Engaged,but with what? Objects of engagement in technology-aided B2B customer interactions

ABSTRACT

Using new technologies in customer interactions is a popular way of trying to increase customer engagement. It is, however, unknown how such efforts by marketers’ affect engagement, and particularly to what that engagement relates to. By analysing interview and observation data, the engagement manifestations of customers of a B2B company using virtual-reality technology were studied. The results show that customer engagement can be targeted at not only brands or firms but also the service the firm offers or the technology that enables the service. It is argued that the different objects of engagement can coexist and support each other but engagement with the firm is less susceptible to fluctuations. Marketers should be aware of what triggers customer engagement and what it is targeted at.     

International trade agreements, environmental policy, and relocation of production

This paper studies the influence of free trade agreements on national environmental policies and location strategies of polluting firms. It is shown that banning export subsidies makes relocation of production more attractive for firms. When export subsidies are banned relocation is profitable because: (1) the rival firm reduces output due to more stringent emission regulation in the host country of the investment and (2) relocation leads to lower emission tax rate in the original home country of the investing firm. When export subsidies are used, the first effect is absent because the host government is able to use the export subsidy to compensate the negative effect of more stringent emission taxation on domestic shareholders.     

Shopping with the resale value in mind: A study on second‐hand luxury consumers

The market for second‐hand luxury products is growing and the variety of available sales channels has increased; consumers can buy second‐hand luxury goods not only from brick‐and‐mortar stores but also from a myriad of both global and local online channels. Arguably, the increase in available sales channels has changed consumers’ purchasing behaviour as the roles between sellers and buyers are alternating as one can act as a buyer one day and a seller the next. However, prior research on luxury consumption has mainly focused on brand‐new luxury goods, largely neglecting the consumption of previously‐used luxury products and has not accounted for the multi‐channel shopping environment. The purpose of this paper is to understand how consumers mentally approach the purchase of second‐hand luxury products and what kinds of decision‐making styles they use. The empirical interview data of 22 consumers was analysed by the means of shopping style dimensions that account for both consumer characteristics and external shopping conditions. The interviewees were members of a Facebook buy and sell ‐group focused on luxury products and had recently bought a second‐hand luxury product. All the existing dimensions were evident in the data but an additional dimension was also identified: resale value consciousness. The new dimension emphasizes an investment‐led and price‐quality conscious shopping style but was also found to relate to impulse buying and brand consciousness. The emergence of the dimension is argued to be due to the increase in viable online sales channels for second‐hand luxury products.     

Forest Conservation – Too Much or Too Little? A Political Economy Model

This paper studies the formation offorest policy when the government isinfluenced by an environmental lobbyand an industrial lobby representing anon-competitive wood processing industry.Government decides on forestconservation by way of restricting timberharvesting. Lobbying is modelledas a common agency game with differencesin the efficiency of lobbying. Acomparison of the political equilibriashows that an exporting forestindustry faces a stricter conservationrequirement than a forest industrywhose production is destined for domesticmarkets. If the industrial lobbyis more efficient than the environmentallobby, conservation is insufficientfrom the social point of view. However,conservation may be insufficienteven if the environmental lobby is moreefficient in lobbying than theindustrial lobby. This is because thelobbying effort of the environmentallobby also benefits consumers thatremain politically passive.     

A Call for Authenticity: Audience Responses to Social Media Influencer Endorsements in Strategic Communication

ABSTRACT

Utilizing social media celebrities as a communication channel has become a strategic practice for many organizations. By using the concepts of celebrity endorsement and authenticity, the effect of celebrity and content characteristics on followers’ attitudes towards the content and, in the case of sponsored content, purchase intentions are scrutinized. Instagram followers (N = 592) of 45 celebrities responded to a survey on nine photos of the celebrities. The results show that both the perceived authenticity and attractiveness of the celebrity are positively related with photo attitudes, but only authenticity has an effect on purchase intentions. Photos of social media influencers, people who have become famous through social media, increase purchase intentions more than photos of general celebrities. Congruence between the photo and the celebrity has the strongest positive effect on photo attitudes and purchase intentions. Sponsored photos are less favorably perceived than non-sponsored photos, but, among sponsored photos, sponsor disclosure has no effect on purchase intentions. The perceived authenticity of both the celebrity and her content is said to explain favorable audience perceptions. The findings imply that organizations should seek authentic matches between their message and the endorsing celebrity and that the content should align with the usual style of the celebrity.     

Environmental Tax Competition in the Presence of Multinational Firms

We study the design of environmental policy in a two country model with an imperfectly competitive polluting industry. We show that when the firms are multinational, non-cooperative policy design leads to too severe emission taxation regardless of the mode of competition. The reason is twofold. First, when firms are multinational, changes in environmental policy do not influence the market shares of the firms. Second, when designing their policies, national governments ignore profits accruing to foreign shareholders of multinational firms.     

Housing Allowance and Rents: Evidence from a Stepwise Subsidy Scheme*

In this paper, we study the effect of housing demand subsidies on rents using discontinuities in the Finnish housing allowance system as a quasi‐experimental setting. The stepwise dependence of housing allowance on the floor area of the dwelling and on the year of construction of the building causes economically and statistically significant discontinuities in the amounts of housing allowances. However, our results show that there are no discontinuities in the rents paid by the recipients of housing allowance at these cut‐offs. Instead, differences in the amounts of housing allowance are translated roughly one‐to‐one into differences in the rent net of housing allowance.     

Differentiation value through services in a manufacturer's delivery chain

The delivery of industrial goods includes various possibilities for service business. Previous research has concentrated on third-party logistics (3PL) providers' perspective on service opportunities. This study takes the manufacturer's perspective in inter-organizational relationships and investigates the potential for differentiation value though services associated with the delivery of industrial goods. Field observation was carried out on three high-volume construction component deliveries, to uncover differentiation value drivers and the emergence of service opportunities in a manufacturer's delivery chain. The results complement earlier 3PL-centered goods delivery research by showing that the manufacturer's unique product and process competences, and activities in the delivery chain drive differentiation value, enable new service opportunities. The findings, thereby, draw attention to manufacturers and their competences as sources of added-value service in the delivery of industrial goods. Manufacturing firms have various options for differentiation and centrality in the inter-organizational network through cooperation with third parties. The results reveal that third parties can be hidden sources of added customer value in the goods delivery chain. The differentiation value for different firms in the industrial goods' delivery chains can emerge when firms begin to develop and offer services to each other, and therefore a proactive and in-depth analysis of their customers' differentiation-oriented value hierarchies is required.     

Voting for Environmental Policy Under Income and Preference Heterogeneity

We examine the design of policies for promoting the consumption of green products under preference and income heterogeneity using organic food as an example. Two instruments are considered: a price subsidy for organic food products and a tax on conventional products. When the income differences and social benefits of organic farming are large, these factors dominate in shaping the policy preferences of the majority. In this case, the environmental policies preferred by the majority tend to be stricter than socially optimal policies. However, when income differences are small, policy preferences are more directly determined by tastes for organic products and the majority may prefer no intervention.