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This study aims to develop a framework to explain the reciprocity of the value co-creation process in mobile hotel booking context and to clarify values for customer and supplier.

A research framework was developed based on the previous literature to derive insights on value co-creation process. Online surveys were conducted among mobile hotel bookers in China. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test the proposed framework.

The findings suggested that suppliers should improve the values for customers (functionality, usability and perceived value) to achieve values for themselves [customer lifetime value (CLV), customer knowledge value (CKV), customer referral value (CRV) and customer influencer value (CIV)]. The relation between satisfaction and CLV was moderated by the CIV from other customers.

Suppliers should enhance customer value from the aspects of functionality, usability and perceived value to earn a competitive advantage. Moreover, for suppliers, non-transactional values such as other CIV play an increasingly critical role apart from economic value for development.

This study not only added empirical analysis on value co-creation in m-Tourism but also extended the current literature by validating a research model which integrates website evaluation research with Kumar et al. (2010)’s customer engagement value framework. Instead of serving as a mediator, mobile app was regarded as one of the indispensable actors involved in value co-creation.

The purpose of this paper is to close the gap between the theoretical nature of existing contributions in customer engagement value (CEV) and its need to practically empower business decisions. This is done by proposing a framework that consists of three techniques, each of which combines the components of CEV to make it more comprehensive and applicable. The paper also reviews and analyzes the work that has been done so far in the area of CEV whether in business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C) or consumer to consumer (C2C) markets.

CEV is a comprehensive term that measures the total value of the customer through capturing his transactional and non-transactional behaviors. Hence, it is an essential term for measuring the value of the customer in direct marketing. This motivates researchers to compete in developing models to maximize CEV. Meanwhile, most of the existing models are conceptual and the majority of them lack applicability due to many reasons. First, these models relied on a linear version of the CEV model, hence double-counting the value of the customer; also they weighted the components of CEV equally, which is unrealistic. Finally, the effect of the environmental components in determining the engagement level of each customer was almost ignored. In this paper, two main contributions are presented. First, a summary and analysis of the contributions of the literature in the CEV field for different market types whether in B2C, B2B or C2C. Furthermore, three modifications are added to the existing models. The first model introduces a non-linear relationship of the components of CEV. The second model is a weighted linear model of these components. Finally, the third model adds the environmental factors to the CEV components. All the proposed models are theoretical in nature, however, these models are expected to show superiority when being applied to real data sets due to their ability to capture the complexity in the relationship between the firm and its customers in real-life situations. The proposed models are expected to attract the practitioners and other researchers and they both are encouraged to apply the proposed models on real-life data sets, test their performance, compare them against each other, to be able to apply each of them on the best suitable data set and business scenario.

Based on the review and analysis that has been done on about 87 papers, it is found that the majority of the contributions that have been done in the area of CEV are theoretical in nature, in spite of the effectiveness of CEV in empowering business decision. It is also found that few researchers proposed a set of theoretical comprehensive frameworks that combined CEV’s components together. Meanwhile, those frameworks are not practically applicable.

Although the contribution of the proposed models expected to attract both researchers and practitioners, these are not applied to real-life case studies to prove their effectiveness.

The research in this paper has many industrial and managerial implications. First, it helps managers and decision takers to treat the customers as assets and cost-free resources who can work with the firm to achieve what’s both aims to (i.e. increase customer satisfaction and firm’s profitability). Second, it helps the firm to determine the total value of each customer and treat its customers accordingly. Third, it empowers the managers to do target marketing, based on grouping the customers upon their total engagement. This would save time and cost and for sure increase the profitability and customer satisfaction. Forth, the proposed models take into consideration not only the transactional behavior of the customers but also the non-transactional factors that play a significant role in formulating the relationship between the firm and its customers.

This is hereby to certify that the paper is original, neither the paper nor a part of it is under consideration for publication anywhere else. Also, this study has no conflicts of interest to disclose.

The authors apply Alan P. Fiske's relational models framework to customers' engagement with service firms – specifically, they propose that customers who hold different relational models for the service firm are likely to engage with the firm in dissimilar ways, thus generating different types of customer engagement value for the firm. Fiske's relational models framework is eminently suitable for studying customer-service firm engagement because it is widely adopted in the social sciences as a rigorously developed framework for conceptualizing social interactions.

The article bridges Fiske's relational models framework and Kumar et al.'s customer engagement value framework, and conceptually demonstrates that customers employing different relational models for the service firm are likely to generate different types of customer engagement value for the firm.

The article demonstrates conceptually that customers' relational models, schemata, and scripts influence how consumers engage with the firm and the type of customer engagement value accruing to the firm.

This research has implications for service firms' relationship strategies. First, service marketers can determine the desired customer engagement value(s) and then craft their customer relationship strategy so that it maximizes those engagement value(s). The article suggests relationship strategies that service firms may implement for encouraging customers to adopt different relational models.

No research has bridged relational models theories and customer engagement value theories.

This study aims to investigate the influence of customer satisfaction on four facets of customer engagement: customer influencer behavior, knowledge behavior, referral behavior and purchase behavior. Furthermore, its (in)direct influence on affective attitude, price perception and loyalty is investigated.

Two studies were conducted. First, an experimental scenario design was set up to investigate the hypothesized relations between customer engagement; customers’ affective attitude and their loyalty; and their price perceptions. Second, a survey at a national forest park center helped to secure external validity.

The results indicate that engaged customers develop a more positive affective attitude, which leads to increased future loyalty and positive price perceptions. In addition, the results suggest that assessing cognitive approaches exclusively is not sufficient for understanding customers’ price perceptions.

Future research should investigate antecedents of customer engagement behaviors (CEBs) other than satisfaction, and extend this research by taking into account further mediators that might be cognitive rather than affective.

The results are of superior importance for services or tourism destinations. Fostering CEB can help in improving a destinations’ performance.

This research expands the current state of literature by investigating several dimensions of CEB at one time, as well as by examining customers’ affective attitude toward the organization as a potential mediator, extending previous research approaches.

This study aims to analyze the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) customer perceptions, customer–company identification and customer trust on customer engagement (CE), paying special attention to the moderating effects of two types of social media communication, firm-generated content and user-generated content.

The study uses a mixed-methods’ approach. First, a single-factor experiment using Twitter posts as stimuli with 227 hotel guests. The structural model was analyzed using SmartPLS 3.2.7. Second, structured in-depth interviews were undertaken with three hotel industry experts to complement the conclusions of the quantitative study.

The results show that when a customer trusts a hotel and identifies with its corporate values, CSR tweets generate CE toward the hotel. CSR communications made by customers reinforce the impact of CSR tweets on customer trust more than CSR tweets posted by hotels. Hotel industry experts give insights to explain these results in different types of hotels.

CSR communications made through Twitter affect customers’ perceptions of a hotel’s CSR activities and customer trust in hotels, especially if they originate from a source external to the company. This result can be of use for hotel managers who have not previously given importance to active CSR communications or the interactivity of social media.

The authors show the moderating effect of user-generated content in the relationship between CSR customer perceptions and customer trust, thus contributing to the research into the effectiveness of social media. They use a mixed-methods’ approach to increase the validity of the results.

Este estudio analiza el papel de las percepciones de RSC, la identificación cliente-empresa (CCI) y la confianza en el engagement del cliente (CE), prestando especial atención al efecto moderador de dos tipos de comunicación en redes sociales: Contenido Generado por la Empresa (FGC) y Contenido Generado por el Usuario (UGC).

Se emplean métodos mixtos: un experimento de un factor usando publicaciones de Twitter como estímulo con 227 huéspedes del hotel, cuyo modelo estructural se analizó con SmartPLS 3.2.7., y 3 entrevistas en profundidad con expertos de la industria hotelera.

Los resultados muestran que, cuando un cliente confía en el hotel y se identifica con sus valores corporativos, los tweets de RSC generan engagement. La comunicación de RSC emitida por usuarios refuerza el impacto de los tweets de RSC en la confianza del cliente más que los tweets publicados por hoteles. Los expertos de la industria hotelera aportan nociones para explicar estos resultados en diferentes tipos de hoteles.

La comunicación de RSC realizada a través de Twitter afecta las percepciones del cliente sobre las actividades de RSC del hotel y la confianza en el mismo, especialmente si proceden de una fuente externa a la empresa. Este resultado puede ser útil para gerentes de hoteles que no se benefician de la comunicación activa de RSC o la interactividad de las redes sociales.

Se valida el efecto moderador del UGC en la relación entre las percepciones de RSC y la confianza de los clientes, contribuyendo así a la investigación sobre la efectividad de las redes sociales. Se emplea un diseño mixto para incrementar la validez de los resultados.

Comunicación de RSC, Engagement del Consumidor, Fuente del mensaje, Contenido generado por la empresa, Contenido generado por el usuario, Twitter, Compromiso con el cliente

Trabajo de investigación

The main purpose of this study is to fill the research gap on how B2B global service firms integrate dynamic capabilities within their omnichannel management to influence positive word of mouth (WOM), customer engagement (CE) and customer equity.

Drawing on the dynamic capability and WOM theories, a model has been developed that defines the subjects of the empirical test. The paper reports on data collected from 312 service-oriented global firms in Australia, through a cross-sectional survey. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that content management (i.e. information consistency, source trustworthiness and endorsement) and concerns management (i.e. privacy, security and recovery) capabilities are the two significant antecedents of positive WOM within a B2B omnichannel setting in international marketing. The findings also confirm the key mediating role of CE between positive WOM and customer equity.

The findings extend dynamic capability theory in the context of international marketing by linking WOM, CE and customer equity. The findings add further theoretical rigor by establishing the nomological chain between positive WOM and customer equity, in which CE plays a key mediating role.

Customer engagement (CE) as a domain of research started gaining impetus when it became apparent that it can be a key driver of a firm's performance, competitive advantage and loyalty. The purpose of this study is to develop a deep understanding of the CE construct in marketing literature using bibliometric analysis.

In this study, 940 articles were retrieved from Scopus, the well-known electronic database. Bibliographic coupling and co-occurrence analysis using VOSviewer along with content analysis were employed.

After careful content analysis, six clusters were identified through bibliographic coupling: (1) modeling customer engagement, (2) customer engagement theory and empirical validation, (3) customer engagement and service-dominant logic, (4) customer engagement and social media, (5) customer engagement and brand platforms and (6) engagement in other contexts. The outcomes of this study would not only be valuable for scholars working in the CE domain, but could also be useful for practitioners and policymakers who wish to enhance their understanding about CE.

Over the past decade, the research on CE construct has exploded owing to the growing interest of both scholars and practitioners in the field. Despite being a popular field of research, there is no published work on a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the construct in marketing literature. The current study bridges this gap in the existing literature.

The advent of social media has led to the emergence of influencers and the domain of influencer marketing (IM). Despite being a popular and evolving research domain, it still lacks a comprehensive and systematic bibliometric analysis in the field. This study attempts to fill this critical gap by mapping the influence of IM to understand the intellectual structure and propose a future research agenda for scholars working in the domain.

The authors have used VOSviewer and Biblioshiny packages for conducting a variety of analyses such as citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, keyword analysis and three-field plot analysis.

The main findings include identifying six clusters in the domain, i.e. “mechanism of IM,” “measuring the impact of IM,” “persuasive cues in IM,” “likability factors of influencers,” “authenticity of influencers” and “understanding followers.” Future research guidelines have been proposed in each of the six clusters, followed by research and managerial implications, conclusion and limitations.

This study is probably the first attempt at providing a comprehensive bibliometric analysis in the domain using a combination of VOSviewer and Biblioshiny packages.

There is an ongoing challenge to map the efficacy of e-retailing strategies in building both value co-creation opportunities for online customers and customer value for companies. Based on the service-dominant (S-D) logic, an integrative model is provided that connects the impact of convenience and personalisation strategies (CPSs) on an e-retailer's performance – by offering co-creation opportunities and customer engagement.

The survey instrument is validated and the model is tested with data from active online customers using a novel methodology that blends artificial neural network (ANN) analysis with partial least squares (PLS) in both the measurement model and the path analysis.

The findings robustly support the model and yield evidence of the contribution of CPSs in effective value propositions, the interface between the S-D logic and customer engagement, and the direct effect of customer engagement on tangible forms of value for companies.

This study is the first scholarly effort to provide a comprehensive understanding of how and why CPSs can maximise customer value for the e-retailer, while simultaneously testing the customer value/engagement interface with a new blended ANN-PLS method.

Over the past 25 years as a marketing academic, I have been fortunate to have collaborated with various researchers and firms and have contributed to the advancement of the marketing field. This is a review article that tracks my progress through these years that has led me to explore different areas of marketing, thereby shaping me as a researcher and an academic. As I see now, all of my research work can be viewed from a decision-making point of view – decisions that marketers can make either at the market, brand/firm/store, or the customer level. These decisions have in turn been transformed into strategies or tactics leading up to successful implementations and improved bottom-line results. The development of strategies/tactics and successful implementations can be seen in nearly 10 areas of research that I have involved myself in. This article also highlights how my research studies have contributed and advanced the creation of knowledge in each of these research areas.