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Understanding social media effects across seller, retailer, and consumer interactions
Abstract
In this research, the authors propose a contagion effect of social media use across business suppliers, retailers, and consumers. After developing and validating social media usage measures at three levels—supplier, retailer, and customer—the authors test social media contagion effects and their ultimate impact on multiple performance measures. The conceptual framework and empirical results offer new insights into the contagion effects of social media usage across the channel of distribution as well as important social influence mechanisms that enhance these effects. Consistent with the predictions, social media use positively contributes to brand performance, retailer performance, and consumer–retailer loyalty. Also, the effect of supplier social media usage on retailer social media usage and in turn on customer social media usage is moderated by brand reputation and service ambidexterity. With the ever-increasing growth and adoption of social media applications and similar technologies, this research provides a framework to promote usage by supply channel partners which ultimately influences performance-related outcomes.
... This can develop the situation where there is no chance to breach of trust and consequently, efforts should be devoted to safeguarding the mechanism which creates conviction rather than the reclamation of trust (S. Prasad et al., 2019;Rapp, Beitelspacher, Grewal, & Hughes, 2013). Other studies findings also indicating about generation Y that conviction is sustained and constant advancement of trust by social media usage with the time that leads toward purchase intention (Doyle, Heslop, Ramirez, & Cray, 2012;S. ...
... The conceptual framework of this study is adopted from earlier studies and based on dependent, independent and mediating variables (Andrei, 2013;Fang, Chiu, & Wang, 2011;Goyette, Ricard, Bergeron, & Marticotte, 2010;Harris & Goode, 2010;S. Prasad et al., 2019;Rapp et al., 2013;Weisberg, Te'eni, & Arman, 2011;Zeithaml, Berry, & Parasuraman, 1996). The independent variables are social media usage and E word of mouth, mediating variable is 531 conviction and dependent variables are customer loyalty and purchase intention. ...
... That means, the more the retailers interact with their customers the higher are the chances that retailers will create a feeling of excitement and affection. It was declared that online customer loyalty is connected to the degree of trust that online customers have with the service provider (Guping et al., 2021;Harris & Goode, 2010;Rapp et al., 2013). Customer satisfaction helps the company in getting success in a way that customers buy from a company that shows loyalty and commitment. ...
The major aim of this research is to examine the concept of conviction in internet business, e-word of mouth and usage of social media and what are the relationships between them and how these affect generation Y. After extensive review of the literature in a particular context five constructs are developed such as usage of social media, e-word of mouth, conviction, customer loyalty and purchase intention. The quantitative approach is applied and data is collected from 389, those are belonging to generation Y, after that realizability and validity of the questionnair social media and electronic word of mouth both have a strong influence on customer loyalty and purchase intention by mediating the strong effect of Conviction. All hypotheses are accepted and consistent with the earlier studies in the same context. The present study has an exclusive and valuable contribution because it confirms or validates the notion of conviction in digital business and then through conviction defines purchase intention and consumer loyalty.e were tested through smart PLS software. Findings revealed that the influence of
... Previous studies have shown that social media can serve as an effective marketing tool in the retail market (Juditha, 2017;Rapp et al., 2013;Rene, 2018;Vithayathil et al., 2020). ...
... They show that retailers and luxury brands appearing on social media can significantly enhance their reputation and image (Kim & Ko, 2012). Rapp et al. (2013) found the contagious effect of social media use that can help retail stores to increase certain performance measures such as consumer loyalty and branding (Rapp et al., 2013). The retail store's initiative to focus its social media on consumers will make the transition from consumer to consumer buying easier and smoother. ...
... They show that retailers and luxury brands appearing on social media can significantly enhance their reputation and image (Kim & Ko, 2012). Rapp et al. (2013) found the contagious effect of social media use that can help retail stores to increase certain performance measures such as consumer loyalty and branding (Rapp et al., 2013). The retail store's initiative to focus its social media on consumers will make the transition from consumer to consumer buying easier and smoother. ...
This study empirically investigates the relationship between social media use at home and consumer shopping preferences during Covid-19 pandemic in an emerging country, Indonesia, using survey data. This study focus on popular consumer retail stores including online retail stores such as Tokopedia, Shopee, Lazada and KlikIndomaret, as well as brick-and-mortar retail stores, such as Indomaret, Alfamart, Super Indo, and Transmart. Social media use of popular platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Line, and LinkedIn are analyzed. The results of our analysis found that the use of Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn at home is associated with consumer shopping preferences at online retail stores such as Tokopedia, Shopee, Lazada, and KlikIndomaret. In addition, our analysis revealed that the use of these social media platforms at home is associated with consumer shopping preferences at brick and mortar retail stores such as Alfamart, Indomaret, and Super Indo. Interestingly, there is no significant association between social media use at home and consumer shopping preferences at Transmart brick-and-mortar stores. Media Richness Theory and Strength of Weak Ties Theory help explain the results of this study. Retail stores need to consider which social media platform is more effective for implementing their marketing strategy. The results of this study can be used as a reference in developing a retail store marketing strategy through social media.
... 4. Operational performance (OP) in this study is developed as a construct to quantify the performance of cost-reduction and efficiency-improvement in business processes. (Ainin et al., 2015;Cheng and Krumwiede, 2018;Rapp et al., 2013). Table 1B presents this study's definitions of performance metrics with corresponding example papers. ...
... The extant literature provides massive evidence to support the positive SMU-SP relationship, wherein organizations can simultaneously realise the duality of both patient listeners and articulate narrators (Beckers et al., 2017;Foltean et al., 2019;Ivanov and Sharman, 2018;Rapp et al., 2013;Trainor et al., 2014). To be specific, organizations are capable of adapting products, services, and marketing activities attuned to customer needs after conducting thorough social listening and marketplace monitoring, which lays a solid foundation for maintaining customer satisfaction and retention (Braojos et al., 2019;Choudhury and Harrigan, 2014;Schniederjans et al., 2013). ...
... Although SNC presents positive correlations with FP (H2D, r = 0.088, p = .000), the weak effect size makes us think twice about whether SNC with appropriate stakeholders could improve FP (Diffley and McCole, 2015;Firas Mohamad et al., 2019;Rapp et al., 2013;Schniederjans et al., 2013). At last, SLM yields the weakest correlation with FP (H2B, r = 0.075, p = .000), ...
Business organizations are surging to integrate social media with their business and operations management, as it is broadly recognized that social media usage (SMU) could bring them superior performance advantages, especially in the digital era. However, prior studies investigating the effects of SMU on organizational performance provide scattered, mixed, and even conflicting results from diverse disciplines. This study aims to map the comprehensive relationship between SMU and organizational performance by adopting meta-analysis and examining potential factors that moderate such relationships. Based on the sample size of 24,576 organizations accumulated from 65 empirical studies, this study attempts to dissect SMU into manifold practices containing social marketing, social listening & monitoring, social communication, and social networking & collaboration. Meanwhile, these SMUs have varying relationships not only with financial performance but also with innovation, social and operational performance. Further analysis results also confirm that theoretical lens, social media platforms, and industry-level factors (i.e., firm size, industry type, economic market) significantly moderate the strength of SMU-Performance relationships. These findings provide theoretical contributions, managerial implications , and future research directions on the integrated SMU-Performance relationship.
... Marketing professionals have new opportunities in the form of digital marketing (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). These social media platforms not only help in the marketing of products, but also help companies to gain necessary insights into the needs of consumers through their feedback more often than otherwise (Hansen et al., 2018;Rapp et al., 2013). Eventually, this new insight is capitalized to help assist in designing effective marketing and advertising strategies in the modernday marketing. ...
... Eventually, this new insight is capitalized to help assist in designing effective marketing and advertising strategies in the modernday marketing. Consequently, such information is used further to improve products at regular intervals, helping the product development and diversification across industries (Mount & Martinez, 2014;Rapp et al., 2013). ...
The advent of social media marketing and team support for innovation is considered simultaneously as the two main antecedents of consumer brand awareness. To support this assertion, this study explored the consequences of support by marketing team members toward innovative approaches to social media marketing. The study randomly selected 247 participants from the United Arab Emirates. Data were analyzed using multiple linear regression. Results showed that both social media marketing and team support for innovation were positively associated with consumer brand awareness in that social media marketing and team support played as catalysts reinforcing brand awareness. In addition, the team support for innovation was positively associated with social media marketing; alternatively, they complement each other towards brand awareness.
... The benefits of the adoption of digital platforms such as social media for SMEs have already been discussed in the literature before COVID-19 (Taiminen and Karjaluoto, 2015). In this respect, most of the research assessed how social media could increase sales and return on investments (ROI) of these companies (Kumar et al., 2013), improve relationships with customers (Obal and Lancioni, 2013;Rapp et al., 2013) and brand image (Nisar and Whitehead, 2016), also through enhanced electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) (Xie et al., 2016). Some recent studies have investigated the responses of SMEs and how they could become more adapted to digital activities in the COVID-19 scenario (Klein and Todesco, 2021). ...
... First, social media would act as a flywheel for sales growth in a sector that, in the past, relied almost exclusively on the personal relationship between salespeople and buyers (Bocconcelli et al., 2017). Second, various intangible assets, such as brand awareness, brand image (Huotari et al., 2015) and the stakeholders' trust (Rapp et al., 2013), would benefit from the implementation of these platforms in the company. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) adoption of social media platforms and how they integrated them within their marketing strategies during the COVID-19 outbreaks. Dynamic capabilities – observed as the interplay between sensing, seizing and reconfiguration capabilities – represent the principal theoretical framework used in this research to explain challenges in social media adoption and their effects on these businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts the grounded theory approach to analyze semistructured interviews with 19 key informants from Italian SMEs belonging to diversified industries.
Findings
The findings of this research are summarized in a holistic framework that explores three types of capabilities (i.e. sensing, seizing and reconfiguration capabilities) and the marketing outcomes of social media adoption among SMEs.
Originality/value
This study attempts to unpack the specific dynamic capabilities that allowed SMEs to be successful in social media adoption during COVID-19 outbreaks.
... Various studies have indicated that online technology-based online social media improve business process and growth, (Winer, 2009). Some scholars have confirmed that the utilization of online social media increased interaction with customers, and sales return, and it has been found that there is a positive correlation between online social media and the growth of youth-owned MSEs, (Rapp et al., 2013). Handayani and Mahendrawathi (2019) revealed that the use of online social media influences the social capital of any business organization, which increases its financial and non-financial growth. ...
... Malthouse et al. (2013) asserted that online social media enables MSEs to enter the market without geographical boundaries. Another study by Rapp et al. (2013) noted that firms with the utilization of online social media can achieve growth as a result of reaching customers and finally making more sales. Hence, this current study strived to provide updated data by examining the contribution of technology-based online social media to the growth of youth-owned MSEs. ...
Micro and Small Enterprises have been approved as major performers in enhancing economic growth and quality of life by generating employment opportunities and profits in Rwanda. However, they have experienced several problems which diminish their growth. Those growth challenges can be improved by embracing strong entrepreneurial interventions. This research endeavored to investigate how government entrepreneurial interventions affect the growth of youth-owned MSEs in Kigali, in addition, it investigated the moderating effect of individual characteristics on the relationship between the government entrepreneurial interventions and the growth of youth-owned MSEs in Kigali City, Rwanda. The resource-based view and Gibb’s support theory were used. An explanatory research design was used in this
research to determine the causal link between variables and establish the nature of the strength of the link. The study used a sample size of 154 MSEs selected from the target population of 252 youth-owned MSEs in Kigali, Rwanda. Data was collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using both descriptive
and multiple regression analysis. The study noted that entrepreneurial training, access to credit, technology-based online social media, and market access have been effective government support in increasing the growth of MSEs in Kigali Rwanda. Moreover, the results indicated that individual characteristics positively affected the relationship between government entrepreneurial interventions and
the growth of youth-owned MSEs in Kigali City, Rwanda. The study recommended that government should ease the requirements/conditions to be met by MSEs before accessing entrepreneurial interventions this will accelerate the growth of youth-owned SMEs in Rwanda.
... Various studies have indicated that online technology-based online social media improve business process and growth, (Winer, 2009). Some scholars have confirmed that the utilization of online social media increased interaction with customers, and sales return, and it has been found that there is a positive correlation between online social media and the growth of youth-owned MSEs, (Rapp et al, 2013). Handayani and Mahendrawathi (2019) revealed that the use of online social media influences the social capital of any business organization, which increases its financial and non-financial growth. ...
... Malthouse et al, (2013) confirmed that online social media enables MSEs to enter the market without geographical boundaries. Another study by Rapp et al, (2013) noted that firms with the utilization of online social media can achieve growth as a result of reaching customers and finally making more sales. Hence, this current study strived to provide updated data by examining the contribution of technology-based online social media to the growth of youth-owned MSEs. ...
Micro and Small Enterprises are major players in the wealth of nations, and therefore various entrepreneurial interventions were launched for boosting the economies and standards of living by creating employment opportunities and profits. However, these MSEs have experienced some problems which lessen their growth. The objective of the research was to investigate the effect of government interventions on the growth of youth-owned MSEs in Kigali City, Rwanda. The study was anchored on the resource-based view, Gibb's support theory, adoption theory, and growth of a firm theory/ Explanatory and descriptive research designs were adopted. The sample was 154 respondents drawn from three districts of Kigali city with a population of 252 youth-owned MSEs. Data was collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis. The study concludes that entrepreneurial training, access to credit, technology-based online social media, and market access effectively influenced the growth of MSEs in Kigali City, Rwanda. The study recommended that government entrepreneurial interventions should be effectively factored into policy-making and program implementation for sufficient growth of MSEs. MSEs should adopt technology-based online social media to market their products to the global market beyond the Rwanda boundary. Moreover it's an effective management tool for customer relations for online business.
... Currently, many companies see social media as a tool to enhance their relationship with their customers (Rapp et al. 2013). Online interactions facilitate the exchange and sharing of information and make widespread communications among individuals (Godes et al. 2005;Sonnier, McAlister, and Rutz 2011). ...
... Social media are digital communication channels (Chappuis, Gaffey, and Parvizi 2011) which consumers use to interact with friends, share images and videos, and find brands (Rapp et al. 2013). This communication tool has changed the way customers interact with brands (Bowden et al. 2018). ...
Today, companies must create brand community identification
on social media in order to transition from traditional
marketing to online marketing. This transition can increase
advertising in online platforms, the customers’ trust in the
brand and, ultimately, their refusal to buy and use rival brands
in competitive online environments. This study investigates
the effects of brand community identification on consumer
behavior of online brand communities which consists of social
media community users. The sample size includes 245 observations (Facebook, Instagram, and other social networks users)
in Iran. After an in-depth review of the relevant literature, a
conceptual model was developed and the proposed hypotheses were tested using Structural Equation Modeling technique.
Results indicate that brand community identification in online
brand communities has important and different effects on
customer behavior, so companies could use it to support their
online marketing strategies. Ultimately, companies would be
able to create a unique sense in customers who avoid buying
and using competitor brands.
... To alleviate such feelings, consumers will search for information such as word-of-mouth recommendations from friends (Peres et al., 2010;Rogers, 2010), particularly for technological products (e.g., smartphones) that have short lifetimes and lose value quickly (Liao et al., 2021a,b,c,d). In the traditional media context, consumers are relatively isolated, as peer-to-peer interactions are limited (Kim and Chandler, 2018), but through social media, they can easily interact and communicate with each other via brand communities (Rapp et al., 2013;Lamberton and Stephen, 2016;Wang et al., 2021). Consumers' identities then become associated with their community membership (Thompson and Sinha, 2008;Liao et al., 2020a), and their social networks and past purchasing experiences jointly influence their adoption of new products. ...
Introduction
Consumers’ adoption behavior is critical to the success of new products, but the effects of brand communities on new product adoption have rarely been investigated. In this study, we draw on network theory to examine how consumer participation in brand communities (in terms of participation intensity and social networking behaviors) affects the adoption of new products.
Methods
We collected longitudinal data from 8,296 members of an online community of a well-known smartphone brand to assess the factors influencing new product adoption.
Results
The results from applying a hazard model indicated that brand community participation increases the speed of adoption of new products. The positive effect of members’ out-degree centrality on new product adoption was found to be significant, but in-degree centrality only had an effect when users had previous purchasing experience.
Discussion
These findings extend the literature by revealing how new products are disseminated across brand communities. The study also makes theoretical and practical contributions to the literature on brand community management and product marketing.
... Social commerce through SNSs has become a common e-commerce instrument used by businesses in many sectors, including the food sector. Therefore, through SNSs, firms can reach a wide audience, and customer loyalty (Carlson et al., 2019;Rapp et al., 2013), create strong relationships with customers (Aloysius et al., 2018) and increase brand awareness (Muntinga et al., 2011). Since a brand is an important asset for business (Bakkour et al., 2015), the exploitation of social media to manage the brand must be the focus of business in the food sector. ...
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the latest breakthroughs in social commerce by examining the characteristics of consumers' social self-identity factors in the food and beverage sector. The objective is to examine how social self-identities factors contribute to exchanging information on social commerce platforms for food and beverage products.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the measurement and structural model. A total of 238 food and beverage website and apps users were questioned using a structural survey.
Findings
Contrary to expectations, one self-inner driver does not influence consumers' intentions to exchange social commerce information, while up-to-date information, validation and like-minded discussion have a strong impact on the social commerce exchange model.
Originality/value
The findings of this research offer new insights into the brand's abilities to induce social commerce. The findings also assist marketing managers in better managing brand content on these websites.
... Data Madrasah pada tingkat Madrasah Aliyah swasta di jawa timur berjumlah 1.751 (BPS, 2019). Berdasarkan hal tersebut Madrasah Bertaraf Internasional memiliki strategi khusus guna bertahan menghadapi kompetitornya salah satunya dengan membangun brand yang baik, dikarenakan, kemampuan untuk memperoleh informasi dari dan menyebarkan informasi ke audiens yang lebih luas dan kemampuan untuk mengintegrasikan berbagai saluran sebagai bagian dari program pemasaran mereka sangat penting dalam mengembangkan strategi branding media sosial yang sukses (Kim & Ko, 2012;Nguyen et al., 2015;Rapp et al., 2013). ...
Penelitian ini dilakukan di Madrasah Bertaraf Internasional Amanatul Ummah Pacet Mojokerto. Jenis penelitian yang digunakan oleh peneliti yaitu penelitian kualitatif dengan pendekatan studi kasus. Subjek yang dilakukan dalam penelitian ini adalah koordinator sekolah, bidang Admisi, siswa dan wali murid. Peneliti melakukan pengumpulan data menggunakan Observasi, wawancara, dan dokumentasi, analisis data yang digunakan dengan cara triangulasi. Peneliti memiliki tujuan untuk mengetahui strategi apa yang dilakukan oleh Madrasah Bertaraf Internasional Amanatul Ummah sehingga lembaga pendidikan tersebut berhasil memiliki brand di masyarakat. Hasil dari penelitian yang telah dilakukan yaitu: Pelaksanaan strategi branding yang dilakukan oleh MBI Amanatul Ummah yakni dengan pertama adanya guru yang cerdas sehingga peserta didik dapat berhasil dalam proses pembelajaran baik akademik maupun non akdemik, kedua akses networking yang kuat dan luas, ketiga akses vinansial dan akses sosial. Dalam keempat pelaksnaan strategi yang dilakukan keberhasilan utama untuk mencapai brand dikenal oleh masyarakat yakni adanya kekuatan networking yang kuat dan luas sehingga peserta didik dapat dengan mudah memanfaat relasi yang kuat untuk menyalurkan segala potensi yang dimiliki oleh MBI Amanatul Ummah Pacet Mojokerto. Brand MBI Amanatul Ummah telah berhasil memperoleh pembeda dari lembaga pendidikan lainnya yakni layanan, kualitas (prestasi), dan lulusan yang berhasil diterima di perguruan tinggi terbaik diluar negeri maupun di Indonesia
... They will be included as independent variables in a multiple regression analysis with FoMO as the dependent variable. Rapp et al. (2013) created this scale, consisting of ten, seven-point items from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree" to measure how much someone uses social media to stay current with brands, retailers, and consumers. Three statements were removed due to their context-specificity. ...
This study expands the exploration of a consumer behavior concept that has received considerable attention recently: the fear of missing out (FoMO). Several variables were analyzed in terms of their potential influence on FoMO: social media usage, self-concept, social identity, smartphone usage, innovativeness, and gender. The study builds upon the premise that the construct has two distinct components: a personal dimension and a social dimension. The importance of these results is discussed in terms of advancing FoMO theory as well as assisting practitioners in directing their promotional efforts.
... This is a 45minute increase from five years ago (Statista, 2018a). Studies indicate that social media is changing the business landscape and more than half of consumers are interacting with brands via social sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook (Rapp et al., 2013). According to research from the USA, 97% of consumers from the ages 16-24 are on Facebook, while 45% are on Twitter, 76% are on Instagram and 75% are on Snap Chat (Mitchell, 2012; NORC at the University of Chicago, 2017). ...
This paper investigates best theories and practices in the context of youth drug driving and describes initiatives aiming to decrease the incidence of youth driving high. Secondary data searches and content analysis of existent campaigns is conducted. Findings show that most initiatives properly use fear tactics and attempt to make youth feel that the issue is severe and that they are vulnerable to the negative consequences of driving high. Initiatives can become more effective if they provide specific and easy-to-follow recommendations of how to abstain from driving high, help young people abstain from driving high, make them feel that they can abstain from driving high, and showing how following the recommendations would succeed in preventing accidents. Implications and suggestions are discussed.
... Referring to Rapp et al. (2013) about 88 percent of the companies has already initiated to use social media websites for their marketing strategies. Social media marketing increases consumer brand relationships and enhances consumer brand identification. ...
The main drive of this research was to study the practices of marketing that include social media marketing, electronic word of mouth and consumer brand identification while exploring the influence on customer willingness to pay premium price within food industry by mainly focusing on coffee shops of the twin cities (Rawalpindi and Islamabad), Pakistan. The significance of this research is the identification of critical high performance marketing strategies for customer satisfaction within a Pakistani context by comparing a total of 10 local and international coffee shop outlets within Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Capital Territory. Data collection method was quantitative through detailed questionnaires for an overall sample size of 250 respondents. The critical business areas were, therefore, customized to incorporate data collection from customers to ascertain preference and satisfaction of local or international coffee shop outlets. Additionally, the marketing high performance data was also collected qualitatively through Electronic Word of Mouth (EWOM) from social media platforms of different coffee shops online pages, thus it was proved that social media marketing efforts have an indirect or moderate relationship with premium price products because social media marketing does not influence the consumer’s purchase decision and willingness to pay premium price, but it may only enhances the Customer-Brand Identification or help generating electronic word of mouth. whereas, the food industry in Pakistan also showed a positive relationship between the consumer brand identification and customer’s willingness to pay premium price because when consumers regularly purchases products from a brand they are likely to become brand loyal, and the factor that is most effective is e-WOM influencing brand image, Thus this study shows the positive relationship between the EWOM and customers’ willingness to pay premium price. In this study it becomes clear that customer’s purchase decision is positively affected by the EWOM & CBI. Whereas, Social Media Marketing efforts helps in creating awareness and in enhancing the EWOM and CBI, not directly influencing the customer to pay premium.
... Over the past ten years, it has been known that there are complex interactions between companies and their customers through social media. In this situation, companies received benefits from social media platforms to expand customers' geographic reach (Gao et al., 2018), increase brand awareness (Naylor et al., 2012) and build a closer connection with customers (Rapp et al., 2013). The new method to create this mutual interface is called social media marketing. ...
Fast-fashion brands have significantly risen in the business industry, an impetus is also needed to increase the company’s growth. The purpose of this paper is to examine how social media marketing influences customers and has a significant effect on their purchase intentions, also willingness to pay for fast fashion brands. This study confirms that social media marketing provides insights into envisioning brand loyalty. Thus, creating effective and strategic social media marketing is crucial. The questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 244 fast fashion brands’ customers who are active in social media, was analyzed using Partial Least Square (PLS), and measured using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Keywords: Social Media Marketing, Willingness To Pay, Purchase Intentions, Brand Loyalty
... Social media platforms' popularity also highlights changes in media consumption (Twitter, 2014). Approximately 88% of companies such as media, information technology and telecommunications, FMCG and retail, travel and entertainment have started to use various social media platforms and approximately 42% have fully incorporated different social media sites into their marketing strategies (Rapp et al., 2013). Therefore, social media has become a more effective way to find new customers and retain existing customers (Luo et al., 2015). ...
Social media, emerged due to the development of information and communication technologies, has become an integral part of people's lives and they have been making extensive use of it when deciding on any touristic activity. Social media has a very important role in cultural tourism, which is one of the alternative tourism types. People get information about the destination they will go through social media. At the same time, they increase the recognition and awareness of cultural tourism values through social media platforms. In this context, the aim of this study is to examine the use of social media in cultural tourism. Within the scope of the study, social media, social media platforms, the use of social media in cultural tourism are discussed. At the end of the study, various suggestions that will enable the social media to be used more in cultural tourism are given. ÖZ Bilgi ve iletişim teknolojilerinin gelişmesiyle ortaya çıkan sosyal medya, insanların yaşamlarının ayrılmaz bir parçası haline gelmiştir ve kişiler herhangi bir turistik faaliyete karar verirken sosyal medyadan yaygın bir şekilde yararlanmaktadır. Alternatif turizm türlerinden biri olan kültür turizminde sosyal medyanın çok önemli bir yeri vardır. İnsanlar, gidecekleri destinasyon hakkında bilgiyi sosyal medyadan elde etmektedirler. Aynı zamanda sosyal medya platformları aracılığıyla kültür turizmi çekiciliklerinin tanınırlığını ve bilinirliğini artırmaktadırlar. Bu bağlamda çalışmanın amacı, sosyal medyanın kültür turizminde kullanımını incelemektir. Çalışma kapsamında; sosyal medya, sosyal medya platformları, sosyal medyanın kültür turizminde kullanımına ilişkin konular ele alınmıştır. 36 Çalışmanın sonunda ise, sosyal medyanın kültür turizminde daha fazla kullanılmasını sağlayacak çeşitli önerilere yer verilmiştir.
... Social media has become an essential part of everyday life and has improved people's preferences and needs based on the information they share on social networks [19,68]. Companies use online social media to share information about their products, receive feedback from consumers, make announcements about company activities, and engage with communities and the public [69,70]. ...
Customer participation in brand environmental responsibility is necessary for enterprises and consumers to co-create value. However, it is not yet clear why some corporate social responsibility (CSR) communications are more effective in attracting higher customer participation in a digitally transparent environment. Based on signal theory and social identity theory, this study examines the impact of the interactive effect of CSR strategy (proactive vs. reactive) and transparency signals (high vs. low) on customer trust (perceived integrity and perceived competence), customer–brand identification, and participation intention in brand environmental responsibility. We conduct a 2 × 2 study with 140 respondents. The findings reveal a significant interaction effect of CSR strategy and transparency signals on perceived integrity, perceived competence, and participation intention in brand environmental responsibility. Mediation analysis reveals that the impact of CSR strategy on participation intention is serially mediated via perceived trust and customer–brand identification and varies across different transparency levels.
... Subsequently, consumers' perception of different blueberry product dimensions and their familiarity with blueberries were elicited. Only then was consumers' health awareness (derived from Gould (1990)) and social media affinity (derived from Rapp et al. (2013)) examined to prevent consumers' bias. The questionnaire concluded with questions on the respondents' socio-demographic characteristics using nominal scales while all the other sections employed ratio scales (5-point Likert scales ranging from 'fully agree' (+ 2) to 'fully disagree' (− 2)). ...
Social media marketing is a promising tool for successful product placement of new healthy luxury food products, a subcategory of superfoods. Despite its growing popularity, no studies have investigated how social media marketing affects consumers’ quality perception process for such superfoods and whether this provides opportunities for farmers to gain a competitive advantage in direct marketing channels. Therefore, we integrate media richness theory into the food quality guidance model, compile a data set of 697 German fruit consumers from May to June 2020, and analyze this sample via partial least square analysis. Results show that social media marketing is a viable tool for new healthy luxury food products if media content is highly experience providing. Furthermore, it offers opportunities for the formation of shorter food supply chains as farmers could, through the provision of engaging social media marketing content, sell new healthy luxury food products directly to the final consumer. This research provides implications to farmers, retailers and policy makers to exploit the social media marketing potential of new healthy luxury food products.
... Previous research on corporate use of social media has linked the tool's adoption to one or two specific management functions (Cao et al., 2018), mainly related to marketing, such as sales and customer satisfaction (Rapp et al., 2013;Pham & Johnson, 2017). According to Chanda and Zaorski (2013), successful corporate use of social media can help organizations strengthen relationships with stakeholders, both internal and external, in a way that will benefit the organization's bottom line. ...
(i) Objetivo: avaliar a influência do uso corporativo de mídias sociais sobre a relevância da informação contábil em empresas brasileiras.(ii) Método: os dados foram coletados na base da Thomson Reuters Eikon e mídias sociais, Facebook e Twitter. A análise ocorreu por meio de estatística descritiva, análise de correlação e regressão linear múltipla OLS. Além disso, utilizou-se o método MOORA para criar um score de uso corporativo das mídias sociais.(iii) Resultados: verificou-se que poucas empresas utilizam as mídias sociais para divulgar informações contábeis. No entanto, os resultados apontam que as informações contábeis divulgadas no Facebook e Twitter são relevantes, o que permite inferir que as mídias sociais podem ser um canal de comunicação importante das empresas com o mercado. Especificamente, em relação à influência da divulgação de informações contábeis no Facebook e no Twitter sobre a relevância da informação contábil, conclui-se que as mídias sociais, quando utilizadas para fins corporativos, aumentam a relevância da informação contábil. Adicionalmente, constatou-se que empresas mais lucrativas que divulgam informações contábeis em mídias sociais apresentam maior relevância da informação contábil, em comparação com empresas de menor lucratividade.(iv) Contribuições: fornece contribuição prática para gestores, ao constatar, por meio de evidências empíricas, que essas plataformas podem trazer benefícios para as organizações, como por exemplo, a possibilidade de aumentar a relevância da informação contábil e criar valor. Para os investidores, contribui ao indicar que as mídias sociais podem ser fonte importante de informação para alimentar seus modelos de decisão.
... On the other hand, consumers increasingly trust and rely on information about brands shared among consumers on social media when making purchase decisions rather than marketing communications (Rapp et al., 2013). ...
Consumer personality traits impact consumer actions, preferences, online behavior, and shopping motives. This study examines personality traits as drivers of social media equity by addressing the mechanisms under which consumer personality traits influence social media equity. We aim to combine consumer‐level information with brand‐level metrics to advance our understanding of consumers’ associations with brands on social media and how specific consumer personality traits can be leveraged to improve a brand's social media equity. Using a self‐administered survey, a total of 418 respondents from an online consumer panel participated in this study. The results from structural equation modeling revealed that while extraversion, openness to experience, and neuroticism personality traits are positively associated with brand engagement and brand advocacy, agreeableness and conscientiousness are significantly associated with brand advocacy and not with brand engagement. This study advances theory by examining how consumer personality traits influence social media equity via brand engagement and brand advocacy as mediators. The findings provide rich practical insights into underlying mechanisms through which marketers can increase social media equity using consumer personality traits. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... Social media can be organizationally representative of all the functions of a firm and serve customers by responding to questions and influencing both rational and emotional reactions to the brand (Minsky & Quesenberry, 2015). Thus, social media have the potential to enhance B2B brand equity (Rapp, Beitelspacher, Grewal, & Hughes, 2013). Indeed, Siamagka, Christodoulides, Michaelidou, and Valvi (2015) demonstrated that perceived image enhancement from using social media is the strongest predictor of perceived (social media) usefulness. ...
This study investigates whether LinkedIn content in a business-to-business (B2B) service setting affects how firms generate engagement and sales revenue. Drawing on social media marketing theoretical underpinnings, we explain how a new post typology (sales, technical, and social) and customer engagement (likes, clicks, shares, and comments) are relevant to increase firm performance. We specify a VAR model with exogenous variables (VARX) using 106 weeks of data from a new, steadily growing B2B firm. We focus on the cumulative effects (i.e., short- and long-term effects) of the types of posts, website visits, new followers, and a composite of engagement behaviors over time and compute elasticities with impulse response functions (IRFs). Our findings indicate that followers and website visits positively affect the amount of sales revenue, and sales posts and website visits drive the number of followers. In addition, we find that social posts, new followers, and sales revenue positively influence engagement. These findings demonstrate the utility of LinkedIn at the firm level, preventing top management from perceiving social media as an ornamental accessory, and provide guidance for B2B marketers about what content to post on LinkedIn.
... Nowadays, social media has created new ways for companies to interact and engage with customers (Rapp et al., 2013;Vrontis et al., 2018), moving from company communication to customer engagement and content co-creation. Rather than attracting and retaining customers via traditional firm initiated marketing activities (Kumar et al., 2017), all efforts and investment are concentrated on digital and social media (Clark et al., 2017;Uzunboylu et al., 2020), where higher engagement and participation is reached (Langaro et al., 2020) with emphasis on relationship building (Pour and Lotfiyan, 2020). ...
... On the other hand, considering the popularity of social media in product promotion, the past decade has experienced the expansion of intricate, diverse, and intense communication between companies and their consumers through social media. Companies are using social media channels to broaden the geographical scope of their market (Gao et al. 2018), increase the quality of brand evaluations , and enhance interactions with consumers (Rapp et al., 2013). Consumers, also, are being empowered with social media, and via their role as message creators, contributors, and commentators they are given control over marketing interaction processes (Hamilton et al., 2016). ...
... Social media has been seen as an effective tool for corporate commercial purposes and better business performance (Rapp et al., 2013). Most companies use social media to enhance business brand image and brand awareness (Nisar & Whitehead, 2016). ...
Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the business environment and competition for culinary MSMEs in Surabaya have been more active. Adopting social media is a crucial competitive instrument for Surabaya's MSMEs in the food industry to endure and adjust with the COVID-19 epidemic. Product innovation can also help the production of product value, which is essential to the performance of MSMEs. In order to be able to fully explain how the use of social media and innovation impacted the performance of culinary MSMEs in the city of Surabaya during the COVID-19 epidemic, a set of competitive advantage variables was chosen. Aim: Examining the effects that innovation and the use of social media may have on the Surabaya City culinary MSMEs' ability to compete. Method: Based on established culinary MSME sample criteria, researchers assessed the use of purposeful sampling. 120 respondents completed questionnaires for the purpose of gathering the study's primary data, which was then analyzed using the SEM-PLS analytic method and the Smart PLS 3.0 software. Findings: The adoption of social media by effective MSMEs can increase the competitive advantage of MSMEs so that from the competitive advantages possessed by MSMEs, it can result in the achievement of better MSME performance.
... A survey instrument in the form of a structured questionnaire was developed using Qualtrics. Thirty-two items which measure the eight constructs in the model were adapted from previous studies (Alford & Biswas, 2002;Chi, 2018;Kim & Hong, 2011;Lang & Armstrong, 2018;Lee & Chow, 2020;Rapp et al., 2013) with slight modification to fit the context of the current study. Demographic questions were also included to study the characteristics of the sample. ...
... Social media provides a virtual marketplace for the organizations for campaigns, promotions, advertisements ( Djafarova & Bowes, 2021 ), customer engagement ( Bailey et al., 2021 ;Garrido-Moreno et al., 2018 ;Hua et al., 2021 ), customer retention ( Garrido-Moreno et al., 2018 ) and crowdsourcing innovation. Social media facilitates individuals in building public perception for increasing their reputation in market ( Etter et al., 2019 ;Rapp et al., 2013 ). Uses and gratifications theory is popular within the marketplace context. ...
Every aspect of human activities has been influenced by social media, but how this influence is affecting individual decision making in different context had not been studied yet. This article tries to investigate social media influences at individual level with respect to different contexts such as organization, marketplace, and social environment. 132 articles had been selected for the review process. The findings have been presented using the lens of Theory, Context, Characteristics and Methodology. This article presents social media influence phenomenon within an individual. The article concludes by highlighting literature gaps and future research directions. This review makes the relevant contribution to the field of computer mediated communications.
... During the previous decade, social media usage has resulted in the development of sophisticated, varied, and enhanced connections among businesses and their customers. Meanwhile, companies are utilizing social media to increase their local reach to potential clients (Gao et al, 2018), promote brand awareness (Naylor et al, 2012), and improve consumer engagement (Rapp et al. 2013). As communication platforms have expanded from a single marketing technique to a supply of advertising data (where companies can monitor, evaluate, and forecast client behavior), they have become increasingly important. ...
The objectives of this paper were to check the influence of social media marketing in developing consumer brand engagement and repurchase intention. A quantitative study was done in Pakistan to attempt to fix that problem. The study's primary data was acquired through the use of questionnaire with a sample population of roughly 310 people, including government employees, private employees, business owners, and students. CFA and SEM (Hypotheses testing) demonstrated that a substantial positive connection between variables Social Media Marketing, corporate social responsibility, electronic word-of-mouth, consumer brand engagement and repurchase intention after controlling for demographic appearances (i.e. age, gender, education, qualification and degree of experience). Both practical and theoretical consequences are examined, and limitations and future implications are mentioned at the conclusion of this work.
... Dimensions of brand awareness according to Kotler & Keller (2016), namely 1) Brand Recognition is the ability of consumers to recognize the brand of a product or service that consumers have previously recognized and 2) Brand Recall is the ability of consumers to remember certain brands when looking for certain needs or being told certain types of products. Rapp & Beitelspacher (2013) stated that consumers use social media to interact with friends, view photos, videos, and search for businesses and brands. Kotler & Keller (2016) argues that a set of beliefs, ideas and impressions is defined as the image or image that a person has of an object where attitudes and impressions are strongly conditioned by the image or image of the object. ...
This study aims to analyze the influence of elements of social media marketing activity on consumer engagement and brand knowledge including brand awareness and image. This study used a quantitative method and purposive sampling technique on 250 respondents. The research was conducted on all Indonesian citizens who use social media WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, youtube, and TikTok regarding the culinary business of celebrities and YouTubers in Indonesia. The method used is the Structural Equation Model with AMOS 24.0 Software. The results of this study indicate that the interaction variables, trends, and EWOM have a positive and significant effect on consumer engagement, and consumer engagement has a positive and significant effect on brand awareness and brand image. While the entertainment and customization variables have no significant effect on consumer engagement.
... Product diversification means determining an optimal degree of diversification of the product assortment, as the increased diversity (increasing the number of different products that the enterprise produces in response to the customer's special needs) increases the cost and reduces operational efficiency, and this from the point of view of production is not desirable (Rampersad et al, 2010). While simplification or limited diversity increases the operational efficiency of the production system, it reduces sales, because it limits the response to the various needs of customers, and this from the marketing point of view is not desirable, and since the production asset is not full stores but rather a demand for it in the market (Rapp et al, 2013). Where we find that innovation leads to diversification from it to simplification, because it brings new and that is included in diversity in that the new is an additional type added to the other types produced by the company, as diversification means the presence of a large number of products, and this leads to improved consumer service because this It provides him with a greater opportunity to choose products according to his needs, which increases sales, and any reduction in the degree of diversity compared to competitors should lead to a decrease in sales (Reinartz et al, 2011). ...
Purpose
The purpose of the research paper is to examine customers' online purchase intention towards apparel in the online environment, with a focus on the role of conviction and brand reputation of the e-retailer.
Design/methodology/approach
Hypotheses are based on an extensive literature review and tested using adapted existing scales for the constructs-social media usage for apparel, electronic word of mouth (EWOM), conviction, apparel e-retailer's brand reputation and online purchase intention towards apparel, and data are collected from 362 online customers of apparel brands in eight major cities across the country. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is applied to analyze data and test hypotheses because of multiple dependent variables.
Findings
The quantitative results indicate that impact of social media and EWOM on online purchase intention towards apparel is mediated by conviction. The results also explain the moderating effect of apparel e-retailer's brand reputation.
Originality/value
Findings provide suggestions for the apparel business in an online environment that address the issue of breach of trust and implications for apparel e-retailers, managers and researchers. The study contributes to the existing retail literature by proposing concept of conviction and role of apparel e-retailer's brand reputation in this context.
The changing trend in the circular economy has pushed most firms to be competitive in their business activities using emerging technology. SMEs in recent times are increasingly leveraging technologies such as social media to enhance their interactions with their customers, increase their reach and become competitive. Despite this, SMEs in the manufacturing sector in developing economies are often underexplored in literature in their resolve to leverage social media to improve their performance and sustainability. This research explores the integration of social media in SME manufacturing firms’ activities toward their performance and sustainability in developing countries. Drawing on relevant literature and the social media engagement theory, we employed a questionnaire survey to collect data from 417 managers/staff of SME manufacturing firms in Ghana, using PLS-SEM techniques for the analysis. Research findings revealed that social media integration proved a direct positive correlation with SME manufacturing firms’ performance. Additionally, it was revealed that social media utilization has a positive and significant effect on SME manufacturing firms’ performance. The findings further show that social media usage assists SME firms’ performance and fosters their sustainability. It is concluded that SMEs should incorporate social media marketing strategies for firms’-customer relationships and internal and external collaboration. By implication, this study offers practitioners and researchers knowledge regarding social media integration among SMEs in emerging economies.
Purpose – Although research analyzing the consequences of salesperson social media use in driving sales behaviors and performance outcomes has
proliferated in the recent past, there are significant research gaps in the domain. Grounded in task-technology fit theory, this paper aims to propose
a conceptual framework that integrates between previously disjointed areas of research and analyzes the relationships between salesperson social
media use, brand awareness, creativity, manager empowerment and company performance.
Design/methodology/approach – Survey responses were collected from a multi-industry sample of 158 business-to-business salespeople.
Structural relationships were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling.
Findings – The analysis shows that salesperson social media use positively affects brand awareness. The relationship between social media and
brand awareness is magnified with the increase in salesperson creativity. Findings also show that manager empowerment increases salesperson
creativity. Finally, brand awareness positively affects company performance.
Practical implications – Sales organizations should focus on developing digital strategies, especially focusing on salesperson social media use to
enhance company’s brand awareness, which in turn increases company performance. Moreover, sales managers should also follow empowering
leader behaviors to enhance creativity.
Originality/value – The authors amalgamate salesperson social media use literature and branding literature by proposing salesperson social media
use’s positive effects on brand awareness. This study also expands the knowledge by exploring the moderating effect of individual-level variables
such as salesperson creativity on driving the effects of salesperson social media use.
As technology develops, service users who utilize technology have increased along with the emergence of mobile phone application-based services such as social media, online games, and entertainment. However, technological developments are different from growth in the service sector. The RI service sector's productivity is relatively lower than other countries in ASEAN, where Indonesia is still struggling in the traditional service sector such as construction and trade. Digital marketing is one of the disruptive changes that significantly affect the image of a product. So the need for research on how effective strategies for the service sector are specifically for millennials. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of social media and eWOM on millennial intentions to purchase online travel agent products and to analyze whether firm reputation moderates the influence of social media and eWOM on millennial intentions to purchase online travel agent products. Data collection was carried out using Google form on 270 millennials in Jabodetabek. Hierarchical regression analysis shows that social media and eWOM influence millennial intentions to purchase online travel agent products. Beside, firm reputation only moderates the influence of social media and eWOM on millennial intentions to purchase online travel agent products.
Salespeople are crucial piece of the puzzle in micro business retailing environments of developing countries. With no formal training and education in salesmanship, they practice the modern version of the customer relationship management to achieve success. However, empirical studies regarding the salesperson’s performance in such environments in developing countries are scarce. We contribute to the existing literature by extending the application of the behaviour-based salesperson self-evaluation into micro enterprise environments of under-researched countries in Central America and Western Africa. Using an empirical data collected from two developing nations, we examined the importance ratings of the Bush et al. (1990) behaviour-based scale dimension in micro enterprise retail shops in Ghana and Guatemala. Our results indicate that the dimensionality of the behaviour-based salesperson performance evaluation scale holds in both countries. In addition, the importance of some of the performance evaluation dimensions differed in the countries studied.
Saat ini dunia bisnis telah memasuki era digital, salah satunnya adalah bisnis dalam aspek keuangan atau transaksi pembayaran. Banyak produk-produk financial technology diluar bank syariah yang sudah eksis dan banyak diminati masyarakat. Tentu saja hal tersebut menjadi ancaman tersendiri bagi produk-produk financial technology milik perbankan Syariah. Penelitian ini mengusulkan sebuah solusi untuk meningkatkan citra merek dan kesadaran merek serta e-WOM (electronic word of mouth) dan komitmen konsumen produk mobile banking bank syariah melalui aktifitas pemasaran media sosial. Analisis penelitian ini menggunakan metode kuantitatif dengan software AMOS.Hasil penelitian ini membuktikan bahwa : (1). Aktivitas pemasaran media sosial berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap citra merek, semakin tinggi aktivitas pemasaran media sosial akan meningkatkan citra merek. (2). Aktivitas pemasaran media sosial berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap kesadaran merek, semakin tinggi aktivitas pemasaran media sosial akan meningkatkan kesadaran merek. (3). Citra merek berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap e-WOM, semakin tinggi citra merek akan meningkatkan sikap menggunakan e-WOM. (4). Kesadaran merek berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap e-WOM, semakin tinggi kesadaran merek akan meningkatkan e-WOM. (5). Citra merek berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap komitmen, semakin tinggi citra merek akan meningkatkan komitmen. (6). Kesadaran merek berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap komitmen, semakin tinggi kesadaran merek akan meningkatkan komitmen.
This research aims to explore the challenges and opportunities associated with the deployment of social media to improve supply chain sustainability. This exploratory research can lead to deeper insights regarding the opportunities as well as problems experienced due to the use of social media in supply chains. The study selected a three-phase Delphi study approach with both qualitative and quantitative analyses. This study recorded feedback from 34 experts with sufficient knowledge of information technology and sustainable pharmaceutical supply chain. 48 independent constructs separately in enterprise and public media were extracted. All the constructs were ranked, ultimately leading to 10 major constructs which played a significantly crucial role in the sustainability of supply chains. While social media challenges and opportunities in supply chain sustainability are discussed in this article, further studies on social and environmental sustainability and providing operational solutions to these challenges are still needed. No paper has directly extracted the impacts of social media specifically on enterprise and public media individually. While most papers mainly focused on economic and environmental sustainability, this paper pays close attention to sustainability and social media.
Digital transformation is the process of the adoption of different digital technologies by an organisation. The main objective of digital transformation is to implement and adopt different modern technologies to improve efficiency. The partner relationship management (PRM) is an application integrated with different functions of the organisations. This system uses various methodologies, software, strategies, and web-based capability for information exchange with different stakeholders. Integration of PRM with artificial intelligence (AI) can help organisation in accurate and quick decision making. Not many studies have been conducted to understand the implications of adopting AI-PRM system. In this context, the objectives of this study are to understand the role of AI-PRM in digital transformation of the organisations and how this integration can optimize the business operations.
New technologies enable retailers to collect large amounts of information about consumers, which might lead to ethical issues and risks of individuals' privacy loss. However, consumers might choose to disclose information to retailers when they perceive that the information would generate more benefits for themselves rather than for the retailer. Since little research has been done to explain the role of age in disclosing personal information to third parties, the present study investigates the difference in the perception of one's own control when it comes to the usage of privacy‐threatening technology depending on respondents' age. Drawing upon uses and gratification theory, the present study explores the response of consumers from four generational cohorts towards the facial recognition technology in retailing. Results reveal that the locus of control over information collected by the technology is neither related to the age of consumers nor to their knowledge of a specific technology used to collect their personal data. Instead, consumers' expected gratifications (in terms of economic and utilitarian) vary across different age groups. Implications for practitioners are discussed.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic has transmuted the business environment and disordered supply chains worldwide. Over the last decade, online social networks (OSNs) have impacted every element of human life and corporate organization. Deploying OSNs services in supply chain networks is currently a pressing need. This study developed a model based on the IS success model, resource-based view, and absorptive capacity to explore the strategic value of OSNs in the supply chain network during COVID-19. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyzes 220 data collected using online questionnaires. Information, system, and service quality emerged as influential features of online social networks that enhance the absorptive capacity and supply chain visibility and agility. The performance of the supply chain is positively impacted by each of OSN’s strategic values, including visibility, agility, and absorptive capacity during COVID-19. In addition, absorptive capacity and supply chain visibility and agility mediate the association of information, system, and service quality features with supply chain performance. Supply chain managers and policymakers will better grasp OSNs adoption necessities and features during pandemic situations. It will also contribute to operation management, information systems, and social media by presenting OSNs in a supply chain environment.
The study is aimed to explore the relationship between the social media influence on consumers and E-satisfaction (ESAT). A conceptual model is developed and tested using the data collected from 669 respondents from the southern part of India. After testing the psychometric properties of the survey instrument using the LISREL package of structural equation modeling (SEM), Hayes’s PROCESS macros were used to test the mediation, moderated moderated-mediation hypotheses. The results reveal social media influence is positively associated with ESAT and EWOM. The findings support the positive relationship between EWOM and ESAT. The results also support that EWOM mediates the relationship between social media influence and ESAT. Furthermore, the results support that risk moderates the relationship between EWOM and ESAT. Finally, the results provide strong support for a three-way interaction between EWOM, risk, and trust to influence the ESAT of consumers. The implications for marketing theory and practice are discussed.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of Chinese young consumers’ traits (fashion leadership, quality consciousness, price consciousness, environmental consciousness and social media usage) as the external factors on their behavioral intention toward using clothing subscription rental services.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative research was conducted, and empirical data were collected from 255 Chinese college students. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings
The study offered convincing evidence that fashion leadership, price consciousness and social media usage are the three main drivers of Chinese young consumers’ favorable attitudes toward clothing subscription rental services, which together with social norms further lead to their intention to use clothing subscription rental services. Contrary to expectations, the study showed that consumers’ quality consciousness and environmental consciousness have no significant impact on consumer attitudes toward clothing subscription rental services. Moreover, the findings of the study demonstrated the impact of attitude and subjective norms on Chinese young consumers’ intention to use clothing subscription rental services.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by integrating additional factors (fashion leadership, quality consciousness, price consciousness, consumer environmental knowledge, social media usage) into the traditional theory of reasoned action model to investigate how Chinese young consumers’ characteristics impact their attitudes and how their attitudes and subjective norms impact their intention toward using clothing subscription rental services.
Research suggests that ethical leadership can motivate favorable employee behaviors. In the current study, we explore the influence of ethical leadership on salesperson social media use for work and its downstream effects on empathy and salesperson performance. Leveraging self-determination theory, analysis confirms the positive relationship between ethical leadership and salesperson social media use and tests the hypothesized moderating influence of activity, outcome, and capability control systems. Results also reveal that the positive association between ethical leadership and social media use is stronger when activity or outcome controls are in place, and weaker when capability controls are in place. Furthermore, the tests support positive relationships between salesperson social media use, empathetic behavior, and sales performance. An indirect effect of social media use on salesperson performance through empathetic behaviors was also uncovered.
This book is a reprint of the Special Issue Sustainability and Consumer Behaviour that was published in Sustainability.
This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal
Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050) (available at: www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special issues/
sus consumer behaviour).
Augmented reality applications are digital learning innovations that can rapidly improve the learning of college and university students in the virtual setting. Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, on-site teaching has been pushed back to limit the spread of disease. This paper examines the attitudes and subjective and behavioral norms of 100 college students in Thailand toward digital learning innovations accessed through augmented reality applications. The study offers a theoretical model established through the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and uses it to investigate students’ choices of augmented reality applications as digital learning innovations in their courses. The data were analyzed through structural equation modeling. The findings showed that students’ acceptance of digital learning innovations through augmented reality applications could be explained through TPB wherever attitudinal and subjective factors showed significant influence; meanwhile, perceived behavioral control did not demonstrate a significant influence on college students. The findings acknowledge the positive effects of augmented reality applications as experienced by college students in Thailand.
As mobile commerce (m-commerce) plays an increasingly significant role in retailing, opportunities exist for organizations to shape or reshape their reputations. Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanism through which organizational reputation is shaped and perceived by customers through m-commerce. This study addresses whether organizational efforts in m-commerce are linked to reputation through mobile service quality, perceived value, and customer satisfaction using the cues-images-impressions model. Using an online survey with 744 valid responses (440 physical product shopping and 304 virtual product shopping), the results show that perceived m-commerce effort affects mobile service quality. In addition, the relationship among mobile service quality, value, and satisfaction, which was previously proposed in the literature and tested in various contexts, is confirmed. Finally, impression is a result of mobile service quality, value, and satisfaction. This study contributes knowledge on the organizational reputation formation in m-commerce research.
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how business-to-business (B2B) salespeople use social media and emulate value creation strategies used by social media influencers.
Design/methodology/approach
Using 28 interviews with salespeople, this paper develops six propositions and a conceptual framework that outlines when and how B2B salespeople use social media in value-creating sales.
Findings
This study’s findings provide a critical analysis of when social media are most effective and beneficial in supporting salespeople’s value-creating sales in various stages in the sales process (e.g. prospecting, opening relationships, qualifying prospects and serving accounts) and when they are less effective (e.g. presenting sales messages and closing sales).
Research limitations/implications
This research yields a substantive understanding of the evolving role that social media play in B2B sales by examining B2B salespeople’s value creation strategies through the lens of social media influencers’ practice and outlines ideas for future research on B2B salespeople’s social media strategies.
Practical implications
The findings of this research can be used by B2B organizations to structure the training of B2B salespeople to use social media to the fullest extent by aligning specific strategies with different parts of the sales process.
Originality/value
This paper contributes by summarizing the B2B sales literature on social media and integrating recent insights from the social media influencer literature; empirically identifying how B2B salespeople use social media to create value, thus validating previous findings and extending understanding by offering a set of six theoretical propositions; and delineating B2B salespeople’s social media practice into 11 value creation strategies that are critically explored for their place in the sales process.
Purpose-This study aims to develop and test a process model of the effect of social media use by business-to-business (B2B) salespeople on their value cocreation and cross/upselling performance. Adopting a research acquisition perspective, the authors claim that salesperson's social media use is critical for generating social capital-an operant resource characterized by superior market knowledge, reputation and networking-which, in turn, directly and synergistically enhances value cocreation and cross/upselling outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach-A model is developed based on extant sales research on salesperson's social media use and social capital theory. Data from B2B salespeople is analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses. Findings-The results demonstrate that salespeople's social media use enhances their social capital with support for direct effects on market knowledge and reputation, and indirect effect on networking. The results also show that the three aspects of social capital drive value cocreation, which enhances cross/upselling performance. Post hoc analysis shows the indirect effects of salesperson's social media use as well as the interconnected effects of the aspects of social capital on value cocreation.
Practical implications-The study indicates that salespeople should be encouraged to use social media as a means for enhancing market knowledge and reputation, which can then be leveraged to build networking skills. Providing training to salespeople and coaching them on how to build their social capital is essential if organizations need to capitalize on novel ways to improve the value cocreation performance of their sales teams. Originality/value-This study demonstrates how salespeople's social media use can enhance their social capital, which, in turn, is critical for value cocreation and cross/upselling performance. The proposed framework opens opportunities for future studies to examine the role of salesperson social capital and value cocreation in B2B exchanges.
If service quality relates to retention of customers at the aggregate level, as other research has indicated, then evidence of its impact on customers’ behavioral responses should be detectable. The authors offer a conceptual model of the impact of service quality on particular behaviors that signal whether customers remain with or defect from a company. Results from a multicompany empirical study examining relationships from the model concerning customers’ behavioral intentions show strong evidence of their being influenced by service quality. The findings also reveal differences in the nature of the quality-intentions link across different dimensions of behavioral intentions. The authors’ discussion centers on ways the results and research approach of their study can be helpful to researchers and managers.
The Street finds its own uses for things-uses the manufacturers never imagined. The microcassette recorder, originally intended for on-the-jump executive dictution, becomes the revolutionary medium of mag-nizdat, allowing the covert spread of suppressed political speeches in Poland and China. The beeper and the cellular telephone become tools of an increasingly competitiue market in illicit drugs. Other technological artifacts unexpectedly become means of communication, either through opportunity OF necessity. The aerosol can gives birth to the urban graffiti matrix, Soviet rockers press homemade flexi-discs out of used chest X-rays. (Gibson, 1989, p. 85)
Dynamic capabilities have been proposed as a useful way to understand how organizations are able to adapt to changes in technology and markets. Organizational ambidexterity the ability of senior managers to seize opportunities through the orchestration and integration of existing assets to overcome inertia and path dependence, is a core dynamic capability. While promising, research on dynamic capabilities and ambidexterity has not yet been able to specify the specific mechanisms through which senior managers are actually able to reallocate resources and reconfigure assets to simultaneously explore and exploit. Using interviews and qualitative case studies from thirteen organizations, this article explores the actions senior managers took to implement ambidextrous designs and identify which ones helped or hindered them in their attempts. A set of interrelated choices of organization design and senior team process determine which attempts to build ambidextrous organizations are successful.
Two network contagion models are used to describe corporate contributions officers' evaluations of nonprofit organizations seeking philanthropic donations. Contagion by cohesion predicts that behavioral communication between contributions officers results in their sharing the same evaluation. Contagion by structural equivalence predicts that symbolic communication via role playing between officers similarly positioned in the interorganization network of contributions officers results in similar evaluations. We find strong evidence of contagion, robust over differences in the evaluated nonprofit organizations and differences between officers. The evidence is overwhelmingly of contagion by structural equivalence.
This exploratory study assesses the impact of variables associated with a financial portfolio model (marginal returns, growth, synergy, and uncertainty) and characteristics of the channel relationship (power, organizational climate, and communications) on the selling time allocated by 71 independent sales agencies to the principals they represent. The results indicate that the time allocated to principals is consistent with a normative microeconomic model; however, aspects of the channel relationship, particularly communications, participation, and feedback, also influence resource allocations.
Governance strategies, such as integration or control, structure and regulate the conduct of parties in exchange relationships; as such, they serve to constrain the latitude of the decision making of channel partners. Similarly, collaborative communication can be used to create an atmosphere of mutual support, thereby creating volitional compliance between partners. The authors develop a model that addresses the interrelationships of governance and communication and examine the effects of collaborative communication on channel outcomes (the dealer's perceptions of commitment to, satisfaction with, and coordination of activities with a focal manufacturer) across various levels of integration and control. Based on survey data collected from a national sample of computer dealers, the findings indicate that when levels of integration or manufacturer control are high, the effect of collaborative communication on outcomes is weaker than when integration or control is low.
Word of mouth marketing — the intentional influencing of consumer-to-consumer communications — is an increasingly important technique. The authors overview and synthesize extant word of mouth theory and present a study of a marketing campaign in which mobile phones were seeded with prominent bloggers. Eighty-three blogs were followed for six months. Findings reveal the complex cultural conditions through which marketing “hype” is transformed by consumers into the “honey” of relevant, shared communications. Four word of mouth communication strategies are identified — evaluation, embracing, endorsement and explanation. Each is influenced by communicator narrative, communications forum, communal norms and the nature of the marketing promotion. An intrinsic tension between commercial and communal interests plays a prominent, normative role in message formation and reception. This “hype-to-honey” theory shows that communal word of mouth does not simply increase or amplify marketing messages. Rather, marketing messages and meanings are systematically altered in the process of embedding them. The theory has implications for how marketers should plan, target and benefit from word of mouth and how scholars should understand word of mouth in a networked world.
Brand engagement in self-concept (BESC) is a generalized view of brands in relation to the self, with consumers varying in their tendency to include important brands as part of their self-concepts. The authors develop an eight-item scale to measure BESC and demonstrate that it captures a consumer's general engagement with brands. This scale successfully predicts consumers' differential attention to, memory of, and preference for their favorite brands. Brand engagement in self-concept is also related to differential brand loyalty, with high-BESC consumers being less price and time sensitive regarding their favorite brands than low-BESC consumers. The authors discuss the usefulness of this construct for marketing research.
If service quality relates to retention of customers at the aggregate level, as other research has indicated, then evidence of its impact on customers' behavioral responses should be detectable. The authors offer a conceptual model of the impact of service quality on particular behaviors that signal whether customers remain with or defect from a company. Results from a multicompany empirical study examining relationships from the model concerning customers' behavioral intentions show strong evidence of their being influenced by service quality. The findings also reveal differences in the nature of the quality-intentions link across different dimensions of behavioral intentions. The authors' discussion centers on ways the results and research approach of their study can be helpful to researchers and managers.
This study extends the existing satisfaction–trust–loyalty paradigm to investigate how customers’ affectionate ties with firms (customer–firm affection), and its components of intimacy and passion in particular, affect customer loyalty in services. Applying Sternberg’s triangular theory of love in a bilevel model, the authors consider customer–staff and customer–firm interactions in parallel. Through a netnography study and survey research in two service contexts, they confirm (1) the salience of intimacy and passion as two underrecognized components of customer–firm affection that influence customer loyalty, (2) the complementary and mediating role of customer–firm affection in strengthening customer loyalty, (3) significant affect transfers from customer–staff to customer–firm levels, and (4) the dilemma that emerges when customer–staff relations are too close. The findings provide several implications for researchers and managers regarding how intimacy and passion might enrich customer service interactions and how to manage customer–staff relations properly.
Drawing on research from the interfirm relationship, marketing channels, operations management, and network theory literature and on the basis of qualitative depth interviews, the authors identify a new phenomenon they call ""supply chain contagion." Supply chain contagion is the propagation of interfirm behaviors from one dyadic relationship to an adjacent dyadic relationship within the supply chain. Contagion can occur inadvertently and with or without the knowledge of the affected parties. Using institutional theory, the authors develop a conceptual model that predicts the conditions under which contagion is likely to occur. Although contagion may take the form of any number of interfirm behaviors, operationally, the authors focus on whether the downstream influence strategies that manufacturers use with their dealers are imitated by these same dealers with end customers. They conduct conclusive research using a sample of 151 vertically linked manufacturer-dealer- customer supply chain triads and explain a large variance (R2 = .30) in the use of downstream influence strategies in terms of supply chain contagion. Given extensive prior empirical support for alternative antecedents to influence strategy usage, the explanatory power of supply chain contagion is impressive and suggests that how intermediaries treat end customers is explained, to a large degree, as the intermediaries simply imitating how their suppliers treated them. In addition to the identification of a new theoretical concept, the study provides empirical support for the effects of both macroand microinstitutional factors on interfirm behavior. Specific factors that are positively related to the level of manifest contagion are environmental uncertainty and the perceived similarity and frequency of contact between boundary personnel; dependence asymmetry has a negative effect on manifest contagion. Managers and boundary-spanning personnel who are aware of supply chain contagion effects should be better able to influence strategically the behavior of channel partners and may be better inoculated against their own unintended imitation of other organizations within their supply chain.
While a firm’s ability to jointly pursue both an exploitative and exploratory orientation has been posited as having positive performance effects, little is currently known about the antecedents and consequences of such ambidexterity in small-to medium-sized firms (SMEs). To that end, this study focuses on the pivotal role of top management team (TMT) behavioral integration in facilitating the processing of disparate demands essential to attaining ambidexterity in SMEs. Then, to address the bottom-line importance of an ambidextrous orientation, the study hypothesizes its association with relative firm performance. Multisource survey data, including CEOs and TMT members from 139 SMEs, provide support for both hypotheses.
Ambidexterity refers to an organizations capacity to achieve two seemingly conflicting goals simultaneouslyin this study, the ability of customer-facing employees to achieve sales and service goals at the same time. We examine a range of organizational contextual variables (i.e. empowerment, team support, fairness of rewards, and transformational leadership) to empirically model the antecedents of ambidexterity at the individual and branch levels in a retail banking setting. We found that all the contextual variables have a significant impact on branch ambidexterity at the individual level; however, only empowerment, team support, and fairness of rewards have a significant group-level effect on branch ambidexterity. We also found a positive relationship between branch ambidexterity and branch financial performance.
This exploratory study assesses the impact of variables associated with a financial portfolio model (marginal returns, growth, synergy, and uncertainty) and characteristics of the channel relationship (power, organizational climate, and communications) on the selling time allocated by 71 independent sales agencies to the principals they represent. The results indicate that the time allocated to principals is consistent with a normative microeconomic model; however, aspects of the channel relationship, particularly communications, participation, and feedback, also influence resource allocations.
The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is a new type of market-based performance measure for firms, industries, economic sectors, and national economies. The authors discuss the nature and purpose of ACSI and explain the theory underlying the ACSI model, the nation-wide survey methodology used to collect the data, and the econometric approach employed to estimate the indices. They also illustrate the use of ACSI in conducting benchmarking studies, both cross-sectionally and over time. The authors find customer satisfaction to be greater for goods than for services and, in turn, greater for services than for government agencies, as well as find cause for concern in the observation that customer satisfaction in the United States is declining, primarily because of decreasing satisfaction with services. The authors estimate the model for the seven major economic sectors for which data are collected. Highlights of the findings include that (1) customization is more important than reliability in determining customer satisfaction, (2) customer expectations play a greater role in sectors in which variance in production and consumption is relatively low, and (3) customer satisfaction is more quality-driven than value- or price-driven. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of ACSI for public policymakers, managers, consumers, and marketing in general.
The author presents a conceptual model of brand equity from the perspective of the individual consumer. Customer-based brand equity is defined as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand. A brand is said to have positive (negative) customer-based brand equity when consumers react more (less) favorably to an element of the marketing mix for the brand than they do to the same marketing mix element when it is attributed to a fictitiously named or unnamed version of the product or service. Brand knowledge is conceptualized according to an associative network memory model in terms of two components, brand awareness and brand image (i.e., a set of brand associations). Customer-based brand equity occurs when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds some favorable, strong, and unique brand associations in memory. Issues in building, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity are discussed, as well as areas for future research.
The statistical tests used in the analysis of structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error are examined. A drawback of the commonly applied chi square test, in addition to the known problems related to sample size and power, is that it may indicate an increasing correspondence between the hypothesized model and the observed data as both the measurement properties and the relationship between constructs decline. Further, and contrary to common assertion, the risk of making a Type II error can be substantial even when the sample size is large. Moreover, the present testing methods are unable to assess a model's explanatory power. To overcome these problems, the authors develop and apply a testing system based on measures of shared variance within the structural model, measurement model, and overall model.
A critical element in the evolution of a fundamental body of knowledge in marketing, as well as for improved marketing practice, is the development of better measures of the variables with which marketers work. In this article an approach is outlined by which this goal can be achieved and portions of the approach are illustrated in terms of a job satisfaction measure.
Scholars of the theory of the firm have begun to emphasize the sources and conditions of what has been described as “the organizational advantage,” rather than focus on the causes and consequences of market failure. Typically, researchers see such organizational advantage as accruing from the particular capabilities organizations have for creating and sharing knowledge. In this article we seek to contribute to this body of work by developing the following arguments: (1) social capital facilitates the creation of new intellectual capital; (2) organizations, as institutional settings, are conducive to the development of high levels of social capital; and (3) it is because of their more dense social capital that firms, within certain limits, have an advantage over markets in creating and sharing intellectual capital. We present a model that incorporates this overall argument in the form of a series of hypothesized relationships between different dimensions of social capital and the main mechanisms and processes necessary for the creation of intellectual capital.
This chapter describes the contributions of management and marketing science literature to the cumulative understanding of the dynamics of innovation diffusion. As a theory of communications, diffusion theory's main focus is on communication channels. Communication channels are the means by which information about an innovation is transmitted to or within the social system. These means consist of both the mass media and interpersonal communication channels. Individual members of a social system have different propensities for relying on mass media or interpersonal channels for seeking information about the innovation. Interpersonal communication, including nonverbal observations, is important influences in determining the speed and shape of the diffusion process in a social system.
The author presents a conceptual model of brand equity from the perspective of the individual consumer. Customer-based brand equity is defined as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand. A brand is said to have positive (negative) customer-based brand equity when consumers react more (less) favorably to an element of the marketing mix for the brand than they do to the same marketing mix element when it is attributed to a fictitiously named or unnamed version of the product or service. Brand knowledge is conceptualized according to an associative network memory model in terms of two components, brand awareness and brand image (i. e., a set of brand associations). Customer-based brand equity occurs when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds some favorable, strong, and unique brand associations in memory. Issues in building, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity are discussed, as well as areas for future research.
Automobile purchasers were surveyed about feelings toward their inputs to and outcomes from the sales transaction, as well as their perceptions of the inputs and outcomes of the salesperson. Structural equation modeling with maximum likelihood estimation shows two concepts advanced in the equity literature, fairness and preference (advantageous inequity), to be related differentially to input and outcome judgments. No necessary symmetry is observed between the weights attached to inputs and outcomes or between those attached to self and salesperson. When framed in a larger perspective involving satisfaction with the salesperson, the fairness dimension mediates the effect of inputs and outcomes on satisfaction whereas preference does not. The fairness influence is robust against the simultaneous inclusion of disconfirmation in the satisfaction equation. Satisfaction, in turn, is related strongly to the consumer's intention cognitions. The findings suggest that the retail sales transaction may differ in substantive ways from the subject-peer and worker-coworker comparisons in other disciplines and that models of interpersonal satisfaction in the sales transaction should include the mediating effect of the fairness dimension of equity. The managerial implications of these findings are discussed.
We argue that attitudes and subjective norms are not sufficient determinants of intentions and that intentions are not a sufficient impetus for action, as maintained by leading theories of attitude. To deepen attitude theory, we address the role of cognitive and emotional self-regulatory mechanisms. The attitude-intention link is hypothesized to depend on conative processes and on certain coping responses directed at the emotional significance of evaluative appraisals. The subjective norm-intention relationship is hypothesized to be governed by certain cognitive activities inherent in perspective taking and by positive and negative emotional reactions associated with appraisals of the deviation and conformance of both the self and others to expectations concerning the shared social meaning of a focal act. Finally, the intention-behavior relationship, particularly for goal-directed behaviors, is posited to be conditioned on decision making with respect to the means needed to achieve a goal; with respect to implementation processes related to planning, monitoring, and guidance and control of instrumental acts; and with respect to motivational processs associated with commitment, effort, and affect toward the means.
On average, US corporations now lose half of their customers in five years, half their employees in four, and half their investors in less than one. Customer retention is the central gauge that measures how well the company is creating value for its customers. Creating value for customers builds loyalty, and loyalty in turn builds growth, profit and more value. Profit is not primary. Profit is a consequence of value creation. The only way to achieve sustainable improvements in performance is by building sustainable improvements in value creation and loyalty. In a typical company, customers are defecting at the rate of 10-30% per year; employee turnover rates of 15-25% are common; and average annual investor churn now exceeds 50% per year. WE NEED TO SEE PEOPLE AS ASSETS, rather than expenses, and we should expect those assets to pay returns over a period of many years. Asset defection is unacceptable. Human capital, unlike most other assets, does not depreciate over time. It actually improves with age. The Fundamental Mission of Business is Not Profit, but Value Creation. There are two kinds of profit. Virtuous profit-the result of creating value, sharing it, and building the assets of the business. Destructive Profit -comes from exploiting assets, from selling off a business's true balance sheet. We need to begin basing bonuses on the enhancement of customer value and loyalty. Building a highly loyal customer base cannot be done as an add-on. It must be an integral part of a company's basic business strategy. We have to get rid of the idea that our primary mission is to maximize profits and shareholder value. To quote Henry Ford, "Business must be run at a profit... else it will die. But when anyone tries to run a business solely for profit, then also the business must die, for it no longer has a reason for existence." Promotions and year end bonuses are tied to the annual profit plan, so managers zero in on managing those numbers, one year at a time. For several generations of managers, the link between a company's long term fortunes and the loyalty of its customers, employees and investors has become invisible. The resulting mismanagement of human capital has thwarted progress in many large companies. The average Fortune 500 Company expires in 40 years. Most are outlived by their employees. This short corporate lifespan suggests some flaw in our current profit before value thinking.
Cross-and up-selling in inbound call centers is a growing business practice, with the promise of enhanced revenue generation and customer retention. Yet firms struggle to create conditions that are conducive to customer service representatives' (CSRs') concurrent engagement in service and sales. By developing a framework of the antecedents and performance consequences of aligned sales and customer service provision, this study advances understanding of ambidexterity at the employee level. The framework receives strong support from an empirical study based on CSRs' survey responses and matched performance data. A CSR's locomotion orientation facilitates ambidextrous behavior and interacts positively with an assessment orientation. However, team identification and bounded discretion impair this valuable interplay. Ambidextrous behavior also increases customer satisfaction and sales performance but decreases efficiency. Nevertheless, the overall performance effect is positive.
Organizations enter alliances with each other to access critical resources, but they rely on information from the network of prior alliances to determine with whom to cooperate. These new alliances modify the existing network, prompting an endogenous dynamic between organizational action and network structure that drives the emergence of interorganizational networks. Testing these ideas on alliances formed in three industries over nine years, this research shows that the probability of a new alliance between specific organizations increases with their interdependence and also with their prior mutual alliances, common third parties, and joint centrality in the alliance network. The differentiation of the emerging network structure, however, mitigates the effect of interdependence and enhances the effect of joint centrality on new alliance formation.
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Selling to consumers is becoming increasingly complex and difficult due to changes in the channel structure of the marketplace. These changes are being driven in part by a technological revolution incorporating interactive digital media. This introduction to the special issue presents a brief overview of technology-focused research in business-to—consumer selling. The goal of the introduction is to suggest and illustrate a research agenda that depicts the role and implications of technology in business-to-consumer selling.
Although combining friendship and business in the same relationship can be beneficial, it can also create conflict. A source of this conflict is incompatible relational expectations. True friends are expected to be unmotivated by benefits that can be used beyond the relationship (e.g., money, status), whereas business partners are, by definition, at least partly motivated by these more "instrumental" concerns. Using a role theory framework and data collected from a survey of 685 direct-selling agents, this article reports evidence that a conflict between friendship and instrumentality can undermine some of the business outcomes that friendship might otherwise foster. It also suggests that this conflict is more severe for friendships that become business relationships than for business relationships that become friendships. Study conclusions do not suggest that friendship is entirely "bad" for business and, instead, propose that friendship's influence can be both positive and negative.
This study extends the existing satisfaction-trust-loyalty paradigm to investigate how customers' affectionate ties with firms (customer-firm affection)-in particular, the components of intimacy and passion-affect customer loyalty in services. In a bilevel model, the authors consider customer-staff and customer-firm interactions in parallel. Through a netnography study and survey research in two service contexts, they confirm (1) the salience of intimacy and passion as two underrecognized components of customer-firm affection that influence customer loyalty, (2) the complementary and mediating role of customer-firm affection in strengthening customer loyalty, (3) significant affect transfers from the customer-staff to the customer-firm level, and (4) the dilemma that emerges when customer-staff relationships are too close. The findings provide several implications for researchers and managers regarding how intimacy and passion can enrich customer service interactions and how to manage customer-staff relationships properly.
This research examines the impact of attractiveness on consumers during a consumption experience. Specifically, it examines the effects of an attractive social influence in the context of touching and contamination of store products by investigating how consumers respond when they see attractive others touching the same products they want to purchase. In doing so, it provides the first experimental evidence of a positive contagion effect in either the marketing or the psychology literature. Across three field experiments using an actual retail shopping environment, the authors find that product evaluations are higher when consumers perceive a product as having been physically touched by a highly attractive other. Moreover, they identify sex as a critical moderating variable in the realization of this positive contagion effect; the contact source and observing consumer must be of the opposite sex for positive contagion to occur. Finally, in contrast to previous work, the authors demonstrate that these effects are driven by a physical model of contagion
Set within the political economy framework, marketing channels literature predominantly has used an efficiency-based task environment perspective and largely overlooked a legitimacy-based institutional environment approach in studying channel attitudes, behaviors, processes, and structures. The purpose of this article is to highlight the importance of the institutional environment and develop a comprehensive conceptual framework that incorporates the institutional environment into current marketing channels research. The institutional environment perspective relies on the primacy of (1) regulatory institutions (e.g., laws), (2) normative institutions (e.g., professions), and (3) cognitive institutions (e.g., habitual actions) in influencing the legitimacy of channel members. Using institutional theory, the authors augment the current task environment approach by developing three institutional processes and their underlying mechanisms and elaborating on how these institutions might influence channel relationships. The article ends by laying out a research agenda and highlighting managerial implications.
This article develops an information economics perspective on the value (or equity) ascribed to brands by consumers. Unlike research based on cognitive psychology, the proposed signaling perspective explicitly considers the imperfect and asymmetrical information structure of the market. It motivates the role of credibility (determined endogenously by the dynamic interactions between firms and consumers) as the primary determinant of consumer-based brand equity. Thus, when consumers are uncertain about product attributes, firms may use brands to inform consumers about product positions and to ensure that their product claims are credible. Thus, brands may signal product positions credibly. Brands as market signals improve consumer perceptions about brand attribute levels and increase confidence in brands' claims. The reduced uncertainty lowers information costs and the risk perceived by consumers, thus increasing consumers' expected utility. This chain of relations that drives consumer-based brand equity is presented as a structural model and tested empirically in the linear structural relations framework using survey data on jeans and juice. The results are consistent with the proposed relations embodied in the signaling perspective on brand equity.
Purpose
This paper aims to look at what CRM 2.0 is and how it impacts customer insights. It will show how CRM 2.0's incorporation of social tools and strategies with traditional operational functions meets the demands of twenty‐first century “social” customers.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a combination of independent research by the author for the last decade and third‐party sources. This means direct client consulting, interviews with senior corporate management and copious access to expert sources and documents.
Findings
The new breed of customer requires corporate transparency, authenticity and interaction. To affect this intelligent, aggressive social consumer, richer insight than that of the past is necessary. CRM and social tools use combined provides the capability for this insight.
Research limitations/implications
CRM 2.0 as a fully integrated strategy and system remains immature, though the integration of CRM traditional technologies with social networks is ongoing and increasingly coexistent. CRM 2.0 thus must be seen as strategically maturing but technologically immature.
Practical implications
Any company that understands that their customers are demanding something more and different will adopt CRM 2.0 strategies to gain greater insight into their customers and to support creation of mutual value.
Originality/value
By systematically providing an understanding of how contemporary customers act and what they demand and how CRM 2.0 satisfies that, this adds to contemporary scholarship and modern business practice.
In response to the dramatic social and technological shifts that are now shaping business—customer relationships, businesses are finding it necessary to alter their approach toward customer relationship management (CRM) and develop new capabilities that facilitate customer value co-creation. This paper presents a conceptual framework that extends a traditional view of CRM by incorporating social media technologies, and it suggests how these technologies can lead to greater firm performance. Forwarding this framework has two goals. First, despite the common use of the term "social CRM," there is no clear linkage between the existing body of CRM literature and the extensions provided by the social and technological developments in recent years. The proposed framework attempts to provide this linkage and to expand the view of how CRM can influence firm performance in the age of the social customer. The second goal is to provide managers with a depiction of how existing CRM investments and resources can be integrated with new technologies and processes to form capabilities that can improve business performance.
The statistical tests used in the analysis of structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error are examined. A drawback of the commonly applied chi square test, in addition to the known problems related to sample size and power, is that it may indicate an increasing correspondence between the hypothesized model and the observed data as both the measurement properties and the relationship between constructs decline. Further, and contrary to common assertion, the risk of making a Type II error can be substantial even when the sample size is large. Moreover, the present testing methods are unable to assess a model's explanatory power. To overcome these problems, the authors develop and apply a testing system based on measures of shared variance within the structural model, measurement model, and overall model.