Trying to complain: the impact of self‐referencing on complaining intentions

This paper introduces the Theory of Trying to complaining behaviour, and argues that complaining intentions can be explained by the model. Moreover, we model propensity to self‐reference (SR) as a moderating variable, and suggest that the effects of the causes to complaining intentions depend on the SR‐level held by consumers. A sample of undergraduate business students participated in the study, where the goal was to get a better understanding of complaining intentions. Our study provides new and additional insights in the drivers of complaining by also taking dispositional personality differences into consideration. The results demonstrate that boundary conditions for main‐effect models like the theory of trying can be fruitfully addressed through the notion of individual differences. The research documented that customers' propensity to complain systematically differed as a function of their level of self‐referencing. This is both good and bad news to managers. The good news is that a proportion of the customers rely less on their previous experiences in the complaining domain when they form intentions to complain. The bad news is that some others do. The obstacle is that managers cannot tell by the look if they are talking to an individual with high or low propensity to self‐reference. As the customer base contains both types case could be taken in designing marketing communication campaigns that target the groups differently.     

Internet service provision and content services: paid peering and competition between internet providers

We consider the relationship of Internet service providers (ISP) and content service providers (CP) in the Internet ecosystem. Currently, the position of ISPs is challenged by the emergence of powerful content service providers, especially with the spreading of bandwidth-demanding video services. The further investment in the network capacity may be hindered by prevailing business models that largely exclude the ISPs from sharing in the major cash flows resulting from content provision. We develop modeling tools for evaluation of business models of ISPs and present results of an analysis of two models with the potential for the generation of additional cash flows for ISP: paid content peering and service differentiation. Firstly, we show that under certain conditions on the cost structure and the level of demand elasticity and uncertainty, it can be profitable for a powerful content provider to resort to paid content peering, thus transferring to the ISP a part of his content provision revenue. The resulting business model may provide substantial benefits to all major participants in this ecosystem: network providers, content and service providers and end users. After this we consider competition in the Internet provision sector and show that - also in this case - the paid content peering can help ISPs to expand the network capacity and at the same time increase profits of content providers. The end users benefit from the lower prices for content services. Finally, we consider the situation when an ISP differentiates the service offer by engaging in content provision, thus entering in direct competition with content providers.     

Too much of a good thing? Consumer response to strategic changes in brand image

The current research investigates a potential disadvantage of building brand associations that resonate with consumers' identities and facilitate consumer–brand bonding. The authors propose a theory of consumer response to changes that either dampen or augment the associations central to brand image (e.g., due to brand acquisitions or repositioning). The results show that consumers with a high degree of self–brand connection respond more negatively than others do to changes that dampen brand associations. Counterintuitively, changes augmenting brand associations can also lead to unfavorable consumer sentiments in certain instances. When brand connection was linked to an ideal self-identity (i.e., self-enhancement motives), changes that augmented the brand image increased the brand's ability to signal an ideal identity. Conversely, when brand connection was linked to the actual self-identity (i.e., self-verification motives), augmenting brand image reduced the perceived similarity between the self and the brand, thus causing brand identification to deteriorate.     

Same Service,Different Ad Claims: The Moderating Role of Need for Cognition

Advertisers can choose among different ad claims when framing commercial messages about a new service offer. Two alternative ad claims are functional ad claims, focusing on product or service attributes and benefits, and experiential ad claims, focusing on future experiences with the product or service. This article proposes that different ad claims evoke different memory structures (semantic vs. episodic), and that different memory structures require different types of cognitive processing (system 1 vs. system 2). In two experiments using need for cognition as a dispositional trait of level of cognitive processing, this article shows that a new service entrant with experiential ad claims will be less favorably evaluated when consumers engage in more effortful, or system 2, processing, than when consumers engage in less effortful processing (system 1). For functional claims, however, the evaluation of the new service does not differ between the two types of cognitive processing (system 1 vs. system 2).     

Generative mechanisms for innovation in information infrastructures

This paper investigates innovation in information infrastructures. The research question is, how can an information infrastructure provide generative mechanisms for innovation of ICT-based services? Building on a critical realist approach, the empirical evidence was a case study within an international airline, aiming to diversify its services. From the analysis it is proposed that there are two self-reinforcing mechanisms in information infrastructures. The first is the innovation mechanism, resulting in a new service. The second is the service mechanism, resulting in more users and profits. The two mechanisms feed on each other.     

Customer perceived value in B-t-B service relationships: Investigating the importance of corporate reputation

The importance of customer perceived value (CPV) has been advocated in numerous publications over the recent years. The research presented in this article aims at 1) understanding drivers of customers' perception of economic value, especially when the service provided has high a degree of intangibility, and 2) assessing the consequences of value perceptions. The authors present a theoretical model of antecedents and consequences of CPV in a B2B service industry setting. Corporate reputation, information sharing, distributive fairness and flexibility are modeled as drivers of CPV whereas word-of-mouth (WOM) and search for alternatives (loyalty measures) represent the effects of CPV. A test of the hypothesized model using structural equation modeling showed that corporate reputation had substantially stronger effect on CPV than the other drivers measured. This indicates that when the intrinsic nature of service performance is hard to evaluate, corporate reputation works as substantial shorthand for value. Finally, customers' perceptions of economic value increase their likelihood of recommending the supplier and reduce their tendency to seek information about alternatives.