Search results

This paper aims to investigate the extent to which greenhouse gas (GHG)-sensitive companies in the FTSE 100 disclose carbon emission information in their annual reports and stand-alone reports during the period of 2004-2012 and how they respond to the launch of legally binding GHG-reduction schemes – the European (EU) Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and the Climate Change Act (CCA).

A 42-item disclosure index is constructed to analyse the quality of corporate GHG disclosures. The authors initially chart the development of corporate GHG disclosure from 2004 to 2012, analyse the trend of disclosure development and compare variances for the convergence of disclosures. Subsequently the authors carry out a t-test to assess the significance of post-EU ETS and -CCA changes and the difference between GHG trading account holders (AH) and non-account holders (NAH).

The results show that GHG disclosures have been increasing over time, both in number of firms making disclosures and in the amount of information being reported, which indicate the movement towards normativity. The authors also find that the disclosures reach the peak after the enactment of EU ETS and CCA, and firms with carbon trading accounts are more responsive to these schemes than those without accounts. Nevertheless, the quality of the disclosure remains low, which may justify the further government intervention of mandating carbon reporting.

This is the first paper that has examined the regulatory effects on GHG disclosures in an environment where GHG emission triggers direct cost for companies.

Presently, loyalty programs often offer preferential treatment to the firm’s best customers, and recently, service firms started to incorporate corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives into the loyalty reward programs (e.g. Starwood’s “Make A Green Choice”). However, academic research advancing the understanding of the effectiveness of CSR-focused loyalty programs is lacking. To bridge that gap, this paper aims to examine the influence of a “green” loyalty program on members’ and bystanders’ service encounter satisfaction in light of preferential treatment. Furthermore, this paper investigates the psychological mechanisms (prosociality perceptions and status perceptions) that underlie these effects.

This study used a 2 (loyalty program: green vs standard) × 2 (customer type: member vs bystander) × 2 (observability of preferential treatment: low vs high) between-subjects experimental design. Respondents were asked to read a hotel check-in scenario and then completed scales that measured their perceptions and evaluations of the service encounter.

Results from this study suggest that a green loyalty program can buffer the negative effect of preferential treatment on bystanders’ service encounter satisfaction. An examination of the underlying mechanism reveals that prosociality perceptions of the firm mediate the impact of loyalty programs on bystanders’ satisfaction. As expected, the results show that a green loyalty program is as effective as a standard program in elevating members’ satisfaction. Furthermore, findings from a moderated mediation analysis indicate that status perceptions mediate the impact of customer type on satisfaction. However, status perceptions have a greater leveraging power in satisfaction when observability of preferential treatment is high.

The results of this study have significant implications for service firms with loyalty programs and customer prioritization practices. By incorporating CSR into their loyalty programs, firms may be able to mitigate the negative bystander effect while maintaining the positive effects of preferential treatment on members’ service encounter satisfaction.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) marketing has become ubiquitous in the hospitality industry. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of donation appeals containing warmth-focused versus competence-focused messages in hospitality CSR marketing. Moreover, we offer an innovative visual design strategy focusing on the typeface (handwritten vs machine-written) in donation appeals to encourage consumers’ donations and boost their brand loyalty.

This research used a 2 (message framing: warmth-focused vs competence-focused) × 2 (typeface: handwritten vs machine-written) between-subjects experimental design.

The findings suggest that donation appeals featuring warmth-focused messages combined with handwritten typeface and competence-focused messages combined with machine-written typeface can maximize donation intention and brand loyalty. Furthermore, results from the moderated mediation analyses indicate that brand trust is the psychological mechanism underlying these effects.

Hospitality managers should use typeface design, which is easy and inexpensive to manipulate, to enhance the effectiveness of CSR marketing. Specifically, for donation appeals featuring warmth-focused (competence-focused) messages, the handwritten (machine-written) typeface can boost consumers’ donation intention and brand loyalty.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to reveal the competitive advantage of typeface design in hospitality CSR marketing. This research sheds light on the congruency effects of message framing and typeface design in donation appeals on consumers’ donation intention and brand loyalty while using the contemporary context of The Coronavirus Disease 2019 to test the theory.

This article examines the new phenomenon of the convergence of platform and pipeline business models. It examines the potential synergies and challenges for platforms to add pipeline components and vice versa for pipeline businesses.

This paper uses a conceptual approach that synthesizes and integrates the literature from service, hospitality, and strategy, and supplements them with two illustrative mini-case studies.

While the extant literature typically focuses on the dichotomy between incumbent pipeline businesses that create value by controlling a linear series of activities and network effects-driven platforms, we differentiate between two types of platform business models (i.e. platforms with asset control and platforms with peer-provided assets). Further, we identify three common pathways of convergence; that is, pipelines moving towards (1) platforms with asset control and (2) those with peer-provided assets, and (3) platforms with peer-provided assets adopting defining business characteristics of pipelines. Furthermore, we contrast key characteristics of the three business models and examine potential synergies and challenges for business model convergence. Our findings suggest that convergence from pipelines to platforms with asset control seems to be a natural extension that offers many potential synergies and relatively minor challenges. In contrast, convergence from pipelines to platforms with peer-provided assets is likely to encounter more serious challenges and few synergies. Finally, the synergies and challenges of convergence from platforms with peer-provided assets to pipelines seem to be in between the other two in terms of synergies and challenges.

This article helps managers think through key considerations regarding potential synergies to develop and challenges to mitigate for embarking on convergence strategies between pipeline and platform business models.

This article is the first in the service, business model and strategy literature to identify, define, and conceptualize business model convergence between platforms with asset control, those with peer-provided assets and pipeline businesses. It is also the first to examine potential synergies and challenges these different paths of business model convergence may entail.

The purpose of this paper is to examine peer-to-peer sharing platform business models, their sources of competitive advantage, and the roles, motivations and behaviors of key actors in their ecosystems.

This paper uses a conceptual approach that is rooted in the service, tourism and hospitality, and strategy literature.

First, this paper defines key types of platform business models in the sharing economy anddescribes their characteristics. In particular, the authors propose the differentiation between sharing platforms of capacity-constrained vs capacity-unconstrained assets and advance five core properties of the former. Second, the authors contrast platform business models with their pipeline business model counterparts to understand the fundamental differences between them. One important conclusion is that platforms cater to vastly more heterogeneous assets and consumer needs and, therefore, require liquidity and analytics for high-quality matching. Third, the authors examine the competitive position of platforms and conclude that their widely taken “winner takes it all” assumption is not valid. Primary network effects are less important once a critical level of liquidity has been reached and may even turn negative if increased listings raise friction in the form of search costs. Once a critical level of liquidity has been reached, a platform’s competitive position depends on stakeholder trust and service provider and user loyalty. Fourth, the authors integrate and synthesize the literature on key platform stakeholders of platform businesses (i.e. users, service providers, and regulators) and their roles and motivations. Finally, directions for further research are advanced.

This paper helps platform owners, service providers and users understand better the implications of sharing platform business models and how to position themselves in such ecosystems.

This paper integrates the extant literature on sharing platforms, takes a novel approach in delineating their key properties and dimensions, and provides insights into the evolving and dynamic forms of sharing platforms including converging business models.

The purpose of this investigation is to gain insight into parents' perceptions of benefits vs burdens (value) of educational and healthcare service received for their child with ASD. Parents are the main integrators of long-term educational and healthcare service for their child with ASD.

Design/methodology/approach included (1) a sentiment analysis of discussion forum posts from an autism message board using a rule-based sentiment analysis tool that is specifically attuned to sentiments expressed in social media and (2) a qualitative content analysis of one-on-one interviews with parents of children diagnosed with ASD, complemented with interviews with experienced educators and clinicians.

Findings reveal the link between customized service integration and long-term benefits. Both parents and service providers emphasize the need to integrate healthcare and educational service to create holistic long-term care for a child with ASD. Parents highlight the benefits of varied services, but availability or cost are burdens if the service is not publicly provided, or covered by insurance. Service providers' lack of experience with ASD and people's ignorance of the challenges of ASD are burdens.

Ensuring health outcomes for a child with ASD requires an integrated service system and long-term, customer-centric service process because the scope of service covers the child's entire childhood. Customized educational and healthcare service must be allocated and budgeted early in order to reach the goal of a satisfactory service output for each child.

This is the first service research to focus on parents' challenges with obtaining services for their child with ASD. This paper provides service researchers and managers insight into parents' perceptions of educational and healthcare service value (i.e. benefits vs. burdens) received for their child with ASD. These insights into customer-centric perceptions of value may be useful to research and may help service providers to innovate and provide integrated service directly to parents, or indirectly to service providers, who serve children with ASD.

Focusing on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication context, the present research aims to understand when and why featuring pride versus empathy in a hospitality brand’s social media post can effectively boost consumers’ loyalty intention.

Two experimental studies examined the congruence effects between emotional appeal and sense of power, where power was made situationally salient within the social media post (Study 1) or measured as a personality trait (Study 2).

Emotional appeals featuring pride (vs empathy) will lead to higher loyalty intention for individuals with a situational or chronic sense of high (vs low) power. A further examination into the psychological mechanism reveals that such congruence effects are serially mediated through consumers’ perceived brand authenticity and brand trustworthiness.

Understanding how the sense of power may influence consumer response to social media posts using different emotional appeals can provide useful guidance for marketers about how to creatively segment customers and curate appropriate targeting messages for effective CSR communication and relationship building on social media.

Extending the message framing research on schema congruity, this research is the first to reveal the congruence effects of emotional appeal and sense of power in CSR communications and uncover the serial mediating roles of perceived brand authenticity and brand trustworthiness in relationship marketing on social media.

An AI concierge is a technologically advanced, intelligent and personalized assistant that is designated to an individual customer, proactively taking care of that customer’s needs throughout the service journey. This article envisions the idea of AI concierges and discusses how to leverage AI concierges in the customer journey.

This article takes a conceptual approach and draws insights from literature in service management, marketing, psychology, human-computer interaction and ethics.

This article delineates the fundamental forms of AI concierges: dialog interface (no embodiment), virtual avatar (embodiment in the virtual world), holographic projection (projection in the physical world) and tangible service robot (embodiment in the physical world). Key attributes of AI concierges are the ability to exhibit semantic understanding of auditory and visual inputs, maintain an emotional connection with the customer, demonstrate proactivity in refining the customer’s experience and ensure omnipresence through continuous availability in various forms to attend to service throughout the customer journey. Furthermore, the article explores the multifaceted roles that AI concierges can play across the pre-encounter, encounter and post-encounter stages of the customer journey and explores the opportunities and challenges associated with AI concierges.

This paper provides insights for professionals in hospitality, retail, travel, and healthcare on leveraging AI concierges to enhance the customer experience. By broadening AI concierge services, organizations can deliver personalized assistance and refined services across the entire customer journey.

This article is the first to introduce the concept of the AI concierge. It offers a novel perspective by defining AI concierges’ fundamental forms, key attributes and exploring their diverse roles in the customer journey. Additionally, it lays out a research agenda aimed at further advancing this domain.

This paper aims to identify platform-centric versus multiparty service failure on sharing economy platforms via topic modeling analysis of consumers’ negative online reviews. The authors also sought to understand consumers’ reactions to these experiences by detecting negative discrete emotions. The authors then contrasted consumers’ responses to platform-centric and multiparty service failure through the theoretical lens of failure controllability.

The authors used a large-scale data set containing more than 81,000 negative app reviews on eight representative hospitality and tourism sharing economy platforms. Topic modeling coupled with emotion detection algorithms revealed 11 themes reflecting diverse forms of platform-centric versus multiparty service failure and their associations with negative discrete emotions based on regression analysis.

The 11 themes reflecting diverse forms of platform-centric versus multiparty service failure were as follows: app glitch, customer service, locating and pooling, account issues, transaction, offer redemption, interface challenges, intermediary inaction, service lateness and cancellation, incorrect order and fee structure. The analysis suggests that platform-centric service failure is more likely than multiparty service failure to elicit negative discrete emotions.

The research enriches the understanding of platform-related service failure beyond dyadic service interaction. In particular, the authors bring to light two forms of platform-related service failure that warrant scholarly attention: platform-centric versus multiparty service failure. By uncovering the distinct negative emotional associations of platform-centric versus multiparty service failure, the research adds novel empirical evidence to the service failure literature and the relevant attribution theory. Findings offer long-term implications for the sustainable development of sharing economies and platform businesses in contemporary hospitality.