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Pre‐existing data on the personality characteristics of a sample of 392 people and how these individuals rated persons who communicated to them a fictitious comparative claim were related to changes in subjects’ evaluations of two businesses before and after the transmission of the false statement. Results suggest that personality factors and the esteem in which the message communicator is held may affect customer responsiveness to comparative advertising. However, asymmetric reactions were observed: respondents were more likely to increase their ratings of the business alleged to be superior in the comparative claim than they were to reduce their evaluations of the other enterprise. The results are consistent with earlier studies which concluded that comparative advertising exerts significant effects on consumer behaviour and that comparative claims can influence consumer evaluations of competing businesses or brands, even when there are no objective differences between them.

The purpose of this paper is: to explore the impact of religiousness (i.e. intrinsic religiousness, extrinsic religiousness) on purchase intention of luxury brands, affective attitude, and self-presentation; and, to explore the mediating effect of affective and self-presentation attitudes towards luxury brand purchase intention.

Data were derived using convenience sampling at three large universities (i.e. one public and two private universities) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Researchers hand-delivered approximately 600 questionnaires to students in classrooms and public spaces (e.g. canteens and lounge rooms) of the universities. However, of the 525 questionnaires returned, only 491 were usable thereby offering an overall response rate of 81 per cent.

The study found that intrinsic religiousness was related positively to affective attitudes towards luxury brands while extrinsic religiousness was positively related to self-presentation attitudes. Affective attitude and self-presentation were positively related to consumer intention to purchase luxury brands.

The result of the present study shows that religious consumers are not necessarily anti materialism and often opt for luxury brands over purely utilitarian possession. This finding has important implications. First, it may create future ethical problems as materialism has been found to correlate with unethical behaviours such as the purchase of counterfeits. Second, materialism has been linked to insecurity. When religious consumers view worldly possessions as symbols of achievement or success, sources of happiness, and representations of luxury, they may use possessions rather than religious text to hinder insecurity and shape the self.

This is one of the few studies exploring the impact of religiousness on luxury brands possession in Indonesia, a country with the largest Muslim population in the world and home to a highly religious society.

Online cart abandonment is a severe issue posing challenges to e-commerce growth. Emerging economies such as India fascinates global marketing practitioners because of favorable demographics and high levels of internet penetration. This study aims to consider the role of certain exogenous factors in developing shopping motivations that sequentially mediate to online purchase completion through impulsiveness under risk perceptions. The primary motivation behind this study is to understand the mental mechanism among online customers that develop purchase completion intentions, which prevent cart abandonment significantly.

Impact of e-commerce exogenous factors related to e-commerce such as website attributes, product features, promotional excellence and decision-making easiness on shopping motivations, impulsiveness and purchase completions intentions under the moderating effect of risk was estimated from the perceptions of Indian online customers (n = 243) using variance-based structural equation modeling and SPSS process macro v.3.0.

The most important exogenous variable that can influence purchase completion directly, sequentially through shopping motivations is decision easiness and promotions. Even though utility motivations are dominant in purchase completion intentions, hedonistic aspects are more critical in developing impulsiveness. The translation of impulsiveness to purchase completion is happening, but risk perception significantly moderates impulsiveness formation.

Theoretically, this study examined online purchase completions being the most sought response by a customer to various stimuli in e-commerce. The study adopted a moderated mediation analysis in which shopping motivations and impulsiveness were mediators and risk as moderator. The interaction effect of risk on purchase completions was significant even when the mediating effects were prominent.

Contributes to the current knowledge-related online buying behavior in virtual retail formats and helps marketers in streamlining their focus in using impulsiveness as a strategic tool in reducing cart abandonment.

This study helps in understanding emerging trends in online buying behavior in India.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of perceived benefits, namely, price, convenience and product variety in formation of online shopping attitude. The paper also studies the impact of online shopping attitude on online shopping intentions by the application of the theory of reasoned action.

A self-administered and structured online survey was conducted targeting female online shoppers of four metropolitan cities of India. A sample of 508 online shoppers was considered in the online survey. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the research constructs, validity and composite reliability. Structural equation modeling and path analysis was also used to examine the hypothesized relationships of the research model.

The authors of the paper reveals that price benefit, convenience benefit and product variety benefit has a significant positive impact on online shopping attitude and there is a considerable positive relationship between online shopping attitude and online shopping intention among women in India. Product variety was found to be the most important perceived benefit for Indian women.

The research sample included only women shoppers who indulge in online shopping. Future research is encouraged to emphasize on other groups and gender to identify with their online shopping attitudes. Another important limitation of the study is consequent from the geographical perspective of the present study; that is India. The findings are not necessarily applicable to the rest of the world. Therefore, reproduction of the current study in diverse countries would probably support and confirm its findings. Also, the present study is cross-sectional which does not demonstrate how attitudes of online shoppers may alter over time. The authors of the current study encourage future research to apply a longitudinal design to the study to understand the transforms in consumers’ attitudes toward online shopping over time. Finally, this study explained a general phenomenon, thus future research can be directed toward particular websites which may present different results.

The study supports the significance of perceived benefits (price, convenience and variety) as key drivers of attitudes toward online shopping among women in India. Marketers should distinguish the way they indulge their customers based on their perceived benefits of online shopping. In developing countries like India, where consumers, especially women, are generally depicted as risk averse, online shopping attitude plays an important role in the success of e-tailers. Certainly, if online shopping would not attach meaningful value and benefits to consumers, they would have negative attitude toward the same. Additionally, the empirical research study demonstrates variety to be the most important benefit for Indian women; ecommerce retailers should focus on maximizing the same to enhance online purchase intention among women customers. Women empowerment being the agenda in India currently, online retailers’ managers can benefit from such conclusions for targeting this huge untapped market and for future e-marketing policies.

This research paper is one of the very few endeavors that investigated online shopping attitudes in India. Prominently, it exposed the role of perceived benefits in online shopping attitude in India. Price is one of the most critical factor concerning Indian shoppers which is a part of the present study. National and international e-tailers preparing to develop and expand their operations to India have now important empirical verification concerned with the determinants of online shopping attitudes and behavior in India which shall aid in marketing strategy development and implementation.

The purpose of this work is to test several incentive strategies for attaining new customers via electronic referrals, or e‐referrals. The paper aims to examine: the roles of both the magnitude of the incentive offered to the sender and the magnitude of the incentive offered to the receiver; and the effect of equity versus inequity of financial incentives for the two parties.

The study consisted of a large‐scale field experiment conducted with 45,000 members of an online mall. The participants were divided into eight conditions in an incomplete two‐factor 4×4 between‐subjects design, where not every combination of incentive magnitudes was utilized and the magnitude of the incentive offered the receiver and sender varied in size such that sometimes rewards were equal, sometimes receivers of the e‐referral had larger rewards, and sometimes senders of the e‐referral s received more. Dependent measures included the number of e‐referrals sent, the number of those e‐referrals that lead to a new customer registering, and the number of new registrants that converted to buyers from completing a purchase.

The results demonstrate that both the magnitude of financial incentives, and the relative magnitude of the incentives for the senders and receivers both influence e‐referral rates. Specifically, it was found that offering higher incentives to senders and receivers led to an increase in referral invitations sent, new member sign‐ups and new buyers. It was also found that the disparity between incentives offered to senders and receivers affected e‐referral rates and that inequity should favor the sender to enhance results.

This paper offers marketers valuable insights as to how different combinations of financial incentives to receivers and senders can affect e‐referral rates. The findings suggest that potential referrers respond not only to referral incentives but also to the disparity between their incentives and the receivers' incentives.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the moderating role of the cultural dimensions of long-term orientation (LTO) and individualism (IND) on the relationships between satisfaction online, message involvement (MI) and perceived usefulness (PU) of the web site on attitude toward the web site.

The authors chose a between-subjects experimental design, using culture (Spanish vs British) as the independent variable. Two versions of a web site for a fictitious tourist destination were created – one written in Spanish and the other in English. The sample comprised 491 users.

The findings indicate that the LTO dimension moderates the relationship between satisfaction online and PU on attitude toward the web site. The relationships between MI and attitude toward the web site could not be confirmed.

The main limitation of this study is the comparison of only two cultures, Spain vs the UK.

The key implication is that if marketers and web site designers can better understand how national cultural differences moderate the attitude formation and change process among tourists, this will enable them to market their destinations and services more effectively. National cultural differences explain the differences found in the effect of satisfaction and PU on attitude toward the web site.

This study is one of the few analyzing the moderating effect of LTO and IND on three antecedents of attitude toward the web site. The original cultural values established by Hofstede (2001) were tested among the present sample to establish the extent to which they remain true today. To create an authentic browsing scenario for the experiment, a web site was specially designed for a fictitious tourist destination, with its own domain name (buyada.org). Subjects were invited to browse the site freely while carrying out the task assigned to them. This approach contributed added value to the research by simulating the real behavior of tourists who are faced with a range of choices when putting together a tourism package for a given destination.

Healthcare service quality studies primarily examine the relationships between patients ' perceived quality and satisfaction with healthcare services, clinical effectiveness, service use, recommendations and value for money. These studies suggest that patient-independent quality dimensions (structure, process and outcome) are antecedents to quality. The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative by looking at the relationship between hospital atmosphere and healthcare quality with perceived outcome.

Data were collected from Finland, India, Nigeria and the People ' s Republic of China. Regression analysis used perceived outcome as the dependent variable and atmosphere and healthcare service quality as independent variables.

Results showed that atmosphere and healthcare service quality have a statistically significant relationship with patient perceived outcomes.

The sample size was small and the sampling units were selected on convenience; thus, caution must be exercised in generalizing the findings.

The study determined that service quality and atmosphere are considered significant for developing and developed nations. This result could have significant implications for policy makers and service providers developing healthcare quality and hospital atmosphere.

Studies concentrate on healthcare outcome primarily regarding population health status, mortality, morbidity, customer satisfaction, loyalty, quality of life, customer behavior and consumption. However, the study exposes how patients perceive their health after treatment. Furthermore, the authors develop the healthcare service literature by considering atmosphere and perceived outcome.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of customer perceptions of service quality on electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and switching intentions through cognitive and emotional responses.

The authors have developed a theoretical framework based on behavioural theories to analyse the environmental aspects of relationships that affect customer behavioural intentions. The authors adapted a quantitative methodology along with the positivist philosophical approach to investigate the hypotheses within the theoretical framework. The authors applied a protracted stimuli-organism-response model to highlight the peripheral reliability, responsiveness, tangibility, empathy, assurance, and the impact of the customer’s feelings while simultaneously linking the elements to each other. In addition, the authors applied the theory of reasoned action to reflect the marginal elements of subjective norms, attitude, and customers’ behavioural intentions. A survey with 601 responses has been used in this study.

In the setting of KSA’s mobile telecom industry, the authors confirm that there is a positive effect of customer perceptions of service quality on their eWOM and switching intentions through their cognitive and emotional responses.

The framework of this study enhances our understanding of the role of service quality as an environmental influence on an individual’s intentions to switch and eWOM. This conceptual framework is essential in evaluating the mediating roles of attitude and emotions in relation to eWOM and intention to switch.

This paper aims to investigate whether the consumers who return a product and those who end up keeping a product after experiencing post-purchase dissonance (PPD) possess distinct underlying characteristics.

Field survey study consisting of two separate surveys conducted with consumers of New York City and neighboring areas of New York and New Jersey.

Product returners and keepers exhibited disparate demographic profiles regarding gender and household income, along with ethnicity to some extent. The two groups also exhibited different predispositions with regard to confidence in the purchase decision and expectations about their purchase. Finally, returners and keepers were engaged in divergent thoughts, feelings and activities to cope with PPD.

The findings of this study offer marketing practitioners new knowledge and insight into understanding product returners and keepers and will assist them in developing strategies to reduce and manage increasing product returns by consumers more effectively.

This study is the first to present empirical evidence that product returners and keepers have distinct profiles of demographic characteristics and predispositions toward purchase. The study also has found divergent PPD coping strategies used by the two types of consumers, which exposes an obsolete understanding of PPD in the marketing literature.