Search results

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

This paper aims to develop a theoretical model to understand co-creation/co-destruction of value through customer engagement in online channels. It also investigates the contributing factors.

The qualitative approach uses the critical incidents technique to answer the research questions. The authors identify 350 critical incidents in which customers expressed online customer engagement-induced value co-creation or co-destruction experiences. The factors and resulting propositions are identified through data analysis. Data coding and analysis are facilitated by using MAXQDA 12.

Co-creation through positively valenced engagement behaviors may occur when customers are delighted, feel valued, experience reciprocity, receive organizational incentives, are solicited for feedback, can count on service recovery efforts and interact with helpful, empathetic, polite and responsive employees. Co-destruction through negatively valenced engagement behaviors emerges from rude employee behaviors, indifference, confrontation with company representatives, technological failure, the lack of complaint outlets and customers’ desire for revenge.

Selecting and training employees to be helpful, polite, responsive and empathetic toward online visitors can trigger co-creation. Communication between firms and customers should boost customer approval and delight. Organizations can offer incentives, reliable service delivery and a recovery design to stimulate visitor participation. Soliciting feedback requires sound technological support and direct communication links with visitors.

This study presents the conditions and framework contributing to the duality of customer engagement-induced co-creation and co-destruction values in online channels from the customer, organizational, employee, service design and technological perspectives. It also addresses how value is co-created or co-destructed through examples.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a discussion, definition and comprehensive conceptualization of the smart service experience, i.e. the way guests and customers in hospitality and tourism experience and value the use of personalized and pro-active services that the intelligent use of data and technology enable.

Based on prior research on service experience, smart services and the differences between regular and smart services, this paper develops a conceptual framework in which the smart service experience is the central construct.

The characteristics of smart services (the intelligent, anticipatory, and adaptable use of data and technology) permit customers to experience services that previous conceptualizations of the service experience could not capture. The smart service experience provides empowerment, a seamless experience, enjoyment, privacy and security, and accurate service delivery. The paper also discusses challenges that service firms face in employing smart services, and proposes a future research agenda.

Both academics and practitioners expect smart services to revolutionize many industries such as tourism and hospitality. Therefore, research is needed to help understand the way customers experience smart services, what values they derive from them and the way service firms can employ them sensibly to enhance customers’ experiences.

This paper synthesizes insights from the literature on customer experience, smart services and co-creation into a conceptualization of the smart service experience, and distinguishes it from previous conceptualizations of regular services.

This study aims to identify different approaches to conceptualize value co-creation and analysing firms’ co-creation strategies aided by various advancing technologies. This study further discusses the strengths and weaknesses of these strategies and suggests solutions to overcome the limitations.

Following a critical literature review, the authors propose a conceptual framework to denote the relations between evolving technologies and co-creation activities.

On one hand, technology influences the co-creation processes by empowering consumers, offering greater ability to connect, providing greater access to information and furnishing a platform that facilitates co-creation; on the other hand, technological advancements may add complexity, variability and lead to loss of control for service organizations. A role of customers and value definitions are identified and elaborated in the value co-creation process.

Advanced information and communication technologies transcend the traditionally defined service encounters by enabling co-creating actors to exchange resources through virtual interfaces, thus redefining the strategies of value co-creation. Though many studies have discussed value co-creation in diversified standpoints, a perspective from its relationship with technological progression over time remains nascent. The study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of technology-enabled value co-creation in service ecosystems.

Companies increasingly rely on online communities for social customer support, to develop and nurture relationships with customers, and to generate product and service development ideas. As yet, few studies have established the relationship between online communities and branding strategies. Therefore, the impact of online communities on branding requires investigation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence brand relationships developed through online communities.

A theoretical model was developed based on marketing literature and tested using structural equation modeling with a sample size of 253 respondents.

Findings present the underlying reasons why and how online communities build stronger brand relationships with consumers. Online communities have been found to cultivate consumers’ sense of collectiveness with shared values conveyed through brand engagement; enhance consumers’ trust, leading to the establishment of a trustworthy image of the brand; and increase enjoyment and enrich consumers’ experience with the brand through participation and engagement.

This study provides insights to understand the direct relationship between online communities and brand performance. The findings of the study provide practical implications for brand relationship management and online community design.

公司越来越依靠网上社区来提供社交式的消费者服务支持, 以建立和巩固与消费者的关系, 并且以获得产品、服务研发的新想法。至今为止, 很少的著作致力于研究网上社区与品牌战略的关系。因此, 网上社区对于品牌扩展的影响作用值得研究。本论文的研究目的即是研究通过网上社区建立起来的消费者品牌关系的诸多因素。.

本论文的理论模型是以营销理论为基础而建立的。本论文采用结构方程模型, 253份样本数据, 来验证建立的理论模型。.

各种通过网上社区建立更强消费者品牌关系的因素得以分析和整理。网上社区能够通过使消费者与品牌更贴近的各种活动, 以培养消费者对于品牌的认知和集体意识, 从而使消费者与品牌有一致的价值认知。此外, 网上社区还能增强消费者对于品牌的信任, 增强了消费者与品牌互动过程的愉悦感和体验感。.

本论文对于网上社区和品牌表现之间的直接关系进行梳理和研究。其研究结果对于品牌关系管理和网上社区设计等方面有着很深的实际启示作用。.

This paper aims to examine consumers’ adoption of mobile technology to facilitate their banking services and activities, and to investigate the factors influencing their adoption and engagement.

An online survey is used to test proposed relationships between factors and consumers’ mobile banking adoption. Structural equation modeling is performed to analyze consumers’ intentions toward mobile banking.

Traditional technology acceptance model factors – perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use – are identified as effective factors in influencing consumers to adopt mobile technology for facilitating banking services. Moreover, technology safety concerns, including reliability and privacy factors, are found to play an important role in motivating consumers to embrace mobile banking. The “fun” feature of the technology and consumers’ innovativeness characteristics are considered important in influencing mobile banking adoption. Trust in the banks has its predominant role in mobile technology adoption for banking services.

A bank gaining trust from its clients is key to active adoption of mobile banking technology. Bankers are advised to pay more attention to reliability and privacy features when designing and promoting mobile banking technology to consumers. Moreover, advertisements to bank clients should stress the “fun” aspects of the mobile banking apps to attract them to the use of mobile banking technology.

This paper investigates the factors influencing bank consumers to adopting mobile banking apps to facilitate their banking services. Nine key factors in the technology adoption area are examined to provide a comprehensive understanding of bank clients’ use of mobile banking apps, which advances the understanding of mobile technology applied in the banking industry in the literature.

The purpose of this study is to distinguish between two types of nostalgia, examine their effect on emotions and explore the relationships between nostalgic emotions evoked by past hotel experiences and consumers’ brand attachment and willingness-to-pay.

This study was based on a sequential explanatory mixed-method design. An online scenario-based experiment was complemented with online structured interviews.

The results indicate that both personal nostalgia and historical nostalgia evoke positive emotions (upbeat/elation and warm/tender). However, emotions evoked by personal nostalgia are less intense than those evoked by historical nostalgia. Positive emotions successfully predicted brand prominence and brand-self connection. Brand prominence, but not brand-self connection, was positively related to consumers’ willingness-to-pay.

The study’s findings suggest that hotel brands that focus on creating extraordinary memories, and brands with more historical themes, elicit more positive emotions among hotel customers. This, in turn, makes customers more likely to recall that hotel brand in the future and translates into higher willingness-to-pay.

This study is among the first to establish and test a conceptual model that connects nostalgia, nostalgic emotions, brand attachment and willingness-to-pay in the hotel industry context. As such, it is a rare attempt to explain the role of personal and historical nostalgia in hospitality research.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

Covers the meaning of mediation, the role of the mediator, and the mediation process. Outlines the framework for discussion with reference to the mediator’s role. Concludes that it is necessary to focus on common ground and not the differences.