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The paper focuses on extended reality technologies and their potential contribution to the improvement of services. First, it identifies extended reality technologies (AR/VR) as the most promising interfaces to enable an experiential consumption of the services. It then summarises their properties and discusses similarities and differences. Last, it maps these technologies onto a consumer psychology framework of experience to derive possible areas of future research.

The authors conduct a literature review and present a conceptual framework of AR/VR contributions on experience.

The study provides an up-to-date literature review including AR and VR applications for consumer and service experience, as well as recommendations for possible research directions.

Whereas previous contributions adopted the same, experiential approach but focused on different technology (e.g. AI) or considered multiple interfaces and their impact on the consumer journey (mostly transactions), this paper aims at digging deeper into AR/VR, while retaining an experiential view on consumption that best serves the contextualisation of AR/VR.

This paper aims to advance the design-thinking approach in food from an engineering mind-set toward a positive psychology perspective by investigating how consumer experiences evoked by food-related activities can facilitate, stimulate and enhance individuals’ happiness and perceptions of life satisfaction.

A diary field experiment was conducted. Participants from a major European city were asked to reflect on their food-related activities, provide descriptions and answer questions on experiential stimulation derived from these activities in relation to happiness and perceived life satisfaction.

Food-related activities generally result in positive consumer experiences and psychological well-being. Experiential stimulation resulting from food activities is positively related to perceived life satisfaction directly and indirectly via pleasure and meaning. Although the authors found an overall positive relationship between these constructs, they also found differences based on the experience type considered. A “crescendo model” of experiences that details how experiences lead to happiness and perceived life satisfaction is presented.

This study is largely exploratory. Future research should adopt an experimental approach and further test the relationship between experiential stimulation, happiness and perceived life satisfaction in the context of food.

The paper offers innovation teams in food companies a practical “crescendo model” that can be used to design product–consumer interactions.

The research bridges literatures on design thinking, psychological well-being and consumer experiences. By studying the relationship between experiences, happiness and perceived life satisfaction in the context of food, the findings contribute to research on food well-being by expanding the notion of happiness seen only as pleasure. The research also contributes to work on design thinking by offering an experiential framework that contributes to the notion of consumer empathy.

Looks at consumer research in Greater China including Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Maps out the contributions within this area and guides future research. Examines the state of the art over the 1979‐97 period, with particular emphasis on the topics that have been researched, the extent of the theory development in the field and the methodologies used in conducting research. Uses content analysis to review 75 relevant articles. Suggests that, while a considerable breadth of topics have been researched, there remains much to be done, there is further room for theoretical development in Chinese consumer behaviour studies; and the methodologies used need improvement and further refinement.

Elite interviewing is a well-established area of interview research methods. Nevertheless, the actual casting of an “elite” has been generally conducted in a prima facie or broad manner. A consideration of entrepreneurs and owner-managers as “elites” has been less profiled and received less attention, therefore the paper views the entrepreneurs and owner-managers as constituting a form of “local elite” within given and varying sectorial, regional and community boundaries. The authors argue that a consideration of entrepreneurs as “local elites” and transferring knowledge from an elite interviewing perspective may strongly support scholarly research in the entrepreneurship field.

The study conducts a comprehensive narrative literature review of elite interviewing literature and transfers key methodological insights to the entrepreneurship field. The methodological contribution based on literature is complemented by experiences and observations from an extensive inductive interview study with over 30 entrepreneurs of German manufacturing Small and Medium-sized Entities (SMEs) and are used to reflect on, and refine, interview research approaches with entrepreneurs.

The reflections and discussions in this paper provide valuable insights for other researchers conducting research in entrepreneurship domains regarding the power dynamics of negotiating access, procedural issues of interviews and thereby enhancing the quality of data.

The contribution to knowledge is mainly of a methodological nature. While the paper takes a novel act of recasting elite interviewing in the SME and entrepreneurship context, the paper methodologically contributes to the entrepreneurship and elite interview literature thereby facilitating higher quality interviews.

This research measured and compared the brand identity of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in China and the United States. Brand identity was defined as the customer impressions of four different KFC identity elements – properties, products, presentations, and publications. A survey of young consumers in the two countries (n = 795), showed that the Chinese respondents were more apt to eat within KFC restaurants, and spend more time doing so, than the Americans. The Chinese also had much more positive impressions of KFC than their US counterparts. Brand identity impressions were correlated with overall customer satisfaction and with future patronage intentions for both groups, but much more so for the Americans. These findings support a model where differences in cultural frames of reference lead consumers to actively localize the brand identity of this nominally globalized product.

The purpose of this research is to examine how consumers form beliefs and evaluate derivatives (e.g. handheld computers) and branded derivatives (e.g. Palm handheld computers). The aim is to study how consumers combine two categories (e.g. “handheld products” and “computers”) to form beliefs, how the similarity between the categories influences beliefs, how the addition of a brand changes beliefs, and how the presence of brand associations impacts on evaluations.

Three laboratory experiments to test hypotheses were conducted.

Results of the studies show the modifier (e.g. “handheld” in handheld computer) dominates derivative beliefs, but the nature of its dominance changes with category similarity. Brand effects are surprisingly limited in belief formation due to modifier dominance. Brand beliefs only transfer to branded derivatives when the brand fits with the modifier category. The presence of brand associations induces more positive evaluations of branded derivatives when the brand fits with the modifier category and, under certain circumstances, when it fits with the header‐category.

The presence of multiple concepts (e.g. Palm handheld computer) is common in line and brand extensions, yet little research has examined such complex products. Their comprehension can be better predicted by utilizing conceptual combination theory.

Managers can better determine what kinds of line and brand extensions are best suited for their brands.

The originality and value lay in utilizing the conceptual combination approach to more deeply understand which extensions are best suited for which brands. This helps fill a gap in the literature on consumer perception of multiple‐concept extensions.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive model that combines brand knowledge and brand relationship perspectives on brands and shows how knowledge and relationships affect current and future purchases.

The paper uses structural equation modeling to test the significance of the overall model and the specified paths.

It is found that current purchases are affected by brand image mostly directly and by brand awareness mostly indirectly. In contrast, future purchases are not affected by either dimension of brand knowledge directly; rather, brand knowledge affects future purchases via a brand relationship path that includes brand satisfaction, brand trust, and attachment to the brand. Thus, brand knowledge alone is not sufficient for building strong brands in the long term; brand relationship factors must be considered as well.

The present study did not examine feedback effects and included consumer categories only and no individual‐differences variables. It is recommended that future research examine feedback effects and include additional consumer categories, B2B categories and individual‐differences variables such as variety seeking and innovativeness.

Brand managers spend considerable resources on measuring brand awareness and brand image. It is recommended that practitioners also use brand relationship measures and develop strategic and tactical initiatives that ensure that consumers are satisfied with the brand, trust it and feel attached to it.

The paper is a cross‐paradigm paper: it is the first that combines the two separate broad‐based perspectives on brands into a simple comprehensive model for researchers and brand managers.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the applicability of value based management (VBM) concepts for small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and to identify obstacles for its implementation. Estimating cost of capital is central to all VBM concepts, it is hence intended to critically analyse approaches that allow estimating cost of capital for non‐publicly traded firms.

The paper is based on literature review and a case study approach. A case study on estimating the cost of capital has been conducted with a single manufacturing firm in Germany.

VBM may provide useful management concepts for SMEs. Estimating the cost of capital has been found to be a critical element of implementing VBM concepts. Due to the absence of capital market data, cost of equity in SMEs has to be derived by means of alternative procedures. Results of a case study implicate that a combination of different methods may provide reasonable results in practice.

The applied research approach and the heterogeneity of the SME sector do not allow generalizing the results of this research.

The paper addresses a major barrier for implementing VBM in SMEs. It proposes a combination of analogy and qualitative approaches for estimating the cost of equity in SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of customers’ perception of the integrated resort by focusing on brand-related variables, namely, brand reputation, brand experience, brand attitude, and behavioral intention. Integrated resorts have become popular in the tourism industry. However, despite the popularity of integrated resorts, little is known about how the integrated resort brand contributes to customer attitude.

A descriptive online survey was carried out with customers who had experience using the integrated resort. This study used the regression analysis and process macro to test hypothesized relationships among variables.

These results demonstrate that brand reputation increases customers’ perception of brand experience and brand attitude; brand experience, brand attitude and brand reputation affect behavioral intention toward the integrated resort brand; and brand experience and attitude plays a fully mediating role in the relationship between brand reputation and behavioral intention. These results suggest that customers’ perception associated with the integrated resort brand name is likely to generate a favorable experience and attitude, which, in turn, develops customers’ revisit intention.

A theoretical implication is that the pleasant brand experience and attitude emphasize the significance of the brand reputation in the formation of behavioral intention toward the integrated resort brand. Another theoretical implication is that integrated resort brand reputation might not be a strong indicator of the behavioral loyalty. It is worth conducting additional research on joint effects of brand reputation and customers’ type (e.g. recreational gamblers, problem gamblers, business travelers and family travelers).

The findings offer additional insights into managers on the integrated resort brand concept. This research provides opportunities for managers to identify rational/emotional linkages in differentiating, distinguishing and positioning integrated resort.

Although both brand experience and brand attitude have received past research attention, no researchers have studied them in an integrated resort setting. The main contribution of this research lies in testing the direct and indirect and fills a major gap in the integrated resort literature and research in stressing the need to consider about brand management.