Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Rajat Roy, Sanjit K. Roy and Rana Sobh
Digital self-expression, recently one of the most important research themes, is currently under-researched. In this context, this study aims to propose a parsimonious research…
Abstract
Purpose
Digital self-expression, recently one of the most important research themes, is currently under-researched. In this context, this study aims to propose a parsimonious research model of self-extension tendency, its drivers and its outcomes. The model is tested in the context of social media engagement intentions (liking, sharing and commenting) with focal brands and across individualist versus collectivist cultures.
Design/methodology/approach
The model is tested in two individualist cultures (N = 230 and 232) and two collectivist cultures (N = 232 and 237) by conducting surveys in four countries (Australia, USA, Qatar and India). Nike and Ray-Ban are the focal brands studied, with Facebook serving as the targeted social networking site (SNS) platform.
Findings
Self-monitoring and self-esteem are found to drive the self-extension tendency across cultures, with stronger effects in the individualist culture than in the collectivist culture. The self-extension tendency has a relatively stronger positive influence on social media engagement intentions in the individualist culture than in the collectivist culture. This tendency is also found to mediate the link between self-monitoring, self-extension and social media engagement intentions across both cultures, albeit in different ways. In collectivist culture, self-monitoring’s influence on the self-extension tendency is moderated by public self-consciousness. The study’s findings have important theoretical and practical implications. In individualist culture, self-monitoring’s influence on the self-extension tendency is moderated by public self-consciousness.
Research limitations/implications
The present findings confirm that the tendency to incorporate the brand into one’s self-concept and to further extend the self is indeed contingent on one’s cultural background. The role of public self-consciousness may vary between individualist and collectivist cultures, something recommended by past research for empirical testing.
Practical implications
Managers can leverage this research model to entice pro-brand social media engagement by nurturing consumers’ digital selves in terms of maneuvering their self-extension tendency and its drivers, namely, self-monitoring and self-esteem. Second, promoting the self-extension tendency and its drivers varies across cultures, with this finding offering practical cultural nuances supporting marketing managers’ decisions.
Originality/value
This is one of the pioneering studies that tests a cross-cultural parsimonious model based on theories of self-extension, self-monitoring and self-esteem, especially within the context of brand engagement intentions on an SNS platform.
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Maryam Al Naimi, Mohd Nishat Faisal, Rana Sobh and S.M. Fatah Uddin
The purpose of this paper is twofold: to investigate the antecedents of resilience and to highlight the importance of resilience in achieving reconfiguration in supply chains.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold: to investigate the antecedents of resilience and to highlight the importance of resilience in achieving reconfiguration in supply chains.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on literature on supply chain resilience and collects data from 253 companies in Qatar to understand the influence of the antecedents of supply chain resilience and the impact of resilience on reconfiguration using partial least squares structural equation modeling.
Findings
The findings show that antecedents like risk management culture, agility and collaboration positively affect the supply chain resilience. Further, the study establishes that companies can leverage their supply chain resilience to reconfigure supply chain in case of disruptions.
Practical implications
This study is important for supply chain managers in Qatar, as the country faced major disruption of supply chains in wake of the blockade imposed by its neighbors with which it had the only land route and maximum trade. The findings from this study should aid mangers in developing resilient supply chains.
Originality/value
This paper highlights the role of supply chain resilience in achieving reconfiguration. Further, novelty of the work reported in this paper lies in its context where supply chains recently faced actual disruptions.
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The purpose of this paper is to report findings of an ethnographic study of homes in the Arab Gulf country of Qatar. The authors' analysis and contribution focuses on resolving…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report findings of an ethnographic study of homes in the Arab Gulf country of Qatar. The authors' analysis and contribution focuses on resolving the tension between privacy and hospitality in Qatari homes in the context of identity threats posed by an influx of Western modernity and its implications to marketers.
Design/methodology/approach
The study involves observation and in‐depth interviews with 24 middle‐class male and female home‐owning Qataris living in Doha. The analysis followed the logic of hermeneutic research.
Findings
It was found that values of privacy and hospitality are notably emphasized in Qatari homes. The authors discuss how these values coexist despite their glaring contradiction and also show that in this context privacy is used to reveal consumption and display status rather than to hide it away from the public arena.
Practical implications
With Qatar's collectivist orientation and strong gendered protectionism, marketing and advertising in the Gulf needs to be sensitive to these cultural practices.
Originality/value
By developing an understanding of the privacy/hospitality dialectic in Qatar, the paper provides insights into how these values are incorporated or resisted in the design and use of family homes in a modern era of increasing globalism and suggests implications for marketers.
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Jonathan A.J. Wilson, Russell W. Belk, Gary J. Bamossy, Özlem Sandikci, Hermawan Kartajaya, Rana Sobh, Jonathan Liu and Linda Scott
The purpose of this paper is to bring together the thoughts and opinions of key members of the Journal of Islamic Marketing's (JIMA) Editorial Team, regarding the recently branded…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to bring together the thoughts and opinions of key members of the Journal of Islamic Marketing's (JIMA) Editorial Team, regarding the recently branded phenomenon of Islamic marketing – in the interests of stimulating further erudition.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopted an “eagle eye” method to investigate this phenomenon: Where attempts were made to frame general principles and observations; alongside a swooping view of key anecdotal observations – in order to ground and enrich the study. The authors participated in an iterative process when analysing longitudinal and contemporary phenomenological data, in order to arrive at a consensus. This was grounded in: triangulating individual and collective researcher findings; critiquing relevant published material; and reflecting upon known reviewed manuscripts submitted to marketing publications – both successful and unsuccessful.
Findings
The authors assert that a key milestone in the study and practice of marketing, branding, consumer behaviour and consumption in connection with Islam and Muslims is the emergence of research wherein the terms “Islamic marketing” and “Islamic branding” have evolved – of which JIMA is also a by‐product. Some have construed Islam marketing/branding as merely a niche area. Given the size of Muslim populations globally and the critical importance of understanding Islam in the context of business and practices with local, regional and international ramifications, scholarship on Islamic marketing has become essential. Western commerce and scholarship has been conducted to a limited extent, and some evidence exists that research is occurring globally. The authors believe it is vital for “Islamic marketing” scholarship to move beyond simply raising the flag of “Brand Islam” and the consideration of Muslim geographies to a point where Islam – as a way of life, a system of beliefs and practices, and religious and social imperatives – is amply explored.
Research limitations/implications
An “eagle eye” view has been taken, which balances big picture and grassroots conceptual findings. The topic is complex – and so while diverse expert opinions are cited, coverage of many issues is necessarily brief, due to space constraints.
Practical implications
Scholars and practitioners alike should find the thoughts contained in the paper of significant interest. Ultimately, scholarship of Islam's influences on marketing theory and practice should lead to results which have pragmatic implications, just as research on Islamic banking and finance has.
Originality/value
The paper appears to be the first to bring together such a diverse set of expert opinions within one body of work, and one that provides a forum for experts to reflect and comment on peers' views, through iteration. Also the term Crescent marketing is introduced to highlight how critical cultural factors are, which shape perceptions and Islamic practises.
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Rana Sobh and Brett A.S. Martin
Marketers spend considerable resources to motivate people to consume their products and services as a means of goal attainment. Why people change their consumption behaviour is…
Abstract
Purpose
Marketers spend considerable resources to motivate people to consume their products and services as a means of goal attainment. Why people change their consumption behaviour is based largely on these goals; many products and services are used by consumers in an effort to attain hoped‐for selves and/or to avoid feared selves. Despite the importance for marketers in understanding how current performance influences a consumer's future efforts, this topic has received little attention in marketing research. The aim of this paper is to fill some of the gaps.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides a theoretical framework and uses two studies to test this. Study 1, of 203 women, aged 27‐65, examines the predictions in the context of women and visible signs of skin aging. Feedback information is measured and approach and avoidance regulatory systems are manipulated by priming hoped‐for and feared possible selves. Study 2, of 281 undergraduate men and women, replicates the findings of Study 1 with manipulated feedback, using a different context (gym training) and a sample of both male and females.
Findings
The research shows that when consumers pursue a hoped‐for self, it is expectations of success that most strongly drive their motivation. It also shows why doing badly when trying to avoid a feared self is more motivating than doing well.
Practical implications
The findings have important implications as they reveal how managers can motivate customers to keep using a product or service.
Originality/value
The paper makes several contributions to the consumer goal research literature since little is known about how positive (hoped‐for selves) and negative (feared selves) reference points in self‐regulation differentially influence consumer goal‐directed behaviour.
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Rana Sobh and Chad Perry
The aim of this paper is to apply principles of the realism paradigm within qualitative research projects.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to apply principles of the realism paradigm within qualitative research projects.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper starts by establishing the usefulness of realism research for investigating marketing management phenomena, and then considers the implications of the realism paradigm for research design.
Findings
Issues such as the level of prior theory required, the use of replication logic and triangulation are discussed. In addition, guidelines for realism data analysis and reporting are developed.
Originality/value
This paper provides an explicit set of principles for realism research design and data analysis that is different from those in other types of research.
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– The purpose of this study is to examine the role of collective angst, the concern about the future viability of one’s group, during service failure and recovery.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the role of collective angst, the concern about the future viability of one’s group, during service failure and recovery.
Design/methodology/approach
To test this objective the authors utilize an experiment to examine how Kuwaitis react to service failures when the front-line employee is a foreigner.
Findings
The results indicate that collective angst is associated with greater anger following a service failure. The authors also find that collective angst moderates the impact of cultural distance on anger and recommendation intentions following a service-failure recovery attempt. More specifically, cultural distance leads to greater anger and lower intentions to recommend a service establishment for consumers that experience greater collective angst.
Originality/value
The research provides the first attempt at examining how local consumers react to foreigner service providers, by examining how concern about the future vitality of one’s national group, in other words collective angst, affects such reactions.