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This study aims to draw a more nuanced picture of the impact of co-creation experience shedding light on the moderating role of consumers’ personal features. Virtual co-creation is considered a viable strategy to develop consumer-centered products in the digital era. As an additional effect, this research highlighted that co-creation experiences may establish beneficial consumer–brand relationships.

Using survey data stemming from 727 consumers who virtually engaged in new product development projects, the authors test the hypotheses, applying structural equation modeling.

The results of this study show that consumers’ personal features such as novelty seeking and dissatisfaction with existing products moderate the impact of an enjoyable experience on aspects of the consumer–company relationship. Consumers’ dissatisfaction with current product solutions is also found to moderate the relationship between an enjoyable co-creation experience and evoked product interest as well as between product involvement and evoked product interest. The study further substantiates previous findings on the relationship-effects of co-creation and particularly highlight the potential of co-creation experiences for nurturing “imaginary” relationships with the product being co-created significantly prior to market launch.

Participants in virtual co-creation approaches are widely heterogeneous individuals ranging from customers and Facebook fans to brand community members and innovative users. The study contributes to a better understanding of how the diversity of the crowd can be handled in virtual co-creation and advances the theory of value co-creation as a new marketing paradigm.

Crowdsourcing initiatives, especially the format of idea and research contest have provided companies with unique and inventive opportunities to capitalize on users’ innovative potential and knowledge. Inspired by the potential, nonprofits are beginning to use the principles of crowdsourcing to develop better solutions for social problems. This research aims to enhance our knowledge on crowdsourcing for social innovation. Since the crowdsourcing initiative hinges on individuals' willingness to participate in these projects and their motivation to contribute valuable insights and ideas, we introduce a new framework that aligns participants’ motives with potentially offered incentives. The conducted empirical study at the ScrapLab design contest finds that participants indeed differ in their preferred incentives. It shows that participants not only strive for monetary but also nonmonetary incentives such as an internship, a party with friends, or the support of a social project, once they can choose. The results further highlight, that those participants, differing in their incentive preference, also show different types of contribution behavior. Our research contributes to a better theoretic understanding of the impact of various incentive structures on contribution behavior. From a managerial perspective, it provides guidance in adopting prize structures to justify participation and contribution behavior in crowdsourcing initiatives.

The purpose of this article is to analyze how social media activities, in specifically the Facebook page of a car manufacturer, and user interactions with these brand related activities affect the perception of brands and ultimately influence consumers purchase decision. Based on an online survey with users of the corporation's Facebook fanpage, and in accordance to hierarchy of effects theory the author's findings show the positive effect of fanpage engagement on consumers' brand awareness, word of mouth (WOM) activities, and purchase intention. The findings further indicate that annoyance with the fanpage due to information overload leads to negative effects on fanpage commitment and to decreased WOM activities. From a theoretical standpoint the results of this study contribute to understanding of the value-enhancing potential of social media campaigns.

To answer the authors' research questions and test their hypotheses, a study was set up in cooperation with the car brand MINI. To test their hypotheses, the authors applied structural equation modeling with AMOS 18.

The article analyzes the influence of brands’ social media activities and participants' social media involvement on the purchase decision process of consumers. Their findings demonstrate that engagement with a Facebook fanpage has positive effects on consumers' brand awareness, WOM activities and purchase intention. Results further indicate that annoyance with the fanpage leads to negative effects in respect to the overall commitment to and involvement with the fanpage and WOM. The authors' research shows that social media activities indeed affect the purchase decision-making process.

New marketing communication reality presents new challenges and opportunities for companies as purchase decisions are increasingly influenced by social media interactions. People rely more than ever on their social networks when making those decisions. Nevertheless, outcomes of social media activities are still disputed in practice. The effects of social media campaigns on consumers' perception of products and brands as well as the effects on purchase decisions have yet to be better understood. This study therefore investigates how social media activities, in specific the Facebook appearance of a car manufacturer, affect the perception of brands, and ultimately influence the purchase decision process of consumers while considering the risk of creating annoyance. From a theoretical standpoint the results of this study contribute to understanding of the value-enhancing potential of social media campaigns and demonstrate how the perception of brands is influenced through this new communication channel. For brand managers this study is of value, as it shows that social media activities do have a positive influence on brands as they support their management of the purchase process.

In every market there are non-consumers – potential customers that withstand an innovation. A common reason is that products targeted to early adopters or the mass market are over-engineered. Established companies usually neglect the laggards in a market. This offers growth opportunities for new entrants. These market niches can be unlocked when products are simplified and adapted to the special needs of the laggards.

Using a short case study from an Austrian producer of cell-phones targeted to seniors, and some other examples, we show how innovative solutions can be developed by targeting to the special needs of laggards in a market.

Technologies usually evolve faster than market needs and established companies, in their efforts to grow and improve profitability, try to innovate faster than their competitors. This often leads to over-engineered products. In many markets there are consumers that withstand these innovative and over-engineered products. A vacuum for low-priced, simple, and easy-to-use solutions emerges. We describe a five-step approach for unlocking these market segments and developing solutions for laggards.

While most companies try to innovate faster than their competitors to defend their market leadership, laggard innovation targets non-consumers in the market. By simplifying over-engineered products and adapting them to the special needs of laggards, new market opportunities emerge. This paper shows how these market niches can be unlocked.

Customer satisfaction is seen to be one of the main determinants of loyalty. However, the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty does not seem to be linear, many researchers have reported doubts about the predictability of loyalty solely due to customer satisfaction ratings which ignore image as predictor of loyalty. This paper aims to address the issues.

The authors report a study of ski resorts where they first established a causal model of customer satisfaction and image predicting customer loyalty, and then map the scores in a four‐fields‐grid. Additionally the authors conducted a moderator analysis to assess the relative importance of image and satisfaction for loyalty intentions between two different groups (first‐time‐visitors, and regular guests).

The results show that those ski resorts with the highest satisfaction ratings and the highest image ratings have the highest loyalty scores. Among first‐time‐visitors overall satisfaction is more important than image, with increasing number of repeat visits the importance of overall satisfaction declines and that of image relatively augments.

Besides measuring customer satisfaction, managers must assess also image ratings in order to get a realistic view of the loyalty intentions of their customer base. The scores can than be mapped together with the ratings of other ski resorts, and serve as a benchmark study.

Second order analysis of image (comprising three different dimensions), the image‐satisfaction‐grid, moderating effect of experience to relative importance of satisfaction and image on loyalty.

Stabilizing business in highly competitive and volatile business-to-business (B2B) markets is a strategic imperative for many companies. In such a context, customer retention through the creation of switching barriers (i.e. by increasing switching costs) is a common strategy. The purpose of this paper is to develop a network of relationships among customer switching experience, customer satisfaction, perceived switching costs, and behavioral loyalty intentions.

Survey data were collected from 327 business customers (very small enterprises with fewer than nine employees; customers included physicians, lawyers, tax advisors, consultants, civil engineers, etc.) of an information and communications technology (ICT) company. The research model was tested using partial least square structural equation modeling.

The results show that switching experience negatively influences customer satisfaction and behavioral loyalty intention. Furthermore, the influence of customer satisfaction on behavioral loyalty intentions is partially mediated by financial and relational switching costs.

In saturated markets, companies often try to grow by acquiring customers from competitors. This study reveals that this strategy can backfire. The customers that can be most easily acquired may be those that are the most difficult to retain because customers experienced in switching are difficult to satisfy – and low satisfaction means lower perceived financial and relational switching costs and, in turn, lower loyalty.

This research contributes to theory and practice by shedding further light on the satisfaction-loyalty link by investigating the often widely neglected role of switching experience. Furthermore, the study seeks to add to the discussion of how to specify the role of switching costs: as a mediator or as a moderator.

Brent B. Allred is an Associate Professor of Strategic Management and International Business at The College of William & Mary, in Williamsburg, VA. He earned his Ph.D. in Strategic Management/International Business at The Pennsylvania State University. His current research interests are in technology sourcing and patent rights. He has published in various journals, including the Journal of International Business Studies, Management International Review, the Journal of International Management, Academy of Management Executive, and the Journal of Product Innovation Management.

This paper aims to review the extant literature on open innovation and new product development (NPD) using bibliometric analysis to gauge the evolving journey of this concept in the domain of Business and Management.

The researcher used the Scopus database to search the relevant documents for bibliometric analysis. The data range was from 2006 till June 2023. Citation analysis, co-citation analysis and co-occurrence of authors' keywords were used for bibliometric analysis.

The paper charts the intellectual structure of literature related to open innovation and NPD. The five major themes emerge as prominent themes in the literature, i.e. Open Innovation: Conceptualization, Dynamic Capabilities and Competitive Advantages; Open Innovation: Contingencies and Possibilities; Co-creation and New Product Development (NPD); Open Innovation for Businesses: A Shifting Paradigm; and Implementing of Open Innovation in Industries: Cases. Besides this, the study also reveals the most influential authors, journals and countries in their contribution to open innovation and new product development. Future research directions are also presented.

The present study contributes on academic and managerial fronts. The study provides important insights contributing to the open innovation and NPD literature. From the organizational point of view, the study provides a detailed understanding of the concept of open innovation and NPD that can aid managers in acquiring a comprehensive knowledge of the concept before using it as a strategic intervention.

The present study identifies the gradual progression of this research area over time. It delineates key themes emerging from past literature, providing avenues for future research.