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1 – 4 of 4Subhadip Roy and Shamindra Nath Sanyal
This study aims to explore the dimensions of perceived consumption vulnerability (PCV) for the elderly citizens (EC) in India and its consequences. Consumer vulnerability is a…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the dimensions of perceived consumption vulnerability (PCV) for the elderly citizens (EC) in India and its consequences. Consumer vulnerability is a recent and important construct for marketers and policymakers to understand the consumption behavior of the EC.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve the study objectives, the authors conducted 50 in-depth interviews and six focus group discussions of ECs in two large cities in India. The authors used grounded theory methodology to understand the PCV construct.
Findings
The findings suggest a five-dimensional formative PCV construct with the dimensions being Physical, Financial, Social, Technological and Service Vulnerability contributing to PCV. The findings also suggest a relationship between PCV and consumption variables such as search cost, choice evaluation, consumption and overall satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
The major contribution of the present study is the exploration of the PCV construct for the EC and its dimensions. The propositions developed in the study could be tested in future studies using a quantitative approach.
Practical implications
The findings call for compassion from the marketers while dealing with the ECs and a separate service strategy that addresses the specific needs of the ECs.
Social implications
The findings call for public policy action to protect the consumption rights of the ECs to reduce their consumption vulnerability.
Originality/value
The present study is a novel attempt to explore the PCV construct and its role in defining consumer behavior of the ECs.
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Ya Zhang and Jing Zhang
This study explores the impact of brand's psychological contract violation on customers' spurious loyalty, via the mediating effects of customers' brand commitments (affective…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the impact of brand's psychological contract violation on customers' spurious loyalty, via the mediating effects of customers' brand commitments (affective commitment, calculative commitment and normative commitment) and the moderating effects of justification for violation and nostalgia proneness in the link of psychological contract violation and three commitments.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on 427 valid responses collected from paper- and web-based survey questionnaires, a total of 21 hypotheses were tested by adopting a structural equation model, hierarchical regression technique and slope analyses.
Findings
The result indicates negative effects of psychological contract violation on customers' attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty via affective commitment and normative commitment, as well as positive effects of psychological contract violation on customers' attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty via calculative commitment. It explains the reason why some loyal customers show spurious loyalty after being psychological contract violated. Meanwhile, it also supports different moderating impacts of justification for violation and nostalgia proneness in these relationships.
Originality/value
This study underscores the importance of calculative commitment in mitigating the adverse effect of psychological contract violation on customers' loyalty. Also, managerial implications are put forward to prevent loyal customers from switching to a worse loyalty stage after being violated.
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Seyed Mohammad Sadegh Khaksar, Fatemeh S. Shahmehr, Rajiv Khosla and Mei Tai Chu
By developing a conceptual model, the purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the role of social assistive technologies in facilitating the process of service…
Abstract
Purpose
By developing a conceptual model, the purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the role of social assistive technologies in facilitating the process of service innovation in care providing organisations to adopt the principles of the consumer-directed care strategy and reduce perceived consumer vulnerability.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a cross-sectional survey method, the authors collected data through a survey questionnaire distributed among 335 aged caregivers and specialists. The conceptual model and its 11 research hypotheses were examined using confirmatory factor analysis in structural equation modelling. The rival and mediation models were also estimated.
Findings
The conceptual model was validated and eight of eleven hypotheses were supported. It was found that dynamic capabilities are crucial to developing service innovation concept in care providing organisations. In this way, social assistive technologies play a facilitating role to promote the consumer-directed care strategy throughout care providing organisations and allow care providers to enhance wellbeing of vulnerable older people based on their socio-economic status. From the lens of aged care providers, it was also found that the consumer-directed care strategy implemented in aged care facilities may help reduce consumer vulnerability among older people especially when they use social assistive technologies in their service settings.
Practical implications
This study suggests aged care service providers should boost dynamic service innovation capabilities to improve the need for social assistive technologies in aged care facilities with respect to the importance of the consumer-directed care strategy.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the development and validation of a conceptual model for the use of social assistive technologies to sustain service innovation in aged care business models and enhance the consumer-directed care strategy’s performance to better understand consumer vulnerability among older people.
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Zhen Shao, Yue Guo, Xiaotong Li and Stuart Barnes
Despite the growing popularity of ride-sharing in China, our understanding regarding users' trust and behavioral intention toward this new type of hailing service is still…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the growing popularity of ride-sharing in China, our understanding regarding users' trust and behavioral intention toward this new type of hailing service is still limited. This study aims to examine the joint influences of institution-based, process-based and characteristic-based antecedents on customers' trust and continuance intention toward ride-sharing. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate if the relative influences of institution-based and process-based antecedents on trust are contingent upon customers' prior experience.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon trust-building literature and the elaboration-likelihood model, we developed a research model and conducted an online survey to users of Didi, the largest ride-sharing platform in China. We used the structural equation modeling technique to analyze the collected data and examine the proposed research model.
Findings
Ther major research findings of the study suggest that structural assurance, government support, platform reputation and disposition to trust exhibit significant and different degrees of influences on customers' trust beliefs and continuance intention toward ride-sharing. A multi-group analysis further suggests that customers with less use experience focus more on government support and platform reputation, while customers with more use experience are more likely influenced by structural assurance.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the extant literature by identifying the joint influences of institutional-based, process-based and characteristic-based antecedents on users' continuance intention of ride-sharing service and uncovers the mediation mechanism of trust and perceived risk. Moreover, the study refines the boundary condition of the proposed research model by revealing the moderating effect of use experience.
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