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This study aims to conceptualise and empirically examine how blog users engage with the sponsored posts on consumer-generated content, specifically blogs.

This paper empirically tested the proposed hypotheses using the structural equation modelling using a sample of 399 blog users.

The need for cognition, perceived interactivity and perceived credibility of blogs has been found to directly influence consumers’ attitude towards blogs. Innovativeness has been found to have a weak negative link with the attitude towards blogs. Blog users were more favourable towards the sponsored posts if the blogs were more interactive. Attitude towards blogs has been found to mediate the relationship between users’ perceived interactivity and their avoidance of the sponsored posts and also between perceived credibility and avoidance of the sponsored posts on blogs. The most significant finding of this study is that the positive attitude towards a blog results in a higher avoidance of the sponsored posts.

This study focuses on the sponsored posts on blogs. It does not look at other forms of advertising on blogs such as banner ads, or other forms of consumer-generated content.

Marketers and bloggers should carefully consider the suitability of the sponsored posts on blogs as they risk alienating the regular users of the blogs. Sponsored posts which are perceived as honest reviews (as opposed to paid advertorials) might be more acceptable to blog users.

This study highlights the importance of credibility of bloggers to blog users. There are some serious ethical issues related to the sponsored posts which have not been discussed here but need to be examined further.

This study represents one of the first attempts to conceptualise and empirically examine how blog users engage with customer-generated advertising – sponsored posts. It contributes to marketing literature by enhancing the understanding of how consumers perceive consumer-generated content and more specifically, with regard to consumer attitudes towards online consumer-generated advertising. This study enhances the theoretical and empirical knowledge on how consumers react to advertisements on social media, with important suggestions for future research and implications for practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of successful service recovery in the airline sector by examining the interrelationship between perceived justice, recovery satisfaction and overall satisfaction, customer trust and customer loyalty. Furthermore, the research assesses the mediating effect of overall satisfaction and customer trust on customer loyalty.

Data were collected via an airport intercept survey of Malaysia Airlines passengers who had experienced service failure. In total, 380 responses were used for the final analysis. The study uses partial least squares structural equation modelling technique with SmartPLS 3.0, in order to test and validate the research model and hypotheses posited.

The results reveal that: recovery satisfaction is significantly affected by procedural and interactional justice; distributive and procedural justice, as well as recovery satisfaction influenced overall satisfaction; customer trust is most influenced by interactional justice, distributive justice and recovery satisfaction; customer loyalty is positively affected by customer trust, overall satisfaction and recovery satisfaction; and the influence amongst recovery satisfaction and customer loyalty is partially mediated by customer trust and overall satisfaction.

The study contributes to a whole conceptual comprehension of the essential determinants of customer loyalty from the combined perspectives of three theories, namely, justice theory, expectancy disconfirmation theory and commitment-trust theory. This study successfully differentiates the three dimensions of perceived justice and assesses them individually to discern and compare their influence on overall satisfaction, recovery satisfaction and trust. In addition, the study finds that the influence of recovery satisfaction on loyalty is partially and sequentially mediated by trust and overall satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the food choice motives of consumers in Kuala Lumpur and the relative importance of these factors; to investigate the differences in food choice motives between the Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnicities and to examine variations in the food selection motives of foodies and non-foodies of the overall sample.

An online questionnaire was employed using a snowballing sampling method with 239 respondents. Food choice motives were measured using Steptoe et al.'s (1995) Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ) while a new exploratory measure for foodies was developed to examine respondents’ attitudes, interest and opinions (AIO).

The top three factors of food choice motives were Price, Convenience and Sensory appeal. Ethnicities did not differ in their food choice motives except for Familiarity between Malays and Chinese. Foodies and non-foodies displayed significant differences in their food choice motives, specifically in regards to Balanced diet, Mood and Sensory appeal.

This study is limited to only Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnicities in Kuala Lumpur. Future studies should explore motives of other minority ethnic groups and examine differences between age, gender and income groups.

Suppliers and marketers of the food industry should consider the important aspects of food choice motives to improve the marketing strategies of their products. Products should be reasonably priced, offer convenience and appealing.

This paper develops a new exploratory measure to capture the AIO of foodies based on Johnston and Baumann (2010) and Cairns et al. (2010).