Search results

Tourists regularly make use of their smartphones while staying at tourist destinations. Several studies have studied the outcomes of smartphone use at travel destinations. The current paper believes tourists’ use of their smartphone or its apps because of their contact with tour friends, social loneliness-related concerns or its aesthetic scope. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors of continued use of smartphone apps via travelers during their stay at a tourism destination, framed within the UTAUT2 model (unified theory of acceptance and use of technology), given intrinsic user attributes (innovativeness), tourism destination aspect (aesthetic scope and social loneliness) and one of the key characteristics of mobile devices (portability).

The sample consists of 357 smartphone users who travelled to some tourist destinations and used some mobile apps during their stay. Data was analyzed using the structural equation modeling approach.

The findings of the study show that the UTAUT2 model can effectively explain the use of smartphone apps at tourism destinations and characteristics of the user and mobile device, does affect behaviour outcomes (smartphone, intention to reuse app, satisfaction towards trip and loyalty towards app).

This paper is mainly important due to its emphasis on smartphone apps’ use during the travel stay, as the majority of the existing literature focusses on prior steps ( service booking).

The present study examines the antecedents of learned helplessness, i.e. intrinsic and environmental constraints and consequences, i.e. intention to travel and expectation in the context of people with disability (PwD) tourism context by applying the “Theory of Learned Helplessness”.

The survey method was used to gather data from 209 physically disabled people who had visited/traveled to any tourist destination in the past twelve months. Structural equation modeling technique was used to analyze data.

The findings reveal that intrinsic and environmental constraints positively influence learned helplessness. Consequently, learned helplessness negatively effects intention to travel and positively affects expectation of PWD tourist' toward a travel destination. Furthermore, learned helplessness contributed as a mediator between intrinsic constraints and intention to travel toward a tourist destination.

Even though the body of literature on associations studied pertaining the conceptual lens of learned helplessness is widely recognized, there is dearth of literature investigating the connections between travel constraints, learned helplessness, PwDs intention and their expectation in travel destination context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how consumer-brand relationships affect brand loyalty and word of mouth when mediated by brand trust considering online brand communities on social media platforms.

A conceptual model is developed, depicting the impact of customer-brand relationships on brand loyalty and word of mouth via brand trust. The conceptual model is validated using partial least squares structural equation modeling and data for which are collected online through a structured questionnaire from a sample of 131 brand community members in North Capital Region of India.

Findings of the present study revealed that brand trust partially mediated between the involvement and commitment variables of customer-brand relationships, and brand loyalty and word of mouth. However, the link between satisfaction variable of customer-brand relationships, and brand loyalty and word of mouth via brand trust was found insignificant.

The present study provides novel insight to understand consumer-brand relationships on social media platforms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how various gratifications obtained in the social media context affect customer participation, and its sequential effect on brand trust, brand commitment and word of mouth (WOM) in social media brand communities.

The data were collected from 352 respondents who used social media using a survey method. The data were assessed using AMOS with structural equation modeling.

The findings depicted that among all gratifications obtained in the social media context, information seeking, incentive and brand likeability strongly affect customer participation, which sequentially affect brand trust, commitment and WOM in social media brand communities. In the context of social media brand communities, brand trust partially mediates the relationship between customer participation and its two outcome variables (brand commitment and WOM).

The present paper contributes that theory of uses and gratifications has particular significance and supposed to be provided further importance in the field of social media. It also presents a vivid and rich understanding of why customers use social media and participate in social media brand communities.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential determinants of sustainable consumption behavior. This study describes lifestyle of health and sustainability (LOHAS) tendency and the effects of such lifestyles on the behavioral intentions for sustainable consumption in sharing economy.

This research adapts LOHAS tendency, consumer attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and consumers' behavioral intention for sustainable consumption scale in Indian context to describe the sustainable consumption behavior by extending the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Data of 627 individuals collected through a questionnaire, after the scales validation process and thereafter a structural equation analysis has been performed.

The findings confirm the extended TPB, wherein LOHAS tendency has emerged as an antecedent to consumer attitudes for taking part in sustainable consumption. Results highlight that consumer attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control are significant determining factors of consumers' sustainable consumption behavior.

This study has examined the sustainable consumption behavior by considering the lifestyle tendency. A few other limitations are also discussed.

Consumer behavior in sharing economy is surely one of the emerging research areas; there is dearth of research to understand Indian consumers' sustainable consumption, particularly from lifestyle perspective. This research establishes relationship between LOHAS tendency and sustainable consumption, which may serve as a contributor to sharing economy in terms of LOHAS consumer's lifestyle and their sustainable consumption behavior.

This study seeks to observe the association between mobile banking failures, use of m-banking and customer engagement to determine the contribution of user satisfaction towards m-banking as mediator between the aforementioned relationship.

This study proposes a Mobile Banking Failure Model (MBFM) by integrating four failure dimensions (functional, system, information and service) based on Tan's failure model and DeLone and Mclean's Information Success model. In this paper, data was gathered from 338 respondents, who were the customers of banks and regular users of m-banking services of their respective banks in India. A survey method was employed to collect data. Structure equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the collected data.

The results suggest that all m-banking failure dimensions (functional, system, information and service) affect the use of m-banking, which in turn affects user satisfaction towards m-banking and customer engagement. Additionally, this study found that user satisfaction towards m-banking acts as a partial mediator between the use of m-banking and customer engagement.

The banking failure and its use by customers have been examined in the context of mobile banking in India only and thereby limits the generalization of results to other industry and country contexts.

The results of this paper will guide bank managers and policy planners in implementing MBFM in the Indian banking context, specifically for their m-banking apps.

The use of m-banking, user satisfaction towards m-banking and customer engagement have been added as three supportive variables to the basic Tan's failure model and DeLone and Mclean's Information Success model to examine the impact of m-banking failure on bank customers' usage behaviour. This is a novel addition to the extant literature, as most empirical works in this domain are from industries other than banking (specifically m-banking) and with differing contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a scale to measure customer social participation in brand communities, specifically e-travel companies’ communities.

A qualitative research has been undertaken to generate a pool of items. Based on Churchill’s (1979) scale development process, numerous reliability and validity tests have been conducted to confirm the scale structure. Data were collected through online and field surveys from the students and hotel guests who have either subscribed, liked or joined any e-travel service companies’ community brand page using any social networking site or have ever posted or considered reviews and ratings of any e-travel service companies via their official site or via a mobile app while planning their travel.

The findings depict nine items on a three-dimensional scale for measuring customer participation in travel brand communities created on social networking sites.

The findings provide important implications for hotel and travel managers and are likely to encourage future studies in the field of social media and travel brand communities.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing refinement to the distinct operationalization and conceptualization of customer online participation, specifically in social media-based travel brand communities. This paper is the first to develop a multidimensional scale of customer social participation in e-travel companies’ communities. This is a new addition to existing literature, as the majority of empirical studies in this field are from participation other than customer social participation and contexts different from e-travel companies.

Online information research on hotels is gradually emerging as a key area of research with the increasing use of social media as a platform for co-creative service innovation (CCSI). The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between the key drivers of co-creation intention in the social media context. Understanding relationships between key drivers of customers’ co-creation intention will prove valuable in advancing current knowledge about service innovation using social media. The key drivers examined in this study are – customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI on social media, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. This knowledge will be of considerable value for its practical application in the hotel industry.

Data were collected from 346 hotel guests using survey method. Structural equation modeling with a bootstrapping estimation was used to analyze the data.

The results show that customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI on social media, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control positively influence both co-creation and adoption intention. Further, it was also found that co-creation intention mediates the relationship between its two driving factors, namely, customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI in social media and adoption intention.

The findings provide theoretical implications for hospitality discipline. The findings also provide various strategies hospitality firms can use to co-create service innovation through the effective use of social media.

The relationships examined in the present study have not been tested previously; this is the first attempt of the kind. Thus, the associations established in this study form an important contribution to the existing body of knowledge in co-creation, service innovation and social media literature.

Existing research lacks a comprehensive understanding of the individual factors that may transform an “ordinary” customer into an active participator in the service innovation process and/or the situational factors that determine a customer's participation in any stage of the service innovation process. The purpose of this paper is to fill these research gaps by developing and validating a conceptual framework on CPSIB in the Indian hotel industry by using smartphones to access SNS apps.

A cross-sectional survey design method was used in this study to collect representative samples with greater response rates. The target population included in this study were hotel guests of all of the star category hotels in New Delhi who had earlier experiences of staying in star category hotels. Structured questionnaire was formulated, which was later pre-tested to confirm its reliability and validity. Out of 400 questionnaires, 348 usable responses were obtained.

This research examines CPSIB in the Indian hotel industry using SNS smartphone apps. It confirms that user innovativeness and perceived trust in the service provider determine customers' participative service innovation behavior, which further results in positive adoption intention via SNS smartphone apps.

This research provides valuable insights into the hotel industry, specifically in the context of India. However, it has a few limitations that must be taken into account when generalizing its results.

First, investigating the key antecedents and consequences of CPSIB has important implications for marketing practitioners. Moreover, it was observed that hotel guests with higher innovativeness and trust in the service provider would show positive participative service innovation behavior toward innovating new services along with the hotel service providers, which may result in a positive adoption intention toward the newly developed services. Second, hoteliers should integrate hotel guests into hotel service innovation via the use of SNS smartphone apps.

This research conceptualizes that user innovativeness is a driving factor for CPSIB that may further generate a positive adoption intention toward newly developed services.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, only a very few studies have tested the interrelationships between individual factors and customer participation behavior in the mobile technology-mediated service ecosystem simultaneously. Furthermore, research examining the individual and situational factors influencing CPSIB and adoption intention towards newly developed services using SNS smartphone apps is still in a nascent stage.

The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic review of customer participation research specifically in online brand communities and summarize a number of basic issues as important research gaps that future research should address.

By using the content analysis method, this paper explores, analyses and presents a literature review by closely examining 113 articles published during 2001-2016, primarily from the leading marketing and management journals.

The findings of this review show that regardless of the plenty of studies in this area, a conceptual framework for customer participation is undetermined. This review presents a framework describing various antecedents, mediators, moderators and consequences of online brand community participation. Apart from this, various theories and models used in the reviewed articles are being depicted. The literature classification presented in this paper portrays the current trends and patterns of research in this area. This review also addresses research gaps in this area and presents them in the form of future research directions.

This review of literature carried out by the authors suggests that customer participation in online brand communities needs more focused conceptual research and the implications of this study will help researchers in this direction. Moreover, the managers can use the identified variables as a checklist to their online brand communities’ activities.

This paper is the first to provide a systematic review of customer participation in online brand community area that presents a comprehensive knowledge regarding the current state of research in this area on a single platform and provides a conceptual framework.