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As e-commerce has expanded rapidly, online shopping platforms have become widespread in India and throughout the world. Product return, which has a negative effect on the E-Commerce Industry's economic and ecological sustainability, is one of the E-Commerce Industry's greatest challenges in light of the substantial increase in online transactions. The authors have analyzed the purchasing patterns of the customers to better comprehend their product purchase and return patterns.

The authors utilized digital transformation techniques-based recency, frequency and monetary models to better understand and segment potential customers in order to address personalized strategies to increase sales, and the authors performed seller clustering using k-means and hierarchical clustering to determine why some sellers have the most sales and what products they offer that entice customers to purchase.

The authors discovered, through the application of digital transformation models to customer segmentation, that over 61.15% of consumers are likely to purchase, loyal customers and utilize firm service, whereas approximately 35% of customers have either stopped purchasing or have relatively low spending. To retain these consumer segments, special consideration and an enticing offer are required. As the authors dug deeper into the seller clustering, we discovered that the maximum number of clusters is six, while certain clusters indicate that prompt delivery of the goods plays a crucial role in customer feedback and high sales volume.

This is one of the rare study that develops a seller segmentation strategy by utilizing digital transformation-based methods in order to achieve seller group division.

Drawing from cognitive dissonance theory (CDT) and attribution ambiguity theory (AAT), this paper aims to examine how employees interact with queer customers within the hospitality service and the ways that queer representations regulate emotions when discriminated against by normative gender roles.

This study used a mixed method. Study 1 used firm-level secondary data to analyze hospitality firms’ efforts in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and the effects on firms’ profit margins and customer satisfaction. In Study 2, an experimental design was used to understand how employees’ assailing behavior toward queer customers interacts with employee feelings of guilt and impacts their sabotage and organizational citizenship behavior via self-serving bias. Study 3 further explored how queer customer victimization interacts with stress to influence their perceptions of organization DEI authenticity and corporate social responsibility (CSR) through resilience.

Hospitality firms’ DEI efforts were associated with varying outcomes, including higher profit margins but lower customer satisfaction, while guilt weakened the impact of employees’ assailing behavior on their outcomes and customer stress amplified the effect of assailing behavior on queer customers’ perceptions of DEI authenticity and CSR through resilience.

Hospitality organizations should take proactive measures to address self-serving bias among employees. Moreover, fostering an inclusive culture is crucial, with managers playing a pivotal role in facilitating discussions and creating an environment that values diversity, inclusivity and respect for all employees.

The study makes a remarkable contribution to hospitality literature by focusing on CDT and AAT in providing valuable implications for DEI advocators to be aware of the tensions between heteronormativity and queer representations in service encounters.

This study aims to capture how the association between a multichannel relational communication strategy (MRCS) and customer performance is contingent upon such customer performance (low- versus high-performance customers) and to reconcile past contradictory results in this marketing-related topic. To this end, the authors propose and validate the method of quantile regression as an unconventional, yet effective, means to proceed to that reconciliation.

This study collected data from 4,934 customers of a private pension fund firm and accounted for both firm- and customer-initiated relational communication channels (RCCs) and for customer lifetime value (CLV). This study estimated a generalized linear model and then a quantile regression model was used to account for customer performance heterogeneity.

This study finds that specific RCCs present different levels of association with performance for low- versus high-performance customers, where outcome customer performance is the dependent variable. For example, the relation between firm-initiated communication (FIC) and performance is stronger for low-CLV customers, whereas the relation between customer-initiated communication (CIC) and performance is increasingly stronger for high-CLV customers but not for low-CLV ones. This study also finds that combining different forms of FIC can result in a negative association with customer performance, especially for low-CLV customers.

The authors tested the conceptual model in one single firm in the specific context of financial services and with cross-sectional data, so there should be caution when extrapolating this study’s findings.

This study offers nuanced and precise managerial insights on recommended resource allocation along with relational communication efforts, showing how managers can benefit from adopting a differentiated-customer performance approach when designing their MRCS.

This study provides an overview of the state of the art of MRCS, proposes a contingency analysis of the relationship between MRCS and performance based on customer performance heterogeneity and suggests the quantile method to perform such analysis and help reconcile past contradictory findings. This study shows how the association between RCCs and CLV varies across the conditional quantiles of the distribution of customer performance. This study also addresses a recent call for a more holistic perspective on the relationships between independent and dependent variables.

This study aims to progress scholarly understanding of the staycation phenomenon by examining customer segments and documenting local customers’ attribute preferences.

A stated choice experiment is used to examine customer preferences for staycation package attributes. Latent class discrete choice modeling is deployed to classify customers into market segments based on their preferences. The profile of each segment is enhanced by documenting customer characteristics and consumption styles.

Six prominent market segments are identified using a combination of sociodemographics, consumption styles and staycation attribute preferences. The findings draw on consumer experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic to generate theoretical insights into preferred staycation packages. Empirically, the estimation results from the research framework and choice experimental method demonstrate that staycation market segments exhibit distinct preference structures.

Practitioners and policymakers can incorporate the findings of this study in designing and/or assessing staycation packages. This can ensure differentiated products for defined segments that resonate within local communities through positive word of mouth, thus offering prospective spillovers to visiting friends and relatives.

This is a pioneering study on preference heterogeneity from the customer perspective, with a focus on staycation markets. The findings can encourage and assist hotel sector leaders to capitalize on local market developments to achieve a more resilient hospitality business model.

This is a general review study aiming to specify the key customer-based factors and technologies that influence the value co-creation (VCC) process through artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in the hospitality and tourism industry.

The study uses a theory-based general literature review approach to explore key customer-based factors and technologies influencing VCC in the tourism industry. By reviewing the relevant literature, the authors conclude a theoretical framework postulating the determinants of VCC in the AI-driven tourism industry.

This paper identifies customers' perceptions, attitudes, trust, social influence, hedonic motivations, anthropomorphism and prior experience as customer-based factors to VCC through the use of AI. Service robots, AI-enabled self-service kiosks, chatbots, metaversal tourism and new reality, machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) are technologies that influence VCC.

The results of this research inform a theoretical framework articulating the human and AI elements for future research set to expand the models predicting VCC in the tourism industry.

Few studies have examined consumer-related factors that influence their participation in the VCC process through automation and AI.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has impacted all economies, businesses and societies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and present a case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in terms of its relevance amidst the turmoil caused by the pandemic.

The authors use a directed content analysis approach to retrieve relevant information from news articles using Thomson Reuters’ Eikon^® and Bloomberg^® databases. Based on stakeholder theory, the authors evaluate some of the CSR initiatives undertaken by organizations around the world. The authors then undertake a systematic literature review using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses standard to provide possible implications for organizations.

The findings suggest that in response to the pandemic, corporations from both developed and developing countries have been pursuing CSR measures for stakeholder engagement. The systematic literature review signals positive outcomes that companies might expect at the organizational level. The paper concludes by suggesting research propositions that indicate effective CSR at a time of crisis like COVID-19 encourages stakeholder partnerships and helps to gain a competitive advantage.

The authors present an overview of the CSR responses taken by firms globally in response to the pandemic by way of stakeholder engagement. The authors analyze the stakeholders targeted through such initiatives and report possible implications based on the extant literature. The findings of the study can be used to understand the various transitions that happen in an unprecedented situation like COVID-19 at all levels of business and society.

This paper explores how financial technology (FinTech) organisations address poverty-related challenges when providing digital financial services. Employing the conceptual foundation of the liability of poorness (i.e. literacy gaps, a scarcity mindset, intense non-business pressures and a lack of financial slack), this paper explores the innovative strategies that FinTechs use to address these liabilities and promote entrepreneurship.

The paper uses detailed case data collected from three FinTech organisations operating in one South Asian country.

FinTech organisations' innovative strategies reflect a combination of “high touch” (human) vs “low touch” (digital) solutions. All the organisations simplified internal systems or procedures to accommodate customers. The degree to which the three organisations adopted each of the identified strategies shows an emerging typology of FinTechs; that is, innovators with high digital interactions, a mix of digital-human interactions and high human interactions.

The paper develops a typology which categorises FinTech innovative strategies. The typology highlights strategies pro-poor FinTechs use and explains the types of entrepreneurial support innovative organisations provide for their customers. Both the typology and the innovative strategies contribute to enhanced financial inclusion and entrepreneurial promotion amongst the poor.

The originality of the paper comes from its focus on FinTechs' innovative pro-poor strategies. Existing studies typically address the technology-side of innovations. In contrast, this paper combines innovative strategies with the liability of poorness to identify issues associated with financial inclusion.

This paper aims to assess the overall social housing development, point out factors affecting it and propose some policy implications for social housing development.

The research investigated investors, credit institutions and officials involved in social housing development. Bac Ninh province currently has 51 social housing projects that have been and are being implemented. The hypothetical regression model has seven latent variables and is tested by the criteria through the SPSS25.0 software.

There are 29 factors belonging to seven groups affecting housing development. Their impact rates range from 3.47% to 30.25%.

The study has only identified the factors affecting social housing development but has not undertaken an in-depth assessment of its development status and forecast for the future. Therefore, this gap needs to be further studied. The proposed research method could also be applied when researching social housing developments in other countries around the world.

To develop social housing to meet the needs of the real estate market, it is necessary to improve the policies that have the strongest impact first. Then, it is necessary to improve the factors with a smaller impact.

The study proposes policy implications for faster housing development for low-income people that improve their living standards.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper has studied for the first time social housing development and the factors affecting it. The paper also shows the level of their impact so that priority policies can be applied to each factor.

This study aims to contribute to the field of customer portfolio management by proposing a novel approach rooted in dialectic critical realism (DCR). DCR, as an ontological theory, enables a fundamental reimagining of customer portfolio management as a dialectic process. The conceptualized dialectic portfolio management is motivated by the concept of “absence”, akin to Hegelian “antithesis”, which highlights limitations, problems and tensions in portfolio management. In essence, “absence” serves as a diagnostic tool that directs portfolio actions towards resolving problems by pursuing a more comprehensive “totality”, similar to the Hegelian notion of “synthesis”.

This conceptual paper theorizes DCR in business marketing and customer portfolio management.

DCR conceptualizes customer portfolios as relational structures characterized by omissions and tensions. These issues are addressed through a dialectic synthesis aimed at achieving a more comprehensive “totality”. Consequently, DCR guides portfolio management to continually re-think the connections and distinctions that define a portfolio within its network context. This dialectic process is facilitated by a novel vocabulary that enhances the understanding of network and portfolio relations, incorporating concepts such as “intrapermeations”, “existential constitutions”, “intra-connections” and “intensive” and “extensive” portfolio practices.

This study aims to foster a fresh and process-oriented perspective on portfolio management, drawing inspiration from the growing demand for enriched dialectic theorizing within the realm of business marketing. The adoption of a dialectic process orientation based on DCR revolutionizes the comprehension of portfolio management by fundamentally reimagining the underlying ontological assumptions that underpin the existing body of literature on customer portfolios. Moreover, DCR asserts that ethical considerations are inextricably linked to human experiences and associated practices, emphasizing ethics as an integral component of customer portfolio management.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The paper discusses the idea of decolonization in marketing and explores its tensions with institutional legitimacy. The research also offers five key considerations for managers in relation to decolonizing customer engagement strategies.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists, and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.