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The purposes of this study are to examine how contractual and relational governance mechanisms influence total value created in a buyer–supplier relationship and to investigate how supplier’s information sharing and information sharing asymmetry between two exchange parties differentially moderate these associations.

The study is conducted with a sample of 110 buyer–supplier matched dyads in various industries in Vietnam.

This study confirms that contractual governance and relational governance have curvilinear effects on total relationship value. Governance mechanisms have distinct interactions with supplier’s information sharing and information sharing asymmetry to influence total relationship value.

Future study could expand the sample to various countries to investigate the role of cultural factors in the effects of contractual and relational governance.

This study draws implications for supplying managers about how to govern a relationship with a buying firm with which they are sharing information. It also provides implications about how to use contractual and relational governance to control the effects of supplier’s information sharing and information sharing asymmetry, on total relationship value.

This study extends the information sharing literature by looking into the effect of supplier’s information sharing on both parties’ relationship value. It contributes to the governance literature by investigating curvilinear effects of contractual and relational governance on relationship performance.

This paper aims to examine the influence of intrinsic motives (self-efficacy, reputation and reciprocity) on online knowledge sharing behaviour. Additionally, this research investigates the moderating role of individual innovation capability and top management support.

The methodology adopted was a questionnaire survey of employees working in Vietnamese telecommunications companies. A total of 501 employees completed a self-administered anonymous survey using a cross-sectional design. Confirmatory factor analysis and ordinary least squared – based hierarchical regression was used to test the conceptual framework.

Self-efficacy, reputation and reciprocity significantly impact online knowledge sharing behaviour. Specifically, self-efficacy has an inverted U-shape association while reputation and reciprocity have a positively, returns-to-scale association with online knowledge sharing behaviour. Individual innovation capability moderates the effect on these associations as does top management support, but to a lesser extent.

Data were obtained at a single point in time and self-reported. Furthermore, this study was conducted in a specific industry in Vietnam, i.e. telecommunications, which limits the generalisability of the research.

Organisations need to create a favourable environment for online knowledge sharing to foster reciprocal relationships and interpersonal interactions of employees. Encouraging and rewarding employees to actively engage in knowledge exchange will help facilitate reciprocal online knowledge sharing behaviour.

This study contributes to knowledge-sharing behaviour by uncovering an inverted U-shape association and positively, returns-to-scale associations between intrinsic antecedents and online knowledge sharing behaviour. Additionally, individual innovation capability was an important moderator which has been overlooked in past research.

Drawing upon the resource-based view of the firm, this paper aims to develop and empirically validate a model that examines the relationships between technical knowledge management infrastructure (TKMI), social KM infrastructure (SKMI) and competitive advantage provided by KM (CAPKM). The authors argue that KM process capabilities account for the direct effects of TKMI and SKMI on CAPKM.

The study used partial least squares —structural equating modelling (SEM) to empirically test the hypotheses using a sample of 251 firms from an emerging economy. The results were then confirmed using the bias-corrected bootstrap procedure. The study also conducted two robustness checks including examining a competing moderation model and performing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), a set–theoretic method that examines how causal conditions combine into all possible configurations of binary states to explain the desired outcome.

The findings show that TKMI and SKMI have positive effects on CAPKM. In addition, KM process capabilities mediate the direct effects of TKMI and SKMI on CAPKM.

This paper complements and advances previous research in several ways. Firstly, the paper develops a conceptual model that depicts the interrelationships between TKMI, SKMI, KM process capabilities and CAPKM. Secondly, this paper suggests the critical role of the “action” component (i.e. KM process capabilities) that capitalises on the KM resources in the creation of CAPKM.

This study aims to use social exchange theory and the principle of reciprocity in proposing a theoretical model to examine the essential but unexplored unique roles of individual customer equity drivers (CEDs) and their contribution to brand loyalty. This study identifies a reciprocity pathway in that brand equity, which mediates the linkage between relationship equity and brand loyalty. This study further posits that the linkage between relationship equity and brand equity is contingent on value equity. The authors then incorporate value equity as a moderator upon which the interrelationships among CEDs and brand loyalty may vary.

A sample consisted of 2,268 shoppers in a metropolitan city in Vietnam.

Relationship equity significantly determines brand loyalty through the moderating effect of value equity and the mediating effect of brand equity. Interestingly, these relationships are diverse across different experiential types of consumers.

This study contributes to a better understanding of why and when value equity, brand equity and relationship equity trigger brand loyalty. Brand equity and value equity are the two underlying mechanisms that establish a moderated mediation model between CEDs and brand loyalty. The findings of this study show that experiential consumers are not created equals. The strength of the relationships between CEDs and brand loyalty differ among the five clusters of experiential consumers.

This study reveals the critical relationships between the three components of customer equity in the supermarket industry. The findings provide concrete direction for managers and marketers to be more effective in allocating resources, tailoring their marketing strategies and, accordingly, promoting brand loyalty of different types of consumers.

This study reveals the underlying modus operandi that explains the reciprocity effects of CEDs and the contingency role of brand experience on the CEDs–loyalty link. This study shows that brand equity fosters and sustains the reciprocity generated when consumers perceive a high level of relationship equity, serving as a mediator between relationship equity and brand loyalty. Importantly, value equity is an important moderator for strengthening this reciprocity effect. Furthermore, this study identifies a typology of experience-focussed consumers and shows that the CEDs–loyalty link significantly varies by these types of experiential appeal that characterise the consumers.

The purpose of this study is to explore how emotions felt by the public during a crisis influenced consumer loyalty intention and negative word-of-mouth (WOM). Considering the context-specific nature of emotions, the existing crisis emotions were further validated in a product consumption situation. Drawing on the theories of attribution and social sharing, a conceptual model, positing that crisis-specific emotions [attribution-independent, external-attribution-dependent (EAD) and internal-attribution-dependent (IAD) emotions] influenced negative WOM through behavioural intention, was constructed and empirically tested.

Data was collected from 240 Vietnamese consumers by using a scenario-based survey related to a fictional milk crisis.

The study findings showed that all but one crisis emotion had negative effects on both WOM and loyalty intention. Of these emotions, EAD and IAD were the strongest predictors of negative WOM and behavioural intention, respectively. It was also found that all crisis emotions significantly affected negative WOM through behavioural intention.

Although some efforts have been made to identify crisis emotions, the validity of the existing scales have not been affirmed in other crises related to product consumption situations. The results of the present study, thus, made contributions by enhancing an understanding of crisis emotions and their impacts on consumer loyalty intention and WOM communications.

This study is embedded in social exchange and transaction cost theories. The purpose of this paper is to compare the relative importance of process value and outcome value in building affective and cognitive relationship strength and to compare the relative effects of each type of relationship strength on attitudinal and behavioral loyalty.

This empirical study features a quantitative approach. The sample comprises 167 business-to-business (B2B) customers of a large transportation and logistics company in Vietnam.

Process value and outcome value have different effects on affective relationship strength. The effect of process value is greater than that of outcome value. In addition, cognitive strength has a stronger impact on both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty than affective strength.

These insights extend extant literature regarding the process and outcome components of the service assessment. Further studies also should use a cross-industry, cross-country sample to examine the potential moderating effects of country- or industry-specific factors. These findings show B2B managers how to make appropriate resource allocation and investment decisions to enhance relationship strength and resulting customer loyalty.

To clarify the links among customer value, relationship strength and customer loyalty, this study examines the relative importance of rational and non-rational factors (i.e. process value vs outcome value and affective strength vs cognitive strength) for relationship performance. Unlike most prior research, this study is set in the B2B context of a developing country.

In today’s global marketplace, the mantra of many service firms is enhanced efficiency and productivity. To increase their bottom line, firms must also expand revenue. They thus face the challenge of ways to increase revenue through customer satisfaction while also achieving productivity gains. The current study aims to offer insight into the role of various resources that encourage frontline employees (FLEs) to become engaged in the pursuit of achieving organisational goals, ultimately enhancing service productivity and customer satisfaction.

A total of 252 customer-FLE dyadic data were collected at a medium-sized retail bank in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Results show that personal (self-efficacy) and organisational resources impact FLE productivity directly and indirectly through employee engagement. Importantly, service productivity is then positively associated with customer satisfaction.

Extending previous investigations based on the job demands-resources model and theories of self-efficacy and conservation of resources, this study’s findings empirically support anecdotal accounts of the positive productivity–customer satisfaction relationship.

The results also highlight the importance of the management of human and organisational resources to attain this two-pronged goal.

Using dyadic data (customers and FLEs) collected at a medium-sized retail bank, the authors refute the trade-off effect between attaining employee productivity and customer satisfaction in the service industry. This paper further fills research need to study how various resources available to FLEs can achieve desirable organisational outcomes in service firms – the improvement of both service productivity and customer satisfaction.

Frontline employees frequently experience tension at work. Based on paradox theory, this study investigates why and when tension can result in positive performance outcomes and for whom tension can enhance creativity.

We employed a time-lagged survey design to collect data in two waves with a four-week interval between waves. The questionnaire was distributed to frontline employees (i.e. doctors and nurses) serving in one public hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. The final sample included 216 front-line employees.

The study found that tension can promote employee performance through creativity. Employees with high paradox mindset levels especially tend to be more creative when experiencing tension. However, our findings did not support the idea that frontline employees who have been psychologically empowered tend to turn creative ideas into real practices and result in better employee performance.

The study advanced knowledge of the effect tension has on employee performance by investigating the mechanism through which experiencing tension can ultimately promote employee performance.

Despite the fact that prosocial motivation is related to word of mouth (WOM), few studies have been conducted to investigate the psychological and behavioral processes that mediate the two constructs. This study aims to explore customers’ relational interactions, specifically customer-to-employee interaction (via customer participation), customer-to-customer interaction and customer-to-brand interaction (via brand commitment), as mediators of the prosocial motivation–WOM linkage. Specifically, this paper examines the serial mediation model, in which prosocial motivation increases customer participation and customer-to-customer interaction, which in turn increase brand commitment and WOM sequentially.

This study collected survey data from two different samples, including higher degree research education and fitness gym services (highly interactive, people-processing service contexts), and used partial least square method to analyze the multiple serial mediations.

The results of this study show two serial mediating processes through which prosocial motivation influences WOM: 1. prosocial motivation → customer participation → brand commitment → WOM; and 2. prosocial motivation → customer-to-customer interaction → brand commitment → WOM.

The findings provide managerial insights into how marketers can foster a more interactive service environment to encourage prosocial customers to engage in WOM more effectively.

This study contributes to the literature on services WOM by illustrating the behavioral and psychological processes that underlie the effect of prosocial motivation on WOM.

Internal branding efforts are essential in improving employee performance in services marketing. Drawing on reformulation of attitude theory, this paper aims to contribute to the internal branding literature by positing that while internal brand knowledge (IBK) is essential for transforming brand vision into brand reality, it is not brand knowledge per se but its integration with other brand- and customer-related aspects that drive superior employee performance. In particular, this paper develops a cognitive-affective-behaviour model of internal branding proposing that IBK results in higher levels of employee brand identification (EBI); this sense of identification then motivates employees to engage in both employee-related and brand- and customer-focussed behaviours (i.e. brand citizenship behaviour [BCB] and customer-oriented behaviour [COB]), which in turn foster employee performance.

The hypotheses were empirically tested using a sample of 697 from services industry in Vietnam.

The findings indicate a sequential mediation model in that employee brand knowledge affects employee performance (both objective and subjective measures) through EBI, BCB and COB. Employee brand knowledge results in higher levels of EBI; this sense of identification then motivates employees to engage in employee-related brand and customer-focussed behaviours (BCB and COB), which in turn foster employee performance.

Firms should understand that IBK may not directly result in high levels of service performance, and instead should embrace the culture of self-driven positive brand-connection attitudes that motivate employees to engage in BCB and COB that are consistent with their sense of self.

This study makes a unique contribution to the internal branding literature by unravelling a pathway that integrates employees’ self-related psychological mechanism (EBI) and employee-related brand and customer-focussed behaviours (BCB and COB) through which employee brand knowledge is converted into employee performance.