The intensifying competition in the luxury sector necessitates the need for managers to identify the factors underpinning customers' commitment to a luxury brand. Understanding commitment not only provides an insight into the question, how customers commit, but also uncovers why customers commit to a particular brand. Using a questionnaire-based survey with customers, this research examines the antecedents and consequences of customer commitment to luxury brands. The findings indicate the differential influence of various antecedents on affective, calculative and normative commitment, and highlight the role played by these forms of commitment on consumption satisfaction and advocacy intentions. The results demonstrate the importance of affective commitment as a relationship enhancer, and identify managerial implications for customer commitment to luxury brands.

Asian markets are steadily becoming key growth regions for luxury brands. However, despite the growth, many luxury brand firms are unable to obtain the desired economic returns through their marketing strategies in Asia. Often these firms treat consumers across Asian markets as homogenous groups, which could lead to inaccurate luxury brand management strategy. Additionally, there is a limited understanding of consumer value perceptions towards luxury brands across the Asian markets. Employing impression management theory and the horizontal/vertical collectivistic cultural distinctions, this study examines the differences and similarities in constituent luxury value perceptions across three prominent Asian markets, namely, China, India and Indonesia. The results of a quantitative survey conducted with 626 real luxury consumers in these three countries identify variations in perceptions of symbolic, experiential, and functional value of luxury brands. The study contributes to knowledge on constituent luxury value perceptions, along with providing theoretical explanations for the differences between consumers across Asian markets. With the emerging novel insights on Asian consumers, luxury brand firms can align their marketing strategies to respective markets by leveraging the similarities and differences in consumer value perceptions. This approach, informed by empirical evidence, will enhance the luxury brands' competitiveness and profit opportunities in the high growth Asian markets.The study identifies a number of future research directions.

Purpose -This paper aims to explore the impact of competitive intelligence (CI) practices on the firm's performance in the emerging market context of India. The paper seeks to answer the following questions: do CI activities have an impact on the market performance of Indian firms? If so, what are the macro and micro environmental drivers of CI for Indian firms? How are CI activities organized within Indian firms? How is the usage and dissemination of CI taking place within Indian firms? Design/methodology/approach -The study used a stratified sample developed from a variety of mailing lists focusing on Indian firms. The study employed a cross-sectional, survey-based methodology. Findings -The study identifies two key aspects: Indian firms that exhibit higher levels of CI activities indeed achieve better financial performance results; and the current level of CI activities in Indian firms is at a moderate level, thereby suggesting an opportunity for using and implementing more sophisticated CI techniques. Practical implications -The findings of this study should assist local and foreign managers in having a more informed understanding of CI activities in the Indian marketplace. Additionally, these findings provide directives to managers regarding the untapped opportunities and potential that CI can offer in a highly volatile and rapidly changing market scenario. Originality/value -This is the first study that empirically investigates the relationship between the level of CI activities and firm performance in an emerging market context. It is also the first study of its kind that explores the current state of CI practices in the Indian market.

As service organizations increasingly use physical and virtual channels for customer contact, a seamless customer experience within and across channels reflects the integration quality of multichannel services. This study investigates the factors affecting integration quality and their impact on multichannel design and management. The study was undertaken as a qualitative, multimethod, multisite, case research with a consumer bank, its customers and its technology partner firms. The research findings identify forms of misalignment occurring between organizational perception and design of a multichannel system and customer expectations of a multichannel service experience. Such misalignment not only negatively impact integration quality but also make customers susceptible to terminating the relationship with the service provider. The study also identifies that integration quality does not result from the lone actions of a single entity, such as the organization. The interplay of actions between the organization, its wider institutional environment, and its customers collectively influence integration quality. From a managerial perspective, the study identifies aspects of multichannel process design and management for positive integration quality.

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