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Technology-based initiatives are now being routinely incorporated within most companies’ marketing strategies. The purpose of this paper is to explore consumer perspectives on the ethics of these initiatives. It also seeks to identify underlying dimensions within the technology-based strategic environment with the intent of generating advances for both academicians and practitioners alike.

The enquiry is based on a survey featuring a cross-section of 20 technology-based initiatives. A sample of 967 adult residents of the USA provided their views of the extent to which each initiative/scenario conformed to their perception of society’s norms regarding ethical acceptability.

In total, 13 of the 20 initiatives were deemed unacceptable with the greatest disdain exhibited for a company posting bogus online reviews. Most acceptable were self-service checkouts. Three sub-dimensions of the ethicality construct as it relates to technology-based marketing initiatives were identified and validated as measurement scales for use in future research: involvement, communication, and privacy.

The generalization of findings may be limited because younger and older segments of the population were slightly under- and over-represented, respectively.

Marketers should recognize that consumers are much more accepting of any initiative from which they will derive some benefit. They should also recognize that within this arena, ethical acceptability is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, necessitating that they strategize accordingly.

Although previous research has garnered insights with respect to a particular technology-based marketing initiative, none have explored the relativities of consumer perceived ethicality across an array of different initiatives or examined any latent sub-dimensions of the construct in this arena. This study addresses these deficiencies.

Marketers are increasingly spoilt for choice as to which emerging technology to use for the purpose of enhancing their company’s competitive advantage. Accordingly, there is an inherent need to assess, relative to the task of accomplishing an organization’s marketing goals, the levels of consumer-perceived effectiveness germane to these options. Based on grounded theory, this study aims to develop an appropriate measurement instrument.

Research is based on a survey featuring a cross-section of 18 technology-based initiatives that are being routinely incorporated within many companies’ marketing strategies. A sample of 967 adult residents of the USA provided their perspective on the effectiveness of each initiative as a mainstream marketing tool.

A wide spectrum of opinions exists as to what constitutes an effective initiative. Three sub-dimensions of the consumer-perceived effectiveness construct were identified and validated as measurement scales for use in future research: involvement stealth and outreach.

The generalization of the findings may be limited because minority segments of the adult American population, specifically, African Americans and Asian Americans were somewhat under-represented in the sample. Likewise, younger and older segments were slightly under- and over-represented, respectively.

The study findings can be used to aid in the further development of an instrument designed to measure the strength and directionality of consumer-perceived marketing effectiveness. With the specter of an increasing array of technology-based strategic options going forward, using such an instrument will no doubt become a critically important success factor among business-to-customer (B2C) organizations.

Few studies to date have sought to understand consumer perspectives regarding the effectiveness of technology-based initiatives as marketing tools, and none have explored the relativities of such perceptions across an array of different initiatives or examined any latent sub-dimensions of the construct. This study addresses these deficiencies.

This study aims to propose the emotional response of gratitude as a mediating mechanism to explain the relationship between perceptions of a service organisations’ relationship marketing investments, customer cynicism and reciprocity and overall satisfaction. Further, the study seeks to test the significance of the mediation effects of these constructs on customer overall satisfaction.

Using theories from service marketing and consumer psychology, this study develops and tests a customer gratitude model (CGM). Field surveys based on existing measures were used to elicit data from 1,104 respondents. The measures were validated and subsequently the CGM was tested to establish the veracity if the nomological network presented.

Results indicate that perceived relationship marketing investment exerted an indirect effect on gratitude through the mediating effect of reciprocity and cynicism. Further, perceived relationship marketing investments impacted overall satisfaction through its mediating effect of gratitude, and gratitude explained the indirect influences of reciprocity and customer cynicism on overall satisfaction.

This study contributes to services marketing literature by examining the emergent role of gratitude between customer perceptions of service organisations and pro-organisational attitudes, like overall satisfaction.

This research encourages service organisations to implement relationship-building strategies, beyond that of purely economic benefits, that seek to enhance the emotion of gratitude, which will lead to greater overall customer satisfaction.

Despite emphasising relationship longevity between customers and service organisations, literature has not yet focused on the role of gratitude. The CGM provides valuable insights for further inquiries.

This study examined how different factors contribute to attitudes and the behaviour of spectators attending an Australian Football League game. The results revealed that four factors - Team Interest, Vicarious Achievement, Excitement and Player Interest - were successful in predicting levels of loyalty, while five factors - Vicarious Achievement, Player Interest, Entertainment Value, Drama and Socialisation - predicted game-day attendance. This study illustrates the applicability of the Sport Interest Inventory developed in North America to understand motivational factors for Australian sports fans.

Service research typically relates switching costs to customer loyalty, and portrays them as effective switching deterrents that engender harmful word‐of‐mouth (WOM). Rather than to customer loyalty, this paper aims to relate switching costs to consumer inertia, and show that while switching costs may result in customer retention, they can engender positive and negative WOM. This depends on whether the inertia stems from satisfaction or indifference.

A mall‐intercept survey investigated 518 customers' perceptions of their mobile phone service providers. Structural equation modelling fitted the data to the conceptual model.

Switching costs deterred switching and engendered negative WOM, but only with low‐inertia customers. With high‐inertia customers, retention and WOM behaviours depended on whether the inertia stemmed from satisfaction or indifference. Satisfied customers with high switching costs tended to stay, gave more positive and less negative WOM. With indifferent customers, switching costs were unrelated to retention or WOM behaviours.

While they may be perceived negatively, switching costs can engender PWOM. Hence, research should not consider switching costs alone without considering the context that produces them.

Service providers should segment their customers into low‐inertia, high‐inertia/satisfied and high‐inertia/indifferent, and target each segment differently. By converting customers into the high‐inertia/satisfied segment, service providers can make the best use of switching costs – not only in the traditional sense as a barrier to defection, but also as a way of generating positive WOM.

This study is the first to consider the role of inertia with switching costs, positive WOM, and negative WOM. The findings suggest that past studies portraying switching costs as negative impediments that evoke only negative WOM might be misleading.

Using an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model to test how customer loyalty intentions may relate to subjective and descriptive norms, this study further seeks to determine whether consumption characteristics – product enjoyment and importance – moderate norms‐loyalty relationships.

Using a two‐study approach focusing on youth, an Australian study (n=244) first augmented TPB with descriptive norm. A Singapore study (n=415) followed up with how consumption characteristics might moderate norms‐loyalty relationships. With both studies, linear regressions tested the relationships among the variables.

Extending TPB with descriptive norm improved TPB's predictive ability across studies. Further, product enjoyment and importance moderated the norms‐loyalty relationships differently. Subjective norm related to loyalty intentions significantly with high enjoyment, whereas descriptive norm was significant with low enjoyment. Only subjective norm was significant with low importance.

Single‐item variables, self‐reported questionnaires on intended rather than actual behaviour, and not controlling for cultural differences between the two samples limit generalisablity.

The significance of both norms suggests that mobile firms should reach youth through their peers. With youth social pressure may be influential, particularly with hedonic products. However, the different moderations of product enjoyment and importance imply that a blanket marketing strategy targeting youth may not work.

The study extends academic knowledge on the relationships between norms and customer loyalty, particularly with consumption characteristics as moderators. The findings highlight the importance of considering different norms with consumer behaviour. The study should help mobile firms understand how social influences impact customer loyalty.

Little is known about the adoption of mobile banking technologies in emerging Asian economies. The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the motivators that influence a consumer’s intentions to use mobile banking.

A web-based survey was employed to collect data from 348 respondents, split across Thailand and Australia. Data were analysed by employing exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, path and invariance analyses.

The findings indicate that for Australian consumers, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived risk (PR) were the primary determinants of mobile banking adoption. For Thai consumers, the main factors were PU, PR and social influence. National culture was found to impact key antecedents that lead to adoption of m-banking.

The actual variance explained by the study’s model was higher in Australia (59.3 per cent) than for Thailand (23.8 per cent), suggesting future research of m-banking adoption in emerging Asian cultures.

The authors identify the important factors consumers consider when adopting m-banking. The findings of this research give banking organisations a foundational model that can be used to support m-banking implementation.

The study is perhaps the first to examine and compare the intention to adopt m-banking across Thai and Australian consumers, and responds to calls for additional research that generalises m-banking and m-services acceptance across cultures. This study has proposed and validated additional constructs that are not present in the original SST Intention to Use model.

Businesses cannot rely on their customers to always do the right thing. To help researchers and service providers better understand the dark (and light) side of customer behavior, this study aims to aggregate and investigate perceptions of consumer ethics from young consumers on five continents. The study seeks to present a profile of consumer behavioral norms, how ethical inclinations have evolved over time, and country differences.

Data were collected from ten countries across five continents between 1997 and 2007. A self‐administered questionnaire containing 14 consumer scenarios asked respondents to rate acceptability of questionable consumer actions.

Overall, consumers found four of the 14 questionable consumer actions acceptable. Illegal activities were mostly viewed as unethical, while some legal actions that were against company policy were viewed less harshly. Differences across continents emerged, with Europeans being the least critical, while Asians and Africans shared duties as most critical of consumer actions. Over time, consumers have become less tolerant of questionable behaviors.

Service providers should use the findings of this study to better understand the service customer. Knowing what customers in general believe is ethical or unethical can help service designers focus on the aspects of the technology or design most vulnerable to customer deviance. Multinationals already know they must adapt their business practices to the market in which they are operating, but they must also adapt their expectations as to the behavior of the corresponding consumer base.

This investigation into consumer ethics helps businesses understand what their customer base believes is the right thing in their role as customer. This is a large‐scale study of consumer ethics including 3,739 respondents on five continents offering an evolving view of the ethical inclinations of young consumers.