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This study builds on previous discussion of an important area for both academics and academic journals – the issue of reviewers inappropriately asking for (or “coercing”) citation of their own work. That situation creates an opportunity for (hopefully a small number of) academics to engage in unethical behaviour, often with the goal of increasing their citation count. This study aims to draw attention to this often-overlooked issue, critically considering potential reviewer motivations and offering possible remedies.

This study reviews literature and critically discusses this issue, offering a typology for coercive citation suggestions and sharing previously unpublished commentary from Editors of leading journals.

This study provides a typology of reviewer motivations for coercing citations, suggests potential remedies and considers the positive and negative impacts of these suggestions.

This study identifies an area known from multiple discussions to be important to academics and Editors, where many want changes in journals’ practices. In response, this study provides recommendations for easy changes that would decrease the opportunity for unethical behaviour by reviewers and also, for some journals, improve the quality of reviews.

Twitter provides an ideal channel for a non-profit organisation (NPO) to add value to its corporate partners by providing the ability to send tweets to its own network of followers. This research aims to examine the extent to which one NPO used Twitter for this purpose and discuss the implications.

The research examined tweets sent by a large US-based charitable organisation, Toys for Tots (T4T), across two Christmas periods. All tweets that mentioned or retweeted T4T’s corporate partners were analysed.

The findings show surprisingly limited mentions of partners by T4T, with many never mentioned, and markedly fewer mentions of partners in the second period. Separate analysis of partner tweets retweeted by T4T revealed that none was modified to add value for T4T and/or for the partner, and many were unrelated to T4T, raising a risk of alienating T4T’s followers.

Only one NPO was examined, and the study focused on Twitter, with limited analysis of T4T’s Facebook posts. However, the relatively low, decreasing and largely indirect promotion of partners in T4T’s tweets suggests a lack of strategic use of Twitter by T4T.

Coupled with other research, the results show the need for this and other NPOs to more effectively use Twitter to reinforce partnerships with corporate partners.

The results demonstrate the failure of a major US charity to use Twitter to add value for its corporate partners. Even in the unlikely event that this NPO is an isolated case, the results show the need for NPOs and their corporate partners to work together to provide reciprocal benefits.

This study aims to show how diary-style voice recordings can be used to provide social marketers with greater insights into the influences on behaviour than those obtained from interviews. Diary data have the potential to provide deeper insight into the causes of behaviour than can be obtained from retrospective interviews or surveys.

Data were collected from 31 smokers and attempting quitters exploring their attributions for smoking and cigarette purchase, using both face-to face interviews and event-contingent voice recordings over a four-day period, with participants asked to make a recording whenever they were tempted to smoke or buy cigarettes.

Voice recordings provided additional insights into the influences on smoking and cigarette purchase compared to face-to-face interviews. In particular, voice recordings appeared to provide insight into prompts for purchase and smoking that were not recalled during interviews, and, for some respondents, gave them greater control over unwanted behaviour.

The study relies on participants’ self-reports, and individuals may be unaware of some of the influences on their behaviour.

The study shows that voice-recordings offer a novel method of obtaining insight into subtle influences on consumer behaviour that are insufficiently salient to be recalled in retrospective interviews.

The study shows the value of voice recordings for providing near-real-time insights into triggers for different behaviours, and offers potential for extending the method into other areas of social marketing.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate a method for estimating the tradeoffs that banking customers make between different attributes of a service, thus allowing businesses to estimate the likely impact on customer loyalty of changes in different attributes of a service.

The data were collected using a mail survey that was sent to small to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) decision makers in Hong Kong. The data were then analyzed using a choice modeling approach in the form of ordinal logistic regression.

Both affective components, such as relational bonds, and cognitive components, such as perceived service quality, are shown to influence customers' switching behavior. The specific tradeoffs that customers make between these attributes are also estimated.

This study is the first to quantify the effect of different variables on SME customer loyalty in a largely disloyal services sector. The study also demonstrates and quantifies the tradeoffs that customers make between various cognitive and affective attributes.

The tradeoff analysis shows how improvement in one attribute can have an impact that is equivalent to a change in another attribute. This provides additional strategic options for financial services marketers to cost‐effectively achieve a higher level of loyalty.

The study is the first to show how choice modeling can be used to calculate the tradeoffs that customers make in their purchase decisions, thereby providing financial services marketers with an effective way to estimate the impact of alternative strategies on customer loyalty.

Despite rapid growth in organizational use of Twitter, there is little theoretical or empirical research examining how different organisations use Twitter. This paper aims to analyse and compare use of Twitter in 12 accounts held by six organisations in the USA and Australia, drawing on existing models of interactive communications.

The paper is based on analysis of a random sample of tweets sent by each account.

The results demonstrate different ways in which the interactive capabilities of Twitter can be used to communicate with customers. However by also demonstrating lack of consistency in Twitter practice within most organisations, the results reinforce the need for strategic consistency in developing Twitter practice.

The results are based on the Twitter practice of 12 organisational accounts in the USA and Australia from December 2009 to May 2010. As with any evolving medium, practices at the different organisations may have changed since that time.

The paper is the first to compare Twitter use within and across organisations and geographic markets. It demonstrates a variety of potential Twitter practices, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies, and thus provides a framework for analysis of Twitter practice, and strategic direction for organisations developing their use of Twitter. The paper identifies challenges in the use of Twitter as both a one‐to‐many, and also a one‐to‐one, communication medium, and suggests strategies for coping with this dual use of Twitter.

The loyalty literature has investigated the association between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and revealed mixed results. Some studies have indicated that the relationship is linear, whereas others have found it to be non‐linear. This study examines the nature of this association in retail banking, an issue that has not been tested empirically.

A survey study examined bank customers' attitudes, perceptions, and behavior. Bivariate and multivariate testing was applied to develop two loyalty models: one based only on variables typically known to a bank, such as demographics and recent consumer behavior, and the other based on additional survey data.

A non‐linear relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty was found, and a model explaining 56.9 percent of the variation in customer loyalty was developed. Predictors of loyalty beyond the attitudinal dimensions traditionally tested for their association with loyalty were found to be associated with customers' intentions to remain with their bank. In particular, market conditions such as switching costs and benefits as well as recent consumer behavior were found to add explanatory power. Further, this study contrasted a full model explaining 56.9 percent of the variation in loyalty with a model based only on variables known to banks, which explained only 8.4 percent. Profiling customers based on survey data can thus provide additional explanatory power compared to data mining models

The models can be used by bankers to profile customers who are likely to remain loyal, allowing practitioners to implement proactive marketing action to reward such loyalty. Customers least likely to defect have high satisfaction levels, perceive switching as an unattractive option, and typically have a long‐established banking relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to test and model the effect of parent brand salience, branding strategy and extension innovativeness positioning on the extent of transfer of associations from the parent brand to a brand extension.

A field experiment based on a 2×2×2 between‐subjects completely randomized factorial design involving 808 consumers was conducted. Three factors were manipulated: parent brand salience, product innovativeness, and the branding strategy.

The paper finds that, in addition to the main effects of salience and the branding strategy, all three factors jointly influence the extent of transfer of associations from a parent brand to an extension.

Despite the external validity of a natural experiment, some uncontrolled factors may have influenced the results. Also, transfer was assessed within time constraints (i.e. the time to complete the survey). The “duration” of any transfer effect is likely to be related to the ad exposure, which could be tested in future research.

The findings are important for line extension development since they suggest that the launch of an extension can be designed to maximize or minimize transfer of brand associations from the parent brand to a new line extension, depending on the specific marketing objectives for the parent brand and/or extension.

This paper fills an important gap in the literature in terms of identifying product innovativeness, parent brand salience and the branding strategy as synergistic factors affecting transfer of brand associations for parent brands to their extensions.

This research seeks to explore the factors predicting customer loyalty in retail banking. Loyalty was measured in terms of a customer's willingness to recommend a bank and their intention to remain with their main bank short‐term (in the next six months) and long‐term (from six months to five years).

The study was based on a mail survey of 1,951 individuals. Potential predictors were drawn from the literature and included in three separate regression models to model different types of loyalty.

The results indicate that willingness to recommend is best predicted by affective attitude, overall satisfaction and empathy. Short‐term behavioural intentions, however, were best predicted by overall satisfaction and responsiveness, while long‐term intentions were predicted by overall satisfaction, affective attitude and empathy. The three models explained a substantial amount of the variation in the dependent variables: 71 per cent for willingness to recommend, 43 per cent for short‐term intentions and 46 per cent for long‐term intentions.

The study adds to the discussion of the relationship between perceived satisfaction, service quality and a customer's intentions to recommend a bank and/or remain a customer. The results also contribute to the development of more parsimonious models, suggesting that affective attitude, overall satisfaction, empathy and responsiveness together explain a large percentage of the variation in customers' intentions.

Based on this study's findings, banks can profile customers with potential for defection based on only four variables.

The results demonstrate the importance of satisfaction measures and some SERVQUAL dimensions in predicting loyalty in retail banking. It also found evidence that not all five SERVQUAL measures are needed to profile customers and predict loyalty.

To investigate the extent of loyalty, and the reasons underlying banking behaviour by business customers from the small to medium enterprise (SME) sector in Hong Kong, and to thereby contribute to a better understanding of the drivers of customer loyalty.

A total of 32 in‐depth qualitative interviews were carried out with decision makers from SMEs in Hong Kong. Content analysis was employed to analyze the interview data.

In contrast with earlier studies on banks' share of wallet in the SME segment in the USA and Australia, a lack of loyalty or “disloyalty” appears to be the norm within this sector in Hong Kong. Perceived service quality and the length of business relationship appear to have strong associations with loyalty behaviour, in terms of customers' willingness to continue to use a bank and/or to recommend the bank to others.

Since the study is qualitative, a larger empirical study would be useful to attempt to replicate our results in this and other geographic markets.

The results suggest that the Hong Kong SME market is characterized by high level of disloyalty, and that attaining 100 per cent loyalty from this group of customers will be very difficult. Instead, a banking strategy that focuses on service and on developing a sustained relationship with the customer may have the greatest chance of maximising the share‐of‐wallet of SME customers. The study offers important marketing implications for banks which are operating, or are planning to operate, business banking in Hong Kong and comparable Asian markets.

It is the first paper to study the incidence of, and reasons underlying, SME banking loyalty in an Asian market. It shows that disloyalty appears to be the norm in this sector, presenting a reminder to managers and researchers that customer loyalty may be the exception, rather than the norm.

The important influence of peer recommendations on consumer purchases has been strongly established. However, the growth of electronic discussion boards has created a channel for online word‐of‐mouth (OWOM) between people who have never met. This study aims to examine and compare the frequency and content of postings on digital camera electronic discussion boards within US and China based websites.

Data was collected from the “Photography” discussion boards on eBay and EachNet (a China based website). A total of 552 discussion postings from 257 participants over a three month period were analyzed and coded.

The analysis showed quantitative and qualitative differences in the content across the two sites. There were differences in the pattern of brand mentions across the two websites, and requests for information seeking behaviour also varied across the two sites; users of EachNet were more likely to request information, thus possibly increasing the likelihood of, and influence of, OWOM on this website. There were also significant differences in content, with higher country of origin (CoO) effects on EachNet. CoO effects were largely strongly negative, in particular showing high levels of negative references to brands originating from Japan.

A limitation is the inability to ascertain the nationality of the participants on the discussion boards. Future research will also benefit from an extension of product categories.

The study is the first to examine word‐of‐mouth (WOM) in online discussion boards and thus provides valuable insight for marketers into this growing source of WOM.