David Dowell

Trust Formation at the Growth Stage of a Business-to-Business Relationship

Purpose – Trust is known to have three dimensions: ability/competence, integrity/contractual and benevolence/goodwill. Yet what develops these three dimensions of trust is relatively unknown, particularly at the different stages of the relationship lifecycle. The primary goal of this paper is improving understanding about the development of these three elements of trust. Hence, this research is undertaken within the critical growth phase of the relationship lifecycle.Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative approach was deemed most appropriate to achieve the deep understanding needed for this type of exploratory study. Using a relationship dyad, which contained a retail manager and wholesale salesperson as the unit of investigation, 18 in‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted. This constituted nine case studies, which were analysed using content and thematic analysis. A purposive case selection method was used to ensure variance of cases and provide rich data.Findings – The most interesting f...

What Is the Impact of Online Resource Materials on Student Self-Learning Strategies?

The purpose of this article is to examine how students are incorporating online resources into their self-regulated learning strategies. The process of developing these learning strategies and the importance of these strategies has been widely researched, but there has been little empirical research into how the students are affected by online environments. This preliminary study focused on the relationship between the use of online resources and the students’ overall outcome in the subject. The data were collected from first year on-campus (n = 105) and distance education (n = 258) students after completing their introductory marketing subject. The data were analyzed using correlations, simple regression, and Tobit regression to assess online activity and student outcomes. The results indicate that the use of these online resources has a significant and positive effect on the students’ grade. This finding suggests students are incorporating online environments into their learning strategies, which results in higher grades. Moreover, in practical terms, the results imply that teachers can help facilitate student self-learning strategies by creating encouraging and resource-rich online environments.

Does the host match the content? A taxonomical update on online consumption communities

Abstract This article proposes a taxonomy of online consumption communities in order to address this rather ambiguously conceptualised research field. Specifically, intercommunity differences are investigated with regard to how content focus (brand vs activity) and its congruency with the type of host (doubled vs mixed) affect consumers’ posting behaviour. Based on an online survey (n = 888), a series of regressions of various benefits on posting behaviour supports the usability of the proposed taxonomy. In particular, social benefits had the strongest effect on consumers’ posting behaviour across all communities, while the effects of functional, altruistic and sharing benefits varied in significance and direction of influence when accounting for the different community characteristics. These findings help marketing managers to design online communities and motivate consumers to contribute.

Sense of Place and Willingness to Pay: Complementary Concepts When Evaluating Contributions of Cultural Resources to Regional Communities

Morrison M. and Dowell D. J. Sense of place and willingness to pay: complementary concepts when evaluating contributions of cultural resources to regional communities, Regional Studies. While the economics literature recognizes the limitations with solely using non-market valuation to understand how cultural resources contribute to their communities, there has been limited use of other approaches. In this study a sense of place scale developed in the environmental psychology literature is used together with contingent valuation to measure the contribution of cultural resources in three regional towns. Using a survey of 354 households, the relationships between visitation of cultural resources, sense of place (place identity and place dependence) and willingness to pay are examined. Visitation to cultural resources is shown to be related to sense of place. In addition, sense of place is demonstrated to be related to willingness to pay. The results imply that the community value of cultural resources is associated with the mix of cultural resources which encourages higher visitation and enhanced sense of place, rather than expenditure on cultural resources alone.

Entrepreneurial groups in Ireland and Wales : A preliminary typology of entrepreneurs using a marketing segmentation approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to use a marketing segmentation approach based upon attitudes and perceptions of centrality, trust, communication, conflict resolution, benefits and satisfaction to create a typology of network members specifically for entrepreneurs as actors in entrepreneurial business networks.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a survey of individuals drawn from six entrepreneurial networks located within West Wales and South‐East Ireland. Initial analysis utilised exploratory factor analysis, which was then used as a base for cluster analysis. Validity was established using ANOVA (continuous data) and Chi‐square (categorical data) tests, while reliability was examined through Cronbach alphas.Findings – The findings indicate that a four segment structure existed. Each of the four segments were found to be significantly different regarding attitudes towards centrality, trust, communication, conflict resolution, benefits and satisfaction. The four network member segments ar...

Servicing Students: Understanding Students’ Interactions with People and Processes Using Online Tools

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to examine students’ experiences with online tools and how these tools can facilitate students’ interactions with peers, lecturers, content, and administration. The sample was drawn from five countries: Australia (n = 502), United States (n = 498), United Kingdom (n = 529), India (n = 618), and China (n = 569). ANOVA and MANOVA were used to analyze the results. The key findings are that students, across all five subsamples, find lectures the most important tool, online submission of assessments is the most satisfying, and online assessments are meeting expectations. Findings suggest e-learning should be focused on student-to-teacher and administration interactions.