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Given the widespread popularity of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, understanding consumer-brand engagement behavior within social media is fundamental for retail firms. Yet, little is known about how consumers engage with retail brands through social media. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap and extend previous research by examining factors that influence consumers’ attitudes and intentions to engage with retail brands through Facebook, and ultimately purchase products and services.

This study draws on the theory of reasoned action and the technology acceptance model to develop a model of consumer-brand social media engagement and purchase intentions. Specifically, the model tests the influence of five antecedents of attitude on consumer intentions to engage with retail brands through the brands’ Facebook pages as well as intentions to make purchases through this social media. The hypotheses of the model are tested using structural equation modeling.

The findings provide an understanding of the main drivers of consumer-brand engagement that can lead to purchase intentions. Results show that consumers’ attitudes toward engaging with retail brands through Facebook are influenced by peer communication, compatibility and credibility, and that attitude has a strong influence on intentions toward this behavior. Furthermore, there is a strong relationship between intentions to engage and the likelihood of purchasing through a retail brand’s Facebook page.

This study is cross-sectional and was conducted at a particular point in time. Thus, results are not purported to make any inferences to causal relationships. Further, the measures of intentions to engage are attitudinal and not objective measures. Future longitudinal studies may help avoid this limitation by testing causal relationships.

The study contributes to the important area of consumer engagement with retail brands through social media in ways that may lead to making purchases. Findings can provide retailers with reference points through which to engage their brands with consumers through their Facebook pages in ways that may lead to more direct returns on their investment in social media sites.

Retailers are noticing the power of social media sites as a platform for engaging with consumers and extending this relationship to purchases. However, scant research has addressed this topic. The proposed model and findings of this study can extend prior research.

This paper aims to propose user experience sharing (UES) as a customer-based initiation of value co-creation pertaining to service provision, which represents customers’ level of effort made for the direct benefit of others in their service network. The authors propose and empirically examine a user experience sharing model (UESM) that explicates customer-to-customer (C2C) UES and its impacts on firm-desired customer-based outcomes in online communities.

Based on an extensive review, the authors conceptualize UES and UESM. By using online survey data collected from mobile app users in organic online communities, the authors performed structural equation modeling analyses by using AMOS 24.

The results support the proposed UESM, showing that C2C UES acts as a key driver of both firm-desired customer efforts and customer insights. The results also confirmed that service-dominant (S-D) logic-informed motivational drivers exert a significant impact on C2C UES. Importantly, C2C UES mediates the relationship between S-D logic-informed motivational drivers and firm-desired customer-based outcomes.

This study offers a pioneering attempt to develop an overarching concept, UES, which reflects customers’ initiation of value co-creation, and to empirically examine C2C UES. The empirical evidence supports the key contention that firms should proactively facilitate C2C UES.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how organizations create focal engagement objects through posts to their social media community members and how the members engage with these posts in ways that potentially co-create value. Of additional interest is the use of platform, tone and language to determine how they potentially influence value co-creation.

The research method is netnography. Two Australian-based cause organizations were selected for the study, and posts were collected from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube platforms used by the communities, as well as likes, clicks, shares and retweets. Data was examined using content and thematic analyses.

Findings for the characteristics of the posts indicate how platforms need to be member-centric and that post tone and language can be used for engaging members effectively. Three consumer engagement objects were thematically derived from the posts: events, donations and fundraising, and social justice that includes shout-outs and thunderclaps. In turn, consumer responses evidenced engagement sub-processes of co-developing, acknowledging, rewarding, sharing, advocating, adding momentum and learning. The likes, clicks, shares and retweets assisted in determining the amount of community interactions with posts in the cause brands’ communities.

This research is limited to the extent it involved two cases. As with any cross-sectional research, the findings are snapshots of interactions on the two sites over the two-week data collection periods. Theoretical implications provide a deeper insights into value co-creation by empirically examining how organizations and their supporters employ and use post resources to co-create value collectively, and how the characteristics of the posts and behavioral interactions potentially facilitates this.

Managerially, this investigation will assist both commercial brand and cause brand organizations to plan and adapt their social media strategies to enhance supporters’ engagement with posts in this digital environment.

The social implications of this study are that it provides an understanding of how cause organizations can harness online communities for value co-creation to generate social good.

The study is both original and adds value to the research community. The findings presented provide an insightful conceptual framework to guide future research into this important area of consumer engagement with resources in social media communities leading to potential co-creation of value.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the inter-relationships between peoples’ perceptions of the attributes of leftover food and how they lead to higher-order values in relation to food waste.

The method involved an online, text-based, qualitative survey of 112 panel members from a market research firm. The data were examined using thematic analysis and framed using a means-end approach.

Findings show that leftover foods take on both positive and negative attributes and benefits, as shown in four themes—tasty foods, dangerous foods, images of spoiling and used or second-hand—leading to consequences, identified as creating time, Time to binning and repurposing. Additionally, how individuals in a household speak of themselves based on their higher-order values, termed as states of being, can determine whether such foods are repurposed or consigned to the bin. These states of being are reflected in the three themes: the responsible ones, the virtuous ones and the blameless ones.

This study provides more focussed insights on the interplay between the attributes and benefits of leftovers and how household members position themselves towards these foods, particularly in their transition to waste.

The purpose of this study is to investigate Chilean consumers’ online purchase behaviour with a specific focus on the influence of perceived risk and trust. Studies of this nature have been conducted quite extensively in developed countries and in cross‐cultural comparative studies most noticeably comparing the USA with Asian countries. However, examining consumers’ perceived risk and trust with online purchasing in a Latin American context is very limited. While not a cross‐cultural study, this gap is addressed in the literature with an empirical study conducted in Chile. Moreover, it aims to address calls to investigate consumers’ post adoption acceptance of a technology to gain insights into which factors are most influential in explaining continuance behaviour.

The paper tests a model of the influence perceptions of risk and trust on consumers’ attitudes and intentions to continue purchasing on the internet. An online survey method is used. The sample consists of 176 Chilean consumers who purchase online. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

The analysis reveals that perceived risk online had an inverse relationship with consumers’ attitude and that attitude has a positive influence on intentions to continue purchasing. Of the trust factors examined, trust in third party assurances and a cultural environment of trust have the strongest positive influence on intentions to continue purchasing online, whereas trust in online vendors and a propensity to trust were both insignificant.

In a Latin American context, for marketers in domestic and global companies these results identify which trust beliefs have the most effect on consumer continuance behaviour towards purchasing online. Additionally, this research shows that consumers in a Latin American country, recognized as a collectivist, high risk avoidance culture, are willing to continue making purchases online despite the risks involved.

The study and its results is one of few available that investigates consumers’ perceptions of risk and trust for online purchasing in a Latin American country. The value of the findings provides an insight into the specific trust factors that influence post adoption behaviour; that is Chilean consumers’ continued purchasing online. The findings add value not only to the literature on the Latin American population's e‐commerce behaviour, but also have managerial implications for domestic and global companies considering offering online retailing for consumers in this region where internet penetration rates are very high, but local e‐commerce availability is low.

This study seeks to examine the nature of consumers' perceptions of the value they derive from the everyday experiential consumption of mobile phones and how mobile marketing (m‐marketing) can potentially enhance these value perceptions.

Q methodology is used with a framework of experiential consumption and perceived consumer value, to examine how consumers' subjective perceptions and opinions of the two areas of interest are shared at a collective level. A total of 40 participants undertook two Q sorts and the data were analysed using PQ‐method.

The first Q sort identified three clusters of perceived value: the Mobile Pragmatists, the Mobile Connectors and the Mobile Revellers. The second Q sort identified two clusters of perceived value of m‐marketing: one emerging from the shared opinions of the Mobile Pragmatists and the Mobile Connectors, and the second from the Mobile Revellers.

The findings show how consumers can be segmented based on their contextualised perceived value of consuming mobile phones. The findings also show that m‐marketing can be tailored to enhance these value perceptions. The study demonstrates how to use Q methodology to examine subjective areas of consumer behaviour. Limitations relate to deriving statements for the Q sorts and the generalisability of the results.

The findings highlight ways to tailor m‐marketing strategies to complement consumers' perceptions of the value offered through their mobile phones.

The study contributes to existing theory and practice through using Q methodology to examine two subjective areas of consumer behaviour research: experiential consumption in everyday life and consumer perceived value, which is applied in the context of mobile phones and m‐marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to answer two research questions which are “What are key factors which influence Chinese to adopt mobile technology?” and “Do these key factors differ from factors which are identified from western context?”.

The findings from a pilot study with 45 in-depth interviews are used to develop questionnaires and test across 800 residents from the three research cities. The data were analyzed by structural equation modeling together with multi-group analysis.

The data suggest eight important concepts, i.e. utilitarian expectation, hedonic expectation, status gains, status loss avoidance, normative influence, external influence, cost, and quality concern, are influential factors affecting users’ intentions to adopt 3G mobile technology. Differences are found between the samples in the three research cities in the effect of hedonic expectation, status gains, status loss avoidance, and normative influence on mobile technology adoption intention.

As the stability of intentions may change over time, only measuring intentions might be inadequate in predicting actual adoption behaviors. However, the focus on potential users is thought to be appropriate, given that the development of 3G is still in its infancy in China.

Previous research into information technology adoption among Chinese users has not paid attention to regional diversity. Some research considered China as a large single market and some was conducted in only one province or one city. Culturally, China is a heterogeneous country.

The purpose of this paper is to extend marketing knowledge into perceived risk in online transactions beyond the current positivistic, hypotheses‐driven research by providing qualitative insights into how individuals construct their accounts of perceived risk online. Additionally, the study reported in this paper aims to explore how communication sources influence both these subjective constructions and individuals' behavioural experiences with transaction activity on the web.

The study was developed within a grounded theory method. Ten in‐depth interviews were conducted which were analysed using constant comparison of incidents procedures to provide rich descriptions of the interviewees' subjective perceptions and lived experiences with online transaction activity.

The findings provide insights into how the human element is present in individuals' perceptions and constructions of their accounts of the risk involved online. The findings also identify the influence of mass communication sources on the construction of these accounts. The study provides insights into whether change agent communication sources, such as marketers or web designers, influence consumers' behaviours towards online transaction activity through mediating their perceptions of the risks involved. The study also reveals how social communication networks influence the interviewees' decisions to use the web for transaction activities, in particular online purchasing, and how the group in this study might act as a communication source to influence others.

While the findings cannot be generalised to the internet population overall, the sample used was able to provide relevant information regarding the phenomenon of interest. Future research should continue to examine perceived risk and the influence of communications sources, such as e‐mail, discussion groups and virtual communities.

The value of the paper lies in permitting the participants to account for perceived risk for themselves. The findings explore what this means at increasing levels of personal relevance and the influence of communication sources to create, sustain or mediate perceptions of this phenomenon.

Purpose – This paper compares the experiential consumption values that motivate consumer choice to purchase online for both male and female purchasers and non‐purchasers. Design/methodology/approach – Using the theory of consumption value the study examines gendered perceptions of the functional, social and conditional value of using a virtual consumption setting for purchasing. Data was collected through an online survey and analysed using multiple discriminant analysis to determine meaningful differences between male and female purchasers and non‐purchasers. Findings – The findings show that male online purchasers are discriminated from female purchasers by social value and from male non‐purchasers by conditional value. Female purchasers are discriminated from male purchasers by functional value and from female non‐purchasers by social value. Female non‐purchasers are discriminated from female purchasers by conditional value. Male non‐purchasers are discriminated from male purchasers by functional and social value. Research limitations/implications – Limitations include using an Internet survey and an Australian sample which may impact the generalisability of the findings to a wider population of Internet users. Future research should involve replication of the study in a country more or less developed in terms of gender composition of internet users to extend the generalisability of the findings. Additionally, researchers should examine whether other dimensions of consumption value, such as social influence through on‐ and off‐line communication networks, may influence consumer choice to purchase online. Practical implications – The study provides practical implications for marketers to leverage consumption values that influence male and female consumers' choice to purchase online and then drive their behaviour online through integrated marketing campaigns that involve both on‐ and offline strategies. Originality/value – The research makes an original contribution to the consumer behaviour literature as to date, no research has been found that undertakes such a comprehensive gender‐based comparison of the perceived value of using a virtual consumption setting for purchasing.