The emerging trend of organic food consumption is manifested by the opening of organic food restaurants in the hospitality sector. In this respect, drawing on cue utilization theory, stimulus-organism-response (S–O-R) theory, equity theory and the principle of dual entitlement, the aim of the current study is to investigate the role of perceived food quality (PFQ), price fairness (PF), perceived value (PV) and customer satisfaction (CS) on customers’ revisit and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions towards organic food restaurants. For this purpose, the empirical data were collected by means of a written survey instrument from customers who had previously visited an organic food restaurant. The hypotheses were analyzed with maximum-likelihood estimation. The findings revealed that PFQ positively influences PF and PV. The significant positive relationships were also confirmed between PF, PV, and CS. The findings were also supported that consumers’ behavioral intentions are influenced by CS. Furthermore, CS acts as a partial mediator among PFQ, PF, PV and behavioral intentions. Some significant theoretical and managerial insights are also presented.

Introduction

The demand for organic food consumption motivates food producers to provide more organic food products and consumers purchase these products from both physical and virtual stores for their household consumption. On the other hand, for dining out, organic food restaurants are a good option for organic food consumers. Therefore, this format enables restaurateurs to achieve a competitive advantage by differentiating themselves from rivals with providing health claims. Despite this potential, still, a considerably limited number of organic food restaurants exits in the hospitality industry. Hence, it is imperative to comprehend the success factors of organic food restaurants for both the hospitality industry and academic researchers. Food scandals have caused consumers to question the quality of food products. Extant literature provides empirical support that PFQ is the most critical factor in customers’ choice of restaurants (Jung et al., 2015; Namkung and Jang, 2007; Filimonau and Krivcova, 2017). Additionally, previous research reported that PFQ is also a critical factor in determining CS, customers’ revisit and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions (Kim et al., 2009; Liu and Jang, 2009; Ha and Jang, 2010). Particularly, health value, attitude towards healthfulness and taste was found to have an influence on customers’ behavioral intentions towards healthful menu items (Jun et al., 2014). Furthermore, food-related attributes (serving organic and local food or ingredients positively impact customers’ willingness to pay, wait longer and travel farther for a green restaurant (Kwok et al., 2016). As such, customers’ evaluations regarding the quality of these products are vital for the development of organic food restaurants. Hence, it is useful to understand and how customers’ food quality perceptions influence their behavioral intentions towards organic food restaurants for investors and marketers in the hospitality industry.

To date there is limited research on the role of customer perceived value for reading and giving positive and negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) of an altruistic service within a singular study. Further, emotions have been shown to be important in altruistic services, yet there is no investigation of the role of emotional value for eWOM. This paper investigates these gaps by proposing and empirically testing a model with data from an online survey of 366 consumers of an altruistic service (blood donation) using structural equation modelling. The results show emotional value is a central value concept that mediates the relationship between reading eWOM and other value dimensions, whereas altruistic value is shown to be important for giving eWOM. The findings have theoretical importance for understanding the nature of customer perceived value in altruistic services and are also useful to managers of altruistic services seeking to increase eWOM as a customer recruitment and retention strategy.

Introduction

Altruistic services, whereby consumers take active roles in civic participation through volunteering and donating time and effort to assist in creating a service, are becoming increasingly important to address many global issues such as blood shortages and natural disasters (Cheung, McColl-Kennedy, & Coote, 2017). However, many altruistic service organisations have limited resources (e.g. infrastructure, staff and funding), which can hinder their ability to provide service offerings and also to recruit and retain consumers who assist in their creation (Alfes, Antunes, & Shantz, 2017). Dropping rates of consumer participation in altruistic services is of increasing concern in countries such as the United States (Ellingson et al., 2017), the United Kingdom (Office for National Statistics [ONS], 2017) and Australia (Oppenheimer, Haski-Leventhal, Holmes, Lockstone-Binney, & Meijis, 2015). Scholars and practitioners have called for greater theoretical and practical insights into how such trends can be reversed, and consumers retained or recruited to ensure altruistic services are sustainable and continue to deliver important, and at times vital, services to the community.

Introduction

The relationship between a customer’s perception of value and both customer satisfaction and customer loyalty has long been studied in different sectors of the service industry (see for instance, Cronin et al., 2000; Choi et al., 2004; Gallarza and Saura, 2006; Chen, 2008; Chen and Tsai, 2008; Howat and Assaker, 2013; El-Adly and Eid, 2016). However, a question that may arise in this regard is: Which customer perceived value was studied in previous research that addressed this relationship? Most previous research that examines this relationship in the service context considers customer perceived value as a unidimensional construct that is concerned only with the customer’s valuation of money or price or cost (e.g., Cronin et al., 2000; Kandampully and Suhartanto, 2000; Bei and Chiao, 2001; Choi and Chu, 2001; Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002; Hellier et al., 2003; Choi et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2004; Chen and Quester, 2006; Lin and Wang, 2006; Chen, 2008; Chen and Tsai, 2008; Ryu et al., 2008; Han and Ryu, 2009; Hu et al., 2009; Lai et al., 2009; Chen and Chen, 2010; Hume and Sullivan Mort, 2010; Yoon et al., 2010; Hsin Chang and Wang, 2011; Lai and Chen, 2011; Chen, 2012; Tanford et al., 2012; Howat and Assaker, 2013). Studying customer perceived value as a unidimensional construct that focuses only on cost, price, or money is, however, a very narrow and simplistic method, which ignores other important aspects that enrich the usefulness of the construct (Sweeney and Soutar, 2001; El-Adly and Eid, 2015). At one extreme, a very few researchers have considered it a single item scale that measures overall customer value only (e.g., Oh, 1999; Murray and Howat, 2002), but using a single item construct does not often reflect the fullness of the theoretical construct and its reliability cannot be assessed (Wang et al., 2004). At the other extreme, a small number of researchers adopt customer perceived value as a multidimensional construct (e.g., Williams and Soutar, 2009; Wu and Liang, 2009; Chen and Hu, 2010; Ryu et al., 2010; El-Adly and Eid, 2016). Specifically, in the hotel service industry, most research that studies the relationship between customer perceived value, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty has considered customer perceived value as a unidimensional construct with emphasis on value for money. This limited perspective on customer perceived value ignores other important dimensions of value that could be derived from the complete hospitality experience that the hotel guest might get during his/her stay in the hotel and may have a great influence on his/her satisfaction with the hotel and consequently his/her subsequent loyalty to it. Therefore, this study aims to broaden the view of customer perceived value in the hotel context through studying it as a multidimensional construct that reflects the complete hospitality experience and to investigate its influence on both customer satisfaction and customer loyalty to the hotel. This study would add to the literature of hotel customer perceived value, customer satisfaction with it, and customer loyalty to it in several ways. First, it conceptualises and empirically validates the perceived value of hotels as a multidimensional construct to reflect the complete hospitality experience of hotel guests. Second, it investigates the effect of perceived value dimensions of the hotel customer on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Third, it assesses the mediating role of customer satisfaction in the hotel perceived value dimensions-loyalty relationship. The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. First, we review the literature on the relationship between customer perceived value, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. Second, we conceptualise the model and formulate hypotheses about the relationship between the hotel perceived value dimensions, satisfaction, and loyalty. Third, we describe the research method. Then we present the main results of the tested model. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of the study as well as its limitations and possible directions for future research.

Online social media services allow customers and organizations conveniently to interact and share experiences with each other (Cheung and To, 2016). Recently, the deployment of collective intelligence (co-intelligence) to solve organizational problems, such as product and service quality problems, is an important internet strategy for companies. In 2015, only 1.8 percent of Fortune 500 corporations did not use any social media platform and up to 74 percent of corporations had a fan page on Facebook (Barnes et al., 2015). These companies have recognized the need to focus on what customers want from a website; what they want to communicate consumers, and the potential role of a fan page in communicating messages. A major success factor of community-based innovation is to identify and motivate community members who are qualified to contribute to a specific development task (Chu and Chan, 2009). Mačiulienė and Skaržauskienė (2016) revealed that an online community has a greater potential for the emergence of co-intelligence when managers create appropriate mechanisms to motivate the participants of the online community, and when a balance exists between the participants’ goals and the community’s goals. Therefore, the use of online social networks (OSNs) (such as Facebook fan pages) to connect with consumers and to strengthen their identification with companies and participation in co-intelligence activities to generate value through collaborative innovation is important for companies. The internet user-perceived value of collective intelligence (UPVoCI) affects his or her intention to participate in co-intelligence activities for the purposes of collaborative innovation in OSNs. However, the development of instruments for measuring UPVoCI does not suffice for the academic determination of the perceived value of participating in co-intelligence activities to internet users and members of an OSN. What causes an internet user to be open to sharing his/her intelligence, including information and knowledge, with others in an OSN? Motivation theory states that individuals offer knowledge when they perceive that it improves their professional standing (Wasko and Faraj, 2005). When individuals believe that their experiences are valuable and useful, they are more willing to share them (Senge, 1999; Wasko and Faraj, 2005). Perceived benefit is a factor that affects self-disclosure in OSNs (Cheung et al., 2015). Tang et al. (2016) demonstrated that intrinsic motivations (e.g. sense of self-worth and socializing) and extrinsic motivations (e.g. economic reward and reciprocity) positively influence users’ intention to share mobile coupons in OSNs. Individuals have high intention to share information with their strong-tie friends in OSNs (Choi et al., 2017).

In today’s global business-to-business environment, successfully establishing prominent industrial brand equity has been considered a foundation for sustaining relational exchange (Backhaus, Steiner, & Lugger, 2011; Marquardt, 2013; Nyadzayo, Matanda, & Ewing, 2016). By definition, industrial brand equity represents total customer value a brand holds based on a set of salient brand associations in customers’ eyes (Aaker, 1996; Bendixen, Bukasa, & Abratt, 2004; Mudambi, 2002). Although some useful guidelines for building industrial brand equity have been depicted, such as the capabilities-centric branding approach based on firms’ entrepreneurship, learning, and innovation capabilities (Beverland, Napoli, & Lindgreen, 2007), a number of research gaps can be found in view of the shaping characteristics of today’s competitive, high-technology, and global industrial marketplace. Parallel to exploring consumer-based brand equity dimensions based on consumers’ consumption process (Anselmsson, Johansson, & Persson, 2007; Christodoulides & Chernatony, 2010), current understanding of industrial brand equity dimensions is mainly based on a series of salient customer value elements identified in the core industrial reproduction process. These customer value elements are based on the features of industrial products and services a customer firm uses for enhancing productivity, such as quality, reliability, durability, delivery time, expertise, and so on (Bendixen et al., 2004; Beverland et al., 2007; Persson, 2010). Nonetheless, on the firm level, there are a variety of customer value elements beyond those associated with industrial reproduction (Leek & Christodoulides, 2012; O’Cass & Ngo, 2012). For example, social capital has been recognized as an important element of customer value (Eklinder-Frick, Eriksson, & Hallén, 2011). For this reason, a broader spectrum of industrial brand equity dimensions should be explored. Moreover, existing conceptualization and measurement of industrial brand equity have not been aligned with the competitive nature of customer value in the industrial marketplace. In the industrial market, customer value is largely represented by “resonating focus,” which is the core points of difference against competitors in target customers’ eyes (Anderson, Narus, & van Rossum, 2006). An industrial brand possesses little customer value and vanished brand equity in circumstances that customers choose to use an alternative brand with greater customer value (Bendixen et al., 2004; Riel, Montagnes, & Streukens, 2005). Thus, to better understand branding in business-to-business competitions, we need to closely examine the comparative nature of industrial brand equity beyond the general brand value concept. Third, successful industrial brands should be built on the nuanced customer experience of a brand (Biedenbach & Marell, 2010; Zaichkowsky, Parlee, & Hill, 2010; Zhang, Jiang, Shabbir, & Du, 2015).

The retail environment in Malaysia has exhibited a pronounced and constant evolution over the past few decades. The number of major department stores in Malaysia has increased significantly from only one in 1995 to more than 324 outlets (Chang, 2010). Malaysian department stores have recently turned into a dominant retail format in cities, with 45% to 60% of household customers opting to shop at department stores (Malaysia Exporter Guide Annual, 2010). In line with this trend, a lot of effort has gone into investigating ways to help retailers develop longstanding success in a sustainable retailing atmosphere through brand loyalty. Department stores can support retailers by drawing in customers through cultivating customer brand loyalty and offering unique and premium product lines exclusively to their customers (Das, 2014). Oliver (1999) defines loyalty as “a deeply held commitment to repurchase or re-patronage a preferred product consistently in the future, despite situational influences” (p. 392). Building such a relationship depends on the merchandising process, which integrates consumer behavior and business strategy aiming to determine the customers’ tastes, habits, and needs (Griskevicius & Kenrick, 2013). Employing tools such as customer brand loyalty (CBL) development applied by competitive retailers is necessary to gain a competitive advantage over other players. A key strategy that is vital in marketing and brand management studies is recognizing the precursor of CBL and the factors that give rise to positive brand evaluation and development. As a result, the use of branding strategy has become a tool for differentiation (De Chernatony, 2010) and competitive gain (Kressmann et al., 2006). Moreover, building and retaining CBL provide retailers with a significant competitive advantage (Jinfeng & Zhilong, 2009). Therefore, for many years, building CBL has been the ultimate objective of marketing, consumer behavior, and brand management activities in most industries. The topic of CBL had been the subject of extensive research, which primarily focused on examining only a few important marketing antecedents of loyalty, such as customer perceived service quality, perceived value or price (Ha & Janda, 2014), customer satisfaction, brand commitment (Han & Hyun, 2013), brand trust (Fung, King, Sparks, & Wang, 2013), and word-of-mouth communication (Anaza & Rutherford, 2014; Choi & Choi, 2013).

The rapid growth in competition among organizations of all types has posed several challenges for them regarding maintaining their customers and achieving business objectives. Due to that, organizations have shifted from traditional marketing towards relational exchange practices with customers that could yield greater business profits on the long term. For this reason, focusing on customer retention has become very important for improving organizational performance and competitiveness. In order to achieve customer retention, it is important to note that customers tend to evaluate their purchase experiences in terms of the perceived value that results from the amount of money spent to get a product or service and the benefits received in return. Therefore, a positive customer experience has a significant impact on customer retention and purchase behaviour (Bapat and Thanigan, 2016). To sustain customer relationships and ensure organizational effectiveness, it has become vital to understand what constitutes customer retention (Afzali and Ahmed, 2016). In order to respond the intense competition among businesses, it is as become important to search for the drivers of customer retention. Previous studies examined several factors and predictors of customer retention in different industry contexts. However, the nature of these factors tends to be different from industry to industry. This study focuses on Malaysian retail sector to explore customer retention and its antecedents as the majority of previous studies on this topic were investigated in western cultures and only few were done in Asian countries, particularly in retail sector. According to Tamuliene and Gabryte (2014), although a significant amount of research has been conducted on examining the repurchase intentions of consumers, there is no consensus agreement on what constitutes customer retention. Moreover, Mandhachitara and Poolthong (2011) stated that corporate social responsibility is an important factor that affects consumer behaviour, but most of the previous studies on this concept were investigated in Western countries, and only few were done in Asian context.

مدیریت خرده‌فروشی برندهای فروشگاهی (SBها) بر دستیابی به تعیین موقعیت ارزش و ایجاد ارتباط خرید هوشمند یا تخصصی متمرکز شده است. نتیجه این که مصرف‌کنندگان باهوش ارزش و متخصصان بازار، اهداف اصلی این برندها محسوب می‌شوند. این پژوهش، یک مدل نظری تخصص‌گرایی بازار و هوش ارزشی در تعیین مصرف‌کننده با استفاده از SBها را به شیوه تجربی پیشنهاد و بررسی می‌کند. همچنین تحلیل چندگروهی را بر اساس گرایش مصرف‌کننده به وفاداری وی به برندی که خریداری می‌کند را نیز اجرا می‌کنیم. مصرف‌کنندگانی که به برند وفادار هستند به دلیل مزایای بالقوه‌ای که در بلندمدت نشان می‌دهند یکی از بخش‌های جذاب برای شرکت‌ها هستند در حالی که مصرف‌کنندگانی که وفاداری کمتری به برند دارند می‌توانند یکی از بخش‌های جذاب برای مزایای بالقوه کوتاه‌مدت باشند. نتایج حاصل از این پژوهش، تفاوت‌های بین این دو گروه را نشان می دهد. برای مصرف‌کنندگانی که به برند وفادار هستند این نتایج به دلیل مخالفت گسترده‌تر آنها با خطر عملیاتی بیشتر این برندها در مقایسه با برندهای تولیدکننده و نیز به دلیل اعتقاد راسخ آنها به نسبت بهتر قیمت-کیفیت SBها بر شناسایی دقیق با استفاده از SB در میان باهوش‌ترین مصرف‌کنندگان ارزش تاکید دارد. در مصرف‌کنندگان دارای وفاداری کمتر به برند، شناسایی را با استفاده از SB در میان مصرف‌کنندگانی با بیشترین تخصص‌گرایی بازار به دست آوردیم که دلیل آن، درک بیشتر خرید هوشمند یا تخصصی این برندها است. مفاهیم گسترده مدیریت نیز در این پژوهش مورد بررسی قرار می‌گیرند.

هدف از انجام این مطالعه، ارائه مدلی برای شکل گیری تمایل خرید آنلاین بر مبنای ارزش درک شده، اعتماد و سوابقِ امنیت و حریم خصوصی درک شده است. با استفاده از مدل پیشنهادیِ Ray، Ow و Kim (2011)، مدل پیشنهاد شده در این مطالعه، جهت پوشش دهی تضمین شخص ثالث و ساختارهای مرتبط توسعه یافت. این مدل همچنین تأثیر کیفیت اطلاعات، حریم خصوصی و امنیتِ درک شده مشتری بر اعتماد را آزمایش می کند. 451 نفر در این آزمایش شرکت کردند. به منظور آزمایش مدل پیشنهادی، روش حداقل مربعات جزئی بر اطلاعات به دست آمده از پرسشنامه اعمال شد. نتایج نشان داد که تمایل خرید آنلاین به ارزش درک شده و اعتماد بستگی دارد. کیفیت اطلاعات درک شده و امنیت درک شده، پیش بینی کننده های اصلی اعتماد درک شده هستند. امنیت درک شده مشتری به شهرت فروشنده، سرمایه گذاری وب سایت، مهر تضمین شخص ثالث، شناخت مهر های شخص ثالث، سیاست های حریم خصوصی و امنیت، آشنایی با وب سایت، نگرانی های حریم خصوصی در اینترنت، و گرایش به سوی گواهی شخص ثالث بستگی دارد.

مقاله سال 2017

ایجاد پیشینه تحقیق در مصرف سبز، این مطالعه ادراک مصرف کنندگان از مزایای سبز یک برند (سودمندگرایی زیست محیطی و درخشش گرم) و شفافیت سبز در ارزش درک سبز خود (GPV) را بررسی می کند. به ویژه، این مطالعه نقش واسطه ای GPV و ارتباط خود – نام تجاری در روابط بین مزایای سبز و شفافیت سبز و وفاداری به نام تجاری را تست می کند. ما از مدل معادلات ساختاری برای تست مدل تحقیق با استفاده از نمونه 826 پاسخ دهندگان چینی استفاده کردیم. یافته های ما نشان می دهد که بسیاری از فرضیه ها از حمایت برخوردار بودند. با این حال، مقایسه بین مارک های کالاها و خدمات فیزیکی نشان می دهد که شیوه توسعه مفاهیم ارزشی سبز مصرف کنندگان متفاوت است و نفوذ GPV و ارتباط خود – نام تجاری بر وفاداری به برند به طور قابل توجهی بین این دو گروه از برندها متفاوت می باشد. از این رو، این امر می تواند برای سازمان موثر تر باشد تا استراتژی نام تجاری سبز متنوع بین این دو گروه از مارک ها برند باشد.