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This study aims to examine the burdening effect of Shariah knowledge on the sales performance of the salesforce at Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) with special reference to addressing the heterogeneous effects of work experience.

A total of 335 samples were collected from the sales professionals of IFIs in Malaysia using a purposive sampling technique and the empirical analysis was conducted with the measures of model fit and bootstrapping technique using partial least square structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis.

Empirical results indicate that the burdening effect of Shariah knowledge is evident among salesforce and the magnitude of the impact remains consistent across the groups of salesforces with different levels of work experience.

Findings suggest respective authorities of IFIs intensify capacity building for their salesforce particularly in the area of Shariah knowledge and nature of underlying Islamic contracts used in the financial products. An insignificant heterogeneous effect of work experience suggests respective authorities that the actions and policy formulations are equally important among the entire salesforce regardless of the number of years of job tenure each salesforce holds.

As customer awareness and knowledge may be influenced by the information transferred via the IFI employees (especially salesforce in IFIs), any information overload (i.e. additional requirement of Shariah knowledge/features) on the IFI employees may, therefore, negatively influence customer patronage and reduce IFI market share. However, the increased information expectation (i.e. Shariah knowledge/features) on IFI employees and its impact on market share along with the heterogeneous effect of work experience has not been documented before. If a burdening effect of Shariah knowledge is identified, this may be a formidable reason for the slowing growth of Islamic finance.

This study aims to examine the impact of information overload (referred to as the saddling effect in this study) of underlying contracts on the sales performance of the salesforce at takaful institutions with special reference to addressing the heterogeneous effect among distribution channels.

A total of 311 samples were collected from the sales professionals of the takaful industry in Malaysia using a purposive sampling technique and the empirical analysis was conducted with the measures of model fit and bootstrapping technique using partial least square structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis.

Empirical results indicate that the saddling effect of the underlying contracts is evident among salesforce and the magnitude of the impact was found to be heterogeneous between the groups of salesforces in different distribution channels.

Findings recommend respective authorities of takaful institutions to intensify capacity building for their salesforce, particularly in the area of shariah knowledge and nature of underlying Islamic contracts used in the takaful products. A significant heterogeneous effect between distribution channels suggests that the actions and policy formulations should be diverse between the salesforce at different distribution channels and higher attention should be catered for the salesforce at the direct selling channel.

The increased information expectation (i.e. underlying contract knowledge) on takaful salesforce and its impact on their sales performance have not been documented before. The increase in information may create a burdening effect or what is referred to in this study as the information or knowledge “saddling effect.” If a saddling effect is identified, this may be a formidable reason for the slowing growth of the takaful industry in the respective market. It is expected that the outcome of this study would assist not only to fill the gap in the literature of personnel selling in the takaful industry but also will assist the takaful institutions in formulating appropriate policies for tackling the issue of the saddling effect of underlying contracts.

The purpose of the study was (1) to examine the motivational composites determining consumers' continued intention to use digital ticketing via self-service technology (SST) by integrating service satisfaction and (2) to ascertain the differences between consumers according to their psychological discomfort toward technology.

Data were collected using a structured questionnaire, and a total of 323 were included in the analysis. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was utilized to test motivational determinants of digital ticketing. In addition, permutation-based multi-group analysis was performed to investigate the differences between consumers with high and low technology discomfort.

Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are positive predictors of continued intention to use digital ticketing, but only intrinsic motivation has a positive impact on continued intention through service satisfaction. Moreover, the relationship between intrinsic motivation, service satisfaction and continued intention was stronger for consumers with high psychological discomfort than those with low psychological discomfort.

Given the conspicuous characteristics of the digital ticketing process for sporting events, the insights gained from the study may be of assistance to researchers and practitioners in understanding sport consumers' ticket consumption behavior and the determinants of SST usage.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether a systematic relationship exists between firms’ level of entrepreneurial marketing (EM) behaviours and firms’ characteristics, including firm age, firm size and firm’s founder.

This paper quantitatively investigates EM behaviours from data collected from 752 business owners through structured interviews. The data analysis applied was multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (multi-group CFA).

Results from the analysis show that not all of the firms’ characteristics determine firms’ level of EM practice. The level of EM behaviours has a systematic relationship with firms’ age but not with the founding status of the firms’ manager. The impact of firm size on the level of EM behaviours is evident only when the firms’ age is taken into account.

This paper concludes that relationships between EM behaviours and firm characteristics are more complicated than anticipated. Firms’ characteristics alone may not be a good measure for identifying the level of a firm’s EM. EM cannot be conceptualized solely in relation to the activities of small firms, young firms or founder-operated firms.

This paper examines EM behaviours in a large survey and uses multi-group CFA to examine firms’ EM practice through latent variables, instead of observed variables. The findings should complement knowledge regarding the EM concept generated from existing literature.

Studies that examine users’ perceptions of museum’s website quality are scarce. The purpouse of this paper is to propose a multi-group comparison between two superstar museums to outline the variables that define website quality regarding museum websites towards achieving e-loyalty, trust and perceived control.

The sample comprised 305 valid online questionnaires, collected from a panel survey using a quota-sampling technique. The proposed model was tested using partial least squares analysis multi-group comparison between Prado and Thyssen-Bornemisza museum websites.

Website quality plays a determinant role in users’ behavioural outcomes. As evidenced in the results for the first time in a museum setting, website quality has the potential of influencing e-loyalty, trust and perceived control. Besides, trust has a positive influence on e-loyalty and perceived control, on trust. The multi-group comparison revealed no significant differences between the two museum superstars, which offer highly useful insights for the correct design of these websites.

This research addresses a multi-group comparison using partial least squares, a quite recent technique that advances knowledge regarding this method. It contributes to knowledge museum website management and online literature by means of proposing website quality as a dimension that includes content, ease of understanding, emotion, informational fit-to-task, promotion and visual appeal and by revealing significant effects of the relationships of the proposed model. Museum managers are provided with valuable inputs to design websites in an appropriate and suitable way for their users so they will be more willing to repeat their navigation experience.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the value of university social responsibility (USR) by investigating its impact on student–university identification and student loyalty. It also examines the mediating effect of student–university identification and the moderating effect of the perceived importance of USR. A comparative study is also conducted between students from two diverse cultural backgrounds.

An online questionnaire was administered to students of universities in two different emerging markets economies (Lebanon and Colombia). The collected data were tested by applying descriptive techniques, cluster analysis and partial least square structural equation modeling with multi-group analysis using SmartPLS3.0 software.

The findings revealed that USR affects student loyalty both directly and indirectly through student–university identification.

Assessing the model through a more varied sample population from different cultural backgrounds would entail more universal results and the ability to generalize the causality relationship between USR and student identification and loyalty.

This study is a valuable addition to the scarce literature on USR and its interplay with student–university identification. It presents USR as a vital marketing tool to achieve student identification and loyalty, being key factors that impact student enrollment and retention. It also translates into a competitive advantage for higher education institutions to overcome the fierce competition in the educational market. Additionally, this research can be considered a laboratory for theory testing and theory building due to its unique context and original primary data.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a reliable and valid measurement scale of employee engagement that can be used in human resources departments in any industry field.

This study used the measurement development process with three steps. The first step was to generate items for measuring employee engagement. For this reason, the authors proposed an integrated conceptual model based on the results of a literature review and justify the concepts from self-determination theory and person-environment fit theory as the theoretical foundation. The second step was to determine the types of questions suitable for measurement, examining the content validity. Content validity was conducted two times by the group, academic experts and business practitioners. The last step was to examine the exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multi-group analysis and reliability with 352 survey responses from the South Korean business context.

Findings of the measurement scale development procedure, i.e. employee engagement, should be managed in a balanced manner in all dimensions, as it is composed of four dimensions (person engagement, work engagement, organization engagement and relation engagement) and 16 sub-factors. Additionally, organization engagement was the major factor among the four dimensions of employee engagement with the highest variance explanation. From the statistical standpoint, the employee engagement scale (EES) is possible to use in any industry field because it demonstrated not only content validity and internal consistency reliability but also the three steps of factor analysis (EFA, CFA and multi-group analysis).

This survey was conducted with an assistant manager located in Korea. Therefore, it will be necessary to analyze both leader and employee engagement for those who live in foreign countries. The EES is useful to leaders and human resource managers because it is applicable to managing engagement levels of employees and fosters customized training programs.

This is the first study to develop measurement tools for employee engagement in South Korea. In addition, most studies demonstrated that individual feeling was valued to drive employee engagement. This research, however, proposes an extended concept of employee engagement for four dimensions (person, work, relation and organization) and emphasizes the important relationship between individuals and colleagues in an organization. Based on these results, a theoretically integrated model of employee engagement was developed and a practically valid measurement tool for capturing comprehensive domains of employee engagement was proposed.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the travellers’ behaviour towards travel risk is an emerging issue. Nonetheless, the travellers’ perceived COVID-19 impacts, travel risk perception, health and safety perception and travel avoidance concerning protection motivation theory is unnoticed. Following the protection motivation theory, the current study investigates the direct and indirect relationships between perceived COVID-19 impacts and travel avoidance. Moreover, the travellers’ cognitive perceptions of risk may vary with their demographic characteristics; therefore, the present study aims to test the differences in group-specific parameter estimates using a multi-group analysis.

The authors approached travellers from Tianjin, China using different communication services, including WeChat and email, through a snowball sampling technique. The study used 553 valid questionnaires for analysis.

The results of 553 questionnaires in structural equation modelling (SEM) with AMOS 21 indicated that travellers’ perceived Covid-19 impacts positively correlate with travel avoidance. The study model based on protection motivation theory specifies that travel risk perception and health and safety perception as a cognitive mediating process partially mediated the relationship between perceived COVID-19 impacts and travel avoidance. The findings specified that during COVID-19, travellers assessed the severity of travel risks and adopted preventive measures which influenced their travel behaviour and led to travel avoidance. The multi-group analysis results indicated no difference in perception for gender and education; however, concerning age, the significant nested p-value specifies a difference in perception.

The study offers implications for policymakers and the tourism industry to understand the travellers’ perceptions of travel during the pandemic and ensure health and safety measures to encourage travelling and reviving the tourism industry.

The application of protection motivation theory to analyse the travellers’ perceived COVID-19 impacts and travel avoidance in the presence of travel risk perception and health and safety perceptions as a cognitive mediating process is novel.

COVID-19大流行下的旅行风险问题日益重要。目前, 有关旅游者COVID-19影响感知、旅行风险感知以及健康安全感知与避免旅行之间关系的问题尚未引起学者广泛关注。基于保护动机理论, 本文对COVID-19影响感知与避免旅行之间的直接关系和间接关系进行深入研究。鉴于旅游者旅行风险认知因其人口特征而异, 本文采纳多组分析来检验群体间特定参数估计差异。

采用滚雪球抽样方法在中国天津利用微信和电子邮件共收集了553份有效问卷。

结构方程模型分析结果显示, 旅游者Covid-19影响感知与避免旅行之间呈正相关关系。基于保护动机理论的研究模型表明, 旅行风险感知和健康安全感知作为认知中间过程, 在COVID-19影响感知与避免旅行之间起到部分中介作用。这说明在COVID-19期间, 旅游者首先评估旅行风险等级并采取预防措施, 而这将影响他们的旅行行为, 甚至导致放弃旅行。此外, 多组分析结果表明, Covid-19影响感知在性别和受教育程度上并不存在显著差异, 但在年龄上差异显著。

研究对于政策制定者和旅游业界理解旅游者在疫情期间对旅行的看法以及采取健康和安全措施鼓励游客出游进而实现旅游业复苏具有重要启示。

基于保护动机理论, 引入旅行风险感知和健康安全感知作为中介变量来分析旅游者Covid-19影响感知对避免旅行的影响是本研究的重要创新点。此外, 本研究通过检验Covid-19影响感知在受访者人口学特征上的差异也对现有研究具有一定理论贡献。

La pandemia de COVID-19 y el comportamiento de los viajeros hacia el riesgo del viaje es un asunto emergente. No obstante, los impactos percibidos de COVID-19 por los viajeros, la percepción del riesgo de viaje, la percepción de salud y seguridad, así como la evitación de viajes con respecto a la teoría de la motivación de protección es desapercibida. Por lo tanto, el estudio actual basado en la teoría de la motivación de protección investiga las relaciones directas e indirectas entre los impactos percibidos del COVID-19 y la evitación del viaje. Las percepciones cognitivas del riesgo de los individuos varían con sus características demográficas; por lo tanto, el estudio actual que utiliza un análisis de multigrupo prueba las diferencias en las estimaciones de los parámetros de grupo específico.

Nos acercamos a los viajeros de Tianjin, China, utilizando diferentes servicios de comunicación, incluidos WeChat y email, a través de una técnica de muestreo de bola de nieve. El estudio utilizó 553 cuestionarios válidos para el análisis.

Los resultados empíricos de los 533 cuestionarios en los modelos de ecuaciones estructurales (MES) indican que los impactos percibidos de Covid-19 se correlacionan positivamente con la evitación del viaje. El resultado implica que los encuestados primero evalúan los riesgos y luego toman las decisiones de viajar; por consiguiente, los hallazgos apoyaron la teoría de la motivación de protección. Los hallazgos también mostraron que la percepción del riesgo de viaje y la percepción de salud y seguridad median entre los impactos percibidos de Covid-19 y la evitación de viajes. Además, los resultados del análisis de multigrupo indican que para el género y la educación, no existe una diferencia; sin embargo, en cuanto a la edad, existe una diferencia significativa en la percepción.

Las implicaciones del estudio son importantes para que los legisladores y la industria del turismo comprendan la percepción de los viajeros durante la pandemia y garanticen las medidas de salud y seguridad para animar a viajar.

La aplicación de la teoría de la motivación de protección para analizar los impactos percibidos de COVID-19 por los viajeros y la evitación del viaje en la presencia de la percepción de riesgo de viaje y la percepción de salud y seguridad como variables mediadoras es novedosa. También, el estudio actual contribuye a la literatura a través de probar el modelo teórico sobre las características demográficas de los encuestados.

The main purpose of this paper is to develop a brand love measurement scale, adopting an etic approach and testing for differences on how consumers experience brand love across different cultures.

An integrative model of brand love was first developed and then data was collected through an online survey (N = 322) in two countries (the USA and Portugal) with different characteristics (individualistic vs collectivistic). A structural equation model method was followed, including an exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group analysis to test the set of hypotheses.

As proposed in the initial model, results indicate that brand love is the result of a dynamic interaction between five integrated emotional dimensions: passionate driven behavior, commitment, affection and connection, consumer-brand identification and brand relationship. The multi-group analysis across countries suggests that the socio-cultural context, namely, the collectivistic vs individualistic nature of the sample, significantly influences the brand love experience.

This is the first brand love measurement scale developed from an etic perspective, encompassing complex and dynamic emotional dimensions that in combination, form the brand love experience. Results indicate that the brand love experience may significantly differ from culture to culture, pointing out the most relevant dimensions in each of the socio-cultural contexts that better predict brand love and its consequences. These findings are particularly relevant for practitioners working on global brand management.

Satisfaction and experience are essential ingredients for successful customer retention. This study aims to verify the moderating effect of experience on two types of relationships: the relationship of certain antecedents with satisfaction, and the relationship of satisfaction with intention to repurchase.

This paper applies structural equation modelling (SEM) and multi-group analysis to examine the moderating role of experience in a conceptual model estimating the intention to repurchase. Responses from 393 people were used to examine the differences between high- and low-experienced users of online shopping.

The research shows that experience has moderating effects on the relationships between performance expectancy and satisfaction and satisfaction and intention to repurchase. This study empirically demonstrates that prior customer experience strengthens the relationship between performance expectancy and satisfaction, while it weakens the relationship of satisfaction with intention to repurchase.

Practitioners should differentiate the way they treat their customers based on their level of experience. Specifically, the empirical research demonstrates that the expected performance of the online shopping experience (performance expectancy) affects satisfaction only on high-experienced customers. Instead, the effort needed to use online shopping (effort expectancy) and the user's belief in own abilities to use online shopping (self-efficacy) influence satisfaction only on low-experienced customers. The effect of trust and satisfaction is significant on online shopping behaviour on both high- and low-experienced customers.

This paper investigates how different levels of experience affect customers' satisfaction and online shopping behaviour. It is proved that experience moderates the effect of performance expectancy on satisfaction and the effect of satisfaction on intention to repurchase. It also demonstrates that certain effects (effort expectancy and performance expectancy) are valid for only one of the two examined groups, while only one effect (trust) is valid for both (high- and low-experienced).