Won-Moo Hur

Building brand loyalty through managing brand community commitment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to: analyze the effect of trust and affect toward a brand community on the commitment of brand communities; and investigate the mechanism through which the commitment of a brand community is able to increase various loyalty behaviors (e.g. repurchase intentions, positive word‐of‐mouth, and constructive complaints).Design/methodology/approach – In order to test the hypotheses, a total of 200 Chinese female online brand community users were sampled, specifically users who had been active in the online brand community for over a year, and Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis was performed.Findings – The results identified the significant positive paths: brand community trust → brand community commitment; brand community affect → brand community commitment; and brand community commitment → brand loyalty behaviors. In addition brand community commitment was found to play a mediating role in the relationships between brand community trust/affect and brand loyalty. Finally,...

The Normative Social Influence on Eco-Friendly Consumer Behavior: The Moderating Effect of Environmental Marketing Claims:

Building on the normative conduct theory and the extant literature of environmental marketing, this study explores whether eco-friendly consumer behavior in the apparel market is influenced by variations in social norms and by consumers environmental concern. An online survey was administered with a total of 332 members from a U.S. consumer panel. The results confirm the significant effects of the type of social norms (i.e., injunctive versus descriptive norms) and the level of environmental concern on purchase intentions. Furthermore, the type of environmental marketing claim (i.e., extrinsic versus intrinsic claims) is shown to moderate the positive influences of injunctive norms and of the level of environmental concern on purchase intentions. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Customer response to employee emotional labor: the structural relationship between emotional labor, job satisfaction, and customer satisfaction

Purpose – This study aims to extend emotional labor theories to the customer outcomes by examining a theoretical model of how emotional labor performed by the service worker affects customer satisfaction in a mediated way. Design/methodology/approach – Structural equation modeling analyses partially support for our hypotheses from 282 dyadic survey data [i.e. service interactions customers (seniors) and service employees (caregivers)] from a home caregiver firm in South Korea. Findings – The results of our study found that employee’s emotional regulation strategies of deep acting and surface acting differentially affect customer satisfaction, and that employee’s job satisfaction mediates the relationship between employee’s emotional regulation strategies and customer satisfaction. More specifically, the relationship between surface acting and customer satisfaction is fully mediated by employee’s job satisfaction, whereas the relationship between deep acting and customer satisfaction is partially mediated ...

The effect of customer incivility on service employees’ customer orientation through double-mediation of surface acting and emotional exhaustion

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how customer incivility affects service employees’ emotional labor (i.e. surface acting) and the way surface acting augments their emotional exhaustion at work, and in turn, damages customer orientations of service employees. Design/methodology/approach – Using a sample of 309 department store sales employees in South Korea, a two-stage mediation model is used in terms of structural equation modeling. Findings – The results indicate that customer incivility is positively related to service employees’ use of surface acting; this, in turn, results in feelings of emotional exhaustion, which are negatively related to their customer orientation. That is, the findings of this study shows that the negative relationship between customer incivility and service employees’ customer orientation was fully and sequentially mediated by service employees’ surface acting and emotional exhaustion. Research limitations/implications – The main limitation is the nature of the ...

The moderating role of perceived organizational support on the relationship between emotional labor and job-related outcomes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to attempt to investigate how emotional labor strategies (i.e. surface acting and deep acting) affect job performance through job satisfaction. Another important objective of this study was to see whether perceived organizational support (POS) moderates the relationship between emotional labor strategies and job-related outcomes (i.e. job satisfaction and job performance). Design/methodology/approach – Structural equation modeling analysis provided support for the hypotheses from a sample of 309 South Korean department store sales employees. Findings – The results revealed that surface acting had a negative effect, whereas deep acting had a positive effect on job satisfaction. In addition, the relationship between emotional labor strategies (i.e. surface acting and deep acting) and job performance was significantly mediated by job satisfaction. Finally, POS significantly moderated the relationship between surface acting and job satisfaction, as well as the relationsh...

The role of chronological age and work experience on emotional labor

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how chronological age and work experience affect emotional labor strategies (i.e. deep acting and surface acting) through emotional intelligence (EI). Design/methodology/approach – Structural equation modeling analysis provided support for the hypotheses based on a sample of 256 flight attendants working for four South Korean airlines. Findings – The results showed that chronological age has a positive effect on both surface and deep acting. The study also found that work experience has a negative influence on surface acting, whereas it has a non-significant effect on deep acting. In addition, the investigation suggests that EI mediates the relationship between work experience and deep acting. Originality/value – The current study will add to the growing body of research on emotional labor by examining the effect of chronological age and work experience on emotional labor strategies through EI.

The moderating role of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions in the customer-brand relationship in China and India

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of customer-brand relationships in the international marketplace, and empirically investigates and compares the customer-brand relationship development process between Indian and Chinese markets. In detail, four out of Hofstede’s original five national culture dimensions were adopted as moderators in the process of customer-brand relationship development between two markets. Design/methodology/approach – To test hypotheses, responses from 539 Indian and 400 Chinese mobile phone consumer samples were achieved, and the proposed model was estimated by using structural equations based on the partial least squares algorithm. Findings – The results demonstrate that utilitarian value and brand affect play a significant role in building brand loyalty for Chinese consumers, while hedonic value and perceived risk contribute more in building brand loyalty for Indian consumers. Research limitations/implications – This study indicated that the cultura...

The Role of Consumer Innovativeness and Trust for Adopting Internet Phone Services

The Internet phone, which was recently introduced to the communication market, is characterized by its lower cost and increased compatibility. However, its popularity and diffusion is relatively low in the North American market compared with Asian or European markets. This study examines the adoption of Internet phone service in Korea to develop a better understanding of consumers’ acceptance of the Internet phone service application. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model (UTAUT) is used as theoretical background with two additional constructs (consumer innovativeness and perceived trust) in the proposed model. Using a mail survey with 437 responses collected in Korea, the results indicate that consumers’ trust is the major factor affecting adoption of new phone service. The results also indicate that consumers’ innovativeness would influence the effects of trust and facilitating conditions toward intention to use. The performance expectancy shows a dominant effect on trust toward phone services. Although effort expectancy and social influence also significantly contribute to consumers’ trust, the effects are relatively minor. The effect of performance expectancy would be stronger on consumers with lower income.

Exploring the relationships between compassion at work, the evaluative perspective of positive work-related identity, service employee creativity, and job performance

Purpose This study examines whether compassion at work increases service employees’ job performance. More specifically, the purpose of this study is to show the mechanism through which experienced compassion in an organization affects the job performance of service employees. Design/methodology/approach The employees from a department store in South Korea were surveyed using a self-administered instrument for data collection. Out of 550 questionnaires, a total of 309 usable questionnaires were obtained after list-wise deletion, for a 61.6 per cent response rate. Findings The results of this study suggest that the evaluative perspective of positive work-related identity mediates the relationship between compassion at work and service employees’ job performance. In addition, the findings of this study demonstrate that there is significant mediating effect of service employee creativity on the relationship between compassion at work and job performance. Furthermore, the relationship between compassion at work and job performance was sequentially mediated by the evaluative perspective of positive work-related identity and the creativity of service employees. Research limitations/implications The common method variance in the self-reported variables imposes a need for caution in the interpretation of the findings. Future studies could avoid the problem of common method bias by, for example, using supervisor ratings of creativity and job performance. On the other hand, this study will add to the growing body of research on service marketing by highlighting the role of compassion at work to enhance service employees’ job performance. Practical implications This study offers new insight for practitioners (i.e. CEOs, top management teams, employees) by suggesting that they may promote service employees’ job performance if they pay more attention to compassionate acts in service marketing. Originality/value As services are becoming more important and harder to sell simultaneously, this study provides a new perspective to improve service employees’ job performance by examining its link with compassion at work.

The moderating roles of organizational justice on the relationship between emotional exhaustion and organizational loyalty in airline services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to analyze the moderating role of organizational justice in the emotional exhaustion–organizational loyalty link. Emotional exhaustion resulting from an employee’s emotional labor usually leads to negative outcome such as organizational loyalty. Following conservation of resources theory and social exchange theory, the authors argue that the relationship between flight attendants’ emotional exhaustion and organizational loyalty is moderated by distributive, procedural and interpersonal justice. Design/methodology/approach – Data were gathered from a sample of 247 flight attendants in South Korea. Hierarchical moderated regression analysis was conducted to test the hypothesized relationship. Findings – The study results provide support for the moderating role of organizational justice such as distributive, procedural and interpersonal justice in the emotional exhaustion–organizational loyalty link. Originality/value – This study contributes to the extant literature b...