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As one ages, the risk of experiencing a fall increases and poses a number of serious consequences; 30 per cent of individuals over 65 years of age fall each year. Evidence-based falls prevention programmes demonstrate efficacy in reducing the rate and risk of falls among older adults, but their use in Irish occupational therapy practice is unknown. This study aims to investigate the implementation of falls prevention programmes by occupational therapists working with older adults in Ireland.

A cross-sectional survey was used to gather data on the use of falls prevention programmes among occupational therapists working with older adults in any clinical setting across Ireland. Purposeful, convenience and snowball sampling methods were used. The Association of Occupational Therapists of Ireland acted as a gatekeeper. Descriptive statistics and summative content analysis were used to analyse quantitative and qualitative data, respectively.

In all, 85 survey responses were analysed. Over 85 per cent of respondents reported “Never” using any of the evidence-based falls prevention programmes. The “OTAGO” Exercise Programme was the most “Frequently” used programme (9.5 per cent, n = 7); 29 respondents reported using “in-department” developed falls prevention programmes and 14 provided additional comments regarding current falls prevention practices in Ireland.

In the absence of Irish data on the subject, this study provides a benchmark to describe the use of evidence-based falls programmes by Irish occupational therapists with older adults.

This study aims to explore the loyalty intent of prepaid (contract-free) customers in a market where disloyalty is prevalent and the market has low switching costs.

A quota, non-probability sampling technique was applied, resulting in the completion of 220 self-administered questionnaires that were used for data analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis and a structural equation model were applied to determine model fit and test the formulated hypotheses for this study.

The strength of the satisfaction–loyalty relationship is found to be influenced by three specific satisfaction antecedents, strengthened by the mediating role of customer delight and impacted by switching costs.

The findings of this study may guide mobile service providers in their initiatives to secure satisfaction and loyalty in a market context where switching costs are low and the market is described as disloyal.

This study investigates the well-researched relationship between satisfaction and loyalty and the antecedents of customer satisfaction to determine which of these variables should be the focus in a challenging market where consumers are disloyal and switching costs are low.

Mobile Facebook (m-Facebook) creates many business opportunities for brands and firms while increasingly drawing interest in scientific literature. However, research is scarce on the immersive experiences prompted by m-Facebook, and how these experiences facilitate users’ engagement, their positive attitude towards Facebook and their continued use of it. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper theoretically and empirically analyses m-Facebook users’ immersive experiences, along with their affective and behavioural effects.

The results reveal the important role of imagery, presence and flow in the context of m-Facebook; the interplay between these three immersive phenomena; and the influence the user’s optimum stimulation level has on them.

The investigation offers a foundation for understanding users’ immersive experiences on m-Facebook, and informs practitioners who aim to enhance users’ engagement with, attitude towards, and continued use of m-Facebook content.

This study aims to propose a conceptual framework based on organisational and environmental indicators of business-to-business sellers’ sales performance in services firms.

A descriptive research design was applied and data was gathered from 389 respondents across industries and different-sized services firms in Norway using a self-administered questionnaire.

Results show that the proposed six-dimensional framework of organisational and environmental indicators can be applied to manage seller–customer relationships in a business-to-business environment.

A six-dimensional framework of organisational and environmental indicators is tested successfully in services firms.

Increasingly, services firms will need to work closely with business-to-business sellers to proactively adapt to market changes through a co-creation approach to build long-term seller–customer relationships.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has focused on relationship marketing in business-to-business relationships that proposes a conceptual framework based on organisational and environmental indicators of business-to-business sellers’ sales performance in services firms.

An integrative model that predicts users' stickiness to WeChat is built. In the proposed model, perceived value plays a dual mediating role in the causal pathway from users' immersive experiences of presence and flow to their engagement and stickiness. Furthermore, presence is treated as a bi-dimensional construct made up of spatial feelings and the sense of being in company, and users' engagement is conceived as cognitive, affective and behavioural contributions to WeChat's marketing functions.

The authors develop a measurement instrument and analyse data from a survey of 917 WeChat users. They use a hybrid partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and neural network approach to confirm the reliability and validity of the measurement items and all the relationships between the constructs.

The paper provides robust evidence about the mediating influences of both utilitarian and hedonic value on users' engagement with the immersive experiences of presence and flow. An additional finding highlights the role of social norms in engagement and stickiness.

Rather than studying the effects of the immersive experiences of presence and flow from either a hedonic or a utilitarian perspective, the authors consider how immersive experiences shape both utilitarian and hedonic value, as well as their joint impact (along with that of social norms) on users' engagement and stickiness.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate travel agencies' social media usage and its perceived effectiveness by small- and micro-Italian travel agencies; the pre-pandemic period is compared to the forecasts for the post-Covid-19 period and different characteristics of firms and entrepreneurs are considered. Furthermore, the study analyses the expected benefits in terms of marketing objectives, such as improving brand image and/or personalizing the offer.

The research was developed through a questionnaire administered electronically to travel agents (282 respondents). The resulting data was analyzed by applying the McNemar test, a pairwise t-test and the multivariate analysis of variance.

The results show that social media are strategically significant for travel agents, even though their adoption is influenced by different agency aims; the perceived effectiveness results are diversified according to varying agency typologies.

The two main limitations of the study are its focus on the Italian context only and the missing consideration of the consumer's point of view. The latter prevents an exhaustive assessment of future trends regarding the use of social media in the client–agency relationship.

The study, which focuses on a little debated topic concerning the relationship between social media and SMEs, organically explores various dimensions related to the adoption of social media by small agencies, also considering the impact of the Covid-19 on the perception of travel agents. As a further element of originality, the research takes into consideration the main social platforms separately rather than the set of tools as a whole.

This paper aims to investigate advertising effectiveness in Instagram and Facebook, the two most important social media platforms. It helps to understand which should be chosen depending on the target audience of the campaign.

The study examines advertising effectiveness in these social media in terms of ad attitude, ad intrusiveness and loyalty intentions. An online survey was conducted with 303 social media users. Age and gender are proposed as moderators.

The results indicate that Instagram Stories not only enhances consumer attitude toward ads but also increases perceived intrusiveness, compared to Facebook Wall. Millennials are more disturbed by Facebook Wall ads than non-millennial users. A triple interaction effect reveals that non-millennial men are more loyal toward Facebook Wall ads, whereas millennials of both genders and non-millennial women are more loyal to ads on Instagram Stories.

Advertisers should be aware of the differential features and segmentation possibilities in social media to better address their target audiences. More precisely, the research findings suggest that professionals should focus on Instagram Stories when targeting millennials and non-millennial women, and on Facebook Wall when targeting non-millennial men.

This study is one of the first to contribute to the literature on Instagram Stories as an advertising platform and compare its differential features with those of more established social media, such as Facebook Wall.

Esta investigación compara la efectividad publicitaria en Instagram y Facebook en función del público objetivo.

La investigación analiza las diferencias entre cada formato de red social en términos de actitud hacia el anuncio, intrusividad percibida y lealtad hacia el producto o marca anunciado. Mediante una encuesta online a 303 consumidores, se proponen efectos directos y efectos moderación de la edad y el género.

Los resultados indican que Instagram Stories mejora la actitud hacía el anuncio, pero aumenta también la intrusividad en comparación con Facebook Wall. La publicidad en Facebook Wall es más intrusiva para los millennials que para los no-millennials. Instagram Stories incrementa la lealtad entre los usuarios millennial de ambos sexos y las mujeres no-millennial; en cambio, los hombres no-millennial son más leales a la publicidad en Facebook Wall.

Los anunciantes deben aprovechar los nuevos formatos y las posibilidades de segmentación que les brindan las redes sociales para llegar a su público objetivo de manera más efectiva. Concretamente, los hallazgos de la investigación sugieren que deberían centrarse en Instagram Stories para dirigirse a un público millennial y a mujeres no-millennial; y en Facebook Wall, cuando su público objetivo sean los hombres no-millennial.

Este estudio es uno de los primeros que aborda el uso de Instagram Stories como soporte publicitario y lo compara con formatos publicitarios consolidados como Facebook Wall.

Chatbots represent an innovative channel for retailers to meet young customers' needs anywhere and at any time. Being an emergent technology, however, it is important to investigate more thoroughly how users perceive it, and which are the variables that enhance a positive attitude towards this technology. On this premise, this study applies a social relationship perspective to the design of chatbots addressed to younger consumers.

The study adopts a between-participants factorial design to investigate the effects of visual cues (avatar presence vs avatar absence) and interaction styles (social-oriented vs task-oriented) on social presence and how this, in turn, enhances millennials' perceived enjoyment, trust and, ultimately, attitude towards the chatbot. A survey experiment was employed to conduct the study on data collected from 193 Italian millennials.

The results show that applying a social-oriented interaction style increases users' perception of social presence, while an insignificant effect was found for avatar presence. The partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis further confirms the hypothesised model.

The adoption of new digital technologies such as chatbots is likely to have a far reaching effect on retailers, consumers, employees and society. For this reason, a broad understanding of the phenomenon is needed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to provide results from an experimental design in which both interaction style (social- vs task-oriented) and avatar (presence vs absence) of a chatbot are manipulated to directly explore social presence and its effect on trust, perceived enjoyment and millennials' attitude towards a chatbot applied for retailing purposes.