Pattanapong Tiwasing, Yoo Ri Kim and Sukanlaya Sawang
This paper aims to examine the relationship between being members of social media business networks and SME performance by comparing business performance between family-owned SMEs…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between being members of social media business networks and SME performance by comparing business performance between family-owned SMEs that are members and non-members of social media business networks.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis empirically draws on cross-sectional data of 9,292 English and Welsh family-owned SMEs from the UK's Government Small Business Survey 2015. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) is applied to control for selection bias and differences in firm characteristics before comparing business performance, measured in terms of annual turnover, sales-growth intention and innovation between family-owned SMEs that are members and non-members of social media business networks.
Findings
The findings show that family-owned SMEs that are members of social media business networks are more likely to have higher prior turnover and to grow their sales than non-members. Also, they are more likely to report being innovative in products and processes than non-members. The empirical results acknowledge the importance of online business networks and digital social capital on enhanced family-owned business performance.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to explore the comparative analysis of business performance between family-owned SMEs that are members and non-members of social media business networks. This paper is important for the development of family business research by providing a comprehensive evidence-based analysis regarding the importance of online business networks to improve family-owned business performance, given the significant contribution of digital business activities to the UK economy.
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The data sample used in this study is composed of 2,638 Chinese tourists who have travel experiences to the South Pacific region. This study examines the effects of memorable…
Abstract
The data sample used in this study is composed of 2,638 Chinese tourists who have travel experiences to the South Pacific region. This study examines the effects of memorable tourism experiences, destination cognitive and affective images, and satisfaction on revisit intention and their mechanisms from a cognitive–affective perspective. Results show that destination cognitive image, destination affective image, and satisfaction, respectively, play a mediating effect on the relationship between memorable tourism experiences and revisit intention. Memorable tourism experience is the most important predictor of revisit intention, and it mainly affects the cognitive image of a destination. In line with previous studies, this research has shown that memorable tourism experiences have significant impact on the destination image and tourists' revisit intention, which can provide significant implications for tourism practitioners and destination managers in the South Pacific islands.
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Junying Yu, Jiaxuan Xie and Honglin Lu
As a retail operation mode of emerging mixed reality (MR) technology, virtual fitting room (VFR) revolutionizes how consumers interact with fashion brands.
Abstract
Purpose
As a retail operation mode of emerging mixed reality (MR) technology, virtual fitting room (VFR) revolutionizes how consumers interact with fashion brands.
Design/methodology/approach
The research investigates the impact mechanisms of VFR technology through retail operational performance from the perspective of purchase intention and post-purchase intention. Around 783 valid questionnaires were collected using the questionnaire to analyze, including 327 VFR technology users and 394 VFR technology non-users.
Findings
The results indicate that visual vividness, interactive control and personalized provision of VFR technology positively influence the retail operational performance of fashion brands, except for the online purchase intention. The study further reveals that the influence of VFR technology on retail operational performance is carried by perceived value and technology attitude, with the moderating role of perceived body image.
Originality/value
These findings expand and enrich existing research on VFR technology, providing recommendations and valuable insights into widening the application and continuous improvement of VFR technology.
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Shahbaz Sharif, Shafique Ur Rehman, Zeshan Ahmad, Omaima Munawar Albadry and Muhammad Zeeshan
The research on consumerism has been dramatically rising in recent decades. However, in the food industry, little research has been empirically conducted in the beverage industry…
Abstract
Purpose
The research on consumerism has been dramatically rising in recent decades. However, in the food industry, little research has been empirically conducted in the beverage industry. This research empirically tests the consequences of consumer perceptions: perceived price (PPR), perceived quality (PQ), perceived packaging (PPG) and perceived taste (PT) on repurchase intention (RI) particularly; it unveils the consumer attributes, e.g. gender, age and ethnicity between consumer perceptions and RI of the consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected from 403 consumers of the beverage industry (e.g. Nestle, Mitchell's Fruit Farms, Murree Brewery and OMORE) in Pakistan. The researchers used online survey questionnaires followed by a cross-sectional approach because data collection physically was not possible due to COVID-19.
Findings
Data were analyzed by Smart partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) 3.3.3, and the results supported the significant influence of consumer perceptions separately, e.g. PPR, PQ, PPG and PT on RI. Additionally, gender, age and ethnicity were found to have a moderating role between consumer perceptions and RI, so, the truth of having consumer attributes has been revealed.
Practical implications
The managers of beverage industries should provide ethical and operational strategies to tackle consumer's problems based on cultural norms. Furthermore, they should make sensible measures for the quality branding of the beverage products. In this way, the consumers will have a better experience of quality, price, taste and packaging, in turn, to RI.
Originality/value
This research targeted the beverage industry that needs facts and figures based on consumer attributes, e.g. age, gender and ethnicity. This research also disclosed the behaviors of consumers according to their gender, age and area of residence.
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Myunghee Mindy Jeon and Miyoung Jeong
This study aims to examine determinants of perceived website quality and associations among consequences of perceived website quality. Adopting the framework of loyalty…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine determinants of perceived website quality and associations among consequences of perceived website quality. Adopting the framework of loyalty development, causal links are investigated among the website quality, customers’ perceived service quality, their satisfaction, return intention and loyalty in the context of the lodging industry.
Design/methodology/approach
An online field survey is conducted with internet bookers. A confirmatory factor analysis and a parameter estimate analysis using structural equation modeling are adopted to analyze the data.
Findings
The progression of the phases of loyalty proceeds in a linear fashion on a lodging website. Mediation effects of customer satisfaction and return intention are detected. Moderation effects of gender were also detected in the relationships among website service quality and consequences of website service quality.
Research limitations/implications
Caution is advised in generalizing findings of this study due to convenience sampling, although findings of the study do confirm results of previously conducted studies.
Practical implications
This study provides practical tips for website development for hospitality management to understand the e-loyalty formation process so that appropriate marketing strategies can be established to accommodate the type and degree of individual customer’s loyalty as well as gender-specific expectations from prospective customers.
Originality/value
This study demonstrates that customer loyalty formation in both physical and online environments has identical processes in the context of the lodging industry. The male group, compared to the female group, appears to be more sensitive in perceiving the effects of functionality of a lodging website, tends to develop customer satisfaction when perceiving website service quality and inclines to develop customer loyalty when having return intention.
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Jae-Ahm Park, Jun-Mo Sung, Jae-Man Son, Kyunga Na and Suk-Kyu Kim
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among an individual athlete’s brand equity, overall spectator satisfaction at sporting events and behavioral intentions.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among an individual athlete’s brand equity, overall spectator satisfaction at sporting events and behavioral intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
The convenience sampling method was used when approaching potential participants among spectators of the LG Whisen Rhythmic All Stars 2013, a sporting event in which celebrated sports players perform choreographed dance routines. A total of 350 surveys were completed in Go-Yang, South Korea. Of the surveys collected, 20 were discarded due to excessive missing values, resulting in 330 usable surveys.
Findings
Using structural equation modeling, this study found that the brand equity of an individual athlete positively and directly affects the overall sporting event satisfaction and behavioral intentions, including re-purchase and word-of-mouth intentions among event attendees, which are factors that are mediated indirectly by satisfaction.
Originality/value
This study shows that the brand equity of an individual athlete can increase the spectator satisfaction levels in a similar manner to the brand equity of a sports team or product.
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Kristína Medeková, Kristína Pompurová and Ivana Šimočková
Interest in the Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) in connection with tourism is constantly growing not only among consumers but also among theoreticians. Therefore, the objective of…
Abstract
Interest in the Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) in connection with tourism is constantly growing not only among consumers but also among theoreticians. Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to provide an overview of studies that focus on eWOM in the tourism sector using the snowball method. The article is based on a review of the literature of 60 studies that focus not only on consumer behavior in tourism and the impact of eWOM on tourism supply but also on the impact of hotel managers' responses to other consumer behavior and tourism companies. The results of the studies show that eWOM has a significant impact not only on consumer behavior but also on tourism supply. Manager responses can also strongly affect other consumer behavior in decision-making. When eWOM is distributed, consumers are influenced by their emotions, motives, and also by the websites to which they have decided to contribute. The chapter proposes further research areas for different authors.
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Youngtae Choi, Michael W. Kroff and Junga Kim
This paper aims to investigate how brands’ social media activities (credible content delivery, co-creation and responsiveness) impact brand advocacy. The paper also examines the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate how brands’ social media activities (credible content delivery, co-creation and responsiveness) impact brand advocacy. The paper also examines the influence of brand advocacy on purchase intentions of brand advocates and the moderating effect of the amount of time spent on Facebook on the relationship between brand advocacy and purchase intentions. Finally, the moderating effect of brand type (goods vs services) on the relationship between brands’ activities and brand advocacy is explored.
Design/methodology/approach
US adults who use Facebook as their primary social media platform participated in a survey via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings
The three brand activities are positively related to users’ advocacy of brands toward other users. Brand advocacy also positively influences purchase intentions of brand advocates. The amount of time spent on Facebook moderates the relationship between brand advocacy and purchase intentions. The brand type moderates the relationship between co-creation and brand advocacy.
Originality/value
This study differs from the existing research, which has typically used a user-oriented perspective (e.g. impact of user motivations) to explain brand advocacy and has not considered the outcome of brand advocacy on the brand advocates’ purchase intentions.
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Young Yoon Choi, Hun-Koo Ha and Minions Park
The maritime freight transportation industry has played an important role in the Korean economy. The Korean maritime freight transportation industry is faced with a period of…
Abstract
The maritime freight transportation industry has played an important role in the Korean economy. The Korean maritime freight transportation industry is faced with a period of transforming it competitively and efficiently in this global age. This paper, therefore, aims to identify the impact of the maritime freight transportation industry in the Korean national economy. Hence, this paper provides policy-makers with accessible and reliable information regarding the role of the Korean maritime freight transportation industry. This study employs input-output (I-O) analysis to examine the role of the maritime freight transportation industry in the national economy for the period 1995-2003, with specific application to Korea. This study pays particular attention to the maritime freight transportation industry by taking the industry as exogenous variable and then investigates its economic impacts. We identify inter-industry linkage effects in 20 sectors, production-inducing effects, added value-inducing effects, and supply-shortage effects of the maritime freight transportation industry.
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Zhengqiang Ding, Li Xu and Yiping Zhang
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of mechanical vibration on the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of semicircular channel printed circuit heat…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of mechanical vibration on the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of semicircular channel printed circuit heat exchangers (PCHEs), while also establishing correlations between vibration parameters and thermal performance.
Design/methodology/approach
By combining experimental and numerical simulation methods, the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop characteristics of supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) in a semicircular channel with a diameter of 2 mm under vibration conditions were studied. Reinforce the research by conducting computational fluid dynamics studies using ANSYS Fluent 22.0, the experimental results were compared with the numerical simulation results to verify the accuracy of the numerical method.
Findings
The use of vibration has the potential to attenuate the degradation of wall heat transfer caused by buoyancy-induced PCHEs on the upward-facing surface. The heat transfer enhancement (HTE) was maximized by an increase of 18.2%, while the pressure drop enhancement (PDE) was elevated by over 25-fold. The capacity to enhance the heat exchange between S-CO2 and channel walls through increasing vibration intensity is limited, indicating maximum effectiveness in improving thermal performance.
Originality/value
Conducting heat transfer experiments on PCHEs with mechanical vibration enhancement and verifying the accuracy of the vibration numerical model. The relation based on the dimensionless factor is derived. To provide theoretical support for using vibration to enhance the heat transfer capability of PCHEs.