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Explores the set of service firms actually considered by consumers for a purchase (the evoked set), the ratio of the evoked set to the total number of service providers, the number of evaluative criteria used to evaluate services, and the perceptions of risk associated with the purchase of consumer services.

Maintains that many services marketing strategies have been based on four commonly accepted dimensions. Empirically tests these dimensions to determine if they are relevant for developing services marketing strategies in consumer markets. Shows that while they perceive significant differences between goods and services, they use evaluative dimensions that are somewhat different from those proposed by the services marketing literature. Concludes that consumer‐driven strategies are more effective than strategies based on commonly accepted conceptual dimensions of services.

This study aims to explain the influence of four socio-psychological variables: social comparison orientation, face saving (FS), status consumption (STC) and frugality (FGL) on consumers’ value perception toward ride-sharing services – one of the most widely used collaborative consumption models. Furthermore, it assesses how perceived value affects consumers’ intention to use (IU) the ride-sharing services and intentions to substitute ride-sharing services for using a personally owned car. It also assesses the moderating effect of psychographics on the relationship between consumers’ perception and behavioral intention.

A structured questionnaire was developed using existing scales adapted from the literature to test the hypothesized relationships. The data for the study were collected from 489 users of ride-sharing services in India. Structural equation modelling was performed to test the proposed model using AMOS 18 and moderation analysis was performed using PROCESS MACRO.

The findings of the study suggest that social comparison, FS, STC and FGL have a significant influence on consumers’ value (utilitarian and hedonic) perception. Furthermore, the results supported the effect of consumers’ value perception on their IU the ride-sharing services as well as their intention to substitute ride-sharing services for using a personally owned car. Lastly, the results also evidenced the moderating role of psychographic variables.

Very few studies have examined the role of psychographics in the adoption of collaborative consumption services. The paper attempts to fill this gap. It assesses the effect of four relevant consumer traits on perceived value in the ride-sharing services context. Furthermore, it expands the understanding of the role of psychographics by measuring their moderating effects apart from direct effects. The results of the study bear important implications for academicians, policymakers and marketers.

This paper aims to explore the effectiveness of ethnically targeted ads in developing consumer–brand relationships through an application of social identification theory and elaboration likelihood model among African American consumers in the service sector.

Study 1 used a 2 (service type: hedonic vs utilitarian) × 2 (strength of ethnic identification: high vs low) between-subjects experimental design. Study 2 used the same experimental design, procedure and ads as Study 1.

Taken together, the findings from these two studies demonstrate how ethnically targeted advertising, in conjunction with service type, can influence consumer–brand relationships. The results showed that those with high strength of ethnic identification had more brand love, as well as higher intentions to spread positive word-of-mouth, purchase intention and brand loyalty for hedonic services, but that this effect was not significant for utilitarian services.

The environments in which advertisements appear (e.g. in an in-store display or a magazine advertisement) is important, and consumers’ reactions to targeted ads in various environments should be considered in future research. Future studies should also examine the role of individuals’ personality traits and level of acculturation in determining their relationships with brands.

Across two studies, the authors demonstrated that ethnic ads are more effective for African American individuals with high level of ethnic identification especially for hedonic services.

In this paper, the contaminating role of socially desirable responding (SDR) in the investigation of “dark-side” aspects in international services marketing is examined. The main question to be answered is whether or not relationships between consumer ethnocentrism towards international services and its antecedents are biased by SDR, manifesting itself as impression management by respondents. The results of an empirical study confirm that conscious impression management indeed is likely to represent a serious threat in this type of consumer behavior-related research. The relationship between cultural openness and consumer collectivism on the one hand and consumer ethnocentric tendencies towards foreign services on the other hand was found to be biased by SDR. Such bias, however, could not be found for the other antecedents, namely patriotism and conservatism. This suggests that whether or not respondents engage in impression management depends on the conceptual character of the constructs being studied in international services research. Accordingly, the results have several implications for international services research practice.

The sharing economy is changing the way people use products and services, and the success of sharing-based apps like bicycle and automobile sharing has drawn a lot of interest across the world. The purpose of this research is to investigate the factors affecting the consumer's adoption of ride-sharing services.

With this aim, the current study integrates the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Expectancy Confirmation Model (ECM) with a further extension of consumer trust and social norms. Using a survey-based research design, data were collected from 558 respondents using multi-stage convenience sampling on 5 point Likert scale. Confirmatory factor analysis is conducted followed by structural equation modelling using IBM AMOS-22.

The findings of the study report crucial determinants for the consumer's continuance intention and actual use of these services. Perceived usefulness, consumer satisfaction, trust and subjective norms were found positively associated with the continuous intention to use ride-sharing services, whereas perceived ease of use was found to be insignificant. This study also highlights antecedents for the consumer's trust towards these services and found reputation, propensity to trust as a significant contributor whereas structural assurance was found insignificant to establish the trust among the users.

The research on consumer adoption towards ride-sharing services are meagre and this study adds the value to the field by integrating TAM and ECM model with further extension of consumer trust and social norms and empirically test the proposed model.

The chapter is prepared on the basis of previous scientific developments of the author, as well as the current legislation of the United States of America. The following laws were studied: Truth in Lending Act; Electronic Fund Transfers Act; Fair Credit Reporting Act; Consumer Leasing Act; Consumer Protection Act; Equal Credit Opportunity Act; Fair Debt Collection Practices Act; Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act; Privacy of Consumer Financial Information Act; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act; Alternative Mortgage Parity Act; Code of Arbitration Procedure for Customer Conflicts – Customer Code; and Code of Arbitration Procedure for Industry Conflicts. One of the new US laws was analyzed – Arbitration Fairness Act, 2017. Data was also used from the Final Report to Congress on the use of pre-dispute arbitration clauses in consumer financial services contracts, 2015, and information resources available on the websites of financial regulators: the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Currency Comptroller, the National Administration of Credit Unions, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Agency for Housing Finance, the Financial Bureau Consumer Protection, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and American Arbitration Association.

Methodologically, the research is based on the author's materialistic worldview, which is implemented meaningfully in a positivist approach to the scientific article. In preparing the chapter, general scientific methods were applied: formal logic, system-functional, historical, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction; special methods: mathematical, and statistical. Also the author applied private scientific methods of jurisprudence: normative-dogmatic, method of legal and technical design, interpretation of law, and others.

This study aims to explicate consumers’ intentions to use online food delivery systems (OFDS) subscription services. The study revisited the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology.

A typical methodology that involved a confirmatory factor analysis, followed by structural equation modeling, was used to test the hypotheses using a sample of 573 OFDS users from the USA.

The results revealed that social influence has the most significant impact on consumers’ intentions to use OFDS subscription services, while effort expectancy and perceived security have relatively lower impacts on consumers’ intentions to use OFDS subscription services. In addition, the study revealed the role of compatibility and convenience orientation in shaping consumers’ OFDS system perceptions (e.g. performance and effort expectancy).

The results provide several theoretical and managerial implications and open new avenues for future research. The study advances the literature by validating the set of antecedents of important core perceptions (e.g. performance expectancy and effort expectancy). The study also provides implications for two types of practitioners, such as OFDS and restaurants.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine consumers’ intentions to use OFDS subscription services. This study is also the first to examine key factors influencing consumers’ intentions to use OFDS subscription services.

本研究旨在阐明消费者使用在线订餐（OFDS） 订阅服务的意图。该研究重新审视了 Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 理论（UTAUT2）。

本研究采用典型的量化研究方法, 包括确认性因子分析和结构方程建模, 并使用来自美国的573名OFDS用户的样本来测试假设。

结果显示, 社会影响对消费者使用OFDS订阅服务的意图具有最显著的作用, 而努力期望和感知安全对消费者使用OFDS订阅服务的意图影响较小。此外, 研究揭示了兼容性和便利性取向在塑造消费者对OFDS系统感知（例如, 性能和努力期望）方面的作用。

研究结果提供了多方面的理论和管理启示, 并为未来研究开辟了新的途径。本研究通过验证重要核心感知（例如, 性能期望和努力期望）的前因完善了相关文献。另外, 本研究还为OFDS和餐厅等两类从业者提供了重要启示。

本研究是第一个调查了消费者使用OFDS订阅服务意图的研究, 也是首次研究了影响消费者使用OFDS订阅服务意图的形成因素。

This article investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the consumer preference for the attributes of online food delivery (OFD) services in India. It also shows how the order size influences the consumer's willingness to pay (WTP) for the attributes of OFD services.

This work incorporates a conjoint analysis-based approach to determine the consumer preference for the attributes of OFDs such as price, delivery time, restaurant rating and packing quality during the COVID-19 pandemic. The fractional factorial design is applied for the data collection. The relative importance of the attributes and the part-worth utility of the attributes' levels have been determined. Further, the utility associated with the attributes' levels is used to find the consumer's WTP for different attributes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed consumer preference from price to food and packing quality in India. When the order is small, consumers exhibit a higher preference to the delivery time than packing quality. In contrast, consumers show a higher preference to packing quality than delivery time with the increase in order size. The consumer's WTP attains the highest level in case of food quality, followed by convenience and packing quality. The WTP for the attributes rises with the increase in order size.

The insights highlight the need for the online food delivery industry to redesign the business framework in the post-pandemic era. The hygiene and safety measures maintained by the consumers during the pandemic have significantly changed their purchasing behaviour, raising their preference for service quality (food and packing quality) of the OFD services apart from price.

This work determines the consumers' utility for each attribute level of OFDs, along with their relative importance. Moreover, this study contributes to the existing literature by exhibiting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the consumer preference and order size on consumer's WTP for the attributes.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of Chinese young consumers’ traits (fashion leadership, quality consciousness, price consciousness, environmental consciousness and social media usage) as the external factors on their behavioral intention toward using clothing subscription rental services.

Quantitative research was conducted, and empirical data were collected from 255 Chinese college students. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.

The study offered convincing evidence that fashion leadership, price consciousness and social media usage are the three main drivers of Chinese young consumers’ favorable attitudes toward clothing subscription rental services, which together with social norms further lead to their intention to use clothing subscription rental services. Contrary to expectations, the study showed that consumers’ quality consciousness and environmental consciousness have no significant impact on consumer attitudes toward clothing subscription rental services. Moreover, the findings of the study demonstrated the impact of attitude and subjective norms on Chinese young consumers’ intention to use clothing subscription rental services.

This study contributes to the literature by integrating additional factors (fashion leadership, quality consciousness, price consciousness, consumer environmental knowledge, social media usage) into the traditional theory of reasoned action model to investigate how Chinese young consumers’ characteristics impact their attitudes and how their attitudes and subjective norms impact their intention toward using clothing subscription rental services.