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This study aims to facilitate the understanding of brand building among owners/managers of SMEs by highlighting the relationships among the multidimensionality of brand orientation, brand-building behavior and brand identity.

In addressing the research issue, the study uses responses from 158 domesticated SMEs in North Macedonia, afterwards relying on structural equation modeling to test the research propositions.

This study validates brand orientation as a multidimensional term that is underlined by brand artefacts, norms and values. This study also validates the assumptions that brand orientation, brand-building behavior and brand identity are significantly related.

While it is possible that our evidence base is limited to the context studied, the research findings nevertheless contribute primarily to the emergent scholarship on SMEs' brand building.

This study has practical consequences for SMEs' brand building. More specifically, it enriches the understanding of the interrelationships between brand orientation, brand-building behavior and brand identity.

This study provides an advanced perspective of brand orientation as a complex phenomenon and further provides understanding of its relations to brand-building behavior and brand identity of the domesticated SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of customer share of wallet (SoW) based on research in customer characteristics and the retail service quality model. Specifically, this study adopts an asymmetrical modelling approach to provide insights into the necessary and sufficient conditions leading to increased customer SoW in the context of neighbourhood shops in Southern Africa.

This study uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to analyse survey data collected from 523 current customers of the shops.

This study reveals that large household size and low income are necessary conditions for increased SoW. It also reveals five unique customer profiles, or casual recipes, associated with increased customer SoW. More generally, this study demonstrates that service quality constituents (personal interaction, reliability, policy and physical aspects of the shop) and customer characteristics, namely, relationship duration, household size, gender and income-level act in combination to lead to customer SoW.

This study illustrates how service quality constituents and customer characteristics compete and/or complement each other in relation to increased customer SoW. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to provide evidence on the necessary conditions for increased SoW, especially in the neighbourhood shop context of a developing economy. Value-wise, this paper provides a more nuanced perspective to understanding how unique customer profiles are associated with increased SoW.

Until now, very little empirical research has focused on social media adoption behavior within relatively small firms, and fewer still on adoption drivers within the specific context of microentrepreneurs, including that of micro-retailers. The purpose of this manuscript is to contribute to the study on social media adoption at the firm level by focusing on the specific role of institutional pressures, as captured by coercive, mimetic and normative pressures, in the initial adoption of social media in the context of micro-retailers.

This study, based on self-administered questionnaires, collected data from more than 200 micro-retailers in an emerging market and utilized the partial least squares modeling approach.

Findings reveal that normative and mimetic (not coercive) pressures are critical to initial adoption. Additional analysis, though not directly the center of attention in the study, indicates that both coercive and normative pressures are critical to continued adoption, especially for retailers who currently use social media to promote their businesses.

This study represents one of the few attempts to extend the institutional theory to study social media adoption behavior in the firm. In addition, it is the first in the literature to extend the theory to social media adoption within the context of microenterprises, primarily micro-retailers, who form the significant majority in the world.

This study proposes and validates an integrated theoretical model involving the theory of planned behavior (TPB), health belief model (HBM), personal norms and information privacy to understand determinants of acceptance and resistance to the use of mobile contact tracing app (MCTA) in a pandemic situation.

This study draws on online surveys of 194 research respondents and uses partial least squares structural equation modeling (PL-SEM) to test the proposed theoretical model.

The study establishes that a positive attitude towards MCTA is the most important predictor of individuals' willingness to use MCTA and resistance to use MCTA. Furthermore, barriers to taking action positively influence resistance to the use of MCTA. Personal norms negatively influence resistance to the use of MCTA. Information privacy showed a negative and positive influence on willingness to use MCTA and use the resistance of MCTA, respectively, but neither was statistically significant. The authors found no significant influence of perceived vulnerability, severity, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control on either acceptance or use resistance of MCTA.

The study has been one of the first in the literature to propose an integrated theoretical model in the investigation of the determinants of acceptance and resistance to the use of MCTA in a single study, thereby increasing the scientific understanding of the factors that can facilitate or inhibit individuals from engaging in the use of a protection technology during a pandemic situation.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-10-2021-0533

To examine the key factors that can engender initial trust in mobile money and to also determine whether initial trust can contribute to the perceived value of mobile money, use and recommendation intentions. More specifically, this paper, based on initial trust building model, aims to identify the institutional, cognitive and socially related factors enhancing initial trust in mobile money and its relationship with perceived value, use and recommendation intentions.

A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from 781 research participants. Variance-based structural equation modelling was used to examine the proposed research model.

This research shows the importance of the institutional factor of structural assurance, in conjunction with perceived firm reputation and communicability, in engendering initial trust in mobile money and, in turn, enhancing perceived value, use and recommendation intentions. The research further confirms the mediating influence of perceived value in the relationships between initial trust, use and recommendation intentions.

The originality of this work lies in the development and empirical confirmation of the research model and which together contributes to an increase understanding of initial trust building in mobile money acceptance. Value-wise, this work has the potential to inform managerial and public policy interventions by helping mobile money operators and policymakers’ rollout essential and even sophisticated financial services like borrowing using the mobile phone for the financially under-served in developing and trust-deficit settings.

Despite the perceived role of customer value in post-adoption behaviour in the context of ride-hailing apps such as Uber, there has been limited research on the subject. This paper seeks to enrich the understanding of the relationships between customer perceived value, particularly hedonic value and economic value, customer satisfaction and continued use intentions of ride-hailing apps.

This analysis is based on field data collected from 567 users of ride-hailing apps in Ghana. Data collected from the survey were analysed using the partial least square (PLS) approach to structural equation modelling (SEM).

The paper provides evidence that hedonic value, as well as economic value, positively predicts customer satisfaction and continued use intentions of ride-hailing apps. Further analysis reveals customer satisfaction directly predicts continued use intentions in addition to partially mediating the influence of customer perceived value on continued use intentions of ride-hailing apps. Finally, the findings suggest that hedonic value has a stronger impact on continued use intentions than economic value, while economic value has a greater impact on satisfaction than hedonic value.

The study contributes to post-adoption behaviour research by providing evidence on the relationships among the study constructs in a developing country context. Overall, the findings will stimulate future empirical debates on the subject and guide practitioners in decision-making concerning customers' usage of ride-hailing apps.

Although customer-perceived quality (CPQ) has been studied for years, very little is known about the implications of CPQ to informal retail stores particularly in collectivist and high uncertainty avoidance societies like Nigeria. More specifically, this study aims to investigate the indirect implications of CPQ to post-purchase behaviour primarily word-of-mouth (WoM) communication which is even more critical for customer acquisition in the research context. By so doing, it develops a contextualised model in which the emerging concept of commercial friendship (CF) is incorporated to mediate the relationship between CPQ and WoM communication.

Using a survey-based design, data were gathered from 372 informal merchants’ customers. Structural equation modelling technique primarily PLS-SEM (partial least squares structural equation modelling) was used in analysing the data.

The data confirm that the multifaceted CPQ construct has an important implication for WoM through the mediation of CF. Supplementary analysis reveals that CF fully mediates one of the sub-components of CPQ, namely, personal interaction in relationship to WoM in addition to acting as a partial mediator between store policy, physical aspect and reliability and WoM.

The value of this study is that it draws attention to the special role that CF plays in the investigation of the relationship between CPQ and WoM communication in the research context. Additionally, it is a step towards extending and contextualising research about service quality perceptions and its outcomes in non-traditional Western contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of the practical matter of customer loyalty (CLOY) in the banking industry context. As such, this paper explores, in detail, the antecedent factors to building strong CLOY. More specifically the focus is on the constructs of customer care (CARE), product/service offerings appeal (PSOA), customer satisfaction (CSAT) and brand trust (TRUS).

This wok relies purely on a positivist research paradigm. In doing so, structured questionnaires were administered to research subjects. For statistical processing, the PLS-SEM technique was deemed appropriate.

The two biggest takeaways of this work are the findings about the indirect influence of PSOA and CARE on CLOY. This paper reveals the relations to be sequentially mediated by CSAT and TRUS. Besides, data support the mediating effect of CSAT on CARE-TRUS link, as well as the mediation of TRUS on CSAT-CLOY link. Other findings indicate PSOA and CARE are key determinants of CSAT, CARE is also a key determinant of TRUS.

There are limits that come with the present analysis. One of the major limits is in the fact that it was conducted in a single country’s setting, thus limiting the generalizability of the research findings. As a result, this research report merits to be adequately scrutinized in differing financial landscapes. Finally, the broader implication of this research is that the road toward achieving strong CLOY is far more complex than previously imagined.

To generate sustained CLOY, a solid starting point for bank products managers in particular is to design more attractive products for their target audiences. Meanwhile, the special role of quality CARE cannot be overstated (enough), and so managers should allocate more resources in this area. In sum, this study encourages financial services managers to continue to pay greater attention to critical dimensions related to CLOY, such as PSOA, CARE, CSAT and TRUS.

The present analysis provides a clearer explanation of how the above-mentioned constructs are interconnected together. By using top Ghanaian banks’ customers as a test case for the research, the authors are helping to develop a more balanced approach to achieving sustained CLOY. Finally, the value of this work rests in the complex relations studied