Corporate image,loyalty, and commitment in the consumer travel industry

Abstract

This article examines the impact and interrelationship of corporate image, satisfaction, and commitment on customer loyalty in the travel industry. A corporate image–commitment–loyalty model was developed and tested. Partial least squares (PLS) was used to test the direct and indirect linkages between the four variables, and an alternative model was proposed. The tourism and travel industry is highly price sensitive and competitive with low levels of customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is a valuable asset in highly competitive markets, and understanding factors affecting customer loyalty is important to travel agencies who are seeking ways to maintain a strong customer base. The results of a mail survey conducted in New Zealand indicate that corporate image has a positive significant influence on customer commitment and customer satisfaction. Affective commitment is the focal point in the relationship and contributed most in predicting customer loyalty. The influence of customer satisfaction, on the other hand, contributed a much smaller effect. The key implications for travel agencies are build strong emotional bonds with customers and improve corporate image through trust and service delivery.     

旅游开发视阈下的乡村土地利用对策——以安徽为例

随着我国社会经济的发展,旅游业逐渐成为一大新兴产业开始发展壮大起来,而乡村旅游作为旅游业的一部分,也在推动国民经济等方面做出了重要的贡献。在国家乡村振兴发展战略实施与探索不断发展的同时,我国乡村旅游的开发和利用正迎来它新的机遇和挑战,乡村旅游用地作为乡村旅游发展的核心组成要素,其重要性日益凸显。随着我国乡村旅游产业发展方向越来越明晰,土地利用规划缺失的弊端也逐渐显现,因此如何利用好乡村土地资源,对乡村旅游的发展有着极其重要的影响,科学的土地利用规划会促进城乡经济、社会的共同发展,最终实现城乡经济融合、空间融合和社会融合。     

Diffusing market orientation to drive marketing capital: evidence from Vietnam

Although Vietnam’s transition to a market-oriented economy has produced stunning results, the economy is still lacking qualified marketers. This study investigates underlying factors that are fundamental drivers of Vietnam’s economic renaissance, including the role of market orientation at the marketer level (i.e. marketers’ market orientation) in marketing capital pool, and subsequently, marketers’ occupational commitment. Based on data collected from 351 marketers working for various firms in Ho Chi Minh City, the study finds that marketers’ market orientation has a positive impact on marketing capital pool. Further, marketing capital pool invested by marketers has a positive impact on their occupational commitment. Finally, firm ownership moderates the relationship between marketers’ market orientation and marketing capital pool, and gender moderates the relationship between marketing capital pool and marketers’ occupational commitment. Implications for Vietnam and other transitioning economies are discussed.     

泰州市当地居民旅游感知的实证研究

本文通过对泰州居民感知进行实地调查,发现目前泰州旅游业处于发展初期,居民对于负面影响的感知还不是很强烈;居民对于旅游环境的正面影响感知虽然比较强烈,但是分歧也较大,城市环境有待进一步提高,对于旅游发展给环境带来的负面影响一部分居民没有明确表态,还处于观察的阶段。居民感知的实证研究能够为刚刚起步的泰州旅游业提供一些有价值的参考建议。     

基于知识交易视角的供应链伙伴关系与创新绩效实证研究

以供应链企业间知识交易为视角,构建了供应链伙伴关系、知识交易与创新绩效之间关系的概念模型,其中供应链伙伴关系包括信任与关系承诺两个维度。利用结构方程模型结合256家供应链上下游企业的调查数据对上述概念模型进行了实证研究。研究结果表明,供应链企业间信任对关系承诺、知识交易与创新绩效有显著的正向影响;关系承诺对创新绩效有显著的正向影响,但其对知识交易的影响并不显著;知识交易对创新绩效有显著的正向影响。     

The impact of national culture and communication on exporter–distributor relations and on export performance

Interorganizational relations have been a major focus of marketing scholars in the past 2–3 decades. In this study, we explore the impact of national cultural differences, a factor that is unique to international relations, on behavior variables in exporter–foreign middleman relations. Furthermore, we argue that communication has an extended role in international channel relationships, and that it influences relationship variables in a different manner than in domestic relationships. The study supports that national cultural distance and communication have significant impact on trust and commitment, that communication may influence variables differently than in domestic relations, and that the degree of commitment toward the foreign distributor or agent is directly related to the financial performance in that market.     

Tourism Promotion,Increasing Returns and Domestic Welfare

This paper compares the effect of tourism promotion funded by commodity tax and income tax on domestic welfare in an open economy with increasing returns in the tourism and the non‐tourism sector. A promotion may overcome the under‐production of tourism goods through taking account of the implications of increasing returns, but at the same time, the taxation may have an adverse impact on the rest of the economy. Employing a general equilibrium analysis, we find that the cost of tourism promotion overcomes the benefit, reducing local residents' welfare. Furthermore, commodity tax on tourism consumption is relatively more efficient than income tax in a monopolistic competition, with less adverse impact on the variety of non‐tourism goods. We also clarify the condition for deteriorating ‘terms of trade’, which only happens when the country has a small allocation of factor endowments.     

Buying a sponsor's brand: the role of affective commitment to the sponsored team

Sponsorship is increasingly important in a firm's communication mix. Research to date has focused on the impact of sponsorship on brand awareness and its subsequent consequences for image congruency and consumer attitudes towards sponsors' brands. A lesser studied area is the effect of sponsorship on consumers' purchase intentions and behaviours. We argue that existing models of sponsorship driven purchase behaviour fail to account for affective commitment, which mediates relationship between affiliation with the team and social identification with the team. We propose a modified framework describing the effect of sponsorship on purchase intentions in the context of low and high performing sports teams. The framework is tested using structural equations modelling; employing PLS estimation and data collected via online survey of AFL chat room participants. Results confirm the role of affective commitment in sport sponsorship purchase intentions and indicate that team success has a significant influence on fans' purchase behaviours.     

浅析节庆旅游对黑龙江省经济社会的影响

节庆旅游发展潜力巨大,已日益成为各地发展旅游业、振兴当地经济的重要方式。节庆旅游牵动效应比较显著,对举办地经济、社会效益具有广泛而深远的影响。节庆旅游可以促进黑龙江旅游业及相关产业发展,有利于塑造旅游目的地形象、弘扬传统文化、创造就业机会、优化目的地环境。     

The Buy-in Benchmark: How Staff Understanding and Commitment Impact Brand and Business Performance

This paper considers the way that greater staff understanding (intellectual buy-in) and commitment (emotional buy-in) can enhance brand and business performance. Focusing on internal branding it shows from the literature review why these two issues are important drivers of brand success. The intellectual-emotional buy-in matrix is developed, showing how managers can better use internal communication to enhance employee buy-in and thus achieve better performance. Interviews with 350 managers and employees provided benchmark readings about intellectual and emotional buy-in. Links between buy-in and perceived employee performance are reported. The proportions of employees in each quadrant of the matrix are detailed, with strategies proposed to increase the proportion of “champion” employees. The positive impact effective communication has on buy-in, and therefore performance, is noted.     

The Potential for Tourism in Post-crisis Recovery: Lessons from Malaysia's Experience of the Asian Financial Crisis

The impact of crises on a national economy can be severe and it is essential that recovery is rapid and complete. This article argues that tourism may be an ideal focus for the recovery effort, as it is resilient and has many links into other sectors. Based on data collected from interviews with senior policy makers in Malaysia, the performance of tourism in four key areas is explored in the context of the Malaysian response to the Asian financial crisis. It is concluded that on balance, tourism is worthy of special consideration as a vehicle for post-crisis recovery.     

Empathic Relationships in Professional Services and the Moderating Role of Relationship Age

Empathy has been identified as a key success factor for employees who interact with customers. Despite its overall relevance, only a few studies have acknowledged its multidimensional nature. Knowledge remains scarce about the relative impact of cognitive and affective empathy on relational outcomes. In addition, few pieces of research have explicitly acknowledged empathy as theorized within stage‐models focusing on the communication of empathy. The authors conceptualize empathy as a multidimensional construct perceived by the client. Empathy has to be communicated to be effective, while customers’ perceptions of empathy may also be more complex as they distinguish between cognitive and affective empathy. This article investigates the effects of perspective taking, emotional concern, and emotional contagion on trust and commitment. Drawing upon relationship stage concepts, the authors further argue that the influence is moderated by relationship age. Finally, this study investigates if employees benefit from being perceived as empathic partners in terms of “hard facts” (objective sales performance). Based on a data set from 215 business clients of a large consulting firm, this study adopts a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach by using multigroup analysis. To test the empathy–performance link, the authors aggregate customer responses nested in 84 employees and link perceived empathy with performance data. The results show that within B2B relationships, perspective taking exerts the strongest influence on trust, whereas emotional concern is the strongest driver for commitment. The results also confirm the moderating role of relationship age and that perspective taking leads to an increase in actual sales performance. This study underpins the relevance of empathy within services marketing, while providing a more detailed approach to account for empathy as a relation building tool. Practical and academic implications are also addressed.     

The Impact of Caring Climate,Job Satisfaction,and Organizational Commitment on Job Performance of Employees in a China’s Insurance Company

This research uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the direct and indirect relationships among caring climate, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance of 476 employees working in a Chinese insurance company. The SEM result showed that caring climate had a significant direct impact on job satisfaction, organizational command, and job performance. Caring climate also had a significant indirect impact on organizational commitment through the mediating role of job satisfaction, and on job performance through the mediating role of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. In addition, job satisfaction had significant direct impact on organizational commitment, through which it also had a significant indirect impact on job performance. Finally, organizational commitment had a significant direct impact on job performance.     

Go The Silk Road Again,Strengthen the China-Sweden Cultural and Trade Communication ——Sweden Gothenburg Ship Visited Guangzhou

The archaized Sweden commercial ship named Gothenburg, the symbol of China-Sweden Friendship, which had been built for 10 years with 350 million Sweden Krona, departed on October 2 of last year, sailed along the Ancient Ocean Silk Road, by way of Spain. South Africa, Australia. Indonesia, etc, arrived in Guangzhou Port, to launch the one-month communication and collaboration of culture, tourism, economy and trade between China and Sweden in Guangzhou.     

Remote Leadership,Communication Effectiveness and Leader Performance

As remote work arrangements have gained in popularity, workforce dispersion has become increasingly widespread. Little research to date has examined how physical distance influences leader–follower communication effectiveness or leader performance. Building on top of transformational leadership theory, this paper explores how perceived leader performance is influenced by leadership style, physical distance, and communication effectiveness between leaders and followers. A survey of 138 followers, reporting to a total of 41 leaders, was conducted and data were analyzed at the individual follower-level using the Partial Least Squares (PLS) technique. Our model explained 45% of the variance in communication effectiveness and 67% of the variance in perceived leader performance. Consistent with past empirical findings, transformational leadership was associated more strongly with perceived leader performance than transactional contingent reward leadership. Communication effectiveness was also a strong predictor of leader performance, and furthermore acted as a mediator of leadership behavior on performance. Surprisingly, distance had no influence on either communication effectiveness or perceived leader performance. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

海南旅游物流业发展探讨

旅游业与现代物流业的有机结合,催生了旅游物流这一新生事物。旅游物流不仅能够降低物流成本、提高流通效率、强化旅游服务质量、带动旅游业信息化,还可以促进区域经济发展。国际旅游岛建设以来,海南旅游业和物流业都取得了长足的发展,但仍表现出了东西发展不平衡、生态环境保护不力、旅游购物相对滞后、传统物流业效率低和旅游业物流业发展"两张皮"等多方面的不足。因此,海南在大力发展旅游物流业的过程中应相应地采取一些针对性的措施,如借鉴集成和一体化思想实现平衡发展、倡导绿色物流、构建与培育新型旅游商品物流中心、积极发展第三方物流,以及应用再服务理念促进旅游业和物流业融合。     

跨文化交际能力融入高职旅游人才职业能力培养的探析

经济全球化已成为支配世界发展的新趋势,在这样的宏观背景下,培养具有国际化视野和服务意识,具备良好的英语表达能力和跨文化交际能力的高素质旅游人才资源必将促进我国旅游业实现可持续发展。目前我国大多数旅游院系尽管强调对学生跨文化交际能力的培养,但并没有将其融入到职业能力培养中。基于此,着重将论述将跨文化交际能力融入职业能力培养的积极意义。     

Maximising business returns to corporate social responsibility communication: An empirical test

Based on a classic conceptual model of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication, we developed an empirical research study to test how several aspects of CSR message content (i.e., issue importance, impact, motives, fit, commitment) are associated with external support responses (i.e., purchase, advocacy). We also tested the moderating role of stakeholder‐ and company‐specific factors (i.e., issue support and industry, respectively) in the proposed model. Data were collected from 302 participants who evaluated the same CSR information displayed in the websites of a fictitious bank and a fictitious restaurant chain. The findings suggest that better perceptions on how the CSR message reinforces issue importance, corporate CSR impact and altruistic motives lead to higher purchase and advocacy intentions. CSR fit is related only to advocacy, while CSR commitment does not have any significant impact on participants’ responses. Some new interdependence relationships are also identified among issue importance, motives, fit, and commitment. The moderating role of issue support and industry is confirmed.     

Channel Collaboration,Market Orientation and Performance Advantages: Discovering Developed and Emerging Markets

Abstract

Channel collaboration has occupied an increasingly prominent role in contemporary business strategy, and has been considered a key driver for providing value for the partnering firms involved. Drawing on the resource based theory of the firm, the present study aims to explore the effects of collaborative capability and market orientation on firms' performance advantages in the context of marketing channels. We also investigate whether the firms in developed and emerging markets significantly differ in their capability profiles. The data consists of 545 responses to a survey of small, medium-sized and large companies representing the grocery goods sector (manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers) in nine countries. In line with the theory, channel collaboration enhances positional and performance advantages of firms, and this collaboration is shaped by the type of economy adopted.     

Internationalisation of family small and medium sized enterprises: The role of stewardship orientation,family commitment culture and top management team

The purpose of this paper is to determine how aspects of organisational culture, typical to family businesses, influence internationalisation. Proposing that stewardship orientation, family commitment culture and top management team related factors influence internationalisation; we empirically examine 80 internationalising family SMEs (FSMEs) from the manufacturing sector in Finland. Variance based structural equation modelling (PLS) shows that family commitment culture is negatively associated with the degree of internationalisation. On the other hand strategically flexible top management teams with industry experience in FSMEs are positively associated with the degree of internationalisation. Contributing to an understanding of the internationalisation of family businesses, the findings suggest that family commitment culture and stewardship orientation, often associated with an inward orientation, may operate against internationalisation, however when coupled with the strategic flexibility of the top management team, we found stewardship orientation to positively impact internationalisation suggesting that it provides an outward orientation. Implications for practice are advanced.