Introduction
The traditional approaches on corporate social responsibility communication are revealing to be unable of raising awareness and increasing stakeholders’ empowerment, often failing to improve positive relationships with consumers. In this study, the digitally co-created CSR activities will be explored using a more general approach, which will also take into consideration these philanthropic activities, i.e. the activities where companies invite stakeholders to participate in the resolution of a social issue but without asking them to buy the brand’s products. Moreover, in the present study, interactivity and freedom of cause' choices are both believed to be two mechanisms that play a key role in generating more empowered stakeholders, with increased propensity for participating in co-created CSR initiatives. Therefore, it is important to analyse digitally co-created CSR activities since it may represent a major opportunity for organizations to add value and meaning to stakeholders (and even for society at large), where the two parties work together to solve a social issue.
Theoretical development
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD, 1999) defined Corporate Social Responsibility as the “continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large.” Although previous findings regarding the financial implications of CSR might have been ambiguous, there is an increasingly acceptance about the positive outcomes these activities have in building brand equity, brand image (Esmaeilpour & Barjoei, 2016), in improving reputation, trust and loyalty among consumers (Stanaland et al., 2011) and in the willingness consumers have to purchase and possibly even paying higher prices for products of firms with more CSR engagement (Servaes & Tamayo, 2013). Additionally, with consumers’ and other stakeholders’ (e.g., employees, channel partners, regulators) increasing expectations that organizations should behave in socially responsible ways (Mishra & Modi, 2016), CSR has become an integral part of business practice over the last years, with many firms dedicating a section of their annual reports and corporate websites to CSR activities (Servaes & Tamayo, 2013). Arrillaga-Andreessen (2016) notes that the new generations seem to have social consciousness embedded in their DNA. They are united in wanting to do more than acquire material riches and measure success by their ability to transform the lives of others. Their question is not “What do I want to be when I grow up?” but “How will the world be different because I lived in it?”. In Euromonitor’s Top 10 Global Consumer Trends for 2015, Consumer Trends Consultant Daphne Kasriel-Alexander states that consumption is increasingly being driven by the heart: consumers are making choices defined by their positive impact on the world and community. Despite the strong interest in CSR activities, particularly in its outcomes, in firms’ value and branding, there is yet little research and empirical studies regarding the effects of these activities in a social media context. This exploratory research aims to fill this gap, by focusing on the branding outcomes a CSR activity can generate while communicated in Social Networking Sites (SNS) and using participatory approaches. Some researchers already found it questionable how stakeholder dialogue and engagement through corporate websites and CSR reports are accomplished and if they necessarily lead to greater stakeholder participation (Chaudhri, 2016). Thus, one of the research objectives is to examine if using a participatory CSR activity in social media rather than (or, at least, combined with) the traditional approach of communicating CSR performance on firms´ annual reports can generate greater outcomes for brands, especially by testing if these activities can raise awareness, increase participation and empowerment levels. Some authors (Du et al., 2010) found two key challenges regarding CSR communication: the first one is the need for higher levels of awareness, as several researchers already found that a company can only benefit, enhance critical branding outcomes and even increase firm value through CSR activities if it has a high advertising intensity. These activities have low or negative impact on firm value for firms with low advertising intensity, sometimes with costs outweighing the benefits, as the lack of customer awareness about CSR activities represents a major limiting factor for their ability to respond to such activities (Servaes & Tamayo, 2013). Thus, Sen et al. (2006) argue that to reap the positive benefits of CSR, companies need to work harder at raising awareness levels. Although not every firm might experience high levels of awareness (since not every organization can support high advertisement intensity or already have strong branding), this research responds to the call for further research by “exploring channels available for dissemination of CSR activities” (Servaes & Tamayo, 2013:1059), in particular, the social media channels, and by providing new research on “the extent to which these new social and communicative arrangements are being realized by organizations and stakeholders and the attendant implications for CSR communication”, as it currently represents an “evolving area of investigation” (Chaudri, 2016, p.422). Therefore, once it is recommended that companies work on increasing CSR awareness levels, social media sites, such as Facebook, can be powerful channels not only due to its popularity and vast audience reach at a much lower cost, but also due to the opportunities consumers’ word-of-mouth can create (Du, Bhattacharya, & Sen., 2010). The second challenge is concerned with minimizing stakeholder scepticism. Stakeholders quickly become suspicious of the CSR motives when companies aggressively promote their CSR efforts (Du, Bhattacharya, & Sen, 2010). Communicating CSR is a very delicate matter. It requires a certain sensitivity and balance, where organizations face the paradox of demonstrating social responsibility without communicating it blatantly, and being simultaneously credible, informative, and engaging (Chaudri, 2016). There’s also no room for inconsistencies, as CSR is all about being selfless and charitable, the need for transparency and honesty is a must, since on one hand, these activities can have a backlash effect if stakeholders become suspicious and perceive predominantly extrinsic motives in companies’ social initiatives (i.e. when the company is seen as attempting to increase its profits) and, on the other hand, stronger attributions to genuine concern are likely to be associated with more positive reactions towards the company, both internally and behaviourally (Sen et al., 2006). Kesavan et al. (2013) also found that social media is increasingly perceived by consumers as a more trustworthy source of CSR information than traditional media tools (e.g., TV and advertising). Based on above argumentation we formulate:
H1: Online co-created CSR activities have greater potential for raising awareness than the traditional communication channels.
H2: Online participatory CSR activities can increase consumers’ empowerment levels.
Research design
Globally, the questionnaire is composed of 28 questions, separated into three sections. The first section is composed by 14 questions that measured social networking usage, current CSR awareness levels, general use of the traditional CSR communication channels, current level of control felt by respondents towards CSR activities, the empowerment felt after companies adding cause choice freedom and respondents’ attitudes towards the effectiveness and outcomes of participatory CSR initiatives. The second section of the questionnaire consists in 10 questions regarding a real CSR initiative, implemented in March 2016, by one of the biggest Portuguese retailers - Continente. After a brief contextualization, the questions measured activity recall rate, participation rate, reasons to (or not to) participate, WoM dissemination rate (or propensity), perception of brand image after the initiative and attitudes towards online co-created CSR initiatives (acceptance levels). The third and last section contained 4 questions regarding socio-demographic measures, namely: nationality, age, gender and educational level. The launch of the questionnaire comprises two stages: for the first stage, it is prepared a pre-test of the questionnaire, which was the pillar for the second and main stage: the online questionnaire. Pre-testing is a method to evaluate in advance if a questionnaire causes misunderstandings, ambiguities, or other difficulties with instrument items to respondents, helping researchers minimizing future errors. During the pre-test stage, a total of 10 people is selected to be monitored while responding to the first draft of the questionnaire. This stage provided important insights about each one of the questions previously elaborated, allowing for reviewing and refining them, as well as adding more questions that revealed to be relevant for the study. As for the second stage, the online questionnaire was launched in social networks - Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn - and in an international forum - Reddit, from 18th of June of 2017 to 01th of August of 2017.
Results and conclusions
Findings from 322 valid responses provide clear evidence that co-creating socially responsible activities in social media can indeed increase not only the awareness for such actions, but also increase empowerment, participation levels, positive word-of-mouth dissemination, and reinforce consumer-brand ties in the process. Currently, individuals feel very low control regarding the process and the outcomes of CSR initiatives, and that by providing interactivity experiences and adding freedom of cause choice, organizations can increase stakeholders’ empowerment levels, consequently enhancing participation, one of the dimensions of consumer engagement. Online users are starting to connect with their preferred brands in social media and are demanding interactive experiences. Although SNS presents many opportunities for brands to guarantee that they remain relevant to its consumers and other stakeholders, the findings imply that social media remains unexplored as a CSR communication channel by organizations. Considering that the traditional communicating channels used to inform shareholders about these initiatives have a very low adherence by the general public and that they are failing to provide more awareness to CSR activities, brand managers need to devise different strategies for the optimal communication of these initiatives in new channels, which have higher potential to result not only in improved attitudes and brand image, but also in the increased intent of stakeholders to commit personal resources (e.g., money, time, etc.) to the benefit of the company, in a near future. Even for the users who do not follow brands in their SNS, for example, companies can still use SNS tools such as targeted posts (i.e. promoted posts that appear in target users’ feed), to ensure that their awareness and relevance levels remains significant, especially when companies are seeking for users with specific interests.
The aims of this study are to understand the influence of celebrity endorsement on consumers’ word-of-mouth and decision behavior, that is: (i) understand the influence of the number of followers of the celebrity and the positive/negative valence of the messages conveyed by them in the intention to buy and their intention to generate eWoM; (ii) analyzing how the behavior of a celebrity (antisocial vs. pro-social) may affect the perception of its credibility, the intention of the consumers to relate to the celebrity in the social networks and the social identification with it; (iii) understand the impact of celebrity messages on brands and products present in social networks. To achieve this goal a quantitative methodology for the development of research was adopted, selecting the application of a survey as the information collection instrument. The sample is selected by convenience sampling method, collecting 241 responses, 122 females and 119 males. Findings show: (i) concerning the intention to purchase, female seem to be more influenced by the opinions and recommendations of celebrities, while male tend to be more likely to generate e-word-of-mouth into their contact network through social media. (ii) Regarding to antisocial versus prosocial type of celebrity, celebrities with a prosocial behavior seems to have a greater influence for both genders in the way they identify with celebrity and their willingness to relate to them. (iii) Female tends to feel higher purchase intention when exposed to an endorsement, where celebrity promotes a brand or product through its Instagram account.
The paper is depicting an initiative created by a creative industries entrepreneur in Bandung, Indonesia, to enable local talents in order to be sustainable. It is one example of how the government, business practitioners and academics are able to collaborate in producing the way forward for a city.
The millennials are an important generational group of consumers who purchase luxury online and therefore to know their attitude to luxury has become a significant subject for our study. This study explores whether materialism, need for uniqueness, susceptibility to normative influence, and social media usage affect millennials’ attitudes and purchase intentions toward luxury fashion brands online. In addition, this research examines moderating effect of each dimension of national culture on the relationship between factors and millennials’ attitudes toward luxury fashion brands online. Hofstede’s framework is considered to be the most reliable measure of national culture (Yeniyurt & Townsend, 2003). We used four dimensions of Hofstede’s model of national culture: masculinity, individualism, power distance and uncertainty avoidance. In study 1, we examine millennials’ attitudes toward luxury fashion brand through Q methodology. In study 2, we examine relationships between variables using the SPSS 20.0 program for descriptive statistical analysis and the AMOS 20.0 program for structural equation model (SEM) analysis. The findings will enable marketers of luxury fashion brands to understand millennials’ attitudes toward luxury fashion brands and increase the sales among this target group.
The success of Marvel movies attracts more companies to place their brands in this series of movies, apparel brand like Under Armour or car manufacturer like BMW has largely used the movie as medium of product placement to increase brand equity. To understand how the product placement in the movie affect consumer attitude and purchase intention is in needed. Neer (2004) states that product placement is a type of marketing by creating impression for consumers unconsciously through incorporation into the plot of TV programs, movies and other media. The conceptual model was built based on the Russell’s (2002) tripartite typology of product placement and social comparison theory. We presume brand-self congruity, placement explicitness, plot connection, and attitude toward the plot and role are positively related to brand attitude and purchase intention. The research employed experiment with a 2 (placement explicitness: prominent/subtle) x 2 (plot connection: main character/supporting role) between subject design. The research theme is under the Under Armour because the brand used product placement as the company’s major marketing communication process of move placement. The research result shows that the more the product placement is identifiable in the movies, with frequent usage or appearance in main plot, the better the placement effect is; the preference of consumers on movies, including plot and role attitude, explicitly influences placement effect. If the real self or ideal self of consumers are consistent with brand image, a higher brand attitude and purchase intention will occur. To best of our knowledge, our paper is first one using self-congruity and attitude toward the plot to investigate the outcome of product placement in the movies. The research concludes with implications for promotion strategy to advance brand image and purchase intention by increasing the effectiveness of product placement. Future research suggestions relevant to the product placement issues, marketing communication and brand management are also provided.
Most of the luxury brands have flagship shops. In recent years, Fast fashion brands also have flagship shops. Both flagship shops are large store, situated in special place such as Ginza for brand-building. However, flagship shop importance is not only place and size but also Product, Price, Promotion. In this article, we investigate flagship shop strategy and the relationship between flagship shop strategy and brand building by case Uniqlo.
Successful business models have some shared attributes or features. The quality of the business model can be used to determine the feasibility and potential of the business model, which can help make decisions on how to invest and risk prevention. However, the business model is not static, but changes with external factors such as demand, competition, technology, macro policies, and internal factors such as business goals, strategies, and resources. Therefore, the requirements of the quality attributes of the business model at each stage are different. Dynamic evaluation of business model quality is essential for the development of any enterprises, but on the emerging issue, academic research has greatly lagged behind the needs of business practices. Fist in this paper, the generation and evolution of the business model is divided into four stages: blueprint design, practical modeling, application copying, and transformational change. Then, based on reviewing literature, seven key attributes of business model quality are identified, namely, uniqueness, complementary, novelty, certainty, scalability, win-win and matching degree. Thereafter, by using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (FsQCA), some configurations of key attributes of business model quality are identified, which are considered critical paths for the business success. Finally, the theory of dynamic evaluation of business model quality has been put forward and used to assess the sample business model.
Lengthy surveys take more time and induce the use of undesired response styles. Response styles generate biases in responses, particularly in lengthy surveys (Baumgartner & Steenkamp, 2001). Response style is defined as tendency to systematically respond to questionnaire items regardless of item content (Baumgartner & Steenkamp, 2001). In practice, market research agencies prefer to use split questionnaires where questionnaires split into parts and each subset is administered to a randomly selected group of respondents (Raghunathan & Grizzle 1995). So far, split questionnaire design literature has been mainly investigated estimation and inference (Lord, 1962; Shoemaker, 1973; Merkouris, 2014; Chipperfield, Barr, & Steel, 2017), data imputation (Raghunathan & Grizzle, 1995; Rässler et al. 2002), and optimal designs (Thomas et al. 2006; Adıgüzel & Wedel 2008; Gonzalez & Eltinge, 2008; Chipperfield & Steel, 2009; Chipperfield & Steel, 2011). Despite split questionnaire is recommended to reduce undesired response styles, its relationship with response styles remains unclear. Two methods of optimal split questionnaire designs were proposed (Adıgüzel & Wedel, 2008): 1) Between-block design: To select entire blocks of questions, 2) Within-block design: To select sets of questions in each block. In this paper, we examine empirically how split designs lessen different type of response styles. Our findings indicate that split questionnaires reduce acquiescence balance, and disacquiescence relative to full questionnaires. The within-block split surveys reduce disacquiescence, acquiescence and balance, whereas the between-block ones did not. Stylistic responding is also influenced by questionnaire satisfaction, attitude, length and mood. Disacquiescence is negatively correlated to mood, questionnaire length and attitude. Midpoint is positively correlated to length, but negatively to questionnaire satisfaction, while acquiescence is opposite for both.
Casual mobile games (CMG) is one of the three types of game genres with the highest market share in turnover. This type of games can be distinguished from hardcore games in that their play sessions are usually shorter, the rules are simpler and required commitments are less (Engl & Nacke, 2013). Some of the most popular games with these features are, for example, Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, and Hearthstone. The retention rate of players is one of the subjects that sparks most interest to the industry since many players abandon the games only a few hours after downloading them. Companies are very interested in knowing what factors influence a player's decision to continue playing and recommending a game to other players, because it is the loyal players who could potentially pay for upgrades, make in-app purchases or attract indirect revenue through advertising (Hsu & Lin, 2016). Although previous research has extensively studied the antecedents of the continuance intention to use online games on PC and video game consoles, few works have tried to understand the factors that drive loyalty in mobile games (MG) (Hamari, Keronen, & Alha, 2015; Shaikh & Karjaluoto, 2015). MG differ from those developed for PCs and game consoles not only because of hardware limitations but also due to software limitations (Kuittinen, Jultima, Niemelä, & Paavilainen, 2007). The technical characteristics of a game influence perceived value (Choe & Schumacher, 2015) and, consequently, loyalty (Chang, 2013, Su, Chiang, Lee, & Chang, 2016). This study examines the antecedents of loyalty towards CMG from the perspectives of perceived value (i.e. hedonic and utilitarian values) (Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994; Chang, 2013; Chang et al., 2014; Davis, Lang, & Gautam, 2013). In addition, it explores the moderating effect of intensity of playing, because intensity can mitigate the impact of satisfaction on loyalty (Lu & Wang, 2008). Based on the literature review a research model was proposed and evaluated using survey data of 372 respondents with structural equation modelling (SEM) approach. The results reveal that hedonic value (i.e. perceived enjoyment and perceived attractiveness) and, to a lesser extent, utilitarian value (i.e. effort expectancy and perceived usefulness) are crucial to the player’s loyalty towards a mobile game. Intensity of playing weakens the relationship between perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and loyalty intention. Based on the findings, this research has important theoretical and practical implications in understanding the motivations of players to remain loyal to a mobile game and how these motivations vary depending on the intensity of playing.
There is scarcity of studies on social media strategy, and their appropriate implementation, applied to the case multinational corporations. In particular; there is a lack of studies adopting a cross-cultural approach (Okazaki and Taylor, 2013). Behind this fact is the assumption that, in general, multinational corporations adopt a global strategy that does not fit well with the personalized nature of social media. From the perspective of social media management, there are a kind of dilemma between the adoption of a centralized and standardized content generation and diffusion approach vis á vis adopting a decentralization orientation at country level or even a more local level. Berthon, Pitt, Plangger, and Shapiro (2012) signal the challenge of standardizing corporate content in social media and point out the advantage of take into consideration the specificities of different cultures and countries. We found a tension between two trends, for one hand social media implies co-creation and the sharing the power between the firm and their customer, while global integrated marketing communications follow precisely the opposite route. This research was conducted to examine the influence of centralization degree of social media communication towards online customer. We develop an empirical study applied to more than 160 corporate Twitter accounts from Iberoamerican countries. These accounts are the universe of Spanish corporates accounts of a set of the most important global automobile brands over a two-month study period. We use post-level engagement metric as measure of consumers’ attitudinal responses to corporate tweets. The results indicate that online customer engagement is affected by the type of the social media account of the brand (global, country, distributor, event specific). A strategy of issuing tweets from more general and global account result in a greater impact on customer engagement. In general, it seems that a centralized strategy obtains more effect in the number of obtained retweets even controlling by content topic, sender and post characteristic. This research has important implications for Digital Managers of corporations in terms of better understanding and improving corporates’ strategy in the social media communication channels.
This study focuses on analyzing the variables that moderate the effectiveness of the advertising flyers, one of the most used tools in retailing, to improve product sales. In previous literature, studies analyzed and confirmed the effectiveness of flyers to increase the traffic store, the general store sales or the synergistic effect of them to highlight and improve the effectiveness of promotions. Despite their confirmed effectiveness on these issues and their large use by retailers and manufacturers, it is missed studies that analyze the variables that may moderate their effectiveness on the sales of the products displayed on it. In fact, only Zhang et al. (2009) tried to analyze if the location in which the product is displayed have an influence on its effectiveness. According to them, they obtained inconclusive results due to their sample size. This study, considering the consumer’s cognitive process, analyzes how the presentation and the position of the product in flyers have an effect on their effectiveness to increase the displayed product’s sales. The results show that (i) the special signage on a displayed product in flyers increases their effectiveness to increase displayed product’s sales, and (ii) not only being highlighted increases the effect of the flyer, but that the product positioning affects decisively. For example, some locations -such as the cover, the top of the pages and areas on the left-, increase the visibility of the product and are more effective than other positions to increase displayed product’s sales. These results are in line with previous studies that indicate the importance of the directionality of reading to capture the customer’s attention in other environments. In sum, as happens inside the store or in the shelf, depending on if the product is displayed with a special signage or in an area where the customers pay more attention due to the standard cognitive process, the effectiveness of the flyers increase. Thus, retailers and manufacturers must consider how and where to be in the flyer, not just being.
Responsible customers are becoming increasingly important and the influence of online user-generated content on consumer behavior has been extensively recognized. As a result of these two trends, social media sites are adopting new initiatives on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In the context of tourism destinations, this paper analyses the effects of online comments made by visitors to two mountain resorts about three CSR dimensions: environmental (ENV), sociocultural (SOC) and economic (ECO). Our aim is to analyze the consistency of the effects of eWOM about a single CSR dimension (ENV, SOC, ECO), two CSR dimensions (ENV+ECO, ENV+SOC, ECO+SOC) or three CSR dimensions (ENV+ECO+SOC), in the impact of CSR dimensions on information adoption. Information adoption refers to eWOM perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived influence (PI). PU refers to what extent the information in the eWOM is useful and, in turn, tourists are more likely to adopt it. PI means to what extent consumers’ perceptions of eWOM affects decision-making processes. From an information processing point of view, it is important to analyze whether individuals maintain consistency in their preference for CSR dimensions. Transitivity has been used to measure consistency in product, so it could be applied to measure the consistency of the preference for CSR dimensions, presented singly or combined, on social media sites. Transitivity implies that consumers have a welldefined hierarchy of influence. If there is transitivity, it is expected that, given a set of CSR stimuli, its influence on PU and PI will be consistent. Thus, if the influence of dimension D1 is greater than that of dimension D2 and this, in turn, has greater influence than dimension D3, then D1 must have greater influence than D3. Consequently, we propose the following hypotheses: H1: The hierarchy of influence of online comments on (a) PU and on (b) PI is the same if the comment is about a single CSR dimension or two CSR dimensions. H2: The hierarchy of influence of online comments on (a) PU and on (b) PI is the same if the comment is about a single CSR dimension or three CSR dimensions. H3: The hierarchy of influence of online comments on (a) PU and on (b) PI is the same if the comments are about two CSR dimensions or three CSR dimensions. A within-subjects and between-subjects experiment was carried out to a sample of 612 tourists from Argentina and Spain. Participants were exposed to one of seven scenarios linked to a mountain tourism destination. Each scenario contained one, two or three online reviews related to CSR dimensions. The online comments resembled a typical TripAdvisor layout and were embedded in an online survey, which also contained measures of PU and PI. Our findings suggest that, of the reviews, environmental are the most useful and influential, followed by sociocultural. This hierarchical pattern is consistent when tourists are exposed to online comments about two or more dimensions, but not when comparisons are done between individual dimensions. Our findings suggest that consistency of the consumer's preference for CSR dimensions should be managed in analyzing multiple stimuli on social media sites.
In the current online advertising ecosystem, described by users’ adaptation to ad clutter, an arousal stimulus might not be a sufficient condition to maintain viewers’ attention on advertising. This research contributes to the online advertising literature by investigating whether different arousal designs (one vs. two arousal peaks) should be used to enhance the effectiveness of online video ads (attitude toward the ad, ad recall, purchase intentions, and recommendations) depending on the kind of audience (active or captive). By means of three studies, this research tests a moderation effect proposing that using one arousal stimulus is more effective in non-skippable advertising, whereas introducing two arousal stimuli is more effective in skippable ads. First, a consumer neuroscience study was conducted to detect the arousal stimuli and design the different conditions. Second, an experimental study in a lab setting was carried out to test the hypotheses of our framework. Third, to extend the validity of the experimental study, a field study using Google AdWords was conducted. Our results indicate that the two arousal peaks design increases ad effectiveness in skippable contexts whereas the one arousal peak commercial is more effective in a non-skippable context. These findings agree with previous research which found that continuous consumer activation during the ad improves decoding in memory for active audiences compared to captive audiences (Belanche, Flavián, & Pérez Rueda 2017). In addition, an ad with two arousal peaks is more effective among millennials; whereas the one arousal peak ad is more effective among older users (nonmillennials). Our research contributes to better understand how to satisfy the different demands of different advertising audiences (Ha, 2017). Specifically, our findings suggest that advertising campaigns should not be used across formats and users carelessly, but ad design needs to be adapted to the different ad formats and kind of audiences.
On the basis of the protection motivation theory (PMT) research model, this study employed perceived moral obligation as a determinant to improve predictions of people’s intention to engage in energy savings and carbon reduction behavior aimed at mitigating the threat of environmental climate change through their protection motivation. The sample comprised 930 participants who completed self-reported questionnaire surveys in Taiwan. The empirical results of structural equation modeling indicated that the extended PMT model was more explanatorily powerful than the original model. The results not only confirmed that people’s perceived moral obligation plays a crucial antecedent role in predicting their intention to engage in energy savings and carbon reduction behavior but also verified the mediation effects of protection motivation in the extended PMT model.
Introduction
Virtual communities have changed lifestyles and interpersonal relations, creating an internet community culture. They are a primary medium of emotional contact with others. American psychologist estimated that more than 350 million people have Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD) (Hong et al., 2014; SickFacebook.com, 2010), some kind of virtual community addiction (VCA). An average of 728 million people use Facebook every day, and users spend much time on Facebook (Hong et al., 2014). 80.24% of university students think that Facebook is an important element of social culture (Thompson & Lougheed, 2012). VCA has been explored in psychology in the past. This study adds three psychological dimensions and sense of virtual community when investigating the antecedents of VCA. The results of this study may direct public attention to VCA and help develop guidelines for online marketing and operation of virtual communities.
Literature review and hypotheses development
Virtual community addiction (VCA)
Many people are not aware of addictive in virtual community. While some addictive behaviors are considered mental disorders, an increasing number of studies has found potentially addictive behavior involving computers and the internet (Andreassen et al., 2012), including video game addiction (Fisher, 1994), Internet addiction (Beard, 2005), mobile phone addiction (Choliz, 2010), and online addiction (Griffiths, 2012). The definition of Internet addiction remains controversial. This study defines VCA as a tendency that users forced to use and even can not control not to use for the virtual communities.
Virtual community codependency (VCC)
Although codependency lacks a clear definition, there are only two perspectives on codependency that are relevant to this study. First, codependency is a learned helplessness, resulting in individuals who cannot create or participate in interpersonal relationships in the future (O’Gorman, 1993). Second, codependency is a pattern of dysfunction in interpersonal relationships. According to the social compensation theory, if people feel insecurity and negative social identity in real life interpersonal networks, they may spend more time using virtual communities as compensation. Therefore, we hypothesize:
H1. Virtual community codependency (VCC) positively influences virtual community addiction (VAC).
Sense of virtual community (SVC)
Blanchard (2007) defined the SVC as members feel membership, a sense of belonging and attachment to the group through electronic communication. Abfalter et al. (2012) defined the SVC as members having a sense of ‘spirit of belonging together’ in a virtual community. Members are interacting more, making them develop close relationships that lead to a stronger bond (Abfalter et al., 2012; Chavis et al., 1986; Obst et al., 2002). Facebook is widely used in the virtual community, regardless of the number and use of the degree has been increasing. Thus, we conclude that high VCC will need individuals to have a desire to derive compensation from the virtual community that cannot be achieved in the real world. If people in this community have similar needs, priorities, and goals, increasing the use of Facebook will lead to an increase in VCA. We propose the following hypothesis:
H2. The relationship between the Virtual Community Codependency (VCC) and Virtual Community Addiction (VAC) is mediated by the Sense of Virtual Community (SVC).
Behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and behavioral approach system (BAS)
Gray (1982) proposed the most widely applied pair of systems controlling behavioral activity, the behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and the behavioral approach system (BAS). These are intrinsic motivation systems in charge of desire and disgust (Carver & White, 1994). They are used to measure the sensitivity of individuals to punishment avoidance and to reward acquisition. When the sensitivity of an individual toward penalty/reward is higher, their response to a stimulus is greater (Linden et al., 2007). Studies also show that Internet addiction and BIS are related (Yen et al, 2009). Thus, we conclude that high VCC will be stimulated by BIS when there is an accident or a novel experience, and negative emotional reactions will seek to be resolved in the virtual world. Hence, Facebook users will to escape from the real environment to the virtual world, so as to addict on the virtual community. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H3. The direct relationship between the Virtual Community Codependency (VCC) and Virtual Community Addiction (VAC) is mediated by the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS).
BAS is based on motivations for an individual to pursue and achieve goals. BAS is more active and more sensitive to external reward clues, leading to stimulated sensory seeking behavior (Beauchaine et al., 2001). If the incentive clues appear, individuals who have high BAS are more prone to short positive emotions and approaching behavior individuals with low BAS. Thus, we speculate that high VCC will be stimulated by BAS when there is reward responsiveness or when driven in pursuit of goals in the virtual community. It will also make it more likely to engage in fun seeking in virtual communities. Thus, Facebook users deeply trapped in the virtual environment by BAS stimulation and fail to pull themselves out. Therefore, we hypothesize:
H4. The direct relationship between Virtual Community Codependency (VCC) and Virtual Community Addiction (VAC) is mediated by the Behavioral Approach System (BAS).
Methodology
Survey development and measurement
We adapted a number of scales (Abfalter et al., 2012; Andreassen et al., 2012; Carver & White, 1994; Fischer et al., 1991) and compiled a 55 item self-report scale questionnaire. Following the procedure recommended by Churchill (1979), we pre-tested the scale on 30 college students to determine the reliability and validity of the constructs. Based on the feedback, we refined the measures and ensured that all of the questionnaire items were applicable to our research. Finally, 53 valid items were retained in the formal questionnaire.
Data collection and sample profile
We used a web-based survey to collected data from the Youthwant survey platform in Taiwan. This was a more effective way to search for respondents for this study. The formal questionnaires were free to answer by members of the network platform. The participants were told of the survey’s importance to trigger participant’s interest, and give a 10 bonus points as reward. A total of 224 questionnaires were returned, 3 invalid and 221 effective. Respondents were evenly distributed across various ages between 18 and 50 years. The majority of respondents were female (60.2%) and only about 23.1% were students. Most respondents had completed university education (60.6%). 93.6% had been used Facebook for more than one year, with 63.3% having over four years of membership. 70.6% use Facebook more than once a day and for 82.8%, daily usage is at least a half hour, while 71.0% exceed a half an hour each time they use Facebook. This shows that of all respondents were long-term users.
Results
The total effects are determined by testing the direct impact of VCC on VCA without the mediator constructs. The results (see Table 1) show a significant relationship between VCC and VCA (β11 = 0.572, p < 0.001), supporting H1 (VCC positively affects VAC). The mediating effect is slight but statistically significant. 0.096 of the indirect effect is the result of the effect of VCC on SVC, which in turn influences VCA. The direct relationship between the VCC and VCA is significant as mediated by the SVC. Thus, H2 was supported. The mediating effect involves testing the direct relationship between the VCC and VCA mediated by the BIS. The results show a significant relationship between VCC and VCA (β13 = 0.488, p<0.001). VCC positively and significantly affects BIS (β12 = 0.493, p < 0.001). The effect of BIS on VCA is also positively significant (β23 = 0.169, p <0.05). This was confirmed by the evaluation of the structural model results. The direct effect is 0.488 (t = 5.661, p < 0.001) and the indirect effect is 0.083 (0.493 0.169= 0.083) which is significant (z = 2.039, p < 0.05) by Sobel test. Thus, the direct relationship between the VCC and VCA is slightly mediated by BIS. H3 was supported. The VAF of the model is 33.70% (0.193 / (0.380 + 0.193) 100%). In this situation, a VAF larger than 20% and less than 80% can be characterized as partial mediation (Hair et al., 2014). The ƒ2 effect size is 0.117, showing that BAS has medium effects on VCA. Thus, H4 was supported.
Discussion
This study is a step by step quantification of how changes in virtual community codependency (VCC) are related to changes in virtual community addiction (VCA) directly and indirectly through one or more mediators. First, the results show a strong relationship between virtual community codependency (VCC) and virtual community addiction (VCA). Furthermore, we cannot deny that the sense of virtual community (SVC) has a small mediating effect on the direct relationship between virtual community codependency (VCC) and virtual community addiction (VCA). The increased use of Facebook when there is a sense of the ‘spirit of belonging together’ can lead to increased tendency to virtual community addiction (VCA). The results are supported by Fischer et al. (1991) and Hong et al., (2014).
Limitations and future research directions
There are limitations in this study. First, this study does not have a large sample. Second, with technology advances and use behavior changes, the popularity of virtual communities and dependency is rising. The virtual community addiction scale can only evaluate the current situation. This study investigated the latent variables that determine partial or complete mediation using the AVF of Hair (2014). The judgment of AVF uses rules of thumb and awaits meta-analysis of partial and/or complete mediation in the future. Finally, future research could examine virtual communities in other cultures.
This research examines the interplay between brand structure (i.e., cohesiveness and similarity) and extension typicality on extension spillover effects using two experimental studies. The results reveal that the dominance of brand similarity and cohesiveness on extension spillover effects depends on how typical the effecting brand extension is to its brand. For typical extensions, the cohesiveness of existing brand extensions is the determinant factor on extension spillover effects. In contrast, for atypical extensions, the similarity of existing brand extensions is the determinant factor on extension spillover effects. Moreover, brands with similar brand extensions are inherently perceived as high cohesive brands, which enhance perceived brand quality. In contrast, brands with dissimilar brand extensions are inherently perceived as low cohesive brands, which weaken perceived brand quality. However, brands with dissimilar brand extensions are perceived to be cohesive brands if the product functions of the brand extensions are interdependent.
Introduction
Frontline employees (FLEs) play a very important role in service delivery due to the interactive nature of the service encounter. They span the boundary between the firm and its customers and service firms rely on their FLEs to deliver their promise and create a favorable company image to customers (e.g., Bitner et al., 1990). Considerable previous research addresses how effective management practices and supportive work environments will induce positive attitudinal and behavioral responses of FLEs, which will, in turn, contribute to the positive customer perceptions of the service providers (e.g., Hartline and Ferrell 1996). In other words, the relationship quality or the exchange quality of the employee-organization interface will have a spillover effect on that of the customer-organization interface. But the question examined here is: can this spillover effect occur in an opposite way? In other words, will firms’ treatment of customers shape the employees’ relationship with their firms? With a few exceptions, limited research has paid attention to this inverse relationship. The purpose of our research is threefold: (1) to investigate whether employee perception of customer injustice can influence employees’ psychological contract violation with the firm, (2) to examine whether role conflict mediates the relationship between customer injustice and psychological contract violation, and (3) to explore the moderating impacts of customer identification on the mediation effect of role conflict.
Method
We conducted an experiment using a 2 (customer injustice: high vs. low) x 2 (customer identification: high vs. low) between-subjects factorial design. Two hundred participants were recruited from Amazon Mturk. Twelve responses were deemed unusable and excluded from the study, resulting in a final sample size of 188 (53.7 % female; age ranging from 18 to 65). Each participant was randomly assigned to one of the four experimental scenarios that corresponded to a combination of the two manipulated factors at either high or low level. All manipulations worked as intended. To analyze the moderating effect of customer identification via role conflict, we used the procedure of Hayes (2013) to estimate a conditional process model. We also controlled for the effects of empathy, income, and ethnicity. To test whether the indirect effect of injustice on contract violation is moderated by customer identification, an index of moderated mediation proposed by Hayes (2014) was calculated. To test whether this index is statistically significantly from zero, a 95% confidence interval was calculated for this index by bootstrapping 5,000 samples. The confidence interval of this index is .0162 to 1.1105, indicating the indirect effect is significantly moderated by identification. The results showed that the indirect effect of customer injustice via role conflict on contract violation is only significant (p< .05) when customer identification is high. In other words, when customer identification is low, the effect of injustice on contract violation is not mediated through role conflict.
Research implications
Our research provides empirical evidence that FLEs are sensitive to the treatment of customers by the firm. The traditional wisdom in the sales literature is that “if you treat your employees well, they will treat your customers well.” Our study complements this “trickle-down effect” in the extant literature and demonstrates a “bottom-up effect” that the firm’s unfair treatment of customers will adversely influence employees’ relationship with their firm. Our research also offers important insights into why customer injustice may lead to FLEs’ perceived psychological contract violation with the firm. Previous sales research suggests that role conflict can be influenced by an organization’s structure and culture as well as salespeople’s job characteristics (Singh 1998; Barnes et al. 2006). Our study complements these findings and identifies perceived customer injustice as a new role stressor of FLEs. In addition, our research reveals that the mediating effect of role conflict is moderated by customer identification. Customer identification increases the likelihood that customer injustice would manifest in a psychological contract violation via increased role conflict. The findings of this research also have several managerial implications. First, service and sales managers should be aware of the negative consequence of unfair customer treatment by the firm and how it may eventually jeopardize employees’ relationship with the firm. Second, managers should consult with their FLEs when implementing any new customerfacing policies to understand how these policies would impact FLEs’ other duties of serving customers. Finally, FLEs may form strong identification with their customers, which may amplify the negative consequence of customer injustice on psychological contract violation. Managers should try to counteract FLEs’ over-identification with customers by increasing organizational identification.
We investigate the construct of privacy concern and its dimensions, together with its expected counterbalance, trust in the information collector, on willingness to disclose different information types to a digital seller in a multicountry study. This issue is critical, given the evolution of technologies that now allow for the collection and analysis of a huge amount of data. We conceptualise consumers’ privacy concerns as the extent to which a consumer is concerned about (Milberg, et al., 2000; Rose, 2006): (1) the general collection of personal information (data collection), (2) unauthorised secondary use (data secondary usage), (3) improper access (data access) and (4) errors (data accuracy). The first contribution of our research is that we will verify the validity of the four dimensions of information privacy concern in a multiple-country study. We then develop a model by testing the impacts of privacy concern and trust on the willingness to disclose sensitive and non-sensitive information. First, our results validate the privacy concern scale based on the four dimensions (data collection, data secondary usage, data access and data accuracy) in eight countries and show that information disclosure can contain an inner trap based on customer training to disclose information that may transform information disclosure in an habit that increases willingness to share that may overcome the effects of privacy concern and trust on customers’ intended behaviours, opening possibilities of potential harmful behaviours on the part of companies to get data from their prospects that should be carefully monitored and managed.
Organizational agility is a firm-wide dynamic capability to cope with rapid, relentless, and uncertain changes and thrive in a competitive environment of continually and unpredictable changing opportunities. A conceptual model is drawn up, based on the literature and a previous qualitative inquiry, to identify agility enablers that help organizations to sustain in dynamic environments. Further, the model explores the relationship between organizational agility and firm performance as well as the moderating effect of environmental dynamism on this relationship. The validity of the construct is assessed by means of a quantitative study using a survey methodology. A data set consisting of 348 German-based companies is analysed on a business unit level as well as for the organization as a whole. Partial least squares path modeling (PLS-SEM) results reveal that four dimensions (organization, innovation, people and knowledge management), comprising various agility enablers, positively influence organizational agility. Moreover, results indicate that organizational agility has a significant effect on firm performance and that this relationship is modearted by environmental dynamism. Therefore, this study contributes to a better understanding of the complex nature of the agility construct and provides guidelines how organizations can achieve an agile alignment. It further emphasizes the need for managers to integrate agile practices in order to outperform competitors in hypercompetitive and turbulent business environments.
Introduction
The idiom “you are what you own” has been considerably transformed into “you are what you can access”. The shift from ownership to access, the results of endless hyper-consumption, and the change in value mindsets initiated a new phenomenon, which is Sharing Economy (SE). SE has grown rapidly and refers to an entirely new business model, socio-economic ecosystem, and context for sharing the access to goods and services in technology-enabled peer-to-peer (P2P) ecosystems or consumer-to-consumer (C2C) engagement platforms. According to Botsman and Rogers (2010), SE is a result of the linkage between offline and online world, which was triggered by the society to overcome natural resources constraints. Resources in SE can be tangible (e.g., cars and homes) and intangible (e.g., expert local knowledge and labor). SE allows the sustainable use of idle resources, and it enables sellers to create new and flexible opportunities to market to consumers who experience personalized and even customized products and services at lower prices (Yang, Song, Chen, & Xia, 2017). SE opened up new horizons for a considerable number of new players across industries from a supply perspective by broadening the options for supply, which also remedies the response to peak demand. SE has given a rise to the humanization of consumer-supplier relationship in tourism and hospitality (TH), and sharing has become a mainstream practice in this context. The recent shift of customers‟ willingness to share accommodation with a host as opposed to using a private hotel room has many implications for TH (Lu & Kandampully, 2016). For example, Airbnb has become one of the most prominent competitors in hotel industry, and it enables people to lease or rent short-term accommodation including vacation rentals, apartment rentals, homestays, and even experiences via instant booking. From cash-strapped travelers to high-end business travelers, Airbnb has revolutionized the TH service in a new form of contractual relationship and gained a well-grounded popularity. Some scholars, on the other hand, argued that SE is a “fundamentally different business model” which could make it a new marketplace instead of a direct competitor in hotel industry. From this point of view, Airbnb do not compete or pose a challenge to traditional TH services but extend the concept of TH (Lu & Kandampully, 2016). Hotel industry has reactively responded to the direct, indirect, and induced effects of Airbnb to economy, and Airbnb‟s impact on hotel industry have recently been researched by several scholars (Mody, Suess, & Lehto, 2017; Priporas, Stylos, Rahimi, & Vedanthachari, 2017; Zervas, Proserpio, & Byers, 2017). Customer engagement in TH has been empirically found to enhance customers‟ service brand evaluation, brand trust, and brand loyalty (So, King, Sparks, & Wang, 2016). Guests attach great importance to motivational drivers, more meaningful “beyond-purchase” social interactions and unique experiences in authentic settings, which give rise to customer engagement beyond the service encounter. Disruptive innovation theory also states that products or services that offer alternative benefits compared to conventional attributes can transform a market and attain a critical mass, which can be observed in Airbnb‟s story (Young, Corsun, & Xie, 2017). Airbnb is successfully promoting the mottos of “Belong Anywhere” and “Don’t Go There. Live There” to their guests. The feelings of trust and belonging were negatively changed by mass production and noncustom travel experiences, and people sometimes forgot the meaning of community due to high tendency of prestige and advertising. Consumers‟ changing attitudes towards utilization and accessibility compared to ownership created an indirect need for intimate connection between people, namely human connection. Then, social concerns upon products and services gave a rise to mass-customized product and service expectations of consumers. This is where Airbnb‟s value proposition comes into play. First, it creates not only financial but also personal rewards through a “personal concierge” and a “home away from home” experience. Second, Airbnb is not a simple transaction, rather it is deemed to be a lifetime experience. So “guest experience” is at the heart of Airbnb‟s strategic position. From the “experience” point of view, SE has also opened up new rooms for service research. Service in the context of Airbnb is considered as an experience, rather than a utilitarian relation. Also, service quality has always been a critical factor in highly-competitive service industries like TH. Service quality perception is multi-faceted, and the studies focusing on it are rather limited, especially in hotel industry. These studies highlighted the complexities associated with evaluating service quality and the contribution of service process delivery on service outcomes, which results in the perception of service quality. Therefore, perceived service quality can be influenced by different internal processes and interpersonal variables. In order to study service quality in Airbnb, the types of settings in this context are to be noted. There are two main types of hosting via Airbnb: (1) remote hospitality, which refers to hosting situations in which the host does not physically share the place with the guest (e.g. booking the entire place), and (2) on-site hospitality, where the host is physically present and sharing the apartment with the guest. Mainly, on-site hospitality is an important part of the sociability within the host–guest relationship. Priporas et al. (2017) studied service quality in the context of remote hospitality, and we decided to respond to their relevant call for future research on the other type of Airbnb accommodation, which is on-site hospitality referring to “Shared Rooms” and “Private Rooms” in Airbnb‟s listings. “Shared Rooms” refer to an exact communal experience with the host, and guests sleep in a space that is shared with others and share the entire space with other people. “Private Rooms” refer to privacy, to some extent, in which guests (i) value a local connection (ii) have their own private room for sleeping and (iii) may share some spaces with others. We do expect that human connection and experience gap can be better researched with on-site hospitality existing in “Shared Rooms” and “Private Rooms”. This is because hosts design their services to create and build a relationship with their guests, leading to superior guest experiences and the so-called positive moment-of-truth. In addition to the online storytelling on hosts‟ home pages, the most important moment-of-truth is created during the guests‟ stay at the host‟s place; thus, the host plays a major role in the customer‟s perception of service and the subsequent review of the experience (Lu & Kandampully, 2016). Considering the previously mentioned “experience gap” in the literature, our research question and relevant sub-questions are as follows:
• What are the antecedents of perceived service quality in Airbnb on-site hospitality?
o How well does SERVQUAL suffice for measuring perceived service quality in this context?
o How well the cognitive and attitudinal factors expand this measurement?
o What are the additional perceived service quality factors that can be derived from guests‟ online textual reviews to remedy the “experience gap”?
Literature review
Cheng (2016) conducted a systematic review of SE by using co-citation and content analysis of papers, and the findings reveal three distinct research areas of SE: (1) SE‟s business models and its impacts, (2) Nature of SE, and (3) SE‟s sustainability development. Moreover, two unique areas, specifically in TH, were identified: (1) SE‟s impacts on destinations and TH services and (2) SE‟s impacts on tourists. The comparison of both literatures has revealed limited expansion in TH literature despite the fact that TH are at the frontier of SE (Cheng, 2016). Pesonen and Tussyadiah (2017) conducted cluster analysis to identify user profiles corresponding to consumer motivations for using TH services of SE. They concluded that a consumer group uses TH services of SE to make their trips more convenient, while another group uses these services mostly for social reasons. Yang et al. (2017) studied the loyalty in SE services from relational benefits perspective and concluded that confidence and social benefits have significant and positive effects on commitment in SE services. Molz (2014) introduced the term „Network Hospitality‟, which is relatively new and rooted in old traditions of welcoming strangers. Airbnb represents just one of many types of network hospitality, and in Airbnb, trust is almost shaped based on peer reviews, not solely on one-to-one peer interactions. The online review information becomes the basis for members‟ reputation in the network. The information accumulated on Airbnb‟s online platform helps both parties to establish their reputation, as well as publicizing their personalities, thereby facilitating the process of finding the best match. Moreover, there are hundreds of people working in Airbnb‟s customer service, trust, and safety departments who are devoted to ensuring the intimacy provision of trusted services. Airbnb requires all hosts to abide by their “Hospitality Standards”, which include expected levels of cleanliness, commitment, and communication. The flexibility, reliability, and consistency of Airbnb‟s service providers help them to build and maintain the relationship Airbnb enjoys with their guests and hosts (Lu & Kandampully, 2016; Zervas et al., 2017). Pine and Gilmore (1998) predicted the rise of experience in their seminal study, referring to the “experience economy” and also stating “As goods and services become commoditized, the customer experiences that companies create will matter most.” They called this as “Staging Experiences”. Also, there exists evidence in literature that providers are shifting their focus from product- and service-oriented to design of quality experiences. In terms of the glamour of SE in TH, a “more unique experience” is deemed to be second only to better pricing. Airbnb may eventually address all elements of the accommodation experience, from travel reservations to ticketing for local attractions. Consumers are looking for local authenticity in their travels. Psychological authenticity refers to emotional genuineness, self-attunement, and psychological depth (Walls, Okumus, Wang, & Kwun, 2011). If TH industry is to surpass its SE competition in terms of guest experience, it should leverage an expanded experience economy paradigm that incorporates additional dimensions (Mody et al., 2017). Authentic host-guest experiences probably only exist between like-minded and privileged members who possess high cultural capital (Cheng, 2016). With that, Walls et al. (2011) have suggested the need for researchers to identify specific dimensions “that exist in both our everyday and tourist experiences”. Both in Airbnb and traditional TH, guest satisfaction and likelihood to reuse are driven by similar factors such as quality and utility of services, trust to the host, and economic value. There are several models for measuring service quality, including SERVQUAL (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1988) and SERVPERF (Cronin & Taylor, 1992). Service quality literature received widespread attention after the seminal work by Parasuraman et al. (1988) as they proposed the gap model and developed SERVQUAL (an attribute-based technique) as a tool for measuring service quality. According to SERVQUAL, service quality consists of five dimensions measured by a total of 22 items. The proposed five service quality dimensions are tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. SERVQUAL basically requires measures of expectations and performance, and service quality is calculated from subtractions between these two components (i.e., performance [P] - expectations [E]). Regarding service quality in TH, Akbaba (2006) utilized SERVQUAL for business hotels, and Priporas et al. (2017) inquired SERVQUAL‟s applicability in Airbnb context with promising results. The major distinction between two research directions (i.e. hotels vs. Airbnb) is that even though guests expect similar core services such as clean rooms and comfortable beds, different attributes support the competitive advantage of hotels and Airbnb. While conveniences offered by hotels are unparalleled by Airbnb accommodation, the latter appeal to consumers driven by experiential and social motivations (Pesonen & Tussyadiah, 2017).
Research model
This research aims to identify the antecedents of perceived service quality of guests‟ in Airbnb on-site hospitality context. Our research model is presented in Figure 1, and it is subject to enhancement through the analytics of guest reviews. A survey will be developed to test the proposed research model. The items of constructs will be mainly derived from extant literature and enriched with the linguistic and textual analysis of reviews. Firstly, factors shaping expectation are predicted as per the literature and preliminary analysis of random guest reviews: (i) host‟s reputation capital (e.g., ratings and reviews), (ii) host‟s photos, (iii) guest‟s past accommodation experience, and (iv) word of mouth. Secondly, SERVQUAL part in the model is the same as proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1988). Last but not least, Airbnb is deemed to promote global geographical imaginaries (e.g., collaboration, social equity, solidarity, community, trust, reciprocity, altruism, autonomy, intimacy, and authenticity) to justify their business model (O‟Regan & Choe, 2017). Finally, regarding the guest review analysis, Airbnb has a detailed review mechanism, and we have gathered the publicly available reviews that are up to 500 words. We have observed cognitive and attitudinal dimensions within reviews through text analytics and grouped those in the research model as follows:
• Intimacy: The emergence of intimacy as a commercial value in TH industry has been researched. (e.g., How well people know each other? How people occupy space together? How people share private information, family pictures, furniture choice etc.?) (Prager, 1997)
• Authenticity: We focus on the existential authenticity (i.e., being one‟s true self or being true to one‟s essential nature) from guests‟ perceptions (e.g., Is Airbnb like ‘living the local life’?) (Lalicic & Weismayer, 2017)
• Commitment: It refers to the consistent behavior of Airbnb hosts in terms of social and cost components. (e.g., How well hosts abide by Airbnb policies and procedures? Do hosts have ongoing effectiveness of service?) (Lu & Kandampully, 2016)
• Privacy: It refers to the psychological zone to disclose personal and cultural values. Informational and physical privacy threats are important in Airbnb context (Lutz, Hoffmann, Bucher, & Fieseler, 2017).
• Security: It refers to the state of being free from danger or threat. According to Yang and Ahn (2016), security in Airbnb‟s services is a more powerful antecedent of attitude toward Airbnb than significant dimensions of motivation toward SE, such as enjoyment and reputation. With that we will only elaborate on interpersonal security in Airbnb (i.e., between host and guest, not between guest and Airbnb).
Conclusion
SE is a fairly new and multi-disciplined field that covers open rooms for research, and specifically, Airbnb is one of the most prominent businesses in this context. The literature review presented underlies the infancy of well-grounded studies covering service quality perceptions of customers in SE. Seeking for additional dimensions from Airbnb guests‟ reviews is a novel research approach in studying customer engagement, and those dimensions shall be included in the research model. This research has certain limitations. Our perceived service quality conceptualization requires empirical validation to establish the boundaries of the construct. The guest reviews in Airbnb are subject to data quality issues. Also, reviews should contain substantial amount of words up to a certain threshold. Data collection from emerging world regions is rather tough since Airbnb is not widespread across those regions. Thus, US and European countries will be firstly taken into account, where the use of Airbnb is quite common. The study is expected to provide useful insights for TH practitioners and managers. It can underlie the factors that trigger customer engagement in this context. Cognitive/attitudinal factors are foreseen as the differentiators, which stand as the basis for service design and delivery.