Revisiting Problem Gamblers’ Harsh Gaze on Casino Services: Applying Complexity Theory to Identify Exceptional Customers

This study revisits the theory, data, and analysis in Prentice and Woodside (2013). The study here applies fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to customer service–evaluation data from seven mega casinos in the world's gambling capital—Macau. The study includes contrarian case analysis and offers complex algorithms of highly favorable customer outcomes—an alternative stance to theory and data analysis in comparison to the dominant logic of statistical analyses that Prentice and Woodside (2013) report. Contrary to their principal hypotheses, Prentice and Woodside (2013) report a negative main effect between problem gambling and casino service evaluations. The findings in the reanalysis here include more complex, nuanced views on the antecedent conditions relating to high problem‐gambling, immediate service evaluations, and desired customer behavior measures in casinos. Counter to the findings using symmetric testing via multiple regression analysis in Prentice and Woodside (2013), the present study, using asymmetric testing via fsQCA, recognizes the occurrence of causal asymmetry, and draws conclusions from different algorithms leading to high scores for favorable and unfavorable outcome conditions. The findings indicate that not all problem gamblers gaze on casino services harshly; the minority of problem gamblers who view casinos positively versus harshly may be the most valuable customers for the casinos—the casinos’ exceptional customers.     

Spousal Ethical Justifications of Casino Gambling: A Psychometric Analysis

Spousal reactions to social costs and benefits of legalizing casino gambling in their city are converted to psychometric measures that reflect teleological and distributive-justice related ethical assessments. Major findings indicate low teleological and distributive justifications of casino gambling among both spouses, particularly among wives. As expected, heavy casino gamblers score higher compared to light gamblers and nongamblers; the level of one's past betting and gambling involvement is found to predispose higher ethical justifications of local casinos. Social policy implications of findings are discussed.     

Leveraging employee emotional intelligence in casino profitability

Drawing on the link between service quality and casino profitability, this paper describes the roles of frontline employees in delivering casino service quality and analyses how management can nurture employee emotional intelligence's (EEI) contribution to casino revenue growth. This study is conceptual in nature. The analysis builds from identifying the emotional contents embracing service encounter involving casino frontline employees and customers. The identification area approaches from emotional work performed by employees, referred to as emotional labor, the emotional service delivered by casinos, customer attributed emotions and emotional contagion. The study comprehensively analyses how EEI can manage and regulate emotionally charged service encounters which subsequently affect customers’ perception of employee behaviours and service performance over service encounters. These encounter performance forms customers’ perception of casino service quality which leads to customer loyalty and ultimately casino profitability. This theory-focused study presents an additional venue with great potential for casinos to enhance business performance and financial growth, as well as providing new insights into the role of EEI in organizations for researchers in the relevant field.     

A social learning perspective of gambling behaviour among college students at Iowa State University,USA

This study assesses the proportion of college students who gamble and the level of their gambling involvement (i.e. frequency, scope, expenditure). In addition, a better understanding is sought of why students gamble and the factors that contribute to their gambling behaviour. The data were collected in the autumn of 1996 from 797 undergraduate students. The main outcome measures included the students' gambling status, scope, frequency and expenditure. The predictor variables were gender, age, employment status, grade point average and gambling expenditure of the mother, father and best friend of the respondents. Frequency and cross‐tabulation analyses were used to develop the respondents' demographic profile and to describe differences between characteristics of gamblers and non‐gamblers. Gamma‐statistics were used to test the strength of the relationship between predictors and outcome variables. Over half of the students gambled, and the two most frequently identified gambling activities were lottery and non‐casino cards. The majority indicated that they gambled for entertainment. On average, the students gambled three times and staked an average of 33 per month on their gambling. However, about 19% of them gambled 3–6 times and staked over 66 a month on gambling. Student gambling was found to be positively related to the gambling of their parents and the gambling of their best friend.     

An exploratory study of gambling motivations and their impact on the purchase frequencies of various gambling products

The global gambling industry is huge and gambling has become a leading leisure activity in many countries. Although research on gambling is extensive, many gaps remain. The objective of this exploratory study was to examine how motivations for regular gambling varied by the forms of game played. Using data collected by the U.S. National Gambling Impact Study Commission, the study found that regular gamblers were motivated to gamble to win and to fulfill their sense of excitement/challenge for some gambling products like lottery, racetrack betting, and casinos. For others, such as bingo and card room games, they were motivated to gamble more for social reasons. The findings have important implications to marketers and public policy makers. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Who stays,who walks,and why in high-intensity service contexts

The current investigation explores relationships among customer service-quality evaluations, propensity-to-switch, and player retention in a highly-intense service delivery environment (casinos). The study also examines the proposal that player loyalty intervenes between casino service-quality perceptions and player retention. Overall customer service-quality perception is operationalized as a multi-dimensional construct, consisting of service environment, empathy, reliability, assurance, responsiveness, game service, and food service. Path analyses show that casino service environment is the only factor that impacts player propensity-to-switch, whereas food service and empathy affect player retention. After separating the sample into three groups based on respondents' average betting, namely low-end, medium and high-end players, the influence of casino service factors on player propensity-to-switch and retention varies substantially among the groups. Results for testing the mediation model demonstrate that customer loyalty affects player retention and that casino service evaluations influence customer loyalty directly. A few measured factors such as age, education, occupation, and income influence player propensity-to-switch and retention. These findings have strategic implications for casino marketers.     

Golden‐age gambling: Psychological benefits and self‐concept dynamics in aging consumers' consumption experiences

Phenomenological investigation of casino gambling among older consumers yields the identification of the psychological benefits of this consumption experience for this population. Control, Lift, and Escape emerge as central themes as older consumers' gambling experiences unfold, and the elements and psychological outcomes of each of these themes are discussed. Through interpretive analysis, a conceptual framework is developed in which these factors serve an intermediary role between the more shallow hedonic responses of “fantasies, feelings, and fun” (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982) and deeper aspects of the self. It is proposed that the psychological benefits of gambling and other forms of experiential consumption may ultimately reinforce and enhance seniors' self‐concepts. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

An empirical analysis of individual level casino gambling behavior

Gambling and gaming is a very large industry in the United States with about one-third of all adults participating in it on a regular basis. Using novel and unique behavioral data from a panel of casino gamblers, this paper investigates three aspects of consumer behavior in this domain. The first is that consumers are addicted to gambling, the second that they act on “irrational” beliefs, and the third that they are influenced by marketing activity that attempts to influence their gambling behavior. We use the interrelated consumer decisions to play (gamble) and the amount bet in a casino setting to focus on addiction using the standard economic definition of addiction. We test for two irrational behaviors, the “gambler’s fallacy” and the “hot hand myth”—our research represents the first test for these behaviors using disaggregate data in a real (as opposed to a laboratory) setting. Finally, we look at the effect of marketing instruments on the both the decision to play and the amount bet. Using hierarchical Bayesian methods to pin down individual-level parameters, we find that about 8% of the consumers in our sample can be classified as addicted. We find support in our data for the gambler’s fallacy, but not for the hot hand myth. We find that marketing instruments positively affect gambling behavior, and that consumers who are more addicted are also affected by marketing to a greater extent. Specifically, the long-run marketing response is about twice as high for the more addicted consumers.     

The influence of customer experience with automated games and social interaction on customer engagement and loyalty in casinos

Drawing on experiential marketing theory, This study examines the relationship between casino customers’ experience with automated games and their engagement and loyalty responses to casinos. Social interaction as a proxy of visiting motivation is modelled as a moderator in the relationship. Customer behaviours include word-of-mouth, visiting frequency, and average spending. The study focuses on Australian land-based casino members with automated game experience. The results show that customer experience with some features of automated games had a positive and significant impact on customer engagement with the casino, which led to positive loyalty. Automated game experience also had an indirect effect on customer loyalty. Social interaction exhibited a significant moderating effect on the relationship between customer engagement and visiting frequency. Discussion and implications of these findings for the literature and practitioners conclude the paper.     

Restricting gambling advertising and the third‐person effect

Along with the rapid growth experienced by the gaming industry in the United States has come increasing calls to restrict or ban gambling advertising. To date, little is known about what motivates people to support such restrictions on advertising. However, one recent theory, the third‐person effect, offers a possible explanation. The third‐person effect states that when confronted with negative messages, people will overestimate the messages' effect on others relative to themselves. Additionally, it suggests that it is this misperception that motivates them to take action against such messages. This study investigates whether a third‐person effect occurs for gambling advertising and if this effect is related to pro‐censorship attitudes for lotteries and casinos. The results suggest there is a sizable gap between perceptions of the effect of gambling advertising on one's self versus others, and that the perceived effect on others is related to a willingness to restrict such advertising. © 2000 John Wiley and Sons, Inc.     

赌场豪华竞赛:产业两栖性制造的市场失败

赌场业是一种兼有服务业和金融业双重性质的产业.作为服务业,赌场的豪华程度以及与之相联系的服务产品质量的差异对于赌客是有意义的,在价格一律的条件下激励赌客由低档小赌场向高档大赌场流动.作为金融业,赌博价格是一个投资(赌博)回报率的概念,它无法作为反映赌场豪华程度和服务质量价差的价格杠杆作用.这导致了赌场业的有质差无价差的现象,进而赋予了豪华大赌场较之简陋小赌场的竞争优势,进而导致了在赌场建设上的豪华竞赛以及与此竞赛相联系的资源浪费和市场失败.文章研究和分析了由赌业的两栖性所导致和推动的赌场间豪华竞赛的经济动因和机理,进一步指出澳门赌业的发展,不能自由放任.     

Immigrant business enterprises: A classification framework conceptualization and test

This article proposes the Immigrant Business Enterprises Classification Framework to organize immigrant‐owned businesses into categories associated with different levels of business integration into a host country's mainstream business community. The article applies the framework and reports the findings of structured face‐to‐face interviews with 199 Hispanic business enterprises (HBEs) in Indianapolis. The authors find Hispanic‐owned businesses hold different characteristics depending upon the integration category in which they are classified; the findings suggest that to support immigrant entrepreneurship, governments, business development organizations, and researchers should address category‐specific challenges, opportunities, and needs. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Paternalism and the Pokies: Unjustified State Interference or Justifiable Intervention?

The Australian Productivity Commission and a Joint Select Committee on Gambling Reform have recommended implementation of a mandatory pre-commitment system for electronic gambling. Organizations associated with the gambling industry have protested that such interventions reduce individual rights, and will cause a reduction in revenue which will cost jobs and reduce gaming venue support for local communities. This article is not concerned with the design details or the evidence base of the proposed scheme, but rather with the fundamental criticism that a mandatory pre-commitment policy is an unacceptable interference with the liberty of the individual, and of organizations. It is argued that the concept of paternalism is a useful lens with which to study the interactions between business and society on this issue. It is contended that the benefits of a pre-commitment system to problem gamblers and society are socially and economically significant, and the cost to recreational gamblers, particularly the cost in terms of interference with the liberty of the individual, is minimal. Pre-commitment also requires gambling businesses to act in a more socially responsible manner. It is concluded that the proposed legislation constitutes a paternalistic intervention by government on the interaction between business and society, and that this is justified.     

Reluctance to use technology‐related products: Development of a technophobia scale

Many consumers feel overloaded by the complexity of technology‐related products. This renders consumers less open to them and may even lead to an aversion or anxiety toward these kind of products: in other words, so‐called technophobia. This article aims to establish an instrument that measures technophobia. Following a literature review and in‐depth interviews with experts, a scale is developed and tested in seven different countries (United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, India, Mexico, and Austria; total sample size = 1,503 respondents). The three underlying dimensions of the scale—“Personal Failure,” “Human vs. Machine Ambiguity,” and “Convenience”—are discussed, and future research avenues to strengthen the cross‐national usability of the scale are identified. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Forecasting Threats and Opportunities for Foreign Innovators in China's Strategic Emerging Industries: A Policy‐Based Analysis

This article reviews over 50 recent Chinese policies designated to develop China's “strategic emerging industries” (SEIs), and conducts interviews with foreign firms and Chinese government officials to identify the most significant threats and opportunities for foreign innovators in these industries. Threats identified include initiatives to stimulate the market primarily in the interest of Chinese firms, cultivate “indigenous” intellectual property (IP) rights, and create national champions in specific SEIs. Opportunities include using certain strategies to tap into monetary stimuli for SEIs and supporting industries, benefits from further regionalization and optimization of industrial bases, direct benefits and spillovers from improved IP protection and management, and potential opportunities from increased mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by Chinese firms. These findings should be contextualized with the knowledge that not all aspects of the SEIs’ initiative are “new,” current Chinese industrial policy does not only target seven SEIs, and SEI policies may not all work exactly as intended. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Internal Stakeholders' Claims on Branding a State University

Educational institutions, as part of the service sector, face unique challenges in developing and implementing an internal brand management (IBM) program. Internal stakeholders generally resist branding strategy. A case study of a public U.S. university describes the branding approach, which incorporated the multiple interests into an integrated strategy. The article contributes to our understanding of “doing branding” in the higher education sector and the unique role of IBM before, rather than after, a branding strategy has been developed.     

Distributed group support systems: Social dynamics and design dilemmas

A “distributed group support system”; includes decision support tools and structures embedded within a computer‐mediated communication system rather than installed in a “decision room.”; It should support groups who are distributed in space but not time ("synchronous”; groups), as well as “asynchronous”; groups whose members participate at different times. Pilot studies conducted in preparation for a series of controlled experiments are reviewed in order to identify some of the problems of implementing such a system. Many of the means used by groups meeting in the same place at the same time to coordinate their activities are missing. Embedding decision support tools within a different communications medium and environment changes the way they “work.”; Speculations are presented about software tools and structuring or facilitation procedures that might replace the “missing”; coordination channels.     

Positioning Strategies of Retail Firms in Ghana

This paper assesses how retail firms in Ghana pursue positioning activities. Overt observations, face-to-face interviews with staff, managers and mall intercept methods provide an insight into the positioning strategies of firms in the retail sector. We adopt an empirically based and generic consumer-derived typology of positioning strategies to obtain the results. The findings revealed that the dominant strategies are “service,” “value for money,” “attractiveness,” “reliability,” “top of the range,” selectivity, and “brand name.” The emphasis placed on each of these positioning strategies varies from firm to firm.     

Boasting and aspiring,as status‐reinforcing mechanisms in status‐based loyalty programs

In the retail industry, status‐based loyalty programs (SBLP) are commonly used as an important marketing tool to award elevated status to customers who exceed certain level of spending. In contrast to previous studies that have considered “target and bystander” and “member–non‐member” differentiation, this study responds to the need to account for the dynamics in across‐tier effects in loyalty programs (LPs). By undertaking a scenario‐based experiment that focuses on a “face‐to‐face” across‐tier social event, this study examines the joint effects of exclusivity, status visibility and social comparison on LP members’ status perception and willingness to spend. Contrary to prior beliefs that the beneficial effects for targets (e.g., VIP members) in status hierarchies are offset by the negative effects on bystanders (e.g., non‐VIP members), this study concludes that situations when social comparisons occur in SBLPs are not necessarily zero‐sum games. Ultimately, this study uncovered two distinct status‐reinforcing mechanisms–“aspiring” and “boasting”–which LP members may experience in SBLPs. The outcome of this study highlights important implications for companies to pursue different strategies aimed at enhancing members’ status perceptions.     

Illustrating the Power of fsQCA in Explaining Paradoxical Consumer Environmental Orientations

Prior research on proenvironmental and prosocial behavior focuses primarily on explaining consistent rather than paradoxical tendencies. Even though this field receives wide attention from different scientific disciplines, findings for many causal factors of such proenvironmental orientation are contradictory. Nevertheless, knowing who those individuals are who think and behave in a pro‐/antienvironmental way or show a paradoxical behavior in this regard becomes useful for many different parties in human societies including public policy makers, governmental and nongovernmental environmental protection organizations, and for‐profit firms. Therefore, this study identifies those individuals who show neither consistent proenvironmental nor consistent antienvironmental tendencies as the “walkers‐only” and “talkers‐only” (i.e., for short, “walkers” and “talkers”). The former are defined as persons who put much effort into the recycling of waste materials but do not support pollution standards, whereas the latter term describes individuals who have a strong opinion with regard to the support of pollution standards yet do not engage in recycling efforts. The present study reports evidence of the existence of walkers and talkers. Further, this research is the first study to employ “fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis” to identify the complex antecedent conditions for some individuals’ paradoxical belief–behaviors in the field of socially and environmentally directed behaviors and orientations. The findings yield valuable insights both into the applicability and benefits of configural analysis and for public policy makers and managers in waste management and recycling industries.