Perceived values,platform attachment and repurchase intention in on-demand service platforms: A cognition-affection-conation perspective

The rapid growth of on-demand services and the increasing competition among platforms make the repurchase behaviors of experienced clients an urgent and important problem. Drawing on the cognition-affection-connation framework, this study proposes a research model to examine how clients' repurchase intentions are shaped in the context of on-demand services by focusing on the service client-platform relationship. The model was tested with a sample of 519 respondents collected from experienced clients of the largest on-demand service platform in China, Meituan, via the questionnaire survey method. Our findings suggest that the three value constructs (i.e., cognition) derived from the service consuming experience, including utilitarian value, hedonic value and interactivity value, significantly contribute to the establishment of platform attachment (i.e., affection), which in turn drives repurchase intention (i.e., conation) toward on-demand services. This research outlines an attachment-based framework to gain an insightful understanding of client loyalty behaviors in the on-demand service context. It also makes contributions to the existing research by extending the cognition-affection-connation framework to online contexts and by illustrating the essential role of platform attachment derived from the client-platform relationship in driving clients' repurchase behaviors in platform-based businesses.     

我国房地产价格持续上涨的原因及对策

近10年来,我国房地产价格持续攀升。其原因主要有:需求拉动、土地价格的持续上涨、建安成本的增加和开发商的趋利动机等。应改善房地产市场的供应结构,加强对土地市场的管理和银行监管,完善房地产税费制度和信息系统,加强房地产的价格调控,促进我国房地产市场的健康稳定发展。     

Creating customer repurchase intention in Internet retailing: The effects of multiple service events and product type

Internet retailing literature shows that customers׳ experience with a retailer׳s website and order fulfillment separately influence repurchase intention. This study examines these two experiences׳ interactive effects on repurchase intention. Our research model includes a product type as a moderator, because the type of product can likewise affect a customer׳s experience with the retailer׳s website and order fulfillment. Results of multiple-group structural equation modeling (SEM) from customer reviews of 306 Internet retailers demonstrate that the interactive effects of a web site experience and order fulfillment are significant. In the interactive mechanism, order fulfillment experience is proven to serve as a proximal cause of repurchase intention. The moderating role of product type is significant as well. This finding suggests that practitioners should have unmatched measures for retailing different types of goods.     

Social selling cues: The dynamics of posting numbers viewed and bought on customers' purchase intentions

Online retailers provide social selling cues, such as “39 customers bought this product” or “156 customers viewed our product per hour”, to encourage sales. Revealing the numbers bought has been shown to increase purchase intentions, but what remains unexplored are the ramifications of posting the number of brand-related views or revealing both numbers bought and viewed so customers can determine the views-to-bought ratio. The number of views is much higher than the numbers bought, which customers may anchor on as a signal for product quality; however, a countervailing force is that views are a more ambiguous, hence a less diagnostic, cue. Five experiments revealed that: (1) showing the number of views or bought can, but does not always, increase purchase intentions; (2) revealing the number bought has a monotonically increasing (at diminishing rate) effect on purchase intentions; and (3) views exhibit a concave curvilinear effect in that, beyond a tipping point, increasing the number of views lowers purchase intentions. Given the anchoring effect of the larger views number, if the number of views or the number bought are relatively low, it is better to show the larger views number, but the reverse is true if the respective numbers are both high. Additional insights reveal that it is only advantageous to reveal both numbers if the views-to-bought ratio is lower than 20:1, which would apply to about the top 25% of brand landing pages. These findings were further validated in a choice experiment. Perceptions of product quality mediate the relationship between these social selling cues and purchase intentions; however, this is not the case for perceived skepticism (lack of trust in the information). Revealing these social selling cues is an online retailer’s prerogative; hence, these insights are theoretically interesting and have practical relevance.     

Perceived quality, emotions, and behavioral intentions: Application of an extended Mehrabian-Russell model to restaurants

In order to address a lack of comprehensive evaluation of restaurant quality, this study extends Mehrabian and Russell's stimulus-organism-response framework by incorporating restaurant-specific stimuli and including restaurant-specific measures of emotion. Using structural equation modeling, this study shows that atmospherics and service function as stimuli that enhance positive emotions while product attributes, such as food quality, act to relieve negative emotional responses. Results also suggest that positive emotions mediate the relationship between atmospherics/services and future behavioral outcomes. The results are theoretically and practically meaningful because they address the relationships among three types of perceived quality (product, atmospherics, and service), customer emotions (positive/negative), and behavioral intentions in the restaurant consumption experience. Managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions are also suggested.     

Facial expressions of beneficiaries and donation intentions of potential donors: Effects of the number of beneficiaries in charity advertising

To increase the donation intentions of potential donors, many charities include pictures of beneficiaries in their ads, but there have been no consistent findings on how to effectively use features such as the facial expressions of beneficiaries. This study found that there was an interaction effect between facial expressions and the number of beneficiaries that influenced donation intentions. When charity ads used sad-faced beneficiaries, displaying a single beneficiary more effectively increased donation intentions than displaying multiple beneficiaries. However, when charity ads included happy-faced beneficiaries, displaying multiple beneficiaries was more effective than displaying a single beneficiary. Furthermore, the interaction effect between facial expressions and the number of beneficiaries was mediated by the perceived efficacy of a donation. In addition, this study found that for charity ads that used happy-faced beneficiaries, the relationship between the number of beneficiaries and donation intentions presented an inverted U-shaped.     

Social commerce website design,perceived value and loyalty behavior intentions: The moderating roles of gender,age and frequency of use

Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework, a model is tested that improves the understanding of customer loyalty toward social commerce websites. The results showed that: information and service quality are key antecedents of perceived value, whereas rewards and recognition, and customization are non-significant. Perceived value is an important driver of customer loyalty toward these websites. The model's relationships are affected by gender and frequency of use. Overall, the findings of this study extend the understanding in the social commerce context of: (i) the antecedents of customer perceived value and behavioral intentions; and (ii) the moderating effects of age, gender and frequency of social commerce use on the model relationships.     

Retail networks and real estate: the case of Swiss luxury watches in China and Southeast Asia

Shopping centers are among the most significant places to sell luxury goods in East Asia. However, the relations between retail networks of luxury companies and access to land and real estate still need to be addressed. On the one hand, an extensive literature highlights how the turn to luxury industry since the 1990s has enabled some European countries to maintain their comparative advantage on the global market and at the same time to keep a significant part of their production non-globalized. Yet, an issue that remains to be addressed is the way European luxury companies are able to enter and expand their sales networks in emerging countries. On the other hand, while real estate has become a major economic circuit in East Asia, there is still a lack of research about the property industry and companies’ concrete strategies and business models. This article is hence an exploratory study that tackles the issue of real estate within the strategies of the main actors of the Swiss watch industry, namely Swatch Group, Richemont, and LVMH, which have massively invested in their retail network in China and East Asia since the 1990s.     

Understanding effects of co-creation on cognitive,affective and behavioral evaluations in service recovery: An ethnocultural analysis

While cognitive, affective and behavioral consequences of service recovery have been extensively explored in the literature, the role of co-creation is mostly neglected. Most efforts dedicated to investigating co-recovery are limited to cognitive and behavioral factors. Furthermore, most of the recent studies explored co-recovery on western and eastern cultures, ignoring the role of ethnics in countries with different sub-cultures. This study aims to discover all possible factors on service recovery procedure, focusing specifically on effects of co-creation. Thus, a 2(distributive justice: high/low)×2 (interactional justice: high/low)×2(procedural justice: high/low)×2(co-creation: yes/no)×2(ethnics Azerbaijani vs. Baluch) between-subjects factorial design experiment was performed. A sample of 977 Iranian mobile banking customers participated in the study. Results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) indicate that most cognitive, affective and behavioral factors were supported by predictors. In addition, Multi-group SEM reveal that co-creation increases effects of most positive nature variables except negative emotions which is conceptualized as negative nature factor. The results of cultural differences indicate that Azeri people are more intended to participate in co-creation programs, whereas Balochs are more loyal due to higher level of reuse intentions.     

Private labels versus national brands: The effects of branding on sensory perceptions and purchase intentions

Consumers increasingly consider private labels to be as good as national brands. This research raises the question of whether national brands and private labels equally affect consumers’ sensory perceptions and purchase intentions. The results of two studies show that consumers reverse their evaluation of private labels (vs. national brands) when tasting the product in an informed (vs. blind) condition. When consumers are not aware of brand names, they indicate better taste and higher purchase intentions for private labels. However, the opposite is true when they try products in an informed condition. We discuss the implications for private labels and national brands.     

Performance of professional service firms from emerging markets: Role of innovative services and firm capabilities

Professional service firms (PSF) from emerging markets face a financial dilemma: PSFs tend to utilize high-wage labor, yet their emerging market status makes foreign clients cautious regarding quality and less willing to pay high prices. To allay these concerns, PSFs may be able to develop attractive, highly innovative services, but as the resource-based view (RBV) notes, this requires emerging market firms to possess critical capabilities to support such a competitive advantage. Relying on services theory, we propose that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of management and expert human capital (HC) are critical capabilities, enabling a PSF to develop and market innovative services profitably. In testing our model on 201 Indian PSFs, we find a mediating role for innovativeness whereby EO and HC drive service innovation which, in turn, accounts for financial performance. Further, we find EO positively moderates the innovative service–performance relationship as proactive, risk-tolerant managers improve foreign marketing. Insights for theory and practice are provided that enable PSFs to overcome the constraints and challenges of their emerging market origin.     

Consumer perceptions of risk and uncertainty and the implications for behaviour towards innovative retail services: The case of Internet Banking

Research on the consumer perceptions of innovative offerings has tended to focus on products as opposed to services. Perceived risk has generally not been awarded a major role while uncertainty, which is viewed here as distinct from risk, has for the most part been disregarded. The study reported in this paper strives to identify some of the major risks and uncertainties associated with a new service, Internet Banking, during the early stages of its market development. The empirical research involved a qualitative study of a small sample of consumers and a survey of both adopters and non-adopters of Internet Banking. The survey employed a traditional research instrument, which involved the presentation of pre-identified risks and uncertainties. It was possible to identify several major ‘risks’ as well as ‘uncertainties’. We raise questions about whether or not the anxieties and concerns identified by such a process of consumer research are true reflections of the major influences affecting consumer behaviour towards new retail services. The adoption of a ‘perceived risk’ stance as against one founded on the view that consumers may lack certainty about outcomes and consequences has implications for both theory and practice.     

Retail service quality,corporate image and behavioural intentions: the mediating effects of customer satisfaction

This study investigates the relationships between service quality, corporate image, satisfaction and behavioural intentions. A structural equation modelling (SEM) approach is applied to test the proposed conceptual framework, using data collected from 404 supermarket customers in China. The structural model suggests that customer satisfaction fully mediates the impact of retail service quality on behavioural intentions (e.g. intention to recommend and repurchase). The results also indicate that retail service quality significantly influences customer perceptions of corporate image. The relationship between corporate image and behavioural intentions is fully mediated by satisfaction.     

The role of emotions in utilitarian service settings: The effects of emotional satisfaction on product perception and behavioral intentions

The role of emotions in hedonic service settings is well established, but their role in utilitarian service settings has received scant attention. This research attempts to fill this gap by investigating the effects of customers’ perceptions of service quality and servicescape on their emotional reactions, and their perceptions of product quality and subsequent behavioral intentions. Data are collected from 189 clients/patients who visited an optometry clinic. The study reports that perceived service quality (reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) and service environment (atmosphere and layout) both increase positive emotional satisfaction. In turn, positive emotional satisfaction leads to a high perception of product quality, high recommendation, patronage intention, and likelihood of purchase. Additionally, product quality perceptions have a significant positive impact on behavioral intentions.     

A closer look at similarity: The effects of perceived similarity and conjunctive cues on brand extension evaluation

Similarity between a core product and an extension product is regarded as a key success factor for brand extensions. However, a review of the literature reveals that the conditions under which high similarity is beneficial are unclear. In the first experiment, the authors test three models (the brand-attitude-transfer model, the incongruity-induced-affect model, and the “you cannot be good or bad at everything” principle) to predict the role of similarity. They find support only for the brand-attitude-transfer model. This suggests that high similarity is only beneficial when consumers evaluate brands favorably. Furthermore, little is known about how additional information provided by the supplier affects consumers' similarity perceptions without changing the extension product itself more than on a superficial level and without emphasizing common benefits. The authors compare the conditions of high and low core product/extension category similarity. Under the former condition, common peripheral advertising cues, similarity primes, portrayals of core products, and common peripheral design cues increase evaluations of extension products when the brand is evaluated favorably. Under the latter condition, these cues differ with respect to their effect.     

International orientation of Chinese internet SMEs: Direct and indirect effects of foreign and indigenous social networking site use

We examine how international orientation (IO) of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in China is influenced by foreign and indigenous Social Networking Site (SNS) use. Existing international business theory does not explain how SNS use by emerging market SMEs underpins IO. Combining knowledge-based theory, International Entrepreneurship literature and insights from Information Management, we test a model of opposite effects for the use of foreign and indigenous SNS. Analysis of data from 117 Chinese SMEs provides strong support to the central argument that indigenous rather than foreign SNS helps this new breed of firm to become more internationally-oriented.