No abstract

This study explores the comparative effects of two antecedents of enduring involvement in determining whether social versus psychological effects are more important in establishing enduring involvement with an extended service encounter. Specifically, the authors look at the effects of communitas—a social effect—and flow—an individual psychological effect—to determine which has a stronger impact on one's enduring involvement in golf. Self-determination theory argues that flow should be more important than communitas in establishing enduring involvement because of higher levels of volitional control; the findings support this premise. From a practical perspective, these findings should help extended service managers determine which service environments or strategies (e.g., social atmosphere strategies vs. game improvement strategies) to emphasize when trying to establish loyal participants. The moderating effects of gender and participation frequency on the relationships between communitas and enduring involvement and between flow and enduring involvement are also examined.

The study investigates individual differences in attitudes towards brands being positioned as underdogs in advertising from an emotional perspective. We argue that the personality trait of empathic concern moderates the underdog effect on brand attitude and that the moderating effect is mediated by empathic response to the advertisement. We conducted three experiments with ads using top-dog and underdog appeals. Those who have stronger empathic concern showed more favourable attitudes towards the brand advertised through underdog positioning, and the effect of empathic concern was mediated by the empathic response to the underdog positioning advertisement. For managers, targeting consumers who have high levels of empathic concern could result in more favourable attitudes towards underdog businesses when using underdog appeals.

The golf industry is currently undergoing a “churning effect” whereby players are leaving nearly as quickly as they enter; this effect is especially prevalent among women. We examine interviews from male and female golf professionals, as well as transcripts from interviews with female participants of various playing levels and experience, in order to determine the reasons women not only leave golf, but more importantly, why they stay. Our data indicate that once golfers have become hooked on the game, interpersonal and structural constraints have more influence on participation than intrapersonal constraints, whereas women new to golf face intrapersonal constraints (mainly related to ability) and structural constraints (but ones somewhat different from frequent participants). We suggest strategies that might reduce the intrapersonal (helping new players of both sexes achieve a minimal level of mastery), interpersonal (development of a more gender neutral environment to reduce the likelihood of “differentness” being noted), and structural (provision of child care facilities at the course, reducing the 18-hole mentality) constraints.