Online learning is a powerful option for professional development in various careers, including marketing. However, massive open online courses (MOOCs) tend to face an issue of course dropouts, and this cannot only be attributed to factors like course content or value. Social interactions among students and interest-generating elements of MOOCs are equally important elements of online learning ecosystems. Therefore, this study approaches the problem from the perspective of the social exchange theory with insights into the cognitive evaluation theory to predict the effects of social interactions and gamification rewards on the process of studies. The data from an experiment and a subsequent survey of marketing course participants were used to analyze student satisfaction and dropouts through the lens of the social exchange theory and to see the effects of expected and unexpected gamification rewards. This contributes to the knowledge about factors that influence online course discontinuation, provides managerial and educational insights on dropout reduction, and specifies directions for further studies on the use of gamification elements in MOOCs.

The field of public participation is developing fast, with phenomena such as citizen science and crowdsourcing extending the resource base of research, stimulating innovation and making science more accessible to the general population.Promoting public participation means giving more weight to citizens and civil society actors in the definition of research needs and in the implementation of research and innovation. As yet, there is limited understanding of the implications of widespread use of public participation and as a result, there is a risk that it will become a burden for research and an obstacle to bridging the gap between research and society. This volume presents the findings of a three-year international study on innovative public participation. The resulting work studies the characteristics and trends of innovative public participation through a global sample of 38 case studies. It provides theoretical generalisations on the dynamics of public participation, suggestions for an evaluation framework and clear empirical examples of how public participation works in practice. Illustrated by best practice cases, the authors identify characteristics which contribute to successful public participation.The book is aimed primarily at scholars and practitioners of public participation, as well as research managers, policy makers and business actors interested in related issues. There is also a secondary market for students and scholars of European governance studies, sociology and political sciences.

In the context of marketing, children are considered to be increasingly important influencers of parents’ purchasing decisions. However, their influence varies depending on the products and cultures, and many particularities of this phenomenon remain under-researched. This is especially true in regard to the countries that are categorized as “emerging economies”. Some of them still do not have reliable measurements of their cultural dimensions, and this increases difficulties in performing comparative analysis there. On the other hand, these countries offer a broad and important scene for child influence studies. This study concentrates on analysis and comparisons of children’s influence on parental purchase decision-making in Lithuania and Azerbaijan. These countries are different in, at least, two Hofstede’s cultural dimensions that are important in family decision-making: individualism and uncertainty avoidance. Also, the study contributes to the existing research by using a product use-related categorization of product groups. Such an approach reveals significant difference in terms of how children exert their influence on purchasing services versus tangible products for the family use. Interesting differences between the countries in terms of children’s influence on purchasing products for their personal use also opens a new scene for future studies that might consider a similar product categorization approach.

Though the issue of product country of origin has been researched by numerous researchers, due to globalization, currently consumers have more problems perceiving the country of origin than ever before. This brings marketing specialists back to the discussion of the topic once again, with emphasis on a distinction between the country of manufacturing origin and the country of brand origin. The impact of country of manufacturing and country of brand image varies from country to country under the influence of numerous impact factors, often summarized within a culture or subcultures. One type of such subcultures could be formed by immigrants, whose perceptions might include aspects of their home country combined with those of the host country. The main purpose of this paper was to evaluate the attitudes of Lithuanians who live in Lithuania (as a country of an emerging economy) and those of emigrants living in selected countries (Ireland, the United Kingdom and Finland) with regard to the importance of country of origin. Three brands were selected for the research – Panasonic, LG and BEKO, and three different cases were presented to the respondents. First, both the brand name (Panasonic) and the manufacturing country (the United Kingdom) were associated with a developed country. In the second case, country of brand origin (LG) was identified as a developed country while country of manufacture represented an emerging economy (Poland). Finally, an emerging economy of the country of brand origin (BEKO) and an emerging economy of the country of manufacturing (Turkey) were dealt with.Findings provide evidence that, in general, more developed countries had a better image as countries – manufacturers of TV sets than less developed countries (emerging economies). Analysis of opinions about country of brand origin revealed that brands from developed countries were evaluated better than those from emerging economies. In addition, analysis showed that respondents who live in an emerging economy have more positive attitude towards the surveyed brands compared with Lithuanian emigrants to developed countries. Finally, strong correlation was found between the evaluation of a brand and evaluation of the country of brand origin, while there was no correlation between evaluation of a brand and evaluation of country of manufacturing.

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Purpose Although there is a common agreement that children participate and impact parental purchase decisions, the research results are rather inconsistent. One of the reasons for the differences in the findings could be attributable to different operationalisations of a child engagement variable in surveys. This study aims to classify the instruments used to measure children engagement in parental purchase decisions and to develop a typology of these instruments. Design/methodology/approach In total, 67 articles that reported details and results of the surveys where a variable of children engagement in family decisions was operationalised were selected on a systematic basis. In total, 82 measures were extracted, reviewed and assigned to the particular category. Findings The typology of measures of children engagement into parental purchase decisions was developed. The features of particular measures, as well as their applicability for different types of child engagement measurement, are discussed. Research limitations/implications The sample of articles was limited to nine major scholarly databases and framed for 1985-2015, excluding conference presentations, dissertations, studies and other types of primary research publications. Practical implications The analysis demonstrates that authors who had seemingly similar or the same purpose of measuring variable of child engagement into parental purchase decision in fact have used different measures. The differences in measures tend to produce different size of engagement effect. The proposed typology will support scholarly community in establishing more clear definitions and measures of children engagement in parental purchase decision domain. Originality/value The typology of measures of children engagement into parental purchase decision is the first attempt to introduce systematised approach toward different domains within the field and their measurement.

A growing number of studies have examined the concept of e-loyalty and its antecedents over the last years, and it remains a central topic for both marketing academics and practitioners. This study aims to evaluate the level of different types (integrated, attitudinal, behavioural) of loyalty towards an online store and determine if they are moder-ated by the time, country development, and the impact of the scientific journal. The study was based on a systematic analysis of 10 core databases, which generated more than 3,557 articles published during 2000–2020. Using PRISMA steps, 116 articles, whose total number of respondents were around 56,000, were used for meta-analysis. The results of this study confirmed that moderating variables (time, the impact of the scientific journal) were significant: higher loyalty towards an online store was observed in recently published studies, as well as research published in scientific journals with impact factors. Moreover, a significant impact of behavioural loyalty and its dimensions on online store loyalty was revealed. This study deepens the understanding of online customer loyalty, including its conceptualization, measurement, and identifies potential unexplored research gaps in this area.

Brand personality plays an important role in creating, developing and maintaining strong brands. The studies done in marketing and consumer behaviour field prove, that consumers prefer to choose brands that better suit their self-perception or even allow to express the ideal self. Previous researches also revealed that there is congruence between dimensions of human personality and brand personality. However, the question if consumer personality has impact on evaluation of brand personality still remains unanswered. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to find out, whether consumers with particular dimensions of personality traits are inclined to attribute the same dimensions to personality of brands. The study was done in Lithuania, researching brand personalities of cars. Research results revealed variety of matches between dimensions of human personality and brand personality, but showed that only in one case consumers were attributing the dimensions of their personality to brand: if respondents scored high on extraversion dimension they were inclined to attribute the same dimension to brand personality and perceived the brand as exciting. The type of the article: Research report.