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The purpose of this study is to offer a “brand equity model” that will help football organizations to manage their appeal.

The proposed model utilizes structural equation modelling analysis to test the hypothesized marketing brand equity (MBE) model. The empirical part of the research stems from a large survey of 1,300 Israeli football fans.

As expected, knowledge about the team, the team’s image and its perceived personality significantly predicted positive attitudes toward the team. This in turn predicted commitment, which predicted recommendation, which predicted intentions. The linear regression to extract the seven parameters weights was highly significant (F = 163.5, p < 0.001) and explained 52 per cent (R² = 0.518) of the depended variable “price premium”.

The new MBE model suggested here provides a relative index of brand equity for football club organizations that enables them to competitively compare the marketing equity of their club to that of their rivals. The MBE model also shows that commitment is a central component in the football club’s brand equity model. The current MBE model is the only model that provides a weight for each of the components. Each respective weight represents the internal contribution of each component to the final brand equity index. These weights indicate where an effort should be made to improve the equity of the brand.

Football teams may also need to focus on the constructs underlying the commitment (Shuv-Ami, 2012) of fans to their football club organization, that is, the team performance and satisfaction stemming from the fans’ experience with their team and the feelings of loyalty and involvement that represent the degree of fan engagement with the team. Although football teams do what they can to improve performance, much can be done in marketing to improve the other constructs and, thus, fan commitment. Improving the experience of fans, both on and off the field, regardless of whether the team is winning or losing, builds fan engagement.

The current research suggests two new brand equity models for football club organizations. One is a comprehensive theoretical model that combines and expands current conceptual brand equity models (Keller, 1993, 2008; Aaker, 1991, 1996; Keller and Lehmann, 2006); the other is an empirical model that makes it practical to measure the marketing strength or the brand equity of football clubs. The new empirical MBE suggested here provides a relative index of brand equity for football club organization that enable them to compare competitively the marketing equity of their club to that of their rivals. The MBE model also shows, for the first time, that commitment is a central component in the football club brand equity model. The current MBE is the only model that provides a weight for each of its component.

The purpose of this paper is to test three visual, demographically based perceptions of service quality at several emergency rooms (ERs) of hospital organizations in Israel.

This research is based on the evaluations of 1,002 people who accompanied a patient to hospital ERs in Israel. The data were collected randomly from an internet panel that comprised more than 50,000 people aged over 18 years.

The findings showed that female patients were perceived as receiving significantly lower service quality than males; elderly patients were treated well by medical staff, and treatment was similar to all other adult groups; children were perceived as receiving the best service; and religious individuals perceived service quality in ERs at a higher level than non-religious patients.

The current study uses a service quality scale derived from a marketing scale that was modified to study the quality of service in hospital ERs. The current study measures only differences in visual demographics.

This paper attempts to provide the ER staff of hospital organizations with some knowledge about the ways which their service is perceived and encourages a more sensitive attitude toward their patients’ needs. This may influence the hospital customer satisfaction and the hospital financial bottom-line.

The current study conceptualizes and empirically tests a new model of market brand equity (MBE). This model, that not just provides an understanding of customer mindsets toward the brand, as most empirical models do, but also measures the marketing benefits of such mindsets. The present study offers two models. One is comprehensive and theoretical while the other is an empirical model. The empirical model is a practical model drawn from the more comprehensive and conceptualized model. The hypothesized empirical MBE model is tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis followed by a formula that offers a method to calculate and rank competitive brands in the market place. The purpose of this paper is to conclude with a discussion of the implications of the model.

The findings of the present research are based on a representative sample of 964 cellular phone users selected randomly from an Israeli internet panel were analyzed. The questions related to the dimensions of the brand equity needed a more intimate relationship of the customers with the brand. Thus, those questions were asked only with regard to the brand that the respondents were mainly using. These questions were concerned with brand knowledge, brand commitment and brand overall attitude. The other questions that the respondents answered were about three other brands on the market. All dimensions, except purchase barriers, were measured on a ten-point scale.

SEM analysis was used to test the hypothesized MBE model as well as alternative models. The results, which supported the hypothesized model, indicated that knowledge has a strong positive effect on image, personality and attitude. Image has a positive effect on attitude, but that of personality was insignificant. Attitude, image and personality have a positive effect on commitment. Commitment affects recommendation strongly and positively. Both commitment and recommendation have a positive and significant effect on potential market share.

The limitations of the current research are that it was not measured over time and that only one product category has been tested. In addition to dealing with these limitations, future research may also add additional marketing performance outcome variables such as the ability to obtain premium prices and to exercise brand power in relation to channels of distribution.

The model presented in this paper provides the marketer with the ability to compare, from a competitive perspective, the relative average in the market place of customer mindset, customer performance and marketing performance. The analysis also reveals whether to invest in strengthening customer mindset or in capturing a greater market share. When the brand leader is far from its followers, an additional analysis may be required and it may be necessary to increase the sensitivity of the analysis by examining separately (without the leading brand) the relative differences between the follower brands. Moreover, the measurement questions should be adjusted to fit different product categories. For example, in testing the MBE in the service industry, “product performance,” which is a component of brand commitment, should be measured by the “quality of service.” But the way of using the model will not change. Another example for future research may be found in sport marketing, such as among football or basketball clubs. In such instances, performance – winning or losing – or even the quality of the players on the team may be considered. It is suggested here that the MBE’s measurement of fast-moving products vs slow moving ones. However, in such cases the model would probably show a significant difference in involvement with the brands of fast-moving products displaying much lower customers’ involvement then brands of slow-moving products.

The empirical model suggested in this study is a new and practical market-based brand equity that uses commitment as the main construct, building brand equity to represent the performance outcome of the customer mindset used in the models noted above. The current study also offers a new practical and useful formula for calculating and ranking MBE.

The purpose of this paper is to adapt the well-established concept of “brand equity” in order to define and measure employer branding and its organizational consequences.

This paper utilized structural equation modeling with a large sample of 600 employees to test the proposition that organizational brand equity (OBE) is translated into attitudes toward the workplace (organizational commitment) and has possible behavioral consequences (turnover intentions).

The study findings provide support for a partial mediation model. In addition to a direct association between OBE and turnover intentions, organizational commitment mediates the relationships between OBE and turnover intentions within a 12-month period.

Employer branding research is heterogeneous in terms of measurement tools and scope. This paper is part of an emerging perspective that suggests the adoption of the brand equity concept from marketing into the field of OB. This paper investigates the relationships between brand equity, employees’ commitment and turnover intentions. Well-established measures and a large-scale sample of 602 participants are used.

This paper aims to present changes in customer brand commitment and its components in relation to the cellular and financial markets using three sets of data that were collected before, during and after the social protests of the Summer of 2011 in Israel.

The four data sets for this study were collected from an internet panel and represent the Hebrew-speaking segment of Israel’s population. The current study examines two markets; cellular provider companies and financial service companies. The surveys were carried out at different points in time which extended from April 2011 to March 2012. The first two surveys were carried out in March 2011 and May 2011, before the outbreak of the protests the Summer of 2011. A third survey was conducted in August 2011 during the protest. The last and the fourth survey was conducted in March 2012 after the wave of protests had died down.

The current research shows that as a result of the social protest movement, consumers have changed. They perceive brands as not being as good (perceived performance) as they were before the protest; they are less satisfied with the brands they used previously; and they are less loyal and committed to them.

The findings of this study signify a major change in marketing and in basic aspects of consumer behavior. Brands have become less important than before the protest. Testing two markets, cellular and financial, this research suggests that the social protest movement reduced the attachment of consumers to brands they most often bought.

No study has tested the impact over time of the social protest on several consumer behavior variables, including brand loyalty, brand involvement, satisfaction, consumer perceptions of their brands’ performance and brand commitment.

The current study postulated that fans' social identities (derived from the team sport clubs of which they perceive themselves to be members) coexist with their personal identities (derived from views of themselves as unique, individual sport fans). The study examined the relationship between identity salience and both positive and negative aspects of fans' attitudes, emotions and behaviours.

Seven hundred and twelve (712) Israeli professional football fans participated in this study. The study employed a survey drawn from an Internet panel with more than fifty thousand members.

Utilizing structural equation modelling (SEM), the authors demonstrated that while social identity salience is related to positive aspects of being a sport fan (love of a favourite team and loyalty), it is also related to negative aspects of being a sport fan (hatred and perceptions of the appropriateness of fan aggression). Personal identity salience was found to be related to the decrease in negative outcomes of being a fan (hatred and perceptions of the appropriateness of fan aggression).

Marketers and sport organizations will benefit from stimulating sport fans' personal identity salience to mitigate possible negative consequences of team affiliation.

The current study expands upon past sport management studies by demonstrating the existence of relationships between sport fans' identity salience and their emotions, attitudes and behaviours. The identity salience of fans is relevant from both academic and applicative perspectives.

The growing proportion of older fans and their potential economic value have increased the need for an improved understanding of age differences in fan behaviour. Building on socioemotional selectivity theory, the current study examines the impact of age differences on fan hatred as well as on the extent to which fans actually engage in aggressive activities and fans' perceptions of the levels of appropriateness of certain physical and verbal acts of aggression.

The study used an online panel-based survey that offered access to a real-world population of sport fans. The participants were 742 fans of professional football (soccer).

Results from structural equation modelling indicated that older fans reported lower levels of fan hatred, lower self-reported aggression and lower acceptance of physical and verbal aggression. Moreover, fan hatred partially mediated the relationship between age and levels of aggression and between age and acceptance of verbal aggression. In addition, fan hatred fully mediated the relationship between age and acceptance of physical aggression.

The current study makes two important contributions. First, it demonstrates that sport clubs may particularly benefit from understanding the potential but often neglected importance of older sport fans in relation to the problematic phenomenon of fan aggression. Second, it offers a thorough theoretical account of the manner in which fan hatred plays a significant role in the relationships between age and fan aggressiveness.

This study, an empirical research, aims to construct and validate a new love-hate scale for sports fans and tested its antecedents and consequences.

The scale was designed and validated in three separate empirical survey studies in the context of Israeli professional basketball. In Phase 1, the authors verified the factorial validity of the proposed scale using exploratory factor analysis. In Phase 2, the authors conducted a confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling. In Phase 3, the authors tested the nomological network validity of the scale.

The findings show that fans' involvement, loyalty and fandom significantly predicted their love–hate, which in turn significantly predicted self-reported fan aggression, fans' acceptance of fan aggression, price premium and frequency of watching games.

The model was tested on a relatively small sample of fans within a single country. This lack of generalizability should be addressed in future studies by examining the model in other sports contexts and countries.

This study suggests that understanding the properties of the love–hate measure may assist team sports clubs in identifying, preventing and controlling potential fan aggression.

The study provides three incremental contributions above and beyond existing research: it develops and validates a scale for measuring the phenomenon of sports fans' love and hate as mixed emotions; it makes it possible to capture the variations in the magnitude of fans' love–hate; and it relates fans' love–hate to important attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.

Service quality and patient satisfaction have a significant impact in healthcare. Health organizations have also begun to put the customer at the center and meet his or her needs. This study aims to indicate the need to develop a simple and appropriate scale for measuring quality of service in hospital emergency rooms.

The validity and reliability of the scale were established by three separated and independent studies that used exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis to test the nomological network validity of the scale. The data was collected randomly from an internet panel that comprises more than 50,000 people over the age of 18. The research is based on 1,002 Israelis who accompanied a patient to a hospital emergency room.

In total, 23 items comprised the new scale of emergency room service quality with three dimensions: “staff professionalism”, “staff caring” and “tangibles”. The internal reliability for the total scale was high with Cronbach's α of 0.97.

In Israel, there is a state health system, and therefore, it is necessary to check the scale elsewhere in the world.

The measurement of service quality for emergency room needed to be focused on the unique charters of the service provided in hospitals’ emergency room. The findings show that a client may assesses the service their loved one has received to decides whether to return to the same hospital and recommend it to his or her friends.

The current study attempts to determine to what extent, if any, the protests of summer of 2011 affected public attitudes and behavior in Israel. More specifically, the objective of the current study was to examine by means of a survey, Israeli public attitudes toward: the social protest; the enterprises that were the focus of the protest; and the government and the state of Israel.

The findings presented below are based on a survey that was conducted among 1,019 respondents during the second week of March 2012 via an internet panel. The sample represents the Hebrew-speaking population of Israel, with a maximum sampling error of +3.2 percent.

The findings of the current study show that the Israeli public was united behind various demands of the protesters: to control the prices of basic products and services; to decrease the price of small apartments for young families; to reduce the income gap between the poor and the rich; and to increase the social services provided by the government.

The first academic case study on the Israeli social protest.