To be successful in today’s globalized, increasingly digitalized and homogenized luxury business, small independent niche players need to show a great deal of creativity, flexibility and a good sense for the actual tastes and preferences of their globally dispersed clientele. By looking at innovative entrepreneurs and beyond the famous players in the global luxury market, this study – building upon and expanding earlier research of the authors – explores the main strategies enabling independent luxury niche companies to successfully position and effectively differentiate themselves from their larger and financially more powerful competitors. The study examines and further refines the strategy types identified in earlier research and further explores the business model configurations and the specific success factors of independent niche luxury players in a global market dominated by the ever-growing “luxury goliaths”.

While researchers have demonstrated the benefits of customer reviews on company sales, a largely uninvestigated issue is the interplay between emotions and cognitive cues of information in the processing of online reviews. Drawing on Stimulus-Organism-Response framework, this paper analyzes: (i) the independent effect of each dimension of emotions (arousal and pleasure), empathy with the reviewer and persuasiveness on perceived helpfulness of online reviews; (ii) the impact of perceived helpfulness on eWOM adoption; (iii) the moderating effect of sequence of reviews on the impact of emotions on perceived helpfulness of online reviews. In order to test the hypotheses of the model an experimental subjects-design was carried out using valence order: positive-negative vs. negative-positive as a condition. Data was collected in January 2016 using a sample of 830 Spanish TripAdvisor users. Participants were instructed to imagine a situation where they were going out for dinner to an Italian restaurant with friends and they were told to read a total of 10 reviews about the restaurant in the same order they were displayed and answer the questions that followed. Data analysis shows a bias effect of sequence of reviews on the impact of emotions and empathy with the reviewer on review helpfulness, which, in turn, influences eWOM adoption. When the sequence of TripAdvisor reviews begins with positive commentaries (POS-NEG), pleasure elicited by eWOM is a stronger driver of perceived helpfulness and empathy with the reviewer than if the sequence is the opposite (NEG-POS). On the contrary, arousal only triggers eWOM helpfulness when the user reads negative commentaries followed by positive ones. This study is novel because it explains how emotions and perceived usefulness of online reviews play a central role in eWOM adoption in tourism services to make consumption decisions.

Corporate reputation – the central antecedent of trust – bears the potential to create sustainable competitive advantage. However, far too many examples of companies’ socially irresponsible behavior over the past years led to a severe crisis of confidence. Disgraced companies suffer from the adverse effects of their misbehaviors at all levels. As a consequence, one of the top priorities for both practitioners and business scholars is the identification of opportunities to (re)build corporate reputation. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), a key driver of reputation perceptions, is a very promising one. However, as CSR is a multidimensional construct that comprises a wide range of activities, the selection of the “right” ones deems a major challenge. Based on a literature review, we advocate that news media data should be utilized to analyze which CSR dimensions are particularly likely to affect reputation perceptions. As journalists rely on companies’ press releases as a starting point for their business articles, companies need to carefully evaluate which CSR dimensions they emphasize in their communication strategy. Based on superior measures of reputation and CSR, this study utilizes reputation and news media coverage data on companies listed in the German DAX30 between 2005 and 2011. The panel data regression encompasses the multidimensional concept of CSR, presenting a six-dimensional CSR construct including environment, employee relations, community, product issues, corporate culture and corporate governance. Relevant moderating variables, namely firm and stakeholder characteristics, are investigated. In this context, the results show that the relevance of each of those six distinct dimensions differs for the formation of reputation judgements and varies across investigated stakeholder and company types: across all model specifications, negative media coverage addressing employee relations and community affects reputation perceptions. The general public primarily perceives negative news coverage as relevant for their reputation judgements. Opinion leaders seem to be less dependent on the media to learn about CSR dimensions, as only four out of twelve independent variables exert a significant impact on their reputation judgments. News coverage about product issues only constitutes a key role in the formation of reputation judgements of firms that are predominantly known from direct experiences. A particularly large amount of variation can be explained for reputation ratings of these companies as well as for reputation perceptions of opinion leaders.

Many commercial vendors provide brand valuation measures, which have important practical implications for many stakeholders on how brands are bought and sold and how they are managed. These commercial measures, however, differ to a great extent from one another, which raises serious concerns about their accuracy. In this study, we assess the measurement properties of brand valuation measures provided by the four dominant commercial vendors: Interbrand, Brand Finance, Millward Brown, and Corebrand. We find that the brand valuation measures from the four commercial vendors measure the same underlying construct in a reliable and valid way according to established psychometric test methodology. However, it appears that they measure a construct that does not predict actual brand transaction prices well. In most cases, they significantly overestimate the transaction price. The magnitude of systematic bias varies by method and industry. Our results suggest that an upward bias is more likely to occur in situations when the relevance of tangible assets and non-brand intangible assets is high. These empirical findings challenge current practical and academic thinking on brand valuation. A main conclusion is that brand valuation for transaction purposes needs to first value all assets of the company in their totality and then allocate a fair share to the brand.

In recent years brands have come under the spotlight for delivering unique and authentic brand experiences. Consumers find themselves looking for brands that add experiential value to their daily life, from a sensory, behavioral, intellectual and relational perspective (Brakus et al., 2009). Moreover, there is a growing demand for brands that are able to deliver their brand promise authentically (Morhart et al., 2015; Schallehn et al., 2014). On this background, our research was conducted in order to examine the role of brand experience and brand authenticity in generating brand love. In addressing this issue, the present study attempts to perform a test on research hypotheses by empirically validating the proposed conceptual model in a cross-country context (Japan and Portugal) for the brands Apple and Samsung. Additionally, it analyses the moderating effect of self-authenticity in relation to brand experience and brand authenticity. Data collection was done using a structured questionnaire to final consumers, who are owners of Apple and Samsung devices. A total of 574 valid questionnaires were collected regarding Apple brand (Japan = 300; Portugal = 274). Following the testing of the structural equation model, results demonstrate the correlation between brand authenticity and brand experience and show that the greater the self-authenticity, the higher is the effect of brand authenticity on brand love. It is worth noting however that the direct and moderating effects are different for Apple and Samsung in Japan and Portugal. This accounts for the cultural differences in how consumers perceive the experiential and authentic brand value propositions and how they relate emotionally to brands. Our study also provides important managerial implications by helping brand managers to understand how to drive passionate and intense feelings towards brands and to target consumers who are looking for compelling, meaningful and authentic brand experiences.

Over the last several years, the growing accessibility of VR has shifted its application from military and aviation to education as it provides the capability to create immersive learning experiences (Buń et al., 2017). However, VR simulations have mostly been used in the educational curriculum of “hard sciences” or the STEM disciplines (for a review, see Merchant et al., 2014). Most notable educational applications of VR have been used in medicine and science (e.g., Arora et al., 2014; Lindgren et al., 2016). This study develops and tests a VR marketing simulation designed for a second-year marketing unit at an Australian university. Within their respective tutorials, 150 students will experience the simulations and tutorial presentation on a pre-assigned topic in their marketing curriculum. A within-subject experimental design will be adopted to examine the feasibility of the simulation, which is measured by : (1) immersion; (2) e-learning enjoyment; (3) learning self-efficacy; (4) learning attitude; (5) intention to use; (6) student engagement; and (7) knowledge-based learning performance.

Recently, brand managers have widely adopted brand anthropomorphism as positioning strategies to differentiate from other competitors. Aggarwal and McGill (2012) anthropomorphized brand as two specific roles. Brand-as-partner refers its role as “the co-producer of benefits”, a relationship in which the brand and consumers work together to co-create the benefits as equals. However, brand-as-servant represents its role as “the outsourced provider of benefits”, a hierarchical relationship in which the brand works for consumers to create benefits. Our research extends prior literature by investigating how a brand can improve consumers’ responses with the anthropomorphization of being either a collaborative partner or a supportive servant, depending on consumer’s mind-set  aptly termed implicit theories. Implicit theories are the beliefs that people have about the nature of human characteristics. In specific, entity theorists believe human traits are relatively fixed and stable; and incremental theorists believe human traits are substantially changeable (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). These two implicit theories trigger many distinctive cognitive and behavioral patterns. For example, entity theorists prefer effortless success and receiving assurances to signal their abilities. In contrast, incremental theories emphasize on self-improvement through high effort to realize their self-enhancement and intentions (Park & John, 2014). We generalize this theory to anthropomorphic brand positioning and adopt consumer’s efficacy (confidence) to explain the underlying mechanism. We hypothesize a servant brand is more appealing to entity theorists, because they prefer situations in which they are guaranteed of being satisfied effortlessly (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Therefore, they are more confident about their abilities when a servant brand acts as an assurance for providing benefits. In contrast, a partner brand may be more attractive to incremental theorists, because they believe their abilities can be improved through working with the partner brand. Thus, they should be more self-assured about their abilities, and increase their perceived efficacy to realize their intentions. Three studies were conducted to test the hypotheses by both manipulating and measuring implicit theories. The consistent results revealed the significant interactions between brand roles and implicit theories on brand evaluation as well as the mediation effect of consumer efficacy. In sum, this research contributes to brand managers by advising them to cultivate appropriate brand role position in accordance with the target and potential consumer’s distinct mind-set.

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between perceived value, ethnic identity and purchase intention of ethnic apparel. This study examines how Hanfu (traditional costume of the Han Ethnic Group of China) customers perceive certain types of values (emotional value, social value, uniqueness value, conditional value and perceived value). Then this study determined how customers’ perceptions of these values and ethnic identity were correlated with perceived value, and intention to buy Hanfu. Findings from this study indicated that perceived value and ethnic identity were generally associated with purchase intention of ethnic apparel. Hence, ethnic identity moderated the relationship between perceived value and purchase intention. Finally, compared to emotional value, social value, and uniqueness value, conditional value showed the most influential impact on the perceived value. The findings provide an insight in recognizing factors which play an important role in wearing ethnic apparel. More specifically this research provides insight for traditional apparel marketers to design apparel products and reposition the existing products.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, globalized markets in North America and Europe experience a shift in public opinion toward a renunciation of globalization and a reorientation toward traditional (domestic) values. Responding to this paradigm change, multi-national corporations (MNCs) face the decision of whether (a) to continue to pursue global branding strategies or (b) to align their global brands with local consumer cultures. This decision requires an understanding of how the degree of market globalization relates to consumer preferences. The present study draws on signaling theory to empirically investigate (a) the relative impact of a brand’s globalness (i.e., perceived brand globalness) and its cultural market alignment (i.e., perceived cultural symbolism) in eliciting perceptions of brand credibility and brand quality (b) across two countries that differ regarding their degree of market globalization (Germany and South Korea). Findings indicate that the signaling value of global brands, as a function of their market reach, is greater in globalizing markets than in globalized markets, whereas the signaling value associated with cultural market alignment is greater in globalized markets than in globalizing markets. Implications of the findings for theory and practice are considered.

Introduction In an age of rapid development at the information technology front, the viability of ‘smart travel destinations’ is increasingly becoming a reality (Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2014, 2015). Advances in mobile technology have allowed travel destinations to leverage the location-based wireless tracking capabilities afforded by 3/4G telecommunication networks, Bluetooth connectivity, GPS and Wi-Fi networks (Choe & Fesenmaier 2017; Eriksson, 2002). The benefits of these wireless tracking technologies include precise information on spatial behaviour (Edwards, Dickson, Griffin, & Hayllar, 2010), relevant location-based services (LBS)(Pedrana, 2014), navigational services (Eriksson, 2002), as well as recommender services (Tussyadiah & Wang, 2016). With this kind of data available to them, destination management organisations (DMOs) are able to develop more customise tourist engagement strategies which will help them communicate specifically tailored results to tourists (Edwards & Griffin, 2013). While the focus of current tourism research has been the benefits of these wireless tracking technologies (WTTs) to the destination, little research has been done to examine tourists’ perceptions of these technologies. The current exploratory study will investigate tourist perceptions of three prominent kinds of WTTs with differing levels of control at a travel destination: (1) wireless tracking only (WT only; low control); (2) Wi-Fi wireless tracking (Wi-Fi WT; moderate control); and (3) application-based tracking (App; high control). Theoretical development The current study applies the Expectancy-Value Theory in examining tourist perceptions of WTTs at a travel destination. The Expectancy-Value Theory suggests that motivation for a behaviour is determined by the desirability of the outcome i.e. benefits to the tourist (Sparks, 2007). In the context of this study, perceived personalisation and perceived innovativeness serve as benefits to tourists. Perceived personalisation is defined as the ability of a DMO to recognize and treat its tourists as individuals through personal messaging, targeted banner ads, special offers on bills, or other personal transactions” (Imhoff, Loftis, & Geiger, 2001). Perceived innovativeness reflects the degree to which a new product is seen to possess new and unique attributes and features (Fu, Jones, & Bolander, 2008). Studies have shown that perceived personalisation and perceived innovativeness positively impact on attitudes toward the product (Baek & Morimoto, 2012; Fu & Eliott, 2013), which in the context of this study relates to both the WTT itself as well as the destination. However, mere presence of WTTs can often provoke concerns about manipulative intent (Lee-Wingate & Xie, 2010) and privacy (Shilton, 2009). Inferences of manipulative intent is defined as tourist perceptions that a company is attempting to persuade via inappropriate, unfair or manipulative means (Campbell, 1995). Privacy concerns refer to the degree to which a tourist is worried about the potential invasion of the right to prevent the disclosure of personal information to others (Baek & Morimoto, 2012, p. 63). Inferences of manipulative intent and privacy concerns have been found to negatively impact on attitudes toward the product (Lee-Wingate & Xie, 2010; Shilton, 2009). Thus, the ability of a travel destination to emphasise the pros and minimise concerns for the cons of WTTs will result in more positive attitudes towards the WTT as well as the destination, which in turn, will positively impact on intention to visit the destination (based on arguments in tourism research suggesting that both attitudes toward products and the destination itself may have an impact on intention to visit e.g. Elliot, Papadopoulos & Kim 2011; Lee & Lockshin 2012). The hypothesised model for this study can be seen in Figure 1. Methodology The conceptual model was tested using data from the United States via the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform. A total of 750 responses were acquired but only 615 were included for analysis (responses were excluded due to incomplete data or straight-lining). A between-subjects experimental design was implemented respondents viewing a stimulus for either (1) wireless tracking only (WT only; low control); (2) Wi-Fi wireless tracking (Wi-Fi WT; moderate control); or (3) application-based tracking (App; high control). A pretest of the stimulus confirmed the levels of control proposed by the researchers. Respondents were first told to imagine their next travel destination and were then shown a stimulus. In the WT only condition, respondents were told that the destination was tracking the movement of tourists when their smartphones wireless, Bluetooth or mobile reception was turned on. In the Wi-Fi WT condition, respondents were informed that the destination would track tourists logged on to the destination’s Wi-Fi network. In the App condition, respondents were notified that the destination has an app system which allows the destination to track tourists and send them personalised push notifications. The difference between these three conditions was the level of perceived control that tourists had over the tracking of their location within the destination. Respondents then rated the WTT and destination with regards to inferences to manipulative intent, privacy concerns, perceived personalisation, perceived innovativeness, attitude toward the WTT, attitude toward the destination, and intention to visit the destination. The measures for each of these scales were chosen for their reliability and relevance to the current study. Structural equation modelling then examined the hypothesised relationships for significance. Results and discussion Exploratory and factor analysis was conducted to ensure the unidimensional of the scales. Composite reliabilities ranged from 0.70 to 0.95 and the average variance extracted scores ranged from 0.70 to 0.87, suggesting strong internal validity for all scales. All measures were also tested for convergent and discriminant validity which were both supported. Then, the hypotheses were examined using a multigroup analysis with structural equation modelling in AMOS 22. The goodness-of-fit indices for the structural model was deemed acceptable (χ²/df=1.67; RMSEA=0.03; CFI=0.97; NFI=0.94; IFI=0.90) (model comparisons revealed no significant differences at a model level suggesting that the model applied across the different groups). The results of the path analysis revealed five hypotheses which were fully supported (H1a, H2a, H3a, H3b and H6b). The remaining six hypotheses (H1b, H2b, H4a, H4b, H5 and H6a) were only partially supported with significant parameter estimates noted for either one or two of the conditions. The full result of the path analysis can be seen in Table 1. The results suggest that inferences of manipulative intent significantly decreased attitude toward the WTT, highlighting the need for destinations to be transparent about the reasons for tracking tourists. Specifically, the concealed tracking of tourists’ movements was particularly damaging to attitude toward the destination. Privacy concerns also negatively impacted on attitude toward the WTT for all conditions, but surprisingly privacy concerns appeared to significantly increase attitude toward the destination under the App condition. A potential explanation for this is the fact that despite potential for privacy infringements, tourists possess control over usage of the application, thereby moderating the ability of the destination to track them. However, this result warrants greater investigation in future studies. Perceived personalisation was noted to positively impact on attitudes toward the WTT and destination suggesting that tourists positively regarded the benefits of personalisation that the WTT afforded them. Further, perceived innovativeness appeared to positively impact on attitude towards the WTT for the App condition, but more interestingly, positively impacted on attitude toward the destination for the WT only condition. This may potentially suggest that while tourists did perceive manipulative intent in the wireless tracking of their whereabouts they also perceived this to be an innovation. Theoretically, this study extends the tourism literature with regards to the installation or application of wireless tracking technologies. It highlights the aspects that appeal to tourists as well as the concerns that they may have. From a managerial perspective, the results suggest a need for transparency as well as the empowerment of tourists to choose the degree to which their whereabouts are tracked within the destination. It offers further insights into which technologies are best suited to be leveraged in order to develop stronger tourist engagement at the destination. The implications of these results apply to destination managers, marketers as well as policy makers. A successful balance between obtaining valuable information about tourists and providing them with a choice whether or not to be tracked is crucial in ensuring favourable perception of the travel destination.

Over the past decade, the advances in the Internet of Things has allowed WiFi infrastructure to track the movement and location of smart devices. This innovative technology is sometimes referred to as wireless analytics or offline / in-store visitor analytics. Similar to an offline or instore version of website analytics, wireless analytics can infer instore shopping behavior from analyzing the dwell time, movement, and behavior of a smart device within a designated vicinity. The study was carried out at an activation area of food trucks at an Australian metropolitan university. Visitor analytics were gathered by using a wireless analytic modem that was configured to ping and pick up wireless signal emitted by smart devices within the radius of the food truck area. Challenging past research on pop-stores, our findings show that novelty of pop-up food trucks may not necessarily predict their success and consumers tend to prefer familiar food trucks at the Australian metropolitan university. In fact, the presence of novel food trucks may encourage consumers to walk-by without any interaction with the food trucks.

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.

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.

Digital advertising is one of the most crucial medium of communication and marketing (Berner and Kiley, 2005). Digital advertising brings with itself several benefits such as increase in reach, low advertising cost, and high degree of customer engagement. However, along with benefits it also brings several challenges for the marketers such as comprehending consumer attitude, consumption and behaviour towards digital advertisements. According to prior literature attitude towards internet consists of factors such as information, entertainment, irritation, and trustworthiness (Aaker & Bruzzone, 1985). Ad blocking has become one of the most important concerns for advertising industry globally. This paper has attempted to understand the series of actions that leads to ad blocking. This series consists of consumer response and consumer attitude towards digital advertising where the constant ad delivery creates ad intrusiveness which leads to ad irritation which in turn leads to ad avoidance and ultimately results in ad blocking. Ad blocking further has serious consequences in brand image and brand valuation, because as more number of users opt to download and use ad blockers, advertisement instead of increasing brand valuation results in brand devaluation, not to mention wastage of ad spend. Through literature review it was found that reports discuss ad blockers and its operations but there is little understanding on the process that leads a consumer to install ad blocking software on his digital device. The research objective of the study is therefore, to understand cognitive process of consumers that leads them to take a decision of installing an ad blocking software on their digital device. The study therefore proposes four research questions, 1. What aspects of online advertising irritate users? 2. How do consumers avoid advertisements? 3. What causes a consumer to use ad blocker? 4. What cognitive process lead a consumer to install ad blocking software? A mixed method research is adopted for the purpose of this paper. In the first stage a qualitative research was conducted through semi-structured interviews in order to understand consumer opinion on what leads them to install an ad blocking (Jagani and Panda 2016). Thematic analysis of transcripts was conducted from which 81 items on ad irritation, ad avoidance and ad blocking were identified for second stage of the study which consists of online survey using quantitative research methods. The items for the quantitative survey are \categorised in three main categories viz. Irritation, Avoidance and Action. The sample consists of 18 to 35 year olds who are active users of internet and have been exposed to digital advertisement, spends more than two hours per day on internet through various digital device and are aware of ad blockers or have used them in the past. Non-probabilistic sampling method was selected for the study and quota sampling was implemented. The study aims to comprehend the process that leads a consumer to install an ad blocking software on his or her digital device.

The evolution of the internet led to a shift in the business operations environment, giving rise to a plethora of challenges and opportunities for companies. Social networks have become attractive to companies due to their interactive nature, not only facilitating conversations with consumers, but also increasing the possibility of enhancing the online consumer brand engagement. Additionally, social networks and online brand communities increased consumers’ possibility of developing an active role in companies’ decision-making process, through the creation of user generated content, together with the opinion sharing and directly information exchange with brands and other internet users. The main objective of this research is to ascertain whether the active listening practice can contribute, in some way, to the improvement of the relationship maintained between consumers and brands. The current study suggests the adaptation of the active listening practice on the online field, as an attempt to enhance the communication strategies held by brands. Hence, this research seeks to demonstrate that this practice can improve the consumer-brand relationship through the development of two qualitative studies, as main approach, where the findings extracted in the first study will be used as inputs to the second one.

The concept of performance-based contracting (PBC) has received an increasing attention in both academic research and business practice over the last decade. Typically, in a PBC an industrial supplier is paid based on the outcome created with an investment good. This payment covers the actual usage as well as all related maintenance and repair efforts for the resource (Böhm, Backhaus, Eggert, & Cummins, 2016). Although the concept of PBC is not new, research on this topic is still on a preliminary level (Essig, Glas, Selviaridis & Roehrich 2016). As the customer orientation in service-oriented sales processes is crucial (Haas, Snehota, & Corsaro 2012; Terho, Haas, Eggert, & Ulaga 2012), our study explores customers’ requirements and motivational patterns within a PBC sales process. We report on data obtained in laddering interviews with 31 PBC-experienced customers in Europe from three industries (industrial air supply industry, gas supply industry, filling and packaging industry). Results from a means-end-chain analysis indicate that PBC customers have a higher sense of duty (e.g., by analyzing suppliers’ competence for operating a PBC), a distinct need for security (e.g., by requiring positive emotions for purchase decision), a comprehensive sense of responsibility (e.g., in terms of the long-term contractual obligation) and perfectionist values for purchase decisions (e.g., by striving for an optimal technical and contractual PBC design). Since these aspects address the PBC sales process, our study contributes by generating empirical evidences for value-based selling techniques and by generating management implications for a customer-oriented selling of PBC.

With the booming popularity of social media such as facebook and Wechat, more and more people and firms commence to utilize it to promote products and services. The convenience of sharing personal experience online, however, also leads to increasing number of consumer to complain through online reiews. For example, negative online review has increased 800% over the years between 2014 and 2015 (Causon 2015) and has negative impact on many viewers’ buying decisions (Chevalier, & Mayzlin, 2006). Therefore, it is important to investigate what factors would reduce the negative impact of other customers’ online complaints on consumer purchase intention. Developing friendships with customers through social media is a common strategy for service provider to retain customers. Prior literature suggests that consumers in general are more tolerant of a service failure when the service provider is having a friendship with the customer than when the provider is having a business relationship (Wan, Hui, and Wyer 2011). Therefore, we suggest that friendship could also attenuate the negative impact of an online complaint from other customer on consumer purchase intention. Furthermore, we predict that this could happen only in the self-consumption situation. In the consumption situation of buying gifts for others, friendship would no longer attenuate the impact of a negative online review on consumer purchase intention. It is because gift giving involves sybolic value of face enhancement in developing social relationships with the gift giving target. Consumers would be less likely to take risks of buying substandard products as gifts. Implications and future research directions will be discussed.

In recent times of global turbulence, democracies in many countries have been tested for their resilience and there is a need to focus on determinants of political brand preference. For political parties, from political marketing strategy point of view, analyzing factors impacting voters’ party preference is becoming important for better understanding of voters to influence and predict voting behavior. Research studies propagate that consumers can experience a feeling of love for their brand (Albert et al., 2008; Batra et al., 2012). Carroll and Ahuvia, (2006) view that consumer feels love for the brand when a brand reaches both high real and desired level of integration with the consumer’s sense of self. Brand love is the degree of strong emotional attachment a satisfied consumer has for a particular brand. Brand love includes passion and declarations of love for the brand. Though brand love has been studied in the context of consumer market, we still know little about whether voters feeling of brand love for the political party they prefer. In this backdrop, in this study, we have examined impact of political brand love on voters’ preference of the political party. As brand love is a relational construct, objective is to investigate the type of causal relationship exists among brand love and the related constructs. In this study, we have taken India, largest democracy of the world, as our focal point of study. In this paper we propose to study the mediation effects of inner self (IS) and social self (SS) while estimating the relationship between brand love (BL) and brand preference (BP) and brand trust (BT) and BP. Additionally we also look at the relationship between BL and BT. The results as a whole shows that both brand trust and brand love have significant positive impact on brand preference. Higher brand trust leads to higher brand preference both directly and when both direct and indirect effects are considered as a whole. On the other hand there is no statistically significant indirect effect of brand trust on brand preference through inner self or social self. In case of brand love on the other hand all the effects are statistically significant. Higher brand love increases brand preference directly and also indirectly through inner self and social self. This implies that higher brand inner self and social self enhances the impact of brand love on brand preference.

Specifics of emerging markets raise some questions on the applicability of wellestablished marketing concepts and scales, widely used in the developed markets, in the context of emerging markets. Over the past twenty years emerging markets have remained one of the main focus of marketing research. The interest of the researchers to the emerging markets is not accidental, it is caused by the peculiarities of the developing markets. Specific features of the emerging markets challenge the use of approaches designed for developed markets in emerging markets. Existing research describes peculiarities of emerging markets and shows the evidence of inability to use the theories designed in the developed markets in emerging markets (Burgess, Steenkamp, 2006; Sheth, 2011). The external environment and the increasing competition force companies to rethink their marketing activities and seek new sources of competitive advantages, and one of the primary tasks for the company is the development of customer orientation (Jacob, 2006; Ellis, 2006; Frambach, Fiss, Ingenbleek, 2016). Customer orientation (CO), as one of the key concepts of contemporary marketing, requires rethinking in the context of emerging markets (Sheth, 2011; Roersen, Kraaijenbrink, Groen, 2013; Smirnova, Rebiazina, Frosen, 2018). The purpose of this paper is to develop a tool for a complex evaluation of the company’s CO adapted to the specifics of the Russian emerging market. The empirical study includes mixed qualitative-quantitative design: at the first stage a quantitative survey with representatives of 239 companies operating in the Russian market, and at the second - 62 in-depth interviews were conducted to test the CO scale’s applicability to the Russian market.

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between perceived value, ethnic identity and purchase intention of ethnic apparel. This study examines how Hanfu (traditional costume of the Han Ethnic Group of China) customers perceive certain types of values (emotional value, social value, uniqueness value, conditional value and perceived value). Then this study determined how customers’ perceptions of these values and ethnic identity were correlated with perceived value, and intention to buy Hanfu. Findings from this study indicated that perceived value and ethnic identity were generally associated with purchase intention of ethnic apparel. Hence, ethnic identity moderated the relationship between perceived value and purchase intention. Finally, compared to emotional value, social value, and uniqueness value, conditional value showed the most influential impact on the perceived value. The findings provide an insight in recognizing factors which play an important role in wearing ethnic apparel. More specifically this research provides insight for traditional apparel marketers to design apparel products and reposition the existing products.