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Consumers’ intentions to participate in the sharing economy have received much attention from researchers in recent times. However, little attention has been paid to consumers’ actual participation in the sharing economy. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that drive customers in Ghana to use Uber.

The authors used surveys as the research design. There were 500 participants who were users of Uber. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires.

The findings of this study show that trust, customer return on investment and search convenience are the key factors that contribute to riders’ usage of Uber service. Furthermore, this study shows that consumers’ need for prestige and social connection do not play a significant role in consumers’ (riders’) usage of Uber services.

Studies investigating consumers’ participation in the sharing economy from an emerging economy context using the social exchange theory is limited. This study identifies elements of the economic and socio-emotional dimensions of the social exchange theory and the strength of their impact on people’s participation in the sharing economy.

Marketing researchers have usually studied consumers’ attachment to brands from an emotional bonding perspective. However, the purpose of this study is to show that attachment to objects is not only limited to bonding. Thus, the authors conceptualised the attachment theory from two perspectives: bonding-based and identity-based attachment. In addition, the study further seeks to identify the elements of each component and examine how these elements drive customer engagement on a brand’s Facebook page while assessing some consumer-related outcomes of customer engagement on Facebook.

Using an online survey, the authors examined antecedents of customer engagement on Facebook and the outcomes of engagement behaviours among 649 respondents. Structural equation modelling was used in analysing the data.

The results of the study show that consumers’ attachment to a brand drives them to engage the brand on the brand’s Facebook page. The results also show that the consumer engagement of brands on Facebook results in positive user-generated contents and consumer involvement.

Managerially, the attachment theory provides value for marketers in terms of evaluating customer–brand relationships and how such a relationship can yield positive results.

This study expands how the attachment theory has been conceptualised and applied in the marketing literature. The study shows that consumer attachment to brands is identity-based in addition to being bonding-based.

Currently, mobile payments have become pervasive in electronic commerce and are steadily increasing in many regions worldwide. In the literature, however, its continued usage among consumers is deemed equivocal, particularly among small businesses. This study uses the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to examine mobile money continuance intention among micro enterprises in an emerging/less-developed economy. This study aims to explore the mediating role of agent credibility on this relationship, given that these agents are contingent actors between service providers and mobile money users.

After a preliminary qualitative enquiry, quantitative data collected from 584 micro enterprises were tested from the UTAUT perspective, using structural equation modelling.

Findings from the study establish the applicability of the UTAUT in explaining the antecedents, motivations and continuance intention of mobile money usage among micro enterprises. Further, beyond their direct effects, the UTAUT conditions have indirect effects on the continuance intention through their effect on perceived agent credibility.

The findings provide evidence to issues of research and managerial interest, offering insightful implications to the academic and practitioner communities, respectively.

The increased practitioner and academic interest in negative brand phenomena highlight the need for the development of practical scales to be used for empirical investigations. Therefore, this paper aims to draw on existing conceptualisations to provide a theoretically grounded yet practically oriented scale for examining brand avoidance and its protocols.

The study uses a sample of 575 consumers from two developing countries to create a parsimonious brand avoidance scale. Partial least squares structural equation modelling is used to analyse the data through a systematic formative measurement approach

This paper finds brand avoidance to be a multidimensional, second-order construct with five first-order dimensions: moral avoidance, identity avoidance, deficit–value avoidance, experiential avoidance and advertising-related avoidance. The paper further validates this scale by testing with non-purchase intention and identifies its positive relationship with brand avoidance.

This study fulfils the calls in the literature to provide a measurable scale for studying negative brand phenomena in consumer–brand relationship research.

In recent times, there has been a growing research interest in customer engagement; however, there is a paucity of empirical evidence on the drivers and outcomes of customer engagement such as brand loyalty. Furthermore, the customer engagement and brand loyalty literature have paid little attention to trustworthiness, even though it has the potential of explaining customer engagement, brand loyalty and their relationships. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to ascertain the drivers of customer engagement and its relationship with brand loyalty in the context of retail banking in Ghana.

The authors employed the survey research design. The authors collected data from retail banking customers in Ghana using the intercept approach. There were 385 respondents. The authors analysed the data using the structural equation modelling approach.

The results show that trustworthiness drives customer engagement which results in brand loyalty. The findings reveal that trustworthiness is defined through integrity, benevolence and ability while customer engagement is defined via emotional engagement, cognitive engagement and behavioural engagement.

This study examines the impact of trustworthiness on customer engagement and brand loyalty. It shows the mediating role of customer engagement in the relationship between trustworthiness and brand loyalty.

Despite the recognisable importance of nation brand websites, they have seemingly not been the focus of dialogic communication interrogations of marketing and communications scholars. This paper is one of the initial attempts to address such research lacuna. The paper aims to examine the dialogic potential of the Brand South Africa website and its effect on the country’s image, as well as the impact of this image on consumers’ (tourists) visiting intentions.

Drawing from the dialogic communication and impression management theories, the authors applied partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to analyse data solicited from 672 participants via an electronic survey.

This paper demonstrates that the dialogic communication principles of the Brand South Africa website have positive influences on the image impression of South Africa. Country image impression was also found to have a significant effect on intentions to visit.

This study is of potential benefit to researchers, government agencies and those responsible for nation branding.

This study contributes to marketing and tourism literatures, by drawing on theories of dialogic communication principles and impression management, to fill the gap regarding the effect of nation brand websites on country image impression and visiting intention of consumers (tourists).

This study aimed to ascertain the relationship between experiential value, brand attachment and brand loyalty. The authors employed the attachment theory as the theoretical framework and operationalised attachment as a two-dimensional construct: identity-based and bonding-based. The authors argue that experiential value reinforces customer attachment in these two perspectives of attachment and consequently determine brand loyalty.

The authors used a survey research design and collected data from 500 customers of mobile telecommunication network companies in Ghana. The authors analysed the data collected using the partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling.

The findings of the study showed that there is a relationship between experiential value, brand attachment (identity-based and bonding-based) and brand loyalty. This study showed how experiential value reinforces each dimension of the attachment theory, and drives brand loyalty.

This study intensifies the application of attachment theory in the marketing literature. It provides insight into how brand loyalty is developed via attachment.

This study investigates the effect of product quality and price fairness on consumer cause-related marketing (CRM) participation and also the moderating role of donation-related customer predispositions (i.e. empathy and cause importance) on this relationship.

Data for the study were obtained from 240 respondents. A structural equation modelling approach was used in analysing the data.

Results from the analysis indicate that fair pricing and product quality affect CRM participation. The findings also provide insights into the moderation role of empathy and cause importance.

Prior research studied the effect of promotion on CRM participation; however, this study examines the effect of product and price. The findings offer insight into issues of research and managerial interest, offering insightful implications to the academic and practitioner communities in developing countries, respectively.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the effects of place attachment on brand loyalty. This study further ascertains whether the effects of emotion-based attachment on brand loyalty are stronger for customers who have a positive experience with a restaurant brand. Additionally, the authors investigate whether emotion-based attachment mediates the relationships between identity-based attachments, place dependence and brand loyalty in the restaurant setting.

The authors administered the questionnaire to customers (diners) of restaurants in Ghana, and they were completed via a paper and pencil/pen approach. The authors tested their hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

The findings show that identity-based and emotion-based attachment enhances brand loyalty within a restaurant setting. The results also show that place dependence attachment promotes emotional bonding with restaurant brands. The study's findings also show that place dependence attachment does not have a direct and positive significant effect on brand loyalty except when an emotional response is produced.

Place attachment studies in a restaurant setting are rare. This study thus contributes to the place attachment literature in restaurants setting.

Although start-ups have gained increasing scholarly attention, we lack sufficient understanding of their entrepreneurial strategic posture (ESP) in emerging economies. The purpose of this study is to examine the processes of ESP of new technology venture start-ups (NTVs) in an emerging market context.

In line with grounded theory guidelines and the inductive research traditions, the authors adopted a qualitative approach involving 42 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Ghanaian NTV entrepreneurs to gain a comprehensive analysis at the micro-level on the entrepreneurs' strategic posturing. A systematic procedure for data analysis was adopted.

From the authors' analysis of Ghanaian NTVs, the authors derived a three-stage model to elucidate the nature and process of ESP Phase 1 spotting and exploiting market opportunities, Phase II identifying initial advantages and Phase III ascertaining and responding to change.

The study contributes to advancing research on ESP by explicating the process through which informal ties and networks are utilised by NTVs and NTVs' founders to overcome extreme resource constraints and information vacuums in contexts of institutional voids. The authors depart from past studies in demonstrating how such ties can be harnessed in spotting and exploiting market opportunities by NTVs. On this basis, the paper makes original contributions to ESP theory and practice.