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Small retail stores in the luxury market face significant challenges due to fluctuations in market demand. This task turns challenging as it requires effectively coordinating and translating customer needs into specific requirements that align with retail goals and available resources. However, limited empirical research exists investigating how managers can address service value and quality attributes in small retail stores. This article aims to bridge this gap by investigating the role of quality function deployment (QFD) in improving market and quality requirements management in small retail stores.

Based on the case study, a customer survey was initially conducted to gather information on critical characteristics valued in the luxury retail segment. QFD was used to assist the company in identifying and prioritizing key quality attributes to meet customer requirements effectively.

The findings demonstrate that implementing QFD in small luxury retail stores empowers managers to identify previously neglected product and service quality aspects. The article shows that QFD informs organizational adaptations that align with the demands of the retail market, leading to an improved ability to meet customer expectations and enhance customer value through the development of enhanced products and services. The study showcases the efficacy of the tested methodology in effectively capturing and prioritizing both tangible and intangible customer needs in retail.

Findings offer valuable insights to retail managers of small luxury stores, providing actionable market-oriented strategies. By implementing the recommended practices, managers can improve the store’s competitiveness and better cater to the customer base.

This study contributes to bridging persistent knowledge gaps by addressing the unique context of small luxury retail stores and introducing the application of QFD in this setting. The insights gained from this research are relevant to both retailing and quality management literature. Considering the growing prevalence of transformations in the retail industry, the study provides practical implications for retail managers in effectively navigating these changes.

The online brand advocacy behaviors of omnichannel shoppers, who mainly rely on integrated brick-and-mortar stores (recognized as a vital channel for delivering a seamless shopping experience and meeting the dynamic needs of the shoppers), are still understudied. This study aims to investigate how integrated store service quality (ISSQ) may elicit both positive and negative emotions that contribute to a memorable omnichannel shopping experience and have an impact on shoppers' attachment to the store, leading to their exhibition of online brand advocacy behaviors (brand defense, brand positivity, brand knowledge sharing and virtual positive expression).

The study is a cross-sectional, descriptive and quantitative investigation. The research participants were chosen using a purposive sampling technique. Using a validated self-administered questionnaire, data were gathered from 886 Indian omnichannel shoppers who often purchase at the integrated brick-and-mortar store. The proposed conceptual model was tested using Smart PLS software for partial least squares-structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that positive and negative emotions mediate the relationship between ISSQ and memorable omnichannel shopping experiences, subsequently impacting omnichannel shoppers' attachment to the store and leading to online brand advocacy behaviors. The relationship strength perceived by shoppers significantly positively moderated the relationship between store attachment and different online brand advocacy behaviors (brand defense, brand positivity, brand knowledge sharing and virtual positive expression).

The study relied upon single cross-sectional data from the Indian population, where omnichannel retailing is still nascent.

This study addresses the need to investigate the different emotions that arise while evaluating service quality in omnichannel retail purchase journeys leading to memorable shopping experiences. Emphasizing post-purchase behaviors like different online brand advocacy behaviors (brand defense, brand positivity, brand knowledge sharing and virtual positive expression), this study is the first to show that ISSQ might affect four different OBAs through memorable omnichannel shopping experience and the shopper's sense of attachment to the store. The moderating effect of relationship strength perceived by shoppers with the retailer on a few proposed hypotheses was also tested to give managerial recommendations.

This research aims (i) to assess the level of customer satisfaction and loyalty to self-service technologies and Auchan Retail Portugal, (ii) to identify the determinants of customer satisfaction and loyalty to these technologies and also, (iii) to identify their influence on customer loyalty to this modern distribution retailer operating in Portugal.

A conceptual model was defined to meet the research objectives and to carry out the quantitative analysis applied to the random sample (n = 483) of customers. The data used where gathered via an online questionnaire survey, which covered all dimensions of the conceptual model, applied in 2021 in Portugal. To validate the hypotheses, Cronbach’s alpha and multiple linear regression models were used.

The results reveal that customer satisfaction with self-service technologies has a direct and positive effect on customer loyalty to Auchan Retail Portugal. Furthermore, results reveal that the technology utility factors significantly influence the customer technology experience which has an impact on perceived service quality and perceived risk. The findings of this research provide data on how to improve customer adoption and satisfaction with self-service technology and highlight that these technologies should be part of firm’s competitive strategy.

This study presents itself as a novelty for science, while granting important contributions to the retailer. It presents an innovative conceptual model that delivers to Auchan the basis for it to move toward smart retail technologies, aiming at the market trend of personalization. For future research, this study can be used as an instrument to evaluate the customer experience with self-service technology and to examine the determinants and effects of self-service technology separately.

Digital technology plays a vital role in empowering omnichannel integration. Research on digital technology has recently attracted attention and rapidly developed. However, a comprehensive assessment of the research status and potential gaps is yet to be conducted. Thus, this study investigated the current research status of digital technology-empowered omnichannel integration, and future research directions are proposed.

A three-stage bibliometric analysis was conducted on 764 articles published from 2000 to 2023, cited in the Web of Science database. Furthermore, performance and thematic analyses were performed.

The most productive contributors and influential articles in this field were identified, and four themes of focus were discovered: service quality, o2o commerce, omnichannel retailing, and digital transformation.

To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first attempt to enable researchers to understand the vast body of published scholarship on digital technology-empowered omnichannel integration.

This study aims to identify the groups of value cocreators in the context of social media in the retail banking industry and resources that predict customer membership among different groups of value cocreators.

This study reviewed the literature and developed measurement instruments for the constructs of interest. Data were collected from 406 customers in an emerging market in 2019 and analyzed using latent profile analysis.

This study identified three profiles of value cocreators on social media based on the actual practices of resource integration that enliven value cocreation. Second, this study explains the differences in the performance of resource integration practices to cocreate by the types of resources that customers integrate into social media. Third, this study fills the need for knowledge of value cocreation in different contexts and industries (e.g. banks).

This study analytically relates a set of resources to the variety and intensity of the value cocreation practices adopted by bank customers in interactive environments. The emphasis on how value cocreation practices in online environments combined with customer resources (e.g., a person-centered approach) allows to identify unique profiles of value cocreators on social media. The findings inform managers of the profiles of cocreators, which customers are more attractive as value cocreators on social media, and which resources managers should help customers develop to increase cocreation on social media.

Since banks do not sell tangible products, they rely heavily on customer interactions and retention, which requires service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Banks must innovate and develop new services and expand customer engagement efforts beyond stores, kiosks, direct mail and websites to include social media, mobile applications and location-based services in order to meet their customers’ growing demands. A multi-channel strategy that integrates the offline and online presences of banks can increase quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty. This paper aimed to use a service quality scale to: (1) examine the association between service quality and customer satisfaction; (2) examine the association between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty; (3) examine the indirect association between service quality and customer loyalty through customer satisfaction; and (4) examine the mediation effect of multi-channel integration quality in the relationships between service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

The data was obtained from banks in Saudi Arabia. The analysis was based on an online survey of 265 Saudi bank customers. The multi-channel integration quality model and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) were used to test the proposed hypothesis and conduct the analysis.

The results found that there was a statistically significant link between service quality and customer satisfaction in the Saudi banking industry. Service quality did not directly affect customer loyalty. When multi-channel integration quality was moderate to high, service quality affected customer loyalty through customer satisfaction. For service quality and customer loyalty in the Saudi banking sector to be achieved, customers must be satisfied, but also the bank’s brand must manage the quality of integration channels provided to them with care, and thus branding plays a key role in achieving customer loyalty in the Saudi banking sector.

The academic community has provided little evidence to support how the relationships between constructs such as service quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and multi-channel integration quality apply to the Saudi banking sector. A conceptual framework was proposed to show how these constructs affect the Saudi banking sector. An empirical study was conducted to see how the framework held up in banking settings. The conceptual framework serves to advance the fields of business and management and banking and their respected literature, as well as advance the understanding of multi-channel integration in boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty through high service quality in the Saudi banking sector.

The study explores different types of anti-luxurians on social media (SM), the characteristics of luxury brands, tendencies to disengage and the opposition to them to propose future directions for luxury marketing in the post-pandemic world.

A qualitative approach was employed, wherein 979 posts from SM platforms were analyzed with the text analytics software package KH Coder through word-frequency analysis and an inductive technique.

The analysis identified the presence of eight types of online anti-luxurians: true luxurians, nature-experienced lovers, life simplifiers, anti-haulers, highly expected consumers, natural environment protectors, antidiscrimination consumers and historic-politic antagonists. Their degree of disengagement and opposition were discussed and graphically mapped.

This is the first study to discover various types of anti-luxurians on SM platforms and graphically map their level of disengagement and opposition toward luxury brands. This study fills an existing critical gap in the luxury marketing literature.

Despite the increasing relevance of seamless shopping experience in an omnichannel context, research on how seamless shopping experience affects customers’ word of mouth on social media (sWOM) remains scant. Based on the attribution theory, this study aims to investigate the effects of seamless shopping experience types on customers’ sWOM intentions from the perspective of smart-shopping feelings and validated the moderation role of shopping orientation.

Using a data set of 301 omnichannel customers, three scenario-based experiments were conducted to address the research questions.

An efficient and interconnected experience is more likely to positively affect sWOM intentions than an inefficient but interconnected experience. Furthermore, smart-shopping feelings were found to have a significant mediating effect. For experiential-oriented shoppers, the positive relationship between an efficient and interconnected experience, smart-shopping feelings and sWOM intentions was significantly strengthened.

This research contributes to the sWOM and omnichannel service experience literature by investigating the influences of seamless shopping experience types on customers’ sWOM intentions. This research also provides recommendations for designing and delivering a superior, seamless shopping experience for omnichannel shoppers.

This study aims to focus on the five most relevant and discursive emerging technologies in accounting (cloud computing, big data and data analytics, blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics process automation [RPA]). It investigates the adoption and use of these technologies based on data collected from accounting professionals in a technology-developed country – Canada, through a survey.

The study investigates the adoption and use of emerging technologies based on data collected from accounting professionals in a technology-developed country – Canada, through a survey. This study considers the said nature and characteristics of emerging technologies and proposes a model using the factors that have been found to be significant and most commonly investigated by existing prior technology-organization-environment (TOE)-related technology adoption studies. This survey applies the TOE framework and examines the influence of significant and most commonly known factors on Canadian firms’ intention to adopt the said emerging technologies.

Study results indicate that Canadian accounting professionals’ self-assessed knowledge (about these emerging technologies) is more theoretical than operational. Cloud computing is highly used by Canadian firms, while the use of other technologies, particularly blockchain and RPA, is reportedly low. However, firms’ intention about the future adoption of these technologies seems positive. Study results reveal that only the relative advantage and top management commitment are found to be significant considerations influencing the adoption intention.

Study findings confirm some results presented in earlier studies but provide additional insights from a new perspective, that of accounting professionals in Canada. The first limitation relates to the respondents. Although accounting professionals provided valuable insights, their responses are personal views and do not necessarily represent the views of other professionals within the same firm or the official position of their accounting departments or firms. Therefore, the exclusion of diverse viewpoints from the same firm might have negatively impacted the results of this study. Second, this study sample is limited to Canada-based firms, which means that the study reflects only the situation in that country. Third, considering the research method and the limit on the number of questions the authors could ask, respondents were only asked to rate the impact of these five technologies on the accounting field and to clarify which technologies are used.

This study’s findings confirm that the organizational intention to adopt new technology is not primarily based on the characteristics of the technology. In the case of emerging technology adoption, the decision also depends upon other factors related to the internal organization. Furthermore, although this study found no support for the effect of environmental factors, it fills a gap in the literature by including the factor of vendor support, which has received little attention in prior information technology (IT)/ information system (IS) adoption research. Moreover, in contrast to most prior adoption studies, this study elaborates on accounting professionals’ experience and perceptions in investigating the organizational adoption and use of emerging technologies. Thus, the findings of this study are valuable, providing insights from a new perspective, that of professional accountants.

The study findings may serve as a guide for researchers, practitioners, firms and other stakeholders, particularly technology providers, interested in learning about emerging technologies’ adoption and use in Canada and/or in a relevant context. Contrary to most prior adoption studies, this study elaborates on accounting professionals’ experience and perceptions in investigating the organizational adoption and use of emerging technologies. Thus, the findings of this study are valuable, providing insights from a new perspective, that of professional accountants.

The study provides insights into the said technologies’ actual adoption and improves the awareness of firms and stakeholders to the effect of some constructs that influence the adoption of these emerging technologies in accounting.

This study aims to explore customer perceived value (CPV) dimensions in the context of free mobile educational applications (EduApps) which are paramount in learning-based digital start-ups and are essential for the implementation of circular economy (CE). The purpose of the present study is to identify dimensions of CPV specifically for EduApps and propose a conceptual model that would assist the digital start-up decisions which in turn can be a catalyst in navigating to a CE.

The study uses the Netnography approach by analyzing online user-generated content. A total of 13,147 reviews posted on the Google play store after using top free education apps were coded using ATLAS.ti 9 software.

Major dimensions of context-specific CPV are identified as technical value, content value, pedagogical value, gamification value and learning value. Subdimensions and items are extracted for each of these dimensions.

The larger subscriber base drives sponsorships, advertisements and donations which underpin the business model of free EduApps. This can be obtained through an attractive value proposition. Identifying context-specific value dimensions would aid entrepreneurs in optimal value mix development decisions. The proposed framework can be utilized by both researchers (for scale creation, comparative studies and quantitative studies) and practitioners (for entrepreneurial decisions on better value propositions).

CPV successfully describes consumer decision-making, but less attention is paid to linking the theory to the setting of mobile learning apps, where the bulk of research is focused on techniques like TAM, UTAUT, etc. In addition, studies identifying CPV from mobile apps with a specific focus on EduApps are sparse. Extant literature in this context is either based on a foundation of in-store business value dimensions or dominated by technical aspects when focused on the context of mobile apps. The current study bridges this gap.