Through qualitative and empirical research, the authors find that the service quality construct conforms to the structure of a third-order factor model that ties service quality perceptions to distinct and actionable dimensions: outcome, interaction, and environmental quality. In turn, each has three subdimensions that define the basis of service quality perceptions. The authors further suggest that for each of these subdimensions to contribute to improved service quality perceptions, the quality received by consumers must be perceived to be reliable, responsive, and empathetic. The authors test and support this conceptualization across four service industries. They consider the research and managerial implications of the study and its limitations.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3203465.pdf

Some New Thoughts on Conceptualizing Perceived Service Quality: A Hierarchical Approach:

This article provides a synthesizing overview of the past 20 yr. of consumer research addressing the sociocultural, experiential, symbolic, and ideological aspects of consumption. Our aim is to provide a viable disciplinary brand for this research tradition that we call consumer culture theory (CCT). We propose that CCT has fulfilled recurrent calls for developing a distinctive body of theoretical knowledge about consumption and marketplace behaviors. In developing this argument, we redress three enduring misconceptions about the nature and analytic orientation of CCT. We then assess how CCT has contributed to consumer research by illuminating the cultural dimensions of the consumption cycle and by developing novel theorizations concerning four thematic domains of research interest.

/pdf/consumer-culture-theory-cct-twenty-years-of-research-3gcdikziju.pdf

Consumer Culture Theory (Cct): Twenty Years of Research

A brand community from a customer-experiential perspective is a fabric of relationships in which the customer is situated. Crucial relationships include those between the customer and the brand, between the customer and the firm, between the customer and the product in use, and among fellow customers. The authors delve ethnographically into a brand community and test key findings through quantitative methods. Conceptually, the study reveals insights that differ from prior research in four important ways: First, it expands the definition of a brand community to entities and relationships neglected by previous research. Second, it treats vital characteristics of brand communities, such as geotemporal concentrations and the richness of social context, as dynamic rather than static phenomena. Third, it demonstrates that marketers can strengthen brand communities by facilitating shared customer experiences in ways that alter those dynamic characteristics. Fourth, it yields a new and richer conceptuali...

Building brand community

Word of mouth marketing — the intentional influencing of consumer-to-consumer communications — is an increasingly important technique. The authors overview and synthesize extant word of mouth theory and present a study of a marketing campaign in which mobile phones were seeded with prominent bloggers. Eighty-three blogs were followed for six months. Findings reveal the complex cultural conditions through which marketing “hype” is transformed by consumers into the “honey” of relevant, shared communications. Four word of mouth communication strategies are identified — evaluation, embracing, endorsement and explanation. Each is influenced by communicator narrative, communications forum, communal norms and the nature of the marketing promotion. An intrinsic tension between commercial and communal interests plays a prominent, normative role in message formation and reception. This “hype-to-honey” theory shows that communal word of mouth does not simply increase or amplify marketing messages. Rather, marketing messages and meanings are systematically altered in the process of embedding them. The theory has implications for how marketers should plan, target and benefit from word of mouth and how scholars should understand word of mouth in a networked world.

Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities

Word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing—firms' intentional influencing of consumer-to-consumer communications—is an increasingly important technique. Reviewing and synthesizing extant WOM theory, this article shows how marketers employing social media marketing methods face a situation of networked coproduction of narratives. It then presents a study of a marketing campaign in which mobile phones were seeded with prominent bloggers. Eighty-three blogs were followed for six months. The findings indicate that this network of communications offers four social media communication strategies—evaluation, embracing, endorsement, and explanation. Each is influenced by character narrative, communications forum, communal norms, and the nature of the marketing promotion. This new narrative model shows that communal WOM does not simply increase or amplify marketing messages; rather, marketing messages and meanings are systematically altered in the process of embedding them. The theory has definite, pragmatic implicati...

Networked narratives: Understanding word-of-mouth marketing in online communities

Examines consumers’ motivation for buying counterfeits or pirated goods. The findings indicated that, compared to those who did not buy pirated music CDs, those who bought the counterfeits viewed such purchases as less risky, and trusted stores that sell counterfeits more. They did not see counterfeits as too unfair to singers or the music industry, thought they benefit the society more, and did not see people who buy them as unethical. We also investigated the influence of social, personality, and demographic factors on consumers’ attitude towards piracy. We found that the more value‐conscious and less normatively susceptible one was, and the less integrity one had, the more favorable was one’s attitude towards piracy. Demographic characteristics were also significant in influencing attitude. Males and those from lower income groups held more favorable attitudes. Finally, attitude towards piracy was significant in influencing purchase intention.

Spot the difference: consumer responses towards counterfeits

Cosmopolitanism is often heralded as a cultural orientation ideally suited to the sociocultural and economic complexities emanating from the accelerating pace of globalization. In this study, we analyze the consumption stories of expatriate professionals who are trying to enact a cosmopolitan identity. For these participants, trying to be cosmopolitan precipitates a nexus of salient experiential tensions and conflicts that are negotiated through their consumption and leisure practices. Although these expatriates identify with dominant cosmopolitan ideals of nomadic mobility and cultural adaptability, their consumer stories reveal a host of countervailing tensions deriving from emotional and interpersonal ties to home, desires for communal affiliations, and enduring preferences for familiar goods and places. We trace the history of colonial and patriarchal meanings that form the ideological underpinnings to these tensions. We propose that these ideological complexities and contradictions foster a paradoxical effacement of the conventional boundaries between work and leisure and between touristic practices and everyday consumer experiences. We discuss the implications of our analysis for theoretical conceptions of postmodern consumption and for consumer research on consumption goals.

Trying to Be Cosmopolitan

It is generally believed that referral reward programs (RRPs) work because recommendations from friends or relatives are perceived as impartial and trustworthy in analogy to what happens with word-of-mouth recommendations. To understand how an incentivized recommendation affects recommendation behavior, we conducted qualitative interviews and two experiments. We show that recommendation behavior is driven by the givers perception (i.e., their metaperception) of how they will be viewed by the receivers. Metaperception, in turn, is affected negatively by the presence of an incentive, and positively affected by the tie strength between the giver and the receiver. Our findings show that RRPs can have a positive, neutral, and negative effect on recommendation behavior depending on the relative strengths of the negative indirect effect of incentive on recommendation behavior via metaperception, and the positive effect of the perceived attractiveness of the incentive on recommendation behavior.

The Role of Metaperception on the Effectiveness of Referral Reward Programs

Purpose – Customer feedback can help to identify problem areas and strengths, and generate ideas for service improvements. Most feedback is given to frontline employees directly rather than submitted through formal channels. UZnfortunately, employees tend to be reluctant to report such unsolicited feedback. This paper seeks to explore key drivers of employees' willingness to report customer feedback to facilitate organizational learning. Specifically, the paper examines the joint effects of relational social capital, structural social capital, feedback valence (FV) (positive versus negative), and the intended use of information (service improvement versus performance evaluation) on employees' willingness to report unsolicited customer feedback back to the organization.Design/methodology/approach – The paper used two studies. First, semi‐structured in‐depth interviews of employees across organizational levels in two service firms were conducted to explore the relationships between the variables of interest...

Organizational learning from customer feedback received by service employees: A social capital perspective

This study examines generalized trust and trust in institutions in Confucian Asia, covering six countries namely, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, and one dependent region, Hong Kong. Using data from the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey, our study affirms the reliability and validity of using a two-item scale to measure generalized trust. Our analysis suggests that due to demographic differences, there are variations in the level of generalized trust of countries in Confucian Asia, despite the fact that these societies share a similar background in Confucian philosophy. The relationships between generalized trust and political trust, and between generalized trust and trust in public institutions, are weak but positive. The positive relationship between generalized trust and trust in economic institutions is only significant for some of the economies, while trust in international institutions has the weakest relationship with generalized trust for all societies. We conclude the paper with research implications.

Siok Kuan Tambyah

Papers

Spot the difference: consumer responses towards counterfeits

Trying to Be Cosmopolitan

The Role of Metaperception on the Effectiveness of Referral Reward Programs

Organizational learning from customer feedback received by service employees: A social capital perspective

Generalized Trust and Trust in Institutions in Confucian Asia