The Effects of Customer-Centric Marketing and Revenue Management on Travelers’ Choices

This article examines how the simultaneous use of customer-centric marketing (CCM) and revenue management (RM) affects travelers’ perceptions of fairness and ultimately their purchasing choices. To address this issue, we propose and empirically test a choice model that incorporates reference-dependent fairness adjustments for both price and nonprice attributes within a random utility framework. The findings from two empirical studies using stated-preference choice experiments show that travelers engage in fairness-related reference point comparisons for price and other product attributes induced by RM and CCM. They offer additional evidence concerning the need to account comprehensively for attributes associated with both RM and CCM when predicting customer demand in travel and tourism firms. Accordingly, firms need to account not only for the effects of RM and CCM attributes but also for the corresponding reference-dependent fairness adjustments relating to those attributes

Partial least squares structural equation modeling-based discrete choice modeling: An illustration in modeling retailer choice

Commonly used discrete choice model analyses (e.g., probit, logit and multinomial logit models) draw on the estimation of importance weights that apply to different attribute levels. But directly estimating the importance weights of the attribute as a whole, rather than of distinct attribute levels, is challenging. This article substantiates the usefulness of partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for the analysis of stated preference data generated through choice experiments in discrete choice modeling. This ability of PLS-SEM to directly estimate the importance weights for attributes as a whole, rather than for the attribute’s levels, and to compute determinant respondent-specific latent variable scores applicable to attributes, can more effectively model and distinguish between rational (i.e., optimizing) decisions and pragmatic (i.e., heuristic) ones, when parameter estimations for attributes as a whole are crucial to understanding choice decisions

Do status levels in loyalty programmes change customers' willingness to pay?

This article examines the effects of loyalty programme membership, promotion and demotion across different status levels on customer brand preferences and willingness to pay (WTP). The results of a study in the travel industry show that loyalty programme members express significantly higher brand preferences for their respective airline or hotel group than do non-members. Furthermore, consumers close to experiencing a change in their status level exhibit even stronger brand preferences, which extends to a greater WTP. The empirical findings illustrate how frequent traveller programmes affect purchase choices, especially if customers anticipate that they are about to lose or gain a higher status level

The impact of dynamic capabilities on operational marketing and technological capabilities: investigating the role of environmental turbulence

Marketing and technological capabilities are primary drivers of a firm’s performance and thus of central interest to managers. Yet the way in which these two capabilities align with changing environments to secure superior performance remains unclear. Drawing on the dynamic capability view and data from a survey of 228 firms, this study proposes a model of how frequent dynamic capability utilization, assessed through its underlying processes of sensing and reconfiguring, relates to marketing and technological capabilities, as well as how market, technological, and competitor turbulence might affect these relationships. The results show that frequent sensing and reconfiguring have stronger positive effects in environments characterized by high competitor turbulence; however, frequent sensing can have negative relationships with marketing and technological capabilities in stable environments. Furthermore, marketing capabilities are positively associated with firm performance in highly competitive environments, whereas technological capabilities enhance performance in stable competitive environments

Resource-based view of the firm

The resource-based view clarifies to what extent organizational resources affect strategic performance differentials among firms. The resource-based view (RBV) assumes that firms are administrative organizations involving collections of physical (human) and intangible assets or, synonymously, bundles of idiosyncratic resources and capabilities. The RBV has evolved from economic theory and explains the role of resources that are available to a firm in pursuit of a sustainable competitive advantage. Jay Barney formalized the RBV by drawing on the work of Birger Wernerfelt, who in 1984 introduced the notion of resource position barriers; these in turn are generally related to entry barriers in the “five forces” model of Michael Porter's positioning school, which focuses primarily on the company's external competitive environment without an explicit account of internal firm resources

Alliances

An alliance is a unified effort involving two or more organizations to achieve common goals with respect to a particular strategic issue. The concept of alliance has been used in a variety of contexts with definitions generally being disciplinary bound. Theoretical and empirical research into alliances has had extensive interdisciplinary appeal, and the study of alliances has been conducted in a multitude of disciplines including sociology, economics, political science, law, strategic management, and organizational behavior. The word alliance has a set of meanings, such as an agreement establishing an association or alliance between organizations to achieve a particular aim, a coalition being an organization of businesses involved in a pact, and a bond being a connectidn based on common interest, to name a few. But an alliance has a number of defining features