Cristian Morosan

The evolution of marketing research

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to provide a domain statement for hospitality marketing research. The objectives of the study are to analyze the evolution of hospitality marketing research over the past 25 years, determine how the research paradigms changed over time in hospitality marketing relative to mainstream marketing and provide scholars with suggestions for developing and managing a marketing research agenda. The findings of this study help not only scholars involved in marketing research but also hospitality scholars across all disciplines. Design/methodology/approach – A content analysis of > 1,700 marketing articles is provided, with articles published in three leading hospitality journals and one mainstream marketing journal over a 25-year period. Additionally, the authors consulted leading hospitality scholars to solicit their views and suggestions on hospitality marketing research. Findings – The results show the evolution of hospitality marketing over a 25-year period. This provides ...

An empirical examination of guests' adoption of interactive mobile technologies in hotels: revisiting cognitive absorption, playfulness, and security.

Purpose – Interactive mobile technologies (IMT) offered to hotel guests during their stay represent an interesting development in consumer technologies in the hotel industry. Such technologies are designed to facilitate transactions and enhance the quality of guest experience. This research explains how hotel guests develop attitudes and intentions to use IMT in hotels. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Using data from students enrolled in a large hospitality program located in the Southwestern USA, the study validates a variant of the technology acceptance model, extended with constructs such as cognitive absorption and security that capture better the context of IMT in hotels. Findings – The conceptual model explained a large part of variability in intentions to use IMT. Among several predictors, cognitive absorption was the stronger predictor of attitudes. The analysis also revealed the dimensions of cognitive absorption as a second-order factor in the context of mob...

Modeling guests’ intentions to use mobile apps in hotels: The roles of personalization, privacy, and involvement

Purpose The unprecedented development of hotel-branded mobile applications (apps) has been instrumental in facilitating the rich guest–hotel interactions, thus contributing to a high personalization of services. For true personalization, guests need to provide personal information via apps. Yet, no study to date has addressed how guests develop intentions to use such apps given the current personalization and privacy challenges. Therefore, this study aims to investigate hotel guests’ intentions to use hotel apps to access personalized services. Design/methodology/approach Drawing from personalization-privacy theory, this study conceptualized perceived personalization and privacy concerns as distinct constructs while recognizing two different privacy concerns constructs: general and app-specific privacy concerns. To build a comprehensive structural model that is appropriate for explicating intentions to use hotel apps, this study incorporates consumer psychology and information systems theoretical streams that provide constructs that unequivocally capture the unique set of consumer–app interactions in highly experiential settings such as hotels (e.g. innovativeness and involvement). Using a nation-wide sample of hotel guests from the USA, the model was validated using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations modeling. Findings The predictors explained 79 per cent of the variability in the intentions to use hotel apps to personalize hotel services. The strongest predictor of intentions was involvement, followed by app-related privacy concerns and perceived personalization. Research limitations/implications First, this study’s extended theoretical framework was well supported, as it captures relevant elements of the mobile commerce ecosystem (e.g. personalization and privacy), thus extending the classic paradigmatic approach to information systems adoption beyond system beliefs. Second, this study clarifies the distinct roles of personalization and privacy in the context of hotel apps, which has not been examined in the context of m-commerce in hospitality. Third, the study clarifies the role of involvement as the most critical factor that can influence guests’ intentions to use hotel apps when personalization options and privacy concerns exist. Practical implications This study offers hotel decision-makers a mapping of the factors, leading to use of hotel apps for purchasing personalized hotel services. Originality/value This study provides a first theoretical perspective on the hotel app utilization behaviors that have not been studied so far, but carry a strong strategic and financial significance for the hotel industry (direct distribution, brand consolidation and extensive contact with guests).

An Empirical Analysis of Intentions to Cocreate Value in Hotels Using Mobile Devices

Value cocreation represents a critical element of the service-dominant logic paradigm, which is currently becoming increasingly important in hospitality. A number of recent studies are pointing to the criticality of examining the value cocreation mechanisms in hotels. While value can be cocreated using a variety of methods, mobile commerce offers unique opportunities to lay the foundation of value cocreation in hotels, which can bring substantial benefits for all stakeholders of this process. To understand the how hotel guests develop intentions to cocreate value in hotels using their mobile devices, a conceptual model was developed and validated empirically based on data from U.S. hotel guests. Guests’ perceptions of personalization, trust in the hotel, and their personal innovativeness were found to influence their degree of involvement with mobile devices in hotels, which are instrumental in the development of intentions to engage in specific cocreation behaviors.

The Influence of DMO Advertising on Specific Destination Visitation Behaviors

Using data provided by travelers to a small college town from Midwestern U.S., this research examines the influence of destination-branded, print, and online advertising media on travelers’ visitation of advertised attractions, restaurants, shops, and outdoor activities. The strongest predictors of specific visitation behaviors are DMO-branded media (guidebooks and websites) and print media. This research has three notable contributions: (1) provides a solid theoretical base for understanding what happens beyond the main visitation decision, (2) provides insight into cross-media advertising in tourism, and (3) links pre-visit advertising to actual visitation behavior, instead of intentions to perform a behavior.

Understanding the actual use of mobile devices in private clubs in the US

Purpose – This paper aims to identify systematic ways of linking club members’ behavioral and demographic characteristics to their use of mobile devices in clubs. While the traditional private club experience is characterized by intensive personalization and face-to-face interactions, clubs are increasingly deploying information technology (IT) tools to optimize some of their internal processes and offer a better value proposition to their members. Design/methodology/approach – Based on data from 737 actual club members from the USA, this research used a series of logistic regressions to reveal the manner in which a series of behavioral and demographic variables can be used to predict the likelihood of use of mobile devices in clubs for specific club-related tasks. Findings – This research revealed that there are differences between the two main types of clubs (i.e. golf/country and city/athletic), as well as differences among club members residing in different regions of the USA in the manner in which me...

An investigation of the persuasive effects of firm-consumer communication dyads using Facebook.

Purpose – This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of the effective use of Facebook within the hotel industry. It explored which current Facebook practices are effective/persuasive using the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) as the main theoretical foundation. Design/methodology/approach – Using an experimental design, the effects of consumers’ exposure to treatments, involving different levels of elaboration and source credibility, were examined to determine whether consumer’s process information from Facebook communication through a central or peripheral route. Findings – The results of this research showed that consumer attitudes are affected by the source credibility, but not by the level of elaboration. Also, intentions to stay at the hotel and intentions to engage with the hotel brand via social media were not affected by the level of elaboration or source credibility. Research limitations/implications – This study presents an important step forward in understanding how consumer persuasion...

Effects of Psychological Ownership on Students' Commitment and Satisfaction

This study applies psychological ownership theory (J. L. Pierce, T. Kostova, & K. Dirks, 2003) in an attempt to explain the complexity of factors influencing students’ satisfaction and commitments toward their programs. The proposed framework evaluates psychological ownership through the following antecedents: perceived control, sense of belonging, student involvement, and identification. The sample includes students from 4 hospitality programs in the United States and Canada. The relationships between psychological ownership and satisfaction and commitment are tested with structural equation modeling. The results provide new knowledge about affective and psychological factors that contribute to students’ satisfaction and commitment.

Investigating American iPhone Users’ Intentions to Use NFC Mobile Payments in Hotels

Recently, a series of events (e.g., Near Field Communication (NFC) hardware becoming mainstream, the deadline given to merchants to accept EMV (chip-based) cards) precipitated the development of an infrastructure that increasingly accommodates NFC mobile payments (NFC-MP) in the U.S. Within the landscape of the American NFC-MP, an important role is occupied by the Apple NFC-MP ecosystem. Drawing from the neo-classic technology adoption and regulatory focus theory, this study developed a conceptual model that explicates iPhone users’ intentions to use NFC-MP in hotels. Using data collected from a sample of 347 U.S. iPhone users, the model was validated empirically, providing a mapping of the factors that influence intentions to use NFC-MP in hotels. The study validated hedonic motivation and performance expectancy as the most critical predictors of intentions, and recognized the more modest roles of privacy concerns and prevention focus in influencing intentions.

Moderating the impact of e-commerce expenses on financial performance in US upper upscale hotels: The role of property size

The heavily fragmented hotel industry, embracing the changes in their guests’ use of electronic devices, has spent considerable resources to incorporate electronic commerce (e-commerce) practices. The extant literature offers inconclusive findings with regard to the effect of e-commerce on firm performance, especially when firm size is considered. Given the high fragmentation of size in the hotel industry, understanding its role in the deployment of e-commerce could result in substantial benefits for both hotel firms and consumers. Using the financial performance of 689 observations of over 110 hotels during 2007–2012, this study finds that e-commerce expenses positively impact firm performance, and that firm size moderates the relationship between e-commerce expenses and firm performance.