In pursuit of competitiveness, brands are critical as they represent valuable intangible assets that contribute to creating and sustaining competitive advantages. The emerging idea of brand competitiveness, defined as a brand’s outperformance of competing brands, represents a promising solution to the problem that existing branding constructs fail to incorporate competition as a relative concept. This article addresses three gaps in the current literature on brand competitiveness. It discusses conceptualizations of the construct, arguing for a customer-based perspective and introducing customer-based brand competitiveness (CBBC). It then explores the construct’s nomological network and suggests CBBC as a mediator of the strategic orientations–performance relationship, thus proposing customer-related and firm-related performance as consequences and several strategic orientations as antecedents. It finally reports on the development of a new measurement scale for brand competitiveness.

The rapid spread of Artificial Intelligence through various connected intelligent objects (wearables, robots) profoundly changes how service is delivered and experienced by the customers (Bolton et al., 2018; Larivière et al., 2017). Robotics, in combination with rapidly improving technologies, has brought prospects for a wide array of innovations that have the potential to transform service industries radically. Service robots provide businesses with new opportunities to reorganize their frontline and serve their customers in new and innovative ways. Advanced technological innovations that become better, smaller, and smarter are virtually renovating the servicescape (Wirtz & Zeithaml, 2018). Transformation in the Healthcare industry is happening the world over. The International Federation of Robots predicts an ever-increasing demand for healthcare robots, estimated at 9.1 billion USD market in coming year. RoboDocs (Robots helping Doctors) can help standardize the common surgical procedures and catalyze a paradigm shift in the healthcare sector. RoboDocs are the linchpin to greater efficiency, more value, and reducing surgical variability (Muaddi et al., 2021, Huang & Rust, 2018).

Prior social robotics research has shown that robot design influences if people perceive a robot as friendly, trustworthy, or safe (Castro-Gonzalez et al., 2016; Rosenthal-Von Der Pütten & Krämer, 2014). Meanwhile, recent conceptual work has suggested that social robots will increasingly be used in the front line of service encounters (Gonzalez-Jimenez, 2018; Van doorn et al., 2017). According to The International Journal of Social Robotics social robots are robots that can communicate and interact with humans, among themselves, and with the environment, within the cultural and social structure assigned to its role. Real examples of the inclusion of these robots in retail settings already exist. For instance, some retailers use Softbank´s robot Pepper to greet and inform customers. Social robots such as Pepper can use their sensors and cameras to interpret customer reactions and adapt accordingly. Moreover, the robot can even make product recommendations based on the assessed customer´s mood, age, gender and, if available, purchase history (McKenna, 2018). Not surprisingly, there is a vast market potential associated with these robots, which is expected to grow to 87 billion by 2025 (BCG, 2017).

Customer-owned touch points have emerged as a central context for customers to interact with one another on social media (Lemon and Verhoef 2016). Empirical research on firms’ presence and behaviour in these forums is limited, especially as regards how this presence affects customer experiences. This study is an attempt to address this this gap, analysing customer experiences from such forums using self-determination theory as a lens. The results show that companies’ efforts to control the discussions in such forums have a negative impact on customers' cognitive experiences. However, firms’ intervention is welcomed when the intention is to add value to customers in these forums, and allow customers to retain the feeling self-efficacy, and social affiliation and autonomy (Ryan and Deci 2002).

With the rapid development of network economy and information technology, customers through the internet platform to participate in product development and innovation, dominant the spread of value proposition engagement spread, etc., has become an important part of the creation of customer assets, as well as a profound change in brand management. This paper constructs a model of how the brand experience affects customer assets in the virtual branding community under the perspective of value co-creation, analysis the impact of value co-creation of customer participation (sponsored value co-creation and autonomous value co-creation), the motivation of value co-creation on brand experience, and then on customer assets. This paper also explores the regulatory effect of value proposition engagement in brand experience and customer asset. This study will use the involvement theory and the theory of stimulus-response for empirical research, and through the questionnaire survey of consumers, using SPSS20.0 and AMOS20.0 statistical software on the relevance of relevant variables to grasp, and carries on the analysis using structural equation model. The research of this paper will enrich the exposition and explanation of building a brand experience better through value co-creation in virtual brand community, and provide theoretical support and practical advice for the implementation and management of customer assets.

E-commerce is a global phenomenon that reshapes retailing and the appropriate multinational corporations. The goal of this study is to get a better understanding of the relationship between online customer reviews (OCRs), sales and sales after returns in the cross-national and cross-cultural context. We discuss our hypotheses by empirically analyzing a large and unique data set from a European fashion e-commerce company. This study links a wide range of transaction data (0.8 billion page clicks, 17 thousand different products, 499 brands, 50 product categories, 22 million sold and 11 million returned items) from six different countries (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland) with a large set of OCRs (0.7 million). Our results show that positive OCRs can lead to higher sales and sales after returns with considerable cross-country differences. We argue that differences in culture provide a substantial explanation for these effects by using Hofstede's cultural framework.

Firms acquire customers using myriad forms of marketing media (Neslin & Shankar 2009), and different media strategies yield different results to the firms. Therefore, allocating media strategy given a firm’s spending raises important questions for managers. This is especially the case since the media landscape has changed dramatically, with new media channels incorporating online, mobile, and social media now being considered the mainstream. It is crucial to understand how each form of media influences consumers and how it operates alongside traditional media. Based on Stephen and Galak (2012), marketers distinguish earned media from paid media. Earned media is defined as media activity that a company does not directly generate, such as press mentions on the internet and online community posts in consumer-generated social media. On the other hand, paid media refers to the media activity which a company generates (for example, television, radio, print, and direct mail). It is common for firms to consider using earned media and paid media at the same time when developing marketing communication strategies. Despite the coexistence of paid and earned media channels, previous empirical findings focus either on paid media or earned media and suggest that these individually will increase a firm’s marketing outcomes. However, there is a lack of research that examines the question of whether the use of paid media and earned media at the same time is synergistic. The effects of a cross media synergy only focuses on the resource allocation within paid media (for example, TV–Radio (Edell & Keller 1989), TV–Magazine (Confer & McGlathery 1991), TV–Print (Dijkstra, Buijtels, & Van Raaij 2005), and TV, Radio, Print and Outdoor (Briggs, Krishnan, & Sheeran 2003)). Thus, by considering paid media and earned media concurrently, this study investigates whether the synergies between paid and earned media have a stronger effect on a firm’s long term profitability than the isolated effects of TV or word of mouth (WOM) alone. In addition, the research on earned media has focused on short-term outcomes such as customer actions (for example, website sign-ups) and sales growth, sales rank, cross-product sales, and ratings (Trusov, Bucklin, & Pauwels 2009; Li & Hitt 2008; Moe & Trusov 2011). Moreover, in the limited research on the relationship between earned media and long-term outcomes, the outcomes are restricted to those related to soft metrics of communication effectiveness (for example, attitude and brand awareness). Therefore, we use customer equity, which is regarded as a forward looking firm outcome variable, thereby enabling marketers to monitor and measure the long-term financial impact of marketing spending (Kumar & Shah 2015). Moreover, cross-media synergy can be accurately measured by customer equity, which incorporates both customer acquisition and retention. Based on Villanueva, Yoo, and Hassens (2008), customers acquired through paid media focus more on trials, whereas customers acquired through earned media provide the firm with more repeats. In other words, paid media plays a key role in the acquisition of customers, while, on the other hand, earned media increase the retention of customers. Thus, it is appropriate to measure the cross-media synergy with the customer equity (long term profitability) that can capture the customer acquisition and retention simultaneously. Regarding the long term impact of the firm’s media strategy, previous research has used the economic impact of traditional marketing channel (for example, television, radio, magazine or newspaper, advertisement, e-mail links, and direct mail) versus that of WOM (for example, links from Web sites, magazine, or newspaper articles, referrals from friends or colleagues, referrals from professional organizations or associations, and referrals from search engines) on customer equity. Traditional marketing had a stronger effect than WOM in the short term, while WOM is a quiet, gradual-impact, long lasting driver (Villanueva, Yoo, & Hassens 2008). This result can be attributed to the different characteristics of each media channel. Although earned media, including WOM, is not entirely controlled by the firm, earned media may be more likely to last longer for various reasons. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is that earned media has greater credibility than conventional marketing activities that are implemented by the firms, and is therefore more persuasive than conventional advertising (Brown & Reingen 1987, Villanueva, Yoo, & Hassens 2008). In other words, considering the impact of each type of media in itself, earned media is more effective in increasing long-term profitability. However, the interaction effect of earned and paid media has not been empirically tested yet. Thus, it is conceivable that a cross-media synergy (incorporating the implementation of earned media and paid media at the same time) will last longer than the implementation of each isolated media. As Armelini and Villanueva (2010) pointed out, earned media and paid media have complementary effects. For example, offline advertising increases website visitation by influencing consumer awareness, while online advertising directly leads to website traffic (Ilfeld & Winer 2002). The consumer buying process involves distinct stages such as awareness, consideration, and purchase (Lavidge & Stener 2000) and each media influences customer buying behavior in a different way. Hence, it enhances the effectiveness in terms of long-term profitability to utilize the cross-media effect properly. For example, in the car industry, 64 % new car buyers become aware of the features and benefits of a car by obtaining information online, even though they purchase their cars from an offline dealership (J.D. Power and Associates 2004). This finding implies that a firm’s implementation of both paid and earned media properly will maximize the customers’ arousal of the target brands. Furthermore, converging paid media and earned media is expected to proliferate the growth of a firm’s profitability, such as sales, revenue, and customer’s equity, at an exponential rate. For example, the effects of TV advertising execution can be enhanced by press mentions that a company does not directly generate; this is because press mentions support the credence of TV advertising. Inversely, since paid media activities reach the audience relatively more than WOM (due to the high audience penetration share), the online share of press mention can proliferate rapidly with the execution of paid media activities. Therefore, the interaction between earned media and paid media has a greater effect on customer equity than isolated media implementation. The impact of a media synergy has more positive effect and last longer than isolated media implementation (and our model is displayed in Fig. 1). We collect data on marketing efforts, word-of-mouth circumstance, and performance of a telecommunication company. Based on customer equity models and quarterly marketing and performance data, we first estimate the lifetime value of the newly acquired and existing customers. Thereafter, we determine the customer equity of the company over each period. We develop and employ a time-series model for examining the relationship between cross media efforts (paid media vs. earned media) and the estimated firm’s customer equity. Finally, we examine the synergistic effect of cross media on the firm’s long-term profitability.

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.

The objective of this paper is to explain how the organizational learning concept is used to promote group work, information sharing and an open and transparent communication style in order to produce a high level of customer service. The work incorporates an extensive literature review and a number of propositions. Previously collected data from a set of in-depth personal interviews undertaken with senior managers in a Korean electronics company were reanalyzed and reinterpreted using the grounded theory approach. This allowed insights to be provided into how, in a collectivist culture, information sharing is reinforced by the organizational learning concept. The research findings show that managers in a chaebol use organizational learning to identify skilled and knowledgeable staff, and to improve the organization’s capability by placing emphasis on developing harmonious, mutually oriented relationships that permeate throughout the organization. In addition, top management demand that staff identify with government economic objectives and align the organization’s strategy accordingly so that the products produced are marketable. By ensuring that management procedures, processes and systems evolve naturally, change is managed in an incremental and pro-active manner.

Recently the market of the food waste disposer has increased. Therefore, many companies in the development of food garbage disposer has been increasing interest. In this study, we used QFD (Quality Function Development) to find out the quality factors for the development of the food waste disposer reflecting the consumer needs. HOQ (House Of Quality) showing the correlation between consumer characteristic and engineering characteristic was written by investigating the consumer needs based on the consumer complaints and survey. In addition, we generated the CTQ (Critical To Quality) reflecting the weighting of the importance of the parts. As the research result, the important quality factors for the food garbage disposer were the grinding capability, drying, and odor emission features. The crushing motor associated with grinding and dehydration appeared as the most important quality factors among the parts. Second thing was the fan motor associated with odor. The findings will be able to contribute to the development of the food waste disposer reflecting the consumer needs.

Service quality has been a point of discussion from the decades as it is important for customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. Various models have been proposed to measure the quality in the service sector. Models are modified in accordance with context and geography to assess the quality of service better. This study aims to investigate the impact of the modified e-SERVQUAL model on the customer perception about the existing relation and potential scope of doing business with a bank which in-turn will decide the performance of the bank. Statistical data was analyzed through various tests like reliability analysis, correlation and regression analysis using SPSS 25.0. The primary data of e-SQ and performance was gathered from 721 internet banking users using 32 item questionnaire, representing 72% response rates, of four selected Islamic banks of Malaysia. E-SERQUAL was modified by adding Shariah Compliance information about banks and products for Islamic banking customers. The finding specified that efficient & reliable services, fulfillment, security/trust, and Shariah compliance information have a significant association with the performance of Islamic banks. The research is original and its implications will be helpful for Islamic banks across the world to enhance the online experience of customers, which will help them to retain the customers in the rapid changing virtual environment.

게임은 이용하는 사람이 선택할 수 있는 자율성의 폭이 넓은 열린 문화(open culture)이다. 즉, 게임 소비자의 참여가 적극적으로 요구되고 수용된다. 그런 의미에서, 원작 게임에 여러 가지 변형을 가하는 모드(MOD)는 게임 이용자의 적극적인 참여를 나타내는 대표적인 사례이자 게임 제작 과정에서 소비자의 참여 가능성을 보여주는 예시이다. 본 연구는 모드 게임의 대표적인 사례 중 Half-Life 모드의 분석을 통해, 게임 제작 과정의 발전적 측면에서 본 소비자 참여 가능성에 대해 논의한다.