Individualism and collectivism

Electronic word-of-mouth in hospitality and tourism management

Operations management researchers and practitioners face new challenges in integrating issues of sustainability with their traditional areas of interest. During the past 20 years, there has been growing pressure on businesses to pay more attention to the environmental and resource consequences of the products and services they offer and the processes they deploy. One symptom of this pressure is the movement towards triple bottom line reporting (3BL) concerning the relationship of profit, people and the planet. The resulting challenges include integrating environmental, health, and safety concerns with green product design, lean and green operations, and closed-loop supply chains. We review these and other 'sustainability' themes covered in the first 50 issues of Production and Operations Management and conclude with some thoughts on future research challenges in sustainable operations management.

Sustainable Operations Management

Word of mouth and interpersonal communication: A review and directions for future research

Findings of two experimental studies show that Instagram influencers with high numbers of followers are found more likeable, partly because they are considered more popular. Important, only in limited cases, perceptions of popularity induced by the influencer's number of followers increase the influencer's perceived opinion leadership. However, if the influencer follows very few accounts him-/herself, this can negatively impact popular influencers’ likeability. Also, cooperating with influencers with high numbers of followers might not be the best marketing choice for promoting divergent products, as this decreases the brand's perceived uniqueness and consequently brand attitudes.

/pdf/marketing-through-instagram-influencers-the-impact-of-number-14kofhq1md.pdf

Marketing through Instagram influencers : the impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude

This research studies a psychosocial cost associated with positive word of mouth (WOM): positive WOM can decrease the uniqueness of one’s possessions, which hurts high-uniqueness individuals (pilot study 1). As a result, high- (vs. low-) uniqueness individuals are less willing to generate positive WOM for publicly consumed products that they own. However, high uniqueness does not decrease willingness to generate WOM for privately consumed products (studies 1 and 2) or for products that participants don’t intend to buy (study 2). The effect of uniqueness is more pronounced for WOM that includes positive recommendations, compared to WOM that only contains product details (study 2). Illustrating the process, pilot study 2 demonstrates that for publicly consumed products, WOM recommendations are perceived to be more persuasive than WOM that provides details. Study 3 confirms that high- (vs. low-) uniqueness consumers are less willing to recommend a public product to others, but are as willing to discuss product details. Study 4 analyzes content of real-world WOM and finds evidence that supports these results.

The Effect of Need for Uniqueness on Word of Mouth

Stealth marketing techniques are being driven by a growing criticism of the advertising industry, and are based on the premise that word of mouth and peer group recommendation are the most effective promotional and marketing tools.This article discusses stealth marketing methods used by companies to reach consumers without their motives being obvious. The authors feel that brand managers need to consider the strengths and weaknesses of stealth marketing and traditional marketing before they decide on either.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=1394975

Stealth Marketing: How to Reach Consumers Surreptitiously

This research examines the psychosocial cost associated with positive word of mouth (WOM), which can decrease the uniqueness of possessions and thus harm high-uniqueness consumers (pilot study). As a result, high- (versus low-) uniqueness consumers are less willing to generate positive WOM for publicly consumed products that they own. However, high uniqueness does not decrease willingness to generate WOM for privately consumed products (Study 1). Study 2 demonstrates that for publicly consumed products, WOM that includes positive recommendations is more persuasive than WOM that only contains product details. Consequently, the effect of uniqueness is more pronounced for WOM recommendations than for WOM that only provides details (Study 3). Study 4 confirms that high- (versus low-) uniqueness consumers are less willing to recommend a public product to others but are equally willing to discuss product details. Study 5 analyzes real-world WOM content and finds evidence in support of these results.

Although the idea of brand concepts has been around for a while, very little research addresses how brand concepts may influence consumer responses to corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Four studies reveal that communicating the CSR actions of a luxury brand concept causes a decline in evaluations, relative to control. A luxury brand’s self-enhancement concept (i.e., dominance over people and resources) is in conflict with the CSR information’s self-transcendence concept (i.e., protecting the welfare of all), which causes disfluency and a decline in evaluations. These effects do not emerge for brands with openness (i.e., following emotional pursuits in uncertain directions) or conservation (i.e., protecting the status quo) concepts that do not conflict with CSR. The effects for luxury brand concepts disappeared when the informativeness of the disfluency was undermined but were accentuated in an abstract (vs. concrete) mind-set. These findings implicate brand concepts as a key factor in how ...

/pdf/doing-poorly-by-doing-good-corporate-social-responsibility-3ajtfnokgc.pdf

Andrew M. Kaikati

Papers

The Effect of Need for Uniqueness on Word of Mouth

Stealth Marketing: How to Reach Consumers Surreptitiously

The Effect of Need for Uniqueness on Word of Mouth

Doing Poorly by Doing Good: Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand Concepts

Consumers' use of brands to reflect their actual and ideal selves on Facebook