS online(CHAOS, Sesi Soft) and so on, have strived to develop their sustainable and competitive factors. Even though MOBA is one of online game genres and derived from Real time strategy (RTS), it continues its popularity in the world because its companies are striving to make sustainability by upgrading their game characters continuously. That is, it is that they are extending their game product life cycle. The players who feel bored with the old characters can play with another new characters having their own game strategies and balance. Besides, there are more features to make their players satisfied and replay like the interaction in game communities and active E-sports league in common MOBA game attributes. The MOBA is one successful model of online game genres so far due to their continuous effort to make their sustainability in the game market. We research the framework which affects customer equity in MOBA game companies in the study.

This study examines the effect of brand-specific transformational leadership (BSTL) on employee-based brand equity (EBBE) with the mediating mechanism of empowerment. We explore the newly emerging concept of ‘employee based brand equity’ particularly from the perspective of brand-specific transformational leadership in the service industry. Furthermore, we explore the perspective of empowerment, structural and psychological empowerment, as the mediating mechanism between BSTL and EBBE. We highlight the direct and indirect effects of BSTL on EBBE and employs hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). 578 questionnaires were collected from multilevel data of subordinates and their supervisors at 58 well-known service brand units in Taiwan. Our research results implicate that: (1) BSTL is positively related to employee base brand equity; (2) Structure empowerment is a mediator factor of BSTL and employee base brand equity relationship; (3) Psychological empowerment is a mediator factor of BSTL and employee base brand equity relationship. This study presents three key contributions. This study provides the following research contributions: (a) In contrast to previous studies that focused on customer brand equity, we initiate the quantitative research of research on frontline employee based brand equity. (b) This study suggests and confirms that BSTL influences EBBE through the mediation of structure empowerment and psychological empowerment, which further contributes to EBBE research. (c) Finally, this study applies a hierarchical linear model to conduct a cross-level analysis of EBBE. Consequently, this study provide evidence supporting the previous assertion that comprehensive insight into service organizational behaviors can be achieved only by employing cross-level analysis and mediating factors.

Deciding what value to offer to customers is a key managerial task in differentiating a service in the market and in satisfying customer needs better than competitors. This task is more critical for B2B services because customer satisfaction results from both the customer’s actual experience with the service and the ongoing interactions a customer has with the service provider. Previous research supports this view by showing that a service’s performance and relational value offerings are paramount in driving customer satisfaction; however, the distinct effect of each of these value offerings on customer satisfaction has not been fully explained. Using a multi-informant design and data from 173 B2B service firms, our study provides a deeper understanding of how the outcomes of performance and relational value vary at different levels of customer participation and supplier collaboration in a B2B service project. This deeper understanding helps managers to identify precisely the conditions under which a specific configuration of performance and relational value offerings is more or less influential with respect to customer satisfaction.

One of the main priorities for many service companies is the development and maintenance of long term relationship with valuable customers. A common research route is the hourglass approach where general hypotheses are developed, then they are tested on a single type of service and finally the findings are taken as generalised across the whole spectrum of services. It is well recognised that customer relationships are multi-sided and contingent to the nature of the services, but still the empirical research on the moderating role of service types is limited. Additionally, the actual bonds that tie the service provider to the customer, have received limited attention by the scholars. Thus, this paper attempts to address the issue of relevance and relative importance of the different types of relational bonds between hedonic and utilitarian services. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) together with longitudinal qualitative research was used to develop a set of hypotheses that was empirically tested in a large sample of consumers. The basic premise of TPB is that attitudes together with subjective norms and perceived control can predict intentions, and actual behaviours. However, TPB has been criticised that it does not incorporate a full set of attitudinal drivers towards intentions. Responding to this criticism, this study developed (through qualitative research and literature review) an extensive set of relational bonds found to be important in different service contexts. These bonds are: switching costs, economic, social, confidence, convenience, emotional and habit bonds. Together with subjective norms and perceived difficulty, relational bonds were examined in relation to repurchase intentions across hedonic and utilitarian services, based on a survey (sample size: 548), through multi-group analysis and structural equation modelling. Based on the results, the drivers of repurchase intentions can be classified into three categories: 1) universal drivers of repurchase intentions that transcend service categories (emotional, subjective norms and perceived difficulty) 2) service specific bonds (confidence, convenience, and habitual bonds) and 3) inconsequential relational bonds (switching cost, economic bonds and social bonds). Explanations of these differences lie in the nature and the value customers derive for the two different types of services. Initial findings suggest that many of the generally accepted theoretical relations in this field are service context specific. This is the first attempt to get a relational bonding footprint of different types of services in an effort to develop granular theories that take into account the nature and context of service typologies. From a managerial perspective findings qualify general theories of customer relationship management and make them more usable for the specific contexts of services.

The article aims to quantitatively test the DART model, so far studied mostly with qualitative methods. A multiple measurement scale was employed in interviewing managers. The statistical evidence for adequacy of the model was obtained through CFA. The findings suggest that DART may not accurately reflect firms’ co-creation practices.

We propose a conceptual model of MO in emerging markets by drawing on industrial organization and economic sociology, and outline factors which can better explain the determinant-strategy-performance relationships in emerging markets. We provide two country examples (Russia and China), and propose future research directions for our conceptual model.

This research explore the complementarity effect of export-market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation on export performance of SMEs from a CEE developing economy. We found that the likelihood of this effect on export profitability is higher in dynamic export market environments if high level of resources are committed to export operations.

Research on strategic orientations has mainly focused on Western countries, leaving findings an open issue for other contexts, such as transitional economies. In these economies competition is likely to be fluid and new entrants are approaching the market which offers new perspectives on the strategic orientation-context link. However, extant literature on strategic management has mostly studied short term adaption events or single cases, and to more accurately account for the dynamic process of economic transition, strategic research has to focus on how firms co-evolve with the changing environment. Extending previous work, we investigate the process of firms’ co-evolution with their environment over the last two decades of economic transition in Hungary. Results show that there has been a significant increase in perceived market turbulence, technological turbulence and competitive intensity as the Hungarian economy enters the later phase of economic transition. However, firms do not perceive this change in the environment and do not respond to it by allocating more resources on customer and competitor orientation.

This study aims to investigate the antecedents to customer retention and brand loyalty of Internet Service Providers in Thailand. The findings reveal that customers’ commitment and value are influenced by information support, privacy and security. Additionally, the positive relationships between information quality and privacy and behavioural loyalty were revealed. Customers’ commitment and value were positively associated with behavioural loyalty. However, surprisingly, there was no support for the hypothesised positive association between customers’ value with behavioural loyalty. Practical implications that can be drawn from this research will form a foundation for service providers in the residential internet market to develop new retention strategies. These providers would l be able to reduce the current issues relating to the high customer churn rate. By making customers more central in company operations, these strategies can potentially reduce the expenses associated with acquiring new customers.

Multi-sided platforms (Hagiu and Julian, 2011) have gotten a lot of attention recently. Multi-sided platform sponsors aspire to open innovation. They link a relationship between multiple groups and construct a mechanism of co-creation. This paper is intended as an investigation of a process to create and develop multi-sided platforms. Specifically, we are concerned with an attractive factor to users in launching stage of platforms and a mechanism of getting an ongoing commitment in developing stage of platforms. The concept of “network externality” is helpful in understanding multi-sided platforms. Network externality is the effect that one user of a good or service has on the value of that product to other people. It works between sides of multi-sided platforms. When network externality is present, the value of a product or service is dependent on the number of others using it. Therefore, a platform become increasingly popular, as numbers of users is becoming above threshold level. It is important to identify an attractive factor to users in launching stage of platforms. Multi-sided platforms form a bridge between multiple sides (markets) and balance the conflicting interests. It can be presumed that interactions among a platform sponsor and multiple sides depend on whether each side is a business (B) or a consumer (C). We have proposed a model of creation and development of multi-sided platforms. As a platform is created, a platform sponsor orchestrates to attract demand side users and supply side users. It fosters trust and provides incentives to demand side users and supply side users. And it seeks to every side users’ retention in developing stage of its platform. As numbers of every side users are becoming above threshold level, network externality works and a platform become increasingly popular. As describe above, it can be presumed that interactions among a platform sponsor and multiple sides depend on whether each side is a business (B) or a consumer (C). Therefore, in this study, multi-side platforms are classified into three categories according to the combination of businesses (B) and consumers (C). As far as BtoB type platforms concerned, every side consists of businesses. In BtoC type platforms, consumers also behave as demand side users. For instance, they create word of mouth in a platform. ICT based Japanese multi-sided platforms were selected as a research site. This study is based on a comparative analysis between three types of multi-sided platforms. Data were collected from multiple sources and multiple viewpoints. Company documents were studied, interviews with key executives and managers undertaken. Through we do a comparative analysis between three types of multi-sided platforms, this study clarified the following three points: 1. BtoC type multi-sided platforms provide “information” as an attractive factor regarding an entry to the platform to demand side users. In contrast, this is not true of BtoB type platforms. “Information” is not an attractive factor to demand side users in launching stage of BtoB type platform. “Information” contributes to demand side user retention in developing stage of BtoB type platform. 2. BtoC type of multi-sided platforms have the higher cost of platform maintenance than BtoB type in that BtoC type manage “information” put out by consumers that is more diversity and emotional than businesses. 3. Platform sponsors do not seek their own gain and they aspire to the total optimization of their ecosystem and industry segments. “Neutrality” is common attitude to all type of multi-side platforms. BtoC type sponsors particularly focus on having a strong commitment to users view and pulling in more customers, not slaving to traditional business practices.

This research investigated how the relationship between customers’ psychological factors and expectations of self-checkout systems influences overall satisfaction. The results show that perceptions of “social injustice” negatively affect consumer satisfaction when the customer has high expectations. Conversely, the variables “uncomfortable,” “unoccupied,” and “anxious” negatively affect satisfaction when expectations are low.

Luxury industry is one of the fastest growing fields in marketing research in which many studies have examined how consumers' background affects their preference for luxury products and luxury brands. Classical theories focused on the affluent social classes and their tendency to consume luxury products to consciously or unconsciously signal their wealth. Other studies argued that the internalised culture developed during the socialisation years may influence one’s tastes and preferences for luxuries. Whereas, “costly signal theory” and “affirmation resource theory” suggest that luxury consumption extends beyond the traditional symbolic value of luxury brands and the habituated taste consumption drivers. Despite the wealth of current theoretical approaches, there is little research on the context of status rankings of luxuries and luxury brands. Thus, main objective of the present study is to develop and empirically test a conceptual framework that links consumption of at different rungs of the luxury brand ladder to a number of variables that may act as moderators which will be defined below. The key predictors are economic resources, cultural capital, perceived social status and desired status. The dependent variable is consumption of luxury brands at different rungs in the luxury ladder. A number of hypotheses are proposed and empirically tested. The dependent variable was measured by survey data collected from a sample of US consumers. The results confirm that the frequency of luxury brand purchases is significantly and positively related to consumers’ economic resources and desire for status. The hierarchy of luxury brands consumed is driven by consumers’ economic resources, cultural capital and desire for social status. Regardless of economic resources and perceived social status, consumers with high desire for social status are more likely to buy brands which represent high level of luxury. Likewise, people with higher cultural capital would buy higher luxury grading brands regardless of their economic capabilities. Moreover, results showed that perceived social status is negatively correlated with preferences for higher tier luxury brands of cars. In particular, desire for social status seems to moderates the effect of perceived social status on the hierarchy of brand of luxury car preferences. Desire for status combined with high perceived social status leads to higher preference for higher tier luxury products. It can be concluded that economic resources are responsible for the frequency people buy luxury brands, whereas cultural capital is responsible for the luxury hierarchy of the consumed brands. Frequent consumption of luxury brands reflects one’s economic status whereas the grade of luxury brands his/her cultural status. However, desire for status seems to be a key variable as it affects both frequency and the ranks of luxury brands purchased. This is an important variable as desire for status is not related with neither the actual social status (i.e., economic resources and cultural capital) nor perceived social status.

This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature about social influence on products purchase intention. Specifically, it focuses on social influence among young adults’ purchase intention for luxury products, through investigation about Macau young adults consumption culture. Three types of social influence (informational influence, utilitarian influence, and value-expressive influence) are examined in this study. In terms of product conspicuousness, two types of luxury products can be identified based on the degree to which products usage is performed in public versus private. Hypotheses include that informational influence, utilitarian influence, and value-expressive influence will be significantly and positively related to consumer purchase intention for luxury products, both publicly and privately consumed. A convenient sample of 120 Macau young adults aged 18 to 24 participated in this study. The result of Regression and Analysis of Variance indicated that consumers have been affected by different types of social influence when they purchase different types of luxury products. Value-expressive influence is significantly and positively related to purchase intention for public products. Moreover, both informational influence and value-expressive influence are significantly and positively related to purchase intention for private luxury products. However, the effects of utilitarian influence are insignificant to both public and private luxury products, which are contrary to the hypotheses specified in this study and surprising findings about contemporary Chinese culture. Additionally, female has higher intention to buy luxury products. Based on the results of this study, marketing implications and managerial insights in the luxury retail market are recommended accordingly. Future research can provide a more comprehensive perspective of social influence than the exploratory one offered in the present study.

Consumers today are not passive recipients of a constructed brand identity that is communicated towards them. Instead research suggests that the consumer is in fact an active part in constructing brand meaning. Salzer-Mörling and Strannegård (2004) held that brand managers are confronted with the fact that they are not the owners of the brand who can actively manipulate brand images in the minds of passive consumers. The importance of consumption activities and how these play a part in the development of meaning has been demonstrated by authors such as Wallendorf and Arnould (1991), who interpreted the consumption rituals of Thanksgiving and explored the linkages and cleavages between consumer ideology and consumer practice. Arnould and Price (1993) investigated the relationship between client expectations and satisfaction and concluded that the narrative of the rafting experience (multiday river rafting trips in the Colorado River basin was the empirical context for their article) rather than relationships between expectations and outcomes was central to its evaluation. Belk and Costa (1998) showed the creation of fantasy consumption enclaves through processes of inventing and mythologizing tradition, and Peñaloza (2001) investigated consumers‘ cultural production processes at different levels and concluded that consumers negotiate meanings and that business activities and specific references are significant for consumers in providing authenticity. In later research it is argued that brands belong to and are created within groups, communities or tribes (e.g. Brown, Kozinets and Sherry Jr., 2003), or that consumers are actively creating brandscapes (Thompson and Arsel, 2004) neo-tribes (Cova and Cova, 2002), the concept of brand communities (Muniz and O‘Guinn, 2001; McAlexander, Schouten and Koenig, 2002; Muniz and Schau, 2005; Algesheimer, Dholakia and Herrmann, 2005), subcultures of consumption (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995), and brand cultures (Schroeder and Salzer-Mörling, 2006). Muniz and O‘Guinn (2001) emphasized the triangular relationship between consumers and the brand and consumer relationships. McAlexander, Schouten and Koenig (2002) broadened this perspective by studying customers´ relationships with a branded product and related marketing agents, institutions as well as other customers. In their view, consumers socialize around brands, which are defined as brand objects, but they still consider brand meaning as being developed first by marketers. Related to the brand community is the concept of ‘neo-tribes‘, examined by Cova and Cova (2002), who hold that a tribe is not necessarily a brand community, since brand communities are explicitly commercial, whereas tribes are not. However, when a tribe is organized around a same passion of a cult-object it exhibits many similarities with a brand community (p. 603). Alongside the concept of brand community research has viewed the consumer-producer dichotomy in new ways of co-production: the customer as co-producer (Wikström, 1996; Vargo and Lusch, 2004), the reversal of consumption and production (Firath and Venkatesh, 1993), the consumer role in production and consumption (Firath and Venkatesh, 1995), consumers as customizers and producers (Firath, Dholakia and Venkatesh, 1995), customers as active co-creators of experience (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2000), the concept of customerization (Wind and Rangaswamy, 2000). Bendapudi and Leone (2003) viewed customer co-production in the construction of goods and ser-vices and claimed that consumer co-production extends to meanings as well and that consumers are not ―just passive receptacles of brand identity projected by marketers; they are active co-producers of brand meanings (p.26). They called for more attention to the implications of consumer co-produced marketing images given the empowerment of consumers through the Internet. Kozinets et al. further (2004) introduced the notion of ―interagency where consumer and producer interests are embedded in one another. Quinton and Harridge-March (2010) investigated relationships in online communities and the potential influence of consumer generated communication in online discussion fora on wine. This paper views consumer generated communication on luxury brands online and its impact on luxury brand image. With the growth of the Internet and brands’ use of it so has consumer initiated sites grown. Consumer communities and brand communities are today an active participant in the creation of brand value and brand meaning. However there is still a gap in the empirical research on consumer-generated communication and how this type of communication impacts brand image. A conceptual framework for consumer community communication is presented and three empirical examples of consumer-generated communication and its impact on brand image are presented. The approach is a qualitative online study. Consumer community sites show clear examples of information, distribution and conversation aspects. This study shows that information seeking is the most prevalent in the impact on brand image. The strength of this research lies in its qualitative nature with consumer interviews and online observations of consumer-generated brand communication. Given the exploratory nature of this research the online material had to be systematized during the course of the work and could not be chosen based on a set of criteria or evaluation methods already established.

Negative publicity can be defined as negative information about a product, a service, a brand, an organization or an individual that is circulated through mass media such as print media and broadcast media (Dean, 2004; O'Guinn, Allen, & Semenik, 2011). Indeed, there has been a growing interest in the marketing literature concerning the effects of negative brand publicity on consumer perceptions and evaluations (Cleeren, van Heerde, & Dekimpe, 2013; Dills & Hernández Julián, 2012; Pullig, Netemeyer & Biswas, 2006; Thirumalai & Sinha, 2011). Negatively publicized instances such as defective products/services or unethical business practices are likely to impair a brand’s image and its equity. However, previous literature has mainly focused on the effect of performance-related negative publicity on consumer responses and there are limited studies about the effect of value- or ethics-related negative publicity. Owing to the inherent characteristics of inseparability and intangibility, hospitality managers need to pay particular attention to ethical issues and the detrimental impact of value-related negative publicity. This study aims to examine the impact of negative brand publicity on hotel consumers for two types of negative publicity (namely, performance-related and value-related). A content analysis and a consumer survey were conducted in China so as to investigate the hotel recovery strategy and consumer responses toward negative publicity. The content analysis was performed on two largest local daily newspapers in China. It showed that the occurrence of value-related negative publicity (e.g., not keeping promises, or dishonesty) was much greater than performance-related negative publicity (e.g., untidy room, or equipment malfunction) in China’s hotel industry. Compensations appeared to be the most common method for hotel responses toward the two types of negative publicity. The consumer survey showed that consumer responses such as hotel evaluations and patronage intentions were negatively affected by negative brand publicity. Female consumers were found to be more sensitive to unethical issues than male consumers. In other words, females were more negatively affected by value-related publicity than performance-related publicity. Managerial implications for hospitality managers are discussed.

As luxury brands have become a globalised phenomenon, marked with the appearance of recognizable and standardized platforms worldwide, we ask how their consumption and meanings are shaped by divergent cultural beliefs that permeate contemporary multicultural marketplaces. Cross-cultural luxury branding literature advises luxury brand managers to cultivate coherent brand identities tied to their internal ‘brand DNA’, with the aim to translate this identity into a consistent global brand image. However, this managerial commitment to a standardized approach in international marketing has meant that brand researchers often adopt an ethnocentric perspective on branding, characterized with the tendency to assess marketplaces in terms of their various degrees of ‘glocalization’. Consequently, the literature on cross-cultural luxury branding has largely focused on the effects of global positioning and local cultural influences, paying little attention to the influences of other foreign cultures that may operate within a multicultural marketplace. This paper is concerned with advancing our knowledge about how complex multicultural influences shape luxury brand markets. In particular, focusing on the interplay between local and foreign cultural meanings in a single national market, we demonstrate how the consumption of luxury brands is influenced by multiple, and at times conflicting, cultural beliefs. Luxury brands and cultural meanings are thoroughly intertwined. Throughout history, the idea of luxury has been influenced by various ideological beliefs, providing an “illuminating entrée into a basic political issue, namely, the nature of social order” (Berry, 1994: 6). For instance, since ancient civilisations, such as the Egyptians and Amerindians, luxury goods have been used as the symbol of status and power (Kapferer and Bastien, 2009). In the days of Plato and early Christianity, luxury was also perceived in a pejorative form that signified the corruption of a virtuous manly life; and with the works of Adam Smith, the idea of luxury has become a vindication of commercial society (Berry, 1994). Over the last two decades, we have witnessed unprecedented demand for luxury brands by international consumers in Japan, in East Asia, and now in the BRIC (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and CIVETS countries (i.e., Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa) (Kapferer, 2012). Due to the accelerated flows of consumption meanings, ideologies, and people resulting from global economic forces (Appadurai, 1997), many of these emerging marketplaces are characterized by cross-cutting cultural flows, exhibiting a high degree of inner differentiation and complexity (Craig and Douglas, 2006), mutual entanglement (Robertson, 1992; Welsh, 1999), and interpenetration (Andreasen, 1990). Consequently, there is a growing need to advance our understanding of how increasing multicultural influences shape luxury brand markets. Informed by a cultural branding approach (Bengtsson et al., 2010) and research on multicultural marketplaces (Craig and Douglas, 2006), we address this issue in cross-cultural luxury branding by offering a qualitative inquiry into luxury brand consumption in New Zealand, uncovering the interplay between two distinct cultural beliefs permeating this multicultural market – the local Kiwi ‘tall poppy syndrome’ and the foreign ‘face-saving’ orientation originating from East Asian immigrant cultures. The Kiwi tall poppy syndrome conveys a negative social attitude towards people (the ‘tall poppies’) who are conspicuously successful and whose distinction, rank, or wealth attracts envious notice or hostility (Mouly and Sankaran, 2002). Conversely, the East Asian ‘face-saving’ orientation is concerned with the social image of success that an individual projects in society (Le Monkhouse et al., 2012). We found that not only did these two local and foreign cultural beliefs convey oppositional meanings about luxury brands in New Zealand, but they also prompted consumers to adopt different luxury brand consumption styles. Furthermore, despite being oppositional in nature, our findings suggest that these beliefs could jointly influence individual consumers, adding yet increased complexity to how these individuals consumed luxury brands. In particular, we demonstrate that luxury brand consumers in New Zealand are able to hold multiple and conflicting local and foreign cultural beliefs in tension, emerging as contextual cultural shifters. While the literature on cross-national luxury branding conventionally privileges cross-national methods which tend to de-emphasise the heterogeneity within national luxury markets (Wiedmann et al., 2007), the results of our study suggest the need to consider intercultural diversity at the intra-national level. Indeed, Brewer and Venaik (2012) decry the danger of applying culture-level constructs to the level of the individual. Brubaker (2004) calls this the fallacy of groupism, where we treat ethnic groups as concrete entities instead of seeing group-making as an on-going project. This is echoed by Calhoun (2003: 547) who encourages “avoiding the illusion that plagued much earlier thoughts of ethnicity and nationalism – that there was one basic identity common to all members of a group.” Essentially, when an individual’s cultural identity is reduced to the nationality or the ethnicity that he or she declares on a survey, not only does this overlook the multidimensionality and complexity of cultural influences which shape how they consume luxury brands, but this also misses further opportunities to engage with luxury brand consumers. While some cross-national luxury consumption studies have accommodated a degree of complexity with the consideration of differences between global and local cultures (e.g., Park et al., 2008; Shukla and Purani, 2012), the results of our study show that, within multicultural marketplaces, the level of cultural complexity goes beyond the global-local dichotomy. Rather, the consumption of luxury brands is transculturally constituted and derived from multiple forms of belonging (Calhoun, 2003). In these markets, consumers find themselves negotiating the meanings and consumption styles of luxury brands at the confluence of multiple cultural beliefs. For marketers operating within multicultural markets, this means that nationality, ethnicity, and degree of glocalisation may be less useful bases for segmentation, prompting the consideration of other ways in which to understand and use cultural influences in segmenting, targeting, and positioning luxury brands. In our study, two distinct cultural belief systems, one local and one foreign, shaped luxury brand consumption in New Zealand. Furthermore, these cultural beliefs were not necessarily tied to an individual consumer’s ethnicity. Given these complexities, it may be more useful to consider other bases of segmentation such as the influence of situational factors (Douglas and Craig, 2011) and the relative salience among multiple cultural beliefs. Furthermore, this is the first study to empirically demonstrate the impact of multiculturalism on luxury brand markets, where consumers emerge as contextual cultural shifters. Our findings illustrate that contextual factors in a multicultural marketplace, like a filter, shaped which cultural influences were appropriated by individual consumers in a given consumption situation. Thus, underlying any given luxury brand consumption situation is a complex interplay between multicultural influences, situational norms, and individual factors. This prompts multiple considerations for luxury brand managers. Might it be possible to go a step further and encourage consumers to adopt culturally-constituted consumption styles which fit better with one’s brand positioning? More specifically, by questioning which cultural influences underpinning luxury brands are more dominant for them, consumers could be encouraged to reconsider their personal uses and attitudes towards luxury brands. Further research is required to find out what contexts are likely to tilt consumers’ consideration in favour of one cultural influence over another. If a luxury brand is a status symbol, might it be possible to prime both Western and Asian consumers to switch to status-conspicuous beliefs? For example, what cues and appeals might marketers present to encourage consumers to think in a more face-saving way? If a brand is understated, might it be possible to prime consumers to adhere to cultural beliefs which encourage more discreet styles of consumption? For example, what cues and appeals might marketers present to encourage consumers to consider the tall poppy syndrome? Such research would be particularly useful for marketers who have little room for repositioning their luxury brand image. Finally, rather than a glocal branding approach, which involves cultivating brand identity within the organisation and overcoming local brand image inconsistencies (Matthiesen and Phau, 2005), we posit that managers need to adopt a multicultural branding approach. We envision that such an approach would involve identifying and pursuing opportunities for the development of dynamic brand identities (da Silveira et al., 2011), where luxury brand managers can assume the role of proactive architects of luxury brand cultures which support diverse modes of luxury brand consumption. This carries implications for cross-cultural luxury branding on three levels. At the basic level, a multicultural branding approach involves paying closer attention to the contextual topography of a given marketplace and consumer receptivity to global, local, and foreign cultural beliefs. As our study showed, a luxury brand entering an emergent multicultural market like New Zealand will invariably face consumer resistance due to the influence of the dominant Kiwi ‘tall poppy’ syndrome. However, this is by no means a monolithic discourse; its influence is uneven. Because of greater diversity and intercultural exchange, consumers in cosmopolitan centres such as Auckland are more likely to be receptive to other cultural influences. As such, it would be a logical point of entry for a global luxury brand. This also suggests that, rather than cross-national differences, segmentation based on the prevalence of multiple cultural beliefs and consumption styles in major cities could be a more appropriate strategy for luxury branding. At a more advanced level, luxury brand managers can not only select, but also focus on proactively cultivating the most conducive contexts, where consumers would feel more empowered to appropriate their desired luxury brand consumption styles within a multicultural marketplace. In doing so, marketers will be able to both target the increasing buying power of ethnic consumers by appealing to their foreign consumption styles (Lisanti, 2010), as well as to find a better positioning to the mainstream consumers who are receptive to cultural shifting. For instance, several respondents in our study presented an interesting dynamic between the two cultural influences: on one hand, they have a desire to consume luxury brands in a more conspicuous way due to the influence of face-saving beliefs, but on the other hand, they feel that they must suppress this desire due to the influence of the Kiwi ‘tall poppy’ syndrome. To unlock this hidden market potential, luxury brand marketers would do well to design liminal spaces and retail spectacles (Kozinets et al., 2004). In the same way that the “Coca-Cola Telenovela Club” provided a liminal space in which Latina moms in the US could explore and perform their love of telenovelas (Lisanti 2010), luxury brand managers might design similar liminal spaces and retail spectacles where could safely circumvent the influence of the local tall poppy syndrome. In contrast to the social sanctions on conspicuous consumption in their everyday lives, liminal spaces can provide an immersive space where foreign styles of brand consumption can be affirmed and cultivated. In other words, luxury brand managers can empower consumers to appropriate their desired culturally-constituted meanings and, therefore, to endorse the particular styles of luxury brand consumption within a multicultural marketplace. Finally, at the broader strategic level, rather than cultivating brand identity entirely within the organisation and then communicating this identity to consumers, luxury brand managers can aim to collaborate with the diverse range of consumers in developing a dynamic multicultural brand identity. This strategy would involve incorporating a wider range of cultural meanings and developing the most appropriate brand positioning(s), thereby addressing tensions around the conflicting luxury brand consumption styles within a multicultural marketplace. In line with the cultural branding (Bengtsson et al., 2010) and dynamic brand identity (da Silveira et al., 2013: 31) approaches, the multicultural branding approach should view brand identity as developing over time through “mutually influencing inputs from several social constituents” that include both brand managers and consumers. Moreover, it should focus on more proactively and thoroughly intertwining the on-going social construction of brand meaning with the on-going evolution of multiculturally-informed consumption styles of luxury branding that emerge within a marketplace. In short, by assuming the role of cultural architects, luxury brand marketers must become more aware of the varying sensitivities of consumers to multiple cultural beliefs and practices across a range of contexts, proactively cultivate contexts which enhance their brand receptiveness, and strive to construct multiculturally-informed dynamic brand identities that embed the brand image more deeply within a marketplace and assist consumers in coping with dynamic cultural change.

Lembang is tourism destination in Indonesia. This research is conducted to find the effect of hobbies and lifestyle on choosing tourism destinations as reference to make creative marketing program to attract customers and increasing frequency of revisit. Hobbies of music and saving lifestyle do affect tourists’ interest on choosing destinations.

Saung Angklung Udjo (SAU) is recognized as a cultural tourism destination in Indonesia. The aim of this paper is to study the consumer personal value toward SAU. This research reported that consumers perceived angklung as an unique and attractive musical instrument and felt very satisfied to performance in SAU.

In this paper we explore the process of value co-creation in two elite kaiseki restaurant companies in Japan. The authors first describe key themes that underlie the omotenashi of the tea ceremony. The authors then examine the ways in which these themes influence the service philosopy of Teiichi Yuki, the found of the Kitcho restaurant chain, and Rikifusa Satake, the president of the Minokichi restaurant chain. Based on these analyses, we argue that existing discussions of co-creation, which focus on the customer’s creation of value-in-use, should be extended to permit the analysis of usage experiences that involve multiple, simultaneous, interdependent value-in-processes. In particular, in the two companies examined by the authors, both the master and the customer experience value-in-use during the delivery of kaiseki cuisine. Moreover, given the importance of mutual consideration, the value-in-use experienced by each party is critically dependent on the value-in-use received by the other.