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This study aims to examine how an organization’s Web-based marketing communication strategies drive feelings of customer gratitude and desired behavioral responses. The study specifically examines how a key cultural characteristic, ethnic identity, works in conjunction with Web quality to influence customers’ gratitude perceptions, thereby driving increases in positive word of mouth, repeat purchase intentions and price tolerance.

A major soccer e-retailer based in the USA collected survey data for the study. The authors examined the direct and indirect effects of Web quality through conditional process analysis.

Study findings indicate that customers’ Web quality and ethnic identity perceptions significantly influence customer gratitude and performance outcomes. Study findings also demonstrate the central mediating role of gratitude on the main and interactive effects of Web quality and ethnic identity.

Study findings suggest that online strategies of cultural-adaptation should go beyond integration of native language to include all key dimensions of website quality, to drive consumer gratitude and ultimately favorable outcomes such as word of mouth, price tolerance and repurchase intentions.

This research demonstrates empirical support for the successful deployment of relationship marketing efforts that impact all three dimensions (affect, cognition and behavioral intention) of customer gratitude.

It is the purpose of this study to demonstrate theoretically and empirically how the marketing strategy creation style implemented by a channel leader in a franchise system impacts the overall climate of trust within the channel system. Specifically, this study seeks to answer two important research questions: should franchisors direct franchisees in prescribed behaviors, or should the franchisees be allowed to play a more fundamental role in the strategy‐making process? How does this decision affect the overall level of trust within the franchise system relationship?

The paper investigates the impact of four common strategy‐making styles in a study of 244 fast food franchise businesses and compares the findings with those previously obtained in other settings.

Support was found for the hypotheses, which stated that the channel climate of franchise systems implementing the symbolic, generative, or transactive modes of strategy‐making would be characterized by a higher degree of trust than would the climate of franchise systems implementing the rational mode.

The empirical test considered only one industry (the fast food industry), and only one side of the franchisor‐franchisee dyad (the franchisee's perceptions) was used for the empirical tests.

The findings of the paper contribute significantly to an overall understanding of the development of effective, successful franchise channel relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to test empirically the impact of negative information about a celebrity spokesperson on consumers' perceptions of the endorsed brand. In addition, it is the first study to examine the reverse relationship: the impact of negative information about the brand on the celebrity endorser.

A two‐group, post‐test‐only, randomized experimental design was utilized to test the hypotheses. Data were collected by a survey of 247 college students.

The results of an experiment indicate that when respondents are exposed to negative information about a celebrity endorser, a negative transference of affect in the endorsement relationship will occur. However, when the situation is reversed and the respondents are exposed to negative information about the brand, the transference of affect is mitigated.

The present study provides a starting‐point for further research on negative information transference in the celebrity endorsement relationship.

It is crucial that retailers be aware of the risks associated with using celebrities to endorse their stores and products. Given that these results provide tentative support for the commonly held belief that a decline in the celebrity's image can impact the image of the brand, it is important that retailers carefully choose an endorser who currently has a good image and will likely be able to uphold this image in the future.

The paper introduces and empirically examines one explanation of how negative information may impact the celebrity advertising process.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the retail store decision criteria of customers in founder member states of the European Union and customers in Central and Eastern European (CEE) accession member states.

Based on the literature review we theorize that significant differences will exist between founder member state customers and CEE accession member customers and that retailers would be wise to forego a standardized retail mix in favour of strategies more precisely adapted to individual national markets. Utilizing a well‐established retail customer decision criteria scale, the authors collected data from 1,221 Eastern and Western EU customers.

It was found that CEE shoppers hold very high expectations of what they desire in a retail store. Indeed, their expectations were higher than those of founder member state customers on 21 of the 22 dimensions measured.

Because of the convenience nature of the data collection method utilized in the current study, future research that examines these two groups might want to employ a more stratified sampling approach across all the countries. Other limitations that provide fertile ground for future studies include specific explorations of the retail decision criteria with more complex measurement scales, which tap each sub construct more thoroughly.

It is apparent that retailers should thoroughly evaluate new target markets, especially when they are distant and unfamiliar and they should pursue country‐adapted strategies when entering the new CEE accession states.

The paper presents some of the first empirical research that examines the diversity of retail preferences across the enlarged EU.

Previous research has solidly demonstrated that successful sports teams and athletes can sway purchase behavior and other critical outcomes (Braunstein-Minkove et al.; McEvoy; Bush et al.). The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact that a globally prominent sports team can have on perceptions of the country by foreigners. The importance of a country's image as a cue in consumer choice behavior is well recognized in the business literature. However, relatively little empirical research has been done in determining what factors influence the formation of country-of-origin (COO) image in the minds of potential consumers and tourists. The paper theorizes that loyalty and viewership of a country's sports team will be a significant predictor of COO image.

In all, 951 individuals from four different countries were surveyed to determine their loyalty and viewership of Manchester United Football Club and their perceptions of the geographic home of the team.

The results indicate significant effects of both team loyalty and team viewership on the COO image by foreigners, especially highlighting noteworthy differences between foreigners with strong loyalty toward the globally prominent sports team and foreigners with weak to nonexistent loyalty regarding the interaction of these effects.

Few studies have sought to empirically explore what factors influence the formation of COO image. The current research contributes to the ever growing COO image body of knowledge by demonstrating the importance that a globally prominent sports team can play in generating positive perceptions of a country by foreigners. The paper further demonstrates that a country should pursue opportunities that allow foreigners to watch the globally prominent sports team play.

This study assessed the intergenerational influence of family socialization, specifically, nurturant fathering – the affective quality fathers provide children through warmth and acceptance – to explore how individuals initially connect with a sports team to become team-loyal.

Data were collected via an online survey from respondents self-described as college football fans who selected their “Favorite NCAA Division I football team.” The 623 respondents subsequently selected their biological father's favorite team. An intergenerational “match” between father and child served as the dependent variable. Step-wise logistic regression assessed the relationship that team loyalty, nurturant fathering, and their interaction had on the intergenerational matching of a father's favorite team.

Team loyalty had a significant, positive relationship with an intergenerational match. A positive but weak direct relationship was found between nurturant fathering and a favorite-team match. However, nurturant fathering significantly moderated the relationship between team loyalty and intergenerational match. This suggests that the quality of a father-child relationship during the child's formative years can facilitate team loyalty to a team favored by the father.

The strength and quality of the relationship between a father and his children through nurturant fathering during their formative years can facilitate mutual team loyalty toward a college football team if not directly, then indirectly, through an interaction effect with a parent-socialized, team-loyal child.

College athletic teams, and sports properties in general, should address the bond between fathers and their children to take advantage of the intergenerational transference process identified in this study through targeted, family-focused sports marketing. More specifically, university athletic departments should engage in marketing efforts that encourage and solidify the mutual loyalty fathers and children may have to their father's favorite football team. The outcome would be a competitive advantage that leads to the cultivation of long-lasting fans from generation to generation.

College football teams and sports properties in general should engage in father-child marketing promotions to encourage and enhance the intergenerational influence of fathers on their children with respect to the father's favorite team. However, while building future team loyalty among the children, these marketing promotions and the resultant father-child game attendance concurrently reinforce the father-child relationship. This ideally leads to a virtuous cycle of parental bonding and team loyalty.

This study extends research in intergenerational influence in a sports setting by introducing the construct of Nurturant Fathering and its scale to the sports marketing literature. The results found that a nurturing father can facilitate the formation of a mutual team loyalty between a father and his child with regard to the father's favorite football team. Extant research has focused on the behavioral elements of loyalty (e.g. attendance and revenues). This study's focus was on the attitudinal aspects of team loyalty. It empirically identified, at least in part, how individuals initially connect with a sports team to become team-loyal.

The purpose of this study is to examine how service performance and procedural justice are related and how this relationship is moderated by family life cycle (FLC) and culture. While it has long been assumed that customer perceptions of fair treatment by service providers are related to service quality perceptions, there has been little research that explicitly examines this relationship. Previous research has established that justice is an influential antecedent of behavior and attitudes in many different settings.

Using a 42‐item survey instrument combining the SERVPERF scale, a procedural justice scale and several demographic measures, responses were obtained from 717 individuals from Central and Eastern Europe and the USA. A 2×2 factorial design was used to evaluate the relationship between service performance and justice perceptions, and the moderating impacts of FLC position and culture on these perceptions.

Strong evidence was found to support the notion that fair treatment of customers affects service performance perceptions across both FLC position and culture.

Only one service industry (higher education) was used. This study should be replicated in other industry settings to provide validation across industries.

From both empirical and theoretical standpoints, this study bridges the gap between two separate but related literature streams of service performance and procedural justice.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a Knowledge Lens for information literacy. This lens shifts the focus and potential outcomes of information literacy in three ways. First, it promotes self-reflection as a means of integrating information. Second, it promotes creation, emphasizing it as a social process. Third, it promotes the ability and value of working with imprecision and lack of direction.

The author designed a Community of Practice (CoP) with a loosely structured guidebook to operationalize the Knowledge Lens. The initial stated purpose of the CoP was to provide innovative solutions to issues of race relations in South Carolina. A group of 19 participants – representing four churches – met twice a month for one year. After one year, a core group of 6 participants were interviewed to identify elements of this new lens.

Participants indicated that they changed in many ways after the CoP, suggesting that the Knowledge Lens increases the impact of literacy work. In particular, they were able to utilize internal tension to spark innovation, found value in direct engagement with one another without the need to first codify their thinking, and increased their reliance on information encountering.

Information literacy has attempted to move beyond stale concepts, and the Knowledge Lens facilitates this movement. It takes information literacy beyond the mere provision of access to existing information. It recognizes barriers to information integration. And it involves individuals in co-creation to solve problems that lack an existing codified solution.