Linda D. Hollebeek, Dale L.G. Smith, Edward Kasabov, Wafa Hammedi, Alexander Warlow and Moira K. Clark
While the customer brand engagement (CBE) research has advanced important insight, most studies to date explore CBE under regular, free-market conditions, yielding an important…
Abstract
Purpose
While the customer brand engagement (CBE) research has advanced important insight, most studies to date explore CBE under regular, free-market conditions, yielding an important knowledge gap regarding its manifestation under less regular conditions, including disaster/pandemics. This study, therefore, aims to explore CBE with essential/non-essential service during COVID-19-prompted citizen lockdown.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a review, the authors develop a framework of lockdown-based CBE with essential/non-essential service interactions, which are conceptualized by their respective capacity to meet differing needs in Maslow’s hierarchy. The authors view lockdown-based essential/non-essential service interactions to differentially impact CBE, as summarized in a set of propositions.
Findings
The framework depicts lockdown-based essential/non-essential service interactions and their respective impact on CBE. The authors propose two essential service modes (i.e. socially distant/platform-mediated interactions) and two non-essential service modes (i.e. service closure/platform-mediated interactions), which the authors hypothesize to differently affect CBE. Moreover, the authors view the associations between our lockdown-based service modes and CBE to be moderated by customers’ regulatory focus (i.e. promotion/prevention), as formalized in the propositions.
Research limitations/implications
Given the authors’ focus on lockdown-based CBE, this paper adds unique insight to the literature. It also raises ample opportunities for further study, as outlined.
Practical implications
This study yields important managerial implications, including the suggested adoption of differing tactics/strategies to leverage promotion/prevention-focused customers’ brand engagement during lockdown.
Originality/value
By exploring the effects of lockdown-based essential/non-essential service modes on promotion/prevention-focused customers’ brand engagement, this paper adds novel insight.
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This paper aims to empirically explore and theorise the application of technology control over customers during call-centre interactions. The author seeks to ascertain distinct…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to empirically explore and theorise the application of technology control over customers during call-centre interactions. The author seeks to ascertain distinct types of technology-mediated control, with potentially distinct ingredients and consequences for repatronage and service relations.
Design/methodology/approach
During three stages of empirical research across Western and non-Western, developed and developing country settings and across call-centre types, customers who have experienced control during call-centre exchanges, as well as providers (operatives, supervisors and managers) are interviewed as part of ethnographic research also reliant upon observation and company documentation.
Findings
Findings suggest that, first, the rapid adoption of technology has facilitated the application of control during provider-customer interactions, second, such control may be more widespread than suggested in the literature and, third, there are various types, processes and ingredients of technology-mediated control. The discussion contrasts deliberate from accidental control.
Research limitations/implications
Studies on call-centre interactions often assume that relationships between providers and customers follow customer-centric expectations in service marketing theory. Only a minority of theorists in service marketing contest these assumptions, arguing instead that service providers may be using techniques to control customers by dominating and regulating processes and outcomes of interactions with customers. This study advances extant literature by theorising control types, their ingredients and impact on service provision.
Practical implications
Businesses may benefit from knowing when, how and how much customers are willing to revoke control. Customers are shown to accept being controlled, with customers’ tolerance for control being larger than anticipated.
Originality/value
This is a rare attempt to analyse control over customers seen through the eyes of providers across levels of decision-making within organisational hierarchies. Whereas research tends to study control in generic terms, the author demonstrates the multifarious and complex nature of control. The author challenges conventional thinking in the discipline by providing empirical evidence of, and theorising, how and why customers permit themselves to be controlled in service relations.
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Edward Kasabov and Anna C.C.C. da Cunha
The role of call-centres during service recovery has attracted much attention in research. However, marketers know less about controlling customers during recovery interactions…
Abstract
Purpose
The role of call-centres during service recovery has attracted much attention in research. However, marketers know less about controlling customers during recovery interactions and consequences of such control. In order to address this gap and empirically ascertain whether service interactions are marked by customer centricity or by employees exerting control over customers, the aim of the authors was to organise an empirical research in two Brazilian call-centres.
Design/methodology/approach
The research consisted of direct, open observation and 33 semi-structured interviews with insiders (call-centre managers, supervisors and operatives).
Findings
Four key findings emerged during interviews with insiders. First, control over customers may be more widely practiced than assumed in certain sections of marketing academe. Second, such control is viewed positively by call-centre insiders and is sanctioned by management. Third, control does not disempower and demoralise call-centre staff but protects operatives. Finally, control does not seem to unavoidably generate lasting customer dissatisfaction. These findings are incorporated in a framework of call-centre management which incorporates control through scripting.
Research limitations/implications
The discussion calls for the revisit of certain marketing concepts and philosophies, including customer orientation, by demonstrating that control over customers is practised and should not be viewed negatively or avoided altogether in practice and as a topic of analysis. A re-conceptualisation of call-centres as sites of control over customers is proposed.
Originality/value
Control and power are rarely analysed in services marketing. This is one of a few studies that makes sense of providers' (insiders') viewpoints and argues that control may play a constructive role and should be seen as a legitimate topic of services and call-centre analysis. As such it addresses a question of intellectual and practical importance which is rarely discussed and may be viewed as incongruous with an age when customers are assumed to have rights.
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The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct a growing area in marketing theory. It aims to critically examine the principles of relationship marketing as found in the literature…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct a growing area in marketing theory. It aims to critically examine the principles of relationship marketing as found in the literature and suggest opportunities for future conceptual maturation.
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual discussion aims to assist future progress of relationship marketing and, more generally, marketing theory. While focusing on specific areas of departures and inadequacies in past and current research in the area, the discussion notes seminal philosophical questions which underpin current marketing sensibilities and which inform the nature of relational discourses.
Findings
It is argued that, in spite of recent developments in and maturation of relational discourses, some research in the field remains rather non‐contingent, theoretical and not observation‐informed. Importantly, it is biased towards the discussion of positive aspects of relationships. Matters of consequence to practice and research such as power and disciplining remain under‐researched.
Research limitations/implications
By deconstructing and reconstructing current relationship marketing theory – partly by using a study of power and disciplining in situations of consumer dissatisfaction – ways of confronting shortcomings of relational research are illustrated. A more balanced and nuanced approach to marketing research and practice is proposed.
Originality/value
This is one of the few papers in marketing research, and relationship‐marketing research in particular, conceptually intrigued by the peculiarities of current thinking of relationships and exchanges. The contribution centres on three observations and a number of suggestions for future relational analysis. The discussion aims to help promote a fuller, deeper understanding of exchanges. It has been designed as a sketchy guide to future relationship marketing research.
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The purpose of the paper is to bring to the attention of academics the innovations which have rapidly been developed to sell goods and services across sectors using what the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to bring to the attention of academics the innovations which have rapidly been developed to sell goods and services across sectors using what the authors describe as “confusion marketing”.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual, integrative, critical assessment of a number of marketing disciplines addressing aspects of confusion marketing. Confusion practices are evolving rapidly, with little theoretical explanation of why many of them are successful. This paper seeks to answer such questions by examining a wide range of sectors and confusion practices.
Findings
Patterns are identified across sectors, companies and business practices, providing the basis for this holistic assessment of marketing research on confusion since its inception and the design of a systemic framework of confusion.
Research limitations/implications
The study attempts to bring all marketing schools and traditions of confusion together and presents a synthesis of scholarly accomplishments in the area by matching them, where possible, to current practices. It advances extant literature by designing a systemic framework which has, so far, been absent in marketing and by identifying avenues for future research maturation.
Practical implications
This discussion challenges assumptions regarding the ethicality, sustainability and profitability of confusion practices. Businesses practicing confusion are successful, suggesting that such practices may be economically sustainable. Contrary to expectations in marketing, confusion seems to benefit some consumers; confusion practices are not necessarily unethical or detrimental.
Originality/value
Confusion is a controversial area in marketing. Although the literature on confusion has grown, extant research continues to concentrate on consumers’ perceptions of confusion and tends to assume that confusion practices are undesirable, unethical and unsustainable. This paper provides a first integrative critical analysis of marketing thinking and challenges the aforementioned literature assumptions, demonstrating that past research has not sufficiently explained the nature, consequences and success of confusion marketing.
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Edward Kasabov and Usha Sundaram
This chapter uses a historical lens to analyse the role of governance institutions in shaping enterprising places using the context of the English city of Coventry in the early to…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter uses a historical lens to analyse the role of governance institutions in shaping enterprising places using the context of the English city of Coventry in the early to late Middle Ages. Using historical documentation as an empirical method, this chapter examines the formation, evolution, growth, maturation, decline of institutional structures, related governance mechanisms and their interactions with other institutional influences that shaped the entrepreneurial nature of the city and its economy. The chapter discusses aspects of success, failures and discontinuities that beset the entrepreneurial landscape of the city and draws parallels to some contemporary developments in UK’s entrepreneurial governance.
Methodology/approach
The chapter is underpinned by a research methodological approach that is historical and processual in nature and relies on historical documentation including archival sources of empirical material and other published data which have not previously been studied in the context of entrepreneurship and public governance. The research method and approach addresses a methodological and conceptual void in extant entrepreneurship literature.
Findings
The empirical findings from archival sources of data and their analysis sheds a new interpretive light on the nature of enterprising places as a combination of continual historical synergies in the specific context of Coventry. The chapter specifically focuses on the role of merchant and craft guilds as a unique presence in the entrepreneurial landscape of Coventry in the early to late Middle Ages and their contribution as powerful institutional and governance forces in shaping the city’s economic history. The guilds and associated governance institutions exercised and enacted multiple economic, legislative, regulatory, civic, municipal, socio-cultural and religious roles and left a strong imprint on the city’s economic destiny that endured for several centuries. Through the interpenetrative influences of these guilds with other political, royal and religious institutional structures of their day, the economic history of the city and its enterprise was woven together in a fabric of cooperation, discord and power struggles. The historical analysis provides a powerful narrative in charting this story and draws parallels to ongoing struggles in contemporary developments in Coventry’s entrepreneurial governance and leadership.
Research and practical implications
The chapter contributes a historic and contextually enriched sensibility in understanding the entrepreneurial and economic history of Coventry as viewed through the lens of institutional interactions and provides a valuable study that draws parallels between the past and the present. It provides a historically informed approach in understanding the current context of the nation’s local and regional economic policies and attempts to understand how enterprise and enterprising places thrive and sometimes struggle to survive within such a landscape.
Originality/value of chapter
The chapter is a unique take on the analysis of entrepreneurship and institutional governance of a city’s local economy in that it takes a historical perspective of issues that animate current public discourse. A historical approach to studying entrepreneurship provides a longitudinal and macro perspective to studying ideological debates that shade contemporary economic, political and socio-cultural governance. The analysis draws interesting parallels to the power discourses and dynamics and ideological conflicts that shaped institutional influences across centuries that impacted upon the city’s economy and use that as a backdrop to comment upon contemporary developments in the policy landscape viewed as an articulation of a political-ideological agenda. The analysis provides and calls for a greater application of historical sensibilities in governance and entrepreneurship scholarship in order to glean valuable lessons.
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Edward Kasabov and Alex J. Warlow
In the last ten years, businesses taking advantage of market deregulation, call‐centre, intranet and internet technology have broken traditional marketing norms and path‐dependent…
Abstract
Purpose
In the last ten years, businesses taking advantage of market deregulation, call‐centre, intranet and internet technology have broken traditional marketing norms and path‐dependent customer management practices. These businesses offer substantially lower prices and good customer service. In spite of anecdotal evidence of the high level of service complaints in the press, these businesses are expanding rapidly by growing the market and by taking share from traditional suppliers. Service failure recovery and complaint management are two areas which are extensively re‐designed by such businesses. This paper aims to identify and examine such new practices. The authors suggest that the traditional “customer‐centricity” model is being replaced by a “customer‐compliance business model” (CCBM) of service provision. This new model and its propositions defy conventional thinking in the areas of service recovery and complaint management.
Design/methodology/approach
Available data and research are reviewed, in an attempt to understand CCBM. Differences with the customer‐centricity model are discussed.
Findings
CCBM cannot be explained adequately by current assumptions in marketing. It breaks commonplace marketing expectations about service failure and recovery.
Research limitations/implications
The emphasis is on explaining innovations in service recovery and complaint management.
Practical implications
Companies which operate the CCBM model are of growing importance to developed, service‐oriented economies. The paper builds on evidence to show how CCBM businesses have abandoned or minimised costly customer centricity and have broken past norms and conventional marketing thinking and practice.
Originality/value
The scarcity of research in this area is explained by the recent, rapid evolution of these new model businesses. The study reveals and makes sense of important trends in service provision, distinct from and incompatible with normative arguments in some academic writings that advocate service recovery excellence.
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Vishakha Chauhan and Mahim Sagar
Consumer confusion is an emerging phenomenon of interest that significantly drives choice behaviour. Considering the dearth of scholarly focus on confusion faced by consumers in a…
Abstract
Purpose
Consumer confusion is an emerging phenomenon of interest that significantly drives choice behaviour. Considering the dearth of scholarly focus on confusion faced by consumers in a healthcare setting, this paper aims to conceptualize and validate a patient confusion model consisting of its drivers and outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon adaptive decision-making framework and consumer confusion literature, patient confusion model has been developed. Empirical data of 310 patients from three private sector hospitals in India was collected through pen and paper survey administration. The hypothesized patient confusion model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to derive confirmatory results.
Findings
The results confirm the role of decision-making variables such as information overload, information similarity, information ambiguity, information asymmetry, patient involvement and physician-patient communication in the occurrence of patient confusion. A significant impact of confusion on switching intention was also confirmed, providing insights for healthcare managers.
Practical implications
The effect of confusion on switching intention of consumers found through the present study holds significant implications from a healthcare management standpoint. Dissemination of credible information, improved communication between doctors and patients and creation of organized channels of health information provision also represent some of the notable implications for healthcare managers to mitigate patient confusion.
Originality/value
This study presents an empirically validated model of patient confusion creating a research agenda for theory development in this emerging area. Consumer confusion represents a core consumer behaviour problem that is of utmost significance in the healthcare sector. This paper is one of the first and early attempts to address this research problem.
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Vishakha Chauhan and Mahim Sagar
The purpose of this paper is to systematically review and analyse extant marketing literature on consumer confusion to propose an integrated conceptual framework and highlight…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to systematically review and analyse extant marketing literature on consumer confusion to propose an integrated conceptual framework and highlight important research gaps.
Design/methodology/approach
Systematic literature review methodology was followed for article selection. Selected articles were subjected to content analysis to derive thematic as well as descriptive results.
Findings
Antecedents, consequences, moderators, mediators and application of the construct in the different contexts have been reported. An integrated framework along with research questions and future directions has also been proposed.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is notably the first attempt to systematically review the marketing literature on consumer confusion. The conceptual framework and proposed research questions create a research agenda around the problem of consumer confusion and contribute towards the advancement of extant literature.