Pavlos A. Vlachos

Consumer-Retailer Emotional Attachment: Some Antecedents and the Moderating Role of Attachment Anxiety

Brands enjoy significant benefits with emersion in emotionally strong relationships. These benefits include positively biased brands perceptions, devaluation of alternatives, true brand loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth communication, among others. The present study investigates the phenomenon of emotional attachment in the consumer-brand dyad and in the context of in-store grocery retailing. Specifically the study investigates the next set of questions. Is brand emotional attachment an important strategic goal for grocery retailers? In which strategic assets should the retailer invest in order to build emotional connections with its customers? Does context matter with respect to personality characteristics? Rooted in the theoretical framework of brand attachment, adult attachment, and place attachment literatures, the present study investigates service brand emotional attachment determinants, consequences, and the moderating effects of relationship anxiety. Results identify brand trust, employees trust, interpersonal likeability, enjoyment, brand self-expressiveness, place dependence, and place identity as significant predictors of consumer-brand emotional attachment. Emotional attachment is itself in turn a strong predictor of behavioral loyalty, while relationship anxiety appears to multiply the effects of emotional attachment on behavioral loyalty.

Determinants of Behavioral Intentions in the Mobile Internet Services Market

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the theoretical and empirical meaningfulness of a composite model of behavioral intentions in a pure mobile internet services context. This paper starts by investigating the influence of seven service quality determinants on overall service quality perceptions, employing a qualitative research design. Next, these determinants are embedded in a holistic nomological framework depicting the complex interrelationships between prominent service evaluation constructs and behavioral intentions. The model is tested employing partial-least squares structural equation modeling in the context of a field experiment involving the delivery of music content over real-world mobile networks and devices. The study finds that content quality, contextual quality, device quality, connection quality and privacy concerns have a strong positive influence on service quality perceptions. Overall, service quality, value and satisfaction have a simultaneous direct effect on behavioral intentions. So as to adopt mobile e-commerce services consumers require to be rewarded with high levels of outcome quality (e.g., wide selection of music songs, sonic and video quality), anytime and most importantly at any place. Study results imply that when it comes to specifying service evaluation frameworks employing service quality, satisfaction and value-operationalized at a cumulative level traditional exchange contexts are not different from electronic commerce exchanges.

Corporate social performance and consumer‐retailer emotional attachment: The moderating role of individual traits

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the influence of corporate social performance (CSP) on the emotional attachment of consumers to firms. In contrast to past CSR studies, this research seeks to investigate the role of personality variables as moderating factors.Design/methodology/approach – The study tested hypotheses through an experiment using scenarios, addressing corporate social responsibility activities, manipulating domains like environmental protection, treatment of employees, and charitable giving.Findings – The results indicate that CSP influences consumer‐firm emotional attachment and that this attachment constitutes an unrecognized mediational pathway in the CSP‐loyalty link. The results identify the moderating and strengthening role of altruism, need‐for‐activity, and esteem‐enhancement on the CSP‐emotional attachment link. Finally, the study reveals that attributions are likely to moderate the influence of consumer altruism.Research limitations/implications – Although the CSP record scenar...

The moderating role of customer–technology contact on attitude towards technology-based services

Previous studies in information systems research and service marketing treat customer behaviour towards technology-based services (TBS) homogeneously. However, recent studies recognize that users have different attitude towards different technologies even if these technologies used to support the same service. Drawing on literature from service marketing (i.e. customer contact theory), information systems (unified theory of technology acceptance), and organizational behaviour (task complexity theory), this study proposes a construct that classifies TBS according to the level of customer–technology interaction they require, namely the customer–technology contact (CTC). The moderating effect of this construct on the relationship between individual characteristics – that is technology readiness and attitude towards TBS – is examined through an empirical study. Technology-based retail services scenarios, with different levels of technology contact, are presented to supermarket shoppers (n=600). Results show that CTC, as a unique service attribute, moderates the effect of personality traits to customers’ attitude. The current study introduces this new service attribute that is applicable to ubiquitous computing services, application and design.

Drawing Emerging Business Models for the Mobile Music Industry

The plethora of actors, the complexity of relationships and the variety of information and financial flows affecting the mobile entertainment arena today, have created a series of challenging business opportunities for entrepreneurs and key market players. The evolving and quite promising mobile music market, however, is suffering from the luck of integrated theoretical frameworks critical for the business activity acceleration and for the corresponding mobile music services diffusion. In this paper, we advocate the application of a business model change methodology for the purpose of transforming the current business models of the traditional and online music industry to a new business model appropriate for the mobile music industry. To do so, we are based on the results of a qualitative research study, which involved in-depth interviews with content providers, mobile operators and music consumers using semi-structured questionnaires. To that end, the present study applies the available business model theoretical insights to the music industry and depicts the current business practice in terms of: the content delivery channels employed (i.e. traditional, Internet, mobile), the participating actors; and the relative flows. Key business modeling issues are discussed and direct managerial implications to potential players are also provided. Finally, straightforward directions for further research are discussed.

Exploring consumer attitudes towards mobile music services

Abstract The emerging capabilities of mobile telephony provide a promising alternative commerce channel, contributing to the configuration of the appropriate conditions for the forthcoming communication industry convergence. Elaborating on the rapid evolutions in the mobile commerce landscape, this paper investigates consumer attitudes towards mobile music services through an exploratory research approach conducted in Finland, UK and Greece. The objective of this study is to support content providers and mobile operators to capitalize on the unexplored marketing challenges existing in the virgin territory of mobile music. The findings indicate that content‐centric criteria (i.e., sound/image quality and content variety) are the most critical success factors for mobile music diffusion and consumer adoption, while content personalization capabilities, ubiquity, and easy‐to‐use interfaces constitute for the consumers the most desired features of a mobile music application. Significant differences were observed between consumers willing to adopt mobile music services and those that are not, in terms of the importance they assign to specific mobile music application selection criteria and features. Finally, significant differences were observed between the investigated countries in terms of consumers’ willingness to adopt mobile music services.

Perceived Electronic Service Quality: Some Preliminary Results From a Cross-National Study in Mobile Internet Services

Work on how consumers evaluate electronic service quality is both topical and important due to the well-accepted criticality of electronic channels in selling products and services. However, most of the relevant research on electronic research quality is preoccupied with the website Internet context and most of the studies are single-country studies, inhibiting conclusions of generalizibility. Theoretically rooted in the Nordic Model of perceived service quality, this exploratory study uses an e-service quality scale to measure mobile Internet service quality in different national settings. Consistent with the available e-service quality literature, results indicate that e-service quality is a second-order factor, with three reflective first-order dimensions: efficiency, outcome, and customer care. Most important, cross-validation investigations using samples drawn from Korean, Hong Kong, and Japanese mobile Internet user populations, support the factorial structure invariance of the construct. Following Cheung and Reynoldss (2002) suggestions, factor means differences between the three countries contributing to the scarce cross-national electronic service quality literature are tentatively examined. These initial empirical findings imply that although consumers in different countries use the same dimensions to evaluate mobile Internet services, importance weightings assigned on these dimension are probably not the same.

Too much of a good thing: curvilinear effects in the evaluation of services and the mediating role of trust

The satisfaction-trust paradigm has been recently criticized regarding its ability to deliver positive consumer behavioral outcomes. This study argues that -amongst others- a reason for this unpleasant situation may be the failure of service managers to account for non-linearities in the satisfaction-trust paradigm. We posit consumer trust as an important intervening variable through which non-linear service evaluation effects translate into word-of-mouth. Findings imply that investing resources in satisfaction programs do not do a good job in building positive word-of-mouth from a point on. Economic value evaluations and trust judgments seem to be both necessary and sufficient conditions for building consumer relationships. The study extends the literature in that it investigates whether consumer trust suffers from diminishing returns. Service providers who strive to build long-term relationships with their consumers may not do a good job if they continue to invest on trust determinants that present diminishing returns to scale.

Perception-Induced Effects of Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSiR) for Stereotypical and Admired Firms

How do stakeholders react to Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSiR)? What are the emotional mechanisms and behavioral outcomes following CSiR perception? The psychology of CSR literature has yet to address these important questions and has largely considered CSR and CSiR as the opposite poles of the same continuum. In contrast, we view CSR and CSiR as distinct constructs and theorize about the cognitive (perceptual), emotional, and behavioral effects of CSiR activity on observers (i.e., primary and secondary stakeholders) building on theories of intergroup perception. Specifically, building on the Stereotype Content Model (SCM; Fiske et al., 2002) and the BIAS map (i.e., Behaviors from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes; Cuddy et al., 2007)—which extends the SCM by predicting behavioral responses—we make predictions on potential stakeholder reactions to CSiR focusing on two practice-relevant cases: (a) a typical for-profit firm that engages in a CSiR activity, (b) an atypical admired firm that engages in CSiR activity.

Green is good but is usability better? Consumer reactions to environmental initiatives in e-banking services

AbstractThere is an emerging consensus in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature suggesting that the quest for the so-called business case for CSR should be abandoned. In the same vein, several researchers have suggested that future research should start examining not whether, but rather when CSR is likely to have strengthened, weakened or even nullified effects on organizational outcomes (e.g. Margolis et al. in Does it pay to be good? A meta-analysis and redirection of research on corporate social and financial performance. Working Paper, Harvard Business School, 2007; Kiron et al. in MIT Sloan Manag Rev 53(2):69–74, 2012). Using perspectives from several theoretical frameworks (Needs Theory, Technology Acceptance Theory, and Psychological Distance Theory), we contribute to the literature by empirically examining the tension between functional and sustainability attributes in a novel context, namely that of green e-banking services. The findings indicate that the positive effect of CSR on users’ attitudes towards green e-banking services is moderated by two primarily utilitarian information systems factors—namely perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness—and an important utilitarian individual difference variable—namely perceived self-efficacy with technology. Our findings are also important if interpreted within the context of the ethical decision-making literature (e.g. O’Fallon and Butterfield in J Bus Ethics 59(4):375–413, 2005), as they indicate that the linkage between moral judgment and moral outcomes is unlikely to be that straightforward.