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1 – 10 of over 14000DongHee Kim, SooCheong (Shawn) Jang and Howard Adler
The purpose of this paper is to determine hidden drivers of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) by modeling attributes of self-relevant and quality-relevant values. This is a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine hidden drivers of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) by modeling attributes of self-relevant and quality-relevant values. This is a meaningful extension of previous consumer behavior research regarding the association of eWOM and self-constructs.
Design/methodology/approach
An on-site survey was conducted to collect data. Statistical analyses, including structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis, were used to empirically examine which factors significantly influence café customers to engage in eWOM.
Findings
The study found significant drivers of eWOM intentions by examining self-relevant values connected with the café, such as conveying reflected appraisal of self, conspicuous presentation and self-image congruity beyond the simple evaluation of service quality. The moderating effect of consumer opinion leadership on the relationships between those drivers and eWOM intentions was also investigated.
Practical implications
The results demonstrated that consumers’ self-construal value was a salient diver of eWOM intentions rather than service quality value itself. However, the findings showed that these service qualities positively influenced opinion leaders’ eWOM intentions to generate information. This makes an important contribution by providing practical messages for foodservice operators to develop more effective marketing strategies.
Originality/value
The present research extends our understanding of the drivers of eWOM beyond the idea that eWOM simply reflects perceived quality evaluations. The authors found that consumers can construct a self-identity and present themselves to others in the virtual world by showing “what they eat or experience”.
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Maria Ek Styvén and Tim Foster
The purpose of this paper is to analyse factors influencing the propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip, across a sample of Millennial and Generation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse factors influencing the propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip, across a sample of Millennial and Generation Z consumers in three different countries.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey was sent to consumers between 16 and 30 years in Sweden, UK and India. Structural equation modelling and multigroup analysis was conducted to compare results between countries and generations.
Findings
Young travellers’ need for uniqueness (NFU) and opinion leadership (OL) with regard to travel tends to increase their propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip. Reflected appraisal of self is strongly related to NFU and OL and may therefore indirectly influence the propensity to share. Some differences were found between generations and countries.
Research limitations/implications
Future research could consider comparisons between travellers from younger and older generations. The hypotheses formulated in this study could be tested in other countries. Further adaptions or extensions of existing NFU scales to fit in the travel and tourism context are suggested.
Practical implications
Millennial and Gen Z consumers will constitute an increasing part of travellers and visitors in the future. Through a better understanding of their behaviour, tourism managers can design strategies to engage them and increase electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM).
Originality/value
This study contributes by addressing the lack of research on “self”-related drivers of eWOM in general social media during the trip, and by providing an international perspective through cross-cultural comparisons.
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Le Thi Thanh Ha and Vo Thanh Thu
This paper examines whether guests contribute sWOM (social word of mouth) on different SNSs (social networking sites) regarding various personal motivations. SNSs have changed the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines whether guests contribute sWOM (social word of mouth) on different SNSs (social networking sites) regarding various personal motivations. SNSs have changed the way guests eat and experience their food and dishes. Marketing managers have effectively targeted SNSs as a marketing tool, yet have little research about drivers of guests' sWOM contribution on SNSs has been done. A model including the significant motives: (1) experiences, (2) opinion leadership, (3) reflection of self and (4) need for unique is tested to investigate their positive effects on contribution behavior of social media guests.
Design/methodology/approach
The data collected from 411 guests by using the snowball method was used for analysis. The structural equation modeling was applied to examine the relationships among the constructs and test the eight proposed hypotheses.
Findings
Results reveal that experiences, opinion leadership, reflection of self and need for unique were positively associated with contributing sWOM of restaurants. Furthermore, those who have positive experiences tend to be opinion leadership and reflection of self. And guests who show reflection of self, they are more likely to have opinion leaders and show need for uniqueness. Our study expands the existing frameworks of sWOM contribution by identifying various motivations and labeling sWOM. Findings provide restaurant managers with managerial implications for online marketing strategies on SNSs to attract sWOM contribution among guests.
Research limitations/implications
It has some limitations while discovering the motivations of positive sWOM contribution. First, we only focused on the motivation of contributing positive sWOM, while negative sWOM received many arguments in changing attitudes toward buying products or services. Second, we collected data in Vietnam only without comparing with different countries. Future research could explore further cross-cultural perspectives to fill the gap. Third, this study explored sWOM contribution in service environment, sWOM contribution from service context may be slightly different from those of product brands.
Practical implications
These findings highlight the motivations of sWOM contribution that restaurant managers must recognize and make use of it. SNSs have given power to consumers to post everything at anytime and anywhere they like, therefore restaurant managers need to deeply understand why their consumers contribute sWOM. In digital era, customers and guests have become the ultimate tools for promoting product or service brands. The marketing managers should create an online platform in order to facilitate their consumers to discuss their brand frequently (Charu et al., 2018). Restaurants should have policies to push positive eWOM maximally and also reduce advertising costs.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies on sWOM contribution of what motivate guests to contribute their sWOM on SNSs. Theoretically, this study offers deep insights into the links between various motivations and sWOM in foodservice context. Managerially, understanding these motivations allow marketing managers create effective policies that motivate guests to contribute positive word of mouth.
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Rob Law, Daniel Leung and Irene Cheng Chu Chan
This study aims to present a state-of-the art review on information and communication technology (ICT) research in hospitality and tourism published between 2014 and 2017.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to present a state-of-the art review on information and communication technology (ICT) research in hospitality and tourism published between 2014 and 2017.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 288 full-length articles from eight top-tier hospitality and tourism journals were gathered by harnessing a systematic literature search approach. Subsequently, the authors used a qualitative content analysis to review, analyse and assign all included articles into a framework with six consumer-related and five supplier-related research streams.
Findings
In terms of volume (i.e. the amounts and ratios of ICT research in top-tier journals by publication year) and variety (i.e. the diversity of research topics), a significant progression of ICT research in hospitality and tourism is observed. However, some old and new knowledge gaps are still inadequately addressed, thus requiring scholars and practitioners to conduct additional research in the future.
Practical implications
The accumulation of knowledge and actionable clues in this study is expected to keep practitioners updated with the overwhelming volume of ICT research.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by accelerating the accumulation of knowledge on research topics and setting forth an agenda for future research. The findings also complement prior literature reviews by providing an overview of how knowledge on ICT research in hospitality and tourism has progressed since 2014.
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Md Rajibul Hasan, Assem Abdunurova, Wenwen Wang, Jiawei Zheng and S.M. Riad Shams
The purpose of this study is to gather insights into digital consumer behaviour related to Chinese restaurents by examining visual contents on Tripadvisor platform.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to gather insights into digital consumer behaviour related to Chinese restaurents by examining visual contents on Tripadvisor platform.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the deep learning approach, this research assessed consumer-posted online content of dining experiences by implementing image analysis and clustering. Text mining using word cloud analysis revealed the most frequently repeated keywords.
Findings
First, 4,000 photos of nine Chinese restaurants posted on Tripadvisor’s website were analyzed using image recognition via Inception V3 and Google’s deep learning network; this revealed 12 hierarchical image clusters. Then, an open-questionnaire survey of 125 Chinese respondents investigated consumers’ information needs before visiting a restaurant and after purchasing behavior (motives to share).
Practical implications
This study contributes to culinary marketing development by introducing a new analysis methodology and demonstrating its application by exploring a wide range of keywords and visual images published on the internet.
Originality/value
This research extends and contributes to the literature regarding visual user-generated content in culinary tourism.
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Christopher D. Hopkins, Catherine A. Roster and Charles M. Wood
This research proposes to examine how the retirement experience in the USA is cultivated via the appraisal process and reflected in post‐retirement lifestyle postures and…
Abstract
Purpose
This research proposes to examine how the retirement experience in the USA is cultivated via the appraisal process and reflected in post‐retirement lifestyle postures and consumption changes.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 298 recent retirees were surveyed to test hypotheses suggested by a proposed model of the retirement experience. The model proposes that the appraisal process is integral in determining how a retiree interprets impact of the event for self‐identity and reflects self‐realignment strategies in post‐retirement consumption patterns.
Findings
Findings show that perceptions of resource availability are important predictors of retiree appraisals. Furthermore, appraisals directly impact retirees' adoption of a post‐transition lifestyle posture, whether “new start”, “continuation of life”, “disruption to life”, or “beginning of old age”. Also explored are differences between lifestyle postures and post‐retirement consumption expenditures across a number of product categories. Generally, retirees who adopt the perspective of retirement as a “new start” or as a “disruption” tend to increase expenditures in “experiential” and “outward‐oriented” product categories. Retirees who adopt the perspective of retirement as the beginning of “old age” or as a “continuation” of past selves tend to increase expenditures in “non‐experiential” and “inward‐oriented” product categories.
Practical implications
Retirees are an increasingly important cohort for marketing in many industries. The findings demonstrate that individuals appraise the retirement event very differently and in turn respond to marketing activities very differently, which has implications for marketing segmentation strategies.
Originality/value
This research extends prior research of life transitional events by highlighting the importance of considering individuals' attitudes toward major life transitional events as an important factor in predicting their responses to these events.
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Patricia Hind and Yehuda Baruch
Much research has been directed towards women in management over the past 20 years. Results show that, despite progress being made towards gender equality as to career…
Abstract
Much research has been directed towards women in management over the past 20 years. Results show that, despite progress being made towards gender equality as to career opportunities, there are still real differences between the sexes in career development and entry to top management levels. Contemporary thinking (Evetts, 1993) suggests that gender‐related research should focus on the development of women’s career prospects in terms of promotion once organizational or professional entry has been established. In line with this, the study reported in this paper (n = 846) was designed to examine and evaluate the potential and actual gender differences in the perception of appraisal systems and career development. Using a closed questionnaire measuring relevant demographic variables and ensuring control of others (educational background, salary, age, tenure, gender, hierarchy level) a number of motivational and attitudinal variables (needs for achievement, control, organizational, job and career satisfaction, organizational commitment) were identified as being relevant to self, peer and manager appraisal processes. Results suggested that gender differences in the reported evaluation of such systems may be detected. Gender variances were found in the cognitive bases of employee work‐oriented attitudes and these were reflected through measures of perceptions of the utility and relevance of formal organizational appraisal systems. Overall, the results indicated that females and males use different information bases when evaluating performance appraisal systems.
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The aim of this paper is to assess the validity of the self-enhancement tactician perspective, which proposes that workers inflate their self-ratings regardless of their national…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to assess the validity of the self-enhancement tactician perspective, which proposes that workers inflate their self-ratings regardless of their national culture, while exploring the nature of self-ratings in Mexico.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling and t tests were applied to data collected from a sample of 300 employees randomly selected from a manufacturing company in Mexico. The data collected include self-performance ratings, employees’ expected evaluations from supervisors, evaluations by supervisors and a pay-per-performance measure.
Findings
The results provide general support to the self-enhancement tactician model, showing that self-rating is inflated and that supervisory rating constitutes the best predictor of employees’ performance.
Research limitations/implications
Based on previous research findings, it was presumed that Mexican workers participating in this investigation reflected collectivistic-oriented traits. Future research projects investigating the universality of the self-enhancing tactician model may strengthen the validity of the results by including an independent measure of culture. People living in a predominantly collectivistic society are not necessarily collectivists.
Practical implications
When self-ratings and supervisory ratings were compared to the objective measure of performance, supervisory ratings emerged as the most reliable and reasonable predictor. This finding may assist practitioners as they try to make strategic decisions regarding the evaluation of employees’ performance.
Originality/value
The unique comparison of self-ratings and supervisor ratings with an objective measure of performance constitutes one significant element in this investigation. The findings encourage future research efforts and particular performance evaluation practices.
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Sharon M. Danes and Juyoung Jang
The purpose of this paper is to investigate formation of a copreneurial identity during new venture creation by investigating underpinnings of spousal commitment considering…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate formation of a copreneurial identity during new venture creation by investigating underpinnings of spousal commitment considering business communication quality.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was grounded in identity theory, used a longitudinal copreneurial sample, and SEM modeling. Entrepreneurial literature is filled with how entrepreneurs form their identity, but little is known about how entrepreneurs and their spouses mutually form their copreneurial identity.
Findings
Entrepreneurs’ reported spouses having high Time 1 commitment, but spouses reported they were more committed than reported by entrepreneurs. Links between spouse’s Time 1 commitment self‐assessment and Time 2 entrepreneur’s assessment of spousal commitment differed by business communication quality. Time 1 spouse’s commitment self‐assessment was positively related to Time 2 entrepreneur’s appraisal of spousal commitment only for the high business communication group and not for the low business communication group. For couples having high business communication quality, entrepreneur’s assessment of spousal commitment over time was composed of spouse’s self‐assessment of commitment and entrepreneur’s appraisal of spousal commitment, reflecting the mutual verification of a copreneurial identity.
Originality/value
This study provides evidence for Van Auken and Werbel's proposition that an entrepreneur's decision to launch a new business depends not only on opportunity analyses but also on the degree that an entrepreneur's spouse shares a common vision about firm goals. This study not only contributes to the theoretical development of a copreneurial identity but it also addresses measurement issues related to spousal business identity formation. Unlike previous studies considering spousal commitment in terms of marital status or work involvement, a measurement model for spousal commitment was tested using three indicators of cognitive moral commitment. Distinctions were made in stock and flow measures of spousal social capital and initial spousal stock levels were assessed. Furthermore, there appeared to be relatively high consistency between entrepreneur's assessment of spousal commitment and spousal's reflection of their own commitment, suggesting that the spousal commitment construct has some clearly defined properties.
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