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The primary purpose of this study is to examine how fan attendance at team special events and player appearances impact fan consumption (as measured by merchandise sales). Insights obtained could shed light on opportunities for professional soccer teams to expand revenues through enhanced fan consumption of goods and services.

A sample of 499 season ticket holders were used to assess fan consumption by measuring merchandise sales. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions were run for merchandise sales as the dependent variable of fan consumption. The control variables were age, gender (male = 1, 0 otherwise), and whether an individual has children.

The key independent variables of attending special events and fan–player bonding were both found to have a statistically significant impact on merchandise sales. Results show that each additional special event attended generates up to $33.71 in merchandise sales for the club. Similarly, each fan–player bonding experience attended also has a direct impact, increasing merchandise consumption by $23.00.

The results of this study provide insights that can help fan consumption grow within the professional United States soccer industry and better allow team managers to make decisions about the possible benefits of holding more special events and fan–player bonding experiences. The findings also confirm the impact personal relationships with fans can have on the bottom line of sport franchises.

Though this study adds to the body of literature by expanding previous work on fan consumption, there are limited studies on the social aspects of consumption which are examined and analyzed within this study, particularly of note is the study of merchandise sales as proxy for fan consumption.

Guided by Hobfoll’s (1989) conservation of resources theory, we examined how psychological entitlement moderates the negative relationship between work-family conflict (WFC) and job satisfaction.

Using a sample of 119 accountants from the Midwestern United States, we tested our hypotheses with hierarchical regression analysis.

Results indicate a strong, negative relationship between WFC and job satisfaction for employees low in psychological entitlement, but an insignificant relationship for entitled employees.

The results suggest that some entitlement may be beneficial to employees when coping with WFC. However, organizations should limit WFC in order to foster their least entitled employees’ job satisfaction.

This is the first study that investigates how psychological entitlement affects employees' reactions to WFC. Not only does it contribute to the growing body of research that examines how this individual difference affects workplace functioning, but it suggests there may be some benefits to entitlement, which largely has been disparaged.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate spill‐over effects from customer perceptions of trust in and satisfaction with a brand to customer evaluations of a retailer and, ultimately, repurchase intentions.

A conceptual model is developed and tested using structural equation modeling. Specifically, recent procedures for assessing direct and mediated effects are adoped.

The findings demonstrate that customer trust in and satisfaction with a retailer mediate the effects of brand trust and satisfaction on customer repurchase intentions.

This research provides a preliminary examination of the relationship between brands, retailers, and consumers. The results suggest that halo effects exist between customer perceptions of brands and retailers. Future research could attempt to discern how this transference from brand to retailer occurs and replicate these findings in other industries or product types.

The findings suggest that managers must realize that perceptions of brands are transferred to the retailers that carry these products. However, in order for customers to return, a retailer must satisfy them and earn their trust, since the effects of brands are indirect.

This paper extends findings of transference in retail service settings by demonstrating that customer evaluations of brands can spill over and influence customer perceptions of a retailer.

Although reputation is important to career success, little is known about how individuals develop their personal reputation at work. This study seeks to investigate the role of work relationship quality and citizenship behavior as partial mediators of the political skill‐personal reputation relationship.

In total, 145 triads from a manufacturer in the Midwestern USA provided data for the study. Employees rated their political skill and citizenship behavior, supervisors rated their relationship quality, and coworkers rated the employees' personal reputation. Based on the complementary theories of signaling and social exchange, the relationships between the constructs were analyzed with structural equation modeling.

Political skill demonstrated both direct and indirect effects on the development of personal reputation. In particular, work relationship quality and citizenship behavior partially mediated the relationship between political skill and personal reputation.

Personal reputation was evaluated by a randomly selected coworker, but a collection of perceptions would be helpful.

Political skill training and/or mentoring relationships may help individuals manage their personal reputation at work, thus benefiting their careers.

This study focused on personal reputation in a work environment. However, the results also may be useful to individuals in different types of organizations.

This is one of the first studies to investigate how individuals develop their personal reputation at work. Unlike previous research that used self‐evaluations of personal reputation, this study used peer evaluations, which is more appropriate for the construct.

Reputation has many positive outcomes, but little is known about how individuals manage their personal reputation at work. This study aims to investigate the relationships between job performance and political skill on personal reputation.

Ninety‐eight triads from a Midwestern manufacturer provided data. Employees rated their political skill, supervisors rated the employees' job performance, and coworkers rated the employees' personal reputation. The white‐collar respondents were mostly Caucasian, female, middle aged, and moderately tenured in their position. The data were analyzed with regression analysis.

The results illustrated positive political skill‐personal reputation and job performance ‐personal reputation relationships. Job performance was positively associated with personal reputation for politically skilled employees, but not for individuals low in political skill.

Job performance was evaluated by employees' supervisors, but less subjective, quantitative measures of job performance would be helpful.

Political skill training and/or mentoring relationships may help individuals manage their personal reputation at work.

This study focused on personal reputation in a work environment. However, the results also may be useful to individuals in a variety of organizations (e.g. schools, clubs, churches).

This is one of the first studies to investigate how individuals manage their personal reputation in a work setting. Unlike previous research that used self‐evaluations of personal reputation, this study uses peer evaluations, which is more appropriate for the construct.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test an integrated-process model/an index model by incorporating the antecedents and consequences of service quality in a higher education context.

This research employed both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The data from three focus groups, conducted at an Australian University, generated key themes and their interrelationships. The theoretical model was then tested using the structural equation modelling (SEM) technique on a sample of 528 University students.

The findings show that information (or marketing communications) and past experience are the antecedents of perceived service quality (PSQ). PSQ is a second order construct and has three dimensions: academic, administrative and facilities. The consequences of PSQ include trust, satisfaction, university-brand (UniBrand) performance and behavioural intentions. Overall, the results suggest a good validity of the model, and the nine path coefficients are found statistically significant.

The model explains how service quality is formed, and how PSQ affects UniBrand and positive behavioural intentions overtime. This paper develops and validates three new constructs including information, past experience and UniBrand performance. In addition, it improves and validates other constructs including service quality, satisfaction, trust and behavioural intention. The paper also advances service quality literature and validates five hypothesised relationships between constructs that are relatively new in the service quality literature. Finally, this study validates a comprehensive three-tiered “integrated-process” model/an index model that includes antecedents, dimensions and consequences of service quality taking a University as a case. Universities aiming for a sustainable presence in a competitive global market and intending to enhance brand performance and attract and retain students are encouraged to consider this model and its implications.

This paper aims to explore how authentic corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities can serve as a proactive service recovery tool and shield service providers from the negative consequences of service failures. Specifically, the authors investigate the conditions under which such activities can encourage conciliatory behavior among aggrieved consumers and how adding reactive service recovery tools to the mix interferes with the process.

The authors conduct three experiments on an online panel and college student participants. The authors present a service failure scenario at a restaurant (late/subpar food delivery); vary the restaurant’s CSR activity (authentic, inauthentic or nonexistent); and test CSR’s impact on conciliatory behavior, the underlying mechanisms and how reactive service recovery tactics (apology/compensation) moderate the process.

The authors find that authentic-CSR activities (relative to inauthentic or no-CSR activities) indirectly promote conciliatory behavior by (serially) making the failure appear as a onetime event and lessening consumer anger toward the service provider. However, the process gets disrupted when the authors add an apology/compensation to the mix, ostensibly because the latter is a more direct signal that the failure is a onetime problem.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that tests how authentic-CSR activities can serve as a proactive service recovery tool and encourage conciliatory behavior among aggrieved consumers (a serial mediation process). The authors add value by showing that the process cuts across cultures (with participants from the USA and Turkey) and that CSR activities are indispensable when customers do not complain but simply exit the firm.

The purpose of the paper is to report on the perception of students in regard to critical antecedents, dimensions and consequences of service quality with an aim to develop a theoretical model in the context of a university in Australia.

This research used focus group discussions with 19 students who had been studying in undergraduate and postgraduate level programs at an Australian university.

The findings show that the critical antecedents to perceived service quality are information and past experience. There are three aspects of perceived service quality, namely, academic, administrative and facilities. Student satisfaction and student trust are found to have direct and positive relationships with perceived service quality as consequences; and brand performance and behavioural intention are found to have indirect relationships with perceived service quality mediated through satisfaction and trust.

This paper found three separate themes and their relationships with service quality in the context of a university. These themes are: information, past experience and brand performance. Perceived service quality was found playing an important role in this theoretical model. The model provides a good explanation of university brand performance and students' behavioural intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of brand contract in B2B from two perspectives: the theological and pragmatic.

A review of the branding literature challenges the dominant notion of the brand covenant as a firm driven, unilateral promise, referred to as a theological contract. The study adds to this the pragmatic perspective of a social contract, as deployed by the social sciences and IMP literatures. A tentative framework of a dialectical contract is developed through drawing on three cases of Chinese suppliers for the focal firm, IKEA.

First, both types of contract are identified in the firm’s practices. Second, the specific goals and roles of managers and suppliers in each contract are defined. The theological contract is used by managers to strengthen suppliers’ beliefs in the company’s vision and mission, while the pragmatic one is employed by both parties for the implementation of the brand’s norms and brand equity. Third, a new framework for and the definition of a dual, dialectical brand contract in B2B are developed.

Managers are advised to mediate between the theological pledge of their brand and its pragmatic implementation.

The paper challenges the dominant theological discourse in extant branding literature and puts forward a dialectical approach as a new proposition.

This paper aims to investigate the satisfaction of dealers with their suppliers in the agricultural machinery sector.

A dummy approach of the three‐factor model is used to detect the dimensions that influence the overall satisfaction of agricultural machinery dealers. The model considers satisfiers, dissatisfiers and so‐called performance factors that might lead to both satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

Two dissatisfiers, after‐sales and service methods and relationship with supplier, are detected. Furthermore, there is one satisfier, competitive outlook, and one performance factor, the product program.

The dummy approach detects the three factors implicitly. A Kano‐questionnaire might be helpful to confirm the results.

Producers should first fulfill the factors that have the highest negative impact: product program, followed by after‐sales and service methods and relationship with supplier. After reaching a specific level within these factors, producers could seek to increase their dealers' satisfaction with the two factors, product program and competitive outlook. The product program thus represents the key factor for producers seeking to both decrease dissatisfaction and increase satisfaction.

While different approaches of the three‐factor model are used along with customer satisfaction, this paper is the first to detect different factors of dealer satisfaction in the agricultural machinery sector.