Jennifer Lee Burton, Jill R. Mosteller and Kellie E. Hale
To inform and optimize frontline service interactions associated with higher education recruitment, the linguistic content and context of online posts by brand ambassadors and…
Abstract
Purpose
To inform and optimize frontline service interactions associated with higher education recruitment, the linguistic content and context of online posts by brand ambassadors and prospective students in a brand community are examined.
Design/methodology/approach
Using Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) with content analysis, the authors examine over 20,000 online communication posts to identify prospects’ needs and communication styles that may inform brand ambassadors’ outreach efforts.
Findings
Analysis reveals linguistic differences between brand ambassadors’ and prospective students’ posts across public and private spaces, suggesting gaps in exchange efficacy. Publicly, prospects express more positive emotion, affiliation and authenticity than in private posts, where posting engagement is the highest. Prospects overall low clout language, combined with brand ambassadors’ low authenticity scores, suggest limited influence in exchange efforts. Theoretically, findings suggest that given the hedonic nature of public exchanges, this is where brand ambassadors may be more influential than in private, utilitarian informational exchanges. An integrated influencer marketing servicescape model is developed to guide future research.
Originality/value
Findings extend and integrate the online servicescape and influencer marketing literatures by revealing the importance of service interaction context and linguistic styles in enhancing frontline informational exchanges. Aligning linguistic language such as analytical thought, clout, authenticity, emotional tone, temporal focus and affiliation between public and private contexts may enhance authenticity in frontline service interactions, thereby enhancing communication effectiveness.
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Jill Mosteller and Charla Mathwick
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a retailer-managed ranking system on product reviewers’ well-being and its relationship to customer engagement.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a retailer-managed ranking system on product reviewers’ well-being and its relationship to customer engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
Content analysis of reviewers’ posts, generated over a six-month period following a critical incident involving a change in the reviewer ranking system, informs findings.
Findings
Fulfilling needs for social relatedness, competency and autonomy may be critical aspects that underlie reviewer engagement. Findings explain how organic and hierarchical reviewing platform design elements may support or thwart psychological need fulfillment. Reviewers expressed positive well-being when system elements facilitated organic interactions between consumers and reviewers, fulfilling social relatedness and competency needs. Hierarchical design elements elicited mixed well-being sentiments. When reviewers used rank as a feedback mechanism to signal competency development, positive well-being emerged, whereas ranking features perceived as lacking in integrity or reducing one’s autonomy, evoked negative sentiments. A stimulus-organism-response framework, grounded in environmental psychology, provides the basis for the online reviewer engagement model. This study deepens understanding of online customer engagement by illustrating how a ranking system and social elements influence well-being and motive fulfilment, key psychological processes associated with engagement.
Research limitations/implications
Highly engaged reviewers on one community platform inform findings, so results are not representative of all reviewers, but are relevant for conceptual purposes concerning critical incidents.
Practical implications
Findings have implications for the design of recognition platforms created to support customer engagement in online reviewing communities.
Social implications
Public ranking systems designed to recognize and reward reviewers can enhance as well as degrade consumer well-being within an online service environment.
Originality/value
First empirical work to examine the value of consumer well-being as it relates to engagement within an online reviewing service context.
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Kriti Krishna, Bharadhwaj Sivakumaran, Satish S. Maheswarappa and Ankur Jha
This paper aims to develop a conceptual model to understand how different gamification designs (hedonic and utilitarian) evoke different emotions and impact subsequent patronage…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a conceptual model to understand how different gamification designs (hedonic and utilitarian) evoke different emotions and impact subsequent patronage intentions for online consumers in different mindsets.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors first conducted a content analysis study and then tested the model with two online experiments [both 2 × 2 factorial designs – gamification (hedonic/utilitarian) and mindset (implemental/deliberative), with different utilitarian and hedonic products].
Findings
Gamification with hedonic benefits influences website patronage intentions by evoking promotion emotions, while gamification with utilitarian benefits does so by evoking prevention emotions. Gamification with hedonic benefits has a stronger impact on consumers shopping with deliberative mindsets, while gamification with utilitarian benefits works better for those with implemental mindsets.
Research limitations/implications
Future research may extend the present work by considering other types of gamification.
Practical implications
Managerially, e-tailers may use gamification with hedonic aspects for consumers in deliberative mindsets and utilitarian aspects for those in implemental mindsets.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to draw a link between mindsets and gamification. This research is also the first to operationalize gamification as hedonic and utilitarian based on their design characteristics and to establish emotional consequences as an important link between gamification and user behaviors.
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Nicholas Ford, Paul Trott and Christopher Simms
The purpose of this paper is to explore older people’s food consumption experiences. Specifically, the paper seeks to provide understanding on the influence of food intake on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore older people’s food consumption experiences. Specifically, the paper seeks to provide understanding on the influence of food intake on consumer vulnerability and how this manifests within people’s lives.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts an interpretive, exploratory approach, using in-depth interviews with 20 older consumers in the UK. Thematic analysis is conducted, establishing patterns and contradictions with the data.
Findings
The findings demonstrate how biological, psychological and social age-related changes can contribute to reduced food intake in later life. The loss of control over one’s consumption experiences as a result of inappropriate portion sizes acts as a source of both immediate and future vulnerability. Resultant food wastage can serve as an immediate reminder of negative associates with ageing, while the accumulative effect of sustained under-consumption contributes to increased frailty. As a result, consumer vulnerability can pervade other contexts of an individual’s life.
Practical implications
The research reveals opportunities for firms to use packaging development to reduce experiences of consumer vulnerability through reduced apportionment of packaged food products. However, this needs to be considered within a multi-demographic marketplace.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to literature by providing a unique lens with which to understand consumer vulnerability. The findings offer a developmental perspective on the experience of consumer vulnerability, revealing the stages of proximate, immediate, intermediate and ultimate vulnerability. This perspective has the potential to offer more detailed, nuanced insights into vulnerability in other contexts beyond food consumption.