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Understanding customer behavior from the perspective of channel integration has become a major stream of research in multi-channel retailing literature. Yet, despite recent advancements in scholarship, how retailers can most effectively sustain customers in online retailing remains unclear. Scholars have suggested online–offline channel integration (OOCI) as an effective multi-channel approach for increasing online loyalty; yet, few studies have explored OOCI's influencing mechanism. This study addresses that gap by investigating how OOCI helps achieve customer loyalty online and further examines the moderating role of retailer credibility in the influencing mechanism of OOCI.

The research model driving this study draws upon the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model and cue consistency theory. The authors collected a sample of 259 customers in China with experience making multi-channel purchases from retailers that have implemented OOCI in online retailing. Structural equation modeling and response surface analyses were employed to conduct data analysis.

The results revealed that the relationship between OOCI and customers' online channel loyalty was mediated by customers' perceptions of the usefulness and risks of online channel usage. The results also found that congruence and incongruence between informational OOCI (IOOCI) and fulfillment OOCI (FOOCI) had different curvilinear associations with perceived online channel usefulness and perceived online channel risk. In addition, retailer credibility weakened the effects of IOOCI on perceived online channel usefulness and FOOCI on perceived online channel risk but strengthened the effect of IOOCI on perceived online channel risk and had no impact on the effect of FOOCI on perceived online channel risk.

Theoretical and practical implications of this study are also discussed.

The ongoing impact of COVID-19 and the subsequent perception of threat have shifted consumer perceptions and evaluations of service experiences. This paper aims to investigate how customers’ service evaluation is shared as customer reviews following the pandemic and the heightened perception of threat. In doing so, this research particularly investigates the shifts in the textual contents of online reviews.

This study used the textual contents in the online reviews posted on Hotels.com for 1,497 hotels in New York City for empirical analysis. In total, 109,190 observations were used for the analysis.

By analyzing actual online review data from an online review platform for hotel services, this study finds that the text reviews generated after the pandemic outbreak tend to contain words with stronger negative emotions. In terms of the pronoun choice, this study further finds that the use of “I” increases while the use of “we” decreases.

This research adds to the existing literature on service evaluation and online customer reviews by showing that there are shifts in the expressions used to communicate service evaluation through online text reviews, including the degree of emotionality and pronoun usage. Because potential customers are likely to rely on online reviews for their own decisions, the findings suggest that it is important for practitioners to be aware of such shifts and respond accordingly.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of online reviews on consumers’ intention to visit restaurants, with the moderating role of involvement.

The research framework was built on signaling theory, message appeals and involvement theory. To test the proposed framework, three experiments were conducted online with real customer samples. T-tests, ANOVA and SPSS PROCESS macro were used for data analysis.

The results revealed that online reviews with higher online ratings and emotional appeal led to higher restaurant visit intention. Review appeal significantly moderated the effect of online ratings on restaurant visit intention. Customers with low restaurant involvement were more impacted by emotional comments than by functional comments.

The present study extends our knowledge on the effects of online reviews moderated by levels of customer involvement. By combining signaling theory with involvement theory, it adds value to the literature on customer online behavior, especially in the foodservice context. The present study has limitations that might provide opportunities for future research. It used evaluations (TripAdvisor scores) and only positive reviews (texts), so customers’ intentions considering negative reviews could not be examined. The level of hedonism concerning consumption in restaurants and prior knowledge regarding restaurant reviews was not controlled for. It is possible that the level of hedonism perceived and prior review knowledge may moderate the customers’ intention to visit the restaurant.

The present study shows the importance of online comments for the promotion of restaurants that have low evaluation scores. It is essential that restaurant owners and managers encourage potential customers by using comments to elaborate on their marketing strategies and promotion. At the same time, they should invite customers to share their emotional experiences, and not just their views on service efficiency (a functional aspect). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of the internet and mobile devices has become more prominent. Managers could therefore use emotional messages on the restaurant’s website or apps to attract customers with low restaurant involvement. Also, a system to identify the involvement of customers with restaurants could be implemented online or on mobile devices to present specific messages. The present study also recommends the use of online tools as virtual tours, photographs taken from different angles, smiling faces, floor plans and sittings and pre-determined emotional expressions. Also, the restaurant could promote lives on cooking different dishes to motive customer’s interaction and comments. These would help to increase customers’ visit intentions.

This study extends knowledge about the effect of restaurant online reviews (both ratings and appeals) moderated by the level of customer involvement. The present study also adds value to the customer online behavior literature showing that customers with low involvement are more sensitive to emotional content as they use the affective route to process information rather than the central route.

在线评论对餐厅到访意愿的影响：运用信号理论和参与理论

本研究旨在探索以顾客参与度作为调节变量, 关于在线评论对餐厅到访意愿的影响。

本文以信号理论, 信息诉求, 参与理论来建立研究框架。为测试提出的理论框架, 本研究进行了三个在线消费者实验。T-检验, 方差分析, 和SPSS PROCESS 来作为统计方法。

研究发现评论分值越高, 运用感情诉求往往导致更高度的到访意愿。评论的诉求形式显著调节了评分对到访意愿的影响。对于参与度较低的顾客, 情感诉求比功能性诉求更加能影响顾客意愿。

本研究对餐厅在线评论（评分和诉求种类）对顾客到访意愿影响, 以及如何被消费者参与度所调节贡献了新知识。本研究对消费者在线行为做出了贡献, 发现参与度较低的顾客对和情感有关的内容更敏感, 相对于中央路径, 由于此类顾客更倾向于情感路径来处理信息。

This paper aims to analyze if and to what extent mechanical artificial intelligence (AI)-embedded in hotel service robots-influences customers’ evaluation of AI-enabled hotel service interactions. This study deploys online reviews (ORs) analytics to understand if the presence of mechanical AI-related text in ORs influences customers’ OR valence across 19 leading international hotels that have integrated mechanical AI – in the guise of service robots – into their operations.

First, the authors identified the 19 leading hotels across three continents that have pioneered the adoption of service robots. Second, by deploying big data techniques, the authors gathered the entire population of ORs hosted on TripAdvisor (almost 50,000 ORs) and generated OR analytics. Subsequently, the authors used ordered logistic regressions analyses to understand if and to what extent AI-enabled hospitality service interactions are evaluated by service customers.

The presence of mechanical AI-related text (text related to service robots) in ORs influences positively electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) valence. Hotel guests writing ORs explicitly mentioning their interactions with the service robots are more prone to associate high online ratings to their ORs. The presence of the robot’s proper name (e.g., Alina, Wally) in the OR moderates positively the positive effect of mechanical AI-related text on ORs ratings.

Hospitality practitioners should evaluate the possibility to introduce service robots into their operations and develop tailored strategies to name their robots (such as using human-like and short names). Moreover, hotel managers should communicate more explicitly their initiatives and investments in AI, monitor AI-related e-WOM and invest in educating their non-tech-savvy customers to understand and appreciate AI technology. Platform developers might create a robotic tag to be attached to ORs mentioning service robots to signal the presence of this specific element and might design and develop an additional service attribute that might be tentatively named “service robots.”

The current study represents the first attempt to understand if and to what extent mechanical AI in the guise of hotel service robots influences customers’ evaluation of AI-enabled hospitality service interactions.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role and influence of online reviewers’ cultural traits and perceived experience on online review ratings of Russian hotels by taking a direct measurement approach.

The authors adopt an explanatory sequential research design consisting of two stages. In the first stage, based on a sample of almost 75,000 Booking.com online reviews covering hotels located in Moscow (Russia), this study examines quantitatively to what extent the cultural traits of online reviewers and hotel guests’ perceived experience in online reviewing affect online ratings also using censored regressions. In the second stage, it interprets the results in light of semi-structured interviews conducted with a convenience sample of managers.

Each of the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (namely, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and power distance) exerts a significantly negative influence on the hotel online ratings. More specifically, the higher the levels of individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and power distance, the lower the hotel’s online ratings. Reviewers’ perceived experience in online reviewing is negatively related to online ratings.

The study’s findings bear relevant practical implications for hotel managers and online platform managers in countries that are not typically covered by online consumer behavior studies in hospitality such as Russia. From a theoretical viewpoint, this study contributes to cultural studies in hospitality management and marketing with a further development of the nascent research stream taking a direct measurement approach to the study of cultural influences on consumers’ behaviors. Furthermore, this study offers a better and in-depth understanding of the role of cultural traits on electronic word of mouth, as well as international market segmentation theory in online settings.

The conjoint exploration of the effects of cultural differences and perceived experience in online reviewing adds to the nascent research stream taking a direct measurement approach to the study of the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on online consumers’ behaviors. The authors make multiple theoretical and methodological contributions, highlighting that online hospitality customers cannot be considered as one homogeneous mass. Instead, the application of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions allows identifying distinctively different online behaviors across international online customers: different online customer groups can be clustered into segments, as they display different online behaviors and give different online evaluations.

The objectives of this paper are to: examine e‐shopping quality dimensions; explore how e‐shopping quality factors influence consumer shopping outcomes (e‐shopping satisfaction and e‐shopping intention); and test the moderating effects of consumer experiential e‐shopping motives on the e‐shopping quality – e‐shopping outcomes links within the context of online apparel retailing.

Data were gathered from 298 college students in the USA using a self‐administered online survey.

Among four e‐shopping quality factors identified (privacy/security, web site content/functionality, customer service, and experiential/atmospheric), web site content/functionality and atmospheric/experiential quality have significant impact on e‐shopping satisfaction contributing to e‐shopping intention, while privacy/security and customer service have significant impact on e‐shopping intention but not on e‐shopping satisfaction. Furthermore, this study provides some support for the moderating roles that experiential e‐shopping motives plays in the e‐shopping quality – e‐shopping outcomes links.

This paper shows that experiential e‐shopping motives as an individual characteristic play a role in controlling the dynamics among e‐shopping quality, e‐shopping satisfaction, and e‐shopping intention. However, the data consisting of self‐reported measures from a single segment of online retail industry warrants caution in generalization in relation to common method bias.

This paper entails useful implications for internet‐ and multichannel retail marketers delivering apparel/fashion goods to better understand the online consumer response process and determine effective e‐store management strategies that reflect the differing customer evaluation processes.

This study extends and complements the e‐tail service literature by examining whether and how experiential e‐shopping motives moderate the relationships among e‐shopping quality dimensions, e‐shopping satisfaction, and e‐shopping intention.

The main goal of this study is to employ unsupervised (lexicon-based) learning approaches to identify readers' emotional dimensions and thumbs-up empathy reactions to reviews of online travel agency apps based on appraisal and stimulus–organism–response (SOR) theories.

Using the Google Play Scraper, we gathered a total of 402,431 reviews from the Google Play Store for two travel agency apps, Tripadvisor and Booking.com. Following the filtering and cleaning of user reviews, we used lexicon-based unsupervised machine learning algorithms to investigate the associations between various emotional dimensions of reviews and review readers' thumbs-up reactions.

The study's findings reveal that the sentiment of different sorts of reviews has a substantial influence on review readers' emotional experiences, causing them to give the app a thumbs up review. Furthermore, readers' thumbs-up responses to the text reviews differed depending on the eight emotional aspects of the reviews.

The results of this research can be applied in the development of online travel agency apps. The findings suggest that app developers can enhance users' emotional experiences by considering the sentiment and emotional aspects of reviews in their design and implementation. Additionally, the results can be used by travel agencies to improve their online reputation and attract more customers by providing a positive user experience.

The findings of this research have the potential to have a significant impact on society by providing insights into the emotional experiences of users when they engage with online travel agency apps. The study highlights the importance of considering the emotional aspect of user reviews, which can help app developers to create more user-friendly and empathetic products.

The current study is the first to evaluate the impact of users' thumbs-up empathetic reactions on user evaluations of online travel agency applications using unsupervised (lexicon-based) learning methodologies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the motivational effects of personal values on benefits, attributes, and re‐patronage intention in the context of online shopping.

Using means‐end chain theory as a basis for the theoretical framework, the paper proposes and tests a conceptual model of the relationships among the constructs of personal values, benefits, attributes, and re‐patronage intention. Hypotheses are proposed, and these are then tested using structural equation modelling on data from 279 experienced online customers in South Korea.

A personal value of “social affiliation” acts as an enduring belief in motivating a customer to seek hedonic and utilitarian benefits, whereas a personal value of “self actualization” produces motivation to seek only utilitarian benefits. The seeking of hedonic and utilitarian benefits leads customers to evaluate certain attributes of online stores – such as visual design, product assortment, information quality, and after‐sales service. The attributes of online stores have a positive effect on re‐patronage intention.

Limitations include problems associated with convenience sampling (dominated by extrinsically oriented shoppers) and measurement errors (with respect to the construct of personal values). Future studies could examine a more diverse range of personal values and online shopping benefits and attributes.

The present study is the first to investigate personal values as enduring and underlying sources of motivation with respect to online shopping. The paper presents an original conceptual model of personal values, shopping benefits, shopping attributes, and re‐patronage intention.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, develop and test a conceptual model to understand customers’ intention to adopt online complaining. Second, to assess two competing perspectives regarding elaboration likelihood for the moderating impact of individual differences.

A scenario‐based survey was used to assess respondents’ beliefs, attitude, and usage intentions toward online complaining. Furthermore, individual and situational characteristics were assessed. The data were analyzed using partial least squares path modeling.

Attitude toward online complaining is a function of both process and outcome beliefs. It is also influenced by individual characteristics, but remains unaffected by situational characteristics. In contrast, usage intentions are influenced by situational characteristics, but by personal differences. For the moderating impact of affect‐based personality characteristics, the often used cognitive effort perspective to elaboration likelihood is not supported. Rather the consumption value perspective applies for these variables.

The use of a single setting, as well as the use of scenarios, may negatively impact external validity. Future research is needed to further explain the contradictory perspectives regarding information processing.

The results provide insight into determinants of customer online complaining. This opens up new possibilities to increase the number of complainants in case of service failures and for firms to take corrective action.

To the authors’ best knowledge, this is a first empirical study aimed at understanding what drives online customer complaining.

This paper develops a research model to examine the relationship among e‐service quality dimensions and overall service quality, customer satisfaction and purchase intentions.

Data from a survey of 297 online consumers were used to test the research model. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model, and the structural equation modelling technique was used to test the research model.

The analytical results showed that the dimensions of web site design, reliability, responsiveness, and trust affect overall service quality and customer satisfaction. Moreover, the latter in turn are significantly related to customer purchase intentions. However, the personalization dimension is not significantly related to overall service quality and customer satisfaction.

Future research can use different methodologies, such as longitudinal studies, focus groups and interviews, to examine the relationship between service quality and customer purchase behaviour in online shopping contexts.

This study suggests that to enhance customer purchase intentions, online stores should develop marketing strategies to better address the trustworthiness, reliability, and responsiveness of web‐based services. Online stores can devote valuable corporate resources to the important e‐service quality attributes identified by this study.

This study developed the instrument dimensions of e‐service quality by modifying the SERVQUAL model to consider online shopping context. Moreover, the results of this study provide a valuable reference for managers of online stores, as well as for researchers interested in internet marketing.