Search results

The potential outcomes of social media-facilitated customer–brand relationships have prompted many firms to develop strategies that would enable them to connect with as many customers as possible through social media. Nevertheless, the marketing value of these artificial connections is questionable. Therefore, this paper aims to identify determinants of customers’ intention to connect with a brand on social media (i.e. Facebook) in the absence of “pull-strategies”.

In this paper, the concept of customer–brand engagement (CBE) is applied to the intentions to “Like” a brand’s Facebook fan page using structural equation modelling.

The results show that the three dimensions of CBE collectively explain about 50 per cent of the intentions to “Like” a brand’s Facebook fan page. Additionally, the results show that the influences of two of the CBE dimensions on the two “Like”-intentions are conditional effects of brand trust.

Because of the novelty of the CBE construct, further investigation of its application in a social media setting is lacking. To address this gap in the literature, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how CBE influences customers’ intention to “Like” a brand’s Facebook page.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the interrelationships between incentives and social media users’ intentions to like different brand-related social media content. The study is based on the uses and gratification (U&G) theory and investigates three types of incentives i.e. communal, self-interest, and reward incentives which act as antecedents of customers’ intentions to like three types of brand-related content (commercial messages, personal opinion messages, and lifestyle messages).

A data set of 415 effective responses was collected and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for analyzing the data.

The obtained results indicate that communal and reward incentives enhance the intentions to like brand-related commercial, personal opinion, and lifestyle content. Self-interest incentives reduce the intentions to like three types of analyzed brand-related content with the strongest negative influence on intentions to like lifestyle content. Regarding the content type, the main drivers for liking lifestyle content and commercial content are reward incentives, whereas liking personal opinion content is mostly motivated by communal incentives.

This study provides valuable insights about users’ motivation to like brand-related content on social media with a focus on different types of brand-related content. The study has strong theoretical contributions as well as practical implications.

Acquiring “Likes” for a political party or candidate’s Facebook pages is important for political marketers. For consumers, these “Likes” are conspicuous, making their political affiliation visible to their network. This paper aims to examine the roles of the undesired social-self and visibility (conspicuous vs inconspicuous) in predicting consumers’ intention to “Like” political brands. The authors extend knowledge on the undesired social-self and transference of theory from general marketing to a political domain and provide practical advice for political marketers engaging social network sites.

The authors gather data from two surveys run with Facebook using electorates in the run up to the UK 2015 and US 2016 elections (n = 1,205) on their intention to “Like” political brands under different visibility conditions.

Data support the theorized relationship of the undesired social-self with social anxiety intention to “Like” when “Liking” is conspicuous. However, data also indicate that all users – irrespective of proximity to the undesired social-self – prefer to “Like” inconspicuously.

The research is limited by the generalizability of the specific context and the use of self-report measures.

Political marketers should reconsider promoting conspicuous consumption for that which is more inconspicuous.

The authors provide the first examination of the undesired social-self in driving behaviour under different visibility conditions. Furthermore, the authors challenge the extension of existing knowledge of the self-concept within political marketing, based on the “norm” for consumers’ to avoid disclosing political views publically.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to expand the knowledge of the current literature stream and to attempt to more fully understand the simple but singularly unique aspect of social networking communication that is the Facebook “Like”. To this end, motivations behind liking a brand are explored, as well as the interactions that occur between the company and consumer as a result of this Facebook interaction. Next, we look at differing levels of interaction for liked product and service brands on Facebook. Specifically exploring if there are differences with how Facebook users engage with liked product and service brands.

The authors first engage in an exploratory, qualitative-based research to look at the motivations and consequences associated with liking product and service brands, using a sample of 160 Facebook users. Next, an ANOVA analysis is performed using an online sample of 264 respondents recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk.

The qualitative analysis reveals differing motivations for liking brands on Facebook and suggests that generating Facebook Likes can indeed have positive, if unacknowledged, outcomes for the firm. Further, while there is no significant difference in perceptions of brand knowledge between product- and service-based brands, there is a significant difference in perceptions of brand connectedness between brand types, with consumers reporting a greater sense of connection to the service brands and higher levels of brand attitude and purchase intention for product-based brands. It is also shown that consumers have a greater intention of reading and liking posts from product-based brands.

This paper explores and attempts to move toward clarification of the gap that exists between “quality” versus “quantity” valuations of a Facebook Like.

Social network sites (SNSs) are an important part of consumers’ everyday lives, and have been recognized as a useful marketing channel. However, little is known about how brands should communicate in order to be more effective and maximize the diffusion of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in these platforms. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of directional posts on consumers depending on previous diffusion of the post and consumers’ connectivity.

A between-subjects experimental design was used. The sample consisted of 369 individuals.

The results show that directional posts only enhance the intention to spread eWOM and the attitude toward the product when the brand post was highly diffused. This effect is stronger among highly connected consumers (hubs) than among less well-connected individuals.

To the best of the authors̓ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to analyze the persuasiveness of marketers’ explicit encouragements to “like” brand posts, a tactic known as directional posts. The study investigates whether and how consumer responses to directional posts are influenced by responses from others and by the number of connections that consumers have within the SNSs.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize a dyadic theoretical model which takes social-oriented and individual-initiative drivers into account and illustrates a mechanism between social commerce intention and its antecedents in the hospitality industry. To understand tourist social commerce behaviors, the current study puts forward a comprehensive model and investigates the impact among social support, social capital, participant involvement and social identification on tourist propensity to engage in social commerce with behaviors such as to like, share, post reviews and make purchases.

The current research draws on social exchange theory and social penetration theory to study how social-oriented drivers (i.e., social support and social capital) and individual-initiated drivers (i.e., participant involvement and social identification) could better explain tourists’ social commerce intentions. Structural equation modeling was performed based on a sample of 569 hotel guests from 61 hotels in Macau.

Results reveal that social capital mediates the relationship between social support and social commerce behavioral intention. This chain of relationship is moderated by social identification in that the more a hotel guest identifies himself/herself as an in-group member of an online community, the more likely he/she would engage in social commerce behaviors.

The diffusion velocity of marketing effect is manifested through customers’ social commerce intentions and behaviors, which helps managers to identify the importance in maintaining a supportive atmosphere to nurture intimate member-to-member and member-to-provider relationships.

The present study enriches the social penetration theory and social exchange theory by showing how both individual and social perspectives could jointly influence hotel guest propensity to post likes and comments and to reserve hotel rooms, as means to build more intimate relationships with the members within a virtual community.

This study examines the effects of employees' personal social media posts on external publics' online engagement and offline word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions about a company. Specifically, it investigates how employee post characteristics including valence and content and employer reputation jointly influence publics' online and offline behaviors.

A 2 (post valence: positive vs. negative) × 2 (post content: organization-related vs. job-related) × 2 (employer reputation: good vs. bad) between-subjects experiment was conducted. Participants were asked to view a stimulus social media post created by a fictitious company employee, reflecting one of the eight experimental conditions on a random basis. After viewing, they were requested to report their online engagement intentions (i.e., “like,” “share” and “comment”) with the post and offline WOM intentions about the company.

The experimental results showed that participants expressed more “like” intentions when they viewed a positive post than a negative post. Further, they were more likely to “comment” on a job-related post as opposed to an organization-related post. In addition, a significant interaction effect between post valence and employer reputation on publics' online engagement was found, which in turn influenced their offline WOM intentions about the company.

This study is among the first empirical attempts to examine the effectiveness of employees' personal social media posts on external publics' online and offline behaviors. The experimental findings highlight the importance of managing employee relations from a corporate reputation perspective.

Based on the unfolding theory of voluntary turnover, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the linkage between abusive supervision (a shock) and subordinate’s intention to quit (withdrawal cognition). The study also explores the multi-mediation routes by testing the abusive supervision-intention to quit relationship via psychological contract breach and via burnout.

To test the proposed hypotheses, the study draws cross-sectional data from Indian employees working in various MNCs in the country. Data were collected using an electronic data collection method. The online form link was send to 600 employees, out of which 246 valid and complete responses were received (n=246). Partial least square (PLS–SEM) was used for the analysis.

Results showed that abusive supervision is positively related to intention to quit. Similarly, psychological contract breach and burnout partially mediates the abusive supervision-intention to quit linkage.

First, the current study has conceptualized and tested abusive supervision as a shock that triggers various adverse cognitions including withdrawal cognition (intention to quit). Second, the study also empirically investigated multi-mediational routes via psychological contract breach and burnout that explained the indirect effect between abusive supervision and intention to quit.

Although user behaviors in social network service (SNS) have been well studied in prior literature, most of these studies focus on those behaviors with relatively deep user engagement such as information disclosure, while the underlying mechanisms that explain users’ shallow engagement behaviors (e.g. Like behavior) have been rarely discussed. To fill this research gap, the purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically test a research model to identify the antecedents of Like behavior.

This study identifies the distinctions between post behavior and Like behavior and develops a research model of Like behavior by emphasizing the role of sense of presence from the perspective of symbolic interactionism. The model is tested through a survey with 479 users of WeChat (a popular SNS tool in China). Structural equation modeling, SmartPLS in particular, is used for data analysis.

Three value perceptions, namely cognitive value, hedonic value and social value, are found to be positively associated with Like intention, and sense of presence is found to affect Like intention both directly and indirectly via the three value perceptions.

The research model is tested based on a specific SNS in China, so whether the conclusions can be applied to other research contexts should be further examined in future research. This study identifies the distinctions between post behavior and Like behavior and suggests to view the Like behavior from the perspective of symbolic interactionism.

The paper outlines ways to effectively promote SNS users’ Like behaviors by enhancing the functions related to three value perceptions, especially by enriching the ways that facilitate interpersonal interactions.

This paper is one of the first to distinguish Like behavior from post behavior in SNS, propose and empirically test a research model of Like behavior. In particular, this paper strengthens the important role of sense of presence from the perspective of symbolic interactionism which has rarely been investigated in prior studies.

This study investigates the association between workplace bullying and intention to leave. The study further attempts to understand the mediating and moderating roles of emotional exhaustion and supervisory support respectively on workplace bullying and intention to leave relationship.

Statistical tools like SPSS and PROCESS Hayes were used for the analysis. Techniques like CFA, regression, moderation mediation analysis were used.

Utilizing conservation of resources (COR) theory and a sample of 480 employees from hospitality sector in India, we found that WPB was positively related to intention to leave. We also found that supervisory support moderated the relationships between emotional exhaustion and intention to leave and emotional exhaustion acted as a mediator between workplace bullying and intention to leave.

First, for the survey self-report questionnaire was employed; hence, it may be biased due to the social desirability effect. However, the researcher has stated that for workplace behavior like an intention to leave and supervisory support, the self-report survey is applicable (Bennett and Robinson, 2000). This study is limited in scope to measure cause-and-effect relationship because it is a cross-sectional study. Therefore, in correlation, the chronological order cannot be established as data were collected at the same time.

First, the result of the study established that workplace bullying can result in high intention to leave which will adversely affect the organization in the long term. Therefore, it is necessary that managers and businesses need to act to reduce workplace bullying. The managers in the organization should facilitate the friendly work environment and implement practices that are detrimental to bullying behaviors.

Since workplace bullying not only affects the target but also the team’s success and organization and the society as a whole, the organization should think of exploring the impact of workplace bullying on team cohesiveness and organizational performance.

This study seeks to explore in more detail the problem of bullying in the hospitality sector in India. The impetus for the study was the growing concern that bullying is creating a lot of turmoil in the life of employees making them either face the situation by being emotionally strong or leave the organization.