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The purpose of this paper is to examine specific gratifications obtained from using mobile instant messaging (MIM) applications by applying the uses and gratifications theory. This study explores the relationships between motivational factors, customer engagement and loyalty for existing WhatsApp subscribers in South Africa, as well as the moderating effect of application usage.

A descripto-explanatory research design was used in this quantitative study and 282 responses from an online survey were analysed. Structural equation modelling was used to test the study’s hypotheses.

The study reveals that utilitarian and hedonic motivation impact customer engagement positively in using WhatsApp, which, in turn, impacts loyalty. Social motivation in using WhatsApp bore no relationship with customer engagement. Furthermore, medium application usage moderates the link between customer engagement and utilitarian and hedonic motivation.

The study offers a greater understanding of customer engagement and motivational factors in the MIM environment. Future studies could consider more complex relationships with customer engagement in using MIM apps focussed on a younger generation.

MIM service providers should enhance customer engagement by tracking user activity and identifying customers who need to use an app more by targeting their utilitarian and hedonic needs through sophisticated marketing strategies.

This research enriches the understanding of key motivational factors impacting customers’ continued engagement towards using MIM, as opposed to the adoption thereof.

India has a big pool of internet savvy population that is not only accessing the internet but also buying online. Online shopping could be defined as the concept of buying and selling of goods over the internet. From the perspective of the seller, it is the attempt on the seller's part to attract and persuade the prospect to conduct the purchase decision-making process, and ensure satisfaction and loyalty. From the perspective of the buyer, online purchase behavior is the degree to which consumers access, browse, shop and transact and repeat the behavior. With a revolution in the very basics of transaction from a physical store format to a non-store one, the retail industry has begun to understand the indispensability of the internet as a medium of transaction. However, the rate of diffusion and adoption of the new phenomenon among consumers is still relatively low. With the internet advancing new opportunities, it is important to understand the factors that could motivate Indian consumers to indulge in online buying. This paper is a theoretical attempt at conceptualizing “motivation” as a construct, in the context of online buying and testing it empirically. The objective of the study is to explore the critical motivational factors that influence the online buying decision of people, and to establish their causal impact, if any, through developing an integrated model.

The study, descriptive, diagnostic, and causal in nature, has been conducted in the context of online buying of railway tickets in India. In the first phase, a pilot survey was conducted on a sample of 100 users of the online railway reservation. After having tested the survey instrument for validity and reliability, the second phase of the study was conducted on a sample of 327 users of online railway reservation facilities. A series of multiple regressions analyses was conducted to determine the causal impacts of critical motivational parameters on online reservation of railway ticket by users in the Indian context. The analysis of demographics based on gender and age groups were also made to capture the cross-comparisons of critical motivational attributes.

The results were in expected direction and fulfilled the research aims of the current study. The factor analysis had grouped the items into nine constructs with 38 items. For analytical purposes, descriptive statistics were used through measures of central tendency and dispersion. The item total correlations to each construct were found significant. All the critical motivational constructs were found to have a significant impact on the intention of buyers of booking/purchasing railway tickets online in India. The analyses of demographics established that as far as gender is concerned, all the critical motivational attributes to online buying intention have no significant differences between men and women; however, for age groups it was observed that some of the attributes were found significant and others were not.

Through identifying and empirically establishing critical motivational parameters in online reservation of railway tickets in Indian context across demographics, this study helps to understand what consumers expect from the online reservation facilities from the railways for their convenience and satisfaction. By examining the various dimensions explored and established in this study, the concerned authority can develop a better understanding of consumer needs and expectations. Academicians and researchers can use this study for assessing consumer motivation towards online reservation of railway tickets in Indian context, and identifying such attributes that would lead to favourable motivational disposition towards online reservation of railway tickets. The policy decision makers of railway authority may also use the findings of this study as a resource, while constructing, managing, and evaluating their marketing strategies in the Indian context.

This study seeks to develop a clearer understanding of the motivational factors affecting Saudi female business undergraduates' choice of pursuing entrepreneurship.

The research adopts a quantitative approach to gain general understanding of the students' perceptions with regard to their motivations to pursue entrepreneurship. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire survey administered to 214 female business undergraduates at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University (PMU) in Al-Khobar, to investigate their perceptions of entrepreneurial motivations. Descriptive statistics and factor analysis were used to identify the motivational factors. Multiple regression analysis was used to reveal relationships between the motivation factors and entrepreneurial motivation of female business undergraduates.

The study revealed four generalised entrepreneurial motivations among Saudi female business undergraduates: personal motivational factors with an emphasis on freedom and social status; business motivational factors such as financial rewards and security; social motivational factors manifested in the influence of the community, roles and family; and environmental motivations which were mainly associated to education, the market knowledge and ability to access finance.

The study was restricted to female students at PMU University. Thus, generalisation of the results could be limited. The findings of the study could be useful to relevant authorities to enhance and boost entrepreneurship for female students and hence to contribute to the national Vision 2030.

This study is among those few studies located in the MENA region that explore Saudi female university students' attitude towards entrepreneurship. It adds to the authors' understanding on the four generalised factors by highlighting the importance of the family's role and entrepreneurship education in motivating Saudi female students towards entrepreneurship engagement. It also contributes to the understanding of these motivations that could be applied in other similar contexts.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic factors and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) across genders. The study also highlights the impact of cognitive and motivational factors on the EO in Saudi Arabia.

This is a quantitative analysis based on the Adult Population Survey of 2016 conducted by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor among a sample of 4,053 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The results showed significant differences in most EO dimensions between genders. It was found that EO is positively related to gender, with more women intending to start a venture than men in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Self-efficacy, motivation and social welfare motivational factors for EO are positively associated with the gender of the respondents.

This paper illustrates the urgency to establish programs that support self-efficacy, motivation and social welfare to promote entrepreneurship among women in the Kingdom.

The study highlights the impact of cognitive and motivational factors on EO among females in Saudi Arabia.

Entrepreneurial motivations are considered key determinants of the direction, intensity and duration of entrepreneurial processes and outcomes. To measure attitudes and outcome expectations related to an entrepreneurial career, researchers often use a set of predetermined behavioral beliefs or motivators. However, motivators can be numerous, context-specific and there is a lack of evidence regarding their stability over time. This study addresses this gap, while also providing a rich description of how Portuguese college students perceive entrepreneurship and how these perceptions relate to levels of entrepreneurial intentions (EI).

Using qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze data over a 5-year period, this study seeks to confirm existing evidence on entrepreneurship motivators' diversity and heterogeneity and to explore differences in motivators' temporal stability. Using an initial sample of 851 Portuguese college students and 3 different survey waves, this study first aggregates the most frequently cited motivators for EI to compile a series of meaningful motivational factors. Subsequently, it extensively analyzes the robustness of these factors by examining their validity against EI and stability over time.

Based on their superior association with EI and greater temporal stability, the findings suggest that entrepreneurship-intrinsic motivational factors are more relevant for college students' EI models. Prominently, being motivated to create one's own new business due to a particular occupational interest is the most consistently stable individual motivation.

The results may interest those studying entrepreneurial motivations and EI longitudinally and who invest in promoting entrepreneurial behavior of college students.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to analyze entrepreneurship motivators/reasons' temporal stability, which is relevant for assessing their value for longitudinal entrepreneurship research and education. It is also the most complete assessment of Portuguese college students' perceptions of entrepreneurship.

This paper aims to identify the social motivational factors that can enhance brand-related content across social networking platforms (SNPs). It examines how brands can enhance motivation to create and exchange brand stories for existing and target customers.

The study followed an interpretivist approach and collected data from 40 customers of 5 top apparel brands based in the UK using non-directive and semi-structured interviews. The respondents were chosen using purposive sampling and thematic analysis was undertaken using the NVivo 11 Plus software.

The findings highlight various social motivational factors that can inspire the creation, sharing and exchange of brand-related content using SNPs. These include social responsibility, staying connected, inspiration from others, opinion leaders and recognition, optimal decision-making, inspiring or disheartening experience of the brand and emotional connection with the brand. People’s purchase decisions are strongly influenced by close friends, local online community groups, opinion leaders and other credible sources. Moreover, the respondents reported having more trust in shared consumer experiences than company advertisements and other marketing tactics.

The findings of this research will be beneficial for organizations, brand managers and marketing teams, offering insights into how stakeholders can enhance brand-related content on SNPs. The findings also show that online local communities on Facebook and expert opinions are the most significant factors in enhancing brand-related content, social engagement and purchase decisions.

There is limited literature on why people are motivated to create and exchange brand-related content, especially in the context of the apparel industry. The study offers insights into how brands can create motivation for enhancing brand-related content in ways that are recognized as a cheap and highly effective way of advertising, influencing pre-purchase information, purchase decisions and social engagement on the part of SNP users.

Many studies have examined the influence of travel motivation on destination preferences; however, little is known about Muslim tourists’ leisure travel behaviour. This study aims to examine the influence of travel motivation on destination preferences using the moderating effect of religiosity from the perspective of Iranian and Malay Muslims.

Data were collected from 422 Malay and Iranian Muslim students using a purposive sampling technique, and later analyzed using Amos.

Results indicated that generic, Islamic and non-Islamic motivational factors influence social, religious and hedonic avoidance travel preferences. Muslims who are motivated by generic and non-Islamic motivations avoid travels to destinations with the presence of Islamic service and products, while those who are motivated by religious factors prefer destinations with Islamic attributes.

The results of this study highlight the importance of Islamic-related features in destinations for Muslim tourists.

Given the current importance of corporate social responsibility, this research is designed to discover the motivations that lead employees to agree to participate in the corporate volunteering activities promoted by their companies and to understand whether demographic variables such as gender and age have an influence on different types of motivations.

This research had the collaboration of a company to develop the case study about its volunteering programme and for the collection of data through an electronic questionnaire.

The variables related with the factor values were identified as the most important motivational category for people to engage in volunteering, which shows that what these volunteers want is to contribute to the success of the event and the respective social cause. On the other hand, the motivational category related with career was considered the less important.

The participation in volunteering activities enable employees to broaden their communication skills, increase their aptitude for helping others, adapting, negotiating and working as a team, while also increasing their confidence, creativity, leadership capacity, their desire for continuing improvement and their problem‐solving skills.

A great part of existing research is focused on the motivations of “conventional” volunteers which collaborate occasionally with nonprofit organizations. Thus, the present study will expand the research in the area of corporate volunteering, contributing to a better understanding of what really motivates employees to volunteer.

As an exploratory study, the purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying motivations for attending soccer games.

Attendees at two soccer games in Athens, Greece were surveyed about their frequency of attendance at soccer games and their attitudes toward soccer. In total, 252 people from five randomly selected sections of the stadiums participated in the survey.

The results indicate that there are three major motivations – emotional excitement, socialization, and soccer atmospherics – and two identity salience factors – ardent soccer fans and rational soccer fans – for attending soccer games. The most important factor for attendance is being an ardent soccer fan closely followed by the emotional excitement factor. Among the demographic factors considered, only gender significantly affects soccer game attendance.

In contrast to previous studies that are somewhat descriptive, this research explicitly introduces factors related to social identity theory and attempts to predict soccer game attendance on the basis of a scale of factors that focus on the major motivations for attendance of soccer games, identity salience reasons, and demographic factors. The inclusion of social identity theory as a factor in the attendance of soccer games is a major contribution of this study. Contrary to most of the earlier studies, this study showed that the socialization factor is not related to attendance at soccer games.

Human health, food safety and environmental concerns are growing issues for policymakers, firms and the general public. Food without chemicals and pesticides is healthy for the human body and hence, relevant motives to promote organic food consumption needs to be explored. This study used three motivational factors, i.e. hedonic, gain and normative motivations proposed by goal-framing theory (GFT) that affect sustainable consumption. Considering the local scenario, constructs like normative triggers and knowledge have also been incorporated into the model. Therefore, this study attempts to explore whether normative triggers and motivations influence the intention to purchase organic food with the application of GFT

Data were collected from 467 consumers using the purposive sampling technique. The span of the collection of data collection was around five months. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) has been applied and after checking the validity and reliability indicators, bootstrapping has been used for hypotheses testing.

All the motivational factors were found significant and positive to consumers' intentions toward organic food. Moreover, normative triggers also influence intentions. The construct knowledge was not found in a direct relationship with intentions; however, a moderating role was established between gain motivations and intentions.

The study validated and extended the concepts presented in the GFT. Motivational constructs were found important and can be implied in low-cost product categories. The policymakers are suggested to take appropriate measures, based on empirical results.

The study provides an understanding of motivational factors, normative triggers and knowledge in the organic food consumption extent. This will help administrative authorities, marketers and producers of organic food in making their policies, communication strategies and production preferences.