Customers’ service experience is related to the perceived state in the process of interacting with the target at various channel touchpoints (Kaushal & Yadav, 2023). Furthermore, positive customers’ service experiences can increase the repurchase intention of buyers by strengthening the interconnection and cooperation between buyers and suppliers in business-to-business (B2B) firms and reinforcing corporate competitive positioning.

This paper examines the effects of the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) announcement through social media on the consumer perception of the luxury brand consumption. A M&A is becoming more wide spread in the luxury market. Yet, the academic research examining the M&A in the luxury brand context has been sparse albeit the growing interests. Moreover, previous research has not paid attention to the effect of social media as a vehicle to communicate the M&A deal with consumers although social media is increasingly used by luxury brands in their brand communication these days. We aim to fill the gap in the luxury brand literature by examining how a horizontal M&A announcement delivered through social media would affect the brand loyalty derived from the luxury consumption values. Specifically, our research focuses on the four distinctive luxury brand values, which are symbolic, experiential, economic and quality values as well as the perceived sustainability of the M&A deal. We examine how a M&A announcement would affect these five values which in turn influence the brand loyalty, as well as examining the differential effect of social media and non-social media as a brand communication vehicle. In addition, we examine how the vertically differentiated luxury brand perceptions (i.e. different luxury tiers) between acquiring and acquired brands influence the consumption values and brand loyalty. Using a scenario-based online survey, our results reveal several interesting insights on the luxury brand M&A. First, our results show that use of social media as a communication vehicle has differential effects on how the M&A announcement influences consumption values and brand loyalty, comparing with the non-social media communication vehicle. Second, we find that a M&A announcement via social media has a positive impact on the consumer values. Third, the symbolic and experiential values have a positive influence on the brand loyalty, regardless of the luxury tier difference between brands. Fourth, our results show that the perceived sustainability has a positive impact on the brand loyalty as long as the M&A was completed between brands at different tiers. Fourth, the perceived quality has a positive impact on the brand loyalty only if the brand is acquired by a less prestigious brand. Lastly, economic value has a positive impact on the brand loyalty only if the acquiring brand is of more luxurious. In sum, our paper provides useful insights to both academics as well as practitioners in the luxury brand M&A context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usefulness of Flexible Logistics Strategy for coping with the difficulties that logistics industry encountered in the highly competitive market. We define a logistics network model that reflects the current logistics environment of the metropolitan area and suggest the Flexible Logistics Strategy. We investigate the efficiency of the logistics system by comparing the Flexible Vehicle Strategy with other logistics strategies at the various scenarios that can mirror the real world.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the digital differentiation in social members’ information use via digital devices. Though the attention to the digital differentiation becomes far more increasing, there are only few literatures dealing with quantitative approaches about the digital differentiation. The term ‘digital differentiation’ represents the availability of the information user. It is different from ‘digital divide’ of which the main parameter is accessibility to the information. Once accessibility meets a certain level, availability is considered as a more important factor than accessibility when evaluating the progress of ICT(Information and Communication Technology). We present a model that can describe the digital differentiation phenomenon by using the methodology borrowed from the graph theory, inverse optimization and other established research theory related to digital differentiation. We provide some insights to reduce digital differentiations and therefore our analysis can be used as a guideline for policy maker who desires to mitigate digital differentiations.