Farhad Nikhashemi

This article proposes a structural framework for the joint estimation of tourists’ daily personal expenditures (intensity) and length of stay (extensity). We reconceptualize commonly accepted exogeneous determinants of both outcomes into a set of exogenous antecedents pre-existing the travel decision and a set of endogenous mediators that capture the role of market exchange after the travel decision and corresponding choices are made. Findings reveal that the effects of some exogenous factors, such as gender, income, and motives on total spending are fully mediated within the intensity and extensity components, absent of any direct impacts. Other factors, such as nationality, appear not to influence spending due to offsetting mediated effects. As these forces are difficult to discern via reduced-form modeling, the proposed structural framework provides tourism managers with deeper insight into the footprints of established expenditure determinants, potentially improving upon the efficacy of marketing strategies.

Brand community engagement in the virtual environment during a brand crisis has gained attention from firms and marketing scholars due to innovative technologies. However, there is a limited empiri-cal insight into its antecedents and consequences. This study, grounded in signaling and social identity theories, introduces the relationship between endorser credibility, virtual brand community engagement, and consumer brand identification as a pro-active brand recovery strategy. It also examines the impact of virtual brand engagement and consumer brand identification on brand love and forgiveness. The data were collected from online automo-bile brand community members. The results show that celebrity endorsers' trustworthiness, attractiveness, and expertise can be used as communication signals to expedite the process of consu-mer brand identification and virtual brand community engage-ment. Consumers who strongly identify with the brand and engage in its virtual community are more likely to develop an emotional bond with the brand and forgive it following a crisis. Interestingly, the study finds that the relationships between endor-ser credibility attractiveness and virtual consumer brand identifica-tion, endorser credibility trustworthiness and consumer brand identification, and consumer brand identification and virtual brand community are nonlinear.

Purpose

This paper aims to examine small- and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) strategic capabilities in terms of their marketing and management capabilities, their sources of environmental uncertainty and their organizational capabilities. Additionally, to what extent the effect differs across two sectors (manufacturing and service).

Design/methodology/approach

Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to conduct multigroup analysis for the two sectors. Data was collected from a sample of 315 Omani SMEs, 166 from manufacturing and 149 from services.

Findings

The results show that strategic capabilities have a significant positive effect on customer satisfaction. However, the effect differs between manufacturing and service SMEs; the effect is greater in service than in manufacturing SMEs. Furthermore, the effect of organizational capabilities on customer satisfaction was found to be positive. However, the effect is higher in manufacturing as the difference is statistically significant.

Originality/value

Due to the growing importance of the service and manufacturing SMEs in developing countries and their considerable involvement in economic development, it is important to understand the characteristics of the strategic capabilities in both sectors. Thus, according to the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first to propose a comprehensive framework that measures collectively the direct impact of strategic capabilities, organizational capabilities and environmental uncertainties on SMEs customer satisfaction and effectiveness.

Despite the importance of consumers’ need for uniqueness in behavioural studies, branding antecedents such as consumer brand identification and brand personality have not been fully investigated. This study aims to investigate the impact of these factors on consumers’ brand attitude and purchase intention in the car industry by uncovering the moderating role of brand origin and gender via a non-linear structural equation modelling approach. The survey approach is applied as the primary data collection method through which a total of 381 usable responses were obtained. Nonlinear structural equation modelling is employed to examine the hypothesized relationships among the latent variables. In addition, a synergic statistical approach is also applied to compare the proposed and rival models. Surprisingly, the study unveiled that the relationships between consumers’ need for uniqueness and consumer purchase intention are only significant at the moderate to high level, not at the lower level. The same effect is detected in the relationship between consumer brand identification and brand attitude. The outcomes of the multi-group analysis show that the hypothesized relationships among all variables vary across gender and brand origin. Furthermore, based on the statistical results and the theoretical argument presented, the rival model is accepted in favour of the initial proposed model.

Smart retailing has recently emerged as a new form of retail brand management enabled by novel technologies such as mobile augmented reality applications, to create better experience and value for customers. Augmented reality has also received significant attention as a growing field in marketing theory and practice. However, there is a limited understanding on how and why customer interactions with an augmented reality app can result in positive customer benefit perception, engagement and behavioural consequences. This study examines the chain of effects from AR attributes on the building blocks of continuous intention to use a shopping AR app and to pay a price premium, by incorporating the roles of a customer's benefits perception, psychological inspiration and engagement via a(n) (A)Symmetric Approach. The results support all direct hypothesised relationships among the variables, except the relationship between interactivity and utilitarian benefits, which was found to be insignificant. The study further demonstrates the moderating role of AR customisation in the proposed model, and reveals that the impact of utilitarian and hedonic benefits on shopping AR application engagement is non-linear. Non-linearity also transpires in the impact of psychological inspiration on willingness to pay price premium. Interestingly, the findings indicate that augmented reality customisation to some extent enhances the relationships in the hypothesised model.

Due to high customer switching behavior from one mobile service provider to another and high competition within the market, scholars, and marketers are trying to find and formulate the most appropriate consumer-driven business strategy to stay competitive. Grounded in means-end, value, and brand equity theories, this study proposes an integrative model in the telecom context to establish value → trust→ brand → price tolerance→ word of mouth communication (WOMC) chain. As a primary approach, the survey method is used through which 437 online responses were collected. Applying Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the findings of this study show that the empirical outcomes tally with the proposed relationships (the chain) and the importance-performance map analysis indicates that both perceived value and brand trust have the highest influence on price tolerance. Brand image and perceived value also demonstrate to be of highest importance in building positive WOMC in the context of the telecoms industry. In addition, this study found that brand equity components have strong mediating effects, while the moderating roles of gender and age across groups varies. Overall, this study contributes to the service marketing, branding, and consumer behavior literature, particularly in the context of telecommunications.

Purpose

Having Middle Eastern tourism industry as the context, this study aims to examine the impact of the four main dimensions within service innovation (i.e. product, process, organizational and marketing innovations) on tourist satisfaction; subsequently, towards the development of destination loyalty. Realized that religiosity prevails as an important social force that shapes individual behaviours, this study, hence, placed further assessment upon its moderating role, specifically in the relationships between tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty.

Design/methodology/approach

With adopting the approach of self-structured questionnaire, 214 usable responses had been collected for this study. Obtained data was then analyzed by conducting exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and multiple linear regression analysis through the usage of structural equation modelling.

Findings

Analysis of obtained data has revealed all the investigated dimensions within service innovation as active predictors to tourist satisfaction, with the exception of product innovation, while having marketing innovation being of highest significance. In turn, tourist satisfaction is found to greatly influence the formation of destination loyalty. Findings then provide notable indication on religiosity as a moderating factor to the proposed relationships within the investigated framework, between service innovation and tourist satisfaction, as well as tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty.

Originality/value

This study, thus, revealed the level of religiosity, particularly from the standpoint of Islamic perspectives, in playing a critical role towards predicting capability of service innovation on tourist satisfaction, and further, destination loyalty. Contributions hereby lie on theoretical and pragmatic insights concerning aspects of service and Islamic marketing within today’s tourism front.

Purpose. 
The purpose of this paper is to examine (a)symmetric features of task-technology-performance characteristics that are most relevant to fit, satisfaction and continuance intention of using apps in mobile banking transactions.

Design/methodology/approach. 
Exploratory factor analysis was used with maximum likelihood extraction and Varimax rotation on a separate sample of 183 mobile banking apps users prior to the main data collection. The theoretical model was tested applying a factor-based structural equation modelling approach to a sample of 250 experienced mobile banking apps users.

Findings. 
The study unveiled that the task and performance characteristics are more relevant compared to technology characteristics when doing transactions via apps. In addition, the findings uncovered that user satisfaction and continuous intention to use apps stem from the degree of fit in online transactions. The findings of moderation analysis highlighted that users in the lower income group are more concerned about the performance characteristics of banking apps, and there are no differences across age and gender groups. Surprisingly, technology characteristic has a nonlinear nature and this study shows potential boundary conditions of technology characteristics in degree of fit, user satisfaction and continuance intention to use apps.

Practical implications. 
Findings from the conditional probabilistic queries reveal that with 83.3 per cent of probability, user satisfaction is high when using apps for banking transactions, if the levels of fit, task, performance and technology characteristics are high. Furthermore, with 72 per cent of probability, continuance intention to use apps is high, if the levels of performance and task characteristics are high.

Originality/value. 
Contributing to task-technology fit theory, this study shows that performance characteristics need to be aligned with task and technology characteristics in order to have better fit when using apps for online banking transactions.

Purpose. 
While the importance of social media will continue to grow, the purpose of this study is to provide a retrospective systematic literature review of the social media research published in major hospitality and tourism journals over a specific time period.

Design/methodology/approach. 
The study conducted a bibliometric analysis to review the literature of 439 social media articles published in 51 hospitality and tourism journals over a 15-year time span (2002-2016).

Findings. 
Ulrike Gretzel authored the highest fractional citations. The results indicated that social media-related research was mostly published in top-tier journals. The International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management was amongst the four leading journals in terms of the percentage of published social media articles. While inter-country social media research collaborations were relatively modest, interestingly, inter-country collaborations have been steadily increasing in the past five years. Another finding indicated that social media research in hospitality and tourism journals has been predominantly quantitative. The results revealed six new areas within the consumer behaviour research theme, namely, eWOM, service recovery, customer satisfaction, brand/destination image and service quality. Finally, it is important to note that four new trends in social media research appeared between 2011 and 2016, namely, big data, netnography, Travel 2.0 and Web 2.0.

Research limitations/implications. 
While this study made significant contributions to the social media literature, some limitations do exist. For example, the current research excluded publications from major conferences, books, book chapters and dissertations. Additionally, it is not within the scope of this paper to take into account issues related to self-citations.

Practical implications. 
The results obtained from analysis contribute to a comprehensive understanding of social media research progress in hospitality and tourism. For example, evaluating the performance of individual scholars helps educational institutions to compete in the global university ranking system. Additionally, to compete for funding opportunities on the topic of social media, institutions can use citation counts to demonstrate their competitiveness. Furthermore, due to the expected future growth in the number of social media platforms, practitioners need to understand motivating factors and tourists’ needs in different countries, target market segments, age groups and cultures to create highly engaging communities around their brands.

Originality/value. 
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the sample of this study synthesized the largest selection of social media articles published in hospitality and tourism journals. This is the first study to apply the fractional score at the author level, the adjusted appearance score at the university level and the average citation score at the journal and inter-country levels in the analysis. In addition, prevalent research orientations and research trends in social media made significant contributions to existing literature.

Providing a pleasant shopping experience for consumers is vital in the apparel retail industry. A comprehensive multi-dimensional scale to measure “retail brand experience” (RBE) was recently introduced; however, this scale lacks application. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine a conceptual model that shows the associations between RBE and customer behavioural outcomes (willingness to pay more, word of mouth communication, and continuous purchase intention) in the retail apparel industry using the multi-dimensional scale operationalisation of RBE. The present study also attempts to uncover the moderating role of brand love in the proposed model. Using the survey method, 416 usable responses were collected. The findings indicate that all the direct effects are statistically supported. The study also shows non-linear relationships between word of mouth communication and willingness to pay more, and word of mouth communication and continuous purchase intention. With respect to the moderating role of brand love, it enhances the influence of both RBE and word of mouth communication on willingness to pay more. Overall, the present study contributes to the retailing literature, particularly in the apparel-retailing context, branding literature, and customer behaviour literature. Practically, this study provides several recommendations to enhance customer willingness to pay more, their continuous purchase intentions, and word of mouth communication by providing better retail brand experience.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the impacts of brand personality and functional congruity on various components of brand loyalty (i.e. cognitive, affective, and conative) by examining the moderating role of gender.

Design/methodology/approach
The proposed model is examined by considering car as a product brand stimulus. Using a self-structured questionnaire, 263 usable responses are considered for data analysis by applying the structural equation modelling method.

Findings
The findings indicate that all hypotheses on the relationships between brand personality, functional congruity, and stages of brand loyalty are supported except for the relationship between brand personality and conative loyalty, whereby brand personality indirectly have impacts on conative brand loyalty via functional congruity. The outcome of the multi-group analysis shows that the impact of brand personality and functional congruity on cognitive, affective, and conative brand loyalty varies across gender groups.

Practical implications
The results indicate that if marketing managers are willing to create cognitive, affective as well as conative brand loyalty among consumers, they ought to tally their consumers’ purchasing and evaluation criteria with the functional and symbolic attributes. If the target consumers were motivated to purchase the product based on the symbolic attributes (as preferred by females in the present study), more attention should be focussed on communicating and delivering the symbolic attributes during their marketing campaign; on the other hand, if the consumers were inclined to buy product based on the utilitarian functions (as preferred by males in the current study), more emphasis should be placed on the functional values and attributes.

Originality/value
This study is the first to utilise self-congruity and the elaboration likelihood model to explain the influence of brand personality and functional congruity on each component of brand loyalty within the automobile industry’s context. This study on the moderating role of gender shows that the effect of brand personality and functional congruity is different across gender groups. The findings can help marketers to design an effective brand positioning and marketing strategies in order to stay competitive.

Building customer brand loyalty through branding strategies to sustain competitiveness in the retail industry has gathered momentum among researchers. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of brand personality and consumer brand identification on customer brand loyalty via the mediating variables of perceived service quality, perceived value, brand trust, brand commitment, and word-of-mouth communication among Malaysian department stores' customers. Using a self-structured questionnaire, 381 usable responses are considered for data analysis by applying a covariance-based structural equation modeling approach. The results of exploratory factor analysis show that sincerity, followed by sophistication and competence, are the most significant dimensions used to predict brand personality in department stores. The outcomes also reveal that brand personality indirectly influences customer brand loyalty via consumer brand identification. Furthermore, perceived service quality, perceived value, brand trust, word-of-mouth communication, and brand commitment mediate the effects of consumer brand identification on brand loyalty. Finally, the proposed competing model implies that the indirect impact of brand personality and consumer brand identification is inevitable in building department stores' brand loyalty.

Purpose. 
The advent of media and technology has led to growing inclination among Generation Y (Gen-Y) consumers towards diverse fashion influences and they tend to dress either to fit in with their peers or to articulate self-identity and conform to the society. This trend has become a fashion dilemma and the purpose of this paper is to leverage on this matter by investigating the factors influencing the Gen-Y consumers’ attitude and purchase intention towards fashion apparel.

Design/methodology/approach. 
A sample of 250 respondents is used to assess the measurement and structural models, by applying a partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach.

Findings. 
The results indicate that brand and self-identity are the factors that most shape Gen-Y consumers’ attitudes towards fashion apparel. Furthermore, brand, style, price, and social identity are the most influential factors of Gen-Y consumers’ purchase intention for fashion apparels. The findings also show that style, price, country of origin, and social identity are not relevant to Gen-Y consumers’ attitudes towards fashion apparel, and that country of origin and self-identity do not have any relationship with the Gen-Y consumers’ purchase intention.

Originality/value. 
This study is among the few attempts to investigate the Gen-Y consumers’ buying behaviour of fashion apparel based on the theory of planned behaviour, optimal distinctiveness theory, and social identity theory. PLS-multi-group analysis reveals that age, gender, and income are moderating variables of several proposed structural relationships.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of knowledge management (KM) enablers on KM activities in the context of Malaysian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The effects of organizational culture, transformational leadership, organizational structure, and technology utilization as infrastructural KM enablers are examined on KM activities as knowledge acquisition, knowledge conversion, application, and protection.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 227 responses from SMEs’ top management are used to assess the measurement and structural models applying partial least squares-structural equation modeling.

Findings

The results show that technology utilization and organizational structure are two main factors in KM activities (all structural relationships are supported). Surprisingly, organizational culture is only associated with knowledge conversion and protection and the findings indicate no relationships between organizational culture and knowledge acquisition and application. The results also indicate a positive relationship between transformational leadership and knowledge acquisition and the hypotheses on the association between transformational leadership and knowledge conversion, application, and protection are rejected.

Practical implications

The results of importance-performance map analysis (IPMA) imply that technology utilization has the highest importance on knowledge acquisition, conversion, and protection while organizational structure has the highest importance on knowledge application. The results of IPMA also show that organizational culture has the highest performance on all KM activities.

Originality/value

This study is amongst the few that examines the structural relationships between organizational factors and KM activities in a SME context.

This study’s main objective is to explore the antecedents of consumer switching behaviour in the context of mobile industry. At the same time, this study gives a closer focus on the roles that brand personality (BP) and perceived product quality play in customer satisfaction (CS), consumer brand identification and switching behaviour. Using a self-structured questionnaire, 381 usable responses were recorded for data analysis. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were employed to analyze the data. The EFA outcome reveals that excitement, competence and sophistication are the most significant qualities predicting BP in the mobile industry’s context. The result demonstrates that BP, indirectly through consumer brand identification and customer satisfaction, has a negative effect on consumer’s switching behaviour intention. Perceived product quality has a direct and indirect relationship with switching behaviour intention. Finally, it is revealed that BP has high impact on perceived product quality’s evaluation as well.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of explanation on customer satisfaction in the service failure stage. It seeks to better understand the dynamics of consumer repurchase intention through a mediating effect of customer satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach

A structured questionnaire was e-mailed to collect the primary data. With three reminders, this study managed to obtain 322 responses from customers who complained about their internet service in Malaysia. Structural equation modelling techniques were applied to examine both direct and mediating effects between variables.

Findings

Results reveal that all four dimensions of explanation have significant partial mediating effect on repurchase intention through customer satisfaction. Results also disclose that there is no significant relationship between excuse and customer satisfaction in service failure. Among all dimensions, reference and apology have higher influence on repurchase intention through customer satisfaction.

Research limitations/implications

The results are particularly valuable for managers, as it supports the role of using explanation as a practical tool for fostering positive and profitable outcomes like repeat customer purchases.

Practical implications

The findings of this study will help organisations rethink their explanation strategies with the eye to foster greater customer repurchase intention.

Originality/value

The results are particularly valuable for managers, as they support the role of using explanation as a practical tool for fostering positive and profitable outcomes like repeat customer purchases.

Keywords

Customer brand loyalty has been an important area for practitioners in retailing industry due to various developments in the increasingly competitive environment. The objective of the current study is to identify the role of perceived value of the store brand in relationship between store attributes and customer brand loyalty. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data (n=418), from the customers visiting hypermarkets such as Tesco, Aeon Big, Mydin and Giant's in metropolitan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Structural Equation Modeling is employed to analyze the data. The results demonstrate that store attribute has a direct effect on customers’ perceived value as well as on their loyalty with the store brand. The store attribute also has an indirect effect on store brand loyalty via customers’ perceived value of the store brand. The study recommends hypermarkets to understand customers’ perception towards their brand in order to develop better marketing strategy which can enable them differentiate themselves from competitors.

The aim of this study was to identify the significance role of customer brand identification towards building customer brand loyalty via mediating effect of brand trust and word of mouth communication among Malaysian hypermarket customers. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data (n=300), using convenience sampling from Mydin, Tesco, Aeon Big, and Giant's hypermarket customers in metropolitan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Structural Equation Modeling was employed to analyze the data. The result revealed that brand trust and word of mouth communication fully mediate the influence of customer brand identification towards building customer brand loyalty. Moreover, this study identified that the indirect impact of customer brand identification via brand trust and word of mouth communication is more significant than its direct effect.