Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore how multichannel customers evaluate overall satisfaction across distribution channels and what the antecedents are of such satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach -A survey of bank customers in Taiwan was conducted. The total number of valid questionnaires was 479. Reliability and validity were tested. Maximum likelihood procedure of LISREL 8.8 was used to test the hypothesized structural equation model. Findings -The findings indicate that the overall satisfaction in the multichannel environment is a critical determinant of customer retention and participation. The present study also develops the antecedents of multichannel satisfaction. In the multichannel environment, perceived multichannel service quality is positively related to satisfaction, while perceived channel switching difficulty is negatively related to satisfaction. Originality/value -The present study employs the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) paradigm and the channel loyalty framework to better model customers' response to marketing activities in the multichannel distribution system.

This paper presents a model of the effects of recovery level in terms of distributive, procedural, and interactional dimensions on consumer attitudes (satisfaction and trust) and their subsequent effects on behavioral intentions. Service medium (online and offline) is considered as a moderating variable in the perspective of psychological distance. Findings reveal that the effects of recovery levels on satisfaction and trust are greater in the offline medium than in the online medium. Moreover, in both low and high recovery situations, offline customers are more satisfied and have higher levels of trust than do online customers. As expected, satisfaction with service recovery plays a pivotal role in enhancing customer's trust and behavioral intentions.

The purpose of this research is to enhance knowledge about service recovery by investigating the feelings of psychological distance in the relationship between customers' perceptions of service recovery efforts of the perceived justice dimensions (distributive, procedural, and interactional justice) and attitudinal responses such as satisfaction with service recovery effort and trust in the firm. The results of structural equation modelling analyses suggested that consumers who had positive justice perceptions were likely to exhibit positive attitudinal responses. Consequently, the positive attitudinal responses generated positive word-of-mouth intention about their experiences and encouraged them to continue the service.

consumer ethic, consumerism, ethical behavior, individual values, individualism, protestant work ethic, work ethic,

Background: Recent evidence suggests that integration of multi-modal data improves performance in machine learning prediction of depression treatment outcomes. Here, we compared the predictive performance of three machine learning classifiers using differing combinations of sociodemographic characteristics, baseline clinical self-reports, cognitive tests, and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features to predict treatment outcomes in late-life depression (LLD).Methods: Data were combined from two clinical trials conducted with depressed adults aged 60 and older, including response to escitalopram (N = 32, NCT01902004) and Tai Chi (N = 35, NCT02460666). Remission was defined as a score of 6 or less on the 24-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD) at the end of 24 weeks of treatment. Features subsets were constructed from baseline sociodemographic and clinical features, gray matter volumes (GMVs), or both. Three classification algorithms were compared: (1) Support Vector Machine-Radial Bias Function (SVMRBF), (2) Random Forest (RF), and (3) Logistic Regression (LR). A repeated 5-fold cross-validation approach with a wrapper-based feature selection method was used for model fitting. Model performance metrics included Area under the ROC Curve (AUC) and Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC). Cross-validated performance significance was tested by permutation analysis. Classifiers were compared by Cochran's Q and post-hoc pairwise comparisons using McNemar's Chi-Square test with Bonferroni correction.Results: For the RF and SVMRBF algorithms, the combined feature set outperformed the clinical and GMV feature sets with a final cross-validated AUC of 0.83 ± 0.11 and 0.80 ± 0.11, respectively. Both classifiers passed permutation analysis. The LR algorithm performed best using GMV features alone (AUC 0.79 ± 0.14) but failed to pass permutation analysis using any feature set. Performance of the three classifiers differed significantly for all three features sets. Important predictive features of treatment response included anterior and posterior cingulate volumes, depression characteristics, and self-reported health-related quality scores.Conclusion: This preliminary exploration into the use of ML and multi-modal data to identify predictors of general treatment response in LLD indicates that integration of clinical and structural MRI features significantly increases predictive capability. Identified features are among those previously implicated in geriatric depression, encouraging future work in this arena.

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the determinants of successful online viral marketing. More companies in recent years have reduced their advertising expenditures on traditional media. Instead, they focus more on word-of-mouth marketing to reach their potential customers. Design/methodology/approach – A 2 (high/low utilitarian message context) × 2 (high/low hedonic message context) × 2 (message source: strong/weak tie strength) × 2 (channel: e-mail/blog) between-subjects experiment was conducted. A total of 363 completed questionnaires were collected in Taiwan. Findings – The findings are fourfold. First, the greater the tie strength between the sender and the receiver, the more actively they share information. Second, an audience is more willing to share a message with others when the message contains higher degrees of utilitarian or hedonic values. Third, those who are highly involved with the products are more willing to share information than those who are less involved. Fourth, those who access the information via blogs are more willing to share information with others. Research limitations/implications – The first limitation pertains to the issue of external validity. Also, to maximize internal validity, hypothetical scenarios and experimental designs were used rather than actual e-mail/blog experiences as stimuli. The results of this study provide some key strategic implications for companies that are seeking to enhance a successful viral marketing campaign. Practical implications – This study suggests there is no “one size fits all” answer. A successful viral marketing campaign is specific to individual characteristics and the approaches used. Originality/value – The present study combines related research – including communication theory, consumer value and involvement theory – to investigate the determinants of individuals’ intentions to share marketing information.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of comparative claims across search and experience product types. Data was obtained from 159 Taiwanese college students. Results reveal that comparative claims used in blogs (compared to those in print ads) produce lower counterarguments and consumers more easily accept claims made on a blog. Comparative claims lead to higher brand attitude and purchase intention for search products on the blog; however, noncomparative ads lead to higher brand attitude and purchase intention for experience products on the blog. For both search and experience products, there is no significant difference.

When to retire is an individual decision based on many criteria like health of the individual, family responsibilities, expected life of the individual, single family income or dual family income, and other such considerations. A financial consideration can also be made. Retiring early will imply a reduction in social security benefits for the rest of your life. Retiring later than your full retirement age can mean a significant bump in benefits for the rest of your life. This paper simulates different conditions to estimate how long a life one needs to live to recover from the reduction in benefits resulting from earlier retirements.  Specifically, we model four permutations of the time value of money and the marginal tax rate on early benefits. Our results show there are significant advantages of withdrawing early benefits in most cases where life expectancy is shorter. But when expected life terms are much higher above 83, delaying retirement can significantly enhance the payout of benefits.