Image, satisfaction, destination and product post-visit behaviours: How do they relate in emerging destinations?

This study proposes a conceptual model that sheds light on how the destination image of emerging tourist destinations relates to tourism satisfaction and intention to subsequently recommend the place and purchase its products. Destination image is studied through three components – cognitive, affective, and unique. Unique image has been overlooked in previous research and few studies focus on its measurement. This study uses a new method of measuring it through text-mining of user-generated blog posts. Findings from a sample of 314 foreign visitors to Sofia, Bulgaria, reveal that the affective image influences tourist satisfaction and post-visit behaviour; the cognitive component has a significant effect on all the constructs, except for tourist satisfaction, whereas unique image only influences the intention to recommend and purchase destination country products. Joining together two streams of research, this study also argues that the intention to recommend a destination spot influences the intention to buy its products.This study proposes a conceptual model that sheds light on how the destination image of emerging tourist destinations relates to tourism satisfaction and intention to subsequently recommend the place and purchase its products. Destination image is studied through three components – cognitive, affective, and unique. Unique image has been overlooked in previous research and few studies focus on its measurement. This study uses a new method of measuring it through text-mining of user-generated blog posts. Findings from a sample of 314 foreign visitors to Sofia, Bulgaria, reveal that the affective image influences tourist satisfaction and post-visit behaviour; the cognitive component has a significant effect on all the constructs, except for tourist satisfaction, whereas unique image only influences the intention to recommend and purchase destination country products. Joining together two streams of research, this study also argues that the intention to recommend a destination spot influences the intention to buy its products.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Assessing brand personality associations of top of mind wine brands

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine brand knowledge of wines produced in a selected Portuguese viticulture area. More specifically, we intend to understand how consumers organise brands that have the highest awareness in their memory in terms of perceived personality traits. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was developed to assess brand awareness of Portuguese green wine brands and brand personality using Aaker’s brand personality framework. Multiple correspondence analysis was used in this study to present the relative positioning of the top-of-mind green wine brands. Findings – Despite the large number of green wine brands available on the market, six brands dominate in terms of brand awareness. Top-of-mind green wine brands are marked with clear and distinctive brand personality, and a small subset of brand personality attributes serve as significant criteria for brand positioning. Practical implications – The results of the present study could be beneficial for academics and practitioners, as it reveals that the top-of-mind brands within a specific viticulture area could exhibit a clear positioning based on personality traits. Therefore, brand personality traits might provide a mechanism for wine managers to distinguish or differentiate their wines. Originality/value – This work contributes to the findings of previous studies held to study brand personality perceptions. From a theoretical point of view, this paper reflects the usage of one the most popular instruments for brand personality measurement in a wine market context.info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

Towards a unified theory of brand equity: conceptualizations, taxonomy and avenues for future research

This paper aims to look into contemporary thinking within the brand equity paradigm, with a view to establishing avenues for further research on the drivers of brand equity formation, enabling a more in-depth understanding of the antecedents of brand equity and its determinants, as well as the development of an improved instrument to measure brand equity. We develop the relating conceptual study through differentiation and integration as a specific conceptual goal. We present a taxonomic framework of brand equity grounded on a synthesis of contemporary approaches to the theme. In so doing we identify gaps in the brand equity literature, which we hope will serve as beacons for future research and provide valuable theoretical insights on the determinants of brand equity formation and the development of better brand equity measurement tools. We argue that the unifying brand equity theory should be based on three pillars: stakeholder value, marketing assets and brand financial performance outputs.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The influence of country personality dimensions on intentions to recommend visiting: the preponderance of assiduousness and wickedness

The purpose of the current research is to investigate the relationships between country personality dimensions and consumer behavioural intentions, and to examine in detail the perceived personality of a stimulus-country. A convenience sample of 130 individuals from Brazil was surveyed and 115 usable questionnaires were analyzed. Portugal was chosen as the country for scrutiny and the questionnaire was delivered in Portuguese. Country personality was measured using the 24 items of personality traits six dimensions scale of d’Astous & Boujbel (2007). The research findings suggest that consumers ascribe personality characteristics to countries. All the items show high factorial weights, and in the proposed model the percentage of the variance of the intention to recommend explained by the perceived country personality dimensions equals around 23%. Assiduousness showed a positive significant influence on intention to recommend, whereas wickedness showed a significant negative influence. The findings suggest differences from the comparable earlier studies. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed. Complementarily, and as suggested by the personality traits frequency analysis, Portugal is seen as a traditionalist countryinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The role of brand equity in a new rebranding strategy of a private label brand

The purpose of this study is to understand the effects of the rebranding process on private label performance output, namely, on brand equity. More specifically, the study aims to investigate the performance of brand equity constructs (brand awareness, brand associations, perceived quality and brand loyalty) before and after the rebranding process. A questionnaire was administered to 466 shoppers, who put forth their perceptions, of the brand’s image, before and after the rebranding. When analyzed altogether, brand equity constructs have not suffered significant changes, meaning that previously existing brand equity had successfully been transferred onto the new brand; however, new brand equity was not created in the process. Consumers do still associate the private label brand image with its previous brand identity. Nevertheless, their ability to easily identify the various brand tiers was improved with the new image. Consumers associate the rebranded image with being “innovative” and “original” and describe the previous image as “inexpensive” and “trustworthy”. Brand awareness and loyalty are the factors that relate the most to consumers’ perceptions of the brand before its rebranding. This study contributes to the brand management literature by providing a new look into the under-researched problem of rebranding and brand equity, empirically validating the real-life market case.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Individual actors and embeddedness in business-to-business interactions

Individual actors are hardly ever considered in business-to-business marketing literature. This paper uses Service-dominant Logic and Neo-institutional Theory as the bases for twelve case studies. These case studies provide a better understanding of how individuals who represent firms make sense of the social rules, norms, procedures, values, and beliefs of the network (i.e. institutional logics) where they are embedded and how the business interaction is shaped by those influences, through the individual behaviour. This paper makes two main contributions. First, we develop an empirical model of how individuals consider the institutional logics of the network in interactions with suppliers. Second, we present three patterns of individual behavior in interactions, different from what is often assumed by business-to-business researchers. Managerial contributions are also pointed out.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Country personality scale: is a five-dimensional model a better methodological instrument?

In this article, we investigate the Country Personality Scale and explore the use of a five-dimensional scale instead of the originally proposed six-dimensional scale and its application for evaluating consumers' behavioral intentions. The aim of this article is to evaluate the Country Personality Scale and to adapt it to the Portuguese context, proposing a model anchored in a reduced Country Personality Scale. Pretest (a sample of 115 Brazilians) and main survey data (685 responses from São Paulo and Bahia states in Brazil) are considered. Portugal is the stimulus country. The proposed research model relating the country's personality dimensions to its behavioral intentions to visit is estimated using structural equation modeling with AMOS, and the research hypotheses are tested. The results suggest that five dimensions (agreeableness, assiduousness, conformity, snobbism, and unobtrusiveness) should be considered when measuring country personality. There is a perception that this scale is a useful instrument for a quantitative approach to measuring a country personality construct and its impact on behavioral intentions, which can help researchers and marketers address international and cross-cultural marketing issues. Based on the main survey data, subjected to the personality trait frequency analysis, Portugal is classified as a conformist country.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

When firms go international: Deliberate or random?

The Net Outward Investment Position (NOIP) indicator is insufficient for the purposes of understanding firms’ internationalization decision-making behaviour. The indicator does not allow for the withdrawal of insights into the structure of an economy, and is a weak predictor of the degree of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). We argue that a typology of firms aggregated according to intrinsic characteristics of those firms is a better predictor of the degree of internationalization of an economy than the NOIP. We use a database of 2133 firms based in Portugal that are already internationalized, made available in AICEP, a government agency. We use multiple correspondence and cluster analyses to build a typology of firms, and obtain evidence of common characteristics of the constituent groups. We identify a typology of firms characterized by five types differentiated by firm age, length of internationalization process, sector of economic activity, legal status, and psychological/cultural proximity. These variables suggest an evolutionary, iterative, self-learning approach to internationalization, which can be better explained by the combined use of the Investment Development Path (IDP) framework, the Uppsala Evolutionary School, and Vernon´s Product Life Cycle theory. Additionally, we find that the most striking differences between developed and developing host countries are in terms of the economic sector, legal status of the firm, and belonging (or not) to an economic group. We establish a link between the IDP framework, the Uppsala Evolutionary school, and Vernon´s Product Life Cycle theory, using a categorization of firms made according to selected characteristics to understand the internationalization of firms.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Leigos para o Desenvolvimento: donations optimization through private segmentation

Leigos para o Desenvolvimento (LD) are a NGOD (Non-Governmental Organization for Development) whose financing derives from donations obtained in the wider community. In this context and with the purpose of optimizing resource allocation in donations collection and the maximization of revenue thereof, the current study aims to assess the relative effectiveness of segmentation tools in donations with that purpose in mind. In informing the process and strategy of donations and thus optimizing organizational revenue, we aim to confront the merits of intuitive and experiential solutions with those that result from empirical data gathered and statistical techniques applied to segmentation tools and techniques. We conclude that there exists no one segmentation solution for sorting out the problem, opting instead for claiming that each case should be treated as unique and evaluated on its own.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Instagram: A gimmick or a serious reputation builder in the airline business?

The purpose of the research is to shed light on the interrelatedness between Instagram and corporate reputation on the one hand and customer service expectations on the other. A conceptual model is proposed to be tested in the context of the civil aviation economy. A national flagship airline company was chosen in which to conduct the research. An online questionnaire was made available and 283 responses were collected. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test research hypotheses derived from the literature. The novelty of the work is in the scarce research found when scrutinizing the literature on possible links between Instagram and airline corporate reputation. The study found there to be a positive correlation between social media usage and corporate reputation in the airline sector. Future research needs to replicate this study across other airlines to ascertain the external validity of the current study and its potential for extrapolation.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio