Fostering corporate citizenship in the South African taxi industry

The purpose of this study was to investigate and foster corporate citizenship (CC) in the SA taxi industry. The primary objective of this study was to foster corporate citizenship in the South African taxi industry by investigating the determinants that would increase CC in the SA taxi industry. The study gathered quantitative information about CC, identified which factors influence CC in the taxi industry and investigated which of these factors are the most important determinants that would increase the CC in the industry in South Africa. This study was intended to contribute to building the body of knowledge for the implementation and fostering of corporate citizenship programs. In particular, the researcher hoped that the framework provided in this study would outline the practical strategies that the taxi organisations should take in developing targeted, long-term partnerships with the communities in which they operate. Convenience sampling was used to select one hundred (100) participants. The response rate was ninety-six percent (96%). The sample was structured to include the directors, deputy directors, senior managers, managers and the drivers of the taxi organisations in twenty-three districts in the Eastern Cape. These participants were taken from the body that incorporates all the taxi associations in Eastern Cape called the Eastern Cape Bus and Business Chamber (ECBTBC). The empirical results revealed that in order to increase corporate citizenship within the SA taxi industry there should be an increase in its human resource management, operations management and the dynamic externalism of its members. The findings also revealed that the social cynicism should be decreased within this industry

Expressions of gratitude applied to business: a lesson for managing online reviews

Online reviews are critical for businesses to thrive, but their management is not often effective. Using data from social media platforms, with more than 600 observations of public online interactions between business owners and customers, we showed that strategic management of online reviews predicts a positive increment of online reputation. Publicly expressing gratitude (Study 1) and, specifically, directing these expressions towards beneficial online reviews (Study 2) are effective strategies supporting a general increase of the business online score. These findings identify public expressions of gratitude as a responsive, attentive gesture that signals care and consideration towards customers. Such gesture promotes the online reputation through satisfaction between business community relationships.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Online Response and Consumer Satisfaction in One-to-many Services

One-to-many services with public nature make online responses to one consumer visible to other consumers, which facilitates services to consumers but brings social comparison that can introduce unfairness and affect consumer attitudes. This study aims to explore the influence of online responses on consumer satisfaction from the perspective of fairness in online one-to-many services. This study proposes a theoretical model with unfairness as the mediator and examines the U-shaped relationship between online responses and aggregate consumer satisfaction and its mechanism. The findings show that online responses affect aggregate consumer satisfaction both directly and indirectly by changing the level of unfairness. The results provide theoretical insights on online responses and fairness literature and contribute to managerial implications for practitioners by reminding the negative impact of unfairness brought by online responses in the one-to-many scenario

Impact of Managerial Responses on Product Sales: Examining the Moderating Role of Competitive Intensity and Market Position

Online review platforms have become very popular in recent years, generating massive numbers of online reviews and thus enticing numerous enterprises to respond to reviews. Although the economic impact (e.g., sales impact) of managerial responses is well recognized, it is unclear whether such an impact is moderated by competitive intensity and market position. This study examines the moderating effects of competitive intensity and market position in the relationship between managerial responses and sales. Using a panel dataset from one of the largest restaurant review platforms in China, this research found that the influence of the volume of managerial responses to positive word-of-mouth (WOM) on sales declined with increasing competitive intensity and decreasing market position. Moreover, we found the volume and degree of personalization of managerial responses to negative WOM to be more important for enterprises with a low market position versus those with a high market position. Our results provide insights into the effectiveness of managerial responses in different environments. We also offer managerial implications to service providers on response strategies

A Survey on Intangible Capital

This study provides a survey of topics related to intangible capital, including concepts, definitions, measurement issues, and classifications. It shows that despite the growing importance of intangible capital, we do not know enough about it and only have imperfect methods of measuring it. While at the macroeconomic level, measurement of intangibles is now available for many countries, definitional and measurement issues pose a greater problem at the microeconomic level. This study points out that researchers not only have to confront data deficiencies but also need to grapple with conceptual issues. Finally, it also provides brief surveys of studies dealing with particular detailed topics. Many of these studies prove the existence of intangible capital at the microeconomic level as well as at macroeconomic level.

A Conceptual Framework of Reverse Logistics Impact on Firm Performance

This study aims to examine the reverse logistics factors that impact upon firm performance. We review reverse logistics factors under three research streams: (a) resource-based view of the firm, including: Firm strategy, Operations management, and Customer loyalty (b) relational theory, including: Supply chain efficiency, Supply chain collaboration, and institutional theory, including: Government support and Cultural alignment. We measured firm performance with 5 measures: profitability, cost, innovativeness, perceived competitive advantage, and perceived customer satisfaction. We discuss implications for research, policy and practice

Accounting, accountability, social media and big data: Revolution or hype?

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline an agenda for researching the relationship between technology-enabled networks â such as social media and big data â and the accounting function. In doing so, it links the contents of an unfolding area research with the papers published in this special issue of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal. Design/methodology/approach: The paper surveys the existing literature, which is still in its infancy, and proposes ways in which to frame early and future research. The intention is not to offer a comprehensive review, but to stimulate and conversation. Findings: The authors review several existing studies exploring technology-enabled networks and highlight some of the key aspects featuring social media and big data, before offering a classification of existing research efforts, as well as opportunities for future research. Three areas of investigation are identified: new performance indicators based on social media and big data; governance of social media and big data information resources; and, finally, social media and big dataâs alteration of information and decision-making processes. Originality/value: The authors are currently experiencing a technological revolution that will fundamentally change the way in which organisations, as well as individuals, operate. It is claimed that many knowledge-based jobs are being automated, as well as others transformed with, for example, data scientists ready to replace even the most qualified accountants. But, of course, similar claims have been made before and therefore, as academics, the authors are called upon to explore the impact of these technology-enabled networks further. This paper contributes by starting a debate and speculating on the possible research agendas ahead

Engaging your customers via responding to online product reviews

Given the tremendous impact of online reviews on consumer choice, responding to online word of mouth (WOM) has become an important channel for firms to engage the consumers. This thesis investigates how firms can proactively respond to online product reviews to engage customers and manage customer relationships. In Study One, based upon the data of hotel reviews on Tripadvisor.com, I propose that responding by firms differ in three aspects, namely frequency, speed, and the amount of information, and these metrics exert significant influence on subsequent consumes’ WOM engagement, hotel rankings, and votes of usefulness of the reviews. Moreover, in contrast to responding to positive reviews, responding to negative reviews greatly affects consumption decisions given the negativity bias among consumers. Thus, the subsequent two studies examine whether responding help to alleviate the detrimental impact of negative reviews. Drawing from the literature on crisis management, service failure recovery, Study Two posits that sellers’ responses to negative WOM can be categorized as defensive and accommodative. Further, whether accommodative or defensive responding is more effective depends upon the nature of NWOM, namely regular NWOM or product failure. Based on the results of a between-subject experiment, Study Two provides evidence for the asymmetric impact of accommodative versus defensive responding. When confronting regular NWOM, defensive response outperforms accommodative response or no response, whereas accommodative response is superior to defensive response or no response when coping with a service failure. Further, based on the attribution of negative reviews, a moderated mediation effect is found. To enhance the external validity and robustness of these findings, Study Three provides econometric evidence that the relative effectiveness of accommodative vs defensive response on subsequent consumers’ evaluation of their consumption experience. Upon analyzing the hotels’ responses on Tripadvisor.com, responding can be a double-edged sword in that it works only when seller takes the appropriate responding strategies. In particular, the higher proportion of accommodative responses (defensive responses) for product failure reviews (regular negative reviews), the higher the subsequent consumers’ satisfaction. However, responding can backfire when the proportion of defensive responses (accommodative responses) for product failure (regular negative reviews) is high. To recapitulate, this thesis identifies whether and how online responding influences consumer experiences on social media. These research findings can help firms formulate effective responding strategies to take advantage of social media’s unique ability to engage customers and improve consumer satisfaction and loyalty

Generation, susceptibility, and response regarding negativity: an in-depth analysis of negative online reviews

Negative online reviews can drastically influence consumer behavior and business strategies. Recent attention on the subject demonstrates its importance in the consumer and marketing literature. Even so, no study quantitatively investigates the corpus of the literature. This study quantitatively and systematically investigates the foundational research streams of negative online reviews to identify influential sources and main areas of knowledge in the domain. The study employs an integration of text mining and co-citation analysis, recognizing that firms’ responses to negative online reviews cannot be analyzed without understanding the role of customers. Accordingly, this study generates insight into customers and firms in each negative online review stage, furnishing a conceptual framework that synthesizes the previous literature and highlights the most important research gaps requiring attention. Ultimately, the conceptual framework can guide future researchers in unfolding new and novel directions to expand the boundaries of the negative online review literature

The Value of Incorporating Review Tags into an Online Review System for User Review Generation

Online review mining has become an important way for businesses to understand consumer preferences and product characteristics. Many online review platforms have started to incorporate the extracted information as review tags to guide future reviews. In this study, we leverage a quasi-experiment from an online health service platform to investigate the value of incorporating the review tags (extracted from prior reviews) into the online review system in user review generation. Our preliminary results show that after the provision of review tags, more reviews are provided for doctors but the length of those reviews is shorter. Notably, we also find a decrease in sentiment and an increase in novel reviews. Our findings provide actionable managerial insights for platform managers to design online review systems