Search results

This paper aims to explore multiple reference effects with regard to customers’ post-consumption evaluations in a cross-cultural context. The authors propose to test an integrative model of three types of reference effects (disconfirmation, attractiveness of alternatives and self-image congruity) and their relationship to customers’ evaluations associated with satisfaction and loyalty. Additional insight into the link between reference points and customer satisfaction is provided by examining the moderating influence of the cultural orientation of customers: South Korean (an Eastern, collectivist and high uncertainty avoidance culture) versus American (a Western, individualistic and low uncertainty avoidance culture).

The data for this study were collected through a Web-based survey. Based on a sample of 723 Korean and American consumers, multi-group analysis of structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed model and the moderating effect of culture.

Overall, the results indicated that American customers’ use of reference points in their post-consumption evaluations is significantly different from that of Korean customers. Specifically, disconfirmation had a stronger effect on Korean customers than on their American counterparts, whereas the attractiveness of alternatives had a stronger effect on American customers than on those from Korea. Moreover, self-image congruity was found to be equally important in both cultures.

Owing to the comparison of American and Korean participants in this study, these results may not be applied to customers from other countries. Moreover, the study is limited to post-consumption evaluations in restaurants and generalization of the results to other industries may be ill advised. Thus, further research is required to replicate the results and include customers from different countries in more diverse consumption settings.

The findings provide useful guidance for efficient marketing strategies to generate positive consumer outcomes across borders. Marketers must consider the interaction of cultures and customers to better understand customer perceptions and evaluations about their experiences. This understanding will enable the marketers to more effectively communicate with their target markets and allow them to tailor advertising to different segments of their customer base contingent upon their cultural orientations.

Although the role of reference effects has begun to attract considerable interest among consumer behavior researchers, much of this research has been conducted in a single cultural context. Because the global economy is becoming increasingly cross-cultural, it is valuable to conduct international consumer research to further the understanding of consumers’ post-consumption evaluation processes using multiple reference points from a global perspective.

A growing body of literature has emphasized the importance of innovative strategy as a source of competitive advantage. Drazin and Shoonhoven summarized the literature using multilevel theoretical perspectives (community, population, and organization) that affect organizational innovative behavior. In parallel, Fiegenbaum et al. developed an organizational level theory, based on prospect theory, to explain how risky strategies are determined within organizations. They argued that organizational reference points delineate organizational attitudes toward risk‐taking into two polarized regimes: risk‐aversive whereas below it is risk‐assertive. They described the organizational mechanism that converts attitudes toward risk‐taking into actual risk‐aversive and risk‐assertive strategic behavior. A three‐dimensional space is provided that illustrates the spectrum of strategic reference points (SRP). The current study extends SRP theory. It is proposed that the nature of the industry, organizational strategy, and performance impact the kind of reference points used, which, in turn, impact risk‐taking behavior towards innovative strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and evaluate an approach to managerially monitoring customer‐experienced value of e‐services. The need for this study is based on a lack of models of e‐service value applying a value‐in‐use approach on the one hand, and on the other hand the increasing need for managerially viable techniques to diagnose customers' views of e‐service value.

The approach, customized for but not limited to e‐services, employs four principal value dimensions (technical, functional, temporal and spatial) anchored in service quality and value research to capture e‐service value. The approach has two new characteristics. It focuses on relative joint evaluations of benefits and sacrifice and on the degree of customer activation. The empirical study based on a large‐scale web survey of users' evaluations of a travel agency's web service illustrates how the approach can be used.

The theoretically based approach showed in the empirical study that managerially interesting findings could be generated. As respondents in the sample were extensively positive towards the service provider the whole potential of the approach could not be effectively empirically demonstrated. Further empirical studies are needed to investigate the managerial relevance of the approach.

The present empirical study represents promising first results from a novel approach to determining customer‐experienced service value. These findings raise a number of questions that should be answered in further research in order to further develop the approach.

The suggested approach contributes to marketing practice by offering a method to acquiring information about how strongly different service elements add value to the service experienced by the customer. It also reveals value shortcomings or dimensions and sub‐dimensions that decrease value and thus provides information of where the company does not meet customers' observations of competing offerings.

The paper introduces a novel way of conceptualising value as benefits and sacrifice relative to a reference point represented by the competition. Connecting this to customer action rather than only perceptions represents another new feature. The paper contributes to service marketing by introducing a new technique for capturing customers' service preferences following a value‐in‐use approach.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the heterogeneous effects of gains and losses on the perception of new products. It seeks to argue that the heterogeneity in these effects (partly) stems from the price-perceived quality relationship which is more important for quality-seeking customers.

A multilevel logit model was applied to household panel data on purchases of new yoghurt and sausage products in Germany. The multilevel model allowed to estimate heterogeneous price effects and accounted for the nested structure in panel data.

Significant variation in the effects of gains, losses, and promotions were found. Internal reference prices (IRPs), which served as indicator of loss-averse vs quality-seeking customers, were found to moderate these effects. Monetary losses have less negative effects for customers with high IRPs. Negative interaction effects of IRPs with monetary gains and promotions indicate that quality-seeking customers are less attracted by gains and promotions.

The heterogeneity in the price effects confirms the strategic importance of new product prices to influence customers’ perception of value. The price-quality relationship is an explanatory approach for heterogeneous price effects and should not be neglected in price setting. The inclusion of customer-specific reference price information yields deeper insights into customers’ use of prices to evaluate new products.

This study is the first to estimate asymmetric gain and loss effects in the analysis of new product trial. A customer-specific view in price setting is emphasized by taking customer-specific reference prices into account.

Companies in all industries are searching for new sources of competitive advantage since the competition in their marketplace is becoming increasingly intensive. The resource-based view of the firm explains the sources of sustainable competitive advantages. From a resource-based view perspective, relational based assets (i.e., the assets resulting from firm contacts in the marketplace) enable competitive advantage. The relational based assets examined in this work are brand image and corporate reputation, as components of brand equity, and customer value. This paper explores how they create value. Despite the relatively large amount of literature describing the benefits of firms in having strong brand equity and delivering customer value, no research validated the linkage of brand equity components, brand image, and corporate reputation, simultaneously in the customer value–customer loyalty chain. This work presents a model of testing these relationships in consumer goods, in a business-to-business context. The results demonstrate the differential roles of brand image and corporate reputation on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. Brand image influences the perception of quality of the products and the additional services, whereas corporate reputation actions beyond brand image, estimating the customer value and customer loyalty. The effects of corporate reputation are also validated on different samples. The results demonstrate the importance of managing brand equity facets, brand image, and corporate reputation since their differential impacts on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. The results also demonstrate that companies should not limit to invest only in brand image. Maintaining and enhancing corporate reputation can have a stronger impact on customer value and customer loyalty, and can create differential competitive advantage.

The purpose of this paper is to create a model that compares the effects of product content differentiation and service content differentiation on small- and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) perceived importance of customer reference marketing in foreign markets.

A theoretical model is developed and tested through multiple regression and mediation analysis, on an effective sample of 188 Swedish SMEs.

The results show that foreign market business assignments characterized by differentiated services make companies relatively more dependent on relationship learning and customer reference marketing. By contrast, situations of differentiated product content correlate negatively with customer reference marketing.

Reference customers can function as vehicles for international expansion when marketing offerings are complex. The findings imply that in service settings, SMEs need to maintain learning regimes with foreign market customers to effectively use them as references to win new business.

The study applies a service perspective to explain the contingencies of customer reference marketing, particularly in international business settings. The study contributes to international small business literature and research focusing on service–firm internationalization by explaining the marketing mechanisms at play in the internationalization of SMEs. In so doing, the findings can enrich relationship and network perspectives of internationalization and add a missing link to studies on networking and internationalization.

The study aims to explore how concept stores (theoretically) differ from other experience-based retail formats, and hence, how they (practically) contribute to a diversified retail store portfolio.

Case study based on semi-structured, qualitative interviews with seven IKEA retail managers, three industry experts and 26 customers of IKEA concept stores in London and Stockholm.

The concept store represents a conceptual departure from other experiential store formats. It is neither fully experiential in the sense that it is not only about marketing communications nor is it sales or profit-focused. Its aim is to be an accessible touchpoint that reduces friction on a diversified customer journey with its value to the retail portfolio being that it attracts new and latent customers, mitigates existing inhibiting factors and drives them to other touchpoints.

Ideas about the different characteristics of new store formats and their potential to shape the customer experience are extended. New formats reflect innovation in retailing and are part of a retail portfolio which generates different customer expectations and determinants from traditional store formats which provide the customers' existing reference point.

The contributions of new formats should be evaluated in light of other existing formats in the portfolio and not isolated. This is particularly true when considering format cannibalisation and the potentially extended customer journey that arises when customers use traditional format stores and new concept format stores simultaneously.

Previous research, using sales metrics and market-based results as performance determinants, suggests negative outcomes for format diversification. Our study suggests that the contributions of the concept store format should be viewed from an overall customer journey perspective and the “performance” of different format based touchpoints are not best captured through traditional sales evaluation methods.

This study aims to characterize how ecosystem actors shape customer experience (CX). The study also proposes implications for managers and research regarding the customer ecosystem, its actors and actor constellations in the context of CXs.

A qualitative study is conducted among activity tracker users to identify how actors within their ecosystems shape CXs. Data include 28 in-depth interviews and ten self-reported diaries.

This study delineates six actor categories in the customer ecosystem shaping CX within and beyond the service. The number of actors and their importance to the focal customer in various actor constellations form individual-, brand- and socially driven ecosystems. These customer ecosystem types show how actors combine to drive CXs.

Researchers should shift their attention to experiences emerging in the customer’s lifeworld. A customer ecosystem highlights the customer-centered actor configuration emergent within the customer’s lifeworld. It is self-constructed based on the customer’s reference point.

Managers should aim to locate, monitor and join the customer’s lifeworld to gain more insight into how CXs emerge in the customer ecosystem based on customer logic.

Customers are not isolated actors simply experiencing service; rather, they construct idiosyncratic actor constellations that include various providers, social groups and peers.

This paper extends the theory on CXs by illustrating how the various actors and actor constellations forming the customer ecosystem shape CXs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the implementation of revenue management (RM) pricing practices and managers’ perceptions towards this practice in a budget hotel chain and to provide recommendations for improving the adoption of and perception towards this practice.

A single case study method was adopted to conduct an in-depth qualitative research in a hotel organization. In-depth data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observations and documentation.

The research findings indicate that the implementation of revenue management system (RMS): needs to be clearly communicated and made tangible to employees; can impact the profitability of the budget hotel sector and not only mid-scale or luxury sectors; and remains a profit-oriented decision with little consideration for customer outcomes.

The findings may not apply to mid-scale or luxury properties, as the results cannot be generalized to other hotel chains in other countries that apply complex pricing structures. Future research might develop multiple case study design to increase the rigor of the research by focusing on themes or patterns uncovered in a single case study.

The practical application of the study is twofold: the recommendation to maintain ongoing implementation activities, such as designing operational plans and training programs; the recommendation for a RM pricing strategy that maintains positive price fairness perceptions and results in positive behavioral intentions.

This study helps advance our understanding of the characteristics that influence the success of RM implementation in the budget hotel context and provides us with useful insights to design effective dynamic strategies to enhance the implementation process both for the organization and its stakeholders.

Companies in the telecom industry – and in many other consumer markets – have introduced customer or loyalty clubs over a number of years. Customer clubs have been used as a loyalty‐building measure following the deregulation of telecom markets in Europe. They were introduced as a strategic instrument intended to foster customer retention and to contribute to increased sales and profitability. These clubs are the most recognizable part of many CRM strategies. Their short‐ and long‐term effects on loyalty are not obvious, however. The aim of this article is to explore the effects of the customer club on customer relationships in telecommunications by presenting results from two qualitative studies, which are quantified and reported in terms of responses to the club. The results of this empirical study in a Swedish telecom company reveal that the majority of customer‐club members do not perceive their membership as adding value or contributing to higher commitment and improved loyalty. Nevertheless, there are differences between non‐members and members regarding their perceptions of the service provider. The target group of club members has significantly higher satisfaction with the company than the non‐member customers.