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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 October 2017

Eva Hofmann, Barbara Hartl and Elfriede Penz

Collaborative consumption, such as car sharing, specifically implicates customer-to-customer interaction, which must be regulated by service providers (companies, peers and…

6958

Abstract

Purpose

Collaborative consumption, such as car sharing, specifically implicates customer-to-customer interaction, which must be regulated by service providers (companies, peers and self-regulating communities), comprising different challenges for business organizations. While in conventional business relations, consumers are protected from undesirable customer behavior by laws, regulations (power) in the context of collaborative consumption are rare, so that trust becomes more relevant. It is the purpose of the study to investigate possible mechanisms to prevent undesirable customers in collaborative consumption.

Design/methodology/approach

In between subject designs, samples of 186 and 328 consumers filled in experimental online questionnaires with vignettes. Analyses were made of differences among car sharing companies, private persons and car sharing communities in terms of the power of providers, trust in providers and trust in other users of the shared goods, undesirable customer behavior and consumer–provider relations.

Findings

Companies, private persons and self-regulating communities differ in terms of perceived power and trust. Participants specifically perceive mainly coercive power with the car sharing company, but with the private person and the community, reason-based trust in other users is perceived as prevalent. Nevertheless, undesirable customer behavior varies only marginally over the models.

Originality/value

The present study is the first to investigate measures to prevent undesirable customer behavior over different collaborative consumption models. This enables appropriate identification of market segments and tailoring of services. The study identifies opportunities for companies in contrast to private persons and self-regulating communities and, in doing so, provides important stimulation for marketing strategy and theory development.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 31 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 10 September 2020

Ya-Ling Chen, Joseph Chen, Wan-Yu Liu and Tanmay Sharma

This research aims to grasp hotel guests' motives and potential benefits sought when interacting with other guests, service personnel and residents and examines how these benefits…

5970

Abstract

Purpose

This research aims to grasp hotel guests' motives and potential benefits sought when interacting with other guests, service personnel and residents and examines how these benefits can contribute to the total guest experience.

Design/methodology/approach

Mixed methods are adopted for the purpose of this study comprising individual interviews and a questionnaire survey.

Findings

Five groups of advantages emerge from individual interviews, including friendliness in interaction, social benefits, information acquisition, curiosity gratification and hospitality services. In the survey, which gathers 326 questionnaires, this study reveals that the five types of benefits derived from hotel guests' interactions could be further categorized into two dimensions: civility (e.g. friendliness and social) and utility (e.g. information, curiosity and service). The study confirms that four out of five potential or expected benefits from this personal interaction is significantly associated with the total hotel experience.

Research limitations/implications

Respondents of this study are culturally homogenous; as a result, multi-cultural settings should be considered for future research.

Originality/value

Tourism and hospitality literature on people's interaction is mostly center around social aspects of interaction. The current study comprehensively explores all expected utilities of interaction, occurring in all sorts of interactions (e.g. customer-to-resident and customer-to-service personnel). Specifically, the findings of this study uncover the underlying factors which prompt the tourists to interact with other people in a lodging setting and examine the relative importance of those underlying factors to the total lodging experiences.

Details

International Hospitality Review, vol. 34 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2516-8142

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 18 March 2022

Michaela Lipkin and Kristina Heinonen

This study aims to characterize how ecosystem actors shape customer experience (CX). The study also proposes implications for managers and research regarding the customer…

5551

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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.

Findings

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.

Research limitations/implications

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.

Practical implications

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.

Social implications

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

Originality/value

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

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 36 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 3 August 2021

Shalini Singh and Abu Bashar

E-tourism is instilling in the tourism industry with the advancement in the technological infrastructure all over the world and fetching tremendous tourists’ attention. The…

13722

Abstract

Purpose

E-tourism is instilling in the tourism industry with the advancement in the technological infrastructure all over the world and fetching tremendous tourists’ attention. The dynamic changes in the technological aspects unveil varied developments in the tourism industry. This paper attempts to reveal the developments in the field of e-tourism by a systematic review of the literature using bibliometric analysis.

Design/methodology/approach

In total,146 research articles were retrieved from the Web of Science data during the period of 2004 – 2020, for further analysis using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny package of R Studio.

Findings

Useful insights resulted in the form of most cited papers, contribution in e-tourism research by different authors, countries, institutions, journals and so on, co-occurrence analysis and cluster analysis for major trends or themes of e-tourism. This study solicits an elaborated review of e-tourism research and unveils the future directions for the researchers.

Originality/value

This study adds substantial value to the research of e-tourism by analysing the bibliometric data of the last 16 years, that is, from 2004 – 2020, procured from the Scopus by analysing the significant trends developed in the e-tourism research. It also adds value by indicating the emerging areas of e-tourism.

Details

International Hospitality Review, vol. 37 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2516-8142

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 17 July 2023

Yilmaz Akgunduz, Mehmet Alper Nisari and Serpil Sungur

This study proposes a model that influences customer citizenship behavior during COVID-19, and empirically tests the effects of fast-food restaurant customers' perceptions of…

2060

Abstract

Purpose

This study proposes a model that influences customer citizenship behavior during COVID-19, and empirically tests the effects of fast-food restaurant customers' perceptions of justice (price and procedural justice) on trust; trust on satisfaction and loyalty; and trust, satisfaction and loyalty on customer citizenship behavior. Furthermore, it was questioned whether there was a disparity between customer expectations based on the restaurant's image and consumption experience.

Design/methodology/approach

The data were gathered from customers of fast-food restaurants in the shopping centers in Turkey. The data set, which included 437 valid questionnaires, was subjected to CFA for validity and reliability, SEM analysis for hypothesis and paired sample t-Tests for the research questions.

Findings

The findings of the study indicate that perceived justice affects customer trust, which, consequently, affects customer loyalty and satisfaction during the COVID-19 period. Findings also demonstrate that, while customer loyalty and trust increase customer citizenship behavior, customer satisfaction alone is insufficient to increase customer citizenship behavior. The study also shows that during the COVID-19 period, fast-food restaurants should have raised awareness of employees’ fair behaviors toward the customers and provided additional services to differentiate themselves in the market. Also, it indicates that customer expectations related to price, cleanliness and professional appearance of staff are not met after taking service.

Originality/value

No research has been found in the literature focusing on the expectations, justice, trust, satisfaction, loyalty and citizenship behaviors of fast-food restaurant customers in the COVID-19 pandemic process. Therefore, the results can fill the gap in relevant literature by testing the relationships between justice, trust, satisfaction, loyalty and citizenship during the pandemic and provide inferences for fast-food business owners.

Details

International Hospitality Review, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2516-8142

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 7 August 2017

Jaewon Yoo and Jicheol Jeong

This paper aims to examine the effect of employees’ emotional labor on work engagement and boundary-spanner creativity based on the job demands-resources model from the…

10577

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the effect of employees’ emotional labor on work engagement and boundary-spanner creativity based on the job demands-resources model from the perspective of salespeople.

Design/methodology/approach

To analyze the data, a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling procedure using LISREL 8.5 were used. Next, the conditional process modeling was fitted to test the moderated mediation hypotheses.

Findings

The analysis results showed that deep acting has a positive effect on work engagement, whereas surface acting has a negative effect, indicating that work engagement of sales representatives is differently related to each factor of emotional labor. Second, work engagement of salespeople has a positive effect on boundary spanner creativity. Next, entrepreneurship has a moderate effect in the relationship between emotional labor and work engagement with customer stewardship and has a positive moderating effect in the relationship between work engagement and boundary spanner creativity.

Practical implications

Considering the positive effect of boundary spanner creativity on work engagement, it is important to maintain interaction with customers, including adaptive behaviors and customer orientation, as customers’ demand increases. The individual competence and capability of salespeople such as entrepreneurship are directly related to interaction with customers, so when the right strategy is defined for each type of entrepreneurship of salespeople, it will create a positive corporate culture and lead to performance improvement.

Originality/value

Compared with most studies, more direct factors of emotional labor were assessed to detect positive effects in this study. More specifically, when salespeople were forced to fake their feelings, they were more likely to recognize stress or burnout due to emotional dissonance between what they really felt and what they had to express to comply with organizational regulations.

Details

Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2071-1395

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 3 August 2021

Karin Teichmann

Controversy exists about the shape of the relationship between loyalty and profitability. This paper aims to address the possibly nonlinear effects of behavioral loyalty (BLOY) on…

2419

Abstract

Purpose

Controversy exists about the shape of the relationship between loyalty and profitability. This paper aims to address the possibly nonlinear effects of behavioral loyalty (BLOY) on customer spending (as a proxy for profitability). Building on social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity, it examines the asymmetries between BLOY and customer spending and the moderating influence of personal communication (PCOMM) as a social reward and dispositional positive reciprocity as process evidence.

Design/methodology/approach

Study 1a (n = 309) gathered customer data from four restaurants and Study 1b (n = 252) data from hotel guests after they checked out. Study 2 is an experimental study with two manipulated factors (BLOY and PCOMM). In total, 295 participants from a large German online panel completed the study.

Findings

The results indicate an inverted-U shaped relationship between BLOY and customer spending: after reaching a turning point, customers gradually curb spending as their BLOY further increases. High PCOMM acts as a reciprocal response while triggering additional customer spending particularly at higher levels of behavioral loyalty; positive reciprocity adjusts the differences in customer spending when social rewards such as PCOMM are present.

Research limitations/implications

The asymmetric relationship between BLOY and customer spending is tested only for hedonic service settings.

Practical implications

Not all loyal customers spend more – companies need to meet their reciprocal obligations before they can benefit from increased customer spending.

Originality/value

The present research re-considers the nature of the relationship between BLOY and customer spending and reveals an inverted-U shaped relationship, with a turning point beyond which greater customer loyalty decreases customer spending. It finds converging process evidence for the mechanism of reciprocity underlying this relationship. This study also details the financial impact of BLOY on the firm by investigating actual customer spending.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 55 no. 13
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 30 May 2020

Elina Närvänen, Hannu Kuusela, Heli Paavola and Noora Sirola

This paper's purpose is to develop a meaning-based framework for customer loyalty by examining how consumers make sense of customer loyalty through meanings and metaphors.

23513

Abstract

Purpose

This paper's purpose is to develop a meaning-based framework for customer loyalty by examining how consumers make sense of customer loyalty through meanings and metaphors.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative study based on in-depth interviews and focus group data in the retail context was conducted with Finnish customers. The data were analysed with qualitative data analysis techniques such as the constant comparative technique.

Findings

The empirical findings comprise eight loyalty meanings characterised by two dimensions. The first dimension is reflexive vs. routinised, and the second dimension is private vs. social. The loyalty types are dimensionalised through four metaphors: loyalty as freedom of choice; as being conventional and binding; and as belongingness.

Practical implications

The findings improve the way customer loyalty currently is understood in the retail setting. The paper proposes that customer insight that utilises thick data can be used to grasp loyalty meanings. These data are rich in context and detail, and they take into account customers' everyday lives. Utilising thick data in the form of storytelling fuels customers' meaning-making related to customer loyalty, potentially enriching their relationship with the retailer.

Originality/value

Customer loyalty has been driven largely by a transactional and company-centric perspective. This article presents an alternative view of customer loyalty that accounts for the variety of meanings that customers may assign to their loyalty-related thoughts and behaviours.

Details

International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, vol. 48 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-0552

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 3 October 2023

Erik Winell, Jonas Nilsson and Erik Lundberg

This study aims to examine and compare the influence of the disposition to engage in engagement behaviors on physical and virtual engagement platforms, as well as the influence of…

2294

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine and compare the influence of the disposition to engage in engagement behaviors on physical and virtual engagement platforms, as well as the influence of these engagement behaviors on brand loyalty, value-in-use and word-of-mouth.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected using a survey distributed to a random sample of 10,000 fans of five teams in the Swedish top-division of elite football. An exploratory factor analysis was performed to derive a distinction between prevalent platforms, scales were validated through a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling was used to test the research model.

Findings

Customer disposition to engage with the sports team had a significant influence on customer engagement behaviors on both physical and virtual engagement platforms. However, engagement behaviors on virtual platforms were found to be more important than engagement behaviors on physical platforms for fostering brand loyalty and value-in-use.

Practical implications

The results highlight the importance of engagement behaviors with a brand on virtual engagement platforms. Thus, brand managers should prioritize their presence on social media to generate the positive outcomes of customer engagement behaviors.

Originality/value

By examining the effects of customer engagement behaviors on both physical and virtual engagement platforms, this study provides new insights to the emerging customer engagement literature.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 37 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 26 November 2020

Mahmud Hassan and Rumman Hassan

Waiting is associated with pain and stress that leads to frustration. However, consumer narratives may help cope with the stress associated with such waiting. This study aims to…

2051

Abstract

Purpose

Waiting is associated with pain and stress that leads to frustration. However, consumer narratives may help cope with the stress associated with such waiting. This study aims to understand consumer waiting behaviours within online communities.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was gathered following a netnographic approach from a Facebook brand community (FBC) by downloading and archiving the threads related to members’ waiting behaviours. This resulted in 91 pages of data, with 438 individual comments and 179 distinct threads.

Findings

The data revealed that members of the sampled FBC exercised waiting behaviour. The authors confirm that waiting for a product is associated with both negative outcomes (frustration, boredom, etc.), but positive ones (create stronger ties with the brand and fellow members, etc.). Members of the FBC exhibited reduced consumer anxiety and stress during the waiting period.

Research limitations/implications

This study found 13 waiting behaviours within the FBC and supports the idea that new value-creating behaviours are noticed within the context of FBCs.

Originality/value

This study focuses on waiting within a goods-based context (waiting to be served has been examined predominantly within the service sector). The study explored the behaviours of consumers who use social media to complain about extended waiting periods to receive the product along with other consumer reactions to these waiting crowds to reduce the emotional pain associated with such delays.

Propósito

La espera se asocia con el dolor y el estrés, lo que lleva a la frustración. Sin embargo, el relato de otros consumidores puede ayudar a hacer frente al estrés asociado a dicha espera. Este trabajo busca entender el comportamiento de espera de los consumidores dentro de las comunidades online.

Diseño/metodología/enfoque

Los datos fueron recopilados siguiendo un enfoque netnográfico de una comunidad de marca en Facebook (CMF) mediante la descarga de mensajes; sólo los hilos relacionados con los comportamientos de espera de los miembros fueron descargados y archivados. Esto resultó en 91 páginas de datos con 438 comentarios individuales y 179 hilos distintos.

Hallazgos

Los datos revelan que en Facebook se dan comportamientos de espera. Confirmamos que la espera de un producto no sólo está asociada a resultados negativos (frustración, aburrimiento, etc.), sino también a resultados positivos (crear lazos más fuertes con la marca y los compañeros). Además, se comprueba que los miembros de la CMF reducen la ansiedad y el estrés del consumidor durante el período de espera.

Limitaciones/implicaciones de la investigación

Este trabajo encuentra 13 comportamientos de espera dentro de una CMF

Originalidad/valor

Este trabajo se centra en la espera dentro del contexto basado en los bienes (la espera para ser atendido ha sido examinada principalmente dentro del sector de servicios). Además, no sólo nos centramos en los consumidores que utilizan los medios sociales para quejarse de una espera más larga en la recepción del producto, sino también en la reacción de otros consumidores a estas esperas para reducir el dolor emocional asociado a dicho retraso.

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