Building loyalty in e-commerce: Impact of business and customer characteristics

Abstract

Understanding, building, and predicting customer loyalty in e-commerce are critical activities for long-run profitability. Successfully carrying out these activities is challenging due to the complex mix of both business organization and customer factors that may influence and drive e-loyalty. We demonstrate that business factors, such as credibility, e-satisfaction and site knowledge, and customer factors, such as inertia, innovativeness, and aggressiveness, influence e-loyalty. Our analyses show that business credibility is affected by the reputation of the e-business and its congruence with the customers’ self-image; e-satisfaction by the customers’ value perception, care, and choice; and site knowledge by customer experience, involvement, and expertise. Business factors account for about 75% of the explained variation in e-loyalty and customer factors for the rest. Understanding the controllable business and uncontrollable customer factors that drive customer loyalty should enable e-commerce retailers to continually assess these factors and make appropriate changes in marketing strategy.     

The Modeling Process for Stage Models

The purpose of this paper is to present and test a modeling procedure because researchers have struggled for decades to develop stages-of-growth models that are both theoretically founded and empirically validated. This article presents the concept and hypothesis of stages, the history of stage models, and a procedure that may serve as a useful tool in modeling stages of growth. Based on previous research and lessons learned from case study experience of the government sector in Norway, a procedure for the stages of growth modeling process is suggested and demonstrated. The procedure is used for developing a stage model for e-government interoperability. This article provides new insight into issues and challenges faced when engaging in stages of growth research. The paper proposes a new approach to stages of growth modeling. The utility of the suggested procedure is to improve theory building and empirical validation. The contribution to academia is the modeling process that can be applied in future developments of stages of growth. The contribution to practice lies in the stage hypothesis of organizational development over time.     

Consciousness for fair consumption: conceptualization,scale development and empirical validation

Sustainable consumption means that consumers act in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. Compared with the vast amount of studies concerning environmentally conscious consumer behaviour, relatively little is known about socially conscious consumption. The present paper focuses on fair consumption as an important aspect of social consumption. In our study, consciousness for fair consumption (CFC) is defined as a latent disposition of consumers to prefer products that are produced and traded in compliance with fair labour and business practices. A scale to measure CFC was conceptualized and tested in three independent empirical studies. Two studies were conducted at European universities (2010 and 2012) and used 352 and 362 undergraduate business students respectively. The third study, conducted in 2011, used 141 employees at a European university. The results confirmed the reliability and validity of the new CFC scale across samples. While being moderately related to other aspects of sustainable consumption such as ecological concern and moral reasoning, CFC was significantly distinct from those concepts. Most importantly, it was established that the CFC, as measured by the new CFC scale, is a strong determinant of consumption of fair trade products that has been neglected in existing research.     

Emergent Internet Technology Applications for Relationship Marketing

Abstract

In this paper we bring together the concepts of Relationship Marketing (RM) in the marketing literature and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Information Systems (IS) literature to identify and assess emergent Internet-based Information Technologies (IT) that add value for consumers. We focus on the customer's perspective by identifying the key benefits consumers seek when they enter into IT-mediated interactions with sellers. We review the IS-CRM literature and identify 8 critical IT categories that have the potential for changing how buyers and sellers establish and maintain relationships in the Internet era. Subsequently, we introduce a conceptual model, which considers the nature of the consumer's involvement with sellers through emergent Internet-based technologies in juxtaposition to potential technology-based benefits to consumers. We then discuss the implications of this proposed direction. Finally, we discuss a future research agenda, which considers the use of IT in relationship management.     

敬畏生命:高等教育应有之义

生命对于人来说,是唯一的。近期的几起高校校园伤害案引起了社会对高等教育的反思。高等教育承担着人才培养的重任,除了教授学生学习科学文化知识,更要培养他们高尚的人格、坚定的理想信念、敢于担当的社会责任,促进学生身心和谐发展,引导和培养他们树立敬畏生命、尊重规则、尊重底线的意识。     

论＂无为而无不为＂命题的伦理依寓

＂无为而无不为＂命题只有依寓在道德王国里才能获得现实可能性。该命题的行为主体所指——圣人内涵着对崇高品性追求的伦理预设,其前提条件＂无不为＂和＂无为＂必然关涉到圣人＂为天下式＂和＂功遂身退＂的道德内蕴,＂圣人之道为而不争＂决定了该命题的语境性质全在伦理一维。     

Money demand in the czech republic since transition

We analyse the demand for money since the “break up” of the Czech-Slovak Republics at the beginning of 1993 and for the aggregates M0, Ml, and M2 using monthly data. Due to the widespread use of foreign currency in formally centrally planned economies, we also investigate the issue of currency substitution. Because of our relatively small sample period the Johansen cointegration approach is not used and instead we use the general to specific methodology in a single equation framework. Previous empirical evidence on money demand in Eastern Europe, and specifically Czech Republic, has been mixed. Both graphical and empirical results suggest that any currency substitution was a one-off event due to increased uncertainty at the end of 1992 at the time of the monetary dissolution. Certainly, currency substitution in the Czech Republic is not as strong as has been found in other former centrally planned economies. However, our results do indicate that Czech National Bank may have to take account of foreign interest rates when interpreting movements in the monetary aggregates.     

应用型高校实践教学师资培养研究

随着社会经济的不断发展,应用型高校实践教学的重要性日益显现,实践教学成为培养符合企业所需人才的有效途径。高校应用型人才的培养离不开实践教学师资的培养,加强实践教学师资队伍的建设是强化应用型专业教学的一项重要任务。目前我国应用型高校实践教学师资尚难以满足应用型人才培养的要求。对高校教师的实践教学能力培养缺少政策支持、高校教师实践教学考核制度不健全等是造成应用型高校实践教学师资短缺的重要原因,应当通过完善实践教学师资考核体系、制定鼓励教师实践教学的相关激励政策等加以解决。     

经济学专业创新型人才培养研究

培养经济学专业创新型人才是国家经济社会发展的需要。借鉴美国经济学专业人才培养模式,结合中国经济学教育实践,培养经济学专业创新型人才,应注意优化人才培养目标,注重课程教学平台、科技实践平台建设,改进人才培养路径。     

皖江地区文化创意产业的产业形态与发展战略

皖江文化历史悠久,资源丰富,包括山水风景资源、人文历史资源和现代传媒资源等不同类型,是皖江文化创意产业的思想来源。皖江地区要着力发展重点文化项目、成立产业园、培养创意人才、加强区域联动、加快体制改革,促进皖江地区文化创意产业的发展。