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Electronic-commerce has become an important channel for conducting business. Researchers as well as market executives are trying to better understand online consumer behavior. One model used by researchers to understand behavior in the information systems field in general is the technology acceptance model (TAM). The TAM variables are perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and intentions. In this study, we suggest the extension of the TAM for its application in the E-commerce field. The original TAM will be extended, by adding four predictor variables. The four predictor variables are process satisfaction, outcome satisfaction, expectations, and E-commerce use. In addition, the TAM will be extended by measuring actual behavior as opposed to measuring intentions as a substitute for actual behavior in previous TAM application studies. We suggest measuring actual use variable in terms of four criterion variables, namely, purchase, access number, access total time, and access average time. The extended TAM is expected to better explain actual behavior in E-commerce environments than the original TAM.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the attitudes and beliefs of front‐line employees regarding how customer‐company interactions might be improved. Since front‐line employees are closely connected to customers, the resultant experiences and relationships with customers are highly dependent on their actions. However, little is written from the perspective of front‐line employees.Design/methodology/approachUsing a qualitative approach and employing an adaptation of the grounded theory method, this study uses front‐line employee participants with data collection occurring over a six‐month period. A variety of data sources were used including open‐ended reciprocal interviews, member‐checking interviews, observation, and collection of participant and researcher artifacts.FindingsFindings suggest that organizational changes initiated by management create strategically constructed silos that force implementation through people and systems to control and standardize the service interface and resultant customer experience(s). This reactive and inwardly focused construction of silos often serves company rather than customer needs and can result in deteriorating service levels based on the type of customer‐company interaction occurring.Originality/valueContrary to how most customer service processes are designed by management, not all customer‐company interactions are alike and vary both in regard to the degree of knowledge needed by front‐line employees to fully serve customers, and the routine or non‐routine nature of the interaction. A two‐by‐two matrix is presented to highlight the impacts of silos occurring for various interaction types.

PurposeA paucity of literature considers a growing trend within the retail space whereby franchise companies and their franchisees market and sell products and services across multiple channels, including company‐owned retail stores. This case study aims to explore the processes used to support the customer experience, the control mechanisms that are in place, and the channels by which these customer‐company interactions occur.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative approach employing an adaptation of the grounded theory method for data collection, coding, and analysis was used and this study specifically focused on an international van‐based service franchise during the integration of the franchise company's service into the retail brick‐and‐mortar locations of the parent company. Participants included retail employees of the parent company, franchise company support staff, franchisees, and third‐party call center agents working for the parent company.FindingsFindings suggest a relationship exists between the alignment of the internal factors of the customer relationship management (CRM) experience (e.g. people, processes, and technology) and the relative strength or weakness of each external factor (e.g. customer, company, and competition). Moreover, it is postulated that weaker customer‐centric service results in greater misalignment of internal factors and leads to larger service variability, or sub‐optimized CRM.Originality/valueThe unique contribution of this research is the juxtaposition of the disparate marketing approaches of the parent company and franchisees and the subsequent impact on CRM efforts of the company. A conceptual model of internal and external factors of the CRM experience is presented.

Purpose – A paucity of research on the motivations and goals of vendors who develop electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) tools and systems exists in the literature. This is an important gap in the literature because many eCRM systems are products of outsourcing (to vendors). This paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach – This exploratory case study focuses on an international van‐based service franchise and the experiences of the vendor, company, and franchisees as they design, develop, and implement certain eCRM tools. Participants include the president and founder of the eCRM vendor company, the chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and marketing director from the franchisor company, and six franchisees. This paper is triangulated via personal interviews, member‐checking interviews, and relevant literature from information systems (IS) and marketing.Findings – Specifically, this paper sheds light on the role and influence of the vendor in the design, deve...

Introduction In many ways, the Internet has changed the way we conduct our daily activities. Online shopping, social networking, and 'googling' for information are just a few examples of a new door that has been opened through the use of the Internet as the electronic portal to the world. For customers, easier availability of new products, access to more options, and the greatly expanded competitive landscape brought about by the Internet can all work together in a positive manner to provide greater choice, value, and pricing flexibility in many cases. For merchants, this same access to a world of new customers is of great potential benefit, but with it comes a world of new competitors. To survive and prosper in such a competitive environment, many marketers have recognized that, while vast opportunity may exist to attract new customers to their offerings, real value rests in keeping existing customers loyal to a brand. For many, the idea of "get there first and don't give them a reason to switch" is as true today as it was in the 1960s when more sophisticated models of marketing and brand management began to emerge. The idea that the value of existing customers is greater than that of new customers is not new since it is well understood and recognized that the cost of acquiring new customers far exceeds the cost of keeping existing ones (Berry, 1995; Crafton, 2002; Cuthbertson & Bridson, 2006; Gronoos, 1994; Gummesson, 1994; Kennedy, 2006; Li, Browne, & Wetherbe, 2007). Over the past decade or so, the idea of managing customer relationships has been a top priority for marketers worldwide. Customer relationship management (CRM), the idea of fine-tuning the ways in which firms interact with customers, has required energy, focus, and investment in new tools and software to aid in the development of CRM systems. With the advent of the Internet, this idea has been extended into a Web-based business model and relies on e-business technologies to interact with, communicate to, and collect information from customers. This new evolved model is aptly termed electronic customer relationship management (eCRM). While eCRM is considered by many to hold even greater promise for business due to its digital foundation that enables greater data mining potential, it has yet to consistently deliver on its promise of facilitating better understanding of customer behavior (Adamson, Jones, & Tapp, 2005; Bentum & Stone, 2005; Q. Chen & Chen, 2004; Fjermestad & Romano, 2003; Jang, Hu, & Bai, 2006; Li et al., 2007; Lin & Huang, 2007). The very nature of eCRM, with its many stakeholders, helps to illuminate the layers of complexity and their meaning with regard to what is intended by the idea of "informing" (Cohen, 2009). This complexity can be best understood by comparing eCRM to more "routine" informing systems which "tend to be driven by the skills of the designer" (Gill, 2009, p. 743). In contrast, the eCRM system central to this exploratory case study appears to be ever-changing as the interactions and needs of the varying stakeholder groups emerge. For example, "eCRM is too complex a concept to be comprehensively researched and efficiently classified merely by usual procedure and simple criteria" (Kevork & Vrechopoulos, 2009, p. 62). Yet, research in this area rarely considers the views of all stakeholders involved in the phenomenon thereby rendering the complexity of eCRM into a seemingly routine construct. To effectively bridge this research divide requires consideration for all players involved in the phenomenon. It is the intent to inform all players that guides this research. Therefore, we embarked on an exploratory case study focused on a van-based service franchise and motivated by the need to understand the perceptions and attitudes of all key stakeholders regarding the objectives of and motivations for implementing an eCRM program. The results of this study reveal important implications for the informing sciences including the need to balance human and computer interaction, issues related to control, the impact that "electronic" systems may have on marketing relationships, and the importance of balancing the interests and expectations of all stakeholders. …

The case study describes a small travel company that conducts business exclusively on the Internet. The case elucidates the many problems that the company faced as it tried to survive in a turbulent environment. Survival hinged on the company’s ability to strategically and tactically execute a business plan based on the technical acumen, loyalty, and hard work of its small group of talented people. The technical alternatives are described and explained within the context of a travel company seeking to use and develop new technology to improve productivity and increase profits. Additionally, the strategic need for market flexibility, adaptability, and diversification, especially in times of unexpected events and or problems, are examined. Finally, the company’s process for controlling costs are identified and explored.

Change management is a critical issue in the current fast-paced business environment. Organizations are being bombarded with global business change, innovations in communications, and rapidly evolving information systems capabilities. Since there exists a paucity of rigorous and relevant literature on change management, we chose to embark on an in-depth case study to explore how one organization manages radical change. We developed a set of theoretical propositions to guide the effort and act as a theoretical lens. Our specific research question is: how does an organization successfully manage projects that call for dramatic change to the way one normally conducts business? The case study allowed us to test the propositions in the business arena with one organization. It is hoped that this approach will offer insights and mechanisms to help other organizations effectively deal with change.

The failure of dot-coms is a staggering 75% in the first two years. Many of these failures were small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). One of the most commonly cited reasons for failure has been lack of a workable strategic business model to guide e-commerce (electronic commerce) efforts. We began this study because we wanted to explore if successful e-commerce SMEs use a guiding strategic process model, and if they do, ask them to articulate the model components. We chose a qualitative research method to obtain a rich description of the e-commerce process. The interview pool consisted of 15 interviews with established SME e-commerce entrepreneurs. From deep analysis of the data, a set of e-commerce process components and interrelationships between those components emerged from the data. We then synthesized (from the rich description) a model of the e-commerce process.

The purpose of the research is to explore the role of creativity (in business process improvement paradigms) among Japanese organizations and US organizations. Although US and Japanese organizations may use differently terminology, the general idea of process improvement (to add value to products and/or services that exceed customer expectations) is embraced by both. What is not clear is the way in which organizations in the two countries implement change. Eight organizations participated in the study: four organizations from Japan and four from the US. Results of the study revealed that US organizations tend to desire faster change to improve performance. They want to adopt state‐of‐the‐art methodologies and invest heavily in technology to transform their organizations quickly. In contrast, Japanese organizations prefer incremental change as it conforms to their culture and way of life. However, US organizations are beginning to realize that process improvement is greatly enhanced by changing the culture of the work place. Moreover, Japanese organizations are realizing that individual creativity is very important for future competitiveness in the world marketplace.

The objective of this research was to investigate the moderating effect of information technology (1T) infrastructure on the relationship between health care information management and quality performance within health care departments. The variables that were measured included both management and customer perceptions of quality, management of health care information (MOHCI), and IT infrastructure. This research focused on the determinants of departmental quality. The study conceptualized and developed measures for quality, MOHCI, and IT infrastructure variables. A significant relationship was observed between the management of health care information and quality performance. IT infrastructure exhibited a direct, rather than a moderating, effect on quality performance. The research also found/ that significant differences exist between customer and manager perceptions of quality.

Rising health care costs and customer dissatisfaction with services has prompted many hospital administrators to begin scrutinizing their operations. The initial challenge for administrators is to identify the critical processes of the hospital. Since the main purpose of a hospital is to improve the health of its patients, one of its core processes involves the procedures of the operating room (OR). Focusing on OR processes should prove to be one important lever for improving the overall quality of hospital services.

The results of a field study investigating the impact of the extent of use, staff scheduling, and the adoption of quality control mechanisms (QCM) on end-user perceptions of information technology (IT) in a health care environment are presented. A multivariate model was developed and tested using multiple regression analysis on 47 hospital information system (HIS) end-users. Three specific hypotheses are proposed and tested. Data analyses indicate that end user perceptions depend on two factors: the end-user usage of IT, and the adoption of formal quality control mechanisms. Based on the research results, several suggestions are made to improve the likelihood of successful IT implementation in the health care industry.

The Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy is rapidly being adopted by organizations that are concerned about remaining competitive in an intensely competitive global marketplace. As a result, Information Technology (IT) is being developed and deployed to foster these quality programs. However, little empirical research is available concerning implementation of technology in TQM environments. Research is needed to guide organizations toward a path of successful implementation of quality systems. The objective of this study is to devise a set of guidelines for organizations attempting to infuse total quality into their systems development efforts. The study draws upon data gathered from case studies of three organizations involved in total quality systems development. The three organizations were chosen based on their differences in size (total revenues). Contrasting the three organizations should add richness to the development of TQM guidelines. The study begins with a review of the quality research. The methodology is described in the next section. A synopsis of the case studies is then presented. Finally, a set of guidelines and theoretical implications synthesized from the literature and cases are introduced.

By establishing the position that electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) is a form of CRM, this chapter sets out to aid the reader in understanding why CRM and eCRM initiatives are both promising and challenging. By exposing the reader to common CRM literature, the chapter documents how companies can determine the best blended approach to CRM initiatives that balance both online and offline marketing initiatives. Additionally, by considering that each unique customer touch point represents a key market strategy decision, companies can thoughtfully, and with strategic intent, design, develop, and ultimately deploy systems that effectively balance human and computer interaction. By following the suggested guidelines provided for optimizing strategic marketing decisions, companies are more likely to avoid the common pitfalls and barriers to success that have been experienced by others as documented in the literature.

In a previous study, we explored successful e-commerce small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to formulate an e-commerce (electronic commerce) process model. We adopted a qualitative research method to obtain a rich description of the e-commerce process. We then interviewed 15 entrepreneurs from established SME operations. From deep analysis of this data, we were able to devise an emergent model. This study extends the original model by conducting subsequent interviews with the 15 SME entrepreneurs. Our goal was to better understand the model by exploring omitted, missing, or incomplete elements. Hence, subsequent interviews asked respondents to identify key elements of the model that may have been omitted, and if so, where do they fit in the model? Deep analysis of the subsequent data allowed us to expand the original model.

Do personalized offerings enabled by big data only bring economic benefits to firms but not to consumers? In this paper, we seek to address this question by examining a particular category of personalized offerings provided by algorithmic product recommendation systems. While the economic value of algorithmic product recommendations to firms is mostly understood, their benefits to consumers are not well quantified in the literature. We conduct a randomized field experiment on an apparel retailer’s website in the US to estimate the benefits of recommendations to consumers. We find that recommendations helped consumers discover lower-priced products on the website, which results in a higher probability of product purchase (lower likelihood of failed search efforts) and a lower price of purchased products. Specifically, an additional recommended product page view due to recommendations leads to a 15 percent increase in purchase probability and a $1.59 decrease in the purchase price. The product recommendations are particularly beneficial to consumers for product categories with a higher relative price dispersion and a higher proportion of niche products. Due to these benefits, consumers substitute 0.14 keyword search page views and 0.63 product category page views for each recommended product page view under recommendations. The recommendations generated a surplus of $56,631 (3.8 percent of the total sales), two-thirds of which the retailer captured as additional revenue, and the remaining one-third the consumers as price savings.

In this paper, we develop and test a behavioral theory of lost leadership. Using insights from the literature on goals as reference points and prospect theory, we predict that former leaders exert more effort compared to otherwise identical competitors. We test this prediction using two contexts. The first, quasi-laboratory, data comes from an educational business game. The second setting draws on field data from a two-month banking sales contest. We find that provision of effort increases following the loss of leadership. We also explore whether past leaders exert more effort in general or simply shift effort from other, potentially less-salient goals. We find evidence of both mechanisms. Finally, we investigate the temporal effects and find that having been a leader has an attenuating effect on subsequent behavior.

This paper develops a method to flexibly adapt interpolation grids of value function approximations in the estimation of dynamic models using either NFXP (Rust, Econometrica: Journal of the Econom etric Society, 55, 999– 1 033, 1987) or MPEC (Su & Judd, Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, 80, 2213–2230, 2012). Since MPEC requires the grid structure for the value function approximation to be hard-coded into the constraints, one cannot apply iterative node insertion for grid refinement; for NFXP, grid adaption by (iteratively) inserting new grid nodes will generally lead to discontinuous likelihood functions. Therefore, we show how to continuously adapt the grid by moving the nodes, a technique referred to as r-adaption. We demonstrate how to obtain optimal grids based on the balanced error principle, and implement this approach by including additional constraints to the likelihood maximization problem. The method is applied to two models: (i) the bus engine replacement model (Rust, 1987), modified to feature a continuous mileage state, and (ii) to a dynamic model of content consumption using original data from one of the world’s leading user-generated content networks in the domain of music.

When people experience threats to important aspects of their self-concept (e.g., power, intelligence, sociability), they often compensate by consuming products that symbolize success, mastery, or competence on the threatened self-domain (within-domain compensatory consumption). Our research examines whether such compensatory consumption is effective in repairing the self-concept. Across seven experiments, we show that whether compensatory consumption is effective depends on the extent to which the connection between the compensatory products and the threatened domains is made explicit. When the connections are made explicit (e.g., through product names and marketing slogans), self-repair is impeded, but when the connections are only implicit (product is inherently symbolic of self-threat domain), self-repair can be successful. We further show that these differential effects of product connection explicitness are mediated by rumination: explicit connections induce rumination about the self-threat, which undermines self-repair, whereas implicit connections cause no rumination, facilitating self-repair. Our research provides a reconciliation of conflicting findings on self-repair in previous research, and also shows that despite the differences in efficacy, consumers compensate regardless of whether product connections are implicit or explicit, which has implications for consumer well-being.

Although the level of power held by the marketing department can determine key organizational outcomes, including firm performance, this power often is modest and, in many firms, diminishing. To address this apparent disconnect, the authors propose that the board of directors is a critical but overlooked driver of marketing department power. In particular, directors’ marketing exposure through board service at other firms (i.e., board-interlocked firms) may affect the marketing department’s power in the firms on whose boards they also serve. With a sample of 4,422 firms, spanning 2007–2013, this study reveals that marketing department power in board-interlocked firms significantly and positively drives marketing department power in the focal firms. Consistent with an information sharing view, the magnitude of this effect varies with the focal firm’s network position in the board-interlocked network, such that it strengthens as the focal firm’s network centrality (information amount) and network brokerage (information quality) increase. These robust results suggest that board members and their social networks significantly influence marketing department power; if marketing wants to increase its power, it should get the board “on board.”

While single-brand reward programs encourage customers to remain loyal to that one brand, coalition programs encourage customers to be “promiscuous” by offering points redeemable across partner stores. Despite the benefits of this “open relationship” with customers, store managers face uncertainty as to how rewards offered by partners influence transactions at their own stores. We use a model of multi-store purchase incidence to show how the value of points shared among partner stores can explain patterns in customer-level purchases across them. The model is used to empirically test hypotheses on how reward spillovers among partners are driven by: (1) differences in policies on reward redemption, (2) the overlap in product categories between stores, and (3) geographic distance between stores within a city. In addition, we leverage variation generated by a natural experiment, i.e., a devaluation of the program's points, to demonstrate how the value of points influences the positioning of partner stores within the coalition and the purchasing patterns across them. We conclude by delineating some managerial implications for the design of a coalition's reward policies, including a simulation showing that customer-centric targeted rewards can be an effective strategy to compensate for the devaluation.

Online crowdfunding is a popular new tool for raising capital to commercialize product innovation. Product innovation must be both novel and useful (1-4). Therefore, we study the role of novelty and usefulness claims on Kickstarter. Startlingly, we find that a single claim of novelty increases project funding by about 200%, a single claim of usefulness increases project funding by about 1200%, and the co-occurrence of novelty and usefulness claims lowers funding by about 26%. Our findings are encouraging because they suggest the crowd strongly supports novelty and usefulness. However, our findings are disappointing because the premise of crowdfunding is to support projects that are innovative, i.e. that are both novel and useful, rather than projects that are only novel or only useful.

This paper reviews several streams of research on market category formation. Most past research has largely focused on established category systems and the antecedents and consequences of categorical positioning (i.e., categorical purity vs. spanning; combination vs. replacement) but relatively ignored the formative processes leading to new categories. In this review, we address this lacuna to posit that scholarship would benefit from clearly disentangling category emergence from category creation. We analytically describe the differences between the two and elaborate the boundary conditions that guide and define which process is more likely to occur in a given market. Our review contributes to illuminating the role of organizational agency and strategic actions in market categories and their formation, which deserve greater attention as a result of their theoretical and practical implications.

International audience; The digital economy has now a widespread impact on the whole economy and leads companies to transform and adopt new competition rules. The objectives of this paper are (1) to analyze these evolutions; and (2) to understand the role of information systems in these changes. The authors have investigated two opposite environments: a pure Internet player selling a SaaS offering, and a traditional business that distributes products through a physical network of thousands of outlets. Our results show that both the Internet players and traditional companies experience changes in the industry value chain, a growing importance of services, and develop new business models focused on an extended value proposition and cooperation with customers. The role of information systems is characterized by the evolution of the IT infrastructure, the expansion of inter-organizational information systems and digital platforms and the development of new IT capabilities.

Previous research suggests that when social exclusion is communicated in an explicit manner, consumers express preferences for helping, whereas when it is communicated in an implicit manner, they express preferences for conspicuous consumption. However, this may not always hold true. In the present research, we put forward a theoretical framework explaining that exclusion effects depend on the extent to which exclusion is communicated in a culturally normative or counter-normative manner, rather than whether it is communicated in an explicit or implicit manner. We show that exclusion communicated in a cultural norm-congruent manner produces preferences for helping, whereas exclusion communicated in a cultural norm-incongruent manner produces preferences for conspicuous consumption. We further show that the differential needs—self-esteem and power threatened by normative and counter-normative exclusion explain these distinct preferences.

In incentive-alignment choice experiments, each decision is realized with some prob- ability prob < 1. Incentive alignment induces truth telling, i.e., respondents do not consciously lie, given the information they have processed. However, based on the psychological distance literature and the bounded rationality literature, we predict that prob < 1 is not necessarily enough to induce consumers to process information and choose as they would if choices were realized with certainty (prob = 1). In three eye tracking experiments, we vary the probability prob that choices will be realized, from 0 to 1, and study the impact on attention, information processing, and choice. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that as prob is increased from 0 to 1, consumers: process the choice-relevant information more carefully and in a way that is more consistent with a compensatory decision process; become less novelty seeking; become more price sensitive. These findings have implications for the ecological validity of incentive-aligned preference measurement surveys. While it is not feasible to systematically use questions with high prob in the eld, we further predict and find that placing a higher-probability question (such as an external validity task) at the beginning rather than the end of a questionnaire has a desirable carryover effect on attention, information processing and choice throughout the questionnaire.

Studies on market entry focus on the tradeoff between commitment and flexibility: early entrants face less competition but risk costly mistakes due to limited information, whereas late entrants can benefit from information revelation and learning opportunities but risk high costs from preemption. These entry timing benefits and costs typically vary with firms’ capabilities. In this study, we empirically examine the relationship between firms’ intrinsic speed capabilities and entry timing. Speed capabilities refer to firms’ ability to execute the process of entering a new market faster than competitors when market entry is time-consuming. Since firms with intrinsic speed capabilities can complete entry faster, they face low preemption risks. The implication is that faster firms can afford to wait longer for uncertainty resolution before deciding to enter new markets than slower firms. This hypothesis is more applicable when investment is associated with higher levels of commitment and thus greater option value of waiting. A related implication is that late entrants with intrinsic speed capabilities should have greater expected post-entry performance. We find support for these hypotheses by examining the entry timing and entry performance of firms in the Atlantic Basin liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry from 1996 to 2007.

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=83483955&site=ehost-live; International audience; Consumers' tendency to choose the option in the center of an array and the process underlying this effect is explored. Findings from two eye-tracking studies suggest that brands in the horizontal center receive more visual attention. They are more likely to be chosen. Investigation of the attention process revealed an initial central fixation bias, a tendency to look first at the central option, and a central gaze cascade effect, progressively increasing attention focused on the central option right prior to decision. Only the central gaze cascade effect was related to choice. An offline study with tangible products demonstrated that the centrally located item within a product category is chosen more often, even when it is not placed in the center of the visual field. Despite widespread use, memory-based attention measures were not correlated with eye-tracking measures. They did not capture visual attention and were not related to choice.

Managers like to think well of themselves, and of the firms that employ them. However, positive illusions can bias a manager's evaluation of market outcomes, self-servingly crediting success on the superior quality of one's own product but blaming failure on the aggressive price of a competitor's offering. These distorted attributions stem from the idea that product quality better serves the manager's motivation for self-enhancement and self-presentation than price: product quality is seemingly more central to the firm, less susceptible to external market forces, and more stable over time. We position our theory in the psychology of attribution, define self-serving behavior and provide experimental and survey evidence of this phenomenon, and develop a model of price-quality competition that incorporates the empirical findings. In particular, we first study the natural benchmark equilibrium provided by unbiased decision makers. We then introduce self-serving behavior in the presence of myopic principals, or of forward-looking principals who anticipate the limitations of managers and set first-period decisions accordingly.