Aikaterini Vassilikopoulou

Internal-market orientation: a misconceived aspect of marketing theory

Purpose – Although many authors argue that practising marketing internally facilitates the implementation of the market orientation concept, systematic empirical research to explore the validity of the argument remains surprisingly scarce. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically the relationship between market orientation (MO) and internal‐market orientation (IMO) as well as their joint effect on customer satisfaction.Design/methodology/approach – The findings ground on data collected from dyads of financial services providers and their customers. The former provided the information pertaining to the companys degree of MO and IMO adoption as well as on perceived employee value, while the latter were asked about perceived customer value, perceived service quality and their satisfaction with their provider. In total 127 dyads are employed in the analysis.Findings – The findings show that MO and IMO are two inter‐related concepts, probably falling under the marketing philosophy umbrel...

Pilgrimages: the “promised land” for travel agents?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the most important characteristics of the religious package tour as perceived by consumers who travel to the Holy Land and to examine the marketing components that play an important role for pilgrims.Design/methodology/approach – In‐depth interviews were conducted with Greek Orthodox travellers who were about to leave for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Content analysis was used in order to analyse the transcribed interviews.Findings – Results show that regarding the product mix, hotel ratings and extra benefits are considered of minor importance by the interviewed travellers. However, the tour guide and the trips schedule and program are the most important factors that influence consumer decisions regarding the purchase of a specific tourism product. In addition, the travel agents reputation for organising religious trips plays a crucial role. Alternatively, price does not seem to influence travellers to sacred places.Practical implications – Travel agen...

Opportunities and threats for competitors in product‐harm crises

Purpose – Product‐harm crises have become an almost familiar phenomenon in todays business environment as technology becomes more vulnerable. Even if a product‐harm crisis is associated with the company that manufactured the defective product, the entire industry may be affected. Not only consumers of the affected company, but also consumers of competitors are affected by the crisis. The paper seeks to deal mainly with the situation of competitors and examines the potential opportunities and threats that may arise when another company in the same industry faces a product‐harm crisis.Design/methodology/approach – For the purposes of this paper, an experiment was conducted that relied on four important influential factors of crisis management (i.e. corporate reputation, crisis scope, external effects, and organisational responses). The crisis was described through a hypothetical scenario. Consumer attitudes towards competitive products were used to determine impending prospects and threats.Findings – The p...

Clustering consumers according to their attitudes on corporate social responsibility

This paper examines the consumer attitudes towards corporate social responsibility. Analysing a sample of 341 consumers, it was found that consumers have overall great expectations and a positive attitude concerning corporate social responsibility. They believe that corporate social responsibility is an important issue in business and are willing to reward socially responsible companies and punish socially irresponsible firms via their buying behaviour. Consumers who had a positive or very positive attitude towards socially responsible companies were segmented in terms of behavioural factors. The study proposes three distinct socially responsible consumer types in terms of attitudes towards corporate social responsibility: These are the Ambitious, Fanatic and Passive socially responsible consumers. A complete profile of each cluster is presented.

Hotels on fire: investigating consumers' responses and perceptions.

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the consumer responses associated with crises in the hotel industry. More precisely, the current research explores the factors that affect consumer attitudes (i.e. impressions, perceived social responsibility, and future purchases) during a hotel crisis.Design/methodology/approach – An experiment was conducted relying on four factors: the hotels reputation, the extent of the crisis, external effects from regulatory agencies, and press and organisational response. Respondents were randomly assigned to 36 treatment groups (three levels of crisis extent×two levels of hotel corporate reputation×two levels of external effects×three levels of hotel response). Scenarios were developed, each describing one of the 36 treatments.Findings – The results revealed that reputation, external effects and organisational response significantly influenced consumers. Specifically, consumers were more likely to have a positive impression of a hotel in crisis, to perceive the hotel as b...

Plaiting pricing into product categories and corporate objectives

Purpose – Using the product classification proposed by the Commodity School as it was originally expressed and later developed, this research aims to focus on defining pricing strategies for specific corporate objectives, that is, profit increase, market share increase, and prevention of new competitors from entering the market.Design/methodology/approach – In order to investigate the relationship between four consumer product categories and alternative pricing strategies in light of various corporate objectives, a set of research questions and propositions was formed and tested on the basis of data reflecting opinions expressed by marketing executives through a mailed survey in Greece.Findings – For convenience and preference products, the low‐price strategy is used more often, irrespective of corporate objectives, whereas the high‐price strategy is used more often, irrespective of corporate objectives, for specialty products. For shopping products, the low‐price strategy is used more often when the main...