Bernard Cova, Antonella Carù and Julien Cayla
This paper aims to examine the notion of escape, which is central to the consumer experience literature, yet remains largely undertheorized. By surfacing the multi-dimensionality…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the notion of escape, which is central to the consumer experience literature, yet remains largely undertheorized. By surfacing the multi-dimensionality of escape, the authors develop a more fine-grained conceptualization of this notion. In addition, this work helps shed new light on past consumer research findings that mobilize the notion of escape.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a review and interpretation of literature referring to the notion of escape in consumer research.
Findings
This paper’s first contribution is to extend the concept of escape based on the Turnerian framework of structure/anti-structure, by establishing a key difference between objects to “escape from” and the major themes of “escape into”. A second contribution is to identify other forms of escape that are mundane, restorative and warlike, and that mobilize the self in different ways.
Practical implications
The paper provides a more precise conceptualization of escape to motivate further research on this particularly important concept for understanding consumer experience.
Social implications
Escape from one’s own self has become an important feature of contemporary life. Consumer experiences may be ways of crafting identities, but they also form the means of escaping the pressures that come with the burdens of identity.
Originality/value
This paper goes beyond past research on escape by identifying other types of escapes, which have not really been theorized in consumer research. The authors especially note the importance of ephemeral moments where people temporarily suspend their reflexive self, which the authors conceive as a new type of escape route.
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Antonella Carù and Bernard Cova
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance and utility of introspective accounts to ethnography when it deals with consumption experiences.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance and utility of introspective accounts to ethnography when it deals with consumption experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews the changes in the way “reflexive consumers” write introspective narratives about their intimate thoughts and deep feelings lived during an experience and takes advantage of previous research carried out in different contexts, e.g. music concerts and internet‐based services.
Findings
The paper specifies the more original stages of a complete ethnographic approach to consumption experience. These include co‐immersing; organising the narratives' write‐up; combining the experience's time frame with data generated via observation and introspection; and producing interpretations that will vary depending on the consumer's expressed level of pleasure.
Research limitations/implications
This type of approach does not work in all consumption situations, nor does it apply to all consumers.
Practical implications
The combination of observation and introspection will enrich researchers' toolboxes in the quest to unravel the increasingly complex and unpredictable experiences the consumption of today products and services affords consumers.
Originality/value
The paper advocates that the writing up of introspective narratives and diaries has become a common practice for reflexive consumers accustomed to telling their stories online that must be used in market research.
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Antonella Carù, Bernard Cova and Stefano Pace
The purpose of this paper is to discuss within a corporate context the advantages and limitations of combining different qualitative methods (namely consumers’ introspection and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss within a corporate context the advantages and limitations of combining different qualitative methods (namely consumers’ introspection and observation) to grasp consumer experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reflexively examines the evolution of a research process through which a team of researchers and a company tried to understand how the online consumer experience unfolds. The paper discusses the research process, the problems addressed and the way results were shared and acted upon within the company.
Findings
The findings show how the search for and implementation of the combination of observation and introspection is rooted in the kinds of organizational change processes that allow companies to appropriate new methodological approaches and modify the conduct of their service innovation processes.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is based on a single research project, analysed only retrospectively and reflexively. As to its implications, the proposed qualitative methods help mediate the collaborative interaction between researchers and the company during a research project.
Practical implications
The research findings already have been appropriated and used by a multidisciplinary working group, operating within a corporate environment. Similarly, other companies can manage this type of research process following three major guidelines: prepare the cultural background, be iterative and maintain a conversation.
Originality/value
The paper offers a unique account of the process of using combined qualitative methods within a company to understand consumer experiences.
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Antonella Carù and Bernard Cova
The purpose of this paper is to identify which consumption practices lead to the co-creation of collective service experiences and to outline a conceptual framework for their…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify which consumption practices lead to the co-creation of collective service experiences and to outline a conceptual framework for their understanding.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use a multiple case vignette approach combining examples from leisure industries described as perfect contexts to study collective experiences. Four case vignettes were selected according to community forms and types as defined by consumer culture literature.
Findings
The study identifies and delineates the neglected phenomenon of the co-creation of collective service experiences and related practices. It highlights the ambivalence of these practices in terms of the co-creation or co-destruction of the experience and indicates their relative unmanageability.
Research limitations/implications
The cases largely rest on symbolic service experiences, which are a small set of the total universe of consumer experiences.
Practical implications
Companies should replace their efforts in organizing consumer practices with monitoring mechanisms and react to collective consumer actions, pursuing a co-evolutionary perspective when they do not have a dominant and permanent role in the relationship with their consumers.
Originality/value
The paper gives voice to an understudied collective phenomenon in service management and provides the building blocks for its conceptualization.
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Antonella Carù and Antonella Cugini
The work suggests a defining approach aimed at understanding the relations between client satisfaction and business profitability, with specific reference to services management…
Abstract
The work suggests a defining approach aimed at understanding the relations between client satisfaction and business profitability, with specific reference to services management. The paper makes use of the analysis of the reasons for the separation of the client satisfaction and cost containment orientations – a separation which is a weak point in the case of service businesses. It then develops a methodological approach for bringing together client satisfaction research and cost optimisation, the application of which is presented by means of a business case concerning a firm which offers a database service. This approach makes it possible to put in relationship the utility perceived by the customer with reference to the different attributes of the offer and the price which the customer is prepared to pay to obtain the utility. At the same time it makes it possible to compare the price thus determined and the effective cost of the activities which determine the services delivered. Research into compatibility between competitive and financial success is therefore allowed by reference to analysis of the service characteristics. These permit a joining together – the external and internal process of the company, or rather the value as perceived by customers (the relationship between utility and price sustained) and the cost sustained by the company in the generation of this value.
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Alain d'Astous, Zannie Giraud Voss, François Colbert, Antonella Carù, Marylouise Caldwell and François Courvoisier
The country‐of‐origin literature has focused mainly on tangible products and has neglected largely intangible services and products such as the arts. The objective of this study…
Abstract
Purpose
The country‐of‐origin literature has focused mainly on tangible products and has neglected largely intangible services and products such as the arts. The objective of this study is to examine the impact that country of origin may have on consumer perceptions of artistic and cultural products and to explore the variables that explain how consumers form their perceptions of countries as producers of cultural products.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was conducted among adult consumers in Australia, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, and the USA that assessed participants' perceptions of 16 countries with respect to their reputation for nine cultural products.
Findings
The results indicate that product‐country images in the arts are affected by country and product familiarity as well as consumers' openness to foreign cultures and home country bias. Countries more proximate to the participants' home country were also better evaluated, especially when the proximity factor played a significant role in the consumption of cultural products.
Research limitations/implications
While almost all of the hypotheses were supported, additional research is needed to examine the cultural products of non‐Western and emerging markets as well as product‐country perceptions in these markets.
Originality/value
This study extends our understanding of country‐of‐origin effects in the context of aesthetic, intangible, and complex products that elicit both cognitive and affective responses. It demonstrates that familiarity with a country of origin has a stronger association with positive perceptions of product‐country reputation than does product familiarity, and that openness to foreign cultures, home country bias, and proximity have a positive effect on product‐country evaluations.
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Mike Lee, Dominique Roux, Helene Cherrier and Bernard Cova
Catherine Demangeot, Amanda J. Broderick and C. Samuel Craig