The end of the world as we know it? The influence of online channels on the luxury customer experience

Luxury brands claim to offer consumers pleasure and prestige and deliver high profits to retailers. While the global demand for luxury goods is increasing, consumers expect that the purchasing process these goods will accommodate their preferences on how, where, and when they want to purchase them. The changing nature of luxury markets and customers' purchasing behavior makes it necessary to understand why customers would choose an online channel to purchase luxury offerings. What are the features that make so appealing, attracting consumers towards them? Our study explores customers' motivations, the benefits and the experiences they are expecting and perceiving from the Online Luxury Experience (OLX). We examine the OLX and establish three corresponding luxury customer segments using online channels to purchase their luxury goods and services: the purists, opportunists, and e-lux. We highlight the differences between the segment's customer journeys and the implications for theory and luxury customer experience management.     

Restaurants’ outdoor signs say more than you think: An enquiry from a linguistic landscape perspective

Building on the linguistic landscape theory and literature on customers' experience with restaurants' authenticity and status, this study investigates whether restaurants' outdoor signs influence customers' perceptions and behavioral intentions. Using an experimental design comprising two studies, supported by data collected from Chinese consumers, we test how display characters and text flow may jointly impact on customers' perceptions of the status and authenticity of ethnic (Japanese and Taiwanese) restaurants, thus influencing their visiting intentions and willingness to pay. We find that display characters influence Chinese customers' perceptions of authenticity and status in both Japanese and Taiwanese restaurants in Mainland China. There is an interaction effect between display characters and text flow on customers' perception of authenticity and status in Japanese restaurants in Mainland China. This study applies the linguistic landscape theory to a restaurant context and examines how such features may influence customers’ perceptions and decisions. The findings have important practical implications on managing customer experiences and perceptions via effective restaurant sign designs.     

Social Networks and Credit Card Overspending Among Young Adult Consumers

Research that has looked at the reasons why young individuals overspend using their credit cards has not paid attention to the perceptions that they have about important others' credit card debt, their expectations as to how much to spend when they consume in the presence of them, and how the strength of the social relationships within their social network potentially influences the extent to which they overspend using their credit cards. A survey of 225 US university students composing a culturally diverse sample revealed that these social norms and network variables have interactive effects on credit card overspending. Specifically, the results show that the perceptions that young adult consumers have about important others' credit card debt impact their overspending using credit cards when they feel that they are expected to consume at the same level as important others in shared experiences, and when they are strongly connected to these individuals.     

Competing models of entrepreneurial intentions

Why are intentions interesting to those who care about new venture formation? Entrepreneurship is a way of thinking, a way of thinking that emphasizes opportunities over threats. The opportunity identification process is clearly an intentional process, and, therefore, entrepreneurial intentions clearly merit our attention. Equally important, they offer a means to better explain—and predict—entrepreneurship.We don't start a business as a reflex, do we? We may respond to the conditions around us, such as an intriguing market niche, by starting a new venture. Yet, we think about it first; we process the cues from the environment around us and set about constructing the perceived opportunity into a viable business proposition.In the psychological literature, intentions have proven the best predictor of planned behavior, particularly when that behavior is rare, hard to observe, or involves unpredictable time lags. New businesses emerge over time and involve considerable planning. Thus, entrepreneurship is exactly the type of planned behavior Bird 1988, Katz and Gartner 1988 for which intention models are ideally suited. If intention models prove useful in understanding business venture formation intentions, they offer a coherent, parsimonious, highly-generalizable, and robust theoretical framework for understanding and prediction.Empirically, we have learned that situational (for example, employment status or informational cues) or individual (for example, demographic characteristics or personality traits) variables are poor predictors. That is, predicting entrepreneurial activities by modeling only situational or personal factors usually resulted in disappointingly small explanatory power and even smaller predictive validity. Intentions models offer us a significant opportunity to increase our ability to understand and predict entrepreneurial activity.The current study compares two intention-based models in terms of their ability to predict entrepreneurial intentions: Ajzen's theory of planned behavior (TPB) and Shapero's model of the entrepreneurial event (SEE). Ajzen argues that intentions in general depend on perceptions of personal attractiveness, social norms, and feasibility. Shapero argues that entrepreneurial intentions depend on perceptions of personal desirability, feasibility, and propensity to act. We employed a competing models approach, comparing regression analyses results for the two models. We tested for overall statistical fit and how well the results supported each component of the models. The sample consisted of student subjects facing imminent career decisions. Results offered strong statistical support for both models.(1) Intentions are the single best predictor of any planned behavior, including entrepreneurship. Understanding the antecedents of intentions increases our understanding of the intended behavior. Attitudes influence behavior by their impact on intentions. Intentions and attitudes depend on the situation and person. Accordingly, intentions models will predict behavior better than either individual (for example, personality) or situational (for example, employment status) variables. Predictive power is critical to better post hoc explanations of entrepreneurial behavior; intentions models provide superior predictive validity. (2) Personal and situational variables typically have an indirect influence on entrepreneurship through influencing key attitudes and general motivation to act. For instance, role models will affect entrepreneurial intentions only if they change attitudes and beliefs such as perceived self-efficacy. Intention-based models describe how exogenous influences (for eample, perceptions of resource availability) change intentions and, ultimately, venture creation. (3) The versatility and robustness of intention models support the broader use of comprehensive, theory-driven, testable process models in entrepreneurship research (MacMillan and Katz 1992). Intentional behavior helps explain and model why many entrepreneurs decide to start a business long before they scan for opportunities.Understanding intentions helps researchers and theoreticians to understand related phenomena. These include: what triggers opportunity scanning, the sources of ideas for a business venture, and how the venture ultimately becomes a reality. Intention models can describe how entrepreneurial training molds intentions in subsequent venture creation (for example, how does training in business plan writing change attitudes and intentions?). Past research has extensively explored aspects of new venture plans once written. Intentionality argues instead that we study the planning process itself for determinants of venturing behavior. We can apply intentions models to other strategic decisions such as the decision to grow or exit a business. Researchers can model the intentions of critical stakeholders in the venture, such as venture capitalists' intentions toward investing in a given company. Finally, management researchers can explore the overlaps between venture formation intentions and venture opportunity identification.Entrepreneurs themselves (and those who teach and train them) should benefit from a better understanding of their own motives. The lens provided by intentions affords them the opportunity to understand why they made certain choices in their vision of the new venture.Intentions-based models provide practical insight to any planned behavior. This allows us to better encourage the identification of personally-viable, personally-credible opportunities. Teachers, consultants, advisors, and entrepreneurs should benefit from a better general understanding of how intentions are formed, as well as a specific understanding of how founders' beliefs, perceptions, and motives coalesce into the intent to start a business. This understanding offers sizable diagnostic power, thus entrepreneurship educators can use this model to better understand the motivations and intentions of students and trainees and to help students and trainees understand their own motivations and intentions.Carefully targeted training becomes possible. For example, ethnic and gender differences in career choice are largely explained by self-efficacy differences. Applied work in psychology and sociology tells us that we already know how to remediate self-efficacy differences. Raising entrepreneurial efficacies will raise perceptions of venture feasibility, thus increasing the perception of opportunity.Economic and community development hinges not on chasing smokestacks, but on growing new businesses. To encourage economic development in the form of new enterprises we must first increase perceptions of feasibility and desirability. Policy initiatives will increase business formations if those initiatives positively influence attitudes and thus influence intentions. The growing trends of downsizing and outsourcing make this more than a sterile academic exercise. Even if we successfully increase the quantity and quality of potential entrepreneurs, we must also promote such perceptions among critical stakeholders including suppliers, financiers, neighbors, government officials, and the larger community.The findings of this study argue that promoting entrepreneurial intentions by promoting public perceptions of feasibility and desirability is not just desirable; promoting entrepreneurial intentions is also thoroughly feasible.     

A Study of Business Student Choice to Study Abroad: A Test of the Theory of Planned Behavior

Study abroad experiences are becoming increasingly common with business students. In this study, we build upon previous research into the motivations of students to study abroad by using Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior as a theoretical basis for indentifying the factors which might influence their intention to study abroad. A survey administered to 188 business students and subsequent analysis supported Ajzen's theory that attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms all were significant predictors of intention. This study also identified gender specific differences in the various factors.     

The impact of attributions about life events on perceptions of foreign products: Contrasts in individualism and collectivism

An event important to a consumer that occurred in a foreign country may serve to affect perceptions about the products from the country. Life events represent important experiences or circumstances that tend to exert a major influence on the individual. This article examines how consumer attributions made about a life event occurring in a foreign country vary across individuals from individualist and collectivist cultures, which serve to moderate the impact of the event on product perceptions. The research literature on life events, attribution theory, and cross‐cultural differences are used to formulate propositions regarding the relationship between life‐event attributions and subsequent perceptions of products from the foreign country. Implications and research directions are provided. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

I guess that is fair: How the efforts of other customers influence buyer price fairness perceptions

Past research has demonstrated that consumers' price fairness judgments are influenced by comparisons between the offer price they receive and the prices paid by other consumers for the same product offering. In today's digital age, reference points for purchases are more prevalent than ever. However, investigations on how certain inputs of the transaction affect these judgments is lacking. Specifically, extant research has failed to account for how the purchase efforts of other consumers can influence one's own price fairness evaluations. Moreover, relatively little empirical research has endeavored to understand the simultaneous cognitive and affective processes that explain how consumers arrive at price fairness judgments. To address these gaps in the literature, we introduce two studies aimed at understanding the process through which the salient efforts of referent consumers serve to mitigate perceptions of price unfairness when two customers pay different prices for the same product. The findings support a dual‐process model whereby the efforts of other (referent) customers serve to simultaneously reduce buyer anger and increase buyer understanding of the price disparity, ultimately mitigating perceptions of price unfairness.     

Enhancing Moral Intensity: The Roles of Personal and Consequential Information in Ethical Decision-Making

This research explored how (a) information regarding consequences and (b) personal information regarding the potential victim influences perceptions of moral intensity and ethical behavioral intent. An experimental vignette research design was used and 314 professional managers participated. The results of the study indicated that personal information impacted ethical behavioral intent through its influence on perceptions of proximity. In contrast, consequential information's impact depended on the presence of personal information or prior knowledge. Implications for management and future ethical research are discussed.     

Combining channels to make smart purchases: The role of webrooming and showrooming

In this study, the authors analyse the influence of specific combinations of online and physical channels (webrooming and showrooming) on the customer experience, specifically, on smart shopping perceptions and feelings. Taking into account that cross-channel consumers are driven by different motivations, the influence of shopping motivations is controlled. The results of an experiment in the fashion industry show that webroomers have greater perceptions of time/effort savings and of making the right purchase, and greater smart shopping feelings, than showroomers. Furthermore, webrooming leads to higher personal attribution than showrooming, meaning that consumers feel responsible and in control of their purchase outcomes. Personal attribution then mediates the impact of webrooming on smart shopping feelings. Although companies may have difficulties in tracking consumers’ use of online and offline channels, their enhanced control over the process may improve their experience through smart shopping perceptions and feelings.     

Physically freeing: breaking taboos through online displays of the sexual self

ABSTRACT

This research specifically looks at the societal taboo of presenting an overtly sexualised self in a public forum. Specifically, we investigate the way in which technology is being used to mediate sexual experiences between individuals and larger online communities. The research takes an exploratory look at why some users engage in Technology-Mediated Sexual Encounters (TMSEs) and the impact that these online sexual encounters can have on one’s sense of self, perceptions of freedom and expression. Beyond fantasy seeking, novel experiences, and instancy of TMSEs, the importance of perceptions of power and dominance during a TMSE are discussed, as well as the emancipatory feelings associated with being free to break taboo. The impact of engaging in TMSEs and their use in understanding sexuality and expectations of physical sexual experiences is also discussed. The implications from this research include a better understanding of how technology is being used to express one’s self online in taboo contexts.     

The effect of consumer emotional disclosure on fairness perceptions

One way consumers cope with an unfair consumption experience is to express how they felt about it. Understandably, these disclosures are often rich with emotion. Does emotional disclosure in this context influence consumers' perceptions of fairness? Drawing hypotheses from the emotional disclosure literature, this research reveals that writing about emotions improves consumer fairness perceptions and satisfaction. However, the benefit of emotional disclosure disappears if the disclosure is solicited by the company perceived to be responsible for the unfairness and they do not offer redress. The findings lead to the recommendation that companies provide and facilitate opportunities for consumers to disclose to third parties the emotions arising from consumption experiences perceived as unfair. Implications for managing customer feedback, complaints, and negative word‐of‐mouth are discussed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Co-presence and mobile apps: Technology's impact on being with others

Despite a lack of theoretical understanding regarding how consumers react when using mobile applications in a store, the latter are being used more and more often in shared consumption areas. This research explores the impact that using a mobile application has on perceptions of co-presence. Depending on the consumption experience stage, this technological tool can be a social facilitator that enhances interactions with companions or a device that makes it possible to reduce a negative crowd impression. This paper is positioned at the intersection of interpersonal influence research and research focused on mobile technologies' effect on the purchasing process. It may interest managers of sites where there is high co-presence and where a mobile application might reduce negative crowd impressions and facilitate in-group sharing.     

Understanding Managerial Perspectives of Volunteering at Nonprofit Leisure Events: A Comparison of Typologies Within Open Gardens Australia

Nonprofit volunteer motivations have been widely researched and discussed as the sector is volunteer-dependent. For nonprofit, community-based events, volunteers frequently fulfill multiple roles, yet motivations across roles are infrequently studied. This study explores managers’ views of volunteers across roles for Open Gardens Australia and whether existing typologies for leisure motivations and generic volunteering can be used to classify volunteer motivations. Examining managers’ perceptions is important as managers deliver volunteer-driven events by designing strategies to attract and manage volunteers’ experiences. Results suggest that existing typologies do not adequately capture the motivations of volunteers for these events with additional motivations of significance for some roles being - Obligation, Inertia, Filling a Personal Void or Gap, Elitism and Competitiveness. Of the 14 motivations found, many overlap and more than half may be simultaneously altruistic and egoistic, suggesting complex interactions within and across the different motivations, although motivational differences across volunteer rolesare limited.     

Do violent movies scare away potential visitors?

This study explored movie transportation's role in the relationship between movie watching and tourism. Based on the transportation theory, the results indicated that movie transportation (i.e., movie immersion) had a significant impact on the viewers' affective place images, cognitive place images, and visitation interest. Regardless of movie content, the more the movie viewers were transported, the more favorable impressions they had for the featured tourism sites and consequently the more interested they were in traveling to the target place. Moreover, the results also demonstrated that movie transportation did weaken violent movie content's influence. Particularly, for the highly transported audience, there were no significant differences between the movie groups in terms of their perceptions of place images. However, significant differences were found among the audience that was not well transported. Finally, this study found that both affective place image and cognitive place image could enhance the viewers' visitation interest.     

Do Sexy Cover Models Increase Magazine Sales?

Abstract

In the competitive struggle to increase circulation, mainstream men's magazines (such as Details, Maxim, Esquire) are featuring sexually attractive people on their covers. This article reports the findings of a study designed to determine if the sexual response evoked by cover models is related to interest in the magazine and purchase intention. Findings suggest that sexual attractiveness of the cover model and sexual arousal were related to interest in the magazine, but not purchase intention. Although no gender differences emerged, those with a positive sexual response to the cover person were more interested in the magazine. These results suggest that sexy cover models may be most effective for attracting attention to, and interest in, the magazine at the newsstand, but that feature articles have greater impact on purchase decisions.     

Understanding the Influence of Cues from Other Customers in the Service Experience: A Scale Development and Validation

During most consumer exchanges, particularly in service and retailing settings, customers are “in the factory” and, as a result, the presence of other customers can have a profound impact on customer experiences. Despite studies demonstrating the importance of managing the customer experience and customer portfolios, the marketing literature lacks a comprehensive scale that can be used to assess individuals’ perceptions of other customers during commercial transactions. This study conceptualizes a three-dimension, Other Customer Perception (OCP) scale to address this gap. Using a seven-step scale development process, the multi-dimensional conceptualization is supported and validated and the research demonstrates the impact of the OCP dimensions on consumers’ approach and avoidance intentions. The findings provide a clearer understanding of how other customers can indirectly influence assessments of a customer exchange and can assist in the measurement of other customer perceptions in future research efforts.     

Exploring the innovation strategies of young firms: Corporate venture capital and venture capital impact on alliance innovation strategy

We investigate how governance structure and power influence alliance exploration strategy. Adopting a real options perspective and the agency view, we suggest that innovation strategies differ based on the firm's governance authority. We find that the motivations of corporate venture capitalist firms, venture capitalists, and firm founders may have an impact on the formation of exploratory alliances among adolescent firms. Using a sample of 122 adolescent firms, we examine the influence that governance structure has on the firm's alliance portfolio and innovation potential. While the influence of corporate venture capitalist firms alone do affect alliance formation strategy, corporate venture-backed firms with founders having high influence (knowledge or ownership in the firm) are more likely to form innovation-focused alliances. In contrast, venture capitalist-backed firms tend to avoid innovation-focused alliances, preferring more exploitive ones, even when founders have high influence within the firm.     

Conceptualization and Exploration of Attitude toward Advertising Disclosures and Its Impact on Perceptions of Manipulative Intent

Significant research has been conducted in an effort to understand how varying elements of disclosures (e.g., size, placement, complexity) in advertisements impact consumers' abilities to understand and recall the disclosed message. Although it is important to research the effectiveness of disclosures, advertisers may have additional concerns if the mere presence of a disclosure impacts consumers' perceptions of the company, advertisement, or brand. Little research currently exists examining the notion of consumers' attitudes toward advertising disclosures or how they might impact the effectiveness of the disclosed message, attitude toward a given communication, or overall evaluation of the brand. We introduce the concept of attitude toward advertising disclosures and develop a scale to measure consumers' attitudes toward disclosed messages. The resultant 14‐item, multidimensional scale is then used to demonstrate how attitude toward advertising disclosures plays a moderating role in influencing consumers' perceptions of manipulative intent.     

Perceived conflict avoidance by managers and its consequences on subordinates' attitudes

Conflict handling by managers gives rise to significant emotional and cognitive experiences for affected employees and has far‐reaching effects on the effectiveness of a group and an organization. In this conceptual paper, we argue that despite many claims made by managers in their self‐reports that they engage in either dominant or compromising conflict‐handling strategies when managing conflict within a group, they may be perceived by employees as adopting neglect or avoidance behaviors. We examine how such perceived managers' avoidance styles could influence employees' perceptions with regard to justice, trust, and politics within an organization.     

INFORMATION SUPPORT FOR ALLIANCES: PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

It is generally acknowledged that information exchange plays an important role in strategic alliances. However, little is known with respect to the perceptions each alliance partner has concerning information exchange as well as how to measure these perceptions. Key managers and executives in the food and health and personal care industries in North America participated in a mail survey to investigate these phenomena. The survey approach used a dyadic research design to identify the key elements of information exchange that impact alliance satisfaction. Based on the alliance partner's channel position as a buyer (manufacturer) or supplier (product or service supplier), the similarities and differences in perspective and subsequent managerial implications are analyzed and discussed.