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In today’s highly dynamic and interactive business environment, the role of “customer engagement” (CE) in cocreating customer experience and value is receiving increasing attention from business practitioners and academics alike. Despite this interest, systematic scholarly inquiry into the concept and its conceptual distinctiveness from other, associated relational concepts has been limited to date. This article explores the theoretical foundations of CE by drawing on relationship marketing theory and the service-dominant (S-D) logic. The analysis also examines the use of the term “engagement” in the social science, management, and marketing academic literatures, as well as in specific business practice applications. Five fundamental propositions (FPs) derived from this analysis are used to develop a general definition of CE, and distinguish the concept from other relational concepts, including “participation” and “involvement.” The five propositions are used in the development of a framework for future research, the undertaking of which would facilitate the subsequent refinement of the conceptual domain of CE. Overall, CE, based on its relational foundations of interactive experience and the cocreation of value, is shown to represent an important concept for research in marketing and service management.

Purpose Despite Schau et al.’s (2009) pioneering research addressing consumers’ community engagement practices, scholarly understanding of the nature and dynamics characterizing consumers’ engagement practices in virtual (online) brand communities, and their inter-relationships, is limited to date. Building on these authors’ study, this paper aims to develop a refined typology and process model of virtual brand community engagement practices (VBCEPs). Design/methodology/approach Using the netnographic methodology, the authors analyze 20 luxury handbag community members’ entries posted on the brand’s particular section of The Purse Forum. Findings The authors develop an eight-component VBCEP typology that refines Schau et al.’s (2009) four-component model of brand community engagement practices. The model comprises “greeting”, “regulating”, “assisting”, “celebrating”, “appreciating”, “empathizing”, “mingling” and “ranking”. These practices contribute to and maintain the community’s vision and identity, and strengthen shared community consciousness. Research limitations/implications A key limitation of this research lies in its findings being generated from a single, luxury virtual brand community. Future research may thus wish to validate the VBCEP typology and model across different contexts. Practical implications The authors provide strategic managerial recommendations designed to leverage virtual brand community performance, which center predominantly on the social (altruistic) and achievement-based VBCEP sub-processes. Originality/value The eight-component VBCEP typology refines Schau et al.’s four-component model of brand community engagement practices with particular applicability to virtual brand communities.

This paper presents a cross‐cultural study of organic food consumption. Relationships between health and diet concern, environmental concern, confidence in the conventional food industry, demographic characteristics, and intensity of organic food consumption of consumers from Denmark (mature organic industry) and New Zealand (novice organic food industry) are investigated. The authors evaluate the adequacy of deficit value and market development conceptual frameworks to predict priority of these concerns related to the level of organic market development.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamic process of multi-actor engagement by examining how it evolves and spreads in actor networks. The authors challenge the dyadic perspective adopted by previous research. Design/methodology/approach An abductive theorizing approach uses a longitudinal case study to develop a theoretical framework of the iterative process of multi-actor engagement. The authors draw on the contemporary literature on engagement, service-dominant logic and value propositions. Findings The research shows that engagement conditions, via actors’ appraisals, lead to engagement properties and result in engagement outcomes as the new conditions for the next iteration. Changes within this multi-actor engagement process lead the network to evolve over time. Research limitations/implications The authors highlight the importance of adopting a dynamic multi-actor perspective of engagement and provide foundations for further research. The use of longitudinal methods that focus on the groups of actors in the evolving network is a key consideration. Practical implications There is the need to understand and measure the dynamic process of engagement among different groups of actors within networks in the service context. Originality/value This is the first empirical study to explore the dynamics of engagement among multiple actors in the network. This leads to the expansion of Storbacka et al.’s (2016) conceptual work by identifying the iterative nature of the multi-actor engagement process, and new components in the process (i.e. actors’ connections, value propositions and engagement outcomes), as well as clarifying existing ones (e.g. engagement properties and actors’ appraisals).

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The majority of previous studies on ecotourism have used a behavioral approach to the identification of ecotourists. While these studies provide a number of useful ecotourist profiles, they do not provide a general scale useful in identifying ecotourists across a wide array of contexts. Therefore, this exploratory study develops an Ecotourism Interest scale and tests the value of the scale in predicting travelers’ participation in selected tourist activities. Logistic regression models are used to test hypotheses regarding the influence of Ecotourism Interest on choice of vacation activity. Empirical results show that the Ecotourism Interest scale is useful in identifying if tourists will select eco-friendly activities (e.g., walking in the bush, tramping, and whale watching). Also, different additional factors such as age, travel party, and travel mode were found to influence tourists’ decisions to participate in any one particular activity.

Purpose Valence is one of the key dimensions underlying actor engagement, yet there is limited research to provide a comprehensive understanding of the concept. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise engagement valence in actor networks and develop an agenda for future research. Design/methodology/approach The exploration of the psychological foundations of the concept of valence and a systematic literature review from a multiple database search contribute to four sets of propositions defining the domain of the concept of actor engagement valence. Findings The propositions posit that valence resides in the engaging actor’s past, current and future psychological dispositions, which can shift between positive, negative and ambivalence. Actor engagement valence is triggered by the engagement objects and value propositions of other actors in the network. The antecedents of actor engagement valence comprise individual factors such as cognitive evaluations and hedonic feelings, as well as network-related factors such as social norms and shared beliefs, and the network structure. The net balance of actor engagement valence determines the actor’s engagement behaviours, and this relationship is moderated by individual and network factors. Originality/value This is the first study to conceptualise actor engagement valence, which contributes to the refinement of the actor engagement concept. This research defines the conceptual domain, deepens the understanding and provides an agenda for future research into the valence of engagement among actors in networks. The study recognises the institutional influences on actor engagement valence, and contributes to an understanding of the nature of actors’ psychological dispositions and how their valence determines the actors’ behavioural engagement manifestations.