Oliver’s 1997 four-stage loyalty model proposes that loyalty consists of belief, affect, intention, and action. Although this loyalty model has recently been subject to empirical examination, the issue of moderator variables has been largely neglected. This article fills that void by analyzing the moderating effects of selected personal and situational characteristics, using a sample of 888 customers of a large do-it-yourself retailer. The results of multi-group causal analysis suggest that these moderators exert an influence on the development of the different stages of the loyalty sequence. Specifically, age, income, education and expertise, price orientation, critical incident recovery, and loyalty card membership are found to be important moderators of the links in the four-stage loyalty model. Limitations of the study are outlined, and implications for both research and managerial practice are discussed.

Assessing factors that predict new product success (NPS) holds critical importance for companies, as research shows that despite considerable new product investment, success rates are generally below 25%. Over the decades, meta‐analytical attempts have been made to summarize empirical findings on NPS factors. However, market environment changes such as increased global competition, as well as methodological advancements in meta‐analytical research, present a timely opportunity to augment their results. Hence, a key objective of this research is to provide an updated and extended meta‐analytic investigation of the factors affecting NPS. Using Henard and Szymanski's meta‐analysis as the most comprehensive recent summary of empirical findings, this study updates their findings by analyzing articles published from 1999 through 2011, the period following the original meta‐analysis. Based on 233 empirical studies (from 204 manuscripts) on NPS, with a total 2618 effect sizes, this study also takes advantage of more recent methodological developments by re‐calculating effects of the meta‐analysis employing a random effects model. The study's scope broadens by including overlooked but important additional variables, notably “country culture,” and discusses substantive differences between the updated meta‐analysis and its predecessor. Results reveal generally weaker effect sizes than those reported by Henard and Szymanski in 2001, and provide evolutionary evidence of decreased effects of common success factors over time. Moreover, culture emerges as an important moderating factor, weakening effect sizes for individualistic countries and strengthening effects for risk‐averse countries, highlighting the importance of further investigating culture's role in product innovation studies, and of tracking changes of success factors of product innovations. Finally, a sharp increase since 1999 in studies investigating product and process characteristics identifies a significant shift in research interest in new product development success factors. The finding that the importance of success factors generally declines over time calls for new theoretical approaches to better capture the nature of new product development (NPD) success factors. One might speculate that the potential to create competitive advantages through an understanding of NPD success factors is reduced as knowledge of these factors becomes more widespread among managers. Results also imply that managers attempting to improve success rates of NPDs need to consider national culture as this factor exhibits a strong moderating effect: Working in varied cultural contexts will result in differing antecedents of successful new product ventures.

Introducing customers to new ideas lies at the heart of marketing, yet surprisingly little is known about customers’ state of inspiration within this domain. This article reviews prior conceptualizations of general inspiration in psychology and introduces the concept of customer inspiration as a customer's temporary motivational state that facilitates the transition from the reception of a marketing-induced idea to the intrinsic pursuit of a consumption-related goal. The authors develop and validate a two-state, ten-item customer inspiration scale that consists of inspired-by and inspired-to states. The scale development process begins with item generation, followed by five studies: (1) scale purification and initial validation, (2) exploration of the nomological network, (3) tests for the experimental and predictive validity, (4) replication within a field experiment, and (5) assessments of generalizability and boundary conditions. Empirical results reveal sound psychometric properties of the scale, demonstrate its unique position in relation to established marketing constructs, and support experimental and predictive validity. Applying the scale in marketing practice offers a new way for firms to increase demand, motivate customers’ exploration behavior, and build customer loyalty.

Research on linking operational marketing inputs to customer attitudes and customer behavior has been gaining significance concomitant with the growing recognition that customers are market-based assets. In response to this, researchers and practitioners have proposed several conceptual models. Despite recent advances in research, the results are still inconclusive as to the relationship between customer attitude and future sales. A reason for this could be due to the paucity of studies combining survey-based data with behavioral data to understand better the drivers of customer behavior. With that in mind, the authors investigate the effects of customer perceptions of key marketing actions on customer attitudes and actual customer behavior as reflected by future sales. The authors propose that customer perceptions of value, brand, and relationship-"customer equity drivers"-affect loyalty intentions and future sales. The results of the study, which is based on a sample of 5694 customers of a large European do-it-yourself retailer, suggest that customer equity drivers can significantly predict future sales, even after the authors control for the current sales level.

No abstract

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to understand the internal branding process from the employees' perspective; it will empirically assess the relationship between internal branding and employees' delivery of the brand promise as well as the relationships among their brand identification, brand commitment, and brand loyalty.Design/methodology/approach: On a census basis, a quantitative survey was carried out with 699 customer-interface employees from five major hotels. Findings:Internal branding is found to have a positive impact on attitudinal and behavioural aspects of employees in their delivery of the brand promise. As employees' brand commitment did not have a statistically significant relationship with employees' brand performance, it was not regarded as a mediator in the link between internal branding and employees' brand performance. Furthermore, the study shows that brand identification is a driver of brand commitment, which precedes brand loyalty of employees.Practical Implications: A number of significant managerial implications are draw from this study, for example using both internal communication and training to influence employees' brand-supporting attitudes and behaviours. Still, it should be noted that the effect of internal branding on the behaviours could be dependent on the extent to which it could effectively influence their brand attitudes. Originality/value:The results provide valuable insights from the key internal audience's perspectives into an internal branding process to ensure the delivery of the brand promise. It has empirically shown the relationship between internal branding and the behavioural outcome as well as the meditational effects of employees' brand identification, commitment, and loyalty.

No abstract

No abstract