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Past researches have not explored the roles of staff's hotel identification on customer‐related behaviors and the relationship between hotel identification inducing factors (trust in supervisor, job satisfaction, perceived external prestige) and hotel identification. The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles of staff's hotel identification as a mediator of the relationship between hotel identification inducing factors and customer‐related behaviors. Through reviewing the existing literature concerned, the authors propose a research model involving staff's trust in the supervisor, job satisfaction, perceived external prestige, hotel identification, organization citizenship behavior, and customer satisfaction behavior and test it.

Hotel samples were from the south‐west area of Korea. Questionnaires were given to 250 staff of the hotels and 224 were returned with no problems. The sample was used to purify the measures and test their convergent and discriminant validity. The final measurement model includes 24 items across six constructs. The authors conducted exploratory factor analysis to show that there are convergent validities of measurement items related to each construct, and explored correlations between the constructs and calculated average variance extracted to verify that there are discriminant validities between constructs. LISREL 8.30 was used to verify the hypotheses.

The results provided evidence that hotel identification plays important mediating roles between them. Identification with the hotel will be strengthened when job satisfaction and trust in the supervisor becomes strong. Trust in the supervisor plays a more important role in forming hotel identification than job satisfaction does. The role of organization citizenship behavior on the customer satisfaction behavior is also explored. Hotel identification affects organization citizenship behavior which in turn positively affects customer satisfaction behavior. But the results do not provide support for a central role of perceived external prestige.

The study gives information to hotel managers who want to encourage customer‐related behaviors that they should induce staff's identification with the hotel by improving the level of trust in the supervisor and job satisfaction.

Little past literature has explored the role of hotel identification as the substance of staff action. This study explored the influence of hotel identification on staff behavior that results in contributing to theoretical development and hotel management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firms attempt to increase the profitability of specific groups of extant customers by achieving adjustments in customer behaviour that consequently lead to reduced costs associated with serving these customers.

The paper takes the form of multiple case studies in the retail banking sector. Three specific initiatives launched by European retail banks for the stated (partial) purpose of modifying customer behaviour in order to reduce customer‐related costs are evaluated.

The findings from the three case studies show that strategies that aim to modify customer behaviour in a positive way can successfully decrease the costs of interacting with customers while at the same time maintaining and even increasing customer retention and customer‐related revenues.

This study is limited to an assessment of three initiatives carried out by three European banks. The findings bring the issue of costs into customer relationship management in a constructive manner, abandoning the view of cost reductions as a necessary evil or drastic measure to handle problematic customers.

Marketing and customer relationship managers who consider strategies to change customer behaviour in a cost‐reducing way as a complement to traditional revenue and loyalty enhancement strategies will expand their opportunities to achieve increases in customer lifetime value (CLV) and customer equity (CE).

The paper reclaims the management of costs as a key customer management activity, thereby answering calls for more attention to cost issues in marketing.

Service research has highlighted the role of emotional labor in service delivery but has neglected service employees’ actions. This study aims to distinguish between the recurrent in-role and extra-role actions of service employees and to examine the joint effect of service employees’ actions and their emotional labor, which may color these actions on customer buying behavior (number of purchased items and total bill).

Phase I comprised two studies: Study 1 examined 70 service interaction videos to identify employees’ service actions, and Study 2 quantitatively validated the most frequent employee actions, used for further study, by examining 40 employee–customer interactions in fashion stores. For Phase II, Study 3 derived data from 60 service employees’ diaries to predict the joint effect of performed emotional labor and service actions on customer buying behavior.

Findings revealed that emotional labor moderated the relationship between service actions and customer buying behavior. The relationship between in-role/extra-role actions and buying behavior was stronger in the lower surface-acting (less emotional faking) condition, whereas the relationship between in-role/extra-role actions and buying behavior was stronger for the higher deep-acting (more emotionally authentic) condition.

Service organizations should not limit training to the more easily attained service actions. This possibility may be lacking if it ignores the emotional component that accompanied the action. This may shift the focus from customer satisfaction to customer delight.

This study is a pioneering effort to examine the specific circumstances in which service employees’ actions (regardless of in-role or extra-role status) will not produce the desired customer-related outcome in the presence of emotional labor.

This paper aims to explore service encounters from a social behavior perspective. By proposing that employees’ emotional labor strategies are influenced by customer displays of emotion, this paper answers calls to investigate the reciprocal nature of service interactions and the importance of taking both customers and service providers into account when delivering high-quality service is the goal.

The sample consisted of 121 dyads of customers and service employees from hairstyling salons. Data were collected from observations of the customers’ emotional displays, self-report surveys administered to the service employees measuring strategies of emotional labor and self-report surveys administered to the customers to assess their rapport with the service providers and their loyalty intentions.

Length of acquaintance was positively related to customers’ positive display, which mediated the relationship between length of acquaintance and employee-customer rapport. Customers’ positive display was negatively related to employees’ deep acting (i.e. modifying inner feelings) but not to surface acting (i.e. modifying superficial expressions). Customers’ positive display and employees’ surface acting were related to loyalty intentions through the mediation of rapport.

This study provides a better understanding of the customer’s role as the target, and a possible cause of emotional regulation among service employees. It underscores the role of service relationships in customers’ emotional behavior and customer-related outcomes.

This study is a micro-level perspective of value co-creation in spectator sport. By examining sport through the value co-creation lens, the dual role of the customer as both a contributor to and a beneficiary of value is acknowledged and the importance of stakeholder interactions is emphasized. This study analyzes the extent to which two theoretically and managerially important factors—attendance frequency (i.e. first-time attendee vs repeat attendee) and resident type (i.e. local resident vs domestic traveler)—impact value creation in the recurring live sporting event setting.

Data were collected from spectators who attended a National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) sanctioned racing event. Multigroup structural equation modeling was performed to examine the proposed pathways, and multigroup t-tests were used to compare the model across both groups for each moderating variable. Corresponding path coefficients were then compared using Chin's (2004) recommended equations and procedures.

The study found organization-related value propositions to be the more common antecedents of value, while customer appearance had a strong negative association with hedonic value, and attendance frequency and resident type influenced certain value perceptions. Sport organizations should consider the expectations and motivations of various customer groups and provide offerings designed to meet the specific needs of different fan segments based on the spectator's experience with the sport product and the distance traveled to attend the sport event.

This paper advances the authors’ understanding of value creation in sport by showing how customer perceptions of value associated with the sport organization and other customers can be moderated by certain behavioral and geographic factors.

Synthesis of the customer lifetime value and the shareholder value (SHV) approach in order to develop an integrated, marketing‐based method for corporate valuation.

Discusses the limitations and assumptions of existing methods to estimate customer value components and examines the limitations of the SHV concept. By linking the customer equity (CE) and the SHV approach, a formal model to calculate corporate value is developed. The discounted cash flow method is used for modelling the profit streams.

Provides formulas for the estimation of both the individual lifetime value of a customer and CE. Provides a comprehensive model to estimate corporate value based on customer‐related cash flows and traditional financial metrics. Introduces typical cases, in which the use of a customer‐based valuation seems beneficial. Illustrates how our approach can be applied by using a simple case study on M&A in the telecommunication industry. Gives suggestions on how to obtain the necessary data, partially even from publicly available sources.

Advancement of the quantitative techniques for modelling the customer value components would allow for relaxing some restrictive assumptions. The explicit modelling of the future growth of the customer base (the acquisition rate) would increase the applicability of the model. Additionally, taking into account heterogeneity within the customer cohorts is a task for future research. Finally, our model needs to be applied more extensively using real data for the input variables.

A CE‐based valuation approach can guide marketing investments and helps to avoid misallocation of resources. Based on an example in the field of M&A, we demonstrate the usefulness of the approach for obtaining a realistic indicator of firm value. It helps to assess whether an acquisition is economically sensible. We provide evidence for the superiority of a customer‐based approach over traditional financial methods.

While the traditional SHV method considers cash flows at a highly aggregated level, our approach employs disaggregated cash flows on the level of individual customers. Thereby we do incorporate the lifetime values of future customers by considering different cohorts. We do capture customer defection by incorporating retention rates. Our model enables a more detailed and valid estimation of corporate value by accounting for the single customer activities that drive marketing actions. This enables a better forecasting of the free cash flow. Incorporating customer‐related drivers into financial valuation models makes easier to assess the return on marketing investments.

The concept of agility has been applied to several domains to help firms develop the capability to quickly adjust their operations to cope and thrive in environments characterized by frequent changes. Despite the soaring number of social media users and the benefits associated with agility in other domains, the application of agility in a social media context has yet to be explored. Further, little is known about how agility in a social media context impacts desirable customer-related attributes, such as customer engagement and customer-based brand equity (CBBE). This paper aims to address this gap by adapting the construct to social media (i.e. perceived social media agility) and exploring its impact on customer engagement and CBBE.

This paper conducted an online survey with 200 adult subjects. This paper used multivariate regression analyzes to empirically test a scale for perceived social media agility and explore its impact on CBBE and customer engagement, along with the moderating role of customer change-seeking behavior.

The study results show that perceived social media agility directly and indirectly (through customer engagement) positively influences CBBE. Also, results show that the positive impact of perceived social media agility on CBBE is further magnified for customers high on change-seeking. However, customer change-seeking does not affect the strength or direction of the impact of perceived social media agility on customer engagement.

This paper contributes to social media literature by adapting and testing a measurement scale for the construct of perceived social media agility and exploring its role in enhancing customer engagement and CBBE.

This study aims to examine the role of salespeople’s skills in relative and absolute SP in business-to-business (B2B) settings of services firms. This conceptual logic reported in meta-analytical works, that salespeople’s skills relate directly to their sales performance (SP), is questioned.

his research relies on existing theory and previous studies on SP drivers and SP measures. The literature identifies a set of common denominators on the role of salespeople’s skills regarding their SP, all of which are tested in this study. Based on a deductive approach and questionnaire survey, 732 service firms in Norway were targeted. A total of 389 questionnaires were returned, generating a response rate of 53.1%.

A total of 10 out of 12 hypothesized relationships in the research model dealing with the relationship between SP drivers and SP turn out to be non-significant. The hypothesized relationship in the research model between relative and absolute SP is also supported.

The results reported in this study, based on a large sample of service firms, empirically confirm that the direct effect is generally overestimated. Empirical evidence is provided that sheds additional light on the role of salespeople’s skills in relative and absolute SP in B2B settings of services firms.

This study offers meaningful and relevant insights into the monitoring of SP drivers to practitioners in B2B sales settings of services firms. Salespeople need to learn about gathering knowledge in training programs about each customer and their specific situation. Firms should strive to recruit salespeople who possess the appropriate skills, taking into consideration their customers and specific situations related to them, such as experiences from competitors. Salespeople may be organized around similar customers and similar customer situations, rather than geographical assignments.

Overall, this research contributes insights into the role played by salespeople’s skills in relative and absolute SP in B2B settings of services firms. In particular, the research contributes additional insights into the non-existent role of interpersonal presentation and communication skills, adaptiveness of sales approach and sales behavior skills and product/technology-related knowledge skills in salespeople’s relative and absolute SP in B2B settings of services firms.

While the positive effects of customer citizenship behavior are well established, research on its potential negative consequences is scarce. This study aims to examine the indirect relationship between customer citizenship and dysfunctional customers via customer moral credits and entitlement, as well as the moderating influence of customer citizenship fatigue.

Study 1 employed a cross-sectional design with a self-administered survey. The data were collected from 314 customers using an online research panel. In Study 2, the authors manipulated customer citizenship behavior using 203 participants to establish causality and rule out alternative explanations of the findings of Study 1. In Study 3, the authors replicated Study 2 and enhanced internal validity by using a more controlled experimental design using 128 participants.

This study shows that when customer citizenship fatigue is high, customer citizenship behavior elicits customer moral credit, which leads to customer entitlement and, in turn, promotes dysfunctional customer behavior. Conversely, when customer citizenship fatigue is low, customer citizenship behavior does not generate moral credit or entitlement, preventing dysfunctional customer behavior.

The study shows that promoting customer citizenship behavior does not always lead to positive outcomes. Therefore, when promoting customer citizenship behavior, managers should consider the psychological licensing process and ways to mitigate the influence of moral credits.

This study challenges common wisdom and investigates the dark side of customer citizenship behavior. Specifically, it demonstrates that customer citizenship behavior could backfire (e.g. dysfunctional customer behavior). It also shows that only customers who experience a high level of fatigue from their citizenship behaviors are psychologically licensed to gain moral credit, leading to dysfunctional customer behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influences of brand personality on consumer behavior, with a special emphasis on the brand love construct. The aim is to expand upon existing literature in the field of branding, investigating the relationship between brand love and brand personality through experiential approaches to consumer behavior.

The conceptual model and the analysis of related hypotheses were based on a sample of 478 Portuguese clothing brand consumers. The data were collected using an online survey and the data analysis was done using the structural equations modeling.

The results show that brand personality has a positive and significant impact on brand love, resistance to negative information and self-disclosure and brand love has a positive and significant impact on brand loyalty, word-of-mouth, resistance to negative information, willingness to pay more, self-disclosure and active engagement.

This study has some methodological limitation affecting its potential contributions. This investigation has a cross-sectional nature and only tested a few variables as consequences of brand personality.

This investigation provides evidence of the major impacts of both brand personality and brand love, showing how they combine to boost relevant outcomes like brand loyalty, WOW, willingness to pay more, resistance to negative information, self-disclosure or active engagement.

The originality of this research is related to three fundamental aspects: it is the first time the relationship between brand personality and brand love is tested using second-order modeling to capture the combined effects of all dimensions of brand personality; the influence of brand personality is usually related to attitudes (e.g. word-of-mouth, willingness to pay more, etc.) and not with feelings, such as love, the most powerful feeling that can be established between two people or between a person and a brand (in the case of brand love); and the authors tested brand love by linking brand personality and some traditional relational outcomes under the assumption that brand love can strengthen such relationships.