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Relying on the importance-performance theory first established by Martilla and James (1977), this research paper utilizes a unique statistical analysis instrument embedded into the SmartPLS software. It explores the importance and performance of key project management constructs and indicators with a purpose to make practical and actionable recommendations for project managers to identify and improve project management practices.

The data used were derived from 3,130 system delivery projects in the facilities management industry. The data was analyzed with Partial Least Squares Modelling (PLS) software SmartPLS, using its embedded importance-performance functionality.

The findings indicate the importance and performance of the project management constructs and their respective indicator variables in an importance-performance (IPMA) map. All three project management phases (constructs); proposal, installation and commissioning, were significantly related to satisfaction. The installation phase (construct) showed the highest potential for performance improvement in project management. With regard to the specific indicator variables, the variable “Coordinating their work with other contractors (or the owner's staff)” received a strong “Do better” recommendation.

The approach and results provide an easy to use and visual tool for project managers to assess the importance and performance of the various elements of project management. The instrument provides a project management direction for the identification of strategic enhancement areas as it is essential to recognize what facets of project management contribute most to the improvement of project management performance over a longer period of time (Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Palmer, 1998).

Customer-centric measures such as customer satisfaction and repurchase intent are important indicators of performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine what is the strength and significance of the path coefficients in a customer satisfaction model consisting of various customer-centric measures for different types of ski resort customer (i.e. day, weekend and ski holiday visitors as well as season pass holders) in a ski resort in Canada.

The results were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach for the four different types ski resort visitors.

There appeared to differences in the strength and significance in the customer satisfaction model relationships for the four types of ski resort visitors indicating that the a priori managerial classification of the ski resort visitors is warranted.

The research pinpoints differences in the strength and significance in the relationships between customer-centric measures for four different types ski resort visitors, i.e. day, weekend and ski holiday visitors as well as season pass holders, which have significant managerial implications for the marketing practice of the ski resort.

This paper aims to examine project management segments based on customer satisfaction drivers and loyalty rather than traditional demographic or behavioural variables.

Data were gathered over 18 consecutive months, and 3,129 surveys were completed using a questionnaire. The statistical methods included partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling, finite mixture segmentation, prediction-oriented segmentation (PLS-POS) and multi-group analysis (PLS-MGA).

The findings indicate the existence of three segments among system delivery project customers based on the differences in the strengths of the path coefficients in the customer-centric structural model. In Segment 1, satisfaction based on the proposal was crucial for loyalty, with the value-for-money construct negatively impacting the repurchase intent construct. Segment 2 had a solid value-for-money orientation. In Segment 3, the critical path indicated that satisfaction drove repurchase intention, with satisfaction based mainly on the installation.

The research contributes to the segmentation theory by introducing a new way to segment the systems delivery projects customers based on the perceived strength of the relationships in a customer-centric structural model, which aligns with traditional segmentation theory in a way that most segmentation analyses do not. A new segmentation approach to the domain of project management theory is presented. Based on the results, treating the system delivery project customer base as a single homogenous group can lead to managerially misleading conclusions.

This paper aims to use a unique statistical analysis tool to examine the importance and performance of critical brand community constructs and indicators to make concrete recommendations for brand community managers going forward.

An online survey was used to gather 501 responses from North American members of the Qualtrics panel. The data was analyzed with partial least squares (PLS) modeling software SmartPLS and neural networks available in statistical software JMP by SAS.

Using the brand community motives by Madupy and Cooley (2010), the results of this paper indicated that there was significant room for improvement in customer engagement. Based on further analysis, entertainment and identification with the brand community were the most important constructs in driving community engagement so that the identification construct received a “do better” ruling meaning that the improvement of the indentification construct score would enhance significantly the score of the target construct engagement score.

For brand community managers, it is important to know the true importance of the critical brand community constructs and indicators, along with an assessment of current performance. This helps to increase satisfaction and relationship quality among brand community members. The current study uses unique statistical analysis tools to make such concrete recommendations.

On the basis of the justice, attachment, social support, self-determination theories, this research paper examines the impact of the student–instructor relationship construct on the customer-centric measures of overall student satisfaction, and perceived value for money and their impact of the behavioral intentions as an endogenous construct. We considered universities as providers of complex services focusing on students' service quality and students as the customers of the higher education institutions.

A survey instrument was used to collect data among undergraduate and graduate business students in a medium-sized Canadian university (N = 178). Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze the strength, significance, and effect sizes of the relationships between the key constructs.

The results indicate that the student–instructor relationship is significantly related to student satisfaction and value for money perceptions. Also, the student satisfaction and behavioral intentions, value for money and student satisfaction, and value for money and behavioral intentions relationship were significant.

The perceived quality of student–instructor relationship and its relationship to customer-centric measures like satisfaction, value for money and behavioral intentions has received relatively little attention in previous research and was discovered to be an important contributor to the perceived student satisfaction and value for money. The importance of the student–instructor relationship is further emphasized indirectly via the perceived value for money construct to student satisfaction.

Against the backdrop of dynamic capabilities theory, this research examines the relationship between knowledge and marketing agility in the context of big data marketing analytics (BDMA). The relevant knowledge constructs under investigation are business/marketing, relational, technological and technology management. The level of BDMA deployment is also examined to determine its impact on these relationships.

A survey was used to gather data from marketing professionals working in firms with at least limited experience in big data (BD) deployment in the United States and Canada. The results were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with a sample of 236 responses.

The results indicate that marketing professionals perceived the knowledge and marketing agility constructs differently than the previous research on IT professionals. The knowledge construct was perceived as a two-dimensional construct consisting of broad knowledge skills and specific technical knowledge skills. Only the broad knowledge skills construct was significantly related to the marketing agility construct, with progressively high predictive validity and relevance when the deployment of BDMA progresses.

The paper's originality stems from the different conceptualizations of the knowledge and marketing agility constructs due to the use of a novel sample of marketing professionals in this study. The research also contributes to the dynamic capabilities theory by emphasizing the critical role of vital knowledge when aiming to enhance marketing agility.

Against social cognitive and social exchange theories, this research paper aims to investigate the significance and interaction between perceived knowledge, involvement, trust and brand community engagement in brand communities (BC).

BC participants (n = 503) completed a cross-sectional survey for this research. Analysis was performed using PLS-SEM via SmartPLS (v. 4.1.0.2) and the novel Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA).

An integrative KITE model with positive and significant relationships of key BC constructs was established. The perceived BC knowledge influenced involvement and engagement. Furthermore, the constructs of involvement and trust were discovered to have a positive and significant impact on engagement, with trust having a substantial effect on BC engagement. The indirect effects of the trust construct via the BC knowledge and BC involvement constructs were also significant.

This research advances the existing conceptual approaches by introducing knowledge as the key BC constructs. The study illustrates that members’ knowledge about a BC facilitates their involvement in the BCs. The vital role of trust is revealed in the KITE model, as it is significantly related to BC knowledge, BC involvement and BC engagement with at least medium to large effect sizes. Notably, the role of trust is enhanced as it is the only necessary must-have (instead of “should-have”) condition to achieve high levels of BC engagement. Furthermore, the KITE model provides insights for marketers to develop a valuable BC.

This study assesses the impact of marital status towards customer-centric measures in a Canadian ski resort using the importance-performance map analysis (IPMA) as the analytical framework. For the purpose of this paper, the three groups that were assessed included singles, partnership without children and partnership with children as marital status indicators. From the theoretical and especially managerial point of view, knowing the importance and the performance of the relevant ski resort-related customer-centric perceptions is of key importance.

A survey was completed to assess customer-centric measures including customer satisfaction, repurchase intent, value for money, willingness to recommend, overall performance in terms of meeting expectations, relationship quality and skiing service quality. An IPMA was conducted with partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to assess the importance-performance perceptions of the three marital status groups.

The results indicated that for five of the seven customer-centric measures, there were significant differences between the marital status groups. Overall, singles appeared to have the lowest values in customer-centric measures, whereas respondents living in partnership with children had the highest. This was also the case with the value for money perceptions, although the cost for the ski resort visit was likely to be the highest for the respondents living in partnership with children. There were also differences between the marital status groups in terms of the importance-performance evaluations.

Results of this research have implications for ski resort management as the three marital status groups appear to perceive the customer-centric measures quite differently in the IPMA framework.

This study aims to examine how the theory of planned behaviour and technology acceptance theory can be used to understand the adoption of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). The relationships between attitudes, behavioural intentions towards using NPIs, actual use of NPIs and word-of-mouth (WOM) were examined and compared between early and late adopters.

A survey was conducted to test the hypotheses with partial least squares structural equation modelling (n = 278).

The results indicate that relationships between attitudes, intentions and behavioural intentions were positive and significant in the whole data set – and that there were differences between the early and late adopters. WOM had no substantial relationship with actual usage and early adopters’ behavioural intentions.

This research gives a better sense of how WOM impacts attitudes, behavioural intentions and actual usage among early and late adopters of NPIs and highlights the effectiveness of WOM, especially among late adopters of NPIs. Furthermore, using the TAM allows us to make specific recommendations regarding encouraging the use of NPIs. A new three-stage communications model is introduced that uses early adopters as influencers to reduce the NPI adoption time by late adopters.

Big data marketing analytics (BDMA) has been discovered to be a key contributing factor to developing necessary marketing capabilities. This research aims to investigate the impact of the technology and information quality of BDMA on the critical marketing capabilities by differentiating between firms with low and high perceived market performance.

The responses were collected from marketing professionals familiar with BDMA in North America (N = 236). The analysis was done with partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The results indicated positive and significant relationships between the information and technology quality as exogenous constructs and the endogenous constructs of the marketing capabilities of marketing planning, implementation and customer relationship management (CRM) with mainly moderate effect sizes. Differences in the path coefficients in the structural model were detected between firms with low and high perceived market performance.

This research indicates the critical role of technology and information quality in developing marketing capabilities. The study discovered heterogeneity in the sample population when using the low and high perceived market performance as the source of potential heterogeneity, the presence of which would likely cause a threat to the validity of the results in case heterogeneity is not considered. Thus, this research builds on previous research by considering this issue.