Past research on word-of-mouth has presented inconsistent evidence as to whether consumers are more inclined to share positive or negative information about products and services. Some findings suggest that consumers are more inclined to engage in positive word-of-mouth, whereas others suggest that consumers are more inclined to engage in negative word-of-mouth. The present research offers a theoretical perspective that provides one means to resolve these seemingly contradictory findings. Specifically, the present work compares the generation of word-of-mouth (i.e., consumers sharing information about their own experiences) to the transmission of word-mouth (i.e., consumers passing-on information about experiences they heard occurred to others). The authors suggest that a basic human motive to self-enhance leads consumers to generate positive word-of-mouth (i.e., share information about their own positive consumption experiences), but transmit negative word-of-mouth (i.e., pass-on information they heard about other’s negative consumption experiences). The authors present evidence for self-enhancement motives playing out in opposite ways at word-of-mouth generation compared to word-of-mouth transmission across four experiments

Several scholars have proposed personalization models based on product variety breadth and the intensity of customer–firm interaction with a focus on marketing strategies ranging from basic product versioning to customerization and reverse marketing. However, some studies have shown that the explosion of product variety may generate information overload. Moreover, customers are highly heterogeneous in willingness and ability to interact with firms in personalization processes. This often results in consumer confusion and wasteful investments. To address this problem, we propose a conceptual framework of e-customer profiling for interactive personalization by distinguishing content (that is, expected customer benefits) and process (that is, expected degree of interaction) issues.The framework focuses on four general dimensions suggested by previous research as significant drivers of online customer heterogeneity: VALUE, KNOWLEDGE, ORIENTATION, and RELATIONSHIP QUALITY. We also present a preliminary test of the framework and derive directions for customer relationship management and future research.

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 Gossip is a form of conversation that uniquely involves three actors: the gossiper, the receiver, and the target.  In professional settings, gossipers are more likely to share positive and non-malicious gossip than negative and malicious one.

In this article, the authors focus on the concept of relational equity, that is, the customer perception of distributive justice within a continuous customer-provider relationship. The authors investigate the influences of relational equity on attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty. Moreover, they test the hypothesis that relationship age moderates the impact of relational equity on loyalty, adopting a cross-sectional design and data from a sample of Italian customers of mobile phone services ( N = 461). Relational equity is recognized as a significant determinant of customer loyalty over and above satisfaction and trust effects, and its influence increases along with relationship age. From a managerial point of view, results suggest that loyalty programs should be tailored according to the age of the relationship. Moreover, particular care should be devoted to monitoring perceived relational equity, especially in longer-term relationships.

Due to the inherent risk and uncertainty characterizing pre-purchase service evaluation, consumers tend to rely on referrals from other consumers who already have experiences with that service. Thus, companies are eager to stimulate such referrals and improve their effectiveness. To this end, this research investigates how consumers' linguistic framing of service recommendations influences recipients' attitudes and behavioral intentions. Specifically, this study focuses on one key dimension of language—its abstractness (vs. concreteness)—and hypothesizes that the effect of language abstractness on referral persuasiveness depends on recipients' prior knowledge about the service in question. The results of two experiments in the context of financial and medical services demonstrate that abstract language is more effective than concrete language for recipients with high prior knowledge. Moreover, this research shows that recipients' engagement in mental imagery processing is that makes abstract language more effective for those with high prior knowledge. This articles ends with a discussion of the study's implications for academic research, social communication and service management, along with its limitations and future research directions

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