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There is considerable disagreement in academic scholarship and beyond as to whether, in cases of bad reputations, companies will want to communicate corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities because this kind of communication is likely to increase consumers' skepticism. In this regard, the two empirical studies discussed in this article examine the influence of prior company reputation on consumers' trust in response to CSR communication in general and the development in response to continuous CSR activities and their ongoing communication by companies as well as by the media in particular. The two studies show that consumers' trust in companies' CSR activities increases after a second presentation of information by companies even in instances when companies had prior negative reputations. The second study in particular fills a gap in the literature on underlying mechanisms of consumers' reactions to CSR communication. The results suggest that companies with prior negative reputations do not need to remain silent about their CSR activities; instead, CSR communication can help improve consumers' trust in companies. However, the findings of these two studies also suggest that this positive development is short-lived. Consumers' developing trust in companies' CSR activities decreases significantly if they are exposed to negative information on these companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the changing roles of customers from service co-producer to value co-creator, the customer participation literature has conceptualized two types of participation behavior: co-production and value co-creation. However, there is a dearth of knowledge concerning both the antecedents of customer co-creation behavior and the outcomes of such behavior in relation to customer-perceived value and loyalty. Anchored in the trust-commitment theory, the present research (a) examines the effect of how a customer's trust in the service personnel could affect his/her cooperative behavior over the service design and delivery processes; and (b) investigates how the potential impact of a customer's trust in service personnel on his/her co-design and co-delivery behavior could be made contingent upon the customer's trust in the service brand and the types of high- versus low-customer-contact service contexts. Filling the aforementioned research gaps, the present research contributes to advance our knowledge of the roles played by trust at different levels of analysis in facilitating customer participation behavior and improving our appreciation of the customer contact service contexts when designing the service organization for maximizing service value and sustaining brand loyalty over time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social networking sites, such as Facebook, are becoming a prevalent form of communication between people. Despite the enormous popularity of clicking the “like” button on Facebook, little research has been done in either network or behavior. This study focuses on how clicking a “like” button on Facebook affects other browsers. We examine the influence of customer-to-customer interaction (CCI) on customer voluntary performance (CVP) for social networking sites. This study employed structural equation modeling to investigate a research model based on a total of 210 valid surveys from social networking site users. The results indicated that CCI does influence satisfaction, commitment, and the commitment effect CVP, which is composed of loyalty, cooperation, and participation. This study suggests that positive CCI will lead to positive commitment and satisfaction. The higher commitment then causes higher CVP. These findings have implications for both marketers and consumer behavior researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two studies examined whether employees’ emotional labor as perceived by customers, moderates the relationship between customers’ participation and money spent. In Study I, 30 in-depth interviews were conducted with customers to examine participation during shopping as well as customers’ awareness of their service employees’ behaviors. The interviews revealed two types of customer participation: emotional engagement and physical effort. Based on Study I, Study II investigated 114 customers, and the moderating role of perceived employees’ emotional labor on the relationships between customer participation and spending money. Even when customers were highly involved in the purchasing process, they spent less money when they observed employee inauthenticity as manifested in Surface Acting. However, Deep Acting positively moderated the relationship between customer participation and spending money. These findings help shed light on the circumstances in which customer participation is strengthened (leading to greater spending) or weakened. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to measure the existence of co-creation behaviour between doctors and patients. The research also studies customer participation and customer citizenship behaviour as the dimensions of co-creative behaviour and tries to establish the relationship between co-creative behaviour and satisfaction. Design: This study uses Yi and Gong (2013) scale for collecting data regarding co-creation behaviour and its dimensions which are customer participation (CP) and customer citizenship behaviour (CCB). The data was collected from 204 patients who were suffering from various chronic/lifestyle diseases and getting their treatment from private clinics in Jammu city. The study uses 7-point Likert scale in the questionnaire ranging from 1 "completely disagree" through 7 "completely agree", with a midpoint labeled 4 "neither agree nor disagree. Findings: The analysis of paper reflects that co-creation behaviour is prevalent among the patients and not only participation but the citizenship behaviour also affects the co-creation behaviour of patients. Limitations and Implication: The study is conducted from patient's point of view whereas doctor's perspective should also be used in future research. The research area is restricted to Jammu city only. The research provides several implications-doctors can also use this scale for market segmentation and customer profiling for maximising customer value co-creation behaviour by gaining the useful information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits of customer co-creation of value in the service context are well recognized. However, little is known about service failures in a co-creation context and the consequent roles of both firms and customers in the advent of service recovery. In conceptualizing a new construct, "customer participation in service recovery," this study proposes a theoretical framework that delineates the consequences of the construct and empirically tests the proposed framework using role-playing experiments. The results indicate that, when customers participate in the service recovery process in self-service technology contexts, they are more likely to report higher levels of role clarity, perceived value of future co-creation, satisfaction with the service recovery, and intention to co-create value in the future. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One important aspect in the service-dominant logic in marketing is the role of customers as co-creators of value. This role typically involves producing products for own consumption, i.e. what Toffler referred to as "prosumption." This study explores the motivational mechanisms underlying people's prosumption propensity. A theoretical framework that incorporates ideas from value research and attitude theory, specifically the "theory of trying" (Bagozzi and Warshaw in Journal of Consumer Research 17:127-140, 1990), is developed and tested in the empirical context of food prosumption. The results based on a survey of 380 households show that global values influence domain-specific values in food prosumption, and domain-specific values then affect attitudes, self-efficacy, and on-going behavior before ultimately shaping intentions to engage in prosumption in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research focuses on consumer perceptions that are developed on the basis of a firm's advertising appeals as well as other factors. In conceptualizing brand-image perceptions, the authors extend the frequent use of product-related images to include corporate and country images attached to brands. The authors report findings based on secondary economic and cultural data at the macro level and the results of a global brand-image survey conducted in the top 20 international automobile markets at the individual level. The findings suggest that while consumers' attitudes toward corporate image and country image exert main effects on their brand purchase behavior, the effects of certain product-image appeals are moderated by socio-demographics and national cultural characteristics. The empirical results are broadly supportive of the proposed hypotheses and provide a consumer-based extension of Roth's work on global brand image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of product quality expectations. Past research on information cues, scarcity, self-congruity, product quality and satisfaction are synthesized to develop a conceptual model. This model examines how consumer expectations of product quality are formed. A number of antecedent factors and their relationship to consumers' product quality expectations are discussed. How consumer expectations of quality affects their product evaluation both during the pre-purchase stage and during the post-purchase stage are discussed. A number of theoretical propositions are presented. Finally, the implications of the conceptual model are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]