Gian Luca Marzocchi

The Determinants of Corporate Entrepreneurial Intention within Small and Newly Established Firms

In this article, we study the determinants of corporate entrepreneurial intention (CEI) within small and newly established firms. Given that in these ventures, entrepreneurial activities usually occur as a result of individuals’ behaviors, the CEI of their founders is key to explaining these companies’ ability to become engaged in entrepreneurial actions. Building on the theory of planned behavior, we conceptualize how individual characteristics and contextual variables influence CEI. Our theoretical model of the micro–foundation of CEI is tested on a sample of 200 entrepreneurs, founders of 133 new technology–based firms. Results show that CEI is influenced by situationally specific motivation, individual skills, and perceived environmental dynamism. Managerial implications are discussed.

Customer-Organization Relationships: Development and Test of a Theory of Extended Identities

We develop a theory of personal, relational, and collective identities that links organizations and consumers. Four targets of identity are studied: small friendship groups of aficionados of Ducati motorcycles, virtual communities centered on Ducatis, the Ducati brand, and Ducati the company. The interplay amongst the identities is shown to order affective, cognitive, and evaluative reactions toward each target. Hypotheses are tested on a sample of 210 Ducati aficionados, and implications of these multiple, extended identities for organizations are examined.

Brand Communities: Loyal to the Community or the Brand?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically the relative emphasis accorded by members of a brand community to identification with that community and identification with the brand-owner, and thereby close a gap in the literature to date.Design/methodology/approach – Based on a review of the literature relating to identification, loyalty, and potentially mediating brand-related constructs, a cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey was carried out at a brandfest organised by a major European motorcycle manufacturer. Data collected from 256 respondents were analysed by structural equation modelling, testing seven hypothesised causal links.Findings – Brand loyalty is primarily influenced by identification with the brand community, through the mediating role of brand affect.Research limitations/implications – The findings require confirmation in other settings and industry sectors before they can be generalised with confidence, but point to several fruitful research directions.Practical implications – Brand strategists have new evidence to guide allocation of effort and resources to the effective cultivation and maintenance of brand loyalty.Originality/value – The study makes an original contribution, in a real-world setting, to the understanding of how members of a brand community relate to the brand, and of how their brand loyalty is activated.

Hierarchical representation of satisfactory consumer service experience

What conceptual organization underlies evaluative judgments in the mind of consumers? Drawing from the theory of cognitive schemata and from means‐end theory, here we show that customer evaluations can be represented as a set of self‐relevant, interconnected and hierarchically organized elements. Elements of the hierarchy are components of a satisfactory service experience that range from concrete service attributes (such as staff kindness), to higher level benefits (such as the feeling of being looked after), to more abstract values (such as happiness). To construct a hierarchical map of components and explain overall satisfaction the laddering technique was applied to a sample of hotel customers. Results suggest that the links between concrete attributes, high‐level benefits, and values provide a better explanation of overall satisfaction than service attributes alone.

The Temporal Construal of Customer Satisfaction

Traditional customer satisfaction research considers satisfaction judgments invariant to temporal distance. We conduct two experiments and a field study to show that the amount of time elapsed between a service consumption experience and its evaluation influences satisfaction judgments. We show that consumers rely on concrete attributes to represent near-past (NP) experiences and on abstract attributes to represent distant-past (DP) experiences (i.e., different construal levels). The findings indicate that construal mechanisms generate intertemporal shifts in the importance of the attributes driving satisfaction over time (Study 1), in the weights assigned to abstract and concrete attributes of a past service experience (Study 2), and in overall satisfaction judgments when abstract and concrete attributes perform differently (Study 3). Overall, the results provide support for the idea that satisfaction judgments shift over time as a result of the different psychological mechanisms that are activated as a function of the time elapsing between the service experience and its evaluation. Managers are advised to adopt longitudinal approaches to customer satisfaction measurement: An immediate assessment to capture customers’ evaluations of the performance of the concrete details of the experience and a delayed assessment to measure customer satisfaction with more abstract and goal-related features of the experience.

Genuine representation of brands: a new method of representing unbiased brand-by-attribute perceptions

In this study we propose a new method of representing unbiased perceptions of brands. Specifically a likelihood-based model simultaneously disentangles a major class of psychological bias affecting attribute-based perceptions, and obtains a dimensionality reduction of the problem, resulting in a two-dimensional map. Extant research, while recognizing the importance of halo effect, has mainly focused on the identification and measurement of this bias. Conversely, in this study we explicitly address how to obtain and to graphically represent genuine brand-by-attribute ratings. Our perceptual representation offers a better understanding of the idiosyncratic impact of each attribute on brands, which ultimately helps managers to delve into the nature of brand differentiation. The proposed approach is exemplified through an empirical application using the BrandAsset® Valuator scale in a high-involvement product category.

Desirability and Feasibility in Internationalization Intentions: Impact of Psychological Distance

In this paper, we model entrepreneur’s intentions to internationalize based on their perceptions of desirability and feasibility of such opportunities and we test how psychological distance moderate these relationships based on insights of Construal Level Theory. Recognizing that the impact of entrepreneurs’ intentions and perceptions characterize strategic choices especially in new and small firms, we test our model on a sample of 169 entrepreneurs, owners of 140 newly established, independent, technological firms. Results show that internal-driven elements of desirability and feasibility, such as attitudes and skills, rather than external-driven ones, such as social norms and external supports, drive internationalization intentions. Evaluation of internationalization under different conditions of temporal distance, i.e. in the long run vs. in the short run, modifies the relative importance of perceived desirability and feasibility on intention. We discuss potential implications for researchers, practiti...

L'interazione fra effetto olistico e rappresentazione temporale nella percezione delle marche

L’obiettivo di questo studio e di analizzare l’interazione fra il pregiudizio olistico di marca e i livelli di rappresentazione degli oggetti percepiti. I nostri risultati documentano empiricamente che la semplice presentazione del compito di scelta fra marche con orizzonti temporali diversi non determina differenze significative nella percezione degli oggetti. Questo effetto si osserva sia per i giudizi basati su attributi che per quelli basati su distanze. Una volta che i giudizi lungo attributi vengono depurati dall’effetto olistico, la distanza temporale separa significativamente le rappresentazioni delle marche. Inoltre, gli effetti olistici stimati dalla procedura, mostrano una correlazione elevata con i giudizi empirici di preferenza, irrobustendo i risultati empirici presentati. Questo studio ha una rilevanza metodologica in quanto mostra l’interazione fra diversi livelli di rappresentazione e la presenza di pregiudizi olistici di marca.