Search results

Prior research has advanced several explanations for social media influencers' (SMIs’) success in the burgeoning computer-mediated marketing environments but leaves one key topic unexplored: the moderating role of SMIs in service failure and recovery strategies.

Drawing on a social constructivist perspective and an inductive approach, 59 in-depth interviews were conducted with millennials from three European countries (Italy, France and the United Kingdom). Building on social influence theory and commitment-trust theory, this study conceptualises four distinct pathways unifying SMIs' efforts in the service failure recovery process.

The emergent model illustrates how source credibility and message content moderate service failure severity and speed of recovery. The insights gained from this study model contribute to research on the pivotal uniqueness of SMIs in service failure recovery processes and offer practical explanations of variations in the implementation of influencer marketing. This study examines a perspective of SMIs that considers the cycle of their influence on customers through service failure and recovery.

The study suggests that negative reactions towards service failure and recovery are reduced if customers have a relationship with influencers prior to the service failure and recovery compared with the reactions of customers who do not have a relationship with the influencer.

There is considerable interest in the value of user-generated content (UGC) and its antecedents. Despite its growing importance, existing studies have largely ignored the effects of UGC on customers’ responses to recovery efforts in the fashion industry. The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which UGC influences customers’ responses to providers’ service failure and recovery efforts, particularly how millennials’ interactions impact recovery efforts.

The study uses a phenomenological hermeneutics and adopts theoretical sampling to collect empirical data from three European countries (France, Italy and the UK). The authors interviewed 60 millennials who had online service failure experiences in online fashion. This methodological framework was designed to illustrate the close relationships between subject and object as well as identify that data analysis and collection are undertaken in relation to consistent iterative interpretations in an evolving process of study. Drawing on multi-theoretical lenses, using actor–network and social influence theories, this study advances understanding through the development of a new conceptual model relating to individual characteristics.

Using actor–network theory and social influence theory, this study developed a conceptual model of four customer groups’ responses to service failure based on the severity of service failure and the level of customers’ online response following service failure.

The authors suggest some pragmatic implications of their conceptual model and explain how awareness of different customer groups can lead to effective decision-making for marketers. This study provides a set of practical insights that brand managers can use to recover service failures.

User-generated content (UGC) and service failure have attracted considerable marketing inquiry over the last two decades. Previous studies primarily focused on the outcome of service failure and the impact of UGC on perceived failure severity. This article departs from previous studies as it examines the moderating role of UGC on the relationship between service failure recovery (SFR) and customer–brand relationship.

Building on commitment-trust theory and from a phenomenological hermeneutical perspective, this article explores this phenomenon through the interpretation of 60 in-depth interviews with millennials from three European countries: Italy, France and the UK. An analysis of the data was conducted using a qualitative approach to understand the main constructs and relationships derived from the data.

This study conceptualises four distinct moderating characteristics of UGC in the SFR process: satisfaction with experience and brand, dissatisfaction with experience and brand, satisfaction with brand and dissatisfaction with brand. The insights from the responsiveness, empathetic response, counterfactual thinking and brand salience (RECB) framework contribute to research on UGC and shed light on the relationship between SFR and consumer–brand relationships in the fashion industry.

Overall, this study demonstrates that customer interactions with UGC significantly affect their responses to, and relationships with, a brand. The proposed framework opens up interesting avenues for future research on the moderating role of UGC on the relationship between SFR and customer–brand relationships.

At present, in the increasingly global markets, one of the main challenges to international business is how to effectively manage human resources across cultural boundaries. In particular, high‐tech MNCs demand a specific pool of talented individuals with specific technical expertise and personal skills to be adapted to operate in an international arena. That is especially true in the case of China, which has attracted a significant variety of foreign investments from diverse countries and whose people management policies and managerial staff technical and personal skills are reported in some cases to be at a primary stage. The purpose of this paper is to explore the educational context development in China and its related influence on the recruitment and selection process in Western high‐tech MNCs in the People's Republic of China (PRC).

This is a research paper based on multiple case studies and direct face‐to‐face interviews.

China needs highly trained and highly educated individuals who can work in a dynamic domestic and global marketplace. Under the centrally planned system, the curricula in different universities are not associated to diversification in response to China changing economic needs and scenario. In most of the Chinese universities, many of the disciplines are very narrowly defined because these institutions are responsible for the job assignment of graduates. Despite the unprecedented growth of Chinese higher education thanks to the recent government reforms, the educational system in China still needs to be further restructured in its curricula to provide a sufficient number of qualified managers but however it will take time.

Nowadays, China needs highly trained and highly educated talents who can work in a domestic highly globalised marketplace. The underlying study will provide insight into those education related factors and their impact on the labour market in China with a specific focus on the search for appropriate technomanagement talents. The paper also provides insights into those educational factors, which produce satisfactory and less‐satisfactory results in recruitment of local talents in foreign technology companies. It also suggests the need for further research in the talent management area and education in PRC in relation to the current lack of data. Recommendations for the possible integration of appropriate educational projects aiming at developing highly talented individuals into those foreign corporations are provided.

The paper is part of the growing research on human resource management (HRM) in foreign multinational companies (MNCs) operating in the PRC. The purpose of this paper is to examine the critical role played by the host contextual factors on recruitment policies adoption for foreign high‐tech corporations operating in the PRC. In particular, the paper analyses the influence of institutional factors on “talent recruitment” and related policies and practices. In this perspective, the institutionalization theory was instrumental in explaining the degree to which recruitment policies and practices have been adapted, or not, to the host country environment or are more similar to those of multinational's headquarters and related standardised practices. The paper reviews the diverse studies related to people management in China and it stresses the lack of research for talents recruitment and selection in the PRC despite the critical situation in the local labour market.

This is an empirical paper based on a case‐study and field interviews.

This paper aims to provide an exploration of the main challenges and key issues for foreign high‐tech MNCs in recruiting managerial talents in the local labour market. It stresses the importance of the institutional context and its interaction with recruitment policies and practices. In particular, the study provides an overview of how the institutional environment has affected the transfer and adoption of specific recruitment policies in China and has resulted in an «adjustment» of their global HRM policies.

As a result of opportunistic contacts and time‐constraints, this research is limited to western MNCs operating in China. However, it would be relevant to investigate the situation for talent recruitment and selection in local Chinese private companies in relation to the on‐going transformation and growing presence of those companies in the local labour market. Furthermore, the study only focuses on high‐tech MNCs without considering the situation and possible diverse variables and scenarios arising in diverse industrial companies.

The paper is of value in that it confirms that now‐a‐days, as in the past, despite the on‐going institutional transformation –, i.e. the approval of a new labour law – foreign high‐tech MNCs recruitment policies and practices in China are still affected by a coercive isomorphism despite the still limited influence of a mimetic and normative isomorphism through the dissemination of best practices by top business organisations and HRM consulting firms in the market. More specifically, the paper emphasises the negative role of the existing labour system – evolving from the system derived from previous China‐specific centrally planned economy – and the fact that it prevents transfer and complete implementation of globally standardised HRM policies in China for an effective recruitment of high‐tech managerial profiles in high‐tech MNCs.