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1 – 10 of 302Diego Castro Fettermann, Márcia Elisa Soares Echeveste and Guilherme Luz Tortorella
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation between the utilization of the customization strategy and the availability of the online toolkit and its features with the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation between the utilization of the customization strategy and the availability of the online toolkit and its features with the commercial variables of businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample used in this paper consists of 134 cases of corporate brands in the automobile industry; their sales correspond to 49.12 percent of vehicles produced in 2012. The logistic regression analysis was then applied to the sample.
Findings
This paper confirmed the relationship between the use of toolkits for customization and business variables, like vehicle sales.
Originality/value
The generated model allows the prediction of market conditions which recommended to provide the toolkit for customization, and if implemented, what combination of features it must have.
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This paper aims to report findings from an exploratory empirical study focusing on an application of mass customization in financial services. Based on the study of configurations…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to report findings from an exploratory empirical study focusing on an application of mass customization in financial services. Based on the study of configurations and usage data, the authors evaluate a series of hypotheses relating to the interplay of adoption and usage by customers.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on quantitative analysis of data from a Turkish bank which offers customizable credit cards, encompassing both configurations as well as credit card usage.
Findings
The results confirm that trial-and-error learning will not end with product definition, but will continue afterwards and lead to changes in customization. Especially active usage length shows a significant positive effect on the number of changes. The effect of base category usage could only partly be confirmed for changes, but was significant for adoption. It was also found that a series of smaller changes in a limited number of attributes has a higher likelihood than a smaller number of changes in a large number of aspects.
Research limitations/implications
The study uses data from a single financial service provider, from a specific country. In addition, anonymized data on adoption and usage were used, thus demographic data as well as subjective measures from customers were not available.
Practical implications
The results highlight the importance of specifying the correct solution space, as the authors could at least partially confirm the negative effect of both a large number of options, as well as basing on alternatives rather than attributes on several levels. Although overall mass customization seems less interesting than traditional credit cards, the authors discuss several positive implications for financial sector companies from offering this option.
Originality/value
The paper extends current literature in focusing for the first time on mass customization for financial services. In addition, this is the first study using longitudinal data on adoption and modification of mass-customized solutions to analyze the long-term behavior of usage.
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I-Ling Ling, Yi-Fen Liu, Chien-Wei (Wilson) Lin and Chih-Hui Shieh
This study aims to understand the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions of the IKEA effect in self-expressive mass customization (MC). It examines the effect of the extent…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions of the IKEA effect in self-expressive mass customization (MC). It examines the effect of the extent of choice in MC toolkits in terms of perceived value of self-designed products, as well as how self-expression mediates this effect and what kind of consumers are more inclined to experience such effect.
Design/methodology/approach
Two experiments were conducted, using online MC toolkits. In total, 393 consumers participated in the experiments. Data collected were analyzed using t-tests, analyses of variance, path analyses, bootstrap analyses and spotlight tests.
Findings
The results show that offering a greater extent of choice in MC toolkits to consumers provides a greater opportunity for self-expression, resulting in higher product valuation. Further, consumers who have high romanticism in aesthetic preference and high self-esteem are more inclined to influences associated with this effect.
Originality/value
This research adds to the literature on the IKEA effect in self-expressive MC by identifying a key antecedent (extent of choice), its underlying mechanism (self-expression), and two boundary conditions (aesthetic preference and self-esteem). The results of this study provide firms with a better understanding of how they can improve their self-expressive MC strategies.
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Ursula Scholl-Grissemann and Benedikt Schnurr
The purpose of this study is to investigate how hedonic and utilitarian choice options of online travel agencies (OTAs) affect consumers’ process enjoyment and booking intentions.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate how hedonic and utilitarian choice options of online travel agencies (OTAs) affect consumers’ process enjoyment and booking intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors apply a one-factorial experimental design. The stimuli consisted of screenshots of the fictitious OTA “www.my-holiday.com”. Participants were told to imagine they were planning a city trip to San Francisco and that, during an internet search, they came across a new OTA called “www.my-holiday.com”.
Findings
The authors find that both booking intentions and process enjoyment are higher for hedonic OTAs, i.e. OTAs which offer more hedonic choice options such as entertainment and spa. The authors conclude that these toolkits strongly relate to pleasurable experiences and positive emotions. Therefore, these options drive positive affective reactions in terms of process enjoyment, which subsequently affect booking intentions. Additionally, the authors find that preference insight positively affects consumers’ booking intention as the number of choices provided by the OTA increases.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to tourism research on online travel shopping behavior. The authors apply knowledge from research on online customization tools to an OTA context and show that hedonic and functional choice options of OTAs significantly reflect on consumer behavior.
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Enrico Sandrin, Alessio Trentin, Chiara Grosso and Cipriano Forza
The purpose of this paper is to focus on online sales configurators (SCs), also known as mass-customization toolkits, which enable consumers to self-customize their product…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on online sales configurators (SCs), also known as mass-customization toolkits, which enable consumers to self-customize their product solutions online. The paper aims to provide new insights into which characteristics of an online SC increase the consumer-perceived benefits of possessing a mass-customized product.
Design/methodology/approach
Previous studies on mass customization (MC), sales configuration, and learning psychology are used to develop the research hypotheses, which are tested by analyzing data from 675 configuration experiences from a convenience sample of potential consumers using 31 real online SCs for laptops/notebooks, economy cars, and sport shoes/sneakers.
Findings
The paper finds support for the hypotheses that SCs with higher flexible-navigation, focused-navigation, and easy-comparison capabilities enhance not only the traditionally considered utilitarian benefit (UT), but also the consumer-perceived uniqueness benefit (UN) and self-expressiveness (SE) benefit (SE). Furthermore, consistent with the study’s hypotheses, SCs with higher benefit-cost communication and user-friendly product-space description capabilities are found to improve UT. The hypotheses that these two capabilities enhance UN and SE, however, are not supported. Post-hoc analyses suggest that the examined SCs are generally UT-centered and need improvement of their ability to communicate the UN and the SE a consumer could derive from the purchase of his/her configured product.
Originality/value
While prior research has primarily been concerned with conceptually arguing and empirically showing that uniqueness and self-expressiveness are two additional sources of consumer value in business-to-consumer MC, this is the first empirical study that offers insights into which characteristics online SCs should have in order to draw from these two value sources.
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Yue Wang, Daniel Y. Mo and Hoi Lam Ma
Many e-commerce companies adopt a product customization platform offering various choices for customers to configure products to better satisfy their needs. However, a method to…
Abstract
Purpose
Many e-commerce companies adopt a product customization platform offering various choices for customers to configure products to better satisfy their needs. However, a method to effectively measure customer satisfaction is lacking. This paper aims to investigate customers' perception of time in the online configuration process of customized products and seeks to propose time perception as the measurement of the effectiveness of online product customization.
Design/methodology/approach
An online laptop customization system was used in an empirical experiment to collect respondents' answers in a set of research questions. Regression and correlation analysis were conducted to investigate the factors affecting customers' satisfaction as well as the relationships with time perception.
Findings
The experimental results reveal several factors in customers' perception of time during the online product customization process. First, customers tend to overestimate the amount of time spent in a short-duration task but underestimate the amount of time spent in a long-duration task. Second, customers' perceptions of time are significantly correlated with their satisfaction with the configured products, and perceived time is moderately correlated with their satisfaction with the configuration process. Third, the difficulty of customization tasks and customers' motivation to process information also significantly affect customers' perceptions of time.
Originality/value
This paper advances the research on time perception by developing a new relative segmentation-based method to estimate the subjective perception of time. This study also makes several contributions to product customization research: the authors fill a research gap in the field of product customization by incorporating customers' perceptions of time into the measurement of customer satisfaction and by identifying the significant relationships among customers' perception of time, the ease of task selection, the customers' motivation to process information, and customers' satisfaction with customized products. These results aid in the design of online product customization systems.
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Ying Zhang, Ann Marie Fiore, Ling Zhang and Xiaogang Liu
To examine the relationships among website design features, consumer experience responses and patronage intention toward online mass customization (OMC) apparel websites.
Abstract
Purpose
To examine the relationships among website design features, consumer experience responses and patronage intention toward online mass customization (OMC) apparel websites.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 312 useable online surveys were obtained from Mainland China consumers. Multi-item scales were adopted to measure eight constructs: visual design; information quality; entertainment, aesthetic, educational, escapist experiences; flow; and patronage intention. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to determine factor structures and to test the hypothesized relationships among website design features, 4Es (entertainment, aesthetic, educational and escapist experiences), flow and consequent purchase intention toward OMC apparel websites.
Findings
All hypotheses, but one, were supported. OMC website visual design; information quality; and entertainment, aesthetic and educational experiences had a positive effect on consumer patronage intention.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations include using a sample of consumers from major cities in China; results cannot be generalized to all Chinese consumers. Websites were not actively navigated. Additionally, the present study examined only two dimensions of OMC website quality, visual design and information quality; more tangible and specific features could be considered in future research.
Practical implications
The findings provide website designers and marketers with insights into experiences that may lead to an increase in patronage intention toward OMC websites.
Originality/value
The study provides evidence that flow helps explain the impact of experiential value (i.e. 4Es) from website design features on patronage intention.
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Can-you Wang, Cheng-long Li and Qin Su
The purpose of this paper is to study the price decisions and profits of two firms in a competitive market in which one platform firm considers whether to adopt a consumer…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the price decisions and profits of two firms in a competitive market in which one platform firm considers whether to adopt a consumer customization strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
This study develops the consumer’s utility function, which captures consumers’ behavioural and emotional factors in the self-customizing process, and it adopts a game theory approach to analyze the equilibrium price and equilibrium profit for each firm.
Findings
The results show that increased sensitivity in consumer customization might not benefit the platform, especially when the size of the consumer group deriving positive additional utility from the self-customizing process is small. Interestingly, if the consumer customization sensitivity is high, increasing sensitivity can benefit both firms by relaxing competition between them, while it can hurt consumer surplus. The study also further identifies the conditions under which platforms can adopt a consumer customization strategy.
Research limitations/implications
Two major limitations of the study are that the model does not involve price discrimination or explore the value of adopting a consumer customization strategy in a vertically differentiated market.
Practical implications
This study offers managerial insights for the platforms that intend to invest in a consumer customization strategy, including providing a more simple, more efficient self-customizing process for consumers; empowering consumers to broadcast their creations to a large network by social media technologies; addressing how to determine what consumers really need and want; and so on.
Originality/value
Little research has been performed to analyze the impacts of adopting a consumer customization strategy on pricing decisions in a duopoly market by capturing consumers’ behavioural and emotional factors. While this study explores the above research issue, it also illustrates the effect of the adoption of a consumer customization strategy from a consumer surplus perspective.
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The purpose of this research is to review empirical research on customer involvement in innovation and identify future research directions that can better connect this research…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to review empirical research on customer involvement in innovation and identify future research directions that can better connect this research with marketing strategy literatures and offer opportunities for further theoretical development.
Methodology/approach
We conduct a review of empirical articles published in eight leading marketing and innovation journals between 2001 and 2017.
Findings
The review shows that the literature on customer involvement in innovation is highly diverse and fragmented, lacking a common understanding of what constitutes customer involvement in innovation and its theoretical underpinnings. There exists a multitude of conceptualizations of customer involvement in innovation, which limits effective accumulation of domain knowledge. A large number of studies have taken the customer’s perspective to examine their motivation to participate and ability to contribute, whereas less research has been done from the firm’s perspective to understand how firms may effectively manage the well-recognized challenges of customer involvement as well as the implications of customer involvement for long-term innovation strategy and overall performance. Based on the review, we offer recommendations for future research.
Practical implications
We identify important questions for future research that are highly relevant for the practice of customer involvement in innovation.
Originality/value
We provide a systematic review of the rapidly growing empirical research on customer involvement in innovation. We evaluate key points of differences in the literature and offer a synthesis that helps identify opportunities for future research.
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Rambod Dargahi, Aidin Namin and Seth Ketron
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how consumers choose among three different options offered by a firm in a monopolistic setting, namely, to buy a standard product with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how consumers choose among three different options offered by a firm in a monopolistic setting, namely, to buy a standard product with a non-customizable design, to ask the firm to customize a product using the consumer’s ideal design or to do the entire design task by themselves. The authors also investigate how social preference intensity and the possibility of reselling a product influence a consumer’s decision.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors develop an analytical (game theoretical) consumer choice framework and incorporate a psychological factor into the model. The authors also empirically validate the analytical findings using simulations.
Findings
The authors find that as social preference intensity increases, the number of co-producers can either decrease or increase. The authors offer a closed-form solution and interval graphs showing that when the setup price is large (small), the proportion of the market that chooses to do-it-yourself (DIY) is large (small) and an increase in social preference intensity leads to a decrease (increase) in co-production.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to incorporate a social factor into an economic model in a consumer behavior setting. It is also the first paper to explain how customers’ preferences among possible options, such as DIY (without the firm’s help), co-production (with the firm’s help) and a standard product might change while considering other people’s preferences, as well as given associated costs.
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