Search results

This paper aims to empirically examine how atmospherics affect word of mouth (WOM) about the brand. The authors focus primarily on uncovering the causal mechanism in which such effect is serially mediated by both perceived positive emotions evoked by atmospherics and attitude toward the brand.

To test the research hypotheses, 314 Greek moviegoers were drafted to participate in a survey. Data were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (AMOS) and the SPSS macro (PROCESS tool). The model was applied to motion pictures, as they provide a particularly good example of short life-cycle products.

Findings indicate that atmospherics are related to WOM about the brand through perceived emotions evoked by atmospherics and, in turn, attitude toward the brand.

The present study extends the relevant literature by providing both direct and indirect links between atmospherics and WOM about a brand.

The model of the present study could be applied to other short life-cycle products that share key characteristics with motion pictures. Moreover, the present study increases movie producers and exhibitors’ understanding of the effects of theatre atmospherics on WOM about the movie and leads to practical suggestions and implications.

WOM is one of the key variables that can affect the profitability of short life-cycle products. To date, there was no evidence that atmospherics can influence WOM about a short life-cycle product.

The purpose of this study is to understand the driving forces of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in organizations and how these social initiatives influence organizations’ “license to operate” using data from the Ghanaian business environment.

This study used purposive sampling with a well-structured questionnaire as a data collection tool. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling was used to study the driving forces of CSR initiatives in organizations and how these social initiatives influence their social license.

The findings indicate that CSR initiatives are driven by the normative, mimetic, investors and community pressures. The regulative pressure has no significant effect on CSR initiatives. The authors found no difference between the services and the manufacturing sectors as far as the results are concerned using multi-grouping analysis.

From the results, the importance of normative, mimetic, investors and community pressures as the driving forces of CSR are established. The finding indicates that CSR demands by suppliers, customers the extent to which organizations perceive their competitors have benefited from initiating CSR are benefiting, the willingness of investors to invest in companies whose CSR activities are best and the opinion on the extent to which the District Assembly and the Chief Executive in the district, the Chiefs, the Churches, the Opinion leaders have significant impact on CSR initiatives.

The results indicate the need for suppliers and customers to continually demand from corporations to initiate CSR activities as organizations seem to respond to these pressures, and these initiatives are also likely to be mimicked by other organizations in the same industry to enable this drive the social responsibility agenda. Investors and community members are also encouraged to invest and accept, respectively, organizations with very good CSR records to send a signal to companies who see CSR as a cost instead of performance enhancement.

The work illustrates and provides some insights and builds on the literature in the area of CSR from a developing country’s environment. This is also one of the few works that investigate the driving forces of CSR and social license using the institutional theory based on data from the African business environment.