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Article
Publication date: 10 March 2020

Kishore Gopalakrishna Pillai and Charles F. Hofacker

Studies on consumer knowledge calibration have used different measures of calibration. The purpose of this paper is to undertake a comparative assessment of important measures. In…

Abstract

Purpose

Studies on consumer knowledge calibration have used different measures of calibration. The purpose of this paper is to undertake a comparative assessment of important measures. In addition, it seeks to identify the best performing measure.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reports on three studies. The first study uses eight survey data sets. The second and third studies use experiments.

Findings

The study found that the Brier score component measure is most responsive to feedback and is the most suitable measure of knowledge calibration. The results also indicate that researchers should use measures that use item-level confidence judgements, as against an overall confidence judgement.

Research limitations/implications

By documenting the relationship between the different measures of knowledge calibration, the study enables proper interpretation and accumulation of results of various studies that have used different measures. The study also provides guidance to researchers in psychology and education where this issue has been noted.

Practical implications

The study provides guidance to managers in knowledge intensive industries, such as finance and insurance, interested in understanding their consumers’ knowledge calibration.

Originality/value

This is the first study in consumer research that examines this issue.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 54 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 March 2022

Arash H. Zadeh, Maryam Farhang, Mohammadali Zolfagharian and Charles F. Hofacker

This research (1) investigates value cocreation behavior and the underlying activities on social media; (2) examines the motivational values and psychological predictors of…

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Abstract

Purpose

This research (1) investigates value cocreation behavior and the underlying activities on social media; (2) examines the motivational values and psychological predictors of cocreation intention on social media via uses and gratification paradigm (U&G) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB); (3) investigates an underlying mechanism linking the motivational values to cocreation intention, via attitude.

Design/methodology/approach

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the mediation analysis are used to test the data from 417 Facebook users.

Findings

Cocreation intention is (1) robustly influenced by extrinsic motivational values, such as purposive value; (2) indirectly affected, through attitude, by intrinsic motivational values such as entertainment and social enhancement; and (3) not associated with subjective norms, behavioral control and self-discovery. The latter is a likely result of this study's focus on explaining value cocreation rather than social media usage.

Research limitations/implications

This study is one of the first to identify antecedents of cocreation intention on Facebook, using an integrative model of TPB and U&G. Attitude serves as a key construct, mediating the effects of motivational values on cocreation intention, with mediation being partial for some values and complete for others. The existence of direct and indirect effects of motivational values and the mediating role of attitude points to the illustrious yet contested value–attitude–behavior hierarchy and offers explanations as to why some of the motivational values were not linked to the cocreation behavior on Facebook (Pelletier et al., 2020).

Practical implications

Firms should strive to influence the attitude of their users toward cocreation intention as it links the influence of motivational values on value cocreation. Managers should strive to prepare an appropriate platform where customers can easily interact with one another and communicate different value propositions. The goal should be to enable customers to derive extrinsic values as they interact with corporate-sponsored social media content. More specifically, purposive value, followed by socializing value, should be emphasized during social media content design. For example, the content should feature concrete and convenient informational and instrumental benefits (purposive value) and provide customers with tools that enable them to create social support, friendship and intimacy (socializing value). In addition, entertainment value should not be dismissed.

Originality/value

This research builds upon the emerging social media literature and a robust decision-making model to investigate value cocreation, predictors and an underlying mechanism explaining the relationships.

Details

Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, vol. 17 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7122

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 June 2020

Sunil Mithas, Charles F. Hofacker, Anil Bilgihan, Tarik Dogru, Vanja Bogicevic and Ajit Sharma

This paper advances a research agenda for service researchers at the intersection of healthcare and information technologies to improve access to quality healthcare at affordable…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper advances a research agenda for service researchers at the intersection of healthcare and information technologies to improve access to quality healthcare at affordable prices. The article reviews key trends to provide an agenda for research focusing on strategies, governance and management of key service processes.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper synthesizes literature in information systems, service management, marketing and healthcare operations to suggest a research agenda. The authors draw on frameworks such as the interpretive model of technology, technology acceptance model, assemblage theories and Baumol's cost disease to develop their arguments.

Findings

The paper situates strategy-related service management questions that service providers and consumers face in the context of emerging healthcare and technology trends. It also derives implications for governance choices and questions related to that.

Research limitations/implications

The paper discusses service management challenges and concludes with an agenda for future research that touches on governance and service management issues.

Practical implications

This paper provides implications for healthcare service providers and policymakers to understand new trends in healthcare delivery, technologies and facilities management to meet evolving customer needs.

Social implications

This paper provides implications for managing healthcare services that touch on many social and societal concerns.

Originality/value

This conceptual paper provides background and review of the work at the intersections of information systems, marketing and healthcare operations to draw implications for future research.

Article
Publication date: 7 June 2011

Isabella Soscia, Alessandro Arbore and Charles F. Hofacker

The purpose of this paper is to look at television delivered to a mobile device, in order to better understand the adoption of such services. The research focuses on the role of…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to look at television delivered to a mobile device, in order to better understand the adoption of such services. The research focuses on the role of trial in new technology‐based services adoption. The authors hypothesize that trial increases both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, and that it is especially effective with women.

Design/methodology/approach

A field experiment was conducted to test the hypotheses of the study. A two group independent groups design was used to manipulate product trial, while the other variables were measured by questionnaire.

Findings

The authors' empirical results reveal that product trial positively impacts perceived ease of use, but not perceived usefulness. It is also shown that the relationship between product trial and ease of use is stronger for females than for males. Moreover, product trial, working through perceived ease of use, influences the intention to adopt the new technology.

Practical implications

In many cases where a service is provided by software, the cost of offering a trial is quite modest and management ought to give it serious thought as a promotional tactic.

Social implications

Our research suggests that trial can be quite efficacious with women: it could help to increase confidence in consumers' ability to use new technologies.

Originality/value

While numerous researchers have studied the impact of communication on adopting new technology‐based services, the present studies emphasize that product trial is a key yet underutilized – and understudied – marketing tactic for such services.

Details

Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, vol. 5 no. 2/3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7122

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 August 2008

Charles F. Hofacker

The purpose of this paper is to reveal how mental models inherited from offline retailing have impeded both the theory and practice of online retailing, and to suggest fruitful…

2729

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to reveal how mental models inherited from offline retailing have impeded both the theory and practice of online retailing, and to suggest fruitful areas of research in online retailing.

Design/methodology/approach

The mental models of physical retail suggest physical constraints of various sorts, and yet for the most part, the constraints acting upon the e‐tailer are instead logical, symbolic and cognitive.

Findings

Researchers in e‐tailing could benefit from pursuing a set of interesting issues including assortment, customer‐to‐customer value creation, site design and structure, and the importance of network topology.

Research limitations/implications

There are many new topics in retailing that can be explored by marketers, as long as we are willing to jettison some of our cherished terminology and ways of thinking. In effect, online, the retailing mix becomes human‐centric, rather than focusing on physical components.

Practical implications

The skill sets needed to set up an e‐tailing presence are substantially different than those required for offline retailing.

Originality/value

The paper takes an unconventional view of the retailing literature, literature that goes back to the foundation of marketing as an academic discipline.

Details

Direct Marketing: An International Journal, vol. 2 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-5933

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 19 September 2019

Charles F. Hofacker

Given that value exchange in virtually every sector of the economy is increasingly dominated by software, the goals of this chapter are to bring software to the attention of the…

Abstract

Given that value exchange in virtually every sector of the economy is increasingly dominated by software, the goals of this chapter are to bring software to the attention of the academic marketing community, to discuss the unusual product attributes of software, and to therefore suggest some research topics related to software as a product attribute. Software allows service to be physically stored and allows physical objects to perform services. Managing products that have evolved into software products creates difficult challenges for managers as software does not resemble either tangible goods or intangible services in terms of production, operations, cost structure, or prescribed strategy. Every time a business replaces an employee with an e-service interaction, and every time a business adds a line of code to a previously inert object, the nature of that business changes. And as software gets more capable, its nature as a product changes as well by adding unique product characteristics summarized as complexity, intelligence, autonomy, and agency.

Details

Marketing in a Digital World
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-339-1

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 June 2009

Charles F. Hofacker and Jamie Murphy

The purpose of this paper is to explain why visitors click the last several menu items on a web page at a higher rate than middle items in the menu, a menu recency effect. A…

8120

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explain why visitors click the last several menu items on a web page at a higher rate than middle items in the menu, a menu recency effect. A secondary goal is to test the use of visitor reaction time data as routinely collected by live web servers on the internet and the use of such data in understanding consumer response to direct marketing efforts at the level of an individual web page.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses a field experiment on a live web site belonging to a medium sized hospitality business, specifically a restaurant. Data, including visitor reaction time, come from the standard web log files routinely collected on all web sites. The sample consisted of more than 40,000 visitors to the web site.

Findings

The reasons for the recency effect seem more likely to pertain to short‐term memory advantages for later menu items and less likely to relate to eye movements in which the visitor's gaze prematurely jumps to the end of a menu.

Originality/value

The first contribution of this paper is to bring to bear a very large sample in order to explain a paradox of search behavior, namely that consumers are more likely to click on the last link in a menu than middle links. Understanding this phenomenon will allow web site managers to better optimize their sites according to their marketing goals. The second contribution is to demonstrate the usefulness of reaction time data in a direct marketing context. Web log servers automatically collect such data. Such data represent an ideal opportunity to leverage the direct connection between marketers and consumers that exists online.

Details

Direct Marketing: An International Journal, vol. 3 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-5933

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 June 2016

Edoardo Fornari, Daniele Fornari, Sebastiano Grandi, Mario Menegatti and Charles F. Hofacker

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the topic of multi-channel retailing. Specifically, the research intends to determine if and to what extent the opening of physical…

4843

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the topic of multi-channel retailing. Specifically, the research intends to determine if and to what extent the opening of physical stores by a former web-only retailer reduces or extends overall retail sales, and whether such effects tend to change over time. Empirical analysis focuses on data elaboration from a retailer who has passed from the initial mono-channel model (pure online), to a multi-channel one with the opening of stores.

Design/methodology/approach

Through the analysis of an internal data set of a leading consumer electronics retailer applying Probit and Logit estimation techniques, the authors extract information about actual customers’ purchases (or rather retail sales) in three newly opened stores and about online purchases (through an e-commerce web site managed by the same retailer with the same store brand) by people living in the new store service areas before and after the openings.

Findings

The paper shows that, for the single customer, the probability of purchasing online is reduced by the store opening in the short term, but tends to increase in the long term. Besides, results indicate that long-term synergy between the two channels depends mainly on indirect influence due to the mere presence of the store brand in the area rather than on the direct experience of shopping in the store.

Research limitations/implications

The study highlights that channel portfolio enlargement from mono- to multi-channel retailing tends to activate a sort of life cycle; while in the early phase of store addition web sales tend to be cannibalized because the two channels are perceived as “substitutes” for each other, in the long run migration turns into a synergy effect; different channels tend to interact with and reinforce each other as customer touch points of the same retailer, in an omni-channel perspective.

Originality/value

The paper herein presents various original elements concerning types of available data (actual sales rather than consumers’ intentions/perceptions and individual level data rather than aggregate level ones), estimation technique used (binary choice model) and research hypotheses (distinguishing between “direct” and “indirect” synergy effects in multi-channel retailing).

Details

International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, vol. 44 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-0552

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 March 2016

Charles F. Hofacker, Edward Carl Malthouse and Fareena Sultan

– The purpose of this paper is to assess how the study of consumer behavior can benefit from the presence of Big Data.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to assess how the study of consumer behavior can benefit from the presence of Big Data.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper offers a conceptual overview of potential opportunities and changes to the study of consumer behavior that Big Data will likely bring.

Findings

Big Data have the potential to further our understanding of each stage in the consumer decision-making process. While the field has traditionally moved forward using a priori theory followed by experimentation, it now seems that the nature of the feedback loop between theory and results may shift under the weight of Big Data.

Research limitations/implications

A new data culture is now represented in marketing practice. The new group advocates inductive data mining and A/B testing rather than human intuition harnessed for deduction. The group brings with it interest in numerous secondary data sources. However, Big Data may be limited by poor quality, unrepresentativeness and volatility, among other problems.

Practical implications

Managers who need to understand consumer behavior will need a workforce with different skill sets than in the past, such as Big Data consumer analytics.

Originality/value

To the authors ' knowledge, this is one of the first articles to assess how the study of consumer behavior can evolve in the context of the Big Data revolution.

Details

Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 33 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0736-3761

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 1998

Charles F. Hofacker and Jamie Murphy

Explores one of the many exciting advertising research possibilities spawned by the Web, namely the efficacy of banner advertisements designed to lure the browser to an external…

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Abstract

Explores one of the many exciting advertising research possibilities spawned by the Web, namely the efficacy of banner advertisements designed to lure the browser to an external Web page. Traditional advertising research usually relies on self‐report or memory. With Web advertisement banners, on the other hand, we can track actual behavior. In our pilot study, we demonstrate conclusively that click‐through rate, the percentage of visitors to a Web page clicking on an advertisement banner, can vary according to the advertisement copy. We also find that the imperative call for behavior, “Click here”, has a positive effect. These findings, using a new research method with a new medium, open the door to further advertising and communication research on Web advertisement banners.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 32 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

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