Search results

Epistemology of organizations denotes how we can gain knowledge of organizations. A critical, postmodernistic analysis suggests that the only knowledge we can gain from our traditional concepts of organization is emptiness. A proposed solution is to increase the understanding of individual and group consciousness. Individual consciousness is categorized in materialistic, dualistic and transcendent views, and group consciousness in interactive – defined in terms of its content and dependence on spatial and symbolic interaction – and collective, dependent on a subliminal transcendent consciousness. The last category is further divided into logically deduced and experiential sub‐categories. It is argued that the present understanding of organizations is based on interactive consciousness and needs to move beyond that level in order to progress. An alternative transcendent epistemology of organizations is introduced, based on transcendent experience, and a model of organization based on the transcendent epistemology is suggested. This model features a transcendent transition – transcition – as a basis for organizational change, and two cases are analyzed. It is concluded that a new paradigm based on a new science of consciousness is needed in order to do justice to the vast potential of human consciousness.

This services marketing research provides a theoretical framework for experiential and relationship marketing and extends the theory of transcendent customer experience (TCE). Specifically, this paper aims to identify how the drivers (emotional intelligence [EI]), outcomes (customer loyalty, willingness to pay and word of mouth [WOM] intentions) and influences (openness to experience) of TCE are integrated. The research contributes to the theoretical debate regarding ability-based and self-reported EI measures by examining their influence on TCE.

Students and general consumers provided data through structured online surveys in three survey-based experiments. Linear and multiple regressions, mediation analyses and simple effects tests were used for data analysis.

Findings suggest that self-reported and ability-based measures of EI influence TCE differently. Participants who had high self-reported EI evaluated positive service encounters as more transcendent than they evaluated negative service encounters. Participants who had high ability-based EI evaluated positive service encounters as less transcendent than they evaluated negative service encounters. TCE experiences evoked higher loyalty, willingness to pay (WTP) and WOM recommendations. Furthermore, dispositional factors were significant in forming TCE: participants who were highly open to experience and had high ability-based EI interpreted their service encounter as less transcendent than did participants who were more closed to experience and had low ability-based EI.

TCE, a relatively new concept, offers theoretical advancement in context and constructs. The student-provided data gave high internal validity; the general consumer-provided data gave external validity. Ideally, a future field study in an actual consumption setting should replicate the findings. A self-reported questionnaire used to measure constructs may have introduced common method variance that biased the results.

By understanding that EI affects perceptions of transcendence in positive/negative service encounters, marketers can better implement consumer-oriented marketing strategies that will enhance TCE, customer loyalty, WTP and WOM.

Despite considerable research in experiential and relationship marketing, room remains for theoretical and practical enhancement in the under-researched concept of TCE. This research is the first attempt to extend TCE theory to marketing by identifying the drivers, outcomes and moderators of TCE in service encounters. The research also provides theoretical advancement in EI research. The results contradict previous research claiming that ability-based and self-reported measures are equally valid. Instead, using the two EI scales interchangeably leads to potentially different outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to draw upon the theory of consumption values and the experiential value scale to develop a conceptual model concerning hospitality customer’s use of self-service technologies (SSTs) and their impact on consumers’ service experience.

Questionnaires were administered to 220 hotel and restaurant customers. The researchers tested the hypotheses by using descriptive analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis.

Both extrinsic and intrinsic attributes of SSTs influence consumers’ satisfaction with SST usage significantly, while the extrinsic attributes play a stronger role. It is worth noting that while the intrinsic attributes have a significant impact on consumers’ transcendent service experience, the extrinsic attributes negatively influence such experience.

The findings help managers create effective strategies to better match consumers’ needs and to deliver more customized self-service experience. The role of SSTs can be expanded beyond functional attributes to satisfy consumers’ curiosity, foster customer–customer interactions and personalize consumer experience.

Although most SSTs research focus on technology adoption intention, features, functionality and benefits to the service provider, this research is among the first attempts to examine the role of SSTs in creating better consumer experience. The bidimensional conceptualization of SSTs experience developed in this research suggests that SSTs in the hotel and restaurant sector should be utilized for reasons beyond their utilitarian attributes: SSTs should be designed to help create a transcendent service experience.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of research on customer experience management (CEM). The objectives are as follows. The paper first introduces the concepts involved in CEM by identifying definitions and dimensions of the customer experience. Second, the paper describes the evolution of CEM research from a theoretical perspective in generic businesses and then in the hospitality and tourism (H&T) sector. Third, the paper investigates the methodological approaches used in CEM research and addresses the challenges in measuring the customer experience. Fourth, this study addresses cultural issues in CEM research. The identification of gaps in CEM research in the general business and H&T sectors leads the authors to consider directions for future research. Managerial implications are also provided.

The paper takes the form of a review of the extant literature in the general businesses and the H&T industry.

Despite the emergence of CEM as a vital research area, a large portion of its studies remain conceptual, which indicates that further empirical investigations are necessary. Importantly, the uniquely experiential nature of H&T products/services calls for systematic, theory-driven research. The paper identifies future research topics, which include total customer experience, transcendent experience, transformational experience, authentic experience and the co-creation of experience. This study delineates potential methods and measurement scales that can be used in CEM research and some challenges in the development of future measurement scales of customer experience. Recognizing a lack of CEM research from a cultural perspective, this paper calls for future studies that consider cultural factors in the identification of the underlying reasons for various perceptions of experiences.

Companies need to take a holistically integrated approach to creating a memorable experience in which multidimensional value can be delivered through multiple, sequential stages of experience. The co-creation of experience can lead to a sustainable experience that can be life transforming or perspective transforming.

Acknowledging the importance of excellent CEM in the contemporary H&T industry, this paper provides a compilation of literature on CEM and offers a foundation for advancing future CEM research in the H&T industry.

The purpose of this study is to capture the strength of consumer’s perceived brand sacredness. The authors developed and validated a measurement scale composed of three related dimensions: supremacy, mesmerization and communitas.

Six empirical studies were conducted to identify the brand sacredness construct domains, develop and validate the measurement and test the nomological network between brand sacredness and it antecedent and outcome variables.

Results from a series of studies provided robust supports for the scale structure and demarcated the construct domains from other consumer–brand relationship measures. Testing of nomological validity of the scale further showed that brand sacredness is influenced by brand love, emotional brand attachment and brand loyalty and, meanwhile, provides explanatory power to predict theoretically related outcome variables, including transcendent consumer experience, defense of brand, incorporation brand in extended-self, brand ritualism and brand evangelism.

This study is based on cross-sectional survey data obtained from respondents belonging to well-established brand communities. A longitudinal study involving recent and emerging brand communities could provide an enhanced understanding of the evolution of brand sacredness with time, including brand sacralizaton process as well as possible de-sacralization process.

The study provides significant insights for brand managers to create an enduring brand and ascertain that consumers find their affiliations with the brand and make it the sacred core of their lives by fandom management through brand evangelism.

This study adds to the theory on consumer–brand relationship realm by delineating the domains of brand sacredness with its defining feature of extraordinary experience transcending an ordinary brand. It contributes to the existing body of branding and customer-based brand equity literature by incorporating the spiritual aspects of faith, passion and devotion into measuring the value of a brand.

The purpose of this paper is to combine the evolving fields of customer delight and positive psychology to investigate a broader conceptualization of customer delight. Furthermore, to investigate antecedent variables that impact this broader conceptualization.

This research employed structural equation modeling in a hedonic context.

Key findings indicate that aside from joy and surprise, gratitude also has a positive impact on customer delight. Furthermore, psychological sense of brand community (PSBC) and transcendent customer experiences (TCE) were shown to positively impact the proximal antecedents of customer delight.

Extending the domain of customer delight beyond joy and surprise contributes to the theoretical discussion on what customer delight represents to the service firm. Further, this research identifies new theoretical relationships between PSBC/TCE and customer delight.

By offering the broader conceptualization of customer delight, this research contributes to the discussion of whether delight is possible or even profitable. Namely, by moving past joy/surprise, this research suggests that managing gratitude can be a strategic lever that the modern service firm can utilize.

This is the first research to evaluate gratitude as an antecedent to customer delight. Further, by combining positive psychology and delight research this research identifies new predictors of positive customer experiences.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a psychometrically reliable scale to measure centrality of brand (CoB) or brand centrality construct in the domain of fashion apparel brands. The scale quantitatively validates that brand relationship can be of equivalent importance to religious relationship in an individual fashion brand lover’s life.

Based on a previous literature review, brand centrality has been conceptualized. Following that, CoB scale has been validated in a step-by-step process following the scale validation methodology suggested by Churchill (1979).

The final outcome of the study is a psychometrically reliable CoB scale. The study results validate the relationships between CoB, and other important theoretical antecedents and consequences of brand centrality.

This study contributes to the existing body of fashion branding research by showing that a consumer-fashion brand relationship can be of importance akin to a religious relationship in an individual’s life.

Law on the screen goes beyond film. It takes us to the domains of mind and culture, power and politics, technology and rhetoric, and the changing contours and norms of professional practice, craft, and pedagogy. Law on the screen is a multidisciplinary affair. It embraces empirical/descriptive, political/normative, and jurisprudential/theoretical dimensions of scholarship. By codifying what we know and how we know it, culture and technology mimic the regulatory force of law. But just as law is shaped and informed by technology and culture so, too, are technology and culture shaped and informed in turn by law's power to regulate. Code is a two-way street. Who gets to design the code, how, and with what effect? That is the political question par excellence of our day.

This study aims to apply the concept of brand love to a destination and investigate its antecedents and consequences. It also explores the moderating effects of time elapsed since the establishment of the destination brand love relationship on the outcomes of destination brand love.

A total of 5,511 valid responses were obtained from an online survey distributed among former international students from the Erasmus program of the European Union. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was conducted to assess the hypotheses.

Destination brand love was found to have a significant impact on electronic word of mouth (eWOM), WOM, WOM intensity, recommendation and revisit intention. Moderation analysis revealed that the amount of time elapsed since the establishment of the destination brand love relationship did not affect these outcomes. Moreover, destination image and the Erasmus experience had a positive effect on destination brand love.

Destination marketers should focus on enhancing the Erasmus experience and on improving destination image perception, as these factors help develop destination brand love. Marketers should also be aware that this relationship has long-lasting effects.

This study adds to the sparse literature on brand love in relation to a destination. This gives the first results for the importance of Erasmus students to the promotion of a host country. It also contributes to the question of how long the brand love relationship can last.

Capsule hotels are a revolutionary Japanese concept of lodging that dates back over four decades. On the other hand, capsule hotels are a relatively new concept for most travelers outside of Japan. Organizations within this target segment are starting to recognize the critical role that an excellent customer experience management (CEM) strategy offers in improving competitiveness and organizational success. Thus, this research provides scholastic insight into the framework of CEM by evaluating the user-generated content at capsule hotels.

This study inspected 1,304 online user-generated content from the top 10 capsule hotels from Booking.com. Leximancer 4.5 was deployed to analyze the data.

The analyses revealed nine key themes to CEM of capsule hotels which are “staff,” “hotel,” “area,” “location,” “bed,” “capsule,” “check-in,” “noisy” and “luggage”.

This research encourages hospitality and tourism executives to develop specific strategies for capsule hotels.

This research differs from previous writings in that it attempts to fill a gap in the research by offering insight into the issue in the low-budget hotel industry and by identifying key indicators that influence customer experience.