Sports Sponsorship is considered to be one of the most effective tools in marketing. However, in order to assess the effectiveness of sponsoring activities in customer’s mind, science and business practice often refer to explicit measures such as self-reports or focus interviews. Such aligned conventional measurement approach is missing mental processes which run without awareness, so-called implicit processes, taking place and activity hidden in the unconscious mind. Against that background, the goal of the current work is to shed further light on the impact of athlete sponsorship on dual processes underlying customer’s associations toward a brand.
There is a general consensus in the literature that impulse buying is normatively wrong, but accounts for a substantial volume of the goods sold every year across the broad range of product categories, including fashion products. Research revealed that young consumers particularly contributed greatly to the increase of impulse buying. While lack of self-control has been found strongly associated with the unplanned nature of impulse buying, with an environment of abundance and consumerism, self-indulgence, rather than lack of self-control, may become a more important driver for impulse buying for modern consumers (Sharma, Sivakumaran, & Marshall, 2011). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how self-indulgence influences young consumers’ impulse buying and the post purchase consumer regret. This study also aims to test the role of fashion consciousness in the relationship between young consumers’ self-indulgence and impulse buying for fashion products.
Self-indulgence is considered a hedonistic tendency, which includes enjoying spending money on oneself, buying things for one’s own pleasure, and trying to enjoy life (Sharma, Sivakumaran, & Marshall, 2011). It was recognized as one of the two opposing cognitive forces leading to impulse behavior (Miao, 2011). While the impulse to purchase is comprised of anticipated pleasures and immediate gratification (Rook, 1987), ironically, consumer regret is one of the major emotional consequences associated with impulse buying. There are two types of consumer regret: cognitive dissonance, resulted from an immediate post-purchase comparison of what was purchased versus the other available alternatives, and consumer guilt, related specifically to the consumption decision situations. Literature suggested that individuals show interest in fashion products with the belief that fashion products will contribute to their appearance, image, and/or bring enjoyment to their life (Workman & Kidd, 2000). In that same token, an individual with high self-indulgence tendency is more likely to show interest in fashion in hopes of identifying fashion items for indulgence purpose. Moreover, this indulgence motivated fashion consciousness will more likely lead to high impulse buying for fashion products. Based on the literature, hypotheses were developed for this study as represented in the following figure.
Data was collected using a survey of college students majored in textile/fashion management at a large southeast university in the USA. A total of 190 surveys were distributed and returned. The majority of the subjects were females (73.7%), white (74.7%), and held part-time work (56.7%). Existing scales were adopted to measure self-indulgence (Sharma, Sivakumaran, & Marshall, 2011) and fashion consciousness (Bruner & Hensel, 1998). Impulse buying behavior and post-purchase regret were measured by asking subjects to retroactively recall their shopping trips for fashion products during the past three months. A group of items developed by the researchers were used to measure both the impulse buying behavior and consumer regret.
A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was first employed to assess the psychometric properties of the constructs. Overall, the fit indices of the measurement model were acceptable (NFI=0.86, IFI=0.935, RMSEA=0.066, CMIN/DF=1.7). A Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was conducted to test the relationship proposed in the hypotheses. To test the mediating effect of fashion consciousness on the relationship between self-indulgence and impulse buying behaviors, a bootstrapping bias-corrected confidence interval procedure was conducted. Overall, the fit indices of the SEM model were acceptable (CMN/df=1.338, NFI=0.90, IFI=0.97, RMSEA=0.044). The SEM results suggested that self-indulgence had a significant influence on impulse buying for fashion products directly and indirectly via fashion consciousness. The impulse purchase behavior had a positive influence on the consumers’ feeling of guilt for the impulse purchase behavior, while no significant influence was found on cognitive dissonance.
This research makes several contributions to the literature of impulse buying. First, the study suggests that consumers’ self-indulgence exerts significant direct and indirect influences on consumers’ impulse buying for fashion products. This result may provide an explanation to the phenomenon of increasing impulse buying behavior in the marketplace, even though it is widely considered as a “misbehavior”. Secondly, this study suggests a significant mediating role of fashion consciousness in the relationship between self-indulgence on consumers’ impulse buying for fashion products. The abundance of fashion products in the market and the appreciation of the social and affective function of fashion products contribute to the chain effect from self-indulgence to fashion consciousness and finally to impulse purchase for fashion products. Third, this study confirms the negative guilt feeling resulted from the impulse buying behavior.
Over the past two decades, consumer moralism, or moralism about consumption in a broad sense, has received much academic attention in answer to the growing concern for fair-trade, corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and other anti-consumption initiatives and movements (McGregor, 2006; Newholm and Shaw, 2007). This theoretical trajectory not only pay attention to how everyday consumption practice is shaped by and help shape certain sorts of ethical dispositions (Clive et al., 2005), but it also extends to the understanding of the intertwined relationship between morality, consumption, and consumers’ identity narratives (Thompson, 2011). While previous research has focused on understanding moral consumption as a politically and morally motivated collective practice (Luedicke et al., 2010; Thompson, 2007), limited research has been done on revealing how personal moral identity project institutionalize and contest the socio-cultural power structure through ascribing social meanings in consumption practice to legitimatize seemingly unethical behavior in the marketplace (Brace-Govan and Binary, 2010). This research concerned the creation and negotiation of moralistic identities among a group of young consumers in Hong Kong who engaged in counterfeit consumption. We focused on how consumers strategically appropriate moralistic meanings in their everyday counterfeit consumption, in which their identity work utilized these ‘alternative’ market resources to echoed with, or even reproduce, the entrenched Chinses social relationships and marketplace ideological conditions (Giesler and Veresiu, 2014; Luedicke et al., 2010).
This paper aims to narrow the gap in research on the impact of universities’ digitalization on reputational assessments by students. A measurement for perception of universities digital advancement (PDA) is developed and integrated in a model to explain university reputation and students’ WoM behavior. Results highlight the importance of the PDA.
Well-developed listening skills are crucial to success in the marketing profession. Poor listening skills have been rated as the most important contributing factor to salesperson failure (Ingram et al., 1992). Listening errors can result in conflicts, missed business opportunities, alienated relationships, and a waste of time and money (Bergeron & Laroche, 2009). Recognizing the importance of effective listening, organizations such as Pfizer, Ford, IBM have introduced listening training programs for all their personnel (Shepherd et al., 1997).
A number of definitions exist for “listening” (e.g., Bergeron & Laroche, 2009). From the marketing perspective, this paper adopts a well-accepted listening definition as “the cognitive process of actively sensing, interpreting, evaluating and responding to the verbal and nonverbal messages of present or potential customers” (Castleberry & Shepherd, 1993, p.36).
Prior research has underscored the importance of “active listening” strategies such as active empathetic listening (Drollinger et al., 2006; Bodie, 2011); adaptive selling (Spiro & Weitz, 1990); and listening across cultures (Imhof & Janusik, 2006). However, despite its importance, neither marketing students nor professionals receive coaching or instruction for situations when listening is particularly difficult – i.e., when we are required to listen carefully to another person in the presence of hindrances to communication (distractions, inattention, poor delivery). Salespeople, students, journalists, counselors … are often faced with the task of “tough listening” - when they must listen carefully to a person that is not communicating in an interesting or engaging manner, when the environment is full of distractions, or when they as listeners are fatigued. The major hindrances to effective listening have been well documented, but extant research that addresses how people might overcome those hindrances is scant. The purpose of this paper is to explore the range of strategies that people use to improve their comprehension and empathy of others when they wish to listen carefully but find it difficult to do so.
The practice of effective listening is perhaps one of the most human and fundamental components of community, commerce, and culture. Several academic disciplines such as marketing, education, communication, and psychology have closely examined the listening process in an effort to understand and improve it.
This paper aims to contribute to the developing literature of brand attachment and detachment theory, in the context of harsh economic conditions. The Cognitive Appraisal Theory and the Attachment Theory are brought to bear in order to describe and explain consumer shifting patronage decisions.
Drawing on psychological reactance theory, this study examines consumers’ reactions to grocery categories’ variety reductions. Results show negative main effects on post-reduction satisfaction with variety and store patronage intentions, which are moderated by grocery category nature and by consumers’ intrinsic need for variety and attitude toward private label brands.
The paper focuses on the social commerce paradigm, underlining how social media are able to assist e-retailers in their effort of creating a total omni-channel e-customer experience. The empirical research represents a new prospect on the topic, because nowadays social commerce is not completely understood and realized from a managerial perspective.
This research was conducted in order to examine the effects of user socio-demographics and recently introduced streamlined technology readiness index TRI 2.0 (Parasuraman & Colby, 2015) on mobile device use in B2B digital services. Mobile adoption has been studied from a consumer perspective, but to the best of the authors’ knowledge, very few studies explore mobile use in B2B markets. Mobile marketing is becoming a strategic effort in companies, as digital services not only in B2C but also in B2B sector are getting increasingly mobile (Leeflang, Verhoef, Dahlström & Freundt 2014). This raises an interest to better understand the characteristics of those mobile enthusiasts who primarily use B2B services via a mobile device rather than via a personal computer. The study tests hypotheses with a large data set of 2,306 business customers of which around 10 percent represent these innovative mobile enthusiasts.
Technology readiness is an individual’s propensity to embrace and use new technologies for accomplishing goals in home life and at work (Parasuraman & Colby, 2015; Parasuraman, 2000). Parasuraman and Colby (2015) recently introduced an updated version of the original Technology Readiness Index (TRI 1.0) scale called TRI 2.0 to better match with the recent changes in the technology environment. At the same time they streamlined the scale to a compact 16-item version so that it is easier for researchers to adopt it as a part of research questionnaires. Likewise the original scale, TRI 2.0 consists of four dimensions: optimism, innovativeness, discomfort, and insecurity. Optimism and innovativeness are motivators of technology adoption while discomfort and insecurity are inhibitors of technology readiness, and these motivator and inhibitor feelings can exist simultaneously (Parasuraman & Colby, 2015). Optimism is a general positive view of technology containing a belief that technology offers individuals with increased control, flexibility and efficiency in their lives. Innovativeness refers to a tendency to be a pioneer and thought leader in adopting new technologies. Discomfort reflects a perception of being overwhelmed by technology and lacking control over it. Moreover, insecurity reflects distrust and general skepticism towards technology, and includes concerns about the potential harmful consequences of it. As individuals differ in their propensity to adopt new technologies (Rogers, 1995), the authors propose that technology readiness influences mobile device use of B2B customers:
H1: Optimism has a positive effect on mobile device use of B2B digital services.
H2: Innovativeness has a positive effect on mobile device use of B2B digital services.
H3: Insecurity has a negative effect on mobile device use of B2B digital services.
H4: Discomfort has a negative effect on mobile device use of B2B digital services.
The earlier literature argues that socio-demographic factors such as gender (Venkatesh & Morris, 2000; Chong, Chan & Ooi, 2012), age (Venkatesh, Thong & Xu, 2012; Chong et al., 2012; Kongaut & Bohlin 2016), education (Agarwal & Prasad, 1999; Chong et al., 2012; Puspitasari & Ishii 2016) and occupation (Okazaki, 2006) influence technology adoption behavior in general, and mobile adoption in particular. For example, men are nearly twice as likely as women to adopt mobile banking, and age is a negative determinant (Laukkanen, 2016). Higher educated use mobile devices more for utilitarian purposes, while lower educated use mobile devices more for entertainment (Chong et al., 2012). Moreover, research suggests that occupational factors influence mobile use (Okazaki, 2006). The authors hypothesize:
H5: Males are more likely than females to use mobile device for B2B digital services.
H6: Age has a negative effect on the use mobile device for B2B digital services.
H7: Customers with higher education level have a higher likelihood for using mobile device for B2B digital services than customers with lower education level.
H8: Occupation has an effect on the use mobile device for B2B digital services.
The study tests hypotheses with a data collected among B2B customers of four large Finnish companies, all representing different industry fields. The large sample (n=2306) consists of procurement decision-makers all experienced with using B2B digital services. The sample shows that over 90 percent of the B2B customers are still using a computer (laptop or desktop computer) as their primary access device for digital services in their work. The sample divides between females and males in proportion to 46 and 54 percent respectively. University degree represents a majority with 42 percent, while only 2,7 percent of the respondents have a comprehensive or elementary school education. Over half of the sample represent top management or middle management with 24,6 and 28,4 percent respectively, while 9 percent are entrepreneurs, 21,2 percent represent experts, and 16,7 percent are officials or employess. Mean age of the respondents is 51,6 years, ranging from 18 to 81 years.
The study uses logistic regression analysis with backward stepwise method in which the dependent variable is a dichotomous binary variable indicating the respondent’s primary access device for B2B digital services with 0=computer and 1=mobile device. As for the independent variables, the study measures individual’s technology propensity with recently introduced 16-item TRI 2.0 scale from Parasuraman and Colby (2015) using a five-point Likert scale ranging from Strongly disagree=1 to Strongly agree=5. The authors used confirmatory factor analysis to verify the theory-driven factor structure of the TRI 2.0 scale, i.e. optimism, innovativeness, discomfort, and insecurity. The analysis show that the measurement model for the TRI 2.0 scale provides an adequate fit and standardized regression estimates for all measure items exceed 0.60 (p<0.001) except for one item in discomfort (β=0.516) and one item in insecurity (β=0.480). After removing these two items the model shows an excellent fit with χ2=478.033 (df=71; p<0.001), CFI=0.965, RMSEA=0.050. Moreover, discriminant validity is supported, as the square root of the average variance extracted (AVE) value of each construct is greater than the correlations between the constructs (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). In addition, composite reliability values vary from 0.726 to 0.852 supporting convergent validity of the TRI 2.0 factors (Table 1). Thereafter, the factor scores of the latent factors showing sufficient internal consistency were imputed to create composite measures. These composite measures were used as independent variables in the logistic regression model. With regards to socio-demographic variables, age is measured as a continuous variable, while gender, education, and occupation are categorical independent variables in the model.
The results of the logistic regression analysis show that innovativeness, insecurity, age, and occupation are statistically significant predictors of mobile device use in B2B services, supporting hypotheses H2, H3, H6, H8. The stepwise analysis procedure removed optimism (p=0.860), education (p=0.789), gender (p=0.339), and discomfort (p=0.159) from the model as they proved to be non-significant predictors of mobile device use. The results indicate that occupation is the strongest predictor for mobile device use in B2B digital services so that the top management has the greatest likelihood as the odds ratios of middle management, experts, and officials/employees are 0.610, 0.282, and 0.178 respectively. This means that, for example, the odds of the top management using mobile device as their primary channel for B2B digital services are 1.64 (1/0.610) times greater than the odds of the middle management, and 5.62 (1/0.178) times greater than the odds of the officials/employees. Interestingly the β-value for the entrepreneurs is positive indicating that their likelihood for mobile device use is even greater than the likelihood of the top management. However, the p-value (0.913) indicates that the difference is not statistically significant.
With regards to age of the B2B customer, the results indicate a negative relationship with mobile device use. The odds ratio [Exp(β)=0.979] claims that the odds of a B2B customer to use mobile device as the primary channel for digital services decrease by 2 percent for each additional year of age. Regarding the TRI 2.0 constructs, the results show that innovativeness is a highly significant positive predictor for mobile device use, while perceived insecurity has a negative effect (Table 2).
Literature suggests that B2B customers increasingly use mobile devices but yet little is known about those individuals most enthusiastic in using B2B digital services via a mobile device. Thus, the current study attempts to better understand those mobile enthusiasts who among the first have adopted mobile devices as their primary method to access B2B digital services. The results suggest that occupation is the most significant predictor of mobile use among B2B customers, implying that top managers are among the most likely to adopt and use mobile device for business services. Moreover, younger B2B customers use mobile devices more eagerly as the results suggest the likelihood for mobile device use degreases by 2 percent with every added year of age. The results further imply that out of the four TRI 2.0 dimensions innovativeness and insecurity influence in the mobile device use of B2B customers, innovativeness positively and insecurity negatively as the theory proposes. Innovativeness represents individual’s tendency to be a pioneer and thought leader in terms of technology adoption, while insecurity stems from the general skepticism and distrust of technology. These results imply that B2B customers who mainly access B2B digital services via a mobile device are open minded towards the possibilities new technologies can provide for them. Moreover, it appears that those B2B customers still accessing digital services primarily via a computer are more skeptical than mobile users towards technology in general. Compared to the use of mobile devices for individual purposes, business related use is more functional in nature, and thus, mobile devices and technologies must be convenient to use, offer real benefits for example in forms of mobility and portability, and be reliable in order for B2B customers to use them. Interestingly, our results do not support the effects of generally positive attitudes towards technology reflecting optimism, or discomfort of using technologies to influence mobile use among B2B customers. In addition, there are organizational factors (e.g. voluntariness of use) that the authors omit in the current study. These may limit the findings.
Mobility will be a key driver in the ongoing digital revolution of marketing and sales. Understanding online behavior of mobile enthusiasts assists B2B marketing and sales leaders to plan and implement more effective mobile marketing strategies. Rogers (1995) has shown that the majority will follow the early adopters, and the adaptation cycle has even shortened during the last years (Downes & Nunes, 2014). Thus, mobile devices are evidently becoming the primary method in accessing B2B digital services.
The past decades showed an increase in the number of meals consumed away from home.
Restaurants could therefore play a pivotal role in improve diet quality by offering
healthier food on their menus (Glanz and Hoelscher, 2004). One of the instruments that
restaurants can use to increase healthier food intake is by making use of portion size.
When people are served larger portions, they eat more (Steenhuis & Vermeer, 2009). In
this study, we investigate the effectiveness of increased portion sizes of vegetables and
lower portion sizes of meat (or fish) in a restaurant setting.
Three restaurant locations from a restaurant chain in the Netherlands were selected for a
field experiment. A cross-over design was used in which each restaurant was randomly
assigned to a sequence of two conditions (i.e., intervention and control condition). In the
intervention period, portion sizes of vegetables on plates were doubled (150 grams versus
75 grams) and portion sizes of meat and fish were cut on average with 12.5%.
Consumption was calculated by subtracting the residues from the plates from the average
served amount. Additionally, p3rticipants received a questionnaire in which a number of
questions were asked, i.a., about their satisfaction with the meal and restaurant. In total,
536 participants in the control condition and 470 participants in the experimental
condition were obtained. Vegetable consumption was higher in intervention weeks (M =
115.5 grams) than in control weeks (M = 61.7 grams; p < .001). Meat consumption was
lower in intervention weeks (M = 183.1 grams) as compared to control weeks (M = 211.1
grams; p < .001). Finally, satisfaction with the restaurant visit did not differ between
intervention weeks (M = 4.27) and control weeks (M = 4.35; p > .05). The results are
robust given that we found the same effects across the three restaurants. An important
implication of this study is that portion sizes could indeed be used as an effective
instrument in stimulating healthy consumption behavior without affecting customer’s
satisfaction.
This research was conducted in order to examine the reverse effect of brand loyalty on
the emotional attachment to the place-of-origin. Results indicate that consumers that
are highly loyal to a brand tend to be more emotionally attached to the place-of-origin;
the effect is mediated by affective place image. Affective place image also partially
mediates the brand loyalty–place attachment relationship in cases when the brand is
authentic in the place.
Human beings tend to extend their affect towards one object based on another object
related to the first one. Building on this notion researchers have been trying to
understand two related concepts—a place, and a brand originating from that place. In
this endeavor, one literature stream has been focusing on place-based branding from
the perspective of international marketing, including work on country-of-origin (COO)
or product-country image (Baldauf et al., 2009; Hong & Wyer Jr, 1989). Another
stream focusing on place branding adapts traditional marketing theory to market a
place (Kotler 2002), and focuses on destination image (Bramwell & Rawding, 1996;
Lee & Lockshin, 2012; Qu, Kim & Im, 2011), and place attachment (Gross & Brown
2006). Notwithstanding the above, there is a dearth of research combining these two
aforementioned streams. One of few exceptions is Lee and Lockshin (2014), who
explored the reverse COO effect of product perceptions on destination image.
However, they focused on consumers’ cognitive beliefs and, thus, the underlying
mechanism of the relationship is yet to be examined. Hence, the current research aims
to answer the following questions: can brand loyalty be leveraged to consumers’
relationship with the place-of-origin as a tourism destination? And, if so, what is the
mechanism underlying the effect?
We present a global survey with consumers of place-based wine brands as a means to
understand whether consumers’ loyalty to a brand will influence their emotional
attachment to the place where the wine brand origins. A moderated mediation model
is proposed. Affective destination image mediates the positive effect of brand loyalty
on place attachment, which is positively moderated by authenticity of the brand-place
associations. The study contributes to the tourisms marketing field by identifying the
emotional linkage between brand loyalty and place attachment. It serves as a starting
point for further investigation of how company or product branding could benefit
place marketing and branding theory. Affective components are suggested to play a
vital role in the relationships between a place and a brand. It further enriches understanding of the role of brand authenticity. Place marketers need to understand
the role of brand loyalty in the decision-making process of tourism consumption.
This research was conducted in simulated art scenarios to explore the effects of three
treatment variations of music on the visualization of art (not only its presence/absence
was tested, but also its fast/slow perceived rhythm) and it employed a sample of 234
potential art consumers. Findings suggest that music is not able of enhancing the art
experience. Actually, the study found empirical evidences of its negative influence on
consumers’ emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses.
Customer integration has received considerable attention in the service literature in
order to foster service innovations (e.g. Vargo & Lusch, 2004; Chan, Yim & Lam 2010;
Yim, Chan & Lam, 2012; Grönroos & Voima, 2013). The changing role of the
customer from being a passive consumer to becoming an active contributor during
service provision and co-creator has a significant impact on numerous service firms.
Customer integration is essential to many services and successful integration improves
service experience of the customer and it allows development of new services in
particular (Magnusson, Matthing & Kristensson, 2003; Melton & Hartline, 2010).
Against this background, service industries nowadays face the challenge of dealing
with new customer and employee roles in times of digitalization, increasing customer
activity, changing interaction channels, and development of new business model.
While the impact of employee’s customer stewardship on the employee-customer
relationship has been investigated in prior studies, is unclear whether an employee’s
commitment to the customer also motivates the employee to contribute to service
innovation development.We propose that an employee’s level of customer stewardship
represents an important requirement for organizational learning about understanding
customer needs and to uncover future trends. Based on stewardship and agency theory, we develop a conceptual model proposing
that idea generation, articulation, and implementation depend on employee-related
factors (e.g., employee stewardship), structural factors (e.g., incentive system), and
control-related factors (e.g., monitoring system). Hypotheses are tested using survey
data from 390 frontline employees in financial services. Results underline the
important roles of employee stewardship and organizational commitment. Insights
provide managers guidance how to improve motivation of frontline employees to
engage in these important behaviors.
Following the resurgence of the application of theories of social practices in consumer
research, we offer a comprehensive typology of luxury consumption practices. In
doing so, we shed light on how personalized meanings of brand luxury are emergent
in the private sphere of everyday life, as luxury consumers integrate various materials,
meanings, and competencies within their practice performances. The findings provide
important insights for both scholars and practitioners in developing a more holistic
understanding about the multi-dimensionality and fluidly of luxury brand meanings in
the context of contemporary consumer culture. Specifically, we draw attention
towards the active and creative role that consumers play in constructing multiple
meanings of brand luxury, and illustrate that brand luxury can be appropriated and
personalized by consumers in many different ways. This ranges from being
considered as a form of financial investment to facilitating an imaginary escape; from
being perceived as markers of an affluent lifestyle and a conveyer of social status to
emerging as resources for aspirational personalities that assist consumers in their
self-transformations. Moreover, we found that consumers are not restricted to
preforming only one particular luxury brand consumption practice. They can, and
often do engage in different practices of luxury consumption, where each addresses
different needs salient to the context of their life themes and situational influences.
Finally, we show that different dimensions of luxury brand imaginary can become
more or less important, depending on which practices are performed by consumers.
Major changes are challenging the tourist industry, such as new entrants, suppliers’ direct
sales without intermediaries, and customers’ bargaining power due to Internet services,
among others. In this context, the aim of this research is to assess the influence of two
emerging constructs, eWOM adoption and customer engagement, jointly with consumer
trust and brand equity, on travel agency loyalty.
There is a huge amount of research available regarding the variables considered in this
study: (i) brand trust and equity, and brand loyalty, have always been considered in the
marketing literature; (ii) engagement and eWOM adoption have aroused interest from
researchers since online comments gain popularity and usefulness. But their
consideration in literature has been based, in most of the analyses, on symmetric
relationships and it then fails to recognize the occurrence of causal asymmetry.
In the present research a novel methodology is adopted, fuzzy set Qualitative
Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), which uses Boolean algebra to show how causal
conditions combine to bring about outcomes. On a sample of 520 travelers and through a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis,
data shows that brand trust and brand equity are key drivers of loyalty, measured as a
repurchase intention. In fact, jointly both variables lead to travel agency loyalty and when
no engagement-enthusiasm dimension exists, for individual repurchase intention, brand
equity or brand trust are also needed. Moreover, just engagement in terms of interactions
also leads to brand loyalty, but engagement-enthusiasm dimension needs support of
eWOM adoption to impact travel agency repurchase intentions. This finding highlights
the specific importance of each analyzed variable as key drivers of travel agency loyalty.
Theoretical and managerial implications are provided based on results.
This research explored how experiencing a country’s cultural heritage influences consumers’ authenticity evaluation of its luxury brands. It showed authenticity was culturally constructed and perception was influenced by marketing means selectively exposing the consumers to different brand attributes. It contributes to transcultural research by linking cultural attributes to brand authenticity attributes.
In many countries, domestic tourism is important in terms of both size and economic contribution (Massidda & Etzo, 2012). This study aimed to develop a measurement scale for place authenticity for domestic destinations. Moreover, the objective was to offer insights regarding the consequences of place authenticity while travelling within borders. Empirical literature on the authentic travel experience “within borders” is quite scant and the attention of policy makers is not adequately focused on its outcomes such as attitude, values and positive WOM. A very small body of literature has primarily focused on domestic tourists’ destination experience yet omits measuring authenticity perceptions (Chi & Qu, 2008; Massidda & Etzo, 2012; Milman & Pizam, 1995). Empirical data were collected from 456 American consumers who had travelled to domestic tourism destinations. This paper provides a new measure for place authenticity that destination marketers can use to gauge what consumers think of their domestic travel experience. In addition, the findings of this study suggest that place authenticity shapes key consumer outcomes such as attitude, values and positive WOM. Furthermore, place authenticity has significant indirect effects on value and WOM, consistent with the role of place authenticity’s effects being mediated by consumer attitude toward the destination. Finally, this study discusses the managerial implications for tourism destination marketing and positioning strategy.
The growth of the Chinese outbound market has been phenomenal during recent years and still highly concentrates on neighboring Asian destinations. In particular, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region heavily depends and focuses on the Chinese tourism market. Recent calls for a possible diversification of the tourism market have nevertheless failed to shed light on how Hong Kong residents perceive the benefits of mainland Chinese tourism. In order to mend this gap, this study collected 850 online questionnaires with Hong Kong residents. Subsequent cluster analysis has shown that there are 3 segments in regard, namely “low”, “moderate” and “high” perceived benefits. A significant age gap among these 3 clusters was identified, with older respondents generally perceiving the highest benefit. Fifteen semi-structured follow-up interviews have shown the reason to be predominance of idealism in younger generations of Hong Kong, while older generations tend to be pragmatic. Possibilities for future studies are finally highlighted.
From a marketer’s perspective, place is only a sacrosanct component of the marketing mix (McCarthy, 1960), and extends into services’ “7Ps” (Grӧnroos, 1994). The servicescape literature explores how stimuli present within commercial consumption settings or servicescapes impact consumer behaviors (Rosenbaum & Massiah, 2011). Arguably, marketers view place as exchange locales, and they do not understand the evocative role that they assume in consumers’ lives (Sherry, 2000). Within cultural geography, places represent “profound centres of human existence” (Relph, 1976, p. 43). Place is a triad comprising of a physical setting, activities, and meanings (see Relph, 1976).
This paper investigates how Israeli Jews attribute meanings to places associated with their destruction during the Holocaust (1939 – 1945). Respondents were eight Jewish Israelis who recently participated in the educational Holocuast sojourn (i.e, Warsaw Ghetto, Treblinka, and Aushwitz). Using long interviews, the authors put forth a framework that shows how the participants assign place-based meanings on four dimensions. The individual dimension reflects how the tour personally impacts visitors’ lives. The communal dimension, explores the trip impact’s the individual’s view towards Israel and Israeli nationalism (Zionism). The religiosity dimension reflects tour’s impact on a participant’s self-identity as a Jew (e.g., secular, conservative, Orthodox). Lastly, the global dimension explores the trip’s impact on a participant’s identity as a human being in a global world. Did the trip alter a participant’s views towards mankind, towards genocide, and universal lessons that everyone may learn from the Holocaust?
Results help to understand the evocative role that places often assume in consumers’ lives. Place no longer seem as inert; instead, spaces imbued with meanings impact lives, experiences, and even one’s overall well-being. From a broader perspective, the results suggest a different role that consumption settings may assume in consumers’ lives. Places may impact consumers on multiple levels, and the essence of understanding the profound bonds that consumers often form with places, originates not from the functions that places serve, but rather, from the meanings that consumers often assign to place.