Insensitivity to racial issues has long been one of the main causes of controversy in marketing, and its significance has recently resurfaced due to the current political and social climate caused by events such as the American presidential election and Brexit. In the marketing field, current cases such as advertising from Kellogg’s and Dove have caused outrage across social media. This has shown that even experienced marketers can still find themselves being accused of insensitivity or even racism. With the help of social media, the cases such as those may lead to negative consumer-generated brand stories online and could damage the brand (Gensler et al., 2013;Grégoire, Salle, & Tripp, 2015). This paper has chosen to address the recent case of H&M, which has faced online criticism and consumer protests due to its UK website showing a boy of African descent wearing a hoodie bearing the words “coolest monkey in the jungle”. The aim of this study is to understand consumers’ initial responses on social media to this case, in order to provide further recommendations to marketers in today’s complex society. A netnography approach was used to collect qualitative data from Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, and the data was analysed using thematic analysis through Nvivo 11. The results show that this case has demonstrated the stages of “Hashtag activism”, explained by Bonila and Rosa (2015): 1) eyewitness report, 2) hashtag accompanied by the photos of individuals or groups of people, then finally, 3) widely circulated meme. The main discussion on social media focused on individual opinions regarding racism, which can be explained by the assertion that contents on social media are generated by individual users to present and construct new self-identity through social interaction, and politics is becoming a personal expression of ideas (Gil de Zúñiga, Molyneux, & Zheng, 2014; Vromen, Xenos, & Loader, 2015; Lindgren, 2017). The results have also raised new questions concerning several marketing-related themes including the effect of media coverage, brand trust, intentionally controversial marketing, social climate, and direct recommendations for H&M. The findings will provide practical recommendations for marketers, including in relation to managing diversity issues, constantly building a brand image, and identifying and acting upon the sensitive issues within different cultural contexts. As a preliminary study, the limitation of this study lies in the timeline of the research and the amount of data. Further research is recommended to conduct a longitudinal study to gain a more complete view of how the incident may affect consumers and brands over time.

Marketing managers must strategically decide which markets they will serve and which ones they will not serve. This means marketers must strategically discriminate among markets and market segments; this is the logic that underlies segmentation, targeting and positioning. Although such strategic use of discrimination is considered acceptable in marketing, it can also sometimes lead to consumer backlash and criticism. When is strategic discrimination acceptable and when is it deemed unacceptable? Using six domains of marketing practice, this paper seeks to examine the fuzzy boundary of acceptable strategic discrimination—often labelled as ‘exclusive’— and unacceptable strategic discrimination—often labelled as ‘exclusion’— as well as offer suggestions to marketing managers and policy makers to navigate it.

Nostalgia refers to the sentimental longing for the valued past (Sedikides, Wildschut, & Baden, 2004). It is considered a bittersweet emotion, involving both wistful joy and sadness (Sedikides et al., 2004). Nostalgia is also a social emotion. Nostalgic memories typically center on social activities involving the self and close others (Wildschut et al., 2010). Prior research has mainly focused on the social and emotional nature of nostalgic narratives, and researchers have only recently started to investigate the motivations triggered by the process of recalling nostalgic narratives. For example, recalling a nostalgic event can heighten people’s motivation to savor such an experience and prolong it (Huang, Huang, & Wyer, 2016). In the current research, we posit that thinking about nostalgic events can trigger another motivation, namely, a desire to revive the past. Whenever people experience nostalgic feelings, they are likely to perceive differences between the present and their memorable past and desire to go back in time (Hepper et al., 2012; Sedikides et al., 2004). This motivation, once activated, can lead people to take actions to change their current state in the hope of reviving the past (Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Kuhl, 1985). This tendency of taking actions to make changes may generalize to subsequent unrelated situations (Kruglanski et al., 2002), and consequently increase consumer switching behavior (Jiang, Zhan, & Rucker, 2014). These predictions were tested across five studies in various consumption contexts. Our findings contribute to consumer research in two important ways, (a) by demonstrating a novel motivational impact of nostalgia on consumer behavior, and (b) by delineating a systematic influence of an unexplored but pervasive emotional factor— nostalgia—on consumer switching behavior. This research also offers practical implications. Conventional wisdom suggests that nostalgia can make consumers prefer products reminiscent of the “old days”. Our findings show that nostalgia can have broader implications for consumer choices and marketers may use it to manage consumer switching behavior.

This study explores how internal and external factors influence the design and use of marketing performance measurement (MPM) practices in Chinese firms. The results show that a firm’s MPM practice is subject to its characteristics (e.g., marketing dashboard, market orientation, marketing complexity) and its external condition (i.e., market turbulence).

This study advances the literature by addressing the issues surrounding Sunday trading and provides in-depth insights into family-run small and medium size businesses (SMEs), employees and consumers attitudes and perception towards Sunday Trading. The results of semi-structured interviews found immense support for extending Sunday Trading hours and highlighted the socio-economic change. The arguments against Sunday Trading were found to be redundant. Sunday is the second busiest shopping day of the week. Lack of experienced Sunday workforce was found to be a major concern. Non-resident parents and parents with small children were amongst the supporters for reforming Sunday Trading act. Sunday is the new Saturday. The findings justify recent trends towards the creation of more pleasurable shopping environments that offer family activities to entice the customers into stores. Finally, more efforts should be made to understand and cater for the needs of the shoppers who believe reforming the Sunday Trading law is a necessity of today’s modern Britain. The findings demonstrate that Sunday Trading offers different benefits to consumers, employees and SMEs. The findings provide important implications for policy makers and practitioners.

Introduction As one of the visual elements in advertising, typeface elicits psychological associations that might have an impact on ad effects and can convey a significant meaning with cognitive and emotional responses. Previous studies illustrate that typeface influences consumers’ perceptions of advertised products, has an impact on readability and memorability of ads (Childers & Jass, 2002), and generates brand personality (Grohmann, Giese, & Parkman, 2013). Therefore, typeface has the potentiality to change the effect of advertising, and could be one of the critical elements to enhance the ad effectiveness by matching with other elements in advertising (McCarthy & Mothersbaugh, 2002). The purpose of the current study is to examine how representative type styles (e.g., Sans-serif, Handwriting, and Serif) can influence consumers’ psychological perception (i.e., warmth and competence), to explore what underlying mechanism exists between typefaces and the ad effectiveness, and to investigate the impact of typeface in ads considering congruence of typeface with the communicator’s perceived power for more effective communications. Theoretical Development The findings of related research support that fonts evoke specific consumer’s perceptions and emotion (Grohmann et al., 2013). Serif typefaces such as Times New Roman were perceived as elegant, charming, emotional, and interesting and Sans-serif typefaces such as Helvetica or Arial were considered manly, powerful, smart, upper-class, and high readability (Grohmann et al., 2013). In terms of the features of typefaces, handwriting typefaces have a curved appearance and they are irregular, unplanned, and characterized by slanted and curved strokes, while Sans-serif typefaces are usually planned and drawn by straight and angular strokes. According to the studies on font in psychology (Jiang, Gorn, Galli, & Chattopadhyay, 2016) and design (Bartram, 1982), circular shapes activate a softness association such as love, warmth, and harmony and angular shapes activate a hardness association such as coldness, aggressiveness, and conflict associations. The research on the transference of some impressions from typefaces illustrates that psychological associations related to type font in ads are transferred to the advertised product or brand (Grohmann et al., 2013). Previous research, based on the Construal Level Theory (Trope, Liberman, & Wakslak, 2007), demonstrated that psychological distance influences individuals’ perceptions and engagement. According to each stream of prior literature on typefaces’ association and Construal Level theory, we predict that handwriting typefaces are associated with closer psychological distance and it reduces the social distance between consumers and the message in marketing activities. In contrast, Sans-serif typefaces are angular and typically associated with professionalism, justice, competence, and power and it may increase the social distance. The current study deals with warmth and competence in consumers’ perceptions. Based on the preceding discussion and research questions, a hypothesis leads to the following. H1: Sans-serif typeface would be more likely to provoke competence perception, whereas handwriting typeface arouses much warmer and more friendly feeling. Variables influenced by typeface Based on the findings of Study 1, the following research question and hypotheses could be built up on the potential variables that influence the effectiveness of typeface: RQ 1. How many reliable and interpretable factors are there among the following variables: Handwriting and Sans-serif typefaces, the perceived power, engagement, and attitude toward typeface? In addition, how much variance in the set of variables is explained by the factors? what kind of underlying mechanism between typefaces and the effectiveness of typeface is such there? H2: Typeface (Sans-serif) would be more likely to provoke (a) perceived power, in turn, positively influences (b) engagement toward the typeface. H3: Typeface (Sans-serif) would be less likely to provoke (a) engagement toward the typeface, in turn, positively influences (b) attitude toward the typeface. H4: Perceived power would be more likely to provoke (a) engagement toward the typeface, in turn, positively influences (b) attitude toward the typeface. Typeface and the perceived spokesmodel’s power in ads Including typeface, as a visual imagery in an ad, a spokesmodel can generate psychological perceptions in persuasive communication. According to the agentic-communal model of power theory, the power of communicators has an influence on the persuasion process (Dubois et al., 2016) and attitudinal and behavioral responses. However, the communicators’ power would be different by individuals’ perceptions or experiences for the category of people (e.g., employee or expert). Therefore, it would be critical to consider the communicators’ power as ‘perceived power’ in communication. The previous study suggested high-power communicators, compared to low-power communicators, are more inclined to generate responses or arguments related to competence. In addition, low-power communicators are more inclined to generate responses related to warmth (Dubois et al., 2016). Based on each stream of literature of typefaces (Grohmann et al., 2013) and communicators’ power (Dubois et al., 2016), the following hypotheses occur. H5. When an ad includes a handwriting typeface in a headline copy, if consumers perceive low power from the spokesmodel’s in ads, by the matching (congruence) effects, it leads to a more favorable attitude toward the ad, ad engagement, and purchase intention than when an ad is employed by sans-serif typeface in a headline copy. H6. When an ad includes a sans-serif typeface in a headline copy, if consumers perceive high power from the spokesmodel’s in ads, by the matching (congruence) effects, it leads to a more favorable attitude toward the ad, ad engagement, and purchase intention than when an ad is employed by handwriting typeface in a headline copy. Overview of Research Design Three separated experiments were conducted to investigate all hypotheses. Study 1 was examined to test the effect of typeface across three representative typefaces such as Sans-serif, Serif, and handwriting, on psychological responses (i.e., warmth and confidence) (H1). Study 2 was conducted to explore the interrelations between the factors and the model with other strong potential effects (RQ1 & H2, H3, and H4). Study 3 was conducted to investigate the effects of typeface along with a spokesmodel in an ad on ad attitude, engagement, and behavioral intention (i.e. purchase intention) (H5 & H6). Research Design in Study 1 Participants were exposed to all 15 typefaces in each 3 font-style (i.e., sans-serif, handwriting, and serif). To test and choose an appropriate typeface in consumer’s perceptions and psychological associations (i.e., warmth and competence) among several typefaces, there were sans-serif (e.g., Arial, Helvetica, Oswald, Quarrion, etc.), handwriting (Bradley, Children, Dandelion, etc.), and serif (Time New Roman, Soria, Courier, Playfair, etc.). Results and Discussion The results of repeated ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) showed that participants perceived different level of competence (F (1.40, 54.63) = 17.23, p < .001, Partial η2 = .31) and warmth (F (1.28, 49.96) = 10.32, p < .01, Partial η2 = .21) depending on typefaces. The post-hoc analyses indicated that participants were more likely to perceive competence in Sans-Serif (M = 4.89, SD = 1.15) and Serif (M = 5.07, SD = 1.04) than in handwriting typeface (M = 4.23, SD = 1.22). On the other hand, participants perceived higher warmth in handwriting (M = 4.75, SD = 1.26) and Serif (M = 4.47, SD = .96) than in Sans-Serif typeface (M = 4.01, SD = 1.08). Model fit for competence was Wilks’ λ = .58, F (2, 38) = 13.82, p < .001, Partial η2 = .42 and model fit for warmth Wilks’ λ = .61, F (2, 38) = 12.11, p < .001, Partial η2 = .39. Study 1 examined the effects of three kinds of font-styles across each typeface on warmth and competence. The findings provide distinct evidence that Sans-serif font-style provokes more competent associations than others (i.e., serif and handwriting) and handwriting font-style generates more warm associations than others. Research Design in Study 2 Given that a certain font-style is more associated with psychological perceptions (warmth vs. competence), the next step was to ascertain whether is the relationship of the variables (i.e., attitude toward typeface, engagement, and perceived power of typeface) (RQ1, H2, H3, and H4). Participants were exposed to two typeface-conditions by using handwriting typeface (i.e., Tornac) and sans-serif typeface (i.e., Nimbus) with several text phrases. Factor analysis was conducted to determine what underlying structure exists for measures on the following variables: typeface, the perceived power, engagement, and attitude toward typeface and to summarize the structural equation modeling among the set of variables. Results and Discussion To check the structural equivalence of measures, reliability test, correlation analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted. Reliabilities for all measurements indicated acceptable levels: perceived power (a = .89) (Dubois et al., 2016), engagement toward the typeface (a = .95), attitude toward the typeface (a = .94). The correlations analysis showed that there is no violation of multicollinearity among the variables (r ≤ .62). A CFA was conducted to confirmed the measurement model fit. The results of CFA indicated that the measurement model had a good fit to the data, χ2 (41) = 55.38, p > .05, χ2/df = 1.35, GFI = .94, CFI (comparative fit index) = .99, TLI (Tucker-Lewis index) = .99, RMSEA (root mean square error of approximation) = .05, SRMR (root mean square error of approximation) = .04. For study model analysis, the Amos 23 with 5,000 bootstrap samples for mediation analyses was employed to analyze the proposed study model. Figure 1 indicate the result of path analysis. The results of the analysis showed that people perceived stronger power in Sans-Serif than in handwriting typeface (β = .43, p < .001, SE = .22, 95% CI [.00, .86]), but they were likely to engage in handwriting than in Sans-Serif typeface (β = -.34, p < .001, SE = .23, 95% CI [-.79, .11]). Perceived typeface power is positively associated with the typeface engagement (β = .60, p < .001, SE = .60, 95% CI [.44, .76]). Indirect effect of typeface on engagement through perceived power was significant (β = .26, p < .001, SE = .06, 95% CI [.16, .38]). Insignificant effect of typeface on engagement become significant when mediator, perceive power, was included in the model. The result shows a full mediation model. Engagement toward the typeface is a significant predictor of attitude toward the typeface (β = .62, p < .001, SE = .07, 95% CI [.48 .76]). Indirect effect of power on attitude toward typeface through engagement was significant (β = .28, p < .01, SE = .07, 95% CI [.24, .51]), but indirect effect of typeface on attitude through engagement was not significant (β = -.21, p > .05, SE = .05, 95% CI [-.15, .04]). Research Design in Study 3 An experimental study between-subjects randomized factorial design, 2 (typeface: handwriting vs. sans-serif) x 2 (perceived power of the communicator in ads: high vs. low), was used to test the proposed Hypotheses 5 and 6. Results and Discussion Regression analyses were conducted to test proposed hypotheses, controlling for the differences of communicators’ characteristics (e.g., a business woman vs. a housewife). Even though ad stimuli were developed by two conditions on communicator’s power, there are individual differences from the perceived power toward each spokesmodel in ads. Therefore, we measured and analyzed the perceived power. The results (Table 1) revealed that perceived communicators’ power positively influences ad engagement (β = .19, p < .05), attitude toward to ad (β = .41, p < .001), and purchase intention (β = .38, p < .001), but typeface does not. Different from the expectation, typeface and perceived communicator power did not interact to generate advertising effectiveness. Conclusion Study 1 obviously revealed that handwriting typefaces are associated with warmth and Sans-serif typefaces provoke competence in consumers’ perception. Study 2 illustrated that there were strong relationships between typeface and the perceived power toward typeface, between typeface and engagement through the perceived power toward typeface, and between the perceived power toward typeface and attitude toward typeface through engagement. Engagement toward the typeface is a significant predictor of attitude toward the typeface. Moreover, there were relatively relationships between typeface and engagement; between engagement and attitudes toward typefaces. The result of Study 3 shows that advertising audiences are more likely to process other visual information (e.g., photo images) than typefaces (e.g., a headline copy) in order to indicate audiences’ responses in advertising contexts and to generate advertising effectiveness. The current research has demonstrated that the strong effects come from a typeface itself might eventually dissipate when woven with other visual elements such as photo images in ads, even though the current research previously indicates that there are influential effects come from typefaces such as warmth and competence and the relationship with the perceived power.

Despite growing research interest in consumer health, well-being and beauty, little is known about factors influencing consumer purchase decisions for female fitness devices. This study focuses on Kegel exercises – exercise routines developed by Dr. Kegel to strengthen pelvic floor muscles – that are recommended by health professionals for patients experiencing health ailments such as urinary incontinence, sexual dysfunction, and dissatisfaction. Despite the benefits, women are not well aware of the role of pelvic floor muscles. The diffusion and acceptance of Kegel exercise and devices among women are likely determined by how comfortable women are about obtaining such benefits. For this reason, feminism should play an important role in shaping women’s desire to engage in Kegel exercises. Thus, this research investigates how feminism is related to Millennial women’s engagement with fitness products, particularly Kegel devices. Drawing on the literatures about sexuality, health, and marketing, we propose that feminism positively influences women’s health-related attitudes (i.e., attitudes towards fitness, fitness opinion leadership, attitude toward core strength, and desire to control sex life), which in turn positively impacts women’s fitness engagement. Fitness engagement, in turn, is expected to predict attitudes towards Kegel exercise and Kegel device purchase intentions. On the other hand, women’s attitudes toward core strength and desire to control sex life are proposed to have a direct, positive impact on attitude towards Kegel exercise. Analysis of PLS-SEM shows general support for the hypotheses. We discuss how interest in Kegel devices could, in turn, lead to positive effects on overall physical and psychological health and provide implications for marketing practitioners.

This study reviews the SERVQUAL model theoretically and statistically in relation to the nonlinearity of the perceived service quality. Perceived service quality measurement based on the SERVQUAL model assumes that consumers evaluate service quality by comparing their perceptions with their expectations. However, previous studies adopt linear factor analysis to discuss the SERVQUAL model. The present study assumes that consumers evaluate the service quality with a standard to admit the difference between their expectations and perceptions, and that their perceived service quality follows a nonlinear response. A nonlinear SERVQUAL model based on a nonlinear factor analysis model is proposed to understand the characteristics. The proposed model employs a threshold specification that represents the space in which consumers admit their discrepancy. The study extends a nonlinear factor analysis model to a nonparametric model in order to examine the functional aspects that from the perceived service quality. A nonparametric SERVQUAL model is adopted without any assumptions of the functional form. The empirical studies on the retail sector shows that the nonlinear model performs better than the linear model, and that the nonparametric model estimates the nonlinear function for perceived service quality. The results from the proposed model in our study provide insights in a consumer’s perceived service quality recognized as nonlinear and asymmetric. We conclude that the functional form for perceived service quality should be considered when specifying the measurement model for SERVQUAL. In addition, we discuss future work for a nonlinear measurement model and a nonparametric factor analysis.

Prior research shows that in-store displays have a significant effect on product sales, but no study so far has measured this effect using a qualitative approach that considers the size of the in-store display or its general theme. In this study, a smartphone-based user generated contents (UGC) was used to encourage consumers to post about the in-store displays they liked. This study investigates the relationship between the qualitative content of in-store displays and the sales of the products featured in such displays, and the relationship between posts or likes and the sales of the products featured in the posted liked display. We examine the effects of the contents of in-store display on sales and the mediation effect of the POST or LIKE on these relationship. As the result, this study is the first to explicate the difference of the mediation effect of post on sales by the type of the content of the in-store display. Specifically, the following three aspects were elucidated: (1) “Seasonality” drives user posting on UGC and such posts contribute to increased sales, (2) “Mass” both directly contributes to increased sales and also promotes user postings on UGC, which contribute to increase sales, and (3) “Character” directly influences sales but does not contribute to sales through postings. This study also provides important managerial implications. The results highlight the role of the content of in-store displays in promoting sales. Specifically, if the goal is to simply increase sales, a character themed in-store display will suffice. If the goal is to induce postings to UGC, which will result in increased sales, then a seasonally themed in-store display will work. In this way, expanding consideration to the qualities of in-store displays makes it possible to develop a more strategic understanding of their effects rather than the simple on/off or numerical frequency approach of the past. It must be taken into account that the type of in-store display content that is called for will differ according to whether the objective is to simply increase sales or to also attempt to create WOM promotion.

Retailers procure private labels from several sources including national brand manufacturers, dedicated private label manufactures (often overseas or regional), and own manufacturing facilities.2 In the first case, the supplier utilizes its expertise and excess capacity to supply PLs. In the other two cases, the suppliers are dedicated to manufacturing PLs for single or multiple retailers. Consumers generally consider PLs as value substitutes of the corresponding national brands. As private labels become proliferated, more retailers are introducing premium PLs that oftentimes replace marginal national brands. It is natural to assume that the PL sourced from the excess capacity of the NB manufacturer is identical to the corresponding NB except for the branding and packaging. In this paper, we examine a retailer’s problem of tiered PL sourcing, in which a premium PL is supplied such a NB manufacturer (dual brander), and an economy PL is supplied by a dedicated PL supplier. We decompose the value of a product into three components: the NB’s brand equity, the retailer’s reputation, and the intrinsic quality of the NB. In this distribution channel, the NB’s wholesale and retail prices are determined by the traditional bilateral Nash game. However, the premium PL’s transfer price is determined through a profit-sharing negotiation between the channel members. Based on this game scenario, we build a model of price competition, given the quality, brand equity, and retailer reputation parameters, in order to examine strategic implications of the parameters to the equilibrium prices. In our bilateral pricing game, the NB manufacture and the retailer play a Nash pricing game, augmented by a profit sharing negotiation for the premium PL. In the negotiation process, the retailer’s negotiation power over the NB manufacture is reflected in the ratio of incremental profits from the premium PL. From an equilibrium-negotiation solution, we derive profit implications of each of the value components as well as the negotiation power of the retailer. Among several findings, the most interesting takeaway is that, even if the retailer holds a strong negotiation power, it is optimal for the retailer to leave some chips on the table for the NB manufacturer during the transfer pricing negotiation.

This research was conducted to examine repeat online grocery shoppers behavior based on the S-O-R paradigm (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974) for a five year time frame. Not considering any artificial intelligence, generally in the online shopping environment, the image of the store is communicated through their product and site offerings as well as their user-friendliness of the website. Childers et al. (2001) discussed hedonic aspects of an online store environment such as web atmospherics. Furthermore, with a growing importance of atmospheric cues, researchers are now paying attention to consumer characteristics (Moriuchi and Takahashi, 2018). In general, the results show that atmospherics has an impact on pleasure and satisfaction. Both pleasure and satisfaction have an effect on loyalty. Trust served as a moderator between O-R and was significant. Comparing between the 2012 and 2016 data, results show that satisfaction consumers in the 2012 sample did not see an impact on satisfaction on loyalty, and trust was not a moderating factor on satisfaction and loyalty. However, all the other hypothesized relationships were significant for the 2016 sample. The results suggest a couple of practical implications. First, the ease of navigation are important in pleasing and satisfying online grocery shoppers. Marketing practitioners should focus on how to make the overall website easily navigable. This could include having clear display of the products, reviewing of product descriptions and ease of going back to the main menu after adding items to cart. Second, marketing practitioners should focus their attention on the variety of products available and the quality of products available such as pleasure.

The emergence of a new marketing channel affects the economy by expanding the consumer's choice of products, altering the competitiveness of retail markets and having an influence on manufacturers' profitability. The electronic commerce channel through the Internet constitutes a typical marketing channel with these features. In this paper, we construct a vertical product differentiation model comprising an upstream manufacturer and two downstream retailers. Our model is closely related to that in Chiang, Chhajed and Hess (2003). We incorporate cost asymmetry across the retailers into the model, a new feature which is not in their model. In this model, the manufacturer not only produces a physical product it sells to the downstream retailers, but also has an option of "versioning" to open a new direct channel for an alternate digital product. We find that, when the marginal cost of the physical product is in some range given other cost parameters, the direct digital channel reduces the quantity of the physical product sold by the inefficient retailer even if it increases total quantity of the physical product. We also find that, when it is higher than the above-mentioned range, the direct digital channel increases the quantity of the physical product sold by the efficient retailer even if it reduces its total quantity. Cost asymmetry across the retailers plays a role in these results. Taking the above results into account, we discuss managerial implications for a manufacturer supplying the physical and digital products.

Before purchasing new products, customers often have the desire to consult a variety of information sources (e.g., product tests, online reviews, frontline-employee advices) to make better purchase decisions (Broilo et al. 2016). However, the process of information search has changed tremendously over the past decades due to digitalization and an increasing number of online content (Jerath et al. 2014; Noble et al. 2006). Companies’ reactions to these new information search opportunities are very different. For example, Amazon decided to dispense with frontline-employees in their physical store (Forbes 2017). Other companies provide free Wi-Fi access in their bricks-and-mortar stores to support customer online activities (e.g., Woolworths and Best Buy). The purpose of this investigation is to uncover how frontline-employee interaction and mobile Internet search at the store affect consumers’ buying decision process. Initially, an exploratory study on different information sources at a physical store was designed with the aim to provide insights about the impact of information search on consumers’ product choice certainty. The qualitative data analysis shows that most participants had a main focus on content that is related to the considered products. However, there is an essential difference between the focus on perception of information and the source characteristics for participants in the mobile search and frontline-employee condition. While consumers who use their mobile devices to search online for information were more aware of information characteristics, consumers who get personal advice from a frontlineemployee mostly indicated expertise, credibility, and persuasiveness of the information source to be relevant. The results of a quantitative field study provide an initial examination of the influence of the information source on customers’ product choice certainty and its drivers. In this context, the investigation demonstrates that mobile Internet search as well as customer service can support customers in case of making a certain purchase decision for a product. However, customers who got their information by frontline-employees instead of using their mobile devices to search online for information are more certain about their product choice. This is in line with the results of the qualitative study, since an interaction with the frontline-employee leads to higher interactive decision making.

People prefer a certain gain over an uncertain one (e.g., Kahneman and Tversky 1979; Gneezy, List, and Wu 2006), and uncertainty threatens the perception of personal control (e.g., Simonsohn 2009; Sonsino 2008; Gaucher, Hafer, Kay, & Davidenko, 2010). Nevertheless, research has also showed that under certain circumstances people love uncertainties as “surprises” can add unexpected pleasures to our life (Goldsmith and Amir 2010; Shen, Fishbach, and Hsee 2015). In this research, we examine consumers’ preference for surprise in the subscription services. A typical subscription business offers a “surprise-me” option, where customers receive the package without knowing what items are included, in addition to (or instead of) customers making their own selections (referred to as the “self-selection” option hereafter). Despite the surging popularity of this business model, little is known whether consumers prefer making their own selections or are willingly let providers surprise them. Theoretically, it offers an opportunity to examine consumers’ willingness to relent their control in choice when there are risks involved. Managerially, answers to these questions can help service providers better design the surprise-me option for both operational efficiencies and customer satisfactions. Our key hypothesis is that a sense of personal control is an important condition for consumers’ preference of the surprise-me option in subscription services. Feeling of control serves as a safeguard and thus allows consumers to attend to the pleasures of uncertainty. This also means that in situations where consumers do not feel in control, their preference for the surprise-me option decreases (relative to the in-control condition). This is because, the compensatory control theory (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008; Kay et al., 2008; 2009) suggests that when consumers feel not in control, they tend to compensate by trying to take things into their own hands (e.g., self-select) to regain control rather than relenting control to others (e.g., to be surprised). However, when it is difficult to regain control through self-selection due to choice difficulty (e.g., lack of topical knowledge), they may again prefer surprise as a way to simply delegate the choice (Aggarwal and Mazumdar 2008; Steffel and Williams 2017). Thus, we expect feeling of control to play an important role in preference of a surprise-me option. We conducted three studies to test this prediction. Overall, the set of studies supported the expected important role of feeling of control. The surprise option is valued only when consumers do not lack the sense of control hence do not need to regain it through choice or the chance of regaining control through choice is low due to choice difficulty (expertise or product assortment characteristics). Our research provides important theoretical contributions.

Customer engagement (CE) has commonly defined as a psychological state or process that leads to customer loyalty (Brodie, Hollebeek, Juric, & Ilic, 2011). CE research has received increasing attention due to its critical role in luring favorable customer experience and outcomes such as brand trust, affection, and future purchase intention (Harrigan, Evers, Miles, & Daly, 2017; So, King, Sparks, & Wang, 2016). Despite scholars’ continuous efforts in advancing the CE field of study, several limitations remain unaddressed. First, empirical research focuses primarily on antecedents and consequences of CE that are derived from individual dispositions (Harrigan, et al., 2017); thus, customer actual behavioral outcomes of CE are generally unexplored. Second, most, if not all, empirical research investigates the nomological network of CE based on individual-level factors (Khan, Rahman, & Fatma, 2016; So, King, & Sparks, 2014). Such an individual-level approach is important as it builds the necessary foundation of the CE domain of study. Yet, the roles of organizational strategic position are largely ignored, while organizational-level situational factors are rarely considered. This research aims to bridge the aforementioned research gaps by constructing both individual-level dispositions and organizational-level situational factors into an integrated framework. In particular, this research seeks to explore the roles of two organizational strategic initiatives – service environment and brand equity – on customer engagement and its impact on customer behaviors.

Although the majority of prior literature has suggested the key reasons for consumer complaining in service failures are to vent negative emotions (e.g. anger, dissatisfaction) and to seek redress (Blodgett, Hill, & Tax 1997; Nyer 1997), some research has also pointed out that customers will give constructive suggestions to firms through complaining (Groth, 2005; Liu & Mattila, 2015). In this regard, consumer complaining can be classified into two types, namely, positive complaint (i.e., with constructive suggestion) and negative complaint (i.e., without constructive suggestion). Understanding what situations would dissatisfied consumers choose to give constructive suggestions in service failures would be of utmost important to firms. We suggest that a firm’s brand image may affect consumers’ intention to choose what types of complaint in service failures. In general, consumers may perceive a brand as having a competence image (e.g., professional and efficient) or having a warmth image (e.g., friendly and approachable) (Kervyn, Fiske and Malone, 2012). Comparatively speaking, a warmth image is associated with friendship and caring, whereas a competence image is associated with expertise. Therefore, it is possible that consumers would have a higher empathy and intention to help a firm with a warmth (vs. competent) image, and be more likely to choose positive complaint when a failure happens to this firm. An experimental study confirmed this prediction. In addition, we found that although a firm’s competence (vs. warmth) image does not affect the likelihood to give constructive suggestions in service failures, it leads to a higher level of return intention. Implications and future research directions will be discussed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among the service quality, professional competence and loyalty of China tourists visiting Taiwan. A crosssectional survey was used to collect usable data from the China tourists who participate in group tourism to Taiwan. The result indicate that the China tourists felt the service quality of “meal” in Taiwan is the best and good feeling in “professional knowledge” of tour guide. In addition, this study found that the professional competence of tour guide has an intermediary effect between the quality of tourist services and tourist loyalty. The quality of tourism service can positively influence the loyalty of China tourists to Taiwan, meanwhile, the quality of tourism service can positively affect the professional competence of tour guide and the professional competence of tour guide can positively affect the loyalty of China tourists travel to Taiwan. According to the results, the study found that travel agencies should focus on the training of tour guide, which help travel agencies to raise the value of travels product and attract more tourist.

Boutique hotels have gained popularity across the world. Despite this, they still have to face fierce competition from large hotel chains to attract guests to stay. This study aims to investigate different factors which may contribute to generation Y/millenials' intention to stay at a boutique hotel. Questionnaires were distributed online to generation Y respondents. Data gained was analyzed using partial least square structural equation modelling. The findings suggest that knowledge of a boutique hotel has a significant positive influence towards perceived value of staying at a boutique hotel. Moreover, perceived authenticity and perceived value were also found to have positive significant influence on intention to stay at a boutique hotel. The findings of this study contribute to better understanding of the factors which drive millennial customers to stay at a boutique hotel. It is imperative that the boutique hotel managers deliver the promised values of their accommodation to the existing and potential customers. In addition to that, knowledge was also shown to influence perceived value of a boutique hotel, indicating a strong need to educate potential customers about the values of staying in a boutique hotel.

This study proposed an alternative model specification to increase accuracy of conceptualization of the definition of customer engagement and provided theoretical justification for the model in specific social media contexts. The proposed model is a formative construct based on theoretical contexts and observational data. The construct comprises six formative first-order dimensions, namely “influencing behaviors,” “participation in activities,” “customer knowledge sharing,” “feedbacks,” “helping other customers,” and “customer-to-customer interaction.” The study findings offer a basis for identifying indicators of distinct dimensions in the proposed construct. Three models with different conceptualization specifications were estimated and subsequently compared using survey data.

With competition among hotel brands intensifying more than ever before, there has been a burgeoning interest in the hospitality industry on the topic of brand love. However, progress of brand love research in hotel context has been limited and investigation on antecedents of brand love has mainly focused on affective and relational aspects, while neglecting cognitive aspects of brand love. Therefore, the objective of this research was to illuminate the importance of brand love's cognitive aspect by identifying cognitive brand loyalty as a necessary component of brand love in hotel context. In addition, present research suggests that by inducing cognitive engagement among customers, hotel brands can attain cognitive brand loyalty from customers, which in turn derives brand love. To achieve the research objective, a questionnaire with items measuring brand love, cognitive brand loyalty and two aspects of cognitive engagement, cognitive attention and cognitive absorption, was distributed to 300 individuals through Amazon Mechanical Turk. Brand love was measured with scale adapted from Carroll and Ahuvia (2006), cognitive brand loyalty was measured using items introduced by Back and Parks (2003), and cognitive engagement elements were measured using items developed by So, King and Sparks (2014). In analyzing the data, structural equation modeling method was used. The findings of the study indicate that the effect of cognitive brand loyalty on brand love is significant and that the relationship between cognitive attention and cognitive brand loyalty is also positive and significant. However, the relationship between cognitive absorption and cognitive brand loyalty was positive only at a marginally significant level. As a result, the indirect effect of cognitive attention on brand love was positive and significant yet, the indirect effect of cognitive absorption on brand love was insignificant. This study enriches the brand love literature’s spectrum by illuminating the importance of brand love’s cognitive aspect. However, it is important to note that the focus is not necessarily on the cognitive processing or the standards, but on the cognitive engagement experience. In addition, because customers generally process information most heavily during the booking process, present research brings out managerial implications for hotel brands to direct more customers to their own brand website rather than the online-travel-agency( OTA) website. For instance, the results of present research illustrate that price discount or additional amenity are not enough to develop brand love. Rather, hotels should provide loyalty members who book directly through brand sites with more enjoyable, creative, and relevant to self-room shopping experience.