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The acceptance of mobile health (m-health) applications, especially those of a preventive nature, by individuals, is not well understood. Despite the benefits offered by m-health applications in improving and sustaining health and well-being through various avenues, widespread adoption is yet to be seen. Within this context, this study aims to reveal the enabling factors and barriers that influence the use of m-health applications among Generation Z (Gen-Z).

The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) was extended with e-health literacy, trust and enjoyment constructs. Data from a survey study on 312 Gen-Z members were analysed via structural equation modelling, shedding light on the reasons why new generations adopt m-health apps.

The findings indicate that social influence and enjoyment are the most significant factors influencing the use of m-health apps. The significant impact of performance and effort expectancy on intentions was also confirmed by the results. Moreover, privacy risk was identified as a barrier to adoption. The results also indicated that the strong influence of trust on privacy risk can be used to offset those privacy concerns.

The findings highlight that hedonic motivation, which is commonly overlooked in health settings, plays an important role in m-health app use. Thus, promoting mobile app features that provide enjoyment will be influential in attracting the younger generation.

The context of the study differs from the norm and focuses on a regional health tourism hub, Turkey, situated at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. UTAUT model is modified with relevant constructs, namely, enjoyment, e-health literacy and privacy risk, to better fit the m-health context.

The purpose of this study is to test the effects of satisfaction, satisfaction with service recovery (SSR) and switching costs (SC) on loyalty and positive word-of-mouth (PWOM) of bank customers in a service recovery context, taking into account the interaction among latent variables and the effects of contextual factors.

A theoretical model is proposed based on previous studies and tested using structural equation modeling technique and bootstrapping estimates. A survey was conducted with 1,878 bank customers of a large Brazilian bank.

Results supported the positive effects of satisfaction and SC on loyalty, while PWOM was influenced mainly by SAT. In addition, SC significantly interacted with satisfaction, reducing the effects of satisfaction on loyalty. Finally, relationship time, gender and age were the most relevant contextual factors.

This study highlights the importance of switching costs in the banking industry. Although satisfaction is a relevant predictor of loyalty, this influence is contingent on the customer's SC. Hence, investment on marketing strategies and campaigns should be oriented to better convert switching perceptions into effective loyalty.

Despite recent investigations on the roles of SC in customer loyalty, results have indicated mixed findings and most of the studies do not consider interactions between latent constructs. This study addresses this issue using the orthogonalization procedure.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test the antecedent, mediating and moderating role of switching costs on the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty.

Competing models are proposed based on previous studies investigating the influence of switching costs on satisfaction and loyalty. A survey was conducted with 7,461 customers of a large Brazilian bank. The four competing models were tested using structural equation modeling technique.

The analysis revealed that: switching cost is a significant antecedent of both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty; the mediating effect of switching cost is stronger in the relationship between satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty; and the moderating effect of switching cost is stronger in the relationship between satisfaction and behavioral loyalty.

This study emphasizes the relevance of the switching cost construct in the banking industry. Customers with different switching costs levels will manifest distinct relationship between satisfaction and behavioral loyalty. Thus, investment on marketing strategies and campaigns should be oriented to better convert switching perceptions into effective loyalty considering its mediating or moderating effects.

Even though there are several different approaches (i.e. direct, mediator and moderator) concerning the effects of switching costs on the satisfaction‐loyalty relationship, there is a lack of integration between these approaches. The paper tests and compares the different roles of switching costs. Another contribution is the inclusion of both attitudinal and behavioral aspects of loyalty, given that the current literature is incipient concerning the role of switching cost when considering the distinct loyalty components.

Stabilizing business in highly competitive and volatile business-to-business (B2B) markets is a strategic imperative for many companies. In such a context, customer retention through the creation of switching barriers (i.e. by increasing switching costs) is a common strategy. The purpose of this paper is to develop a network of relationships among customer switching experience, customer satisfaction, perceived switching costs, and behavioral loyalty intentions.

Survey data were collected from 327 business customers (very small enterprises with fewer than nine employees; customers included physicians, lawyers, tax advisors, consultants, civil engineers, etc.) of an information and communications technology (ICT) company. The research model was tested using partial least square structural equation modeling.

The results show that switching experience negatively influences customer satisfaction and behavioral loyalty intention. Furthermore, the influence of customer satisfaction on behavioral loyalty intentions is partially mediated by financial and relational switching costs.

In saturated markets, companies often try to grow by acquiring customers from competitors. This study reveals that this strategy can backfire. The customers that can be most easily acquired may be those that are the most difficult to retain because customers experienced in switching are difficult to satisfy – and low satisfaction means lower perceived financial and relational switching costs and, in turn, lower loyalty.

This research contributes to theory and practice by shedding further light on the satisfaction-loyalty link by investigating the often widely neglected role of switching experience. Furthermore, the study seeks to add to the discussion of how to specify the role of switching costs: as a mediator or as a moderator.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of satisfaction and switching costs on the development of brand equity in the business-to-business (B2B) setting. The study considers the hierarchical effects between brand awareness, brand associations, perceived quality, and brand loyalty. Furthermore, the conceptual model examines the direct effect of switching costs on satisfaction.

Structural equation modeling was used to analyze 632 responses from the CEOs and CFOs of organizations buying auditing and business consultancy services from one of the Big Four auditing companies.

The findings demonstrate the significant impact of satisfaction and switching costs on brand equity in the B2B setting. Furthermore, the findings show the positive effect of switching costs on satisfaction.

The study is conducted in the professional services context. Future research can examine whether the observed effects can be found in other B2B settings and considering various B2B services and industrial goods.

The study contributes to marketing managers’ understanding of how marketing actions aimed to increase satisfaction can affect brand equity. Marketing managers are provided with insights and evidence on how switching costs can impact satisfaction and brand equity.

The study tests a unique conceptual model focussing on the causal relationships between four dimensions of brand equity, satisfaction and switching costs. The findings provide a strong foundation for further investigation of links between the key marketing concepts: brand equity, satisfaction, and switching costs.

The importance of food values for the post–purchase process has not been widely studied. Most previous research in this line has focused on examining either the attributes of specific food categories, without taking the corresponding values into account, or food-purchasing attitudes and behaviour. To address this gap in the research, this paper delves deeper into the influence of food values on post–purchase variables.

Specifically, it analyses the influence of food values on satisfaction (both with the purchase and with the establishment), switching costs and loyalty. To this end, a sample of 708 consumers, collected through online questionnaires in Spain, is analysed using various descriptive statistics and causal models.

The findings confirm the influence of food values on satisfaction and that satisfaction positively influences loyalty. Switching costs were not found to moderate the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty.

The survey had to be completed online, and, thus, respondents needed to have an e-mail address. This influenced the respondents' profile, since many consumers over the age of 54 do not have e-mail, do not use it, or are more reluctant to complete online surveys.

Purchase satisfaction was not found to affect switching costs, which reinforces the idea that loyalty can sometimes be spurious. It would thus be an indicator that, as long as consumers have no other option, they will continue to shop at the establishment. In contrast, establishment satisfaction did generate switching costs. This finding could be due to aspects such as convenience, the development and maintenance of relationships with the employees, knowledge of where products are located in the store, etc. Customers may be dissatisfied with their purchase, yet still satisfied with an establishment, which could entail very high switching costs for them and, therefore, cause them to remain loyal (albeit spuriously) to the establishment.

This research contributes to the literature in this field by examining the influence of food values on key post-purchase variables.

This study aims to examine Victorian primary school parents’ perspectives about a potential school-provided lunch program (LP).

An online cross-sectional survey was conducted in Victoria, Australia, in 2022 to explore parents’ perceptions regarding the lunch menu, funding source, amount willing to pay, frequency of meals and special dietary needs of a school-provided LP.

Over half of parents (57% out of 359) said they would allow their child to participate in a school LP, 34% were unsure and only 9% said they would not. The opportunity for hot cooked lunches at school and the perceived convenience for parents were the top two reasons for favouring such a program. Fifty-eight percent were in favour of hybrid-type funding from both the government and parents. The most preferred amount to pay per meal was AUD5-6 (43%), followed by AUD3-4 (25%). Parents expected meals to be healthy and made from whole food and cater to the special dietary and cultural needs of their children. They also expected enough time to be allocated so children could eat and enjoy the meals.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore Victorian parents’ perceptions regarding the above aspects of a school-provided LP. The findings suggest that parents are receptive to a school-provided LP; they, however, did have several expectations regarding the menu and time for eating. These findings provide important directions for designing future school-provided LPs at primary schools in Australia.

Assembly lines are widely employed in manufacturing processes to produce final products in a flow efficiently. The simple assembly line balancing problem is a basic version of the general problem and has still attracted the attention of researchers. The type-I simple assembly line balancing problems (SALBP-I) aim to minimise the number of workstations on an assembly line by keeping the cycle time constant.

This paper focuses on solving multi-objective SALBP-I problems by utilising an artificial bee colony based-hyper heuristic (ABC-HH) algorithm. The algorithm optimises the efficiency and idleness percentage of the assembly line and concurrently minimises the number of workstations. The proposed ABC-HH algorithm is improved by adding new modifications to each phase of the artificial bee colony framework. Parameter control and calibration are also achieved using the irace method. The proposed model has undergone testing on benchmark problems, and the results obtained have been compared with state-of-the-art algorithms.

The experimental results of the computational study on the benchmark dataset unequivocally establish the superior performance of the ABC-HH algorithm across 61 problem instances, outperforming the state-of-the-art approach.

This research proposes the ABC-HH algorithm with local search to solve the SALBP-I problems more efficiently.

The objective of this study is to examine the effect of corporate image, perceived value, and switching costs on customer loyalty in customer/provider relationships of different length.

Five key constructs, namely: corporate image, perceived value, switching costs, customer loyalty, and length of relationship, were employed. Using a systematic sampling technique, student interviewers randomly approached customers exiting hair salons. The final survey sample consisted of 279 respondents.

This paper supports a contingency model with regard to customer loyalty and its antecedents. The results suggest that corporate image impacts customer loyalty in both newer and older relationships. Whereas in newer relationships, corporate image has a cardinal influence on switching costs, in more‐established relationships switching costs are influenced primarily by perceived value. In both cases, switching costs influence customer loyalty.

As extant research claims that relationship quality, and not length, moderates the relationship between loyalty/repurchase behavior and their antecedents, future research could adopt relationship quality as a moderator to test the model of the present study.

The results support the importance of enhancing corporate image to retain newer customers. In longer‐established relationships, corporate image remains a determinant of repurchase decisions. However, customer value also has a significant influence on switching costs and loyalty.

The current study moves beyond customer‐perceived value, switching costs, and corporate image to demonstrate that relationship length has a significant influence on customer loyalty.