Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to: analyze the effect of trust and affect toward a brand community on the commitment of brand communities; and investigate the mechanism through which the commitment of a brand community is able to increase various loyalty behaviors (e.g. repurchase intentions, positive word-of-mouth, and constructive complaints). Design/methodology/approach-In order to test the hypotheses, a total of 200 Chinese female online brand community users were sampled, specifically users who had been active in the online brand community for over a year, and Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis was performed. Findings-The results identified the significant positive paths: brand community trust ! brand community commitment; brand community affect ! brand community commitment; and brand community commitment ! brand loyalty behaviors. In addition brand community commitment was found to play a mediating role in the relationships between brand community trust/affect and brand loyalty. Finally, brand community commitment was seen to have a stronger effect on word-of-mouth than on constructive complaints. Research limitations/implications-This study demonstrates the need to elaborate the brand community commitment construct. Specifically, attention to the underlying dimensions of commitment should identify more dynamic relationships among trust/affect, brand community commitment, and brand loyalty behaviors. Practical implications-Marketing executives and brand managers who are considering customer loyalty improvement strategies must understand the value of managing an online brand community effectively. The findings of this study suggest significant ways to increase brand loyalty behaviors, particularly for brands seeking to broaden their appeal in the female Chinese market. Originality/value-In contrast with the existing studies dealing with community commitment as an attitudinal antecedent of brand loyalty, this study empirically tested the mediating role of community commitment based on Baron and Kenny's logic. Moreover, the mediation was found to have a differential effect, namely a partial mediation for the relationships community trust-repurchase intention/WOM but a full mediation for the relationship brand community affect-constructive complaint.
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the determinants of current visitors’ festival revisit intentions. The concepts of festival quality and satisfaction were adapted and integrated with the theory of planned behavior (TPB) from social psychology to theorize a model of festival revisit intentions. In addition, given the importance of social characteristics in festival visiting behavior, the relative impacts of three modes of social influences (i.e. subjective norms, group norms and social identity) were investigated.
Design/methodology/approach
Statistical analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling to examine the hypothesized relationships with the data collected onsite during the Nonsan Strawberry Festival, held in Nonsan, South Korea. The eleven constructs were incorporated into the structural model to examine the hypothesized relationships among the latent factors.
Findings
Results of the analyses indicated that the proposed model had an acceptable fit to the empirical data. The overall explanatory power of the model had an R2 of 84 per cent for revisit intention and an R2 of 60 per cent for satisfaction. Satisfaction was found to be the strongest predictor of visitors’ revisit intensions, followed by social identity, subjective norms and group norms.
Research limitations/implications
This study developed an integrated model to explain festival visitors’ revisit intentions by adopting not only visitors’ personal evaluation of the festival experience and but also a series of social influences.
Practical implications
Based on the results, festival managers should allocate their marketing resources for the festival program, environment and souvenirs to increase the visitors’ perception of quality. Particular attention should also be given to visitor groups and their travel companions’ influences on their intentions to revisit the festival.
Originality/value
The incorporation of festival quality and satisfaction and TPB extended with additional social influence variables provided a model with a theoretical basis to explain festival revisit intentions. This approach may provide an initial blueprint for further investigation of other theoretical revisit models.
Coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) for thin film has been measured only from change in thickness because thin film has to be constrained on a solid substrate. However, thin film CTE shows different values depending on the supporting solid substrate. Here, a novel measurement method is suggested to quantitatively measure the in-plane thermal expansion of thin films floating on a water surface. In-plane thermal expansion of thin films on water surface is achieved by heating the water. The CTE is measured through a digital image correlation (DIC) technique. The DIC tracks displacement marks deposited on the film surface, and the in-plane thermal strain is defined as the change in distance between the patterns. The method can be applied to measure the CTE of polymer, metal, and graphene with a thickness ranging from a micrometer to one-atom-thickness. The in-plane thermal expansion of the polystyrene (PS) thin film decreased as the film thickness decreased. The negative CTE of graphene is also successfully explored without any substrate effects or complicated calculations. The CTE measurement method can provide understanding of the intrinsic thermal expansion behavior of thin films including emerging two-dimensional materials.
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