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Social factors, such as fellow spectators in a stadium or other fans sharing their experiences on online platforms, play a dominant role in spectator sport consumption. This conceptual article sets out to achieve three objectives: classify customer-to-customer (C2C) interactions in the sport fan context, develop a framework that links the classification of interactions to relevant outcomes and identify areas for related future research.

The authors integrate conceptual and empirical contributions on C2C interactions in the service, marketing and sport management literature.

The article proposes classifying C2C interactions into synchronous multi- and uni-directional interactions as well as asynchronous multi- and uni-directional interactions. The C2C interaction framework (C2CIF) proposes that such C2C interactions have hedonic, social, symbolic and utilitarian value outcomes. It further suggests that physiological, psychological and social processes underlie the co-creation or co-destruction of value and identifies contingencies at both the fan and the brand level.

Based on the C2CIF, we identify relevant topics for future research, in particular relating to technology-supported and virtual interactions among fans, fan-to-fan interactions across different countries and cultural backgrounds and fan-to-fan interactions as a way to reduce societal concerns.

This conceptual article presents a theoretical approach to understanding the atmosphere at sports stadiums. Using the environmental psychology behavioural model proposed by Mehrabian & Russell (1974), and taking into account recent findings in consumer research, we develop a comprehensive framework for investigating this atmosphere. The framework highlights the role of emotions elicited by different stimuli in sports stadiums. We also suggest a number of direct and indirect influences on behavioural outcomes, caused by the emotional reactions and personal predispositions of spectators - influences that are of economic relevance. The proposed framework also forms a starting point for future empirical studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical mechanisms that underlie the negative effects of low customer density on shoppers' emotions and behavioural responses in retail settings.

This study uses three different qualitative techniques to explore the research question: semi‐structured interviews, shopping with consumers, and focus groups.

Three major issues contribute to unfavorable consumer responses to low customer density levels in retail stores: exposure to undesired social influence from sales personnel; loss of social cues and evaluation criteria; and lack of social stimulation.

The findings of this research assist store managers to resolve the problems associated with low customer density in retail stores. For example, the results suggest that the negative effects of low customer density can be mitigated by providing appropriate training for sales staff as well as by actively communicating the quality, price level, and image of the store.

Empirical evidence shows that the effects of customer density on shopper outcomes follow an inverted U‐shaped trend. Previous research has focused on explaining the negative consequences of high customer density, while the explanatory mechanisms for the negative effects of low customer density remain largely unclear. This research partially fills this gap in the literature by identifying the psychological processes that account for the negative effects of low customer density.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how affective commitment to fellow customers influences a customer's affective commitment to the service provider and customer citizenship behavior (CCB). In addition, the paper seeks to examine the moderating role of a customer's calculative commitment to the service organization.

The study used a large-scale survey among customers of a health club and a scenario-based experiment to test the hypotheses.

Both empirical studies provide evidence that affective commitment to fellow customers has positive consequences for the customer-firm-relationship. The findings suggest that commitment to fellow customers and commitment to the service organization influence very specific facets of customer citizenship behavior. In addition, the study found preliminary support for the moderating role of calculative commitment. Affective commitment to fellow customers showed the strongest effect on affective commitment to the provider in customer-firm relationships characterized by high (versus low) calculative commitment.

The results of this research have a number of managerial implications. This study suggests measures to strengthen customer-firm-relationships, e.g. generating intensive exchange among customers or attraction of consumer pairs. Providing customers with platforms of valuable relationships to multiplex ties can be a competitive advantage for service providers.

This article is the first that highlights the role of other customers as a target of customer commitment and how this commitment affects both the customer's relationship to the service provider and his or her customer citizenship behavior. The present study therefore broadens our knowledge of how bonding among customers influences consumer behavior in service settings.

The current study postulated that fans' social identities (derived from the team sport clubs of which they perceive themselves to be members) coexist with their personal identities (derived from views of themselves as unique, individual sport fans). The study examined the relationship between identity salience and both positive and negative aspects of fans' attitudes, emotions and behaviours.

Seven hundred and twelve (712) Israeli professional football fans participated in this study. The study employed a survey drawn from an Internet panel with more than fifty thousand members.

Utilizing structural equation modelling (SEM), the authors demonstrated that while social identity salience is related to positive aspects of being a sport fan (love of a favourite team and loyalty), it is also related to negative aspects of being a sport fan (hatred and perceptions of the appropriateness of fan aggression). Personal identity salience was found to be related to the decrease in negative outcomes of being a fan (hatred and perceptions of the appropriateness of fan aggression).

Marketers and sport organizations will benefit from stimulating sport fans' personal identity salience to mitigate possible negative consequences of team affiliation.

The current study expands upon past sport management studies by demonstrating the existence of relationships between sport fans' identity salience and their emotions, attitudes and behaviours. The identity salience of fans is relevant from both academic and applicative perspectives.

The purpose of this research is to extend current knowledge regarding rivalry communication among sport consumers to better understand how rivals behave with one another when they communicate.

This national survey of US sport consumers used a novel approach to explore whether and with whom rivals discuss National Football League (NFL) game outcomes. The survey captured both uniplex and multiplex data by asking respondents to name rival discussants with whom they had recently interacted, and the fan behaviors they exchanged with those named rival discussants.

Through use of this novel data collection approach, new findings were uncovered related to blasting, glory out of reflective failure, schadenfreude and the influence of team identification on the exchange of rivalry fan behaviors. The results of the uniplex and multiplex data analyses uniquely showcase the ways in which social identity theory combines with team identification to enact rivalry behavior.

This research is the first to precisely dichotomize the psychological antecedents from the communicated behavior between rival fans. Results reveal the precise ways in which team identification influences discordant communication between rival fans, which differs from past research in an interesting new way.