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This article provides an in-depth understanding of customer experience with smart services, examines customer perceptual responses to smart and connected service environments and enriches this understanding by outlining how contextual factors (in terms of goals, activities, actors and artifacts) influence the customer experience.

This study adopts a qualitative approach in order to understand customer experience in the smart energy service setting. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with 31 participants forming three groups of energy service customers: advanced smart energy (ASE) customers, electric mobility (EM) customers and high-consumption (HC) customers.

The findings show that customer experience with smart services involves a multidimensional set of perceptual responses, comprising specific smart service dimensions (e.g. controllability, visibility, autonomy); relationship dimensions (relationships with the service provider and with the community); and traditional technology-enabled service dimensions (e.g. ease of use, accessibility). The analysis of contextual factors such as goals, activities, actors and artifacts shows that smart services enable a more autonomous experience, wherein customers can integrate a myriad of actors and artifacts and expect the main service provider to support them in taking the lead.

Smart technologies have profoundly changed the service environment, but research on customer experience with smart services is scarce. This study characterizes smart services, provides an in-depth understanding of customer experience in this new context, and discusses relevant implications for management and service research.

This study aims to propose an experiential model of consumer engagement focusing on Facebook brand pages. Building on the brand experience literature, the study synthesizes the experiential affordances of Facebook brand pages along perceptual, social, epistemic and embodied dimensions and tests their impact on consumer engagement.

The study operationalized key variables of the proposed model at the brand page level and assembled pertinent data, using systematic content analysis, on a sample of Facebook brand pages (n = 85). Poisson regression tested the proposed model.

The findings indicate that brands that facilitate greater number of experiential affordances on their Facebook brand pages generated higher levels of consumer engagement. For both brand post likes and brand post shares, the contributions of experiential affordances were significant and positive.

The findings offer actionable managerial insights for brands seeking to implement an experiential model of consumer engagement on their fan pages.

This study contributes to the literature by proposing and testing an experiential model of consumer engagement in the context of Facebook brand pages. To date, the experiential value of Facebook brand pages has rarely, if at all, been tested in an empirical study.

Global and local processing is part of human perceptual organisation, where global processing helps extract the “gist” of the visual information and local processing helps perceive the details. Individual differences in these two types of visual processing have been found in autism and ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Virtual reality (VR) has become a more available method of research in the last few decades. No previous research has investigated perceptual differences using this technology.

The objective of the research is to threefold: (1) identify if there is association between ADHD and autistic traits and the performance on the Rey-Osterrieth complex figure (ROCF) task, (2) investigate practical effects of using VR drawing tools for research on perceptual experiences and (3) explore any perceptual differences brought out by the three-dimensional nature of the VR. The standard ROCF test was used as a baseline task to investigate the practical utility of using VR as an experimental platform. A total of 94 participants were tested.

Attention-to-detail, attention switching and imagination subscales of autism quotient (AQ) questionnaire were found to be predictors of organisational ROCF scores, whereas only the attention-to-detail subscale was predictive of perceptual ROCF scores.

The current study is an example of how classic psychological paradigms can be transferred into the virtual world. Further investigation of the distinct individual preferences in drawing tasks in VR could lead to a better understanding of individual differences in the processing of visuospatial information.

Emergence of COVID-19 has posed a big challenge around the world demanding responsible behavior at all levels for effective mitigation of its adverse effects on humanity. Despite deadly nature of the pandemic, people yet tend to violate the lockdowns, social distancing, and related protective measures. This study presents a critical view and identifies underlying causes of the deviant behavior of masses. It highlights specific areas where responsible leadership can make a difference in fighting the pandemic from organizational perspective.

Qualitative data collected through in depth interviews from three different countries - Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia. The data was collected thrice with time lags and integrated view has been presented in this study.

The study finds that perceptual dissonance, cost of protective behavior, reactive attraction and perceived triviality of protective measures are some of the main causes of deviant behavior.

Although the data have been collected from three countries, yet smaller sample size remains a limitation of the study. Similarly, the longitudinal data was collected once in each wave of COVID-19 and its increased frequency could make findings more reliable.

The findings provide an “analysis template” for responsible leaders to analyze any crisis situation in future. In the light of findings, leaders can locate causes of deviant behavior and the way they can influence behavior of employees in a crisis.

The study is highly valuable in analysis of social dimension of COVID-19 crisis at organizational level. It clearly highlights the significance of social and financial support by responsible leaders for influencing the protective intentions of employees in an emergency situation.

The organizational perspective and the responsibilities of leaders for fighting the pandemic has not been adequately explored. This study has investigated the likely causes of deviant behavior of employees in adoption of protective measures. It also highlights the areas where responsible leaders can make a difference in inducing protective behaviors.

This scholarly investigation explores the Malaysian golfers' experience in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia golf courses. The study sheds light on the unique attributes of golf tourism in each country, including the courses, facilities, services and overall golfing experiences offered to golf tourists.

Qualitative data were procured through in-depth semi-structured interviews with a cohort of 13 Malaysian golfers.

The findings indicate that golfers' experiences are affected by the quality of service, facilities, price and course condition, ultimately contributing to their satisfaction level. The evidence suggests that Malaysian golfers are comparatively more satisfied with golf courses in Thailand and Indonesia than in Malaysia.

The study underscores the importance of golf course attributes in retaining existing golfers and enticing new ones. Besides, as comparative research on golf course attributes and destination preferences is scant, this study has far-reaching implications, empowering Malaysian golf course managers to augment the appeal and quality of their golf course destination to optimise the behavioural intentions of golf tourists.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the auditory-sensory characteristics of the digital pop music that is particularly successful on the YouTube website by measuring young listeners’ brain responses to highly successful pop music noninvasively.

The authors conducted a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) experiment with 56 young adults (23 females; mean age 24 years) with normal vision and hearing and no record of neurological disease. The authors calculated total blood flow (TBF) and hemodynamic randomness and examined their relationships with online popularity.

The authors found that TBF to the right medial prefrontal cortex increased more when the young adults heard music that presented acoustic stimulation well above previously defined optimal sensory level. The hemodynamic randomness decreased significantly when the participants listened to music that provided near- or above-OSL stimulation.

Online popularity, recorded as the number of daily hits, was significantly positively related with the TBF and negatively related with hemodynamic randomness.

These findings suggest that a new media marketing strategy may be required that can provide a sufficient level of sensory stimulation to Millennials in order to increase their engagements in various use cases including entertainment, advertising and retail environments.

Digital technology has so drastically reduced the costs of sharing and disseminating information, including music, that consumers can now easily use digital platforms to access a wide selection of music at minimal cost. The structure of the current music market reflects the decentralized nature of the online distribution network such that artists from all over the world now have equal access to billions of members of the global music audience.

This study confirms the importance of understanding target customer’s sensory experiences would grow in determining the success of digital contents and marketing.

In marketing literature, notions of experience and consumer value have continuously been revisited since early works in the 1980s. This chapter deals with how tourism services are a paradigmatic realm for the analysis and application of the experiential approach by (a) providing evidence of the idiosyncrasy of the experiential approach for tourism services based on their high subjectivity, the relevance of emotions and sensations, their aggregated nature and the many interactions and contexts they provoke, and (b) reviewing previous works applying the experiential perspective to tourism, which are varied and multifaceted. Dimensions of tourism experiential value correspond to cognitive, affective, relational and sensorial aspects, which are present in the various phases of the tourism consumption process. Insights for both researchers and practitioners interested in the world of experiences in tourism are offered, as well as future lines of research to continue the challenge of studying tourism experiences.

The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship of a few sensory environmental parameters, mainly visual and acoustical stimuli, with childrens' behaviour and performance in special needs schools.

Analysis of teaching layouts and the sequence of activities in ten selected special needs schools have been conducted using questionnaire directed at carers and teachers. The findings were cross‐validated via open‐ended interviews with teachers and carers to glean more in‐depth understanding about sensory influences.

Several sensory parameters were observed in the teaching environment: bright colours and light, pattern glare, echoing, higher and low‐pitch sound and background noise level. The study identified numerous factors having a negative effect on children's behaviour.

This paper provides further understanding of the key factors contributing to the quality of teaching environment consistent with user's need and expectations. It provides suggestions regarding the briefing and design to support childrens' performance. This can assist in developing alternative design guidelines based on users‐centered approach to schools design.

This paper will highlight issues for open discussion amongst all those involved in the process of planning, design and management of school environments which further reduce the undesirable consequences of the aforementioned parameters towards improving their operational efficiency in use.