Chuanyi Tang

Socializing to Co-Produce Pathways to Consumers’ Financial Well-Being

Success rates of behavior change counseling programs (e.g., weight loss, smoking cessation, and debt management), where consumers seek to overcome their destructive habits and enhance well-being, are very low. Characterized by extended and complex service encounters, the providers of these programs face the challenge of gaining consumers’ compliance to adhere to the programs’ requirements and turning these consumers into effective co-producers of the service outcomes. This study investigates the process of customer organizational socialization in these programs, how it may promote co-production behaviors, and thus enhance consumers’ well-being as well as satisfaction with the organization. The context of debt management programs is used to test the model. Data were obtained from 364 clients of a major credit counseling organization in the United States. The results reveal the differential effects of three aspects of socialization (role clarity, task mastery, and goal congruence) on three different types of consumer co-production behaviors (compliance, individual initiative, and civic virtue). Overall, compliance has the greatest contribution to well-being, while both compliance and individual initiative enhance satisfaction with the organization. Furthermore, consumers with a higher or lower ongoing dependence on the organization have different routes to well-being, with the high-dependence group relying on individual initiative, and the low-dependence group favoring compliance. This study contributes to the literature of co-production, organizational socialization, and consumers’ well-being by showing how these three streams are connected. Managerial and policy implications focus on the need for these organizations to include efforts to ensure that consumers are effectively socialized into the program.

A bilingual approach for conducting Chinese and English social media sentiment analysis

Propose a bilingual approach for conducting social media sentiment analysis.Test the approach with movie reviews collected from online social network sites.Experiments show that the proposed approach is effective and has high accuracy. Due to the advancement of technology and globalization, it has become much easier for people around the world to express their opinions through social media platforms. Harvesting opinions through sentiment analysis from people with different backgrounds and from different cultures via social media platforms can help modern organizations, including corporations and governments understand customers, make decisions, and develop strategies. However, multiple languages posted on many social media platforms make it difficult to perform a sentiment analysis with acceptable levels of accuracy and consistency. In this paper, we propose a bilingual approach to conducting sentiment analysis on both Chinese and English social media to obtain more objective and consistent opinions. Instead of processing English and Chinese comments separately, our approach treats review comments as a stream of text containing both Chinese and English words. That stream of text is then segmented by our segment model and trimmed by the stop word lists which include both Chinese and English words. The stem words are then processed into feature vectors and then applied with two exchangeable natural language models, SVM and N-Gram. Finally, we perform a case study, applying our proposed approach to analyzing movie reviews obtained from social media. Our experiment shows that our proposed approach has a high level of accuracy and is more effective than the existing learning-based approaches.

A developmental model of financial capability: A framework for promoting a successful transition to adulthood

This study proposes a developmental model of financial capability to understand the process by which young adults acquire the financial knowledge and behaviors needed to manage full-time adult social roles and responsibilities. The model integrates financial knowledge, financial self-beliefs, financial behavior, and well-being into a single financial decision-making process. With two-time longitudinal survey data from college students (N = 1,511; aged 18–23 years at Wave 1 and 21–26 years at Wave 2), the findings provide support for a pattern of co-occurring change: changing knowledge about personal finances associated with changing self-beliefs about finances; changing self-beliefs associated with changing financial behaviors; and changing financial behaviors ultimately associated with changes in financial and overall well-being. We discuss the findings in the context of facilitating a positive transition to adulthood during widespread economic uncertainty.

The Role of Perceived Control in Customer Value Cocreation and Service Recovery Evaluation

Treating customers as passive recipients of service recovery does not account for their naturally elevated desire for control following a service failure. Focusing on value cocreation by customers in service recovery, this study conceptualizes three types of customer perceived control in service recovery: process control, decision control, and information control. Using both a field study and a controlled experiment to test the conceptual model, this study reveals various ways service firms can engage customers in service recovery to enhance their service experience. The results show that customers are motivated to exert influence on and regain control over service recovery because they care not only about the economic gains rendered by control but also about their social self-esteem in their relationship with a service firm. An investigation of the interaction effects among the three types of control reveals either complementary or substitution effects between different pairings of the three types of control on customers’ justice evaluations of service recovery and repurchase intentions. The findings provide managers with new guidance on developing and implementing successful service recovery programs.

A Social-Cognitive Model of Consumer Well-Being: A Longitudinal Exploration of the Role of the Service Organization

This study establishes a social-cognitive model of consumer well-being to explain the psychological mechanism underlying the relationships between service organizations’ marketing strategies and consumer well-being. Using a two-wave longitudinal design, we surveyed 168 clients from a major credit counseling organization. Results show that organizational strategies influence consumers’ domain-specific well-being via social-cognitive variables (including self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and process expectations) and goal-pursuit processes (both goal setting and goal striving). Specifically, organizational strategies, including organizational support and organizational socialization, contribute to consumers’ goal intentions both directly and indirectly via outcome and process expectations at the goal-setting stage. In the goal-striving stage, goal intention leads to goal achievement, a path strengthened by organizational support. Goal achievement contributes to increases in consumers’ domain-specific well-being. Customers who are in the early or late stages of a service program are more likely to fail in achieving their goals than those who are in the middle of the program. This study sheds new light on transformative service research by demonstrating the role of the service organization in enhancing consumer well-being and suggests that service strategies should focus on shaping consumers’ social cognitions and facilitating their pursuit of valued personal goals.

Financial Adaptation Among College Students: Helping Students Cope with Financial Strain

This study examines the impact of the recent financial crisis on co-occurring patterns of change in financial strain and financial coping behaviors of college students (N=748) using two-timed, longitudinal data collected prior to the 2008 financial crisis and again one year later. Using a stress and coping framework, we found that different measures of perceived change in financial strain acted as antecedents of change in types of financial coping behaviors. We discuss the importance of these findings in developing the financial decision-making skills that young adults need in an era of increasing responsibility for their financial future.

A longitudinal exploration of the relations between electronic word-of-mouth indicators and firms profitability

We employ Automatic Text Analysis to extract valuable information contained in text online reviews.We examine the patterns of the bi-directional relations between eWOM indicators and banks profitability over time.Both star ratings and expressed anger in eWOM significantly predict firms future profitability.Star ratings are a consistent predictor of firms future profitability over time and expressed anger explains additional variance of firms future profitablility beyond the star ratings.Both star ratings and verbalized positive feelings reflect firms past financial performance. Prior research on electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has focused on the predictive utility of star ratings. Extending these studies conceptually and methodologically, this paper employed Automatic Text Analysis to investigate the predictive utility of evaluative textual information contained in online reviews. Based on a real-world dataset that matched eWOM with annual financial performance of 68 banks over an eight-year period, this study tested patterns of the bi-directional relations between eWOM indicators and banks profitability over time. Results showed that both star ratings and consumers verbalized emotions in eWOM significantly predicted increases in firms future profitability, which is measured by Return on Assets. Star ratings emerged as a consistent predictor, and their effects lasted for at least two years. Expressed anger predicted lower profitability in the following year and explained additional variance beyond the star ratings. Finally, higher firm profitability was prospectively related to higher star ratings and more verbalized positive feelings in next years eWOM.

Individual and Store Characteristics Associated With Brand Choices in Select Food Category Redemptions Among WIC Participants in Virginia

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) often allows participants to redeem food benefits for various brands at different costs. To aid the program’s food cost containment efforts, it is important to understand the individual and store characteristics associated with brand choices. This study used the WIC Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) data for 239,062 Virginia WIC participants’ brand choices in infant fruits and vegetables (F&Vs) and whole grain bread in May 2014–February 2015, one of the first such data sets available in the U.S. for research purposes. Mixed effects logistic regression models were used to analyze the choice of higher-priced brands over lower-priced brands. Minority participants were significantly more likely to redeem higher-priced brands of infant F&Vs, but more likely to choose lower-priced brands of bread. Participants shopping in urban stores or midsized stores (with 5–9 registers) were less likely to choose higher-priced brands compared to rural stores or large stores (with 9+ registers). Race/ethnicity and store characteristics may be significant factors in participants’ brand choices. The results can help develop interventions that encourage targeted participants to redeem lower-priced but equivalently healthy brands. This may not only help contain WIC program costs, but help participants manage their own non-WIC food expenses as well.