Analyzing Customers' Switching Intentions in the Telecom Sector

ABSTRACT

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) has not only affected customers' behavioral patterns, but also increased competition among telecom operators. Against this backdrop, the study examines the relationship between customers' switching intentions and attitude towards MNP, customer loyalty, and switching barriers. It also investigates the impact of these intentions on actual switching or staying behavior of customers. Data were collected from a sample of 260 telecom customers comprising university students. Findings reveal that customers' switching intentions would largely depend upon switching barriers perceived by them. Switching intentions predict both actual staying and switching behavior. Our understanding of switching barriers is limited to those involved in switching from a current service provider to a new service provider. Future research can examine the barriers associated with returning to the original provider and the effect on the decision to leave in the first place, especially in the case of contractual agreements such as BSNL. The present study will help practitioners and telecom service providers in understanding the factors affecting customers' switching intentions to prevent switching.     

Too Popular to Ignore: The Influence of Online Reviews on Purchase Intentions of Search and Experience Products

Consumers assess the credibility of online product reviews to guide their purchase decisions. However, little is known about how consumers determine the credibility of online product reviews. This article examines the effect of the level of detail in a product review and the level of reviewer agreement with it on the credibility of a review and consumers' purchase intentions for search and experience products. Overall, the results indicate that more credible reviews lead to higher purchase intentions. Interestingly, the findings also demonstrate that consumers determine the credibility of a review differently for search and experience products. For search products, consumers deem online reviews to be more credible when the reviews contain detailed information about the product. However, for experience products, consumers determine the credibility of a review by assessing the level of reviewer agreement with a review. The lack of diagnosticity of detailed information in online reviews of experience products is attributed to the idiosyncratic nature of experiences. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

The Impact of Normative Influence and Locus of Control on Ethical Judgments and Intentions: a Cross-Cultural Comparison

The study extends the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in a cross-cultural setting, incorporating ethical judgments and locus of control in a comparison of Taiwanese and US businesspersons. A self-administered survey of 698 businesspersons from the US and Taiwan examined several hypothesized differences. Results indicate that while Taiwanese respondents have a more favorable attitude toward a requested bribe than US counterparts, and are less likely to view it as an ethical issue, their higher locus externality causes ethical judgments and behavioral intentions to conform to normative influences of in groups and superiors. In the Taiwanese sample, locus externality effectively functions as a countervailing pressure against the unethical behavior in the scenario. No such effect is found in the US sample. A path model fitted to the data shows that locus internals exhibit more consistency among attitudes, judgments, and behavioral intentions than locus externals. Implications for managers and researchers are discussed, and suggestions and precautions for development of efficacy-enhancement programs are offered.     

Shopping Motivation: Investigating the Shopping Process and Outcomes of the Retail Experience at a Craft Fair

The research addresses the question of when people succeed or fail to achieve shopping goals that bring them to a retail outlet, in this case a craft fair, and the consequences of this for customer satisfaction. A quantitative study, carried out with 398 craft fair shoppers, revealed that dimensions of in-store behaviour had various but significant influences on the relationships between prior intentions to pursue certain types of shopping goals and attainment of those goals. Further, the attainment of important shopping goals had a significant effect on consumers' evaluations of the shopping experience and the craft fairs as well as their future behavioural intentions. The main implication of the research is that attempts should be made to facilitate the shopping process and account for consumers with multiple goals.     

Gender,Risk, and Venture Creation Intentions

This paper is concerned with whether women are less likely to express business start‐up intentions because of a less favorable attitude to risk. Previous research suggests that attitude to risk differs significantly between genders, but has not addressed the question of whether this contributes to lower levels of female interest in venture creation. This paper describes a conceptual basis for this question, and investigates it using a survey of business start‐up intention from across a sample of European universities. A large proportion of the difference in average levels of intention between genders appears to be associated with attitude to risk.     

Gender Differences in Information Search and Comparison Shopping

Abstract

In entering the market of Central and Eastern Europe, it is important for marketers to understand how certain aspects of consumer behavior differs across consumer segments so that they can appropriately segment, target and position their products. A study was conducted to evaluate differences between males and females across the countries of Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania in terms of their information search and comparison-shopping behavior. The study also advanced a conceptual model that explains the effect of nationality and gender differences on information search and comparison shopping.     

About Gender Differences and the Social Environment in the Development of Entrepreneurial Intentions

This study analyzes the interplay between gender differences and the social environment in the formation of entrepreneurial intentions. Data were obtained from two different European regions. The results show that the formation of entrepreneurial intentions is similar for men and women. At the same time, men consistently exhibit more favorable intentions than women do. Nevertheless, the perception of the social legitimation of entrepreneurship only serves to reinforce male entrepreneurial intentions, and not those of women. This holds for both regions and probably is a consequence of women feeling entrepreneurship to not be an acceptable career option for them. The implications of these results are discussed.     

Drivers of E-store Patronage Intentions: Choice Overload,Internet Shopping Anxiety,and Impulse Purchase Tendency

The dotcom era has infused a rapid increase in the usage of e-commerce in India, making online shopping the new way of retailing. This study investigates online consumers’ e-store patronage intentions, specifically modeling the ties from broad dispositional traits including choice overload, Internet shopping anxiety, and impulse purchase tendency among online shoppers. Based on the responses of 243 online shoppers, the findings suggest that consumers’ e-store patronage has a positive relationship with choice overload such that availability of larger assortments online results in a higher possibility of consumers’ patronage toward such e-tailers. Choice overload in the online context was also found to positively influence consumers’ impulse purchase tendency and showed a positive effect on Internet shopping anxiety. Furthermore, results indicate that the impulse purchase tendency of online shoppers had a significant positive effect on e-store patronage intentions, while Internet shopping anxiety was found to negatively affect the patronage intentions of shoppers.     

Memory-Based Store Price Judgments: The Role of Knowledge and Shopping Experience

This paper investigates the processes underlying consumers’ memory-based store price judgments. The numerosity heuristic implies that the greater the number of relatively lower priced products at a store that consumers can recall, the lower will be their overall price image of the store. That is, people use the number of recalled low-price products to judge the overall store price image. We show that this expectation holds only for knowledgeable consumers. Instead, less knowledgeable consumers use the ease with which low-price products are recalled (i.e., the availability heuristic) as a cue to make store price judgments. Therefore, the fewer low-price products they recall, the easier their recall task, and the lower their price perceptions of the store.Field studies using different manipulations tested and confirmed these predictions. Managerial implications for retailers are offered. Theoretical implications for behavioral price perceptions, memory-based judgments, and the use of heuristic cues are also discussed.     

The Impact of Price Disclosure on Dynamic Shopping Decisions

A potentially powerful way to assist consumers in making dynamic shopping decisions is to disclose price information to them before they shop, for example by posting prices on the Internet. This paper addresses the differential impact of disclosing either only current, or both current and future prices, on consumer shopping decisions in multi-period tasks involving multiple product purchases. In the context of an Internet-based experiment, we find that consumer expenditure deviates more strongly from that of a normative model when both current and future prices are disclosed than if only current prices are disclosed. We investigate the behavioral effects underlying this finding by estimating a model that allows for variations in consumer discounting, strength of store price format preferences, as well as choice consistency between different price disclosure conditions.     

An Examination of the Association Between Gender and Reporting Intentions for Fraudulent Financial Reporting

We report the results of a study that examines the association between gender and individuals’ intentions to report fraudulent financial reporting using non-anonymous and anonymous reporting channels. In our experimental study, we examine whether reporting intentions in response to discovering a fraudulent financial reporting act are associated with the participants’ gender, the perpetrator’s gender, and/or the interaction between the participants’ and perpetrator’s gender. We find that female participants’ reporting intentions for an anonymous channel are higher than for male participants; the fraud perpetrator’s gender and the interaction with participants’ gender were not significantly associated with anonymous channel reporting intentions. Neither of the two factors nor the interaction between the two factors was associated with reporting intentions to a non- anonymous reporting channel. Results from an additional analysis indicate that male and female participants differ in the extent to which they judge the reduction in personal costs of an anonymous reporting channel compared to a non-anonymous reporting channel and that the reduction in personal costs mediates the relationship between participant gender and anonymous reporting intentions.     

Salesperson Perceptions of Ethical Behaviors: Their Influence on Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intentions

In the academic world, research has indicated that “good ethics is good business.” Such research seems to indicate that firms, which emphasize ethical values and social responsibilities, tend to be more profitable than others. Generally, the profitability is credited to the firm’s positive relationships with its customers, reduced costs of attempting to rebuild a tarnished image, ease of attracting capital, etc. The research conducted in this study evaluated salespeople’s perceptions of the ethics of businesses in general, their employer’s ethics, their attitudes as consumers, and the relationships existing between these perceptions and the sale force’s job satisfaction and turnover intentions. The results show a positive relationship existing between salesperson perceptions of business ethics, his/her employer’s ethics, consumer attitudes, and the salesperson’s job satisfaction and reduced turnover intentions. Charles E. Pettijohn (D.B.A., Louisiana Tech University) is a professor of marketing in the College of Business Administration at Missouri State University. He is also co-editor of the Marketing Management Journal. His research has appeared in the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, the Journal of Businesss Ethics, Marketing Management Journal, Psychology and Marketing, and the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice. At Missouri State University, his primary teaching focus is in the areas of Personal Selling and Sales Management. Linda S. Pettijohn (D.B.A., Louisiana Tech University) is a Professor of marketing in the College of Business Administration at Missouri State University. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Marketing Management Journal, Psychology and Marketing, and the Journal of Financial Serivices Marketing. At Missouri State University, her primary teaching focus is in the area of Retailing. Albert J. Taylor (D.B.A., Louisiana Tech University) is an associate professor of marketing in the College of Business Administration at Coastal Carolina University. His research has appeared in the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Human Resource Development Quartely, the International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration, Psychology and Marketing, and the Journal of Applied Business Research. At Missouri State University, his primary teaching focus is in the areas of Marketing Research and Personal Selling.     

A Shopping List Experiment of the Impact of Advertising on Brand Images

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of advertising on brand images. One hundred and twenty female cat owners were divided into three equal treatment groups. Each group was given a specified shopping list and asked to describe the personality of the female shopper. Two leading national brands of canned cat food served as the test items. The brands were at relative competitive parity, except in terms of advertising-achieved image association. Analysis of the data suggest that image distinctions are influenced by image-oriented advertising. The results support the view that a major function of advertising is in the area of the consumer's perception of particular brands.     

The Impact of Brand Delisting on Store Switching and Brand Switching Intentions

A tool retailers often use to improve their negotiating position with brand manufacturers is to delist - or threaten to delist - the manufacturers’ brand. Because brand manufacturers rely mainly on retailers to sell their products to consumers, a brand delisting will cause a sales loss for the brand manufacturer. Therefore, many brand manufacturers feel enormous pressure to give in and improve buying conditions to favor the retailer. The question thus emerges: Can a brand manufacturer resist a retailer's threat to delist its brand(s)? If a brand delisting severely hurts retail sales, it is easier for a brand manufacturer to resist. The authors study the impact of brand delistings on store switching and brand switching using a controlled online experiment and in-store shopper survey. They develop and test a conceptual model with several antecedents of consumers’ reactions to a brand delisting and conclude that brand equity, market share, and the products’ hedonic level drive store and brand switching.     

B2C网络购物临场感与跨渠道搭便车意愿的影响

在网络购物的环境中,临场感通过网络不信任影响着消费者跨渠道搭便车的意愿,模型研究表明空间临场感与认知不信任、情感不信任、跨渠道搭便车之间呈不相关关系,社会临场感与认知不信任、情感不信任、跨渠道搭便车之间呈负相关关系,认知不信任与跨渠道搭便车之间呈负相关关系,情感不信任与跨渠道搭便车之间呈正相关关系。购物网站应增强网站的个性化和生动性,加大网站与消费者之间的人机互动,营造有益的临场感,减少跨渠道搭便车的可能性。     

电子商务环境对消费者传统购物行为的影响

网上购物的出现对传统购物产生了各种各样的影响,本文通过对大学生网上购物行为的问卷调查,采用统计分析的方法,研究了电子商业条件下网上购物对传统购物的影响因素。研究发现网上购物的时间效率、商品信息与商品价格、商品种类、物流配送和支付情况,对消费者购物行为产生了较大影响。     

网络购物环境下参考价格对购买意愿影响的研究

基于前景理论、适应-水平理论和同化-对比理论,构建了网络购物环境下参考价格、感知收益、感知风险以及购买意愿的概念模型,并利用451个样本的数据进行了实证检验.研究结果表明:内部记忆价格、外部刺激价格对感知收益、购买意愿具有正向影响作用,对感知风险具有负向影响作用,感知收益对购买意愿具有正向影响作用,感知风险对购买意愿具有负向影响作用,外部刺激价格对购买意愿的影响程度大于内部记忆价格对购买意愿的影响程度.     

Identity,Ethnicity and Gender: Using Narratives to Understand their Meaning in Retail Shopping Encounters

This paper examines the ways in which two women (Sweetie and Desiree) experience a dissatisfying retail encounter. Citing data derived from memory-work methodology, we illustrate how stories can be used to gain a detailed insight into the complexity of consumption experiences and give voice to women consumers. By allowing women to write about, and critically reflect on their experiences, we show how consumers attach meaning to retail encounters and how we, as researchers can offer alternative interpretations of consumer behavior to those commonly reported in the literature. In this paper we use memories of "nasty" retail encounters to illustrate how social constructs related to identity, such as ethnicity and gender, have meaning in shopping experiences. Because of the new understandings possible via this method, we argue for using reflexivity in our research and analyses informed by feminism.