Search results

This paper aims to explore some of the effects of belonging to a virtual brand community on consumer behaviour. It also proposes the concept of belonging as a three‐dimensional construct.

The paper proposes that belonging to a virtual community has positive effects on consumer satisfaction, affective commitment and word‐of‐mouth behaviour. After validation of the measurement scales the hypotheses are contrasted through modelling.

The data show that belonging to a virtual community may enhance consumer satisfaction, affective commitment and word‐of‐mouth advertising towards the brand around which the community is developed. In addition, the paper introduces a third dimension to the construct of belonging, called non‐participative belonging. Active participative belonging influences the level of satisfaction and affective commitment more positively than passive and non‐participative belonging.

Data were obtained through surveys, web surveys and online interviews. There were also limitations of sample size and sampling procedure.

Managers may enhance consumer satisfaction, affective commitment and word‐of‐mouth advertising by developing virtual brand communities and promoting consumers' participation in them.

Previous works that have focused on virtual brand communities have never concentrated on virtual brand communities within Facebook. In addition, prior to this study, belonging to a virtual brand community was a two‐dimensional construct: active and passive participative belonging. The paper identifies a third dimension as non‐participative belonging. Thus this paper offers new areas for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors influencing customers’ willingness to participate in virtual brand community’s value co-creation and help companies better operating the virtual brand community.

Based on social cognitive theory and the features of the virtual brand community, this paper constructed a model of factors influencing customers’ willingness to participate in virtual brand community’s value co-creation. Then this paper quantitatively analyzed the mediating effect and the moderating effect.

The empirical analysis came to the following conclusions: first, in virtual brand communities, customers’ willingness to participate in value co-creation would be influenced by subject factors, environment factors, brand factors and perceived value factor. Second, customer involvement is an important moderator. The more involved the customer is, the more he/she will rely on the virtual brand community. Particularly, customer involvement has a positive moderating effect on the influence of subject factors, while it has a negative moderating effect on the influence of community experience and community trust. Third, perceived value plays a significant mediating role between subject factors and customers’ willingness to participate in value co-creation.

The results of this study can help companies better understand the influence of external factors like environment and brand so that they can better operate the virtual brand community and encourage customers to contribute to the development of the community and the brand.

Most of the existing studies focused on the formation of virtual brand communities and customers’ participation behaviors, but there is limited research focusing on what contributes to customers’ participation in value co-creation of virtual brand communities. This study, therefore, attempts to bridge the research gap.

Even if crowdfunding is now practiced on all continents, not all countries have reached the same stage in creating a legal framework. The countries based on common law were the first to practice crowdfunding and have, for the majority of them, already regulated the use of crowdfunding. On continental Europe, the countries experienced a later development of crowdfunding but they nevertheless wished to be at the forefront of crowdfunding legislation. The purpose of this chapter is to present the main legislation or projects related to crowdfunding seeking to compare, as far as possible, the different legal frameworks together.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze a study of publics that was conducted by the Corporate Communications Department of Petrobras, an integrated energy company of Brazilian origin, one of the ten largest in its sector worldwide. Petrobras' strategic vision for 2020 includes the goal of becoming the preferred company among its publics of interest. To achieve this, Petrobras had to develop a concept and categories of its publics that could be applied to all the company's areas and subsidiaries.

The study was based on analysis of theories related to publics and stakeholders, secondary data gathering, and on consultation of Petrobras areas and subsidiaries through workshops.

The analysis of theories of publics and stakeholders enabled the identification of some variables that can provide a basis for building concepts. The project identified needs and issues of each Petrobras public and gave rise to the concept and categories of publics of interest of the company.

The project brought greater understanding of the individuals and groups that compose the network to which Petrobras belongs. The participative process of internal consultation amplified the debate on the theme and enabled the conceptualization and classification of publics for Petrobras as a whole. The project represents a direct collaboration of the Corporate Communications Department with the company's strategic vision.

The study reinforces the perspective that, faced with myriad concepts, an organization can develop its own definition and classification of publics or stakeholders in order to help it to manage its relationships.

Examines Hong Kong′s current requirements in terms of management training and development against the various challenges to be met in providing for those needs. Much of the available training material is produced by Western theorists and practitioners and aimed at Western consumers. The problems involved in transferring such material to the Hong Kong context far exceed those of language and translation. Considerable cultural gaps have to be narrowed, not only in adapting the training material to ensure its relevance, but also in matters of style of delivery, in order to meet the training needs of today′s Chinese students of management.

This exploratory research project investigated how mainland Chinese business students studying overseas conceptualize and describe the learning effectiveness of ten different instructional techniques commonly encountered in their business courses. A large numbers of mainland Chinese students enroll in business courses in private international institutions in Singapore – dislocated from their home cultures – but needing to adapt to Western learning curricula and ultimately to acquire proficiency in Western business practices. Certain instructional techniques are likely to bridge the cultural gap better than others. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Twenty consenting students selected from 400+ geographically diverse Chinese students participating in a larger study provided face-to-face interview information on how different instructional techniques stimulated different aspects of content acquisition, learner group dynamics, decision-making, learning efficiency, comfort, flexibility, familiarity, and applicability.

Interviewees' free-form descriptions of “learning effectiveness” included phrases such as “quality of learning”, “control over my learning”, “scope of knowledge”, “efficiency of learning”, “gaining/acquiring knowledge”, “understanding theories”, “flexibility in time and place”, “applicability of new information”, “attractive learning environment”, “[absence of] ambiguity and uncertainty”, “security and ease of mind”, etc. Their 340 descriptors were classified into 30 qualitative indicator categories, four of them common to many instructional techniques and ten more specific to individual techniques.

Although Chinese mainland students generally prefer rote-learning styles of instructional techniques due to their prolonged exposure to it, rote-style techniques may not always be the preferred choices for learning effectiveness and adaptation to new culture norms and practices. This paper reports qualitative “consultations” with learners in new cultures and argues for holistic and engaged approaches to learning effectiveness for students dislocated from their home cultures while providing a starting-point for further research in mainland Chinese students' Western-based business education in Singapore and elsewhere.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a new trend of training mainland Chinese students in Western‐style business education in Singapore. The paper examines the influence of the inferred learning effectiveness and cultural dislocation variables when measured across ten commonly used instructional techniques.

The use of consensual qualitative research allowed the data to be qualitatively analysed. The random selection of 20 participants represents mainland Chinese students, from the northern, southern, eastern and western regions. The study reports the level of knowledge acquisition, the relationship between comfort and knowledge acquired and the differences between the active and passive instructional techniques on students' learning effectiveness.

Rote‐learning styles of instructional techniques may not be the Chinese students' only preferred choice in terms of acquisition of knowledge and how they learn most effectively.

The present exploratory study provides a starting‐point for further research into understanding how to teach Western‐based business education to mainland Chinese students in Singapore.

The findings will give institutions conducting Western‐based education programs in Singapore an advantage in providing effective learning pedagogies, and will assist in increasing their quality, which will enable them to nurture well‐qualified business professionals.

The quality of the educational standard and its compatibility with the Asian client base are further enhanced both in terms of contents' intensity and educational services provided to students.

The paper offers practical help from the perspective of the curriculum design and development of an effective business educational framework to sustain profitability by offering tailor‐made, superior quality course programs.

This paper considers the learning, teaching and assessment preferences of the Chinese learner in the context of distance learning. To do this a literature search of the teaching, learning and assessment preferences of Chinese students was conducted. The search indicated that there are several possible differences. These are that Chinese students are rote learners who have distinct preferences for certain methods of teaching, learning and assessment, and have a different view of the role of the teacher. In order to test this, a qualitative questionnaire covering these issues was completed by 25 Hong Kong Chinese students who are studying distance learning courses offered at the School of Sport and Leisure Management, Sheffield Hallam University. From the research the paper concludes that there are educational differences that must be addressed if Chinese students are to reach their full potential on distance learning courses offered by UK universities.

Crowd logistics is a rising phenomenon in last-mile delivery that integrates technological applications and sources a large number of participants to do logistical activities, achieving sustainable shipping in urban environments. However, up until now, there has been limited literature in this field. This research aims to investigate the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that impact the participative behaviour of driver-partners in crowd logistics.

An integrated model is developed based on motivation theory, incorporating attitude as a contributor to both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. A questionnaire was constructed and distributed to collect data from 303 respondents who are existing or potential driver-partners in Vietnam.

Our findings confirm (1) the influence of monetary rewards on extrinsic motivation and (2) the power of self-efficacy, trust and sense of belonging on intrinsic motivation. Further, we find that attitude positively impacts extrinsic motivation, whereas there is no effect between attitude and intrinsic motivation. Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are demonstrated to significantly influence driver-partners' participative intentions. Additionally, a positive association is found between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations.

Findings from this study theoretically enrich the literature on crowd logistics, especially on the supply side, and empirically contribute to implications that are valuable to crowd logistics firms on driver-partner recruitment and business strategy development.