Geoffrey Soutar

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Verified

Geoffrey verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD (Cornell University)
• Professor Emeritus at The University of Western Australia

Purpose This paper aims to draw on values theory, associative network theory and schema congruity theory to examine how consumers attribute human-like values to product categories and products, and how these attributions affect product evaluations. Design/methodology/approach Study 1 randomly assigned 925 respondents to one of three product catego...

What makes the cooperative business model unique is the various roles members have. We interviewed executives and members of four large Australian cooperatives to determine what these roles were. Our results show differences in terminologies and a conflation of member roles relating to patronage, ownership, investment, and community membership. We...

In summary, the process of innovation has a number of phases, from the initial research and discovery phase, through definition of the opportunity to product development and other late-stage aspects of commercialising a finished product. Each phase will need a different mix of tacit and codified knowledge inputs.

The Australian tertiary education sector has been experiencing transformational change for many years driven by shifts in public policy and funding, emergent competition on an increasingly international scale, a seemingly never‐ending number of universities restructures, and the sudden rise of online teaching forced upon by the global COVID‐19 pand...

The purpose of this study was to examine the relative importance of customer engagement (CE) on customer loyalty (CL) and word of mouth (WOM) within co-operative and mutual enterprises (CMEs), and to see how these relationships compared to those found in more mainstream investor-owned businesses (IOFs). A large sample (n = 856) of CME members and I...

Assessing academic performance is challenging and assessing academic performance that makes a contribution to society is especially challenging. Evaluations need to take into account academic rigor and the relevance of the work. We suggest relying on whether an article is published in an elite journal does not necessarily lead to a significant scie...

Advances in tourism research depend on the development and validation of measurement scales using appropriate psychometric techniques. However, scale development practice is dominated by classical test theory, despite its limitations. A Rasch analysis of international travel service performance scales across demographic, customer experience and ser...

This paper investigates aspects of cruising of most concern to Australian consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic, following the shutdown of cruising globally. Using a mixed-method approach, the study asked cruisers and non-cruisers which of the risks associated with cruising were of most concern. The study found health was the most concerning risk...

Co-operatives are defined around a set of principles and values. If these are misunderstood, ignored or dismissed, the co-operative risks departing from its purpose and resembles or demutualises into an investor-owned firm. Adherence to co-operative principles and values can strengthen active members’ participation or diminish this if they are igno...

This paper explores online brand advocacy (OBA) in a tourism destination context. Through a Social Influence Theory lens, it explores the ways in which residents and overseas tourists discuss Australia as a destination brand on social media. By analyzing a big dataset of social media user-generated content (UGC), this study sought to identify the k...

The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the cruise sector with an initial global shutdown and ongoing patchy resumption, widespread reporting of virus transmission onboard and billions of dollars in economic losses. This study explores how COVID-19 has impacted Australian and UK consumers’ risk perceptions, revealing cruises are no longer considered “safe...

This paper examines the perspectives of employers and employees within nano, micro, small, medium, and large firms in relation to HRM practices. The study draws upon a large sample of respondents from firms of all size categories. An online questionnaire comprising established HRM measures was used to collect the data. A multivariate discriminant a...

Specificity of CSR Ties That (Un)Bind Brand Attachment Fernanda M. Romano1, Alua Devine1, Liudmila Tarabashkina1, Geoffrey Soutar1 and Pascale Quester2 Abstract Corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences brand personality, trust, firm attitudes, and purchase intentions. Yet, little attention has been paid to its effects on brand attachmen...

Purpose This study aims to examine the impacts various types of resources had on customer effort in mandatory and voluntary value cocreation activities and the contribution of efforts in these different activity types to quality of life. Design/methodology/approach Data from customers across five chronic health conditions were collected through an...

Global demand for energy, environmental concerns over power generation emissions, and rising household energy costs have heightened interest in exploring ways to reduce energy consumption. Numerous approaches have been adopted, including those that build on the important recognition of consumer intentions as a predictor of behavior. However, the li...

This paper investigates aspects of cruising of most concern to Australian consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic, following the shutdown of cruising globally and the Ruby Princess debacle. Using Best-Worst Scaling methodology, the study asked cruisers and non-cruisers which of the risks associated with cruising were of most concern. The study found...

Purpose Drawing on an extensive range of activities across different types, including mandatory (customer), mandatory (customer or organisation), voluntary in-role and voluntary extra-role activities, this study aims to identify different health-care customer value cocreation practice styles based on the combinations of value cocreation activities...

Retail applications (or retail apps) have emerged as a game-changer to complement and enhance the consumer purchase experience. Responding to calls of prior research, this study used the Two-factor Theory to understand how hygiene (i.e., anthropomorphism presence-AP) and motivation factors (i.e., marketing mix- MM) influence consumers’ retail app c...

In the special issue “The Impact of the Current and Future Technologies on Relationship Marketing,” the Australasian Marketing Journal presents a series of papers covering topics to gain a better understanding of the current and future technologies that may play a role or have a robust impact on relationship marketing and contribute to theories ass...

China has become the number one source market for tourists. This article seeks to understand whether cultural/lifestyle similarity is an important pull factor for Chinese tourists when selecting a destination. Specifically, 205 Chinese tourists were surveyed about their destination choices in relation to the seven most visited outbound destinations...

Few empirical studies have examined how post-trip destination image is shaped by tourists’ experiences. Although previous studies examined the relationships between experience, image, satisfaction and behavior, these are not fully understood, especially in ecotourism contexts, in which managing destination image can be more challenging. Consequentl...

The global coronavirus pandemic has devastated the cruise sector with widespread disruption and cancellations affecting millions of cruise passengers. The cruise industry was negatively affected due to the enclavic and confined environment onboard, the high infection rates among both crew and passengers, and widespread negative media coverage. This...

The study’s aim was to increase our understanding of the Online Brand Advocacy (OBA) and brand loyalty relationship through a Social Identity Theory lens. An online survey was used to obtain the needed data and the relationships of interest were examined using a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling approach. Brand loyalty and consume...

The increased availability of social media big data has created a unique challenge for marketing decision-makers; turning this data into useful information. One of the significant areas of opportunity in digital marketing is influencer marketing, but identifying these influencers from big data sets is a continual challenge. This research illustrate...

Consumers’ pursuit of simplicity is gaining traction as a research topic. However, despite an extensive set of studies investigating various facets of simplicity in marketing and related disciplines, knowledge regarding cognitive simplicity remains fragmented. To address this issue, the authors synthesize research findings from diverse literature s...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of how change in environmental practices occurs in business networks. The study examines what types of network change processes occur in bringing about environmental change. Further, the basic change process theory types (life-cycle, teleology, dialectics and evolution) involved in th...

Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can benefit from membership of a cooperative. This study aims to test previous antecedents of why SMEs join a cooperative. We interviewed members and executives of four Australian cooperatives to investigate reasons why SME owners joined them. All interviewees agreed that the cooperative had to provide economic be...

Purpose This study aims to examine the relationship between personal values and small and medium enterprise (SME) innovation in Minangkabau, a Muslim ethnic group in Indonesia. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative approach was used to survey 400 small business owners. Structural models were estimated using WarpPLS. Findings The study establ...

Purpose While past studies have shown that corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences brand equity, loyalty and brand attitudes, research about CSR effects on the responsible and active dimensions of brand personality remains limited. This study aims to address this gap and examine how brands with different personality strength benefit from C...

Ecotourism is a fast-growing tourism sector, but the value of ecotourism trips from tourists' perspective has seldom been studied, which led to the current study that examined outbound Chinese tourists' value perceptions of ecotourism trips. Data were collected from Chinese tourists on bus tours to a well-known Australian ecotourism site over an on...

Social media facilitates more frequent, immediate, and larger-scale exposures of people affiliated with a group than was previously possible. However, little is known about how this occurs in the case of institutions’ brand pages and about its impact on existing member relationships. In examining the role perception about other users of a brand pag...

The current study explores the personality attributes and fit between garden festivals and parks that host them. The research adopted a bottom-up approach, inviting stakeholder participation in six focus groups, two expert panels, a pilot study and three main studies to examine Araluen Botanic Park, Western Australia as well as its Chilli Festival...

Numerous studies have claimed that ecotourism experiences promote tourist environmental learning, but little empirical evidence has been provided to substantiate the claim. This study examined ecotourism experiences’ impacts on environmental learning within outbound Chinese tourists, a key international ecotourism market. The samples were collected...

This study investigates the effects of employees' perceived values-congruence within an organisation affect employees' beliefs about organisational change. Specifically, we investigated the effects employees' perceived values-congruence with their organisation, supervisor and colleagues had on beliefs about an organisational change implementation a...

Purpose Despite recognition of the importance of emotions and emotion regulation in service encounters, emotion regulation has been generally studied from an employee perspective. This study investigated customer emotion regulation behaviours (CEREBs) in face-to-face service encounters; arguing for a more nuanced approach through an emotion regulat...

This paper investigates the impact of social media influencer endorsements on purchase intention, more specifically, the impact advertising disclosure and source credibility have in this process. The proposed framework argues that advertising disclosure has a significant impact on source credibility subdimensions of attractiveness, trustworthiness...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of CSR initiative preference, customer helping orientation and customer participation on willingness to engage in CSR and to demonstrate the influence this engagement has on their commitment and loyalty to the organisation. Design/methodology/approach This study entailed an online survey of...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role customer orientation plays in the relationship between service employees’ personality and their perceived experiences of customer incivility. Design/methodology/approach Service workers from a variety of industries were recruited from an online panel service and asked to complete a...

Purpose Despite an increasing interest in online brand advocacy (OBA) and the importance of online brand conversations, OBA’s conceptualization, dimensionality and measurement are unclear, which has created confusion. This paper aims to answer calls from researchers and practitioners for a better understanding and measurement of OBA. The developmen...

This study examines the antecedents and consequences of value co-creation behavior in a hospitality context. An online questionnaire with samples of hotel patrons in the United States and Australia was used to obtain data and partial least square modeling was used in the analysis. The results suggest patron fairness perception enhances trust and id...

The theory of human values discriminated 10 basic values arrayed in a quasicircular structure. Analyses with several instruments in numerous samples supported this structure. The refined theory of human values discriminates 19 values in the same circle. Its support depends on one instrument, the revised Portrait Values Questionnaire. We introduce a...

In this article, we examine whether tourists ascribe value priorities to destinations in a way that is consistent with the structure of the Schwartz theory of human values. In study 1, we test a new measure of destination values to elicit tourists’ perceptions of the values of a recent memorable holiday destination and whether these values reflect...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to suggest a typology of customer value cocreation activities and explore the psychological drivers and quality of life outcomes of such activities in a complex health care service setting. Design/methodology/approach Focus groups with people with Type 2 diabetes and in-depth interviews with diabetes educators...

Purpose In recent times, many universities have been pressured to become heavily involved in university branding. The purpose of this paper is to investigate students’ perceptions of different international universities (brands) in terms of important university attributes, including the country in which the university’s main campus is located and e...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a large-scale survey of members of co-operative and mutual enterprises (CMEs) that examines the factors influencing members’ intentions to remain loyal to the enterprise and to provide word of mouth (WOM). Design/methodology/approach A model was suggested and tested to examine the int...

This paper reports the results of a study which investigated the similarity in attitudes to a range of business ethical questions in seven countries. Data were obtained from respondents in Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, China, the Philippines, the USA and the UK. Analysis of the data using discriminant analysis revealed two functions. The first r...

(Accepted, In print) PURPOSE: This paper offers insights into the ways two computer-aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) applications (QSR NVivo and Leximancer) can be used to analyse big, text-based data taken from consumer-to-consumer (C2C) social media communication. FINDINGS: This research found that, while both programs had stre...

Purpose This study aims to enhance the understanding of how co-created content (CCC) can facilitate relevant and meaningful customer experiences in social media brand communities (SMBCs). It investigates the characteristics of CCC and explores the effects they have on member engagement from an identity theories perspective. Design/methodology/appr...

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com Emerald is a glo...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report presents the results of a multi-phase project initially commissioned by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) titled ‘Working for Our Future: Modernising Workplace Relations in Australia’ with funding from the federal Department of Employment. These results have been expanded to draw in, where ever pos...

The affordances of social media have enabled organisations and members to negotiate and co-create their identities. Despite the original conception of acculturation as a reciprocal process of cultural change, how an organisation adapts to the cultures of its members and how members react to these efforts remain under-researched. Drawing on theories...

Purpose This study aims to understand the influence of negative publicity on brand image, brand attitude and brand purchase intention. Specifically, the study examines the role of attribution (or brand blame) and information characteristics in Chinese consumers’ responses to negative publicity. Design/methodology/approach The study used a quasi-ex...

Purpose-This study aims to understand the influence of negative publicity on brand image, brand attitude and brand purchase intention. Specifically, the study examines the role of attribution (or brand blame) and information characteristics in Chinese consumers' responses to negative publicity. Design/methodology/approach-The study used a quasi-exp...

Proceedings (pp.788-795): https://www.ieseg.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/SERVSIG-2018-Proceedings.pdf

Destination branding has become an important way to differentiate destinations in highly competitive holiday markets (e.g., Morgan et al. 2004; Ekinci & Hosany 2006; Pike 2012). Prior studies have also found that people are able to perceive brands as having personal values that reflect Schwartz (1992) higher-order dimensions (Torelli et al. 2012)....

Co-operative and mutual enterprises (CMEs) are organisations in which buyers or suppliers are also the owners, shareholders and members of a community of purpose. Member heterogeneity and commitment have been reported in the literature, but the drivers of member commitment remain poorly understood. This paper proposes that members identify with the...

This study answered a call for an investigation into the way in which consumers advocate for brands online, which was termed Online Brand Advocacy (OBA). An analysis of 1,796 online posts on two different types of online community forums was undertaken. It was found that “I Love ” was insufficient to constitute OBA, which seems to be an elaborate,...

Drawing on social identity theory (SIT), this research investigates the role of university content strategies on student experiences in social media brand communities (SMBCs). A netnography of a university’s SMBCs sought to grasp the influences of identity cues, narratives, and marketer traits on member reactions. It was revealed that social media...

The use of peer communication has become a primary method used by advertisers to disseminate their messages to relevant consumers on social media—with a significant return on investment. This study examines whether consumers' privacy, trust, and perceived benefits are associated with their peer communication through social advertising within the le...

A CSR strategy that delivers social value to the community , altruistic value to the customer, and value to the firm undertaking the program has the potential to ensure long-term commitment by firms to invest strategically in CSR . In further exploring the relationship between stakeholder management and CSR , co-creation and customer engagement is...

China has been the world's biggest outbound tourism market since 2012, yet we know little about Chinese outbound tourists and, especially, their experiences in foreign destinations. This study examines outbound Chinese tourists' ecotourism experiences in Australia. We identified seven major experience dimensions, namely sensory, emotional, aestheti...

Australian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) owner-managers were interviewed to understand the underpinning factors of social customer relationship management (social CRM), customer engagement behaviors, and social CRM as dynamic capability. Findings show that SMEs’ customers use social media to generate content, influence other customers t...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the lived experiences of the international students using their university’s social media, through a lens of customer engagement (CE) in the services marketing literature. Design/methodology/approach A case study was conducted in an Australian university. Three semi-structured focus groups with te...

Purpose Both Customer Engagement (CE) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have been linked to customer loyalty. Past studies use Service Dominant Logic and customer value co-creation to explain this relationship. This study applies utility theory to develop and test a new theoretical model based on CSR initiative preference to understand the...

The study investigates the relationship between organisational factors and the anticipated returns to the commercialisation of an innovation within small to medium enterprises (SMEs). Using a large multi-country sample, the analysis involved a structural equation model of seven organisational factors associated with the management of innovation, an...

Managing customer engagement behavior (CEB) is a strategic priority for firms to build and sustain long-term customer-firm relationships. This research examines the different types of customer engagement behavior (i.e. augmenting CEB, co-developing CEB, influencing CEB and mobilizing CEB). The study also examines the relationship between service fa...

This research explores the nature of collaborative co-creation in a university-initiated social media brand community (SMBC). SMBCs provide significant opportunities to enhance student experiences by facilitating the co-creation of value and brand meanings. However, little is known about what makes organization-initiated SMBCs successful. A netnogr...

Charities operate in increasingly challenging economic conditions. Faced with rising demand for nonprofit services coupled with a decline in public sector support (Eisenberg 2012), funding from individual donors is essential, offering invaluable, essentially unrestricted income (Young-Powell 2013). In 2012 individuals in the US gave $228.93 billion...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the drivers of customer value, and their respective relationships with customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions, between two culturally distinct groups of adventure tourists. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a descriptive design and compared data from 301 Japanese and Western...

The theory of human values discriminated 10 basic values arrayed in a quasicircular structure. Analyses with several instruments in numerous samples supported this structure. The refined theory of human values discriminates 19 values in the same circle. Its support depends on one instrument, the revised Portrait Values Questionnaire. We introduce a...

Resource based theory (RBT), also known as the resource-based view, emphasizes resources as essential for building organizational competitive advantage. However, which competencies are essential for enhancing customer value remains unclear. Blueprinting and benchmarking are applied in this paper to demonstrate the process of identifying resources t...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine factors that influenced international university preference, looking at country of origin (COO), that is the COO of the course and program modes (PMs). This study specifically focusses on differences in perceptions across students from Malaysia and China. Design/methodology/approach – Conjoint an...

Purpose – A key issue faced by co-operative enterprises is how to raise external equity capital without compromising member control. The purpose of this study is to examine the potential of a special type of financial instrument called a Cooperative Capital Unit (CCU) introduced into the Australian legislation to facilitate external investment whil...

Resource based theory (RBT) emphasizes resources as essential for building organizational competitive advantage. However, it is not clear which competencies are essential for enhancing customer value. Blueprinting and benchmarking are applied in this paper to demonstrate the process of identifying resources that are specific to co-creating customer...

The expansion of financial markets has provided opportunities for people to invest in a variety of securities and financial instruments. Products transacted on stock markets have long been a favourite asset class, as they provide liquidity low transaction costs and flexibility that many other classes of assets do not have. Indeed, the volume and pe...

Tourism is one of the largest contributors to the Australian economy and in recent years, Australia has heavily promoted itself as an ecotourism destination to overseas markets including China. Advertising is a major communication tool when marketing Australian ecotourism overseas; however, there is little empirical evidence on the effectiveness of...

Fuzzy Logic is a framework particularly useful to formalise and deal with imprecise concepts and statements expressed in natural language. This paper has three related aims. First, it aims to provide a short introduction to the basics of Fuzzy Logic within the context of social simulation. Secondly, it presents a well-documented NetLogo extension t...

Best-worst scaling (BWS) is an extension of the method of paired comparison to multiple choices that asks participants to choose both the most and the least attractive options or features from a set of choices. It is an increasingly popular way for academics and practitioners in social science, business, and other disciplines to study and model cho...

Purpose – The paper aims to measure and identify customer preference for social issues and understand the importance of customer engagement when service organisations implement corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes. Design/methodology/approach – Developing a relevancy/scope typology framework, this paper then examines the relationships...

This article investigates the innovation commercialisation practices and the anticipated innovation returns profiles of small and medium- sized enterprises (SMES). Employing a typology of 525 SMEs within 10 OECD countries, our findings reveal that, on the one hand, market assessment is perceived to the key driver of the sales volume of short life-c...

Drawing on a sample of SMEs from selected OECD countries, we aim to shed some lights on owner-managers? anticipated returns and to answer three general research questions, namely; (1) What effects do organisational factors have on owner-managers? anticipated sales from an innovation? (2) What effects do organisational factors have on owner-managers...

We report the results of an analysis of the research impact of marketing academics using citation metrics for 2263 academics in the top 500 research universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities based in Australia and New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom and the USA. The metrics are computed for publications from 2001 to 2013, which...

Higher education is an increasingly competitive global market. Consequently, it is crucial that universities fully understand students’ motivations in university selection. While past research mainly focused on university-level attributes, this study extends the factors used to evaluate different international universities to include both the unive...