Search results

Much of the existing research in sports sponsorship is applied in nature and devoid of serious theoretical insight regarding its role from a marketing communication effects standpoint. In this study, Taylor & Crocker's (1981) schema theory is used to interpret the phenomenon that sponsoring events exhibiting a good image fit with the brand can strengthen brand awareness. Since consumers' perceptions of the FIFA World Cup/official partners image fit enhance the brand awareness of sponsoring brands, the results have implications for the FIFA World Cup marketing parties using sports sponsorship as a strategic marketing tool.

This article investigates the role of schemas in shaping customer experiences in new servicescapes, across the customer journey. The authors take a customer perspective that reveals how schematic information processing takes place at four pyramidal levels—event, touchpoint, encounter and concrete activities—that in turn lead to customer responses.

The study introduces a novel ethnographic schema elicitation technique (ESET), which enables unraveling schemas at the touchpoint level across the customer journey of a European grocery store that recently launched a new SST innovation. This tailored approach provides fine-grained insights into customer experiences at the moment they occur.

The conceptual framework unravels schematic information processing, as illustrated with an empirical study. The activation of different schemas and their modification is highlighted in rich qualitative data.

Innovative service offerings require customers to adapt their existing behaviors. Understanding this highly individual process, which requires schema modification, could be furthered by longitudinal in-depth research.

By understanding schematic information processing, managers and policymakers can develop better strategies for activating sustainability or health-conscious schemas that guide customer behavior in positive directions.

By applying ESET to new self-service technology, the authors provide valuable insights for service managers and retailers. They show the particular need for prudence in changing schemas in ways that avoid negative cognitive, emotional or behavioral responses.

A 3D finite element model was developed that simulates selective area laser deposition vapor infiltration (SALDVI) of silicon carbide. The model predicts the laser input power history needed to maintain constant surface temperature and the distribution of vapor deposited SiC within the powder bed as well as on the surface of the powder bed. The model considers a moving Gaussian distribution laser beam, temperature‐ and pore‐dependent thermal conductivity, specific heat and temperature‐dependent deposition rate. Furthermore, the model also includes closed‐loop control of the laser power to achieve a desired target processing temperature on the surface of the power bed. Effects of laser scanning rates have been investigated. The simulated solid fraction and SALD distributions are also consistent in the trend with the experimental data.

Organizations are considering the influence of workplace attention breadth (mindfulness and absorption) on professional development. Although corporate accountants typically focus on technical skills, soft skills such as mindfulness may also improve performance. In this study, we examine the influence of attention breadth on task performance by demonstrating how mindfulness and absorption vary with respect to improvement to entry, mid, and upper-level accounting tasks. We survey over 700 corporate accounting professionals and find that upper-level manager task performance is related to mindfulness, and mid-level manager task performance is associated with mindfulness and absorption. We also find that mid-level professionals who are unable to transition between mindfulness and absorption states serve a relatively longer tenure before advancing to an upper-level position. This study has important implications for management to assist in improving office productivity and morale.

Given the uncertain and often disruptive business environment, understanding how employees, teams, and organizations can recover from stress, build long-lasting resilience, and exploit failures as learning opportunities is key for employees’ well-being and organizational success. The book has been organized in three sections, each representing a major domain of inquiry: recovery, resilience, and learning. The chapters within each section elaborate on these domains, and each provides novel ideas and insights. The goal of this chapter is to summarize and integrate some themes and insights offered by the chapters in this book. Based on this summary and integration, the author will illuminate some exciting paths opened up by these chapters, which might be worth exploring further by other scholars in the future. Specifically, future research could benefit from (1) stronger integration of research on recovery, resilience, and learning from failure, (2) better understanding of the role of setbacks, failure, and adversity for recovery, resilience, and learning, and (3) investigations of the role of context for recovery, resilience, and learning from failure.

Live chat e-service provides a communication platform for online customers to make information inquiries and receive instantaneous assistance from a service representative. It is important for organizations to explore ways to improve their live chat e-service. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new organization–customer communication model (Schema Resonance Model), explicate how schema resonance can be achieved in live chat e-service, and investigate the impact of schema resonance on live chat e-service effectiveness, efficiency, customer satisfaction and intention of continued use.

A post-test only, between-subjects experiment was conducted. A total of 409 participants completed the experiment sessions, and 389 of these participants were used in the analysis.

Research results suggest schema resonance could improve the time efficiency of the live chat e-service while maintaining e-service effectiveness. Schema resonance could increase customer satisfaction with the overall e-service, the communication approach used by the representative and the information provided.

Because a convenience sample was used in the experiment, results cannot be generalized to all live chat e-service users. Future research should include observation of real-world organization–customer live chat e-service sessions.

Organizations can consider applying the Schema Resonance Model in live chat e-service practices to enhance customer satisfaction and increase representatives’ service productivity.

This research proposes and tests a new organization–customer communication model to explore how organizations can improve live chat e-service in response to customers’ information inquiries.

Transaction cost economics (TCE) has received extensive attention from a variety of disciplines, but it holds a particularly central place in strategic management. The focal issues examined by TCE, vertical integration and interfirm governance (including contract design), are important determinants of firm performance – the central issue in the field of strategy. While several extensive reviews of empirical work in TCE have been undertaken, one key issue has received relatively little attention – construct validity in TCE empirical research. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight some of the challenges of operationalizing key transaction cost predictions and provide some ideas for better measuring core constructs such as asset specificity, uncertainty, and frequency.

There is a tension between the literatures on incomplete contracting and transactions cost economics regarding the importance of ex post governance and the extent to which formal theories of incomplete contracting capture salient aspects of exchange relations. In this paper, we empirically examine how firms structure joint R&D agreements to illuminate how contracts can be incomplete and how governance can matter. We employ a dataset of 96 contracts to construct a taxonomy of the types of mechanisms firms use in organizing collaborative R&D, and indicate how groups of mechanisms line up with various types of contracting hazards. The results suggest that the allocation of property rights over innovations at the time of contracting between R&D partners is an important aspect of contract design. But they also suggest that weak property rights admit scope for other dimensions of contract. In particular, the research indicates that while knowledge spillovers may give rise to appropriability hazards, efforts to contain or channel knowledge spillovers may enable joint venture members to strategically block other members’ follow-on commercialization or research. Firms design joint R&D governance mechanisms to balance spillover hazards and strategic blocking.

Extant research suggests that consumers value the pursuit, attainment and retention of income security and financial well-being (FWB). The authors aim to expand the relevant literature by examining how consumers' psychosocial characteristics affect and are affected by the pursuit of those objectives.

The authors utilize partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to evaluate the authors' hypotheses based on a sample of USA and Canadian consumers (n = 619).

The authors' PLS-SEM results provide support for the authors' hypotheses, indicating that individuals' insecure attachments – anxious and avoidant – relate negatively to their income security and FWB. The authors' results also show that these two desirable states relate positively to individuals' undesirable state of social loneliness.

The authors' methodology and findings illuminate the positioning of psychosocial factors as antecedents to and outcomes of income security and FWB. This research also provides a basis for understanding the linear vs curvilinear influences of income security on an individual’s social life.

In the present empirical study, the authors present a rare empirical examination of individuals' income security and FWB as outcomes of their psychosocial profile vis-à-vis insecure attachments. Drawing on established psychometric scales, this study expands the consumer psychology and FWB literature, showing significant linkages between insecure attachments, income security, FWB and social loneliness.