The purpose is to identify the impacts of internal and external integrations in an automotive supply chain in Thailand. Data are collected from automotive firms in Thailand and are analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The result indicates that both internal and external integrations are significant factors affecting market flexibility.

To date, in various methodological and theoretical domains, consumer value has been investigated to provide a comprehensive analytical framework that encompasses the full range of consumption-related phenomena. Consumer value is regarded as an important marketing concept since it deals with an issue closely related to the product positioning and competitive advantages (Woodruff, 1997). In the current marketplace, brands have often collaborated with retailers to extend their products and gain a competitive advantage in positioning the products effectively in the targeted market. Therefore, it is important for brands to understand how consumers perceive extended products when they are sold in retail stores so that they can locate the perceived position closer to the ideal point of a target segment. Thus, this study aims to examine measurement invariance in measures of consumers’ perceived value and its effect on prediction to allow researchers to compare predictions across groups. Drawn from a theory of consumption values (Sheth, Newman, & Gross, 1991) and related literatures, this study considered perceived value as a multidimensional construct as well as the expected outcome of an evaluative judgment. Likert-type items with seven-points were used for measuring four latent factors including social value, monetary value, convenience value, and epistemic value. Using a total of 869 data from participants in the U.S., multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine measurement invariance of consumers’ perceived value for two groups using different types of brand and retailer collaborations. The high-end brand and low-end retailer group had 444 participants, and the low-end brand and high-end retailer group had 425 participants. Based on the sequential testing procedure, the current study confirmed the consistent structure of the measurement instrument of consumers’ perceived value across groups. However, the factorial invariance of monetary value could not be established. The findings of this study contribute to providing insights on the methodological perspective by investigating whether or not the measurements of consumers’ perceived value yield measures of the same qualities in different shopping contexts.

The major paradox in research in marketing: Can the researcher construct models that capture firm heterogeneities and achieve accurate prediction of outcomes for individual cases that also are generalizable across all the cases in the sample? This study presents a way forward for solving the major paradox. The study identifies research advances in theory and analytics that contribute successfully to the primary need to fill to achieve scientific legitimacy: Configurations that include accurate description, explanation, and prediction (i.e., predicting outcomes accurately of cases in samples separate from the samples of cases used to construct models having high fit validity.) The solution here includes philosophical, theoretical, and operational shifts away from variable-based modeling and null hypothesis statistical testing (NHST) to case-based modeling and somewhat precise outcome testing (SPOT). The study here provides examples of research contributing to knowledge and theory that advance prediction and control in business-to-business contexts. Shifting beyond linear model construction and symmetric tests (i.e., multiple regression analysis (MRA) and structural equation modeling (SEM)) and embracing complexity theory and asymmetric tests (i.e., constructing and testing algorithms by “computing with words,” Zadeh, (1996, 2010)) includes taking necessary steps away from examining “net effects” of variables to useful screening modeling of case configurations. Researchers embracing this shift in marketing benefit from recognizing that the current dominant logic of performing null hypothesis testing (NHST via MRA and SEM) is “corrupt research” (Hubbard, 2015) and from recognizing that predicting by algorithms via somewhat precise outcome testing (SPOT) advances business-to-business research toward achieving scientific legitimacy.

Since more and more consumers rely on online consumer reviews in their purchase decision making, we have observed the emergence of empirical studies on online reviews in different contexts. Such studies look at various dimensions surrounding online reviews; nevertheless, none of them actually gives a more comprehensive picture as to the rating differences across online rating platforms and/or across time, let alone explains such differences. This study aims to address these understudied but managerially relevant issues. In our empirical study, we focus on hotel ratings across platforms and across time (i.e., across identified change point in time), and explain such differences by review text associating with the ratings. We investigated San Francisco hotels that were rated on both Tripadvisor and Expedia, and utilized the General Inquirer dictionary to identify the categories of words in a review. Regressions analyses were then conducted for the explanation of rating differences. We found that rating differences, in both the cross-platform and the longitudinal cases, are substantially associated with the number of words (in a negative relationship). Furthermore, word tags identified from the review text associated with ratings also explain the rating differences. To conclude, the research reveals that for a specific service provider, online ratings may vary significantly in both the cross-platform and the longitudinal senses. It demonstrates that adopting a systematic approach and utilizing an established semantic dictionary, information extracted from review text can substantially explain such differences.

Social media have been proved as a tool for social branding, but not as a tool for return on investment (ROI) generation. The ultimate goal of any business activities is to generate ROI; therefore, businesses should know what social media practices actually increase their ROI. Researchers in the computer science and engineering areas have attempted to create a systematic model/statistical method to quantify data collected from social media to generate meaningful consumer and market trends and ROI (Zeng, Chen, Lusch, & Li. 2010). This process is called Social Media Intelligence (SMI) or Social Media Analytics (SMA). Researchers have not been yet successful in developing an effective analytical system for social media data to generate ROI. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore which social media practices would affect ROI based on SMA process with key techniques used to analyze the indicators in social media (i.e., Key Performance Indicators; KPIs) that show the effectiveness of a company in achieving its business objectives. This study is an exploratory research to determine the nature of a problem in the SMI, to gain further insight, and to show opportunities in the subject area. The result shows that using crawling, topic modeling and social network analysis techniques, businesses could collect and monitor right KPIs depending on their social media goals (e.g., number of followers for awareness, number of link clicks for engagement, number of lead magnets for conversion). After then, using the techniques to analyze the KPIs (e.g., opinion mining, sentiment analysis, etc. for the understand stage), businesses would be able to identify/predict consumer demands and market trends. Based on this prediction, businesses need to visualize the result to customers by executing right marketing strategies (e.g., effective viral marketing, personalized Call-To-Action, customized product/service, direct relationship establishment, frequent communication, establish long relationship, etc.). This study could contribute to the field by presenting the effective KPIs and techniques organized based on the SMA stages and social media goals and could provide the industry a right tool and a direction for their social media promotional practices.

This study aims to analyse the overall sentiments of online reviews on restaurants in Malaysia using predictive text analytics. As we know in opinion mining, sentiment analysis is a prominent technique in predictive text mining. It is a technique that categorises opinions in unstructured text format into binary classification (ie. good or bad). The authors attempt to go beyond the binary classification by viewing texts as empirical entities derived using the Term Frequency - Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) weighting algorithm. These empirical entities, based on online reviews of restaurants in Malaysia, are then manifested into hypothetically defined constructs closely reflecting their thematic and semantic nature. The were 4914 customer reviews from restaurants across 20 towns and cities in Malaysia scraped off TripAdvisor.com using web crawler tools. Then a series of analytical tests were carried out. First the online reviews were parsed, filtered and clustered using SAS Text Miner. Then the online reviews underwent the TF-IDF process to identify significant terms and weightages were assigned according to their importance. The TF-IDF process resulted in a series of important nouns and adjectives from the text corpus. Using these weightages of nouns and adjectives, the authors went on to thematise these terms based on their semantic nature to manifest hypothetical constructs. These constructs were based on the Mehrabian–Russell Stimulus Response Model. Subsequently the authors tested the associations among the constructs using variance-based and covariance-based Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The authors were encouraged by this exploratory methodological approach in formulating predictive text analytics using SEM. Results indicated that sentiments were generally positive towards restaurants and the important terms derived were price, hospitality, location, waiting time, availability of parking and size of food portion.

Technology has turned the consumer into a non-stop generator of traditional, structured, transactional data as well as more contemporary, unstructured, behavioural data. The study of consumer analytics turns on the junction of Big Data and consumer behaviour. This paper intends to test empirically the conceptual model proposed by Erevelles, Fukawa and Swayne (2016) for FB, in Portugal. A qualitative methodology is being performed, namely conducting twenty-five in-deep interviews with the current managers of FB, with the average duration of one hour. Once the 25 interviews are all carried out, they will be subsequently transcribed in full. Then, a content analysis will be held by two researchers and resorted to software NVivo, which is considered a good tool to help in theory building (Azevedo, 1998). Since the study is still at the moment of data collection through in-deep interviews, it is not yet possible to present consistent results. However, the first interviews leads to the idea that FB in Portugal do not have a structure particularly dedicated to identifying business opportunities that favor the implementation of an organized Big Data management system. It was also recognize the option of a more centralized management strategy, in anticipation the changes in the environment that can predict trends in the consumer market. Finally, it was verify that the definition of a particular profile of skills and knowledge associated with the agents involved in the collection and treatment of the inputs given by the consumers through the analysis of the Big Data, is not yet defined.

With the increasing prevalence of smartphones, marketers have a keen interest in the mobile channel hoping to enhance the effectiveness of marketing activities and improve sales performance. Prior research on mobile marketing examines for example, coupon redemption, time sensitivity, and message optimization, and find that marketing activities and the corresponding performance should be understood based on contexts in which such actions are employed. Following this stream of research, we focus on the context in which consumers interact with mobile phones, and evaluate the role of real-time mobile coupons in driving e-commerce interest. To this end, we collaborate with an online retailer selling beauty products as well as a credit card company distributing mobile coupons on behalf of the online retailer. Target customers are selected using prior usage of credit cards such as category preference and spending amount. When SMS texts are being sent to smartphones with transaction confirmation, mobile coupons are attached to such texts in order to induce target consumers to sign up for the online retailer. Thus our data comes from two sources. The credit card company provides transaction information along with demographics and the online retailer track consumers’ behavior in log and purchase data. Our empirical analyses suggest that real-time contexts matter in determining the effectiveness of mobile coupons. To be specific, consumers who have just spent a small amount of money show a greater propensity to redeem the coupons despite small rewards. Also, heavy users of e-commerce tend to be more responsive to the coupons promoting the online retailer whereas those with large spending on beauty products are less likely to sign up. We discuss theoretical contributions of these findings and offer practical insights.

This study was designed to deepen our understanding of contemporary luxury experience based on a systematic literature review. Based on the theoretical review, this study attempted to propose and elaborate two contrasting propositions (i.e., ephemeral vs. perpetuating values) reflecting the evolving luxury market. One key trend is that consumers pursue the value of hedonism providing immediate escapism and satisfaction in luxury consumption. The on-demand mindset of consumers looking for instant desire and gratification can be exemplified by the ‘See-Now, Buy-Now’ trend in the luxury market (Weinswig, 2017). While traditional luxury consumers pursued conspicuous value, consumers of new luxury pursue more self-centric and immersive experience. In line with this perspective, Yeoman (2011) noticed the trend of renting luxury products through online services. Another notable trend is that consumers seek inspirational resources in luxury consumption. For example, numerous luxury brands are showing various art exhibitions, and have their own art foundations, which Kapferer (2014) interpreted as the emergence of luxury brands exploiting artistic aura like art institutions. In addition, luxury brands have extended their products and services to encompass a whole set of lifestyle offerings when seeing the example of flagship store of Fendi, Palazzo Fendi (Waga, 2016). This review used a systematic approach for searching and assessing the existing scholarly evidence base to interpret two emerging trends in the luxury market. The further use of proposed framework and propositions in empirical research would help revealing how consumers subjectively perceive the contemporary luxury experience discussed in this study.

Innovation in technology has led to the growth of hybrid products, which demonstrate features of more than one product category (Rajagopal & Burnkrant, 2009). This trend is evident in the luxury market (e.g., the Tag Heuer Connected wearable, a hybrid of a luxury watch and a computing device. The combination of technology and luxury can pose challenges in the design and marketing of such devices. This could be a problem for new hybrid luxury products, which consumers typically evaluate in terms of symbolic meanings rather than functional utility. In this research we build on and contribute to the product design literature as we propose a model in which the characteristics of aesthetics, symbolism, functionality, monofunctionality (how many different tasks a product delivers on), and ergonomics are antecedents that drive usage intention for luxury hybrids, specifically wearables. First, we find that perceived ergonomics and perceived multi-functionality influence perceived overall functionality of wearables, which then has a positive effect on intention to use those products. Perceived aesthetics appears as an important characteristic for wearables, as mediation analysis shows it has an indirect effect on use intention, both through perceived symbolism and overall functionality of those hybrids. Such order of effects within product design characteristics has not been explored before and our findings yield implications for academics and practitioners.

Although pricing strategies have significant effects on brand performance and have been growth drivers of the luxury industry for decades, there is only little research on luxury pricing strategies. Most academics and managers believe that there is a ‘democratization of luxury’ since the 1980’s. Today, luxury is regarded as accessible for almost anyone. On the other hand, researchers and consumers still consider ‘high prices’ as one of the most important luxury characteristics. To resolve this paradox, this paper analyzes ‘expensiveness’ as a key feature of luxury products: Is luxury expensive or has it really democratized? It outlines the different types of luxury with reference to their ‘expensiveness’. Based on a literature analysis about research on pricing in luxury marketing, the paper presents eight indicators of ‘expensiveness’. After discussing how the Veblen, Snob and Bandwagon effects break the law of demand, analyses of real data follow with some case studies about the price development of luxury products in different countries and product categories. They show that the method of price comparison by Fourastié can provide brand managers a more realistic picture about the ‘expensiveness’ of their products for their target customers. The paper concludes with some major lessons learned.

Despite important theoretical implications seldom research exist regarding the impact of luxury parent brand status signaling on the evaluation of horizontal line extension through the moderating role of extension authenticity, quality and fit. The luxury literature review revealed that despite important theoretical implications seldom research exist regarding the impact of luxury parent brand status signaling on the evaluation of horizontal line extension through the moderating role of extension authenticity, quality and fit. Research has examined how consumers use luxury goods to signal their status or relative position in social hierarchies (Berger & Ward 2010; Dubois et al., 2012; Geiger-Oneto et al., 2013; Kastanakis, & Balabanis, 2014) but until the current study the luxury literature could not support the extent to which status signaling impact line extension’s evaluation through the moderating role of extension authenticity (Spiggle, Nguyen, & Caravella, 2012; Beverland & Farrelly, 2010; Morhart et al., 2015; Guèvremont & Grohmann, 2016). Previous studies have found that authenticity can be to emotional attachment (Morhart et al., 2015), help pursue personal goals (Beverland & Farrelli, 2010), or relevant to brand identity, status and equity (Guevremont & Grohmann, 2016). Surprisingly, none of these studies has empirically tested this important relationship. This study’s contribution to the literature is important as it empirically confirms that in launching a new line extension, a luxury parent brand’s status signaling will directly impact the extension’s evaluation. In the process, the perceived authenticity of the extension proves to affect the evaluation significantly if the perceived quality and fit of the extension are taken into consideration in the measurement framework.

Introduction Smartwatches are mini devices that are worn like standard watches, which allow installation and use of mobile apps enabling connectivity and interactivity (Chuah et al., 2016). Park et al. (2016) regard smartwatches as multi-category products and are considered to be the first commercialized wearable technology for consumers (Jung et al., 2016). Wearable technologies refer to high-tech devices that are integrated into clothing, accessories or the human body to provide personalized functions to users, regardless of the types of usage (Choi and Kim, 2016). Thus, the smartwatch is recognised as an important and pioneering sub-category of broader smart-fashion. Wearable technology has become more readily available and widespread in the market. A recent industry report (IDC, 2017) indicates that worldwide shipments of wearable devices are expected to increase by 132% from 102.4 million units to 237.5 million units between 2016 and 2021, driven by the proliferation of new and various types of smartwatches. In the past, high-tech and fashion were considered as two separate industries. However, recent years have witnessed a trend towards fashion and high-tech collaborations (Zimmermann, 2016). For example, “Hermès Apple watch” and “Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon” (O‟Connor, 2017). Millennial consumers are often perceived as the first high-tech generation. This young generation is increasingly attracted by the innovativeness of smartwatches (Shotter and Bradshaw, 2014). According to PwC (2016), millennials are more likely to use smartwatches than older generations. Gartner‟s (2017) research also highlights that millennials represent the largest user group of wearable technologies. Considering the increasing magnitude of millennials‟ interest in luxury wearables, this study takes factors affecting millennial consumers‟ new technology acceptance, and luxury consumption into account. Despite increasing attention from industry, scholarly research on wearable technology has been limited to technological uses. Extant studies are focused in the fields of information systems, computers in human behaviour (Chuah et al., 2016) or electronic textiles (Berzowska, 2005). They concentrate on how these devices might be utilized for healthcare and safety monitoring, fitness or biometric purposes (Choi & Kim, 2016). Academic research to date therefore tends to be more technology rather than consumer driven (Choi and Kim, 2016). As discussed, although the fashion and technology industries are converging (Zimmermann, 2016), most existing research into smartwatch adoption (Choi & Kim, 2016; Chuah et al., 2016; Kim & Shin, 2016) utilizes standard or fitness-centric smartwatches as the research objects. Researchers generally fail to see smartwatches as a hybrid of high-tech wearable and luxury products. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1986) is a frequently cited model in predicting consumers‟ intentions to adopt an emerging technology. It depicts that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are two critical variables influencing users‟ beliefs, attitudes and intentions to embrace a new information system (Legris et al., 2003). An extension of TAM, TAM 2 (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000) denotes the influence of subjective norm on behavioural intentions. In this model, technology adoption is regarded as a process of social influence. TAM has been extensively applied to explain consumer acceptance of e-commerce (Pavlou, 2003), mobile payment (Schierz et al., 2010), smart glasses (Raushnabel and Ro, 2016), mobile learning systems (Park et al., 2012) and standard smartwatches launched by IT brands (Kim and Shin, 2015; Choi an Kim, 2016). Yet, despite considerable research on the application of TAM, studies incorporating TAM 2 to explain consumers‟ perceptions, attitudes and intentions towards using luxury fashion wearables is still scarce. While Choi and Kim (2016) provide a first step towards understanding consumers‟ perceptions of smartwatches, the authors consider only the functional (perceived usefulness and ease of use) and personal (need for uniqueness and vanity) variables. The influences of other factors like emotional and social factors are neglected. Within the context of consumer behaviour, watches are consumed primarily for aesthetic appeal, as well as providing a means for constructing one‟s self-identity. Thus, psychological and social motivations may also be considered as antecedents to luxury fashion smartwatch adoption. In addition, luxury fashion wearable technology products embrace both high-tech functionality and fashionable design. These smartwatches are marketed as luxurious accessories, rather than solely functional digital devices, as self-expressive use of them has become more commonplace (Mintel, 2016). Furthermore, millennial consumers generally consume luxury for social-oriented purposes (Eastman & Liu, 2012). Hence, values that drive millennial consumers‟ luxury consumption, along with factors proposed in TAM 2, are perceived to play a critical role in affecting the adoption of these smart accessories. The premise of this paper is based on Wiedmann et al.‟s (2007) model of luxury values, employing individual values (self-identity and perceived hedonism), social value (perceived conspicuousness) and functional values (perceived usefulness and perceived quality) to investigate the key factors affecting luxury fashion smartwatch adoption. The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1975) provides a framework for understanding consciously intended consumer behaviour (Yousafzai et al., 2010). It posits that the impact of consumer attitudes and subjective norms on actual behaviour are mediated by behavioural intentions, which is considered the most powerful predictor of human behaviour (Ajzen and Fishbein, 2005). In TRA, the roles of personal and social factors in forming behavioural intentions are considered. This attitude-intention-behaviour association has been extensively validated in various contexts like ethical consumption (Paul et al., 2016), Green Information Technology (Mishra et al., 2014) and online banking (Yousafzai et al., 2010). Yet, nascent research exists on the attitude-intention link in luxury fashion smartwatch adoption. Purpose In order to address the research gaps elucidated, this study aims to examine the relationships between key value propositions of luxury fashion smartwatches, consumer attitudes and their purchase intentions, and to explore millennial consumers‟ overall perceptions of using these luxury wearable technologies. Specifically, this study critically reviews and links the theories of technology adoption and luxury consumer behaviour to investigate and explore consumer behaviour towards luxury fashion smartwatches in order to offer compelling academic and managerial implications. Design/Methodology/Approach A conceptual framework (see Figure 1) was developed grounded in luxury consumption, technology acceptance and consumer behaviour literature, from which 9 research hypotheses and 3 research questions ensued. The model posits that millennial consumers develop attitudes and purchase intentions towards luxury fashion smartwatches in 3 stages. In line with the tri-component attitude model (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975), consumers learn about luxury fashion smartwatches at the first phase (cognition). The second phase (affective) involves the formation of consumers‟ attitudes towards using luxury fashion smartwatches. At the final phase (conation), consumers develop intentions to buy consistent with their overall evaluations. Drawing on the TRA, relationship between consumer attitudes and purchase behaviour in terms of learning, feeling and doing (Solomon et al., 2010) is depicted. To offer a detailed understanding, mixed methods were employed (Creswell, 2014). An online self-administrated questionnaire was conducted and 230 valid samples were collected. The sample profile were millennial consumers, born between 1980 and 2000 (Young and Hinesly, 2012), who have seen or tried any luxury fashion smartwatch. This study recognizes millennial consumers as the research subject because this generation is described as the next prominent consumers of global luxury and are the largest user group of wearable devices (Higgins et al., 2016; Gartners, 2017). The proposed hypotheses were tested using SPSS 23.0 and subject to 5- statistical tests: reliability, descriptive statistics, factor analysis, correlation analysis and multiple linear regression. In addition, two face-to-face semi-structured focus-group discussions with 10 participants were conducted aiming to better understand the millennial consumer perceptions of using luxury fashion smartwatches. Quantitative content analysis and thematic analysis were employed to produce a more organized and comprehensive summary of the qualitative data. << Insert Figure 1 about here >> Findings The findings indicate that functional, individual and social factors influence millennial consumers‟ adoption intention of luxury fashion smartwatches. Empirical results reveal that perceived hedonism and usefulness are the most important factors that motivate adoption intentions, followed by subjective norm and perceived conspicuousness, indicating luxury fashion smartwatches are perceived as both an IT device and luxury fashion accessory. Other factors that might affect adoption are also discussed. A positive association between attitudes towards using luxury fashion smartwatches and purchase intentions is identified. Implications This study addresses a scholarly research gap by examining factors affecting attitudes and intentions towards using luxury fashion smartwatches, from millennial consumers‟ perspectives. It also offers strategic recommendations for luxury fashion brands in launching and growing luxury wearable opportunities specifically aimed at millennial consumers – a substantial and strategic segment for luxury brands. Research limitations and directions for future research are further elucidated. Originality and Value Given extant research on luxury fashion smartwatches is limited, this study contributes to this unique research stream by exploring millennial consumers‟ perceptions towards using these new generation smartwatches. To the authors‟ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the application of TAM 2 in examining luxury fashion smartwatch adoption, and subjective norms has been proven as one of the most important factors.

The Swiss watchmaker Vacheron Constantin, based in the watchmaking industry’s capital, Geneva, was founded in 1755 by Jean-Marc Vacheron and continued its development ever since. Vacheron Constantin produced and distributed high-end watches for luxury-attached customers. Their vocation was to offer unique, sentimental watches, designed by master-watchmakers and in the famous Swiss tradition of watchmaking. The firm attached the highest importance to the satisfaction of its customers on both aesthetics and precision, with a price-range which started in 2017 around fifteen thousand dollars and went up to several millions. Since its creation, the company was called a monument of the watchmaking industry and this led the Richemont Group to acquire the company, which was established in more than 400 points of sale scattered in 80 countries, in 1996. In 2017, Vacheron Constantin offered six different collections, after more than 250 years of activity. This research case discusses the implementation of Vacheron Constantin in the competitive watchmaking industry in Switzerland and in the world through (a) a large heritage of technical know-how, recognized worldwide for its extreme precision, (b) a 250-year old relationship with its customer-base and a loyalty developed through the particularities of the brand and (c) several innovations in sustainability for the firm that justified its reputation as one of the best watchmakers of history.

Virtual reality refers to an immersive computer-generated, interactive, 3D environment that offers media richness and interactivity. VR provides high media richness verified by the sensory depth and breadth of an interface. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships among mindsets, VR experience, perceived interactivity, attitude and purchase. This study clarifies the concept of VR experience and enlightened the relationship between VR experience, perceived interactivity, attitude and purchase intention. The study clarifies technology-driven experience, especially VR experience that can be differentiated from direct and indirect experience. The study can be a starting point to identifying how new technology boosts experiences by reflecting types of VR experience including spatial experience, presence experience, sensory experience and behavioral experience .

Virtual Reality (VR) is no longer only a buzzword, but pronounced to be the next revolutionary platform after PCs and smartphones (Bellini et al., 2016). Up to this point research on VR has been primarily focusing on virtual product experiences (e.g.Klein, 2003; Li, Daugherty, & Biocca, 2002) or brand experiences (e.g.Van Kerrebroeck, Brengman, & Willems, 2017), whereas no research using a VR in conjunction with service concepts or provider-consumer relationships could be found. However, with service characteristics such as intangibility and a high uncertainty in purchase decisions the new technology could prove very useful in supporting customers in their purchase decisions (Lovelock & Wirtz, 2011). VR is able to simulate the consumption more similar and closer to a direct experience than other media and is hence be able to support the customer in his decision decision. Furthermore, and induced by the feeling of telepresence or spatial presence customers are transported to the virtually created service environment and hence enabled to familiarize with the service and connect with the service provider prior to the actual consumption (Balasubramanian, Konana, & Menon, 2003). The theoretical foundation lies with the Construal Level Theory (CLT) and the concept of psychological distance. As Trope and Liberman (2010) induce, objects that are closer to one’s direct experience (low psychological distance) are mentally construed on a lower (more concrete) level and thus perceived with a lower psychological distance or in other words close from the self, here, and now (Liberman & Trope, 1998; Trope & Liberman, 2010). The study at hand shows a direct positive relationship between the level of telepresence and the participants’ construal level, enabling service providers to reduce the level of psychological distance to their consumers with the help of VR. Further, the positive relationship between construal level and participants’ level of trust, risk and perceived firm knowledge could be proven as significant with the data at hand. This is both supporting and extending the existing literature (Darke, Brady, Benedicktus, & Wilson, 2016; Edwards, Lee, & Ferle, 2009). The results contribute to an increasing interest of the potential of construal level theory application in a service environment and offer great potential for service practitioners to reduce psychological distance to their customers and in the following increase trust and reduce risk, both being very central challenges when it comes to the purchase decision for services.

With the development of technology, mobile fingerprint instruments are now actively introduced to consumers as a secure and convenient solution to problems related to identity control and authorization verification management in m-payment systems. This study aims to reveal whether consumers’ inference about a tradeoff between convenience and security still influences today’s m-payment environments. A presumed research model was proposed and tested using structural equation modeling to explore the effects of perceived security, privacy, and convenience of Touch ID in-app payments on attitude toward and usage intention of the technology, mediated by perceived risk and trust. The results (n = 406) revealed that perceived privacy, security, and convenience of Touch ID in-app payments directly or indirectly influenced consumer attitude toward the technology, also trust and perceived risk significantly mediated the effects of such factors on attitude, predicting usage intention. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications, particularly for the development and marketing of retailer’s in-app payments.

The number of individuals using peer-to-peer and access-based services through collaborative consumption platforms (CCP) has been grown dramatically for a few reasons. CCP makes consumers convenient because it enables individuals trade directly without contacting each other. Thus, CCP, a digital platform, encourages more consumers to use access-based. CCP is temporal access-based service to a good. A good is usually accessed and traded in the absence of a service provider representative through CCP, and thus, misbehavior can occur and then be diffused into other consumers. Most of CCPs are based on digital platform, which provides participants with space where they can trade. Because the interactions in CCP is usually non-face to face communication and the participants tend to have similar interests and chat with task-oriented and low socio-emotional content, they can feel submerged in a crowd and indistinguishable from others. That is, participants feel like the sense of deindividuation which means to lose all sense of individuality. When participants face misbehavior of multiple previous customers, such deindividuation makes them conform social norm that they think that others do misbehavior as well. Based on social identity theory and deindividuation, this research examines the mediating effect of deindividuation on the relationship between previous misbehavior and misbehavior and the moderating effect of the self-disclosure on the relationship between previous misbehavior and deindividuation.

Today, customers experience a multitude of online and offline touchpoints along their shopping journeys. A customer touchpoint is defined as a direct or indirect encounter with a firm along shopping process (Baxendale et al., 2015). Touchpoints can be oneway or two-way interactions between customers and firms (Verhoef, Kannan, & Inman, 2015). Instant experiences are initiated by firms, others or by customers themselves. These experiences influence customer’s overall experience with brands, and furthermore, have impact on customers' subsequent attitude and behaviour. Another important question for managers is to decide whether to aim for creating frequent encounters: focus on volume, or creating instant experiences with stronger positive-emotional response: focus on valence. Prior research investigated different touchpoints separately and mostly focused on the effect of the volume of touchpoint encounters on attitudes and behaviour. Taking a holistic perspective, we investigate the effects of volume and valence of customers’ previous experiences of firm, others and customer initiated touchpoints on satisfaction and current purchases. We employed a real-time tracking method where respondents reported their touchpoint experiences via a mobile phones, each time they encountered the focal brand in a 4- week period in supermarket, healthcare and banking categories. We employ a twostep dynamic Heckman Probit model to investigate the impact of volume and valence of touchpoints on customer behaviour, and a multivariate regression to investigate the touchpoint effects on brand satisfaction along customer journeys. Our results reveal that brand satisfaction is mostly explained by the effect of touchpoint valence and not touchpoint volume. Our behaviour model reveals that the volume, rather than valence, of previous customer initiated purchases and transactions impacts the frequency of current purchases.

Shopping cart abandonment of the online shopping process is a major challenge for firms. It describes the phenomenon that a potential customer starts a check out process for an online order but drops out of the process before completing the purchase. On average, 650 out of 1,000 customers do not convert (Baymard Institute 2017), which highlights the managerial relevance and impact of this phenomenon for online firms. Since shopping cart abandonment directly affects an online firm’s sales and revenue, researchers and practitioners likewise are interested in understanding why people leave a website without completing the shopping process and, more importantly, how to reduce online shopping cart abandonment. However, to date, research on these questions is scarce (e.g., Kukar-Kinney and Close 2010) and firms lack guidance how to deal with online shopping cart abandonment. The goal of this study is to investigate effective countermeasures that firms can use to reduce and prevent the likelihood of abandonment and thereby to increase the likelihood of a conversion. We conducted a field experiment in cooperation with a German accessories online retailer over three weeks (n = 8,467 shopping carts) and tested the effectiveness of a reminder pop-up window with a 10% discount vs. a reminder pop-up window without a discount vs. a control group. All online store visitors within the period were randomly assigned to one of three groups once they have put an item in the shopping cart. The pop-up windows appeared once they were about to click on the exit button. Our results indicate that a reminder pop-up window with a 10% discount significantly increases the conversion rate on the website compared to the control group, leading to an increase in revenue of approximately € 5,000. In contrast, a reminder pop up window a discount does not seem to reduce shopping cart abandonment. Further, we will investigate how this campaign affects the retailer’s overall profitability. In addition, using a laboratory experiment (n = 1,041) we replicated and extended our insights on effective countermeasures for shopping cart abandonment. People seem to be more likely to convert when there is a guest checkout option available. In sum, our research has important implications for researchers and online firms how to deal with online shopping cart abandonment.