El reto de vincular reputación online de destinos turísticos con competitividad

The aim of this study is to evidence how 2.0 conversations in social media impact the reputation of destinations. Additionally, the influence of co-creation practices is analysed. The five most competitive destinations worldwide have been chosen for the research. This paper demonstrates that monitoring social media is a challenge in tourism and is a strategic tool to support process decision making and for destination brand building in a sustainable way. Currently, there are several monitoring and analytic tools, but there is a lack of models to systematise and harness it for the Destination Management Organization (DMOs). In conclusion, how tourists play the main role in the competitiveness of Destinations with their experiences and opinions are considered, along with some keys for successful management of social media are given in the view of the results.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Exploring online community participation

Firm-hosted online brand communities, in which consumers interact regarding brand-centric topics, represent a fascinating context to study the motives of participation within the community. Theories of social capital and collective action are extended to begin understanding why individuals contribute, as they receive no immediate benefit, and “lurkers” have the same access to that contributed knowledge as everyone else. Building on the concept of means-end chain, that is we seek out certain attributes as a means to achieve a desired end state, the linkage between online brand community attributes, individual need, and personal values is ethnographically examined. By way of in-depth laddering interviews, why individuals participate will be answered through understanding how that participation fulfils individual need and enhances personal value. The main study comprises two approaches – participant observation in the community, and individual in-depth interviews with 32 community members. Over 2222 data points and 750 ladders were discovered and analysed using the laddering technique. Seven themes emerged as to why individuals actively participate in an online brand community – belonging, recognition, helping others, knowledge, professional advancement, personal development, and entertainment

Working Consumers: The Next Step in Marketing Theory?

In marketing and consumer research, consumers have been increasingly theorised as producers. However, these theorisations do not take all facets of consumers’ productive role into account. This paper mobilises both post-Marxist economics and post-Maussian socio-economics to develop the concept of working consumer. This concept depicts consumers who, through their immaterial labour, add cultural and affective value to market offerings. In so doing consumers increase the value of market offerings, although they usually work at the primary level of sociality (interpersonal relationships) and are therefore beyond producers’ control. However, given certain conditions, companies capture such a value when it enters the second level of sociality (the market). The concept of the working consumer summarises and enriches extant approaches to consumer (co)production, while challenging right-minded developments, such as the service-dominant (S-D) logic in marketing, which try to create/construct an ethereal marketscape in which consumers and producers live in harmony.Double Exploitation, Gift giving, Immaterial Labour, Primary Sociality, Secondary Sociality, Co- production, Co-creation

Measuring consumers' engagement with brand-related social-media content: development and validation of a scale that identifies levels of social-media engagement with brands

The main purpose of this study is to develop a scale to measure consumer's engagement with social media brand-related content. The reported scale (CESBC) comprises three dimensions: consumption, contribution, and creation. Qualitative techniques were used to generate an initial pool of items that capture different levels of consumer engagement with social media brand-related content. Quantitative data from a consumer survey (=2252) was then collected in two phases to calibrate and validate the ensuing scale. Results confirmed the structure and psychometric properties of the CESBC. As expected, each subscale is significantly correlated with nomological network constructs, i.e., brand equity and brand attitudes

The effect of social media communication on consumer perceptions of brands

Researchers and brand managers have limited understanding of the effects social media communication has on how consumers perceive brands. We investigated 504 Facebook users in order to observe the impact of firm-created and user-generated social media communication on brand equity, brand attitude and purchase intention by using a standardized online survey throughout Poland. To test the conceptual model, we analyzed 60 brands across three different industries: non-alcoholic beverages, clothing and mobile network operators. When analyzing the data, we applied the structural equation modeling technique to both investigate the interplay of firm-created and user-generated social media communication and examine industry-specific differences. The results of the empirical studies showed that user-generated social media communication had a positive influence on both brand equity and brand attitude, whereas firm-created social media communication affected only brand attitude. Both brand equity and brand attitude were shown to have a positive influence on purchase intention. In addition, we assessed measurement invariance using a multi-group structural modeling equation. The findings revealed that the proposed measurement model was invariant across the researched industries. However, structural path differences were detected across the models

Capacity building for transnationalisation of higher education

Purpose – Transnationalism and transnational concept are extensively researched in many social science areas; however, transnational management and transnational marketing is relatively a less explored research domain. Also, knowledge management for transnational education (TNE) marketing is not well-researched. Capacity building is an established research-stream, with a key focus on socio-economic and ecological development; however, prior research on capacity building from the context of TNE’s knowledge management and marketing is scarce. The purpose of this study is to analyse TNE marketing mix, to understand the influence of transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) on knowledge management in TNE to uphold their transnatioalisation processes through capacity building in TNEs’ marketing management. Design/methodology/approach – An inductive constructivist method is followed. Findings – Organisational learning from the context of transnational market and socio-economic competitive factors, based on analysing the transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) is imperative for proactive knowledge management capacity in TNE marketing. Following the analysis of transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) to learn about the cause and consequence of the transnational stakeholders’ relationships and interactions, an initial conceptual framework of knowledge management for TNE marketing is proposed. Practical insights from different TNE markets are developed in support of this novel knowledge management capacity building framework of TNE, and its generalisation perspectives and future research areas are discussed. Practical implications – These insights will be useful for TNE administrators to better align their knowledge management perspectives and propositions with their transnational stakeholders to underpin TNE marketing. Academics will be able to use these insights as a basis for future research. Originality/value – This study proposes a novel conceptual stakeholder-centred capacity building framework for TNE’s knowledge management to uphold TNE marketing and supports the framework, based on practical insights from three different transnational markets

Perceived Firm Attributes, Social Identification, and Intrinsic Motivation to Voice in Brand Virtual Communities: Differentiating Brand-General and Innovation-Specific Perceptions

The question about why some brand virtual communities (BVCs) successfully motivate customers to engage in value creation (e.g., voice) while others do not is still an important but understudied research issue. To fill this research gap, we propose a research model to shed light on the antecedents of intrinsic motivation to voice by focusing on the role of perceived firm attributes. Specifically, we argue that firm attributes can be classified into brand-general versus innovation-specific attributes which affect intrinsic motivation through two types of social identification namely brand identification and community identification respectively. The links between these two types of perceptions are examined too. A field study of 291 BVC users was conducted to test the research model. The results show that customer orientation and perceived openness positively affect customers’ brand identification and community identification respectively, and customer orientation has a positive effect on perceived openness. Furthermore, the impact of brand identification on intrinsic motivation is found to be fully mediated by community identification

An Autoethnographic Approach to Examining Electronic Retail Development

Autoethnographic approaches to doing research in retailing are rare. Through the researcher reflecting on and analysing her own personal experiences as a fashion retail store proprietor, this study reconstructed the process of her strategic decision making with regard to moving from selling fashion goods via an independent high street store to selling online. The study is concerned with the issues surrounding the adoption of e-commerce. In doing so, the study reviewed the various development models that exist within e-commerce literature, and in particular, examined the extent to which a retailer adoptions an evolutionary and linear approach to developing a web site. Hence the study’s contribution to advances in retailing is in the field of strategic decisions pertaining to electronic retailing. Specifically the aim of the study was to either confirm or adjust the models within e-commerce literature that describe the internet adoption process. Through the adoption of an autoethnographical approach, the study acknowledges that there is a complex interdependency between the researcher and the researched and thereby utilizes subjective experience as an intrinsic part of the research process. This is achieved through offering the retail proprietor’s ‘insider’ perspective based upon both self narratives and self observations. Whilst the author’s acknowledge that the subject of the study needs to be examined in a broader sense, beyond the self generated data presented in the study, they argue that such self introspections can be considered as a basis of useful, albeit non-scientific, knowledge in itself. In this study the intention is to use the data as a means of generating hypotheses which will be tested in a future study by a more traditional research technique. This study is a work in progress

Introducing branded communities in sport for building strong brand relations in social media

© 2015 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand. Brand communities have become an important aspect for brand management in social media. However, many brands have failed to establish a successful online brand community. In this study, we introduce branded communities as an alternative concept to brand communities. In contrast to brand communities, a branded community does not revolve around a specific (sport) brand, but around any interest or need. However, a specific brand makes use of the community for marketing purposes by sponsoring or operating the community. We emphasize the suitability of sport as an interest around which branded communities can be built as well as links of branded communities to sport sponsorship. We empirically studied the factors which influence the success of this phenomenon and the effects of operating or sponsoring such a community for a brand by using an online survey (N = 501) of members of a branded online community relating to football. The results demonstrate the relevance of topic interest (i.e., identification and involvement with football) and the quality of the community as determinants of interest in and loyalty towards a branded community. The brand owner benefits from an increase in brand loyalty for those community members who are aware of the brand as the operator of the community, whereby awareness of this sponsorship does not decrease loyalty towards the community. Our research contributes to previous knowledge by proving that branded communities are both an effective means for companies to deploy sponsorship and branding strategies in social media and provide a promising opportunity for sport managers to generate value