Search results

The rise of digital transaction technology has been transformative for businesses however consumer attitudes to this technology can vary. The comparison of Australians, Chinese and Sri Lankans’ consumers salient attitudes toward payment methods at the Point-of-Sale (POS) provides businesses with insights into the factors impacting consumers' payment preference.

A qualitative methodology was employed for data collection from Australian, Chinese and Sri Lankan participants. A combination of focus groups and individual interviews were carried out with a total of 35 participants.

Results indicate that factors of perceived relative advantage, perceived compatibility, perceived risk, perceived rewards, perceived situations and social influence impact consumers' payment preference at POS across all three countries, however the degree of impact varies in importance across the three countries.

In the cross-cultural comparison of the consumers' payment preference, this research highlights the complex interplay of factors that shapes these payment preferences. The findings, given the growing digitization of transactions, provides banking and financial institutions with a foundational model that can be used to improve their services and business model.

Previous studies failed to distinguish between payment choice at the time of the transaction and payment preference which is repeated behaviour. This study is the first to compare the consumers' payment preference across Australian, Chinese and Sri Lankan consumers and responds to calls for additional research that generalises consumers' payment preferences across cultures.

Reports the findings from a study examining how overseas students adapt to their new country of residence. Looks at the place attachment process of migrant students studying in Australia and Singapore. Focuses the analysis on adaptation to the physical and social environments. Discusses attachments to objects and provides suggestions as to how universities can assist in the adjustment process.

Strong leadership in primary care is necessary to coordinate an effective pandemic response; however, descriptions of leadership roles for family physicians are absent from previous pandemic plans. This study aims to describe the leadership roles and functions family physicians played during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada and identify supports and barriers to formalizing these roles in future pandemic plans.

This study conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with family physicians across four regions in Canada as part of a multiple case study. During the interviews, participants were asked about their roles during each pandemic stage and the facilitators and barriers they experienced. Interviews were transcribed and a thematic analysis approach was used to identify recurring themes.

Sixty-eight family physicians completed interviews. Three key functions of family physician leadership during the pandemic were identified: conveying knowledge, developing and adapting protocols for primary care practices and advocacy. Each function involved curating and synthesizing information, tailoring communications based on individual needs and building upon established relationships.

Findings demonstrate the need for future pandemic plans to incorporate formal family physician leadership appointments, as well as supports such as training, communication aides and compensation to allow family physicians to enact these key roles.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to examine the leadership roles of family physicians, which have been largely overlooked in past pandemic plans. This study’s findings highlight the importance of these roles toward delivering an effective and coordinated pandemic response with uninterrupted and safe access to primary care.

Women are exposed to vulnerabilities that can lead to drug use or hinder recovery. However, there is a dearth of studies on recovery programs for women. This study aims to add to the literature by examining the feasibility of a women-only aftercare program for recovering users in the Philippines.

The study used a mixed-method design with pre and post-program surveys used to measure changes in participants’ recovery capital. Focused group discussions elicited participants’ context, their reactions, perceived outcomes and suggestions on the program.

Women in the program shared narratives of pain, trauma and abuse before treatment. Participants reported significant improvements in personal, community and family recovery capital dimensions. The program enabled personal growth in the form of new knowledge, skills and self-confidence. The women-only program also provided a safe space for women, to receive support from other women, community members and family. However, the women continue to face continuing challenges related to stigma and discrimination and a lack of livelihood opportunities.

A limitation of the study was its small sample size and the lack of a control group. Another limitation was the variability in treatment received by the women, which could have affected overall outcomes. Future studies using a randomized control trial and longitudinal designs may provide more robust conclusions on the effectiveness of the program.

Given punitive contexts, gender-sensitive and trauma-informed programs and services for women involved in drug use could potentially mitigate the abuse, stigma and vulnerabilities they experience.

This study contributes to the sparse literature on women-only aftercare, particularly in countries that criminalize drug use.

Sponsorship can be an effective strategic marketing tool yet it attracts criticism as a corporate indulgence shaped by the personal interests of senior executives. While research into the outcomes of sponsorship is extensive, the practices involved in sponsorship selections have been largely ignored. Today, sponsorship selection in large corporations is recommended to be a formal process involving evaluation criteria aligned to corporate policy and strategic priorities. Yet, in reality, corporate culture influences sponsorship selection, as do sponsorship managers’ beliefs about sponsorship types and motivations. The purpose of this paper is to explore sponsorship selection practices and to consider the interplay between corporate culture and sponsorship managers’ beliefs about sponsorship types and their motivations. The findings provide not only new interpretation of the literature but also reveal a detailed picture of sponsorship selection.

This exploratory qualitative study comprises in-depth interviews with senior sponsorship managers from eight large Australian companies that use sponsorship as a strategic marketing tactic.

This study concludes that the sponsorship selection process is strongly influenced by corporate culture as well as the sponsorship manager’s beliefs about sponsorship types and their motivations.

This study contributes to the sponsorship management research stream by providing important insights into under-researched factors that influence the sponsorship selection process.

Waiting in services commonly reduces customer satisfaction and has a considerable and enduring negative effect on the overall evaluation of a service. Waiting may even lead consumers to abandon a service or to avoid that service on future occasions. This paper aims to advance the understanding of the role played by culture in shaping the perceptions of waiting in services. In doing so, the study aims to demonstrate that solutions for managing waiting in services should be culturally appropriate.

This study uses in-depth interviews and consumer diaries. The sample includes expatriates from most continents living in Catalonia, Spain.

The study confirms existing theories on cultural differences in time orientations in a services marketing context. It uncovers a range of culture-bound rules of waiting and differences in cultural interpretations of what it means to wait and even whether waiting is occurring or not.

This study questions the applicability of some standard waiting solutions across cultural contexts. Companies that operate in different cultures should consider their approach to managing waiting times according to the cultural time orientations of their customer base. The cultural aspects of time-based service guarantees and time-rationing strategies are considered.

This paper takes an innovate approach to “uncovering” the implicit rules of waiting by asking expatriate consumers about their waiting experiences while living abroad. Expatriates are in a unique position to identify these differences, as they have a cultural point of comparison with their home countries.

This paper focuses on customer engagement in online brand communities (OBCs). Drawing upon self-determination theory (SDT), the research proposes a conceptual model portraying the effect of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on hedonic and utilitarian rewards, which the authors posit will affect subjective well-being (SWB) and brand advocacy.

Data collected through a questionnaire completed by 367 members of OBC were employed to test the structural theory using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The empirical results reveal that intrinsic motivations significantly and positively affect hedonic and utilitarian rewards, but the same does not apply to extrinsic motivations. The results also confirm that hedonic and utilitarian rewards are significantly related to brand advocacy and SWB, although with different strengths.

This study provides new insights to the emerging research on customer engagement in OBC, including its motivations and rewards for contributing to these communities, from an SDT perspective. In addition, this paper offers a novel approach, by introducing brand advocacy and SWB as consequences of customer engagement in OBCs.

The relationship between motivation at work and internal knowledge transfers (IKTs) is an important topic in the knowledge management literature, but evidence on the topic is contradictory. This study aims to analyze the mediating role of transactive memory systems (TMSs) in this relationship.

Data were obtained from 208 military knowledge workers (analysts) from a large European army.

The results indicate that intrinsic and identified motivation positively affect IKTs, although fully mediated by the TMS. Introjected motivation, in contrast, has only a slightly significant direct influence and external motivation has no significant effect. As individual motivation is insufficient to speed up knowledge transfer, this paper proposes the solution of implementing a TMS, which generates trust and improves coordination among group members.

This study’s originality stems from both its context and the problem tackled. The context analyzed is the military, a group that has received very little attention in the field of management and business. Individual motivation in job performance has also received little study in a military context and even less research has related individual motivation to IKTs. To supplement the scarcity of existing studies and resolve the possible difficulties identified concerning IKT in the military, this study proposes to analyze the mediating effect of a TMS on the relationship between individual motivation to perform one’s job and IKTs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine women’s reactions to celebrity endorsers holding positive and negative public images and the consequences for purchase intentions of the endorsed product.

The paper draws on the social comparison literature and applies the theory of upward and downward comparisons to the celebrity endorsement context.

Study 1 shows that exposure to celebrities holding a positive public image decrease consumers’ temporal self-esteem, while celebrities holding a negative public image increase temporal self-esteem. Study 2 suggests that this change in self-esteem transfers to the product depending upon the type of social comparison focus (similarity vs dissimilarity) which people have. Study 3 shows that for consumers low in true self-esteem, i.e. self-esteem based upon a stable foundation, celebrities holding a positive public image decrease purchase intentions. For consumers high in true self-esteem, there was no difference between exposure to celebrities holding a positive and a negative public image for purchase intentions. Study 4 focused on replicating the results found in Studies 1-3 in the context of an achievement celebrity (as opposed to a regular celebrity). The findings in Study 4 provide further support for the results of Studies 1 and 3, and identify expert celebrities as a boundary condition for the effects found in Study 2.

The results provide evidence suggesting that celebrities holding a negative public image can be used as celebrity endorsers in product categories in which it can be considered helpful to protect women’s self-esteem, such as beauty products or self-expressive products.

This research contributes to the literature on celebrity endorsement by adding a boundary condition for the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement. According to the results, choosing a positive celebrity can, for some groups, have negative effects on purchase intensions and that a negative celebrity might be the safer choice.