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The purpose of this paper is to present a moderated model of sport tourism as an economic development generator from a destination marketing perspective. The model takes into account the differing roles of sport tourism segments on the relationship between motivators of sport tourism and destinations outcomes.

This conceptual paper presents a framework for explaining the differential impact of factors that influence sport tourism based on the tourist segment attracted to the destination.

The proposed model, supported by extant literature, presents sport tourist types as moderating a variety of influencing factors that determine sport tourists’ interest in visiting a destination and the resulting economic impact on a destination.

Practical implications are discussed for managing and marketing destination‐specific factors to appeal to different segments of the sport tourism market in order to maximize the economic impact of sport tourism.

This conceptual model provides a contribution to tourism researchers by providing a comprehensive view of the complex nature of the factors that influence destination choice for different types of sports tourists and the possible economic outcomes that can result.

Purpose – The current exploratory study is an attempt to discover the underlying areas of dissatisfaction associated with the banking experience in the UK, particularly as it relates to the implementation of new service delivery technology in the banking industry. Design/methodology/approach – The data for this study was collected in two stages. In stage one, three focus groups were conducted using bank customers from the southern part of the USA to generate items important to users of financial services in the USA. These items were then considered by a number of bank customers in the UK (Bristol and Bournemouth area) to insure equivalence of constructs and measurements. Stage two involved distributing 300 surveys to a convenience sample of electronic banking customers from the sampling area of interest in the UK. In order to qualify, respondents had to have used one of the available electronic banking services offered by the bank at least once during the previous month. Findings – The importance‐performance grid demonstrates that two of the factors and their underlying attributes fall into the “Keep up the good work” quadrant and the other two factors fall into the “Low priority” quadrant. The first two are areas the organization needs to allocate resources in order to maintain the level of service they provide their clients. From a strategic point of view, this grid provides a tool for strategy development as it gives a clear picture of the factors that are critical for resource allocation. Research limitations/implications – The primary limitation of this study is the scope and size of its sample. Nonetheless, the study does provide evidence for the development and use of the I‐P grid for preliminary identification and assessment of customer measures of service quality. Originality/value – By demonstrating the feasibility of the approach taken by the study, it should be possible for financial institutions to utilize similar procedures when evaluating the overall satisfaction levels of their customers’ banking experience. It also allows service providers to consider the changing needs and wants of customers’ in the financial sector.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the idea of green atmospherics and propose a conceptual framework for green service environment factors and a typology for green consumers.

This paper takes the form of a conceptual piece. and offers a new approach to green consumerism. Green atmospherics goes beyond many of the typical factors explored in previous service environment studies. The paper examines how many terms commonplace in the design and architectural literature can be translated into the marketing arena. Factors such as daylighting, recycling, offgassing, insulation, optimal energy performance and design for the environment are discussed.

The paper proposes that “going green” goes beyond having recyclable or even sustainable products, to an ideology that incorporates improving worker morale and retention, and giving back to the communities they are located in. Additionally, the paper makes a case for classifying green consumers based on a psychographic segmentation approach compared to the more traditional socioeconomic classification.

This paper offers a conceptual framework for assessing green atmospherics within service environments and proposes a green consumer typology that references “stimuli” versus “socio‐demographics” for categorization. A new categorization is proposed and the importance of this topic to consumers, practitioners and researchers are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the biophilic stimuli present in the servicescape and restorative effects on psychological states among consumers. The research also examines moderating role of service contexts in this relationship.

This empirical study applied a laboratory-like experimental design with one-shot treatment. About 566 usable responses were collected using six photographic images – three were biophilic environments and three were non-biophilic environments – for four a priori service contexts: hospital lobby, upscale restaurants, spa and bank lobby.

The tests of hypotheses confirm restorative effects of biophilic servicescapes on consumer’s psychological states, attention and mood, which, in turn, positively influence service preference. Further, the restorative effects of natural elements are found to vary across hedonic – utilitarian and experience – credence type service contexts.

Because of higher levels of natural stressors, consumers today likely have attention fatigue and depleted mood states, which, in turn, may have adverse effects on their service consumption behaviour. In this context, building upon theories from environmental psychology, findings of this study contribute by establishing restorative potential of biophilic servicescape. The study also establishes that natural elements in biophilic servicescapes influence service preference, which is mediated by consumers’ psychological states – attention and mood. Further, it demonstrates that consumers are more responsive with regards to such restorative effects of biophilic elements in contexts where they seek emotional, experiential value compared to rational, functional value.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

This paper aims to examine consumers' cognitive processes and motivations for making impulse purchases of new products.

A total of 157 consumer surveys were collected and these were analyzed using structural equations modeling.

There are two major findings: new product knowledge and consumer desire for excitement and esteem promote impulse buying intention and behavior.

The paper is among the first to determine how impulse purchases of new products differ from impulse purchases of other types of products. In doing so, the paper builds on the substantial body of work surrounding impulse purchases.

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of atmospherics on consumer symbolic interpretations, and various psychological outcomes in a purely hedonic service environment.

Field data were collected from 500 respondents in Florida across four hedonic service attraction sites and then analyzed using MANOVA in SPSS. A mediation method proposed by Baron and Kenny is utilized to determine the mediating role of consumer symbolic interpretations in the nomological network.

There were four major findings. First, similar to other service sectors, environmental factors do play a critical role in determining behavioral intentions in hedonic services. Second, patrons conceptualize hedonic attractions/services in terms of both utilitarian and hedonic components. Third, consumer symbolic perceptions (meanings) do affect behavioral intentions. Finally, consumers do evaluate their service environments (ambient, design and layout and social factors) differently depending on the meanings they attach to a service environment.

Managers can tailor service environments to match the symbolic interpretations and behavioral outcomes they would like to foster in order to maximize monies spent on physical upgrades. Additional work is needed in the area of consumer meanings and symbolic interpretations.

The study indicates that the service environment can be used as a differentiating tool to perpetuate brand meaning and uniqueness in the minds of the consumer, thereby creating a competitive advantage for the hedonic facilities and by extension ensuring repeat patronage.

The purpose of this article is to present a new split system model (SSM) that predicts the reliability of complex systems with multiple preventive maintenance (PM) actions in the long term.

The SSM was developed using probability theory based on the concept of separating repaired and unrepaired components within a system virtually when modelling the reliability of the system after repairs. After theoretical analysis, a case study and Monte Carlo simulation were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the newly developed model.

The model can be used to determine the remaining life of systems, to show the changes in reliability with PM actions, and to quantify PM intervals after imperfect repairs.

SSM can be used to predict the reliability of complex systems with multiple PM actions, and hence can be used to support asset PM decision making over the whole life of the asset, such as scheduled PM times and spare parts requirements. An asset often has some vulnerable components, i.e. where the lives of these components are much shorter than the rest of the asset. In this case, PM is often conducted on these vulnerable components for maximising the useful life of the asset. The specific formulae derived in this paper can be used to predict the reliability of the asset for this scenario.

The proposed model uses a new concept of split systems to predict the changes of reliability of complex systems with multiple PM actions. Asset managers will find this model to be a useful tool in the optimisation of their asset PM strategies.

It may be logical to think that a firm offering products that can be delivered online will benefit more from Internet commerce. However, there is limited evidence to prove if this is entirely true. This paper reports a preliminary study that examines whether product characteristics have significant effect on Internet commerce benefit. The results indicate that product characteristics in isolation do not have a significant effect on Internet commerce benefit. No significant difference in experience of Internet commerce benefit is observed between those who offer physical goods and those who offer digital ones. Although the one‐sided result may have been sampling bias, it requires management to rethink their marketing strategy based not solely on product nature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine antecedents of consumer online spending.

A sample of 766 college students in the USA completed surveys using intercept interviews on a college campus. The research examines the consumer's level of technological savvy, experience with online shopping, level of confidence that online activities are not monitored, worry about other parties obtaining credit card information, comfort providing personal information online, and concern for online privacy when predicting the amount a consumer will spend online.

The findings reveal that consumer experience with online shopping and level of comfort with providing personal information online were significant predictors of the amount spent online. Surprisingly, privacy concerns were not a significant factor in online spending.

The results provide useful information to online marketers and privacy advocates by revealing factors that influence the amount spent by consumers via the internet.

This paper fills an identified gap in the literature on online shopping in that most research to date has either focused on regulatory issues or consumer demographics related to online privacy concerns.