Manoraj Natarajan and Sridevi Periaiya
Consumer-perceived review attitude determines consumer overall information adoption and is a core part of consumer’s online-shopping. This study aims to focus on factors that…
Abstract
Purpose
Consumer-perceived review attitude determines consumer overall information adoption and is a core part of consumer’s online-shopping. This study aims to focus on factors that could influence consumer review attitude and can be used by marketers to shape individual information perception.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used the questionnaire method to collect data from online shoppers and the modelling of structural equations as an empirical approach to analyse the data.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that both systematic and heuristic cues impact the reviewer’s credibility and perceived website attitude differently, which, in turn, influence review attitude. Review characteristics, such as factuality, consistency and relevancy, have a positive relationship with reviewer credibility, while only review consistency and relevancy appears to have a relationship with review attitude. Website characteristics such as reputation, familiarity and social interactivity positively influence the website attitude, which positively influences review attitude. Apart from this, review skepticism has a significant negative relationship with review attitude.
Practical implications
This study could help to foster a positive attitude towards online reviews. Digital marketers need to motivate trusted reviewers to post consistent, fact-based reviews. Further improving the overall website reputation and interactivity could bring a positive attitude towards the reviews. Also, digital marketers must filter and avoid contradictory reviews or reviews that have a bipolar message and reviews expressing numerous emotions to enhance review relevance and consistency.
Originality/value
The current study addresses the need to understand the formation of consumer review attitude through both review and website characteristics using heuristic – systematic model. The paper captures the complex process undergone by the consumer to decipher review attitude and thereby extend the understanding of consumer information processing.
Details
Keywords
Thamaraiselvan Natarajan, Sridevi Periaiya, Senthil Arasu Balasubramaniam and Thushara Srinivasan
The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse the typology of employee branding in an airline company using fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering to improve the quality of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse the typology of employee branding in an airline company using fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering to improve the quality of employee brand (EB).
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from employees of Air India, Chennai division, using a questionnaire and analysed using FCM to find the optimum cluster number. The nature of each cluster was analysed to know its type.
Findings
The results prove the presence of four types of EB, namely, all-stars, injured reserves, rookies and strike-out kings in the aviation company. It is proven that employees in all-star have high level of knowledge of the desired brand (KDB) and psychological contract (PC), those in injured reserves have high KDB and low PC, rookies have low KDB and high PC and strike-out kings have low KDB and PC.
Research limitations/implications
The results of this study are limited to the Air India employees. This study contributes to employee branding by empirically substantiating the proposed typology using FCM. It proposes the need to analyse organisations individually before comparisons.
Practical implications
The management must focus on the quality of training and development programmes to enhance the position of rookies and strike-out kings. It must also receive regular feedback from injured reserves and strike-out kings to evaluate their perception of PC.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to empirically prove the typology of employee branding and to implement FCM in clustering employees for enhancing the EB’s quality.