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Author(s): Ko de Ruyter [sup.1] , Debbie Isobel Keeling [sup.2] , Kirk Plangger [sup.1] , Matteo Montecchi [sup.1] , Maura L. Scott [sup.3] , Darren W. Dahl [sup.4] Author Affiliations: [...]

The current research advances understanding of how consumers respond to embarrassing service encounters. Across a combination of field and online studies, the authors provide evidence that (1) consumers prefer self-service to human services when purchasing embarrassing products or services; (2) when self-service is not available, consumers respond more positively to a mechanistic service provider than to a personable service provider; and (3) if consumers must engage in embarrassing social interactions, they dehumanize service providers, perceiving them as more mechanistic and less capable of emotional reactions than when engaging in nonembarrassing service interactions. The authors also examine consumers' familiarity with the service provider as a boundary condition for the effect. Collectively, the results provide converging evidence for the proposed framework and have substantive implications for service management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom in marketing emphasizes the detrimental effects of negative online reviews for brands. An important question is whether some firms could more effectively manage negative reviews to increase brand preference and improve outcomes. To address the question, this research examines how customers respond to online reviews of identity-relevant brands in particular, which have been overlooked in the online reviews literature. Eight studies (field data and experiments featuring consequential and hypothetical behaviors) show that negative online reviews may not be so detrimental for identity-relevant brands, especially when those reviews originate from socially distant (vs. socially close) reviewers. This occurs because a negative review of an identity-relevant brand can pose a threat to a customer's identity, prompting the customer to strengthen their relationship with the identity-relevant brand. To document the underlying process, the authors show that this effect does not emerge when the review is positive or the brand is identity-irrelevant. Importantly, the authors identify circumstances when negative reviews can actually produce positive outcomes (higher preference) for identity-relevant brands over no reviews or even positive reviews. By demonstrating the upside of negative reviews for identity-relevant brands, the findings have important implications for marketing theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charities are constantly looking for new and more effective ways to engage potential donors in order to secure the resources needed to deliver services. The current work demonstrates that creative activities are one way for marketers to meet this challenge. Field and lab studies find that engaging potential donors in creative activities positively influences their donation behaviors (i.e., the likelihood of donation and the monetary amount donated). Importantly, the observed effects are shown to be context independent: they hold even when potential donors engage in creative activities unrelated to the focal cause of the charity (or the charitable organization itself). The findings suggest that engaging in a creative activity enhances the felt autonomy of the participant, thus inducing a positive affective state, which in turn leads to higher donation behaviors. Positive affect is demonstrated to enhance donation behaviors due to perceptions of donation impact and a desire for mood maintenance. However, the identified effects emerge only when one engages in a creative activity—not when the activity is noncreative, or when only the concept of creativity itself is made salient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the impact of a sales team's entitativity-the extent to which a group of individuals is perceived as a unified single entity-on customer satisfaction. Four studies demonstrate that a sales team entitativity cue, either based on appearance (e.g., wearing the same outfit) or based on behavior (e.g., explicit coordination in service), leads to heightened perceptions of service quality, which subsequently enhances customer satisfaction. Further, these two entitativity cues are shown to have interactive effects. Specifically, when both cues indicate high entitativity, customer satisfaction with the sales team exceeds the average evaluation of individual team members. However, if at least one cue suggests low entitativity (e.g., different outfits or no explicit coordination), the positive influence of the entitativity cue is undermined and customer satisfaction with the team's service is mitigated. Product category is identified as an important moderator of the main effect., Author(s): Chen Wang [sup.1] , JoAndrea Hoegg [sup.2] , Darren W. Dahl [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) LeBow College of Business, Drexel University, 0000 0001 2181 3113, grid.166341.7, , 3220 Market [...]

Crowdfunding has emerged as an alternative means of financing new ventures by utilizing the financial support of a large group of individual investors. This research asks a novel question: Does being crowdfunded carry any signal value for the broader market of observing consumers? Seven studies reveal a consumer preference for crowdfunded products, even after controlling for a product's objective product characteristics. The authors identify two inferences that help explain this effect: (1) consumers perceive crowdfunded products to be of higher quality, and (2) they believe that supporting crowdfunding reduces inequality in the marketplace. The authors further document an important boundary condition of the first inference: the identified effect reverses in high-risk domains (e.g., products that involve high physical risk) due to consumer perceptions that the crowdfunding model lacks sufficient professionalism to mitigate risk. With regard to the second inference, the authors find that the positive crowdfunding effect is particularly strong among consumers who value social equality. Taken together, this work sheds new light on consumer perceptions of crowdfunding, elucidates why and when consumers prefer crowdfunded products, and offers actionable implications for managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores how marketers can avoid the so-called "false consensus effect"—the egocentric tendency to project personal preferences onto consumers. Two pilot studies show that most marketers have a surprisingly strong lay intuition about the existence of this inference bias, admit that they are frequently affected by it, and try to avoid it when predicting consumer preferences. Moreover, the pilot studies indicate that most marketers use a very natural and straightforward approach to avoid the false consensus effect in practice, that is, they simply try to "suppress" (i.e., ignore) their personal preferences when predicting consumer preferences. Ironically, four subsequent studies show that this frequently used tactic can backfire and increase marketers' susceptibility to the false consensus effect. Specifically, the results suggest that these backfire effects are most likely to occur for marketers with a low level of preference certainty. In contrast, the results imply that preference suppression does not backfire but instead decreases the false consensus effect for marketers with a high level of preference certainty. Finally, the studies explore the mechanism behind these results and show how marketers can ultimately avoid the false consensus effect—regardless of their level of preference certainty and without risking backfire effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open innovation contests that display all submitted ideas to participants are a popular way for firms to generate ideas. In such contest-based ideation, the authors show that seeing numerous competitive ideas of others harms, rather than stimulates, creative performance (Study 1). Others' competitive prior ideas interfere with idea generation, as new ideas need to be differentiated from the preceding ones to be original. Exposure to an increasing number of prior ideas thus heightens individuals' perceived constraints of expressing ideas and harms creative performance (Studies 2 and 3). Furthermore, creative performance monotonically reduces with an increasing number of prior ideas (Study 4). A final study demonstrates that showing only a limited number of ideas as well as grouping prior ideas offer actionable ways to reduce prior ideas' harmful influence (Study 5). These results illustrate viable ways to improve contest-based ideation outcomes merely by changing how competitive prior ideas are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research demonstrates that reminders of one's own mortality can lead to materialistic and self-serving consumer behaviors. In contrast, across five studies, we explore a condition under which mortality salience (MS) leads to increased tendency to give away one's possessions—when the donation act is high in transcendence potential. We propose and find that consumers are more likely to donate their possessions to charity under MS (vs. comparison conditions) when the product is considered highly (vs. not highly) connected to the self. Moreover, we demonstrate that this tendency manifests only when transcendence is attainable through donation. In support of the proposition of transcendence as the underlying mechanism, the observed effects are attenuated under conditions where: (1) transcendence has already been satiated via alternative means or (2) the donated possession will not transcend the self (i.e. its physical integrity is lost by being broken down and recycled). The theoretical and practical implications of the work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the relationship between students' perceptions of quality of teaching and student satisfaction may seem self-evident, the interaction between these concepts and related methods of assessment is rarely examined. The findings reveal that the perceived teaching quality categorization emerges as a concept with multiple facets centered on learning, enthusiasm, interaction and student engagement, communications, and practical relevance. The authors note significant links among students' satisfaction, their feeling reactions on various levels, and their evaluations of teaching and instructors under various assessment schemes. (Contains 12 notes, 10 tables, and 1 figure.)

The incorporation of personal response system (PRS) clickers into teaching pedagogy has created implications for teaching practice and student satisfaction. Using a current undergraduate business student population, the authors measure student attitudes and preferences and identify student performance outcomes relating to the use of PRS clickers. Study results validate the broad applicability of this technology by showing positive student attitudes, learning experiences, and the mitigation of barriers toward acceptance of this technology. Importantly, measures of student performance correlate to self-reported learning outcomes realized through using PRS clickers. The study also finds evidence that PRS clickers benefit those students who are frequently disadvantaged in the classroom. Specifically, students with a low need for cognition or facing cultural barriers are shown to have a better learning experience when using clicker technology. The article concludes with recommendations on applying PRS clicker technology to teaching practice and identifies areas for future investigation. (Contains 4 figures, 1 table and 1 note.)