Carlota Lorenzo Romero, María-del-Carmen Alarcón-del-Amo, Miguel Ángel Gómez Borja and Leticia Del-Pozo-Ruiz
This study aims to analyze the multicultural consumers’ perceptions multicultural consumers’ perceptions of their experience after participating in online cocreation actions in…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the multicultural consumers’ perceptions multicultural consumers’ perceptions of their experience after participating in online cocreation actions in the fashion industry and the behavioral consequences of that experience.
Design/methodology/approach
This research was conducted in Spain and the UK, with 800 active online cocreators, leading to a proposal of a comprehensive model of the cocreation experience and its effects on satisfaction and engagement with the brand and the intention to continue cocreating using a multi-group covariance structural equation model.
Findings
All the proposed hypotheses were confirmed. Cocreation activities influence the cocreation experience, which, in turn, generates a positive effect on the behavioral responses of individuals in terms of satisfaction, engagement and future intentions to continue participating in the brand’s cocreation activities. The cocreation patterns are similar in both countries, leading to a comparable behavioral model across different cultural contexts. The findings conclude with relevant recommendations on how brands can improve their globalization strategies.
Practical implications
The practical utility for a fashion retailer arises from acknowledging the different dimensions of the cocreation experience as mechanisms to develop strategies that foster customer participation, thus enhancing satisfaction, brand engagement and advocacy. The results also advocate for the proposition of similar actions across different markets, given the homogeneity of behaviors, likely through global platforms that facilitate participation from different markets toward the creation of global communities.
Originality/value
The significant contribution of this research lies in the detailed proposal for measuring the cocreation experience and its integration into a comprehensive model of the impact of cocreation on classic behavioral variables. Furthermore, the differential analysis across two countries provides the added value of a multicultural evaluation of the phenomenon.
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M.P. Martínez‐Ruiz, A. Mollá‐Descals, M.A. Gómez‐Borja and J.L. Rojo‐Álvarez
To analyze the impact of temporary retail price discount on a consumer goods product category using semiparametric regression and considering different promotional price discount…
Abstract
Purpose
To analyze the impact of temporary retail price discount on a consumer goods product category using semiparametric regression and considering different promotional price discount characteristics as well as brand characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach
A semiparametric regression model using Support Vector Machines, which aim to evaluate retailers' decisions about temporary price discounts, has been developed. The model is derived from the analysis of historical sales data, which provide precise evaluation of previous temporary price discounts periods. The model is also consistent with ample empirical evidence showing that historical retail sales data can be used to evaluate the impact of past promotions.
Findings
Provides an estimation of the shape of the deal effect curve, indicating which temporary price discounts are more effective to increase sales and showing the existence of different threshold and saturation levels. Confirms that promotional price discounts accelerate sales especially during week ends. Evidences that promoting high‐priced (high‐quality) brands has a stronger impact on sales of low‐priced (low‐quality) brands than the reverse and that cross‐price effects are stronger on the sales of brands with similar prices. Suggests the convenience of the use of the proposed semiparametric methodology to the study of the promotional effects considered.
Research limitations/implications
It is not possible to generalize the modelled shapes of the deal effect curves. There is no information available on feature advertising nor displays. It is important to determine the generalizability of these results to the study of additional promotional effects. It would also be interesting to assume that the retailer's deal policy is exogenous.
Originality/value
Provides a relevant tool to assess the set of price promotional periods by the grocery retailer. With a more precise and accurate knowledge about the performance of past temporary price cuts, retailers can implement more effective promotional periods.
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Mushfiqur Rahman, Erhan Aydin, Mohamed Haffar and Uzoechi Nwagbara
This study aims at demonstrating how social media shape the recruitment and selection processes of individuals in developing countries. It further explores the impacts of social…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims at demonstrating how social media shape the recruitment and selection processes of individuals in developing countries. It further explores the impacts of social media on business productivity, cost efficiency, widening of search, less employee turnover and competitive advantage mediated by adopting e-recruitment processes. This research adopts social network theory to discuss the findings and highlight the new mechanisms that legitimise business manipulation in e-recruitment process by exploring the usage of social media.
Design/methodology/approach
Secondary data based on literature review is triangulated with 37 semi-structured qualitative interviews with managerial and non-managerial members of staff.
Findings
The findings show that e-recruitment has immense advantages to businesses. However, the authors also consider the dark side of social media and e-recruitment process by considering social network theory as a manipulation tool in organisations of developing countries.
Originality/value
Having adopted the social network theory, this research highlights the new mechanisms that legitimise business manipulation in e-recruitment process. Thus, it demonstrates technological advancements that reshape the dynamics of social networks and recruitment processes.
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María Pilar Martínez‐Ruiz, Ana Isabel Jiménez‐Zarco and Robert Cascio
This paper aims to establish the main factors that underlie store attributes, to examine which exert the greatest influences on the achievement of a maximum level of customer…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to establish the main factors that underlie store attributes, to examine which exert the greatest influences on the achievement of a maximum level of customer satisfaction. This study seeks to determine if there are significant differences not only in the factor compositions but also in their influence on customer satisfaction, depending on the country of residence of focal customers.
Design/methodology/approach
The test of the proposed framework consists of analyses of two samples of customers that purchased in grocery stores in Spain and the USA. Following a factor analysis of the principal components, a binary logistic regression analysis tests the influence of the identified factors on customer satisfaction.
Findings
This work contributes to extant literature by assessing differences in the main factors that contribute to satisfaction with food stores, depending on the location of the customer.
Practical implications
This work is especially useful to grocery retailers that operate, or plan to operate, in different countries; it outlines key factors to consider to achieve upper‐bounded customer satisfaction scores.
Originality/value
The proposed classification of attributes and factors, according to their importance for customers' evaluations in different countries, includes three main factors. The first‐order factor includes the most valued attributes by all customers, independent of the country of residence. The second‐order factors include attributes with lesser importance though still valued by customers; the importance depends on the country of residence. Finally, the third‐order factor attributes are valued relatively less.
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Alexandra Luong and David Slegh
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of price discounts on products perceived to provide hedonic value vs those perceived to evoke displeasure. Also examined were…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of price discounts on products perceived to provide hedonic value vs those perceived to evoke displeasure. Also examined were the effects of various discount levels on consumer intentions to purchase.
Design/methodology/approach
The study design was a 2 (emotion-evoked) × 2 (price) × 3 (level of discount) mixed-factorial design. In this study, 182 participants were presented with several products and indicated whether they would shop with a competitor offering various price discounts on pleasure- vs displeasure-evoking products.
Findings
ANOVA results indicated a significant main effect of price discounts on intention to purchase and a significant interaction between price discount and type/price of product. Discounts mattered more between certain levels (10 and 50 per cent) than others (50 versus 70 per cent). Discounts mattered more for hedonic products (pleasure-evoking) than those that evoked displeasure; however, price trumped all factors such that discounts mattered most when price of product is high.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations include age range of participants and that intentions to shop were measured. Future research should examine price effects on other socio-demographic groups and actual behavior.
Practical implications
Retailers would benefit from using price discounts as a competitive strategy, with attention given to the “percentage-off” levels that are perceived to be steeper. Discounts are more effective when the product offers hedonic value or when price is high.
Originality/value
To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between “percentage-off” price discounts on hedonic products. This study contributes to the literature on pricing affect.
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Xingyang Lv, Nian Li, Xiaowei Xu and Yang Yang
With the explosive growth of the Internet, online travel agents (OTAs) have gained an increasing market share in the online booking market. However, OTAs are facing fierce…
Abstract
Purpose
With the explosive growth of the Internet, online travel agents (OTAs) have gained an increasing market share in the online booking market. However, OTAs are facing fierce competition from hotels' direct booking channels, as well as competition among themselves. Therefore, there is a need for an understanding of the evolution of the OTA market from a dynamic perspective. The purpose of this study is to investigate the long-term effect of OTAs on the hospitality industry and to find whether an equilibrium of this effect exists in the context of e-commerce.
Design/methodology/approach
To gain a better understanding of the OTA market process, a mathematical framework is constructed on the basis of four assumptions. NetLogo 5.1.0 is used to perform a series of numerical simulations.
Findings
The results indicate the following: (1) the development of the OTA market helps to improve net social welfare, but hotels (especially economy hotels) have suffered as a result; (2) clever exploitation of both online and offline channels that are based on hotels' historical data may improve hotels' performance; (3) a scale-priority strategy can be more helpful than a profit-priority strategy for enabling OTAs to maintain their long-term competitiveness; (4) the timing of participation in online-channel competition is a crucial factor in determining whether OTAs can achieve business success.
Social implications
In this study, it is shown how consumer habits have changed since the development of OTAs. The online channels provided by OTAs create a convenient, low-cost user experience, and they consequently improve the net welfare of customers. OTAs should be encouraged appropriately, although some economy hotels may suffer from the rise of OTAs.
Originality/value
In this empirical study, a mathematical framework is developed to describe the process of evolution in the OTA market, and it uses simulations as a means to validate prior research findings. Unlike previous studies, a dynamic perspective is used in this investigation to interpret the emergence of OTAs and to analyze their enormous impact on the hospitality industry. Thus, the findings of this study capture the competitive characteristics of online and offline channels in a network context and indicate potential strategies for the development of OTAs and which hotels may use OTAs to achieve better performance. In addition, the study findings could be easily extended to explain many of the classical economic phenomena regarding firms with intangible products.
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Carlota Lorenzo‐Romero, Efthymios Constantinides and María‐del‐Carmen Alarcón‐del‐Amo
The purpose of this paper is to study factors affecting the acceptance of social networking sites (SNS), analyze users' practices and behavior in these environments and assess the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study factors affecting the acceptance of social networking sites (SNS), analyze users' practices and behavior in these environments and assess the degree of acceptance of SNS in The Netherlands.
Design/methodology/approach
An extended technology acceptance model (TAM) was used to analyze the factors influencing the level of acceptance and use of SNS applying a structural equation modeling technique. Data were collected by means of an online national survey among Dutch SNS users.
Findings
Results support all hypotheses with positive relationships and influence between analyzed constructs; the only exception was the hypothesis on the relation between perceived risk and perceived usefulness.
Research limitations/implications
The survey was conducted in The Netherlands. This research can be considered as the basis for a more extensive research, covering other geographical areas, that will produce results allowing more specific and accurate predictions regarding the acceptance of SNS as marketing management tools.
Practical implications
The findings reveal a number of issues that are important for companies eager to explore the potential of the SNS as a strategic tool and as a means of improvement of their managerial processes in the area of marketing strategy.
Social implications
SNS are considered of great importance, both for individuals and businesses, since they support and expand existing social or business networks and allow the creation of new ones. The study underlines the importance of these networks as a communications and customer engagement channels.
Originality/value
The traditional TAM has been widely studied to analyze the adoption of new technologies. However, the adoption of SNS has been so far very little studied. The study provides new insights in this adoption process. Alongside this, the study added two personal variables of SNS users (i.e. trust and perceived risk), improving the traditional TAM approach.
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Óscar González‐Benito, María Pilar Martínez‐Ruiz and Alejandro Mollá‐Descals
The purpose of this paper is to incorporate explicitly consumer heterogeneity into market response models estimated with store‐level scanner‐data.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to incorporate explicitly consumer heterogeneity into market response models estimated with store‐level scanner‐data.
Design/methodology/approach
Latent structures in market response to a product category using aggregated scanner data registered by a supermarket are identified. Specifically, latent consumer segments with diverse preferences towards brands and different responses to marketing stimuli from data consisting of daily marketing actions (i.e. price, promotions, advertising, etc.) and sales of competing brands are identified.
Findings
The existence of different latent segments with diverse preferences and response patterns to marketing stimuli were detected. More specifically, the fit of the statistical analysis for the different model possibilities made it possible to identify four market segments. It was also found that the intrinsic brand attractiveness as a measure of consumer brand preference is different between segments. Finally, the price sensitivity is also different between segments.
Research limitations/implications
The time cost necessary to obtain the parameter estimates is too high, which is usual in the models estimated with iterative EM algorithms.
Practical implications
This work deepens one's knowledge of the identification and selection of latent market structures, specifically latent segments with different purchase patterns and behaviours. The possibility of developing the analysis with aggregated data at the store level increases the potential utility for academics and marketing managers.
Originality/value
Although most applications use weekly data, this proposal models daily fluctuations in sales – as a result, making it possible to obtain consumer segments based on daily changes.
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Seyedeh Asra Ahmadi and Peiman Ghasemi
Hotels are considered one of the keys to tourism industry, without which it is impossible to visualize this industry. Setting the proper price for hotels has always been a…
Abstract
Purpose
Hotels are considered one of the keys to tourism industry, without which it is impossible to visualize this industry. Setting the proper price for hotels has always been a nuisance for the decision makers because of its direct relationship with the demand for hotels. Thus, in the current study a Stackelberg game between the government (leader) and the hotels (follower) has been presented to determine the optimal price under competitive conditions. The selected hotels are different with respect to energy consumption and the environmental impact. Thus, the government makes efforts to control their prices with incentives and tariffs.
Design/methodology/approach
The fuzzy inference system (FIS) has also been applied to forecast the hotel demand. Therefore, first off, the demand forecast criteria have been chosen by the experts and in the continuation, it has been screened by fuzzy Delphi approach. Finally, the quantity of hotel demand is computed by the Mamdani inference system. A mathematical model has been presented for determining the optimal sequencing of hotels and minimizing the searches to find a hotel.
Findings
A case study based on the data extracted from online travel agencies (OTAs) has been presented to validate the proposed model. The results demonstrate that by the ranking position increase, the number of the tourists decreases and the higher the star number of a hotel, the lower its ranking position.
Originality/value
Considering the energy saving and environmental impacts in hotel pricing and considering the government's intervention in hotel revenues regarding the incentives and tariffs are the innovations of the present study.