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The purpose of this paper is to assess the influences and efficiency of a sports sponsorship in an online brand community.

The study was conducted through interviews with 609 social network users of a Spanish first league soccer team. The partial least squares (PLS) methodology was applied with a posteriori segmentation (PLS prediction-oriented segmentation (POS)).

The attitude toward the sponsor helps to assess the efficiency of sponsorships between companies. This variable is particularly relevant for evaluating sponsorship efficiency in online brand communities. Improving trust and assessing the sense of membership directly improves attitudes toward the team and the sponsored brands. The attitude toward the sponsor has a direct and positive impact on the purchase intentions. The use of a posteriori segmentation with the PLS–POS technique helps discriminate between groups.

Among the limitations encountered, further study would require using a sample of various sports disciplines and cultures.

Specific actions and communication strategies are defined for each segment and in general to adapt communication strategies that improve identification with virtual brand communities. The study has revealed involvement-related differences resulting from the impact that engagement with the sponsored team may have on the assessed relationships.

The study of the effects of sponsorship and the use of a posteriori variables user segmentation in an online brand community are used.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the field of satisfaction research from the perspective of electronic banking users; a topic of great interest to the business strategies of financial institutions. In this context, the authors analyse the main determinants of user experience with a specific institution's products.

A comprehensive review of the scientific literature has justified the development of a behavioural model that explains satisfaction using a set of constructs or endogenous variables. Data was collected from a self‐administered web survey in the authenticated section of the electronic banking service of a prestigious financial institution.

The analysis tests the relationship between the proposed variables (accessibility, trust, ease of use and usefulness) and satisfaction with electronic banking.

The study was limited to the data of a single financial institution. Caution should therefore be exercised in generalising the results. The research results provide a number of valuable conclusions for financial institutions.

This paper is a pioneer study of satisfaction with electronic banking, especially of the relationships between satisfaction and its main determinants.

Psychological perspective has been omitted or considered a secondary issue by past studies focused on e-commerce recommendation systems (RS). However, this perspective is key to gaining a better understanding of consumer behaviours when these systems are used to support purchasing processes at online stores. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The field study consisted of a simulated online shopping process undertaken by a sample of internet users with a recommender system at a real online store (Pixmania). The authors applied rigorous and detailed exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the empirical validity of the model.

The proposed sequence of psychological outcomes is valid, with the exception of one hypothesized relationship. In particular, satisfaction with an online store’s recommender has a strong influence on a consumer’s willingness to purchase one of the items related to his/her shopping goal. However, this satisfaction has no direct effect on a consumer’s intention to make add-on purchases based on the recommender’s suggestions. On the contrary, the results support the idea that add-on purchases are conditioned by a previous purchase related to the consumer’s initial shopping goal. On the other hand, a consumer’s flow state while shopping improves all his/her psychological outcomes linked to an online store’s recommender. The influence of flow state is particularly interesting when seeking to gain a better understanding of consumers’ unplanned purchases based on the recommender’s suggestions. These findings have important implications for practitioners.

This paper discusses in detail and empirically test a set of psychological outcomes that emerge when an e-vendor’s recommender is used to assist a consumer’s shopping process. To the best of the knowledge, this is the first attempt that empirically tests most of the hypothesized relationships within an online store’s RS context.

The purpose of this paper, which is based on the UTAUT2 model, is to develop and evaluate a predictive model of customer satisfaction related to mobile commerce (m-commerce) and the willingness to recommend this service to others.

The study was conducted based on a sample of 402 respondents. Confirmative factor analysis was used to evaluate the validity of the model, while structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses. Finally, artificial neural networks were used to rank the influence of the significant predictors obtained by SEM.

Trust was found to be the most significant driver of customer satisfaction, followed by performance expectancy and perceived value. In addition, affective commitment and satisfaction were identified as the strongest predictors of word of mouth (WOM).

The originality/value of the paper lies in the establishment of the connection between the independent variables of the UTAUT 2 model – trust, satisfaction, affective and continence commitment and WOM. Additionally, it is one of a small number of studies investigating customer commitments and their influence on WOM in m-commerce.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the overview of factors responsible for materialism and compulsive buying among adolescents and young adults. In today’s world, materialism is a crucial phenomenon of the modern age. According to social comparison theory, comparisons are a significant factor affecting the behavioral intentions of adolescents and young adults. Thus, this study develops a framework based on the stimulus–organism–response model and uses the framework to examine the impact of interpersonal communication and marketing factors on social comparison, materialism and compulsive buying, with social media acting as a moderator.

Using a survey method, data were collected in Study 1 from adolescents (n = 298) and in Study 2 from young adults (n = 345). Structural equation modeling analysis using partial least squares technique was used to analyze the data.

The results show that social comparison plays a significant role in developing materialistic values and compulsive buying among adolescents and young adults. Through these two studies, it was found that young adults are more socially comparative, materialistic and compulsive in buying as compared to adolescents. Moreover, social media use moderated the relationship between social comparison with peers and media celebrities, which means that rapid increase of social media use leads adolescents and young adults to create high social comparison and materialistic values.

This research is based on the cross-sectional method, which limits the research findings.

This research helps corporate managers understand the interpersonal communication role in creating social comparison among individuals. The study found that peer communication plays a more important role in enhancing the social comparative values among young adults than among adolescents, which provides clear implications for the practitioner.

This study makes a significant contribution to extant literature by discussing the above issue and presenting quantitative data. The study extends the literature by examining and validating a theoretical model of how interpersonal communication among socializing agents affects social comparison among young adults and adolescents. This research examines outcomes of the social comparison with parents, peers and social media, based on the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) model.