Attitude contagion in consumer opinion platforms: posters and lurkers

International audienc

Investment in Business Software and Perceived Utility: An Empirical Study

Authors have identified many different reasons why companies invest into IT and there has been much discussion of how IT can generate value. This paper adds to the discussion of IT value generation by investigating investments in business software for the support of business processes in Swiss SMEs. In an empirical survey on the future IT investment for process support, 917 questionnaires were collected and analysed. In a first step, using exploratory factor analysis, two factors representing different sets of business software modules were identified: (1) basic modules and (2) specialized modules. In a second step, using cluster analysis, we identified four typical characteristic company profiles regarding investments in business software: (1) the IT convinced, (2) the IT differentiators, (3) the IT sceptics, and (4) the IT pragmatists. To further explore and profile the clusters, we ran several bivariate analyses with selected questions from the questionnaire. This study has both theoretical and managerial relevance as it helps to understand firm attitudes towards investments and business software

Taking Advantage of Algorithmic Preference to Reduce Product Returns in E-Commerce

Reimbursement of repair costs is a way to motivate customers to keep defective products instead of returning them. However, there is no research-based guidance on how retailers should frame repair costs reimbursement offers in terms of who decides on the size of the reimbursement and makes the offer—an employee or a machine. To guide further IS research and suggest ways that help e-commerce businesses to improve repair costs reimbursement effectiveness to decrease product return rates, the present research draws on literature on offer sources and on insights from a qualitative and an experimental study. We find that artificial intelligence-based (vs. human-based) repair costs reimbursement offers promote fairness perceptions, which, in turn, affect important customer outcomes—the likelihood to accept the offer and digital negative word of mouth. The results can guide e-commerce businesses’ returns-prevention efforts and IS research

Nudging Towards Sustainable Delivery Options: First Insights From an Experimental Study

As the e-commerce sector continues to grow, customers are increasingly concerned about the impact of their online orders on working conditions and the environment. In many cases though, online retailers emphasize delivery speed over sustainability and offer delivery options that put a strain on logistics workers and the environment. To promote the choice of more sustainable but slower delivery options, we present a model concerning how message frames affect delivery choice and customer outcomes (order completion, loyalty, word of mouth). An experimental study shows that simple message frames, regarding job conditions, the environment, and customer convenience, increase the choice of more sustainable, slower delivery options and customer outcomes indirectly via delivery choice, and warm glow feelings. Delivery fees dilute the impact of environmental message frames on delivery choice though. Overall, our findings suggest that nudging customers towards sustainable delivery options is possible, yielding positive effects for customers and retailers

FEARING ONLINE IDENTITY THEFT: A SEGMENTATION STUDY OF ONLINE CUSTOMERS

The growth of online transactions coincides with the rise of cyber-criminals’ intent on stealing con-sumers’ personal and financial data. This fosters fear of online identity theft (FOIT), which in turn may lead to changes in consumer behavior and negatively affect e-business performance. This re-search aims to identify empirically derived segments of FOIT-prone consumers. Using a large sample of online shoppers, four distinct clusters are identified—‘less fearful shoppers’, ‘strong fear but ignor-ing shoppers’, ‘fearless shoppers’, and ‘fearful shoppers’. The clusters differ significantly with respect to primary cluster variables as well as numerous secondary cluster variables. The relevance of FOIT for segmenting online consumers and theoretical implications for IS research are discussed

Sustainable consumption and third-party certified labels: consumers' perceptions and reactions

Compared with conventional products, sustainable products continue to attract relatively lower market shares. To increase customer acceptance, many sustainable products feature third-party certified labels (TPCL), yet it is unclear whether TPCL are effective and what processes and boundary conditions define their role in consumer decision making. Across three experimental studies, this research determines that sustainable products are characterized by credence qualities, associated with increased perceptions of risk, which negatively influence consumers’ purchase intentions. Drawing on signaling theory, this study also shows that TPCL on sustainable products provide brand-like information cues that reduce the perceived risk of sustainable products. Finally, a third experimental study demonstrates that consumers must perceive TPCL as credible for them to reduce consumers’ risk perceptions

Service productivity:what stops service firms from measuring it?

Productivity measurement poses a challenge for service organizations. Conventional management wisdom holds that this challenge is rooted in the difficulty of accurately quantifying service inputs and outputs. Few service firms have adequate service productivity measurement (SPM) systems in place and implementing such systems may involve organizational transformation. Combining field interviews and literature-based insights, the authors develop a conceptual model of antecedents of SPM in service firms and test it using data from 276 service firms. Results indicate that one out of five antecedents affects the choice to use SPM, namely, the degree of service standardization. In addition, all five hypothesized antecedents and one additional antecedent (perceived appropriateness of the current SPM) predict the degree of SPM usage. In particular, the degree of SPM is positively influenced by the degree of service standardization, service customization, investments in service productivity gains, and the appropriateness of current service productivity measures. In turn, customer integration and the perceived difficulty of measuring service productivity negatively affect SPM. The fact that customer integration impedes actual measurement of service productivity is a surprising finding, given that customer integration is widely seen as a means to increase service productivity. The authors conclude with implications for service organizations and directions for research

Investigating links between cultural orientation and culture outcomes:Immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel and Germany

Marketers are justifiably interested in ethnic consumers; formulating effective ethnic marketing strategies requires insights into these consumers’ attitudes and behaviors. However, prior research provides few insights into how different cultural environments might shape the consumption behavior of consumers with the same cultural heritage. To address this knowledge gap, the present study examines the cultural orientation and relevant consumer outcomes (i.e., desire for unique products and fashion consciousness) of immigrants from the former Soviet Union who move to Israel and Germany. The results reveal differences in the cultural orientations of immigrants to Israel versus Germany, as well as different relational patterns between cultural orientation and the proposed consumer outcomes. These findings provide both theoretical and managerial implications

Unintended reward costs: The effectiveness of customer referral reward programs for innovative products and services

To encourage customers’ referral behavior and expand their customer base, providers of innovative products and services often use customer referral reward programs (CRPs), though not all CRPs deliver on their initial promise. With one field experiment and four online experiments, this research investigates the effectiveness of rewarded referrals for recruiting new customers for more innovative (versus less innovative) offerings and outlines the conditions in which public referral rewards have unintended ramifications and decrease customers’ referral likelihood. In addition to establishing these effects for more innovative offerings, this research identifies some moderating consequences, such that the detrimental effect of referral rewards on referral behavior can be attenuated by not disclosing referral rewards (for recommenders) to referral recipients, increasing the referral reward size, and rewarding both recommenders and referral recipients. These findings have theoretical and managerial implications