Search results

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of involvement on consumers’ external search activities across several service settings. Two of the services were credence services (life insurance and furnace overhaul) and two services were experiential services (exercise club and Caribbean vacation). Involvement was measured with a two‐dimensional nine‐item scale, the dimensions being importance and involvement. External search was assessed using a seven‐item two‐dimensional scale, source and effort in search. Self‐administered surveys were completed by 331 residents of a major Midwestern US city. The results indicate that, across all four services, involvement does indeed influence consumers’ propensity to search externally. Finally, the implications of the findings for marketing managers are discussed.

Develops a seven‐item scale to assess consumers’ external search activities and assessed the scale’s construct validity. Moreover, to examine the scale’s generalizability across various services, both things‐directed and people‐directed service settings are used. The findings suggest there are two identifiable aspects of consumers’ search activities, source and effort. Evidence of the construct validity of the seven‐item scale is based on exploratory factor analysis, calculation of Cronbach’s alpha, and a nomological assessment of the scale.

This chapter gives in “Introduction to the Human Capital Issue” a critical analysis of the standard (economic) Human Capital (HC) theory, with the help of some “traditional” (founding) accounting concepts. From this study, to avoid the accounting and social issues highlighted in “Introduction to the Human Capital Issue,” we present, in “The “Triple Depreciation Line” Model and the Human Capital,” the “Triple Depreciation Line” (TDL) accounting model, developed by Rambaud & Richard (2015b), and we apply it to “HC,” but viewed as genuine accounting capital – a matter of concern – that firms have to protect and maintain.

From a critical review of literature on HC theory, from the origin of this concept to its connection with sustainable development, this chapter provides a conceptual discussion on this notion and on the differences/common points between capital and assets in accounting and economics. Then, it uses a normative accounting model (TDL), initially introduced to extend, in a consistent way, financial accounting to extra-financial issues.

This analysis shows at first that the standard (economic) HC theory is based on a (deliberate) confusion between assets and capital, in line with a standard economic perspective on capital. Therefore, this particular viewpoint implies: an accounting issue for reporting HC, because “traditional” accounting capital and assets are clearly isolated concepts; and a societal issue, because this confusion leads to the idea that HC does not mean that human beings are “capital” (i.e., essential), or have to be maintained, even protected, for themselves. It only means that human beings are mere productive means. The application of the TDL model to an accounting redefinition of HC allows a discussion about some key issues involved in the notion of HC, including the difference between the standard and “accounting” narratives on HC. Finally, this chapter presents some important consequences of this accounting model for HC: the disappearance of the concept of wage and the possibility of reporting repeated (or continuous) use of HC directly in the balance sheet.

This chapter contributes to the literature on HC and in general on capital and assets, by stressing in particular some confusions and misunderstandings in these concepts. It fosters a cross-disciplinary approach of these issues, through economic, accounting, and sustainability viewpoints. This analysis also participates in the development of the TDL model and the research project associated. It finally proposes another perspective, more sustainable, on HC and HC reporting.

The stakes of HC are important in today’s economics, accounting, and sustainable development. The different conceptualizations of HC, and the narratives behind it, may have deep social and corporate implications. In this context, this analysis provides a conceptual, and practicable, framework to develop a more sustainable concept of HC and to enhance working conditions, internal business relations, integrated reporting. As an outcome of these ideas, this chapter also questions the standard corporate governance models.

This chapter gives an original perspective on HC, and in general on the concept of capital, combining an economic and an accounting analysis. It also develops a new way to report HC, using an innovative integrated accounting model, the TDL model.

Reproduces the main texts of hitherto unpublished reminiscences of the style and influence, as a teacher, of Allyn Abbott Young (1876‐1929) by 17 of his distinguished students. They include Bertil Ohlin, Nicholas Kaldor, James Angell, Lauchlin Currie, Colin Clark, Howard Ellis, Frank Fetter, Earl Hamilton, and Melvin Knight (brother of Frank Knight who, with Edward Chamberlin, was perhaps Young’s most famous PhD student). There has recently been a revival of interest in Young’s influence on US monetary thought and in his theory of economic growth based on endogenous increasing returns. These recollections of his students (addressed to Young’s biographer, Charles Blitch) shed light on why Young has, at least until recently, been renowned more for his massive erudition than for his published writings.

Resurgent interest in the life and work of the Italian Cambridge economist Piero Sraffa is leading to New Directions in Sraffa Scholarship. This chapter introduces readers to some of these developments. First and perhaps foremost is the fact that as of September 2016 Sraffa’s archival material has been uploaded onto the website of the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge University, as digital colour images; this chapter introduces readers to the history of these events. This history provides sharp relief on the extant debates over the role of the archival material in leading to the final publication of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, and readers are provided a brief sketch of these matters. The varied nature of Sraffa scholarship is demonstrated by the different aspects of Sraffa’s intellectual legacy which are developed and discussed in the various entries of our Symposium. The conclusion is reached that we are on the cusp of an exciting phase change of tremendous potential in Sraffa scholarship.

IN this number we make some commemoration of the twenty‐five years so happily achieved by the King‐Emperor. As our contributors show, the cardinal event of the whole of the Reign, so far as libraries were concerned, was the passing of the Public Libraries Act of 1919. The generations change rapidly, and there are few to‐day who remember acutely the penury and struggle which were involved in the fact that all public library expenditure had to be kept within “the limit of the penny rate.” It is possibly true that the average community has taken no very intelligent advantage of the breaking of its financial fetters; in no town in the British Empire can it be said that there is anything approaching generosity, let alone extravagance, towards libraries. Even in the greatest cities, where they have built fine buildings and opened them with much ceremony, the rate allocation for their maintenance is not nearly of the scale that finds acceptance, or did find acceptance, in the United States. That is because we are young people in an old country. The tradition dies hard that education is a luxury and that libraries, which in the eyes of many are only remotely related to education, are an even greater luxury. We heard it said recently that many local authorities regarded the libraries as a sort of joke, and delighted to cut down their expenditure upon them. This lugubrious way of opening our remarks upon the Jubilee is only by way of pointing out that to‐day, at any rate, we have the power to go ahead if we convince our authorities that it is desirable to do so.

This paper aims to investigate the causal relationships between constructs related to consumer–brand engagement (CBE), including consumers’ enduring involvement, ongoing information search behaviour, online engagement behaviour and brand attitude in Hong Kong.

The theoretical framework is tested using data from 302 customers of a durable technology product, a smartphone, in Hong Kong, collected using a self-administered online survey. Partial least squares-structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.

The results reveal that consumers’ enduring involvement and ongoing information search behaviour are key drivers of CBE, ultimately enhancing customers’ brand attitude. The importance of enduring involvement in strengthening ongoing search behaviour, online engagement behaviour and CBE is confirmed, together with the importance of ongoing search behaviour in strengthening CBE. Further analysis demonstrated the full mediating role of ongoing search behaviour in the relationship between enduring involvement and online engagement behaviour, such that CBE fully mediates the impact of ongoing search behaviour on brand attitude.

The research contributes to the extant literature by providing an understanding of how to strengthen CBE for durable technology products, such as smartphones. However, this study is cross-sectional in nature, focusing on smartphones in Hong Kong only. Thus, future research should consider comparisons between countries with diverse cultures as well as other industries, such as the service sector, to enhance the generalisability of the study’s findings.

Marketers should seek to heighten customers’ involvement levels by encouraging customer–brand interactions, which is not only useful in encouraging customers’ ongoing search and online engagement behaviour but also critical in strengthening CBE. Additionally, marketers are recommended to encourage customers’ ongoing search behaviour (at the category level), which is useful in encouraging consumers’ online engagement behaviour as well as strengthening CBE.

The role of ongoing search behaviour in brand building has received little attention in the branding literature. This paper makes a noteworthy contribution to CBE research by empirically testing a holistic framework, confirming that enduring involvement and ongoing search behaviour are critical drivers in the process of strengthening CBE. This paper also demonstrates the mediation roles of ongoing search behaviour and CBE in the holistic framework.