René Algesheimer

The Social Influence of Brand Community: Evidence from European Car Clubs

The authors develop and estimate a conceptual model of how different aspects of customers’ relationships with the brand community influence their intentions and behaviors. The authors describe how identification with the brand community leads to positive consequences, such as greater community engagement, and negative consequences, such as normative community pressure and (ultimately) reactance. They examine the moderating effects of customers’ brand knowledge and the brand communitys size and test their hypotheses by estimating a structural equation model with survey data from a sample of European car club members.

Communal Service Delivery: How Customers Benefit From Participation in Firm-Hosted Virtual P3 Communities

Firm-hosted virtual peer-to-peer problem solving (P3) communities offer a low-cost, credible, and effective means of delivering education and ongoing assistance services to customers of complex, frequently evolving products. Building upon the social constructivist view on learning and drawing from literature on the firm-customer relationship in services marketing, we distinguish between functional and social benefits received by P3 community participants and study the central role of learning in influencing these benefit perceptions. The proposed model is tested on data gathered from 2,299 active members of a P3 community hosted by a global online auction firm, and the framework’s generalizability is demonstrated using a sample of 204 members of a global business-to-business (B2B) software firm’s P3 community. Based on the results, specific recommendations are provided to marketers interested in implementing service support programs via customer communities, and future research opportunities are explored.

Does Online Community Participation Foster Risky Financial Behavior

Although consumers increasingly use online communities for various activities, little is known about how participation in them affects peoples decision-making strategies. Through a series of field and laboratory studies, the authors demonstrate that participation in an online community increases peoples risk-seeking tendencies in their financial decisions and behaviors. The results reveal that participation in an online community leads consumers to believe that they will receive help or support from other members should difficulties arise. Such a perception leads online community participants to make riskier financial decisions than nonparticipants. The authors also discover a boundary condition to the effect: Online community members are more risk seeking only when they have relatively strong ties with other members; when ties are weak, they exhibit similar risk preferences as nonmembers.

A Comparative Analysis of Community Detection Algorithms on Artificial Networks

Many community detection algorithms have been developed to uncover the mesoscopic properties of complex networks. However how good an algorithm is, in terms of accuracy and computing time, remains still open. Testing algorithms on real-world network has certain restrictions which made their insights potentially biased: the networks are usually small, and the underlying communities are not defined objectively. In this study, we employ the Lancichinetti-Fortunato-Radicchi benchmark graph to test eight state-of-the-art algorithms. We quantify the accuracy using complementary measures and algorithms’ computing time. Based on simple network properties and the aforementioned results, we provide guidelines that help to choose the most adequate community detection algorithm for a given network. Moreover, these rules allow uncovering limitations in the use of specific algorithms given macroscopic network properties. Our contribution is threefold: firstly, we provide actual techniques to determine which is the most suited algorithm in most circumstances based on observable properties of the network under consideration. Secondly, we use the mixing parameter as an easily measurable indicator of finding the ranges of reliability of the different algorithms. Finally, we study the dependency with network size focusing on both the algorithm’s predicting power and the effective computing time.

Virtual Team Performance in a Highly-Competitive Environment

In this article, we empirically validate a version of the input-mediator-output-input (IMOI) model (Ilgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, & Jundt, 2005), adapting it to investigate virtual team performance in a highly competitive environment. Our hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling across time periods with data obtained from 606 professional online gaming teams belonging to the European Electronic Sports League. The findings validate the hypothesized IMOI model, and demonstrate the effects of anticipated emotions on shared motivation of team members. The results contribute to theory and have significant implications for the management of geographically distributed work groups.

The Impact of Brand Personality and Customer Satisfaction on Customer's Loyalty: Theoretical Approach and Findings of a Causal Analytical Study in the Sector of Internet Service Providers

For the past few years, companies within the telecommunication and media industry have been operating within the environment of digital convergence. Internet Service Providers especially are, therefore, confronted with a new competitive landscape, which is characterized by an increased complexity and dynamics. This development implies a need for change in the strategic alignment, a change away from transaction towards relationship orientation understanding loyal customers as an asset. In many different industrial and service providing sectors customer satisfaction is regarded as the key to customer loyalty. However, this relationship is influenced by several other variables, such as the congruent perception of a brands personality and customers self‐concept, switching barriers or the attractiveness of products and services provided by rival companies. This paper examines the relationships between those constructs and provides a structural equation model with latent variables for modelling these complex ...

An empirical study of quality function deployment on company performance

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) has had considerable success in terms of its implementation in companies. It has also been the subject of many studies in recent years. It seems, however, that there are some shortcomings in the research on this subject and in particular the lack of an adequate conceptual framework suitable for empirical research. This study proposes and elaborates a model which examines QFD in relation to three dimensions of performance: improvement of product quality, reduction in costs for R&D, shorter R&D time. It is the first comprehensive approach relating specific antecedents (QFD activities) to benefits and economic performance. The model is empirically tested on data gathered on a stratified random sample of manufacturing plants through the application of valid and reliable measures. The model is tested using structural equation modeling. The results show three distinct paths of direct influence which lead, respectively, to superior economic performance. Based on these findings management can focus on those QFD activities which drive economic performance most. Further research should be directed towards longitudinal studies in order to measure the effcts of those activities on performance in the long run. There are definitely non linear relations which need to be investigated.

A Network Based Approach to Customer Equity Management

SUMMARY The customer equity concept has attracted substantial interest from academics and practitioners during the last years. While direct drivers of customer equity such as customer transactions, cross- and up-buying behavior have been well understood and researched, indirect effects, and in particular social network effects have been ignored, although it is well known that brand community influence, word of mouth communication and other social effects are powerful influencers of buying behavior and should thus not be ignored in customer management. Thus, we propose that the customer equity perspective should evolve into a customer network equity perspective. In the following, we develop and present a theoretical framework for extending current thinking on customer equity towards the network perspective. In particular, we derive, based on the social network literature, characteristics that are likely to be powerful predictors of a customers network value. We make propositions for future research and highlight practical implications.

Comparing results of an exact vs. an approximate (Bayesian) measurement invariance test: a cross-country illustration with a scale to measure 19 human values

One of the most frequently used procedures for measurement invariance testing is the multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA). Muthén and Asparouhov recently proposed a new approach to test for approximate rather than exact measurement invariance using Bayesian MGCFA. Approximate measurement invariance permits small differences between parameters otherwise constrained to be equal in the classical exact approach. However, extant knowledge about how results of approximate measurement invariance tests compare to the results of the exact measurement invariance test is missing. We address this gap by comparing the results of exact and approximate cross-country measurement invariance tests of a revised scale to measure human values. Several studies that measured basic human values with the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ) reported problems of measurement noninvariance (especially scalar noninvariance) across countries. Recently Schwartz et al. proposed a refined value theory and an instrument (PVQ-5X) to measure 19 more narrowly defined values. Cieciuch et al. tested its measurement invariance properties across eight countries and established exact scalar measurement invariance for 10 of the 19 values. The current study applied the approximate measurement invariance procedure on the same data and established approximate scalar measurement invariance even for all 19 values. Thus, the first conclusion is that the approximate approach provides more encouraging results for the usefulness of the scale for cross-cultural research, although this finding needs to be generalized and validated in future research using population data. The second conclusion is that the approximate measurement invariance is more likely than the exact approach to establish measurement invariance, although further simulation studies are needed to determine more precise recommendations about how large the permissible variance of the priors may be.

Introducing Structuration Theory in Communal Consumption Behavior Research

Purpose – In community research, there is a large gap between theoretical developments and empirical proves. Especially, in micro‐macro contexts, where the interaction between micro‐ (the community member) and macro‐(the community) level variables have significant effects, no comprehensive theoretical approach that explicitly frames micro‐macro phenomena has been considered in empirical methodology. This study attempts to present a multilevel theoretical framework which explains the complex interrelationship of various elements that shape consumption experience and market institutions.Design/methodology/approach – Based on practical questions related to community research, where individuals act in communal contexts, shape the community and are influenced by the community, the importance of studying micro‐macro phenomena are discussed. These preliminaries form assumptions that are integrated into theoretical and methodological developments. It is shown how structuration approaches meet the assumptions on c...