Purpose Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is growing rapidly and the e-retailers are finding it pertinent to enhance customers’ online shopping experiences and engage them with e-commerce portals. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual model of customer engagement, where credibility and usefulness of online reviews are found to trigger the adoption of reviews and customer trust that augments customer engagement. Design/methodology/approach A survey method design has been used to capture responses from 219 young customers (university students) of a reputed university in India. The hypothesized relationships have been examined through multiple regression analysis. Findings The findings of this study corroborate that the credibility and information usefulness of online reviews induce the adoption of reviews and propensity to trust e-commerce websites. The propensity to trust the reviews has been found to lead the adoption of reviews. The adoption of reviews is found to have a significant impact on the customer’ engagement with these portals. Research limitations/implications The present study contributes to the theories of online marketing in the space of e-shopping, online reviews, customer trust, customer engagement and online shopping behavior. Further, this study provides a framework for managers to engage customers by triggering customers’ online trust through the facilitation of credible and useful reviews. Originality/value The study aims at understanding the role of different attributes associated with the online reviews’ credibility and information usefulness in driving customer engagement with specific focus on online shopping through the utility of online devices. The study is one of the pioneering empirical studies that explore the role of online reviews in driving customer engagement.

The Problem. Although there have been a plethora of studies on the determinants of customer delight in marketing literature, less attention has been given to understand the role of employees' work engagement and psychological capital (PsyCap) in satisfying and delighting customers. The objective of the present study is threefold-the first is to examine how engaged employees are positive and efficacious; the second is to investigate how engaged, positive, and efficacious employees delight patients specifically in the health care sector; and the third is to examine how the relationship between employees' positive PsyCap and customer delight is mediated by beneficiary contact, which is the perception of employees about the meaningful impact of their efforts on their patients. The Solution. Previous studies have shown that employees who are absorbed, dedicated, and immersed in their work are more confident and positive at their workplace. Engaged, positive, and confident employees not only keep themselves but also their customers happy and positive through their optimistic outlook and efficacious work behavior. Responses are collected from 200 employees and their 200 patients from different hospitals of India. Hierarchical regression analysis shows a significant and positive relationship between work engagement, PsyCap, and customer delight. Work engagement is found to predict PsyCap and customer delight. Beneficiary contact is found to mediate between the relationship of PsyCap and customer delight. The originality of the article lies in its interdisciplinary approach to understand how engaged and dedicated employees keep themselves and their patients positive and delighted.

This paper aims to understand the role of word-of-mouth, trust and perceived risk in extended technology acceptance model on online purchase intention. Firstly, EFA was used to test the dimensionality of these constructs. Next the reliability and validity of these constructs have been established using CFA in AMOS 16.0. Then the hypotheses were tested using SEM in AMOS 16.0. It was found that word-of-mouth has a positive and significant impact on online purchase intention whereas perceived risk has a negative and significant impact on online purchase intention. It was also found that word-of-mouth has a positive and significant impact on trust and trust has negative and significant impact perceived risk. Word-of-mouth, trust and perceived risk should be viewed as the levers in the adoption process of online shopping in the extended technology acceptance model. Examining the role of these three constructs on online purchase intention explicated the dual process of perceived risk acting as an inhibitor whereas word-of-mouth acting as an enabler.

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In the hyper-competitive Indian airline industry, the low-cost carriers as well as full-service airlines are in dire need of innovative marketing strategies to engage their customers. To understand the dynamics behind the process of customer engagement, the purpose of this paper is to gain insights into the lived experience of consumers about their online air-ticket bookings experiences. In total, 60 frequent air travellers were approached to participate in the study and the self-completion diary method was incorporated to record their ticket booking experiences. The responses recorded in the diaries were analyzed on the basis of their content from which eight themes were derived. The findings bring forth the importance of hedonic experiential values along with utilitarian experiential values toward the engagement of customers during the online air-ticket booking process. The current study is one of the pioneers in conceptualization of customer engagement as a third-order construct by uncovering the sub-dimensions of the second order factors—utilitarian and hedonic experiential values.