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Social and demographic changes are putting pressures on traditional gender roles in the house‐hold. Reports on the role of married males based on a large‐scale survey of upscale households. The data suggest that males in married households are responsible for shopping activities in varying degrees. The level of shopping responsibility is a function of the spouse′s occupation as well as the type of goods to be purchased. Responsibility for grocery shopping is limited among married males (about 15 per cent claim primary responsibility) but the ones who are responsible express the most enlightened attitudes about shopping and report the greatest degree of enjoyment with shopping at the supermarket. Although 56 per cent of the married males claim primary responsibility for their clothing, enjoyment of the shopping mall is greater among those who share responsibility jointly with their wives. The perceptions of alternative shopping methods such as store, catalogue and computer shopping suggest that store shopping is more fun, satisfying and rewarding. Because of these hedonic components, store shopping is likely to remain popular in the near future.

The Polytechnic of Central London in England has been given a two‐year government grant to set up an Information Technology Centre at its Regent Street site to put on public display some of the equipment and services now available. A permanent exhibition includes terminal and telecommunications equipment and a range of library and information services including viewdata, circulation and cataloguing systems. The centre was opened on the 17th November by the Minister for the Arts, the Rt. Hon. Paul Channon, MP.

Value co-creation assumes that customers take active roles and create value together with firms. This paper aims to investigate the short- and long-term effects of customer participation on brand loyalty, through brand satisfaction. Participation effects were also examined among social media-using customers with the additional explanatory factor of brand engagement.

Two studies were conducted among insurance customers: a cross-sectional study using a nationwide sample (N = 954) and a subsample of social media users (N = 145) to examine short-term effects, and a longitudinal study using data from three assessment timepoints (N = 376) to enable empirical long-term testing.

The cross-sectional study showed positive short-term effects of customer participation on brand loyalty, mediated by satisfaction. Among customers using social media, positive participation effects gained from brand engagement strengthened brand satisfaction. The longitudinal study did not show similar positive long-term effects of customer participation.

These findings help deepen service marketers’ understanding of the possible short-term effects of customer participation and customer brand engagement, and caution them to not expect that customer participation will have long-term positive satisfaction and loyalty effects.

This research provides interesting short- and long-term findings, due to the complementary cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs.

Online brand communities (OBCs) are an effective avenue for brands to engage consumers. While engaging with the brand, consumers simultaneously interact with other OBC members; thus engaging with multiple, interrelated engagement objects concurrently. The purpose of this paper is to explore both positively and negatively valenced consumer engagement with multiple engagement objects, the interplay between these, and the spillover effect from consumers’ engagement with the OBC to their engagement with the brand.

Drawing on 16 in-depth interviews with OBC members of a luxury accessory brand, a constant comparative method was adopted using axial and selective coding procedures. The objective was to understand the nature of participants’ engagement with the brand, the OBC, and the interplay between individuals’ engagement with these objects. The coding framework and resultant interpretive frameworks address engagement valence, outcomes, and direction.

This study illustrates consumer expressions of consumers’ positively and negatively valenced engagement with a focal brand, and with the OBC. Further, it demonstrates the interplay (spillover effect) that occurs between consumers’ engagement with the OBC, to their engagement with the brand. While the existence of positively valenced engagement with the OBC was found to further enhance consumer brand engagement (i.e. reflecting an engagement accumulation effect), negatively valenced engagement with the OBC was found to reduce consumer brand engagement (i.e. reflecting an engagement detraction effect).

While consumer engagement has been recognized to have both positive and negative manifestations, this study demonstrates that consumers’ engagement valence may differ across interrelated engagement objects (i.e. the brand and the OBC). Further, we demonstrate the existence of engagement spillover effects from the OBC to the brand for both positively and negatively valenced engagement.

This paper aims to contribute to the augmenting literature on consumer brand engagement (CBE) in social media brand communities (SMBCs) by offering the model of the depth of brand engagement funnel (DOBEF). The model is intended to complement the multi-dimensional conceptualization of CBE in the extant consumer behaviour literature and to critically address some of its foundational tenets.

A computer-mediated discourse analytic (CMDA) approach is adopted while using a mixed methods research design whereby qualitative data are quantified with a view to enhancing the robustness of the interpretive procedure. The data comprise 170 UGC posts stemming from three fast-moving consumer goods brands’ SMBC threads. Additionally, a netnographic approach is adopted in data collection, while data analysis/synthesis proceeds with the application of the laddering technique with the aid of the computer-aided qualitative discourse analytic CAQDAS software atlas.ti.

The bulk of user-generated content (UGC) in the scrutinized brand initiated thematic threads were found to be relevant, albeit negatively valenced or lacking in relevance altogether. This behavioural response pattern to brand initiated themes poses significant constraints to the level and quality of CBE. Multi-dimensional engagement across the DOBEF’s strata was found to be scarce, while engagement diminishes gravely as the upper layers of the model are reached.

By conducting analyses on coded data alongside DOBEF’s strata, rather than treating consumer comments as raw data, the narrowing down of the semantic focus of posted comments in a thread-specific fashion is enabled, thus meeting the narrow contextualization criterion that is lacking from various studies in the extant literature.

By shifting focus in identifying CBE levels in SMBCs from attitudinal/behavioural antecedents/outcomes towards the content of the interaction, a nuanced perspective is offered as regards the depth of interaction, while addressing posted comments not only in terms of valencing, but even more importantly of valorization.

By attending closely to incidents of negative brand engagement, and by dimensionalizing engagement along the funnel’s strata, a more nuanced understanding of territories where brand communities contribute to the dilution, rather than the enhancement of brand equity was obtained.

This is the first paper that discusses engagement on the grounds of deeply-laden consumer axiologies and the degree to which these are congruent with specific brand initiated thematic threads in SMBCs. It is anticipated that the discourse analytic (DA) approach that is adopted here will instigate further research that attends to UGC in a small-data, highly context-specific, rather than a big-data vein.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of external factors on the Facebook dialogue. As both weather and point in time substantially. As both weather and point in time substantially influence people’s lives, it can be assumed that both factors may also affect communication on Facebook. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study focusing on the impact of the external factors “weather” and “point in time” on a public utility’s Facebook communication.

The potential influence is explored through the case study of an Austrian public utility. The study focuses on 321 postings, published via the company’s official Facebook account between August 2016 and February 2018.

The empirical results confirm the influence of “weather” and “point in time” indicators on the stakeholder dialogue. The findings highlight how the relevant items affect the posting behavior of a utility, as well as stakeholders’ reactions, comments and shares.

By introducing both external factors to the social media literature, this paper broadens the understanding of Facebook communications beyond the sender and receiver of digital information. In this way, the research contributes to a more holistic view of Facebook dialogue. It provides practical advice on how social media managers of public utilities may use weather forecasts and “point in time” considerations to more strategically foster stakeholder dialogue in social media.

Omnichannel retailing emphasises the interplay between channels to provide seamless customer experiences across shopping journeys but is challenging for retailers to implement. This research explores the necessary actions and dynamic capabilities needed of retailers to create, extend and modify the organisational resource base required for realising omnichannel retailing.

A qualitative exploratory design with in-depth interviews of Generation Z customers and retail firms was used to provide insights into the dynamic capabilities necessary for obtaining omnichannel retailing.

This research elaborates on the dynamic capabilities needed for omnichannel solutions related to (1) the underlying technology (i.e. develop an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and online store), (2) customer experience optimisation (i.e. develop product delivery, return routines, supply chain management, curated exhibitions, showrooms and pop-up stores), (3) internal and external collaboration (i.e. collaborate across business units, strengthening the core leadership team and collaborate and align with service ecosystem partners and (4) overall omnichannel functionality (i.e. establish a customer-oriented retail culture, and integrate marketing communication and customisation through data exploration).

This research enriches the retailing literature on omnichannel solutions and responds to the need for theoretical anchoring by applying the dynamic capability perspective to address actions useful for realising omnichannel retailing.

This paper aims to provide an in-depth evaluation of how German and Austrian utilities use Facebook to engage stakeholders, including a look at the objectives pursued with the use of Facebook, addressed stakeholders as well as the provided information. German and Austrian utility companies are confronted with serious changes in the European energy sector. In this context, stakeholder theory emphasises the importance for utility companies to actively manage the relationships with the relevant stakeholders. Nowadays, a considerable number of these stakeholders might be addressed by using Facebook.

The quantitative study includes 88 German and Austrian utility companies.

Research findings indicate that Facebook is a common instrument in the German and Austrian energy sectors. It seems that so far, no real stakeholder dialogue has been achieved. Moreover, issues which deeply affect a wide variety of citizens are not emphasised on most Facebook accounts. Therefore, so far, the majority of utilities is not using the full potential of Facebook.

By developing a process of agenda-setting driven by social media, the paper contributes to the existing literature and gives practical implications for public and private entities in the energy sector.

During the transition from socialist to post-socialist regimes, many Central and Eastern Europe societies have developed a broad sector of informal work. This development has caused substantial economic and social problems. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper aims to answer two questions regarding European countries with a relatively weak economy and welfare state: what are the differences in the social characteristics between workers in formal and informal employment? And how might they be explained? According to the main assumption, a key reason why people work in undeclared employment in such countries is that they are in particularly vulnerable positions in the labour market. This paper uses the example of Moldova. The empirical study is based on a unique survey data set from the National Statistical Office of Moldova covering formal and informal employment.

The findings show that, in informal employment, workers in rural areas, workers with a low level of education, young workers and older workers – in the final years of their careers and after the age of retirement – are over-represented. It seems that a significant reason why these workers are often engaged in informal employment is the lack of alternatives in the labour market, particularly in rural areas, compounded by limited social benefits from unemployment benefits and pensions.

Research about social differences between workers in formal and informal employment in the countries of the European periphery is rare. This paper makes a new contribution to the theoretical debate and research regarding work in informal employment.

The present study sets out to understand how a manufacturing company in the maritime industry utilized creative design principles and developed service design routines to advance digital servitization (i.e. the transition to offering smart product-service-software systems–PSS) and realize subsequent positive growth outcomes.

We build upon a longitudinal single case of a marine solution provider. Using an action research approach, we collected data through in-depth interviews and informal conversations involving senior managers, project members and customer representatives over a three and a half-year period. In addition, secondary data such as documentary data, service design tools and visualization were utilized.

The inductive analysis highlights the underlining role of four service-design routines that drive creativity and an innovative approach to digital servitization transformation. More specifically, we identify (a) user insights through creative customer data acquisition, (b) smart PSS collaboration through co-creation across departments, (c) smart PSS ideation through creative forms of collaboration and (d) effective smart PSS delivery and commercialization through creative concept design as the drivers of the case company digital servitization transformation.

We encourage senior managers within large manufacturing companies to promote the development of service design routines as these promote the transformation process from being a product-centric to service-centric firm. The four service design routines are built on a set of service design sub-activities providing concrete actions that can be applied by senior managers to successfully develop and deliver smart PSS offerings and achieve growth outcomes.

This study contributes by integrating digital servitization and service design literatures. We illustrate how manufacturing firms can drive a transition to digital servitization through service design activities and routines development for smart PSS strategy implementation.