6 research outputs found

    Herd Behavior In Global Online Shopping Carnival

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    We have witnessed the magnificent power of herd behavior exhibited by the frantic crowd during the Alibaba’s global online shopping carnival (OSC) which has made 9 Ginness world’s records within 24 hours. This study explores the cognitive herding process and the critical factors facilitating herd behavior in OSC. Meanwhile, applying the theory of carnival, this study identifies three OSC behaviors which spread through the OSC herd. Using 473 samples from OSC participants, the hypotheses are supported by the empirical results. Information incentive (e.g. promotion motivation and review information) and social influence (e.g. peer mimicry and endorsement influence) are two crucial preconditions for herd behavior; participation, interaction and playfulness capture the essence of OSC behavior. The results provide insights to: (1). the cognitive process of herd behavior; (2). the critical factors facilitating herd behavior in OSC; (3) the important OSC behavior imitated during the herding process

    Ecosystem synergies, change and orchestration

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    This thesis investigates ecosystem synergies, change, and orchestration. The research topics are motivated by my curiosity, a fragmented research landscape, theoretical gaps, and new phenomena that challenge extant theories. To address these motivators, I conduct literature reviews to organise existing studies and identify their limited assumptions in light of new phenomena. Empirically, I adopt a case study method with abductive reasoning for a longitudinal analysis of the Alibaba ecosystem from 1999 to 2020. My findings provide an integrated and updated conceptualisation of ecosystem synergies that comprises three distinctive but interrelated components: 1) stack and integrate generic resources for efficiency and optimisation, 2) empower generative changes for variety and evolvability, and 3) govern tensions for sustainable growth. Theoretically grounded and empirically refined, this new conceptualisation helps us better understand the unique synergies of ecosystems that differ from those of alternative collective organisations and explain the forces that drive voluntary participation for value co-creation. Regarding ecosystem change, I find a duality relationship between intentionality and emergence and develop a phasic model of ecosystem sustainable growth with internal and external drivers. This new understanding challenges and extends prior discussions on their dominant dualism view, focus on partial drivers, and taken-for-granted lifecycle model. I propose that ecosystem orchestration involves systematic coordination of technological, adoption, internal, and institutional activities and is driven by long-term visions and adjusted by re-visioning. My analysis reveals internal orchestration's important role (re-envisioning, piloting, and organisation architectural reconfiguring), the synergy and system principles in designing adoption activities, and the expanding arena of institutional activities. Finally, building on the above findings, I reconceptualise ecosystems and ecosystem sustainable growth to highlight multi-stakeholder value creation, inclusivity, long-term orientation and interpretative approach. The thesis ends with discussing the implications for practice, policy, and future research.Open Acces

    The nexus between e-marketing, e-service quality, e-satisfaction and e-loyalty: a cross-sectional study within the context of online SMEs in Ghana

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    The spread of the Internet, the proliferation of mobile devices, and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have given impetus to online shopping in Ghana and the subregion. This situation has also created opportunities for SMEs to take advantage of online marketing technologies. However, there is a dearth of studies on the link between e-marketing and e-loyalty in terms of online shopping, thereby creating a policy gap on the prospects for business success for online SMEs in Ghana. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between the main independent variable, e-marketing and the main dependent variable, e-loyalty, as well as the mediating roles of e-service quality and e-satisfaction in the link between e-marketing and e-loyalty. The study adopted a positivist stance with a quantitative method. The study was cross-sectional in nature with the adoption of a descriptive correlational design. A Structural Equation Modelling approach was employed to examine the nature of the associations between the independent, mediating and dependent variables. A sensitivity analysis was also conducted to control for the potential confounding effects of the demographic factors. A sample size of 1,293 residents in Accra, Ghana, who had previously shopped online, responded to structured questionnaire in an online survey via Google Docs. The IBM SPSS Amos 24 software was used to analyse the data collected. Positive associations were found between the key constructs in the study: e-marketing, e-service quality, e-satisfaction and e-Loyalty. The findings from the study gave further backing to the diffusion innovation theory, resource-based view theory, and technology acceptance model. In addition, e-service quality and e-satisfaction individually and jointly mediated the relationship between e-marketing and e-loyalty. However, these mediations were partial, instead of an originally anticipated full mediation. In terms of value and contribution, this is the first study in a developing economy context to undertake a holistic examination of the key marketing performance variables within an online shopping context. The study uniquely tested the mediation roles of both e-service quality and e-satisfaction in the link between e-marketing and e-loyalty. The findings of the study are novel in the e-marketing literature as they unearthed the key antecedents of e-loyalty for online SMEs in a developing economy context. The study suggested areas for further related studies and also highlighted the limitations

    Understanding Chinese tourist shopping in Australia: a social practice perspective

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    Chinese outbound tourism has become a significant phenomenon in world tourism development. Shopping makes up the highest proportion of the travel expenditure of Chinese outbound tourists. However, despite its importance to many destinations, Chinese outbound tourist shopping (COTS) remains underexplored in the tourism literature. A critical review of the existing published research on COTS reveals that most studies are quantitative and focused on explaining satisfaction, motivation and perception from a consumer behaviour perspective. Also, academic interest in COTS has primarily focused on Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, leaving COTS in Western countries poorly understood. To fill these research gaps, the thesis employed a mixed methods approach to systematically examine COTS in Australia from a sociological perspective. The overall aim of this thesis was to use social practice theory (SPT) as a theoretical foundation to understand Chinese tourist shopping in Australia. COTS as a social practice is the basic unit of analysis, while Chinese outbound tourists are decentralised as the carriers of this practice. Inspired by a zooming in and out approach, the overall aim was broken down into three research questions: 1. What are the key features of Chinese tourist shopping practices in Australia? 2. How do Chinese tourists carry out shopping practices on site? 3. Why are the shopping practices of Chinese tourists dominant in their travel? Three studies were conducted to answer these three research questions. The first study used a social practice framework to explore the key features of Chinese tourist shopping practices in Australia. Netnography was employed to collect and analyse shopping-related texts and images in 40 travel blogs from two Chinese online travel communities – Qyer.com and Mafengwo.cn. The findings show that Chinese tourist shopping practices consist of four interconnected elements: materials, competences, meanings and settings. Chinese tourists purchase a variety of utilitarian products in Australia, ranging from clothing, accessories and cosmetics, to healthcare products, food and drinks (materials). They not only shop in tourist attractions for souvenirs, but also expand into pharmacies, supermarkets, department stores and local markets (settings). Although language is an obstacle for many Chinese tourists shopping in Australia (competences), a range of information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as shopping websites and mobile apps are used by Chinese tourists to facilitate their shopping (materials and competences). The significance of their participation in shopping practices is multifaceted, including hunting for mementos, seeking brand value, pursuing product quality and authenticity, and maintaining guanxi (meanings). The second study drew upon the notion of practice as performance to examine how the shopping practices of Chinese tourists unfold in Australia. The study focused on the embodied actions within Chinese tourist shopping performances. At a major tourist destination in north-eastern Australia, 110 participant observations conducted, then the field notes were analysed in a content analysis software, Leximancer 4.5. Chinese tourist shopping practices were found to be performed on site through a range of intra-personal and interpersonal embodied actions. Also, the shopping performances of Chinese tourists differ across shopping settings and categories of products. For example, the research found that while in markets, Chinese tourists often browse and leave without purchase, a pattern of activities not seen in other settings. When Chinese tourists buy clothing and accessories, they try on the items at the shop, but when selecting healthcare products, they rely very much on the images stored on their smartphones. Smartphones are commonly used by Chinese tourists, especially in supermarkets, to store product images, search information online and communicate with family and friends not present in the shopping setting through social media during product selection and purchase. The first two studies zoomed in on Chinese tourist shopping practices to obtain detailed insights, while the third and final study zoomed out to uncover how these practices are connected to, and embedded in extensive networks of practices. In this study, 32 semi-structured interviews were conducted to identify the major social and consumption practices that affect Chinese tourist shopping in Australia, and reveal how the identified practices lead to the dominance of Chinese tourists' shopping practices in their travel. It concludes that Chinese tourist shopping practices in Australia result from a combination of Chinese consumerism and guanxi maintenance under the condition of outbound travel. Chinese tourist demand for consumerism, mainly featuring a desire for Western brands and the pursuit of high quality, is not matched by relevant supply in China, but can be met and further stimulated through outbound travel. Chinese tourists shop not only for themselves, but also to maintain guanxi via gift buying and purchasing products requested by others. Although outbound travel means temporary absence from guanxi networks at home, their emphasis on guanxi maintenance continues. Further, the low frequency of outbound travel, especially to long-haul destinations like Australia, means that Chinese tourists shop not just for their current needs but also for future use. Overall, this thesis provides a comprehensive understanding of Chinese tourist shopping in Australia from a social practice perspective. The application of SPT to COTS research enriches and extends tourist shopping knowledge by offering new insights into what COTS is, how it unfolds and why it is the way it is. More broadly, this thesis also contributes to rectifying the dominance of investigations on motivational and perceptual aspects of tourist shopping, broadening the spectrum of this activity and how to research it. From a practical perspective, the findings of this thesis provide guidelines for retail businesses in the tourism industry to develop policies tailored to the valuable Chinese market
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