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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how technological innovations mitigate inefficiencies in marketing channels in the context of microfinance markets in emerging markets. By examining in detail, specific market inefficiencies that inhibit the efforts of micro and small enterprises to access microfinance in emerging markets and the use of technology to alleviate these failures, the authors bridge the literatures on marketing channel inefficiencies and technological innovation relevant to emerging markets.

The authors use a qualitative method in the form of phenomenological interviews and participant observation in Ghana, West Africa, to investigate the research question.

The three themes that arise from the findings are: channel structure and structure selection; power-dependence relationships and relational outcomes; and conflict mechanisms and control behaviors. Customerization of technology is observed to mitigate inefficiencies in mobile marketing channels by facilitating data sharing, reminders, peer referencing and other marketing strategies of awareness, affordability, access and scalability.

The limitations of this study are the fact that the context of the study is only one emerging market country – Ghana. This market is however experiencing dynamic changes in mobile technology innovations that is revolutionizing the microfinance industry.

Mobile money innovations have advanced the scope of marketing channels to the point that an updated perspective of the role of mobile technology in mitigating marketing channels inefficiency is both appropriate and timely.

The authors make the contribution of customerization as an aspect of mobile technology that is a key enabler in microfinance marketing channels, serving to mitigate microfinance market inefficiencies. Additionally, the study augments theories on the marketing channels framework by contributing perspectives on mobile technology.

The chapter briefly reviews the eight volumes in my Legend series – organizational buying behavior, consumer behavior, product and new product management, marketing strategy, market segmentation, global marketing, marketing research and modeling, and the future of marketing. In addition, the chapter highlights the three driving forces of much of my research: (a) the real world challenges facing corporations and organizations, (b) the search for new methodological developments, and (c) the continuous challenge of the prevailing marketing concepts and approaches. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the evolution of marketing in the past five decades and my wish list for the discipline and my future activities.

Aims to analyse the reactions of front‐line staff to the use of the “customer” label in Jobcentre Plus, the new agency charged with structural and cultural reform of benefit administration in the UK and to highlight some key challenges and possibilities faced by “new public management” reformers in attempts to re‐present recipients of public services as customers.

Data are drawn from semi‐structured interviews with 39 front‐line workers in 14 public offices, conducted as part of the second phase of a study on staff perceptions of the Jobcentre Plus reform.

The majority of those interviewed reported awareness of and agreement with the customer label. More substantive views point to the ambiguous and shifting meanings applied by public sector workers to the customer role per se, and to its complex and multifaceted application to the Jobcentre Plus context.

Provides a systematic account of front‐line workers' attitudinal reactions to the incursion of the customer concept. However, the impact on users of the system is a question for further research.

Identifies a set of possibilities and challenges inherent in attempts to manage relevant cultural change amongst the front‐line of public service provision.

Provides a systematic account of the views of front‐line workers to the customerisation of public service provision, an issue of interest both to researchers and to practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a 3R (right time, right place, and right material) principle for characterizing failure in humanitarian/relief supply chains’ response to natural disasters, and describes a Bayesian methodology of the failure odds with regard to external factors that may affect the disaster-relief outcome, and distinctive supply chain proneness to failure.

The suggested 3Rs combine simplicity and completeness, enclosing all aspects of the 7R principle popular within business logistics. A fixed effects logistic regression model is designed, with a Bayesian approach, to relate the supply chains’ odds for success in disaster-relief to potential environmental predictors, while accounting for distinctive supply chains’ proneness to failure.

Analysis of simulated data demonstrate the model’s ability to distinguish relief supply chains with regards to their disaster-relief failure odds, taking into account pertinent external factors and supply chain idiosyncrasies.

Due to the complex nature of natural disasters and the scarcity of subsequent data, the paper employs computer-simulated data to illustrate the implementation of the proposed methodology.

The 3R principle offers a simple and familiar basis for evaluating failure in relief supply chains’ response to natural disasters. Also, it brings the issues of customer orientation within humanitarian relief and supply operations to the fore, which had only been implicit within the humanitarian and relief supply chain literature.

This paper aims to examine the influence of value co-creation by external and internal stakeholders of logistics service organizations on both customer loyalty as well as superior service solutions. The mediating role of superior service solutions between the value co-creation strategies of organizations and customer loyalty is also investigated in a marketing channel environment.

Survey data of small and medium enterprises’ executives (n = 330) are analysed using exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modelling to investigate the impact of six hypothesized relationships through value co-creation.

This study indicates that coordinated efforts to create value by external and internal stakeholders to achieve superior service solutions have a strong impact on creating loyalty among customers.

The effectiveness of this research has been validated in a number of ways including interviewing four of the stakeholders of a case organization that implemented the model. This study offers understanding of the roles of value co-creation, to a key to organizational success in marketing channels.

This paper elucidates the impact of value co-creation on the business performance of logistics service organizations. With empirical evidence, the paper contributes to fill the knowledge gaps on how the process of value co-creation by different stakeholders influences customer loyalty in a service context. The mediating role of superior service solution between value co-creation by different stakeholders and business customer loyalty is also examined, adding to its significance.

In the recent climate of consumerism and consumer focused care, health and social care needs to be more responsive than ever before. Consumer needs and preferences can be elicited with accepted validity and reliability only by strict methodological control, customerisation of the questionnaire and skilled interpretation. To construct, conduct, interpret and implement improved service provision, requires a trained work force and infrastructure. This article aims to appraise various aspects of consumer surveys and to assess their value as effective service improvement tools.

The customer is the sole reason organisations exist. Consumer surveys are used worldwide as service and quality of care improvement tools by all types of service providers including health service providers. The article critically appraises the value of consumer surveys as service improvement tools in health services tool and its future applications.

No one type of survey is the best or ideal. The key is the selection of the correct survey methodology, unique and customised for the particular type/aspect of care being evaluated. The method used should reflect the importance of the information required.

Methodological rigor is essential for the effectiveness of consumer surveys as service improvement tools. Unfortunately so far there is no universal consensus on superiority of one particular methodology over another or any benefit of one specific methodology in a given situation. More training and some dedicated resource allocation is required to develop consumer surveys. More research is needed to develop specific survey methodology and evaluation techniques for improved validity and reliability of the surveys as service improvement tools. Measurement of consumer preferences/priorities, evaluation of services and key performance scores, is not easy.

Consumer surveys seem impressive tools as they provide the customer a voice for change or modification. However, from a scientific point‐of‐view their credibility in service improvement in terms of reproducibility, reliability and validity, has remained debatable.

This artcile is a critical appraisal of the value of consumer surveys as a service improvement tool in health services – a lesson which needs to be learnt.

Arguing that increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is shifting market power from suppliers to consumers, the ensuing consumer empowerment is presented as an unintended consequence of marketing. Marketing implications arising from this consumer empowerment are examined in terms of a process where control and management by suppliers over consumer access and enablement are increasingly difficult.

Consumer empowerment is examined historically, using quality gap analysis to capture an ongoing power struggle between consumers and suppliers. This draws out the limitations of current marketing and management strategies. The different forms of marketing challenges in this new environment are discussed.

The role of marketing strategies in fostering controlled consumer empowerment is reflected in the development of information‐based consumer‐centric marketing strategies that seek to enable and control delegation. In designing such strategies, consumers' familiarity with and use of ICT are both strengthened and widened, emphasising the uncontrolled nature of the consumer empowerment process.

The approach is literature‐based, focussing on the ICT enabled process. It does not address the psychology of empowerment. Since, consumer empowerment may imply switching suppliers in search of better value propositions, business cannot afford to ignore it, justifying the need for further research of both elements.

Marketing strategy rests on a control premise and the analysis of the consumer empowerment process implies that current customer‐centric strategies are operating under a false premise. There is a need to regain control over the marketing process, that is, to either manage the technological empowerment of consumers, or to devise new strategies cognisant of the possibility that such technological empowerment cannot be managed. The valuation of consumer loyalty in this environment rises significantly.

An historical perspective to consumer empowerment exposes the tensions between suppliers and consumers arising from ICT usage. A separation of consumer access and enablement from control and management by suppliers is shown to have important marketing strategy design implications.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer involvement in product development creates an emotional connection, satisfaction, and subsequent loyalty toward fast-fashion retailers across high vs low fashion-conscious consumers.

Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to gain understandings of the impacts of customer involvement. To explore customers’ general perceptions of fast-fashion retailers, a focus group interview with 11 US students was conducted. Data for a hypothesis test were obtained from 306 US female consumers and analyzed through structural equational modeling.

The findings underscored the relational benefits of involving customers in product development and the substantial moderating impact of female customers’ fashion consciousness.

The study’s findings support that the customer-brand relationship can be solidified by proactively involving customers in product development. This is beyond benefits derived from leveraging customers’ operant resources in product innovation. Thus, apparel retailers should take such interactive opportunities to build relationships with customers. Also, involving customers in product development can be a critical way for fast-fashion retailers to establish an emotional bond with and loyalty from consumers with a low level of fashion consciousness. Thus, any digital opinion platform designed to foster customer involvement should be managed with the customer-brand relationship in mind.

This study contributes to the emerging body of literature on customer involvement in product development in fast-paced retailing by elucidating the psychological process through which their participation strengthens the customer-brand relationship manifested in emotional, evaluative, and behavioral responses to the brand, and by identifying a consumer attribute that fortifies this process.

This paper approaches the subject of brand equity measurement on and offline. The existing body of research knowledge on brand equity measurement has derived from classical contexts; however, the majority of today's brands prosper simultaneously online and offline. Since branding on the Web needs to address the unique characteristics of computer‐mediated environments, it was posited that classical measures of brand equity were inadequate for this category of brands. Aaker's guidelines for building a brand equity measurement system were thus followed and his brand equity ten was employed as a point of departure. The main challenge was complementing traditional measures of brand equity with new measures pertinent to the Web. Following 16 semi‐structured interviews with experts, ten additional measures were identified.

Technology now allows e‐tailers to customize online store atmosphere at the individual level, with the customization controlled and executed by either the retailers or the customers, or both. Since in conventional retailing the manipulation of store atmosphere is controlled mainly by retailers (e.g. store layout, product display techniques, store theatrics, etc.), the potential for mass customization with consumer involvement radically changes the way research regarding online store atmosphere must be approached. Positioned in the e‐tailing research area, the purpose of this paper is to summarize the research challenges presented by virtual store atmosphere customization and control and to formulate specific research propositions.

This viewpoint paper employs an interdisciplinary “desk‐research” approach. It elaborates on the emerging research challenges of customizing store atmosphere in electronic retailing highlighting the differences that exist among the conventional and the virtual retail channels. It then justifies the interdisciplinary nature of store atmosphere studies, investigates the customization challenges available online and formulates specific research questions and direct research propositions.

E‐tailing store atmosphere customization capabilities at the individual level, revolutionizes the established relevant theory from conventional retailing. However, the control of the customization process is a quite complex issue and should be treated as that, by e‐tailers.

The paper sets the research agenda and builds avenues for further research.

The paper provides direct managerial implications for effectively placing online store atmosphere customization in the hands of the consumer‐user.

The paper clearly justifies why current online store atmosphere studies should be adapted to the mass customization challenge applicable online. Similarly, it demonstrates the promising role that consumer control could potentially play on this topic.