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1 – 10 of 207Brian L. Bourdeau, J. Joseph Cronin, Daniel T. Padgett, Clay M. Voorhees and Kimberley White
All hypothesized relationships were significant. Specifically, H1 was supported as disconfirmation and surprising consumption were significantly correlated. Moreover, arousal (H2…
Abstract
Purpose
All hypothesized relationships were significant. Specifically, H1 was supported as disconfirmation and surprising consumption were significantly correlated. Moreover, arousal (H2) and outrage (H4a) were functions of surprising consumption and negative affect (H3) and outrage (H4b) were functions of arousal. H4c was also supported as negative affect had a significant direct effect on consumer outrage. In addition, disconfirmation had negative direct effects on both negative affect (H5) and dissatisfaction (H6a) and dissatisfaction was a function of negative affect. Finally, both outrage (H7a) and dissatisfaction (H7b) had significant negative effects on behavioral intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
Respondents were recruited to participate in the data collection in a “college town” in the Southeastern United States. Respondents were provided a paper and pencil data collection instrument that include complete survey instructions and the balance of the research design. To adequately test all hypotheses, the researchers developed a unique scenario that described an extreme service failure that takes place during a hotel check-in. Each respondent was asked to read the scenario and then reflect upon it as they responded to items that assessed their feelings toward the hotel check-in experience.
Findings
The results provide additional evidence in support of the existence of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum, as well as specifically identifying the affective nature of levels of satisfaction that fall surprisingly well-below the zone of tolerance. The authors feel that the present study is a necessary step to provide a more comprehensive view of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum. Likewise, the authors posit initial evidence of the antecedents and consequences of consumer outrage. This research supports the prior assumptions of Westbrook (1987) about the vast detrimental effects of negative affective responses to service or product failures.
Research limitations/implications
Future research needs to discover just how extremely deficient service has to be to elicit outrage. Is outrage a personal phenomenon with every consumer experiencing it to different degrees? As such, is outrage triggered at different points on the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum? The zone of tolerance seems to suggest this, but it would be interesting to discover if at some collective level of dissatisfaction consumers generally begin to show signs of outrage. Likewise, it would be interesting to understand how the level and pattern of outrage results in customers exiting the relationship but also results in loyal customers becoming enemies (e.g. Gregiore et al., 2009; Gregiore and Fisher, 2008).
Originality/value
The motivation for the current study is both pragmatic and theoretical. As alluded to above, it is evident that the level of service customers’ emotional responses to their service experiences are increasing in frequency and intensity. These negative emotions affect the efficacy of service workers and impede the financial performance of service providers. The popular mantra of “anti-woke” consumers, “Go Woke, Go Broke,” is indicative of the importance of negative emotion. Sometimes referred to as “brand activism” (Moorman, 2020; Sarkar and Kotlet, 2019), recent public stances on social and political issues have led to a boycott of Gillette razors, the burning of Nike shoes, and the canceling of Costco Memberships in what has been called “virtue signaling” (Vredenburg et al., 2020). While none of these actions are desirable, the importance of investigating the impact of strong negative emotions (i.e. outrage) is further demonstrated in reports that 65% of consumers expect companies to authentically support such issues (Barton et al., 2018; Edelman, 2018; Larcker and Tayan, 2018; Moorman, 2020).
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Sarah L. Rodriguez, Rosemary Perez, Angie Kim and Rudisang Motshubi
The purpose of this study was to examine how two socio-historical contexts within the United States, the Movement for Black Lives and the COVID-19 pandemic, informed approaches to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine how two socio-historical contexts within the United States, the Movement for Black Lives and the COVID-19 pandemic, informed approaches to improving racial climate in science, technology, mathematics and engineering (STEM) graduate education.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a general qualitative inquiry research study design to conduct focus groups (n = 121) with graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty members from across STEM disciplines as well as administrators whose work involves STEM graduate students. Participants were from two US institutions involved in a National Science Foundation networked improvement community seeking to create inclusive environments for STEM graduate students.
Findings
This study demonstrates how these socio-historical contexts illuminated and amplified on-going efforts to address racial climate for graduate students in US-based graduate education. In response to these events, STEM faculty devoted time that otherwise might have gone to purely technical or scientific endeavors to addressing racial climate. However, some faculty members remain hesitant to address racial climate and efforts appear to have further waned over time. While diversity, inclusion and equity efforts came to the forefront of the collective consciousness during this time, participants worry that these efforts are not sustainable, particularly without support from faculty and administrators.
Practical implications
The findings from this study will inform efforts to improve racial climate in STEM graduate programs.
Originality/value
This study fills an identified need to capture how socio-historical contexts, like the US Movement for Black Lives and the COVID-19 pandemic, have influenced approaches to improving racial climate in STEM graduate programs.
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Johan Nordensvärd and Anne Poelina
Sustainable luxury has often been seen to offer both environmental sustainability and the possibility for innovative entrepreneurial development of natural and cultural heritage…
Abstract
Sustainable luxury has often been seen to offer both environmental sustainability and the possibility for innovative entrepreneurial development of natural and cultural heritage. The possibility and challenges of sustainable luxury tourism for Indigenous groups have been discussed by Poelina and Nordensvärd (2018) at some length by including a cultural governance perspective that brings culture and nature together. They stressed how protecting our shared human heritage and human culture can be aligned with a new wave of sustainable luxury tourism. To achieve this, we need to create links to both management and protection of landscapes and ecosystems as vital parts of heritage protection and social development. This chapter explores how and why we need to integrate social sustainability into sustainable luxury tourism, where we can foresee potential pitfalls and conceptualise nature-based and Indigenous tourism to empower local Indigenous communities and provide them with sustainable employment, economic development and community services. The sustainable tourism model provides brokerage necessary to strengthen their capacity for innovation, entrepreneurship and transformational change. This transformational change requires tourist visitors and non-Indigenous tourism operators to be open to a new experience with Indigenous guides and tourism operators to see, share and learn how to feel ‘Country’ (Poelina, 2016; Poelina & Nordensvärd, 2018). We will use Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) and its communities in Kimberley (Western Australia) as a case study to develop a sociocultural sustainable luxury tourism framework that includes governance, legal and management and social policy perspective.
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Rhonda Povey and Michelle Trudgett
The focus of this paper is to centre the lived experiences and perceptions of western education held by Aboriginal people who lived at Moola Bulla Native Cattle Station (Moola…
Abstract
Purpose
The focus of this paper is to centre the lived experiences and perceptions of western education held by Aboriginal people who lived at Moola Bulla Native Cattle Station (Moola Bulla) in Western Australia, between 1910 and 1955. Of interest is an investigation into how government legislations and policies influenced these experiences and perceptions. The purpose of this paper is to promote the powerful narrative that simultaneously acknowledges injustice and honours Aboriginal agency.
Design/methodology/approach
The research from which this paper is drawn moves away from colonial, paternalistic and racist interpretations of history; it is designed to decolonise the narrative of Aboriginal education in remote Western Australia. The research uses the wide and deep angle lens of qualitative historical research, filtered by decolonising methodologies and standpoint theory. Simultaneously, the paper valorises the contributions Indigenous academics are making to the decolonisation of historical research.
Findings
Preliminary findings suggest the narrative told by the residents who were educated at Moola Bulla support a reframing of previous deficit misrepresentations of indigeneity into strength-based narratives. These narratives, or “counter stories”, articulate resistance to colonial master narratives.
Social implications
This paper argues that listening to Aboriginal lived experiences and perceptions of western education from the past will better inform our engagement with the delivery of equitable educational opportunities for Aboriginal students in remote contexts in the future.
Originality/value
This paper will contribute to the wider academic community by addressing accountability in Aboriginal education. Most important to the study is the honouring of the participants and families of those who once lived on Moola Bulla, many who are speaking back through the telling of their story.
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Kimberley D. Preiksaitis and Peter A. Dacin
This study aims to examine how brands attempt to extend their customer set not through the typical route of adding brands, but through the strategic extension or enlargement of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how brands attempt to extend their customer set not through the typical route of adding brands, but through the strategic extension or enlargement of their target customer set. Building on theories from both reference group perceptions and brand identification, this research explores the impact of strategic customer extensions on current target market consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
Two scenario-based experiments explore strategic customer extensions for a packaged goods brand and a well-known retail brand. The analysis involves both analysis of variance and SEM methods.
Findings
Current target market consumers’ evaluations of strategic customer extensions are informed by reference group perceptions relating to the proposed customer extension. When current target market consumers perceive strategic customer extensions as potentially attracting a dissociative reference group, consumers have weaker evaluations and brand identification measures and, subsequently, weaker future intentions towards the brand.
Originality/value
The brand identification literature is augmented by incorporating theories from the reference group literature to demonstrate how to reference group perceptions drive a current target market consumers’ evaluations of strategic customer extensions to affect the strength of the identification that current target market consumers have with a brand. Brand identification is also demonstrated as mediator customer evaluations and subsequent intentions towards the brand.
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Christof Pforr and Michael Volgger
Isolation, large distances and geophysical adversities have influenced common perceptions, and with this have reinforced Northern Australia’s (aka Capricornia’s) image as a…
Abstract
Isolation, large distances and geophysical adversities have influenced common perceptions, and with this have reinforced Northern Australia’s (aka Capricornia’s) image as a difficult and unattractive environment. This representation of ‘otherness’ often is contradicted by the fascination of tourists during their temporary encounter with the ‘North’ and its atmosphere. They appreciate its natural beauty and culture, which in their imagination represents the ‘real’ Australia. Thus, the region’s atmosphere is constructed by aesthetic values defined through social and cultural sensemaking of the place. This chapter explores the atmosphere of northern regions of Australia by adopting a historical, geographical and imaginative perspective to better understand the perceptions that define and distinguish the region from the rest of Australia. Through an auto-ethnographic account of travelling along the Gibb River Road in Western Australia’s Kimberley region, the authors accentuate the atmospheric dichotomy and inbuilt contradictions of tourists’ contemporary quest for ‘otherness’.
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GUEST editor of this South African issue of THE LIBRARY WORLD is Hendrik M. Robinson, Director of Library Services, Transvaal Provincial Administration, Pretoria.
Examines the issues arising from the enforcing of a Western form of accountability on the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) peoples. Aboriginal organizations…
Abstract
Examines the issues arising from the enforcing of a Western form of accountability on the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) peoples. Aboriginal organizations such as the ATSI Commission (ASTIC) are set up under a policy of self‐determination. Policy makers need to balance the tension between the policy of self‐determination and the need for accountability. This tension may be expressed as a conflict between Aboriginal organizations’ (or agents’) accountability to governments (or principals) and their responsibility to “higher principals”, their “Dreaming Law”. Seeks an understanding of Aboriginal culture and highlights areas of conflict between systems of financial accountability and Aboriginal culture. Unless systems of accountability applied to the Aboriginal context take into account Aboriginal culture, they can be disempowering and alienating. Recommends further dialogue with the ATSI peoples to develop a more enabling form of accountability.
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