Paul Wang

Marketing and business performance of construction SMEs in China

Purpose – This study aims to examine the association between a number of variables pertaining to marketing strategy and business performance of small construction firms in Tianjin, China.Design/methodology/approach – The paper consists of a qualitative pilot study and a quantitative main survey.Findings – Long‐term differentiation marketing strategy, research and development (R&D) as a percentage of sales, and years in business are found to be positively associated with a small firms business performance. Current product focus, government policy, quality and availability of services, conducting regular market research, firms registered capital and employee number, being a supplier to a few large firms, and having a few regular suppliers are not found to be significantly associated with business performance.Research limitations/implications – The study has possible location and industry‐specific limitations.Practical implications – Managerially, the findings encourage small Chinese firms to adopt a long‐...

A service perspective on modelling intentions of on‐line purchasing

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between behavioural intentions and its antecedent factors in online services settings.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from a national survey of Australians with experience purchasing online. A conceptual model linking behavioural intentions and its key antecedents was tested using partial least squares.Findings – The results suggest that behavioural intentions are directly influenced by online service quality, online service value and online service satisfaction. Online service satisfaction, in turn, is affected by online service value and quality; whereas online service value is determined by the online service quality and related sacrifice.Research limitations/implications – These findings suggest that existing services marketing models developed in offline settings can be adapted to online settings to explain behavioural intentions. Although the sample included a wide range of people, generalisations of the findings s...

The Effects of Customer-Centric Marketing and Revenue Management on Travelers’ Choices:

This article examines how the simultaneous use of customer-centric marketing (CCM) and revenue management (RM) affects travelers’ perceptions of fairness and ultimately their purchasing choices. To address this issue, we propose and empirically test a choice model that incorporates reference-dependent fairness adjustments for both price and nonprice attributes within a random utility framework. The findings from two empirical studies using stated-preference choice experiments show that travelers engage in fairness-related reference point comparisons for price and other product attributes induced by RM and CCM. They offer additional evidence concerning the need to account comprehensively for attributes associated with both RM and CCM when predicting customer demand in travel and tourism firms. Accordingly, firms need to account not only for the effects of RM and CCM attributes but also for the corresponding reference-dependent fairness adjustments relating to those attributes.

Comparing Structural Equation Models with Discrete Choice Experiments for Modelling Brand Equity and Predicting Brand Choices

Abstract Brands play an important role in consumers’ perception and choice of a product. Measuring brand equity has thus become a topic of growing interest among both practitioners and researchers in marketing. This paper examines the Erdem and Swait (1998) brand equity framework, which is one of the key consumer-based brand equity models developed in the brand literature. Specifically, it investigates the external validity of the Erdem-Swait framework using two alternative approaches: One is based on structural equation models (SEMs) and the other is based on discrete choice experiments (DCE). Four data sets pertaining to four different product categories were collected from the Australian financial services sector to compare the ability of expected utilities calculated from SEMs and DCEs to predict the actual brand choices of real consumers in real markets. Although both models performed well, results showed that the predictions of the DCE models were consistently better than those of the SEMs in all cases. These findings have implications for both academics and practitioners in brand evaluation and management.

Marketing to different Asian communities: The importance of culture for framing advertising messages, and for purchase intent

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that culture has differential effects on purchase intent, using respondents from four very different cultural groups within Indonesia, and two different advertisements (one ethical, another unethical). Design/methodology/approach – The study uses survey methods and a highly structured questionnaire to collect data from respondents in four cultural groups. In total, 100 responses were received from each of these groups within Indonesia (Bali, Batak, Java, and Minang). Data were analyzed using partial least squares. Findings – The results suggest that when advertising to culturally conservative groups, caution is required. Such groups have lower purchase intent when they do not like the advertisement. Moreover, other variables such as attitude towards the advertiser may become salient drivers of purchase intent for such groups if the advertisement is perceived to be unethical. Importantly, neither of these factors are salient for more permissive cultures, regar...

Microcredit and willingness to pay for environmental quality: Evidence from a randomized-controlled trial of finance for sanitation in rural Cambodia

Low willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental quality in developing countries is a key research question in environmental economics. One explanation is that missing credit markets may suppress WTP for environmental improvements that require large up-front investments. We test the impact of microloans on WTP for hygienic latrines via a randomized controlled trial in 30 villages in rural Cambodia. We find that microcredit dramatically raises WTP for improved latrines, with 60% of households in the Financing arm willing to purchase at an unsubsidized price, relative to 25% in the Non-financing arm. Effects on latrine installation are positive but muted by several factors, including a negative peer effect: randomly induced purchases by neighbors reduce a households probability of installing its own latrine. On methodological grounds, this paper shows that a “decision-focused evaluation” can be integrated into academic analysis to provide insight into questions of general interest.

The role of product involvement in e-service evaluations

This paper provides conceptual and empirical insights into consumers’ evaluations of online services and their consequent behavioural intentions. We show that behavioural intentions in online contexts are driven primarily by two factors, namely online service satisfaction and perceived service quality. Perceived sacrifice and service quality are found to have an indirect effect on online service satisfaction through their influences on perceived value associated with the online service. In addition, we examine the moderating effects of product involvement and discuss the implications of our research findings.

Preference stability: Modelling how consumer preferences shift after receiving new product information

Abstract An assumption made in many applications of stated preference modeling is that preferences remain stable over time and over multiple exposures to information about choice alternatives. However, there are many domains where this assumption can be challenged. One of these is where individuals learn about new products. This paper aims to test how attribute preferences as measured in an experimental choice task shift when respondents are exposed to new product information. The paper presents results from a study investigating consumer preferences for a new consumer electronics product conducted among 400 respondents from a large consumer panel. All respondents received several choice tasks and were then able to read additional information about the new product. After this they completed an additional set of choice tasks. All choices were from pairs of new product alternatives that varied across eight attributes designed according to an orthogonal plan. Using heteroscedastic logit modeling, the paper analyses the shifts in attribute utilities and scale variances that result from the exposure to product information. Results show that as respondents become better informed about a new attribute the attribute has a greater influence on their choices. In addition a significant shift in scale variance is observed, suggesting an increase in preference heterogeneity after information exposure.

Assessing two consumer behavioural intention models in a service environment

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine two alternative consumer behavioural intention models that have been developed from the marketing and information systems disciplines in a service environment. Specifically, it reports an empirical assessment of the two non-nested structural models in the context of Australian restaurant industry. Design/methodology/approach This study used a web-based survey by an online research organization and structural equation modelling with AMOS was used to compare the two non-nested behavioural intention models. Findings This study found that the second model that incorporates expectation-confirmation theory outperformed the first model in terms of model fit with the empirical data. Practical implications The findings of this study provide service managers with important insights into the appropriate design of service delivery systems to increase consumer satisfaction which, in turn, leads to more positive behavioural intentions. Moreover, the restaurant research setting means that marketing managers in the growing tourism and hospitality industry should benefit from the study findings. Originality/value This study synthesized two consumer behavioural intention models from different disciplines and provided an approach to the empirical comparison of the non-nested structural models.

Using best-worst scaling method to examine consumers’ value preferences: A multidimensional perspective

Abstract Unlike most prior studies, this study reconceptualizes the perceived value construct from the multidimensional perspective by incorporating the aesthetic and altruistic values from Holbrook’s value typology with the Theory of Consumption Value. Moreover, this study is a pioneer in measuring the construct of multidimensional perceived value with the Best-Worst Scaling method instead of rating scales to fill methodological deficiency in the literature. This study collected data through web-based survey using online consumer panels. Hierarchical cluster analysis used as the major data analysis technique. Results indicate consumers can be segmented on the basis of their preferences. Therefore, the use of the cluster analysis of the value dimensions would permit practitioners to develop more effective market segmentation strategies in order to attain sustainable competitive advantage in the growing hospitality and tourism industry.