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Users' knowledge sharing provides valuable resources for brand community participants and is, therefore, critical for the viability of virtual brand communities. Drawing from both self-determination theory (SDT) and psychological ownership theory, the paper aims to investigate the impact of fulfillment of three basic psychological needs on brand users' knowledge-sharing behavior and examines psychological ownership as a mediator.

Survey data consisting of 316 valid responses were collected from users of Huawei Pollen Club Community. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the reliability and validity of measures, and hierarchical linear regression and bootstrapping were used to test all hypotheses.

Fulfillment of the need for autonomy, relatedness and competence in a virtual brand community boosts users' psychological ownership and has a positive influence on their knowledge-sharing behavior. Furthermore, psychological ownership partially mediates the relationships between the fulfillment of psychological needs and knowledge-sharing behavior. In addition, the authors found that when users participate in more offline brand activities, the positive impact of the fulfillment of the need for relatedness on psychological ownership is strengthened, while the positive impact of the fulfillment of the need for autonomy on psychological ownership is weakened.

The paper contributes to the existing literature by exploring the relationships between fulfilling users' three basic psychological needs and their knowledge-sharing behavior through the mediating role of psychological ownership. The authors also provide insight into how offline brand activities interact with the fulfillment of psychological needs in virtual brand communities.

Business use of social media is increasing rapidly as marketers aim to increase customer brand engagement (CBE) in brand communities to enhance the brand experience. However, use of social media for marketing communications is not well understood. This study aims to examine manager and user views of CBE and effects of perceived social presence (PSP) on CBE in a corporate Facebook environment.

Qualitative in-depth interviews are conducted with 18 users of corporate Facebook – i.e. those who visit corporate Facebook regularly – and four marketing managers whose companies operate Facebook pages. The industry is smart-information technology devices, and the cultural context is Thailand.

Corporate Facebook sites with high SP functions foster customer engagement on cognitive, emotional and behavioral levels. PSP enhances product knowledge and encourages return page visits. Thus, CBE and PSP build brand trust and loyalty. However, managers may need to focus more on the nature of the brand community beyond the corporate Facebook page.

Companies that enrich their corporate Facebook with SP features can encourage CBE. Consumers feel more informed about the brand and therefore feel more positively about it, which enhances the brand experience and brand trust. This holds even for lurkers who do not behaviorally engage on the Facebook page much, but who are active in the broader brand community.

This paper studies the relationship between PSP and CBE in a corporate Facebook environment, providing insights into how PSP influences CBE, which can enhance the customer’s brand experience and contribute to brand perceptions.

Given the emergent nature of i‐branding as an academic field of study and a lack of applied research output, the aim of this paper is to explain how businesses manage i‐branding to create brand equity.

Within a case‐study approach, seven cases were developed from an initial sample of 20 food businesses. Additionally, utilising secondary data, the analysis of findings introduces relevant case examples from other industrial sectors.

Specific internet tools and their application are discussed within opportunities to create brand equity for products classified by experience, credence and search characteristics. An understanding of target customers will be critical in underpinning the selection and deployment of relevant i‐branding tools. Tools facilitating interactivity – machine and personal – are particularly significant.

Future research positioned within classification of goods constructs could provide further contributions that recognise potential moderating effects of product/service characteristics on the development of brand equity online. Future studies could also employ the i‐branding conceptual framework to test its validity and develop it further as a means of explaining how i‐branding can be managed to create brand equity.

While previous research has focused on specific aspects of i‐branding, this paper utilises a conceptual framework to explain how diverse i‐branding tools combine to create brand equity. The literature review integrates fragmented literature around a conceptual framework to produce a more coherent understanding of extant thinking. The location of this study within a classification of goods context proved critical to explaining how i‐branding can be managed.

A rise in international travel leads to increased competitiveness in the hotel industry. The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating effect of social networking relationships on the association between innovative capability (IC) and firm performance in Ghana’s hotel industry.

Data are collected from managers of 200 registered hotels in the northern region of Ghana. Data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire, with variables measured on a seven-point Likert scale.

The findings reveal a mixture of confirmation for the relationships hypothesized in this study. IC influences the financial as well as the operational performance of hotels and guesthouses in Ghana. Social network relationships have a slight tendency to positively impact on business performance. Network relationships with the community leaders enable hotels to gain knowledge from local communities to build its IC. Social networking with political leaders does not moderate the relationship between IC and performance.

The findings provide empirical support for the viability and performance benefits of developing IC, so as to inform management interventions. It is focused on Sub-Saharan Africa specifically, where managers in the hospitality industry need to find new approaches to develop IC in order to remain competitive. The potential contribution of this study lies in the moderating role that IC plays in the relationship between different types of social networking relationship and performance of hotels.

This study aims to provide a conceptual framework for exploring the relationship between online game product engagement and online brand community engagement and how these two types of customer engagement affect subsequent offline benefit for customers and online and offline benefits for firms. This study also investigates the antecedents of online game product engagement from the virtual experience perspective.

This study collected data from online gamers in Taiwan. Of the 580 responses, 548 were valid. Smart PLS 3 was used to test the measurement model and the hypotheses in the research model.

The conceptual model is supported. First, the findings show that learning, entertainment, flow and social interaction play key roles in explaining online game product engagement. Second, online game product engagement has a positive effect on online brand community engagement. Finally, online game product engagement and online brand community engagement are crucial drivers of customers’ offline benefit and firms’ online and offline benefits.

Four contributions are made by this study. First, this study explores firms’ online benefit (virtual item purchase intention) and offline benefits, including licensed product and co-branded product purchase intention. Second, this study explores the customer’s offline benefit (offline skill development). Third, it focuses on two types of customer engagement, including online game product engagement and online brand community engagement, and explores the relationship between them. Finally, the concept of virtual experience is used to explore the antecedents of online game product engagement.

This paper aims to measure the relationship between online experiential marketing (during the purchasing process involving information search and booking) and offline experiential marketing (during the stay) with hotel brand equity. In addition, the study attempts to determine if there is a significant link between the online hotel experience and the subsequent offline hotel stay experience.

A self-report survey was conducted in a series of four-star hotels in Granada city. The questionnaire was focused on measuring online experience, offline experience and brand equity. For the analysis of the data, a structural equations model was developed.

The results suggest that the experience during the hotel stay, contrary to that of the online purchase process, has an influence on hotel brand equity. Nonetheless, the online experience has a significant impact on the hotel stay experience.

This study is of particular utility for hotel management given that, although it is a sector that for several years has integrated experiential marketing in its service strategy, there is little research analyzing the impact of such actions on the variables that are of interest to the hotel.

There are no hotel sector studies that have jointly analyzed the role of the online and offline tourist experience and its role in contributing to brand equity. Recognizing the previous notions will allow hotels to identify where to focus marketing efforts so as to increase brand equity.

Esta investigación pretende medir la relación existente entre el marketing experiencial online (durante el proceso de compra online) y offline (durante la estancia), con el capital de marca del sector hotelero. Además, busca identificar si existe relación significativa entre la experiencia online y la experiencia offline.

Se pasó un cuestionario autoadministrado a turistas alojados en hoteles de cuatro estrellas de la ciudad de Granada. El cuestionario medía la experiencia online, la experiencia offline y el capital de marca. Para el análisis de los datos se desarrolló un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales.

Los resultados indican que la experiencia vivida durante la estancia tiene influencia en el capital de marca, mientras que la experiencia durante la compra online no presenta relación con el capital de marca. Sin embargo, esta experiencia online tiene impacto en la experiencia vivida durante la estancia.

Este estudio es de particular utilidad para la gestión hotelera dado que, aunque el sector desde hace años ha integrado el marketing experiencial en su estrategia de servicio, pocas investigaciones analizan el impacto de dichas acciones sobre las variables que les interesan.

Dentro del sector hotelero no hay estudios que analicen conjuntamente el papel de la experiencia turística online y offline y su papel en la contribución al capital de marca. Este conocimiento permite determinar dónde enfocar los esfuerzos de marketing para aumentar el capital de marca.

Many studies have examined the use of social media by either customers or firms, especially in developed markets. However, little is known about why young individual entrepreneurs use digital channels (DCs) as business platforms in emerging markets (EMs) and how they integrate them into their marketing activities. This paper aims to try filling this gap.

Given the exploratory nature of this research, the authors employ a qualitative approach based on a focus group (12 participants) and semi-structured interviews (8 participants) with young entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia. The authors adopted a deductive thematic analysis based on pre-determined theoretical frameworks to analyse and interpret the data.

The authors found that the young entrepreneurs mainly used Instagram, Snapchat and, to a moderate extent, YouTube as digital marketing channels for advertising purposes. However, they used WhatsApp for establishing direct contact and personalising communication with customers. The entrepreneurs used these channels because they are useful, easy to use, cost-effective, fun and widely used by local customers. The authors also found that the entrepreneurs used social media and offline channels conjointly in three main marketing activities (communication/promotion, transactions and customer service) to boost the customer purchasing process. The complementarity of social media and offline channels was found to improve brand visibility, enlarge markets and strengthen the customer relationship. However, the achievement of these benefits varied across small firms depending on the entrepreneurs' abilities in coordinating multiple channels and according to the distinctiveness of their businesses.

This study contributes to the entrepreneurial literature by extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to explain the motives behind the use of DCs amongst individual entrepreneurs. Furthermore, this paper proposes a novel theoretical framework for studying the interaction between online and offline marketing channels during the purchasing process. Through this framework, the study provides new insights into channel coordination and multi-channel customer behaviours from the entrepreneur's perspective.

This study helps understand why small firms use different DCs. Likewise, it shows how young entrepreneurs coordinate online/offline channels in a complementary manner. The findings could also help in designing appropriate programmes encouraging young entrepreneurs to use online channels and social media to enhance their business activities.

This study offers a novel attempt at explaining the use of DCs and their interaction with traditional channels from the entrepreneur's perspective and brings new insights to why and how young entrepreneurs use DCs in an emerging market.

The purpose of this paper is to look into the relationship between the physical aspect of a retail store, product‐related attributes, personal interaction with customers and perceived reliability and corporate brand image in an offline or bricks and mortar context.

The study is based on 511 interviews conducted in various bookstores and uses structural equation modelling as a statistical tool for concluding the above.

The paper argues that physical aspect of a retail store, product‐related attributes and personal interaction with customers will have a significant and positive direct effect on the offline corporate brand image whilst there was no significant connection between reliability and corporate brand image.

The research has been conducted in one organisation, albeit a number of bookstores were scrutinized.

The paper's managerial contribution lies in its lessons for practitioners who want to understand what are the key drivers of corporate brand image in an offline context. It also provides a background for further studies which can extrapolate the current thinking into other sectors in order to validate or refute the results presented here.

The paper scrutinizes the impact of: physical aspects; product related information; reliability; and personal interaction in the corporate brand image of a retail organisation.

This chapter integrates research that highlights and demonstrates the importance of the marketing mix and customer attitudinal metrics in influencing the customer’s path to purchase. A key objective of this chapter is the provision of an integrative conceptual framework that links marketing actions to customer mindset metrics along the consumer’s path to purchase and the identification of the mechanisms by which customer mindset metrics contribute to consumer purchase journey. Specifically, it delineates two routes for the effects to manifest on sales: the “mindset route” where marketing actions influence customer mindset metrics, which in turn influence brand performance, or the “transactions route” where marketing actions influence market performance directly without influencing the intermediate mindset metrics. A second objective is to identify empirical patterns on incorporating marketing mix and mindset metrics along the path to purchase by reviewing key papers in this domain. Finally, the chapter concludes with the formulation of a rich, forward-looking research agenda on the customer mindset metrics – path to purchase link.