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From the perspective of customer segmentation, most scholars show more interest in the very important person (VIP) customer’s service experience and satisfaction; however, the way in which ordinary customers view VIP services has received less attention. Based on fairness heuristic theory and social comparison theory, this study aims to examine the impact of the social visibility of VIP services on ordinary customers’ satisfaction and explored the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of this effect.

Two experiments were conducted, Study 1 verified the main effect and mediating effect, Study 2 tested the moderating effect.

The results show that the social visibility of VIP services decreases ordinary customers’ satisfaction and perceived fairness mediates this effect. The deservingness of VIP status moderates the connection between social visibility and perceived fairness.

This research changes the objects of VIP services research and focuses on ordinary customers as its main group and expands the scope of social comparisons among customers.

The findings expand the scope and perspective of research on VIP services and provide guidance to service providers to reduce ordinary customers’ feelings of unfairness so as to improve customer satisfaction.

This study explores the effect of the social visibility of VIP services on ordinary customer satisfaction from the perspective of perceived fairness, as well as the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions of the effect.

Although vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) are thermal insulators that combine high thermal performance with limited thickness, application in the building sector is still rare due to lack of scientific knowledge on the behaviour of these panels applied in building constructions. This paper, therefore, seeks to give an overview of the requirements for and the behaviour of VIPs integrated into building components and constructions. Moreover, the interaction between different requirements on and properties of these integrated components are discussed in detail, since a desired high quality of the finished product demands an integral approach regarding all properties and requirements, especially during the design phase. Therefore, the importance of an integral design approach to application of VIPs is shown and emphasized in this paper.

To achieve this objective, the legally and technically required properties of VIPs and especially their interrelationships have been studied, resulting in a relationship diagram. Based on these investigations of thermal‐ , service life‐ and structural‐properties have been selected to be studied more elaborately using experimental set‐up for structural testing and simulation software for thermal and hygrothermal testing.

Two relationships between requirements or properties were found to be of principal importance for the design of façade components in which VIPs are integrated. First, thermal performance requirements strongly interact with structural performance, principally through the edge spacer of this façade component. A high thermal performance requires minimization of the thermal edge effect, in most cases reducing the structural performance of the entire panel. Second, an important relationship between thermal performance and service life has been recognised. The operating phenomenon mainly governing this interaction is thermal conductivity aging.

Most research in the field of vacuum insulation until now has been directed towards gaining knowledge on specific properties of the product, especially on thermal and hygrothermal properties. The relationships and interactions between these properties and the structural behaviour, however, have been neglected. This paper, therefore, addresses the need for an integral design (and study) approach for the application of VIPs in architectural constructions.

This paper seeks to provide new solutions to cargo companies’ service quality efforts by integrating different scientific methodologies.

Strengths and weaknesses of logistics services of a well known cargo company in Turkey are defined by using a service quality scale (SERVQUAL), service quality attributes are categorized using the Kano model in order to see how well these attributes are able to satisfy customer needs, and findings are transferred to quality function deployment (QFD).

The findings of the Kano model show that ten of the 27 service quality attributes can be categorized as “attractive”, implying the maximum effect on consumer satisfaction. Through the customer priority level of QFD, the three most important service quality attributes are found to be: VIP Service, informing customers about delivery time before sending, and taking deliveries from customers’ addresses. Also, strengthening information technology infrastructure is the most important technical requirement to focus with the highest technical importance level.

The study involves only one cargo company, it concerns just Trabzon city center branch offices and its sample includes only individual customers instead of individual and institutional customers together.

Offering a case study, the paper presents a guide for cargo companies to employ different scientific methodologies in their service quality development efforts.

Intending to offer scientific approaches to cargo companies as a tool of development in their practical procedures, the paper tries to bridge the current gap between academicians and practitioners and adds to the relatively limited theoretical literature.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the properties of platform service innovation and its relationship to value co-creation activities and the network effect. This is done over the course of a platform’s evolution through three stages: emergence, expansion and maturity.

Based on grounded theory, this study adopts a multiple case study research design. An in-depth analysis of the case data is done using ATLAS.TI software.

At the emergence stage, platform service innovations focus on building infrastructure. Platform owners stimulate the network effect directly via platform service innovations, rather than indirectly via value co-creation activities. At the expansion stage, the platform service innovations focus on building relationships among platform owner and different sides of participants. Platform owners stimulate the network effect indirectly, via value co-creation activities, rather than directly via platform service innovations. At the maturity stage, platform service innovations focus on building an environment for the platform ecosystem. Platform owners stimulate the network effect indirectly, via value co-creation activities rather than directly.

This research contributes to the service innovation literature by exploring the properties of platform service innovation and its relationship to value co-creation activities and the network effect from a longitudinal perspective. The principal managerial implication is that platform managers need to consider the developmental stage of the platform, as a mismatching of stage of development (emergence/expansion/maturity) and focus (an orientation toward building infrastructure, relationships or environment) may lead to a failure to stimulate or enhance the network effect.

While there are multiple breakthrough moves a company can adapt for business model innovation, leaders need to focus more on improving their skills in this area, for example by paying more attention to innovations in other industries. The potential to add business model innovation breakthroughs in a particular company is often largely untapped, but companies that make this activity a priority will gain large, sustained advantages over competitors.

The purpose of this paper is to unfold factors anchored in visitors’ experiences possibly determinant of the success or failure of cultural festivals.

The studied data included 931 experience descriptions, 23 interviews and 51 empathy-based stories collected from 17 cultural festivals around Finland during the summers of 2012 and 2013. The nature of the study was exploratory, the theoretical framework was social constructionism, and the analysis was done using Foucauldian discourse analysis. The Method of Empathy Based Stories, a non-active role-playing technique, was used in the data collection.

The identified success factors were the programme, good quality food, sense of community, chill-out opportunities and building blocks of one’s identity. The factors that might cause failures were commercialised and low-quality programme, the low quality of services, commercialism demonstrated by elevated ticket and service pricing, VIP services confronting egalitarianism, crowd control and queueing and anti-social behaviour.

Three areas of particular interest were: how to nurture identity construction and personal well-being, how to enhance egalitarianism within the festival community, and how to promote the desired code of conduct without applying unnecessary rules and restrictions. If successful in these, the festival could boast of features that are not easy to replicate and that could create a competitive edge.

Empathy-based stories combined with discourse analysis contributed new insights on the issues of the success and failure of festivals. The empathy-based stories were particularly useful in retrieving informants’ perceptions of the future and for identifying factors that might cause failures.

The purpose of this paper is to further the consumer services theory in financial services marketing by examining how perceived benefits influence consumer intention-to-use a co-branded credit card and further how intention-to-use is moderated by involvement.

A conceptual model is developed and tested. A convenience sample of users of a co-branded credit card was surveyed. The responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results show a strong association between perceived benefits and co-brand equity and between co-brand equity and co-brand preference, as well as between perceived benefits and intention-to-use. The research also identifies four perceived benefits of a co-branded credit card. They also show that highly involved consumers are less affected by perceived benefits than their low involvement counterparts.

Further research might consider co-branding across categories of services and explore the ambivalent results of co-brand preference in the mode. This research is limited by the use of a convenience sample and a cross-sectional survey. A probability sample and a longitudinal element to the study would have added weight to the study’s findings.

Managers with co-branding responsibilities should focus on improving the perceived benefits of co-branded credit cards.

This study has a wider application to understanding how co-branding services may be applied in not-for-profit situations, specifically affinity card co-branding, thus generating greater revenue for charitable and social concerns.

This research advances research in the financial services consumer theory by demonstrating a strong association between perceived benefits and intention-to-use a co-branded credit card, distinguishing between the behavioral traits of consumers with high and low levels of involvement. It thus advances the consumer theory in co-branding.

This paper aims to determine how the level of logistics service quality facilitates logistics performance in emerging markets. The authors chose Ecuador because it is an emerging economy with relatively stable economic development, making it an attractive research platform in a challenging environment for logistics services. The authors empirically test the influence on performance and one another of five dimensions of service quality: reliability, responsiveness, empathy, assurance and tangibility.

SERVQUAL and partial least squares structural equation modeling was undertaken to test the proposed relationships empirically.

The performance was positively related to assurance, tangibility and reliability but negatively related to the responsiveness and empathy dimensions. The findings suggest the order of priority for improvement actions. The findings highlight that the existing relationships in developed markets do not apply in the same manner in emerging markets.

Although representative, data were only collected in one specific market.

The results reveal a mix of activities that managers should develop to improve the services they provide, relationships with customers and performance.

Few other works have explored logistics service quality in South America's emerging markets. According to contingency theory, various combinations of service quality dimensions can influence performance, suggesting that managers should aim for optimal fit between dimensions according to internal and external situations. An efficient and effective combination in one case may be unsuccessful in another. The approaches presented can improve relationships within global supply chains, especially regarding logistics management.

Public debates and scholarly literature on football fandom are often characterised by generalisation and lacking differentiation. The changing ethnography of fans, affected by the rapid commercialisation and internationalisation of the game, reinforces the demand for contemporary classification criteria and fan typologies that take the complexity and heterogeneity of fans into account and draw a more differentiated picture of fans and sub-groups.

Based on the grounded theory methodology and a systematic literature review on stakeholder theory, stakeholder classification criteria and football fandom, the authors conduct and analyse 14 semi-structured expert interviews with fan managers employed by German professional football clubs. Building on the analysis, the authors identify, present and discuss ten contemporary criteria and five corresponding typologies for the classification of football fans.

The grounded theory analysis suggests that football fans can be characterised according to ten classification criteria. Building on the analysis, the authors derive five fan typologies that differ in their characteristics along the continua of the identified criteria. Typologies comprise (1) active fans, (2) consuming fans, (3) event fans, (4) corporate fans and (5) passive followers.

The paper enlarges prior knowledge on the behavioural and attitudinal characteristics of fans as individuals and adds knowledge regarding relationships within fan groups, and regarding formal and non-formal relations between fans and clubs. The results provide scholars with a framework for further scientific investigation and practitioners with a concept for a more sophisticated and differentiated approach to managing fan relations.