Multi-dimensional role of trust in Internet banking adoption

Trust has been identified as the key to e-commerce because it is crucial wherever uncertainty and interdependence exist. The strong association between a high level of trust and the banking sector has not yet been fully translated in the electronic world. The aim of this article is to develop and validate a multi-dimensional model of trust for Internet banking. The data are collected through 441 Internet banking users of Halifax Bank of Scotland. Findings suggest that trust and perceived risk are direct antecedents of intention, and trust is a multi-dimensional construct with three antecedents: perceived trustworthiness, perceived security, and perceived privacy.     

Sports Marketing

Although text messaging as a communication tool in society is rampant, research on its effects within print advertisements is lacking. To help fill this void, we employ three between-subject experiments (i.e., Study 1: text message vs. no text message; Studies 2 and 3: text message vs. traditional language). We posit that using text message copy in print ads is a unique (as grounded in distinctiveness theory) and fitting (as grounded in communication trust theory) approach to commune with targeted viewers and, therefore, should lead to favorable advertising outcomes. The experimental results confirm this notion. For example, responses concerning ad novelty, attention toward the ad, attitude toward the ad, purchase intention, and perceived brand trust are more favorable toward the text message condition ads. Implications and directions for future text message-related research are discussed.     

Ethnic Identity in Advertising: A Review and Meta-Analysis

The corpus of research on ethnic identity in advertising indicates that (1) ethnic identity influences commonly examined attitudinal and purchase-intention outcomes, and (2) attitudes toward both the actor(s)/model(s) and the ad moderate attitudes toward brands depicted in ethnically resonant ads. Individual studies often differ by measurement type (i.e., single-item measure versus multi-item scale), study design (i.e., experiment versus survey), and diversity of respondent sample. Seemingly, ethnic-identity effects are greater for studies that relied on single-item measures, experimental designs, and more diverse samples. Implications and future research directions are suggested.     

Effect of Message Interactivity on Product Attitudes and Purchase Intentions

ABSTRACT

Social media increasingly allows consumers to interact with businesses, although the effects of this novel technology in the context of public relations are under-examined. Consistent with the ideas proposed by the Elaboration Likelihood Model, the present study conducted a 2 × 3 online experiment with a sample of 131 participants to examine the effect of message interactivity and source authority on consumers' ad attitudes, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions. Message interactivity had a positive effect on ad effectiveness via the indirect pathway of perceived informativeness. These findings relate to the ELM in that they suggest that users processed information more centrally than peripherally, or that interactivity had a larger effect on consumer attitudes than authority. Theoretical and practical implications of study results are discussed.     

Measuring the Perceived Quality of Professional Business Services

Professional firms serving business clients are recognizing the need for improved quality services. Unfortunately, measures of professional service quality have proven difficult to develop. This paper reports on the use of SERVQUAL, an instrument commonly used to assess consumer perceptions of service quality. This instrument was employed with a sample of business owners who were asked to rate the quality of service received from their accounting firm. Although several dimensions of the scale proved useful, additional quality related factors emerged from the analysis.     

An Investigation of Trust,Satisfaction, and Commitment on Repurchase Intentions in Professional Services

Abstract

The predictive ability of trust, satisfaction, and commitment regarding a customer's intent to retain professional service providers is explored. Trust, in business relationships, is typically perceived as a consequent of satisfaction and experience. However, professional service customers may be unable to commence relationships without trusting their providers; thus, the stance that trust leads to commitment may not hold. Given the difficulty that professional service customers have regarding their ability to assess their providers' trustworthiness, customers may take trust for granted once the relationship begins. Regression analyses suggest that professional service customers utilize satisfaction and commitment, rather than trust, to determine repurchase intentions.     

The Mediating Role of Anticipated Guilt in Consumers’ Ethical Decision-Making

In this paper, we theorize that the anticipation of guilt plays an important role in ethically questionable consumer situations. We propose an ethical decision-making framework incorporating anticipated guilt as partial mediator between consumers’ ethical beliefs (anteceded by ethical ideology) and intentions. In the first study, we compared several models using structural equation modeling and found empirical support for our research model. A second experiment was set up to illustrate how these new insights may be applied to prevent consumers from taking advantage of the seller. Results showed that enhancing the anticipation of guilt (by making the interpersonal consequences of the unethical act more salient) increased consumers’ ethical intentions, controlling for ethical beliefs. Together these two studies might have important theoretical and managerial contributions.Sarah Steenhaut is research assistant and doctoral candidate at Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Research Center for Consumer Psychology and Marketing (Belgium). Her research interests lie in the area of ethical aspects and marketing, more specifically, consumers’ ethical beliefs, attitudes and behavior. She has recently published in Journal of Business Ethics.Patrick Van Kenhove is Professor of Marketing at Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Department of Marketing (Belgium). He has recently published in Journal of Business Ethics, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Advances in Consumer Research, Journal of Economic Psychology, Journal of Health Communication and The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research.     

The Influence of Confucian Ethics and Collectivism on Whistleblowing Intentions: A Study of South Korean Public Employees

The current study presents the findings of an empirical inquiry into the effects of Confucian ethics and collectivism, on individual whistleblowing intentions. Confucian Ethics and Individualism–Collectivism were measured in a questionnaire completed by 343 public officials in South Korea. This study found that Confucian ethics had significant but mixed effects on whistleblowing intentions. The affection between father and son had a negative effect on internal and external whistleblowing intentions, while the distinction between the roles of husband and wife had a positive effect on those intentions. The effects of collectivism were also different depending on the specific types of collectivism. Horizontal collectivism had a positive effect on both types of whistleblowing intentions, whereas vertical collectivism did not show any significant effects on whistleblowing intentions. These results indicate that cultural traits such as Confucian ethics and collectivism may affect an individual’s whistleblowing intentions in degree and direction, making blanket predictions about cultural effects on whistleblowing difficult.     

Customers acting badly: Evidence from the hospitality industry

The activities of misbehaving customers represent a significant problem for organizations across diverse sectors and industries. Customer misbehavior signifies behavior within the exchange setting that deliberately violates the generally accepted norms of conduct in such situations. The core aim of this study is to advance understanding of the antecedents to past customer misbehavior and examine the relationship between past misbehavior and future misbehavior intentions. Although prior studies offer insights into individual events or types of customer misbehavior, to date, empirical evidence of the antecedents to past misbehaviors and future behavioral intentions is lacking. Synthesizing literature from varied theoretical backgrounds, this study puts forth five personality-based variables (consumer alienation, Machiavellianism, sensation seeking, aggressiveness, and self-esteem) and four demographic variables (gender, income, age, and education) as antecedents to past customer misbehavior. In turn, this study reveals an association between past customer misbehavior and future misbehavior intent. Structural equation modeling procedures using a sample of 380 respondents reveals support for eight of the nine specified hypotheses. The article concludes with a discussion of the study's implications for theory and practice.     

Interaction between feasibility and desirability in the formation of entrepreneurial intentions

The literature argues that entrepreneurial intentions depend on perceptions of desirability and perceptions of feasibility. Research in other fields suggests that there will be an interaction effect between these two main antecedents of intentions, but such interaction has not been investigated in the context of entrepreneurial intentions. In this paper we explore this interaction effect in an expectancy framework, hypothesizing a negative interaction effect between perceived desirability and perceived feasibility based on regulatory focus theory. A large multi-country sample confirms this negative interaction, and suggests a novel typology of nascent entrepreneurs as natural entrepreneurs, accidental entrepreneurs, and inevitable entrepreneurs.