Will you miss me if I am leaving? Unexpected market withdrawal of Norwegian Joy and customer satisfaction

The first “Made in Germany, Designed for Chinese” luxury cruise, Norwegian Joy, announced an unexpected Chinese-market-withdrawal decision on July 14th, 2018, less than a year after her maiden voyage from Shanghai. How does customer satisfaction change as a response to a cruise's market-withdrawal decision? By resorting to the confirmation of expectation theory, our paper highlights satisfaction as being a function of the baseline effect of expectations plus perceived disconfirmation of expectations. We propose that customer satisfaction will rise because the withdrawal decision implies strategic mistake of the cruise and therefore lowers customer expectation. Drawing on customers' comments on the largest travel agency website in China, we conducted sentiment analysis and used ‘difference in difference’ statistical approach to test our hypothesis. Results show that customer satisfaction increased after Norwegian Joy's withdrawal announcement.     

A fad or the future? Examining the effectiveness of virtual reality advertising in the hotel industry

New virtual reality technology presents hotels with wide-ranging marketing, training, and customer service opportunities. The purpose of this study was to explore both the immediate and delayed effects of hotel VR commercials as compared to traditional video commercials. Based on the perceptual load theory and elaboration likelihood model, this study designed and conducted a 2 × 2 laboratory experiment with two stages of data collection. The study demonstrated that VR commercials produced better immediate effects than the traditional commercials, especially for participants with high elaboration likelihood levels. However, the findings also revealed significant decreases in purchase intention among participants watching VR commercials and a significant improvement in attitudes among participants watching traditional commercials. Both theoretical and practical implications were discussed to leverage the power of VR in marketing.     

Barriers toward purchasing from online travel agencies

Online travel agencies (OTAs) are expanding their services to many segments of the travel and tourism industry. While they are beneficial to travelers, OTAs also face a great deal of consumer resistance. However, prior literature has largely focused on travelers’ adoption intentions toward OTAs, scarcely exploring the causes of such resistance. Addressing the gap, this study extends the innovation resistance theory (IRT) to examine the barriers to positive purchase intentions toward OTAs. A mixed method research design with open-ended essays and cross-sectional survey is used to test the proposed model. Findings suggest that benefits barrier is the chief inhibitor of purchase intentions. In comparison, privacy and security concerns and the vulnerability barrier show positive association with intentions. As a moderator, visibility influences the strength of the association between benefits barrier and purchase intentions. Further, the strength of this association differs among young, middle-aged, and old users.     

旅游的时空穿越结构机制研究

本文首先通过语义内涵解读、现象考察和比较分析构建了穿越认知逻辑分析框架,然后从语义学视角应用发生学方法、心理距离理论,通过逻辑分析构建旅游时空穿越回环结构、旅游穿越过程结构机制模型,并对旅游穿越结构进行过程机制分析。研究结论认为:旅游的时空转换结构是一种穿越结构,旅游穿越表现出完整的时空穿越特征,具有人类穿越式对话的典型性;旅游结构的本质是时空穿越;旅游穿越就是通过物理时空转换建立心理距离,最终达成心灵对话之目标。因此,旅游运行的核心矛盾就是解决由物理空间转换带来的交通需要和由穿越式对话带来的旅游实景营造需要,从而实现心理时空穿越。本文通过对旅游结构本质的追问,将穿越这一日常化语言抽象为学术语言,形成旅游学内生性概念和范畴,为旅游体验活动提供了一种新型的解释话语,并为不同类型穿越结构、穿越感问题的研究拓展了探讨空间。     

Entrepreneurial intention and startup preparation: A study among business students in Malaysia

Intention, as the starting point of pursuing self-employment and creating new ventures, is crucial before actually establishing a business enterprise. Entrepreneurship is understood to be an essential ingredient for enhancing a country's economic competitiveness, growth, and sustainability while confronting the escalating challenges of globalization, such as increasing unemployment. This study provides empirical evidence on the factors influencing entrepreneurial intention and startup preparations among university students in Malaysia. The findings provide scholars and academic policymakers with insights into the effectiveness of Malaysia's entrepreneurial education as designed and practiced by public universities. The Malaysian government should apply these findings to fortify existing policies and programs and formulate new ones to support graduate entrepreneurs, while universities and other higher education institutions should provide high-quality entrepreneurial courses and programs to young Malaysians to foster an inclination toward entrepreneurship.     

Grading Innovation in an International Marketing Course: Promoting Student Collaboration and Individual Accountability

In this article, the author proposes an innovative, exam-based homework grading method to facilitate both collaboration among students and individual accountability while learning a complex theory and applying it to solve a problem. Results from this novel approach to grading a comparative advantage theory homework assignment, using an objective exam performance measure to adjust original homework grades, show that students increase their comprehension of the frequently misunderstood theory. This novel grading method can be applied in a variety of contexts to promote student collaboration in preparation of academic work while providing incentives to encourage individual accountability and engagement.     

Why do buyers share knowledge with suppliers in new product development? current and alternative supplier antecedents

Purpose: Interfirm knowledge sharing has been well recognized to activate the performance and competitiveness improvement of the firms. Previous research has discussed the impacts of current suppliers on buyer–supplier knowledge sharing, but does not explain how this influence occurs. This study aims to disclose the mechanism by which both current and competing suppliers impact buyer–supplier knowledge sharing in buyers’ new product development activities.

Methodology/approach: This study proposed a conceptual model based on relational exchange theory and developed eight hypotheses. Questionnaire survey was used to collect empirical data from R&D staff of Taiwanese electronics firms. This study distributed 1,475 questionnaires and received 246 eligible questionnaires. Structural equation modeling was used to test and verify appropriateness of the proposed model.

Findings: The findings show that current supplier asset specificity positively and directly influences buyer–supplier knowledge sharing in new product development. The current supplier asset specificity also has indirect positive influence on buyer–supplier knowledge sharing in new product development via the mediating effects of buyer trust, satisfaction, and commitment. However, the attractiveness of alternative suppliers only indirectly and negatively affects buyer–supplier knowledge sharing via the mediating effects of buyer trust, satisfaction, and commitment.

Research limitations/implications: This study surveyed the firms in Taiwanese electronics industry. Nevertheless, new product development activities are executed by electronics firms in numerous countries and firms in various industries. For validating the generalization of this study’s results, future research can investigate firms in other industries and countries to verify the proposed model and hypotheses.

Practical implications: Current suppliers’ asset specificity is found to exert more influence on buyer–supplier knowledge sharing than alternative attractiveness. The findings imply that current suppliers should focus on investing specific assets for buyers other than stress the attractiveness and threat of competing suppliers.

Originality/value/contribution: This study initiates to approach the antecedents and influence mechanism of current buyer–supplier knowledge sharing via both perspectives of current and competing suppliers.     

REAL OPTIONS WITH COMPETITION AND REGIME SWITCHING

In this paper, we examine irreversible investment decisions in duopoly games with a variable economic climate. Integrating timing flexibility, competition, and changes in the economic environment in the form of a cash flow process with regime switching, the problem is formulated as a stopping‐time game under Stackelberg leader‐follower competition, in which both players determine their respective optimal market entry time. By extending the variational inequality approach, we solve for the free boundaries and obtain optimal investment strategies for each player. Despite the lack of regularity in the leader's obstacle and the cash flow regime uncertainty, the regime‐dependent optimal policies for both the leader and the follower are obtained. In addition, we perform comprehensive numerical experiments to demonstrate the properties of solutions and to gain insights into the implications of regime switching.     

How does attachment style influence the brand attachment – brand trust and brand loyalty chain in adolescents?

This study contributes to the growing body of literature investigating how and why consumers form connections to brands by applying an attachment theoretical framework. According to the attachment theory, children develop internal working models of the reliability of others in the interaction with the primary caregiver(s). It can be assumed that this attachment style, which is conceptualized along two dimensions (secure–anxious and dependent–independent), not only influences intimate relationships in the long run, but may also play an important role in customer relationships. The author investigates the influence of attachment style along the brand attachment – brand trust and brand loyalty chain. The sample consists of 216 adolescents. The results derived from structural equation modeling (SEM) by proposing a non-recursive model show that the dependent–independent dimension of parental attachment style positively influences the corresponding dimension of brand attachment predisposition and is important for all of the constructs along the brand attachment – brand trust and brand loyalty chain. However, this is not the case with the secure–anxious dimension of parental attachment style. The secure–anxious dimension of brand attachment predisposition does, on the other hand, have a significant impact at least on brand trust. The results are discussed from an attachment theoretical point of view and corroborate the suppositions of Rindfleisch, Burroughs, and Wong (2009 Rindfleisch, Aric, James E. Burroughs, and Nancy Wong. 2009. The safety of objects: Materialism, existential insecurity, and brand connection. Journal of Consumer Research 36 (1): 1–16.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), who grounded their findings on terror management theory. Several possible implications of these results for the theory and practice of brand management and advertising, especially in the light of the gamification of advertising, are discussed.     

The logo matters: the effect of the logo type on the attitude towards co-products

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the effect of the type of logo used to promote co-products. In the case of an added logo, the logos of the constituent brands are lined up next to each other. An integrative logo is composed of the elements of both original brand logos. A novel logo does not contain any elements of the original brand logos. We found that the use of an integrative logo results in more favourable perceptions of brand cooperation, higher perceptions of co-product quality, more positive feelings and a more favourable attitude towards the co-product compared to the use of an added or novel logo. For a novel logo of co-products, consumers reported feelings of irritation and frustration and a less favourable attitude compared to an added logo.