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The level at which HTS are perceived as easy to use and manage is the leading acceptance predictor in older users' HTS acceptance. Together with Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Security, these three factors represent the key influence on older people's HTS acceptance behavior. When promoting HTS, interventions should focus to portray it as secure. Marketing interventions should focus also on promoting HTS among health professionals, using them as social agents to frame the services as useful and beneficial. The important role of computer anxiety may result in a need to use different equipment such as a tablet computer to access HTS. Finally, this paper introduces important methodological guidelines for measuring perceptions on a conceptual level of future services that currently do not exist.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop and validate cross‐culturally a short‐form, consumers' need for uniqueness (CNFU) scale. The length of the original scale (31 items) might have hindered its diffusion in research when questionnaire length and respondent fatigue are major considerations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses survey‐based data from Israel, Slovenia, and the Palestinian Authority and uses a combination of statistical techniques, such as EFA, CFA, and structural equation modeling.FindingsIn general, support was found for the cross‐cultural reliability and validity of the new, short‐form CNFU scale.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research can use the short‐form scale with additional confidence in its cross‐cultural reliability and validity.Practical implicationsFirst, since CNFU appears not to be culturally bound, marketers can identify cross‐country segments of high‐CNFU individuals and use standardized marketing campaigns to reach them. Second, marketers of unique products can use the antecedents identified in this study to develop and encourage CNFU. Third, the findings can be used to design advertising campaigns such as by emphasizing the social context of consumption of high‐uniqueness products.Originality/valueAn original and first presentation of a cross‐cultural validation of a parsimonious CNFU scale.

The success of home telemedicine depends on end-user adoption, which has been slow despite rapid advances in technological development. This study focuses on an examination of significant factors that may predict the successful adoption of home telemedicine services (HTS) among older adults. Based on previous studies in the fields of remote patient monitoring, assisted living technologies, and consumer health information technology acceptance, eight factors were identified as a framework for qualitative testing. Twelve focus groups were conducted with an older population living in both urban and rural environments. The results reveal seven predictors that play an important role in perceptions of HTS: perceived usefulness, effort expectancy, social influence, perceived security, computer anxiety, facilitating conditions, and physicians' opinion. The results provide important insights in the field of older adults' acceptance of HTS, with guidelines for the strategic planning, developing, and marketing of HTS for the graying market.

Consumer compulsive buying is an important area of inquiry in consumer behavior research. The importance of studying compulsive buying, stems, in part, from its nature as a negative aspect of consumer behavior. Specifically, exploring negative consumption phenomena could provide modified or new perspectives for the study of positive consumption behaviors. Moreover, research on negative facets of consumption is useful because it can potentially contribute to society’s wellbeing, an important criterion for usefulness of any research. This paper builds on earlier papers to propose a model of compulsivity antecedents. Gender, consumers’ tendency to make unplanned purchases, and their tendency to buy products not on shopping lists, serve to predict compulsive tendencies in a sample of Israeli consumers. The findings suggest that these antecedents affect compulsive tendencies.

Purpose -The purpose of the research is to conceptualize a model of tourist satisfaction at the destination level which can serve as a background for designing a universal, parsimonious, short and easily applicable measurement instrument.Design/methodology/approach -The conceptual model was developed on the basis of existing theoretical and empirical research in the fields of marketing and tourism.Findings -The model includes eight latent constructs, with tourist satisfaction being the central one. The analysis of the antecedents (quality, image, value, and costs and risks) of customer satisfaction provides insights into the processes underlying the creation of satisfaction, while the outcome constructs (complaint behavior and loyalty) indicate the consequences of (dis)satisfaction.Research limitations/implications -Designing a parsimonious and easily applicable measurement instrument imposes some limitations with respect to the number of constructs and measured variables included. The inclusion of additional constructs/variables should provide a more comprehensive insight into customer satisfaction and a more solid basis for strategic decision-making but at the same time it is likely to reduce the model's transparency and universality.Practical implications -The results of a continuous customer satisfaction monitoring should serve as an input for a trend analysis and strategic discussions regarding the development of a tourist destination. The ultimate goals of monitoring satisfaction include identifying strategic objectives at the destination level, preparing tactical and operational plans and ultimately increasing the competitiveness of a given destination.Originality/value -Achieving customer satisfaction should be one of the most important goals of every DMO and, to our knowledge, a few universal cause-and-effect measurement instruments/models have been developed to support this goal. The proposed model provides a basis for the continuous monitoring and improvement of the competitiveness of a given destination.

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