bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effects of frontline employee role overload on customer responses and sales performance
Authors: Jha Subhash , Balaji M.S. , Yavas Ugur , Babakus Emin 
Published: January 2017

PurposeUsing the basic framework of the service profit chain, this study aims to develop an integrated model that explains the relationships among role overload (RO), customer orientation (CO), service interaction quality (IQ), customer satisfaction (CS) and sales performance.Design/methodology/approachA large-scale survey of 872 customers and 530 frontline employees across 50 branches of a major retail bank in New Zealand serves as the study setting.FindingsThe results indicate that RO has a significant negative effect on IQ. Nevertheless, CO mitigates the negative outcome of RO on IQ. IQ fully mediates the relationship between RO and CS. Additionally, the effect of IQ on branch sales is fully mediated by CS.Research limitations/implicationsThe cross-sectional nature of the current survey does not permit causal inferences. Thus, future studies should adopt longitudinal designs. Also, future studies should explore the roles of other variables (e.g. job crafting, work-related self-efficacy) as possible moderators.Practical implicationsResults suggest that service managers should create a balance between the role requirements and organizational resources to mitigate the adverse effects of employee RO. To enhance IQ and CS, bank managers should coach employees about work overload and train them in CO while prioritizing the tasks.Originality/valueEmpirical research pertaining to employee–customer interaction through a nested framework accommodating data from customers, employees and firm performance is scarce. This study fills in the void.
The impact of country-of-origin cues on consumer investment behavior
Authors: Carlsson Hauff Jeanette , Nilsson Jonas 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
Choosing how to invest one’s assets is one of the more important decisions consumers are faced with. However, determining the objective financial quality of complex investment products such as mutual funds is not an easy task for consumers. Against this background, this study aims to clarify the potential impact of one, not necessarily rational, cue on consumer perceptions of financial quality in the investment context: the country-of-origin (COO) of the mutual fund or stock.

Design/methodology/approach
Two Web-based experiments are used to test the study’s hypotheses.

Findings
COO is found to impact investors’ evaluation of the financial metrics of mutual funds, both in terms of perceived risk and potential return. Moreover, the results of Experiment 2 show that although a strong financial brand can partially overcome the COO effect, the extent of this effect is moderated by whether the fund utilizes an active or passive management style.

Research limitations/implications
Although mutual fund providers with a strong financial country image (CI) may leverage that image and build on their home country’s brand, providers from countries with a poor financial CI may do well focusing on passive management to minimize negative COO influence.

Originality/value
The results highlight that COO can be an important source of sub-optimal investment decisions. These insights are of high importance for efforts to improve consumer decision-making and for individual service providers.
Inter-study and intra-study replications in leading marketing journals: a longitudinal analysis
Authors: Kwon Eun Sook , Shan Yan , Lee Joong Suk , Reid Leonard N. 
Published: January 2017

PurposeThe authors aimed to examine the presence and character of inter- and intra-approaches to replication studies published in five leading marketing journals (Journal of Marketing,Journal of Marketing Research,Journal of Public Policy & Marketing,Marketing Science,Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science) across four decade intervals (i.e. 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010/2011). The research sought answers to three research questions.Design/methodology/approachContent analysis of a randomly selected sample of 2,717 articles found 128 replicative studies in the journal issues. Comparisons of the replication approaches of the studies address two issues: the criticism that intra-study replication is not true replication as it is inconsistent with the criterion of researcher independence and the reported outcomes of the replicative studies relative to those of the original studies.FindingsOverall, the presence of replications increased over time; however, the increase was attributable primarily to the number of intra-study replications published in two decades, the 2000s and 2010/2011 intervals. Conflicting findings infrequently appeared in the replication studies regardless of approach, indicating the possible existence of confirmation bias in the marketing literature.Originality/valueReplication in marketing is either improving or stagnant depending on the accepted definition of replication. Of special importance, given the questioning of the intra-study approach as true replicative research, more replicated findings produced by independent researchers are needed to establish theoretical validity of marketing knowledge for use by both marketing academicians and decision makers.
Extending service brands into products versus services
Authors: Sichtmann Christina , Schoefer Klaus , Blut Markus , Kemp Charles Jurgen 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
This paper aims to provide an empirical investigation into extension category effects on service brand extensions, both to other services (service–service extensions) and to products (service–product extensions), and the extension category’s influence on brand/consumer-level success drivers, as well as the perceived quality of the extension.

Design/methodology/approach
This study included an empirical testing of a conceptual framework using a hierarchical linear modeling approach and testing of hypotheses with a multilevel regression analysis. The data set consisted of 216 respondents reporting on both product and service extensions. Data were collected on three levels, namely, consumer level, parent brand level and extension level.

Findings
The findings indicate a general and consistent extension category-dependent effect that moderates the importance of brand extension success drivers. The influence of parent brand reliance and perceived parent brand quality were found to have stronger effects, whereas parent brand conviction was weaker in the context of service-to-service extensions.

Research limitations/implications
The study focuses on two brands with four extensions. Further research could replicate the study with a broader range of brands and extensions.

Practical implications
The study provides guidance to service managers to enhance consumers’ extension evaluations through better-positioned communication efforts when extending to different categories.

Originality/value
The study is one of the first empirical investigations into category-extension effects and its moderating role regarding brand and consumer level success drivers. Sparse research has been dedicated to a real-world occurrence of services extending between extension categories; this study thus furthers service brand research in terms of brand management decisions.
Unpacking brand management superiority
Authors: Lee Wai Jin (Thomas) , O’Cass Aron , Sok Phyra 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
A strong brand is one that consumers know and perceive as differentiated from competing brands. Building brands with high levels of awareness and uniqueness is critical to ensuring brand strength and sustained competitiveness. To this end, the roles of brand management capability and brand orientation are highlighted. However, given the significance of consistency in branding, firms’ brand management capability and brand orientation alone may not be sufficient, and a mechanism that facilitates branding consistency is required. In the integrating marketing control theory with the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities (DC) theory, this study aims to examine how a firm’s brand orientation, when supported by formalisation, contributes to building brands with high levels of awareness and uniqueness through the intervening role of brand management capability.

Design/methodology/approach
In testing the hypotheses proposed in this study, survey data were drawn from a sample of firms operating in the consumer goods sector and examined through hierarchical regression analysis.

Findings
This study finds that firms are more likely to build brands with high levels of awareness and uniqueness in the market when their brand orientation is supported by formalisation, because this combination (brand orientation and formalisation) facilitates branding consistency and brand management capability development.

Originality/value
In weaving together the theoretical perspectives of marketing control, RBV and DC, this study extends current knowledge by showing that brand management capability and brand orientation alone are insufficient for building brands with high levels of awareness and uniqueness. Instead, maximising their performance effects requires the support of formalisation.
Managing initial expectations when word-of-mouth matters
Authors: Yi Sangyoon , Ahn Jae-Hyeon 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
Consumer expectation not only influences purchase decision but also post-purchase satisfaction and word-of-mouth (WOM). This study aims to develop theories of initial expectation management by suggesting when it is desirable for new products to raise or lower consumer expectations. It systematically examines the interplay of product value and consumer heterogeneity in the dynamic process of new product diffusion under competition.

Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on traditional diffusion and choice models, this study develops an agent-based model to formalize and analyze how consumers’ initial expectations of a new product influence the interdependent processes of product sales, consumer satisfaction and WOM. The simulation analyses in controlled settings help understand the underlying mechanisms in a stepwise manner.

Findings
The results show that, although the optimal strategy for low-value products is to induce consumer expectations higher than product value, high-value products are better introduced with expectations formed close to it. The results also highlight an important drawback of “under-promising” strategies in reducing the base and volume of WOM. Further, the analysis illustrates how consumer heterogeneities in product valuation and initial expectation affect the effectiveness of expectation management. For high-value products, both heterogeneities reduce the effectiveness of the optimal strategy. For low-value products, however, value heterogeneity enhances the effectiveness, whereas expectation heterogeneity reduces it.

Practical implications
Firms introducing new products should be sensitive to how consumers value the product and form expectations about it. Different from firms that must rely on aggressive advertising to sell inferior products by building up high expectations, those with superior products can rely more on the power of consumer WOM, which is much less costly and thus gives them a competitive advantage. Firms should also pay attention to how diversified the consumers are in product valuation and expectation. The expectation management strategy is more effective when consumers form more similar expectations. Inferior firms may leverage this mechanism to neutralize their disadvantages.

Originality/value
The articulated mechanisms help push forward the research on new product diffusion and consumer expectation management. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to systematically analyze the impact of consumer heterogeneity on the effectiveness of expectation management.
Think about it – can portrayals of homosexuality in advertising prime consumer-perceived social connectedness and empathy?
Authors: Åkestam Nina , Rosengren Sara , Dahlen Micael 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
This paper aims to investigate whether portrayals of homosexuality in advertising can generate social effects in terms of consumer-perceived social connectedness and empathy.

Design/methodology/approach
In three experimental studies, the effects of advertising portrayals of homosexuality were compared to advertising portrayals of heterosexuality. Study 1 uses a thought-listing exercise to explore whether portrayals of homosexuality (vs heterosexuality) can evoke more other-related thoughts and whether such portrayals affect consumer-perceived social connectedness and empathy. Study 2 replicates the findings while introducing attitudes toward homosexuality as a boundary condition and measuring traditional advertising effects. Study 3 replicates the findings while controlling for gender, perceived similarity and targetedness.

Findings
The results show that portrayals of homosexuality in advertising can prime consumers to think about other people, thereby affecting them socially. In line with previous studies of portrayals of homosexuality in advertising, these effects are moderated by attitudes toward homosexuality.

Research limitations/implications
This paper adds to a growing body of literature on the potentially positive extended effects of advertising. They also challenge some of the previous findings regarding homosexuality in advertising.

Practical implications
The finding that portrayals of homosexuality in advertising can (at least, temporarily) affect consumers socially in terms of social connectedness and empathy should encourage marketers to explore the possibilities of creating advertising that benefits consumers and brands alike.

Originality/value
The paper challenges the idea that the extended effects of advertising have to be negative. By showing how portrayals of homosexuality can increase social connectedness and empathy, it adds to the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of advertising on a societal level.
Broadening the brandfest: play and ludic agency
Authors: Kjeldgaard Dannie , Bode Matthias 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
Brandfests are conceptualized as marketer-initiated events that facilitate consumers’ individual and social engagements with brands. After its inception in the late 1990s, the concept of brandfests was quickly folded into the concept of brand community, leaving conceptual and strategic opportunities untapped. The purpose of the paper is to suggest a broadened conceptualization of brandfests based on the play theory and the notion of ludic interagency.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper includes a longitudinal study and ethnographic method.

Findings
Unlike previously studied brandfests, this context entails a low-involvement product, a brand that is not the focal point for participants, a broad range of market-facing enactors, shifting roles and the realization of multiple meanings and values for multiple enactors. The findings demonstrate that brand meaning and value can be constituted through ludic engagement of a broad range of market-facing enactors through a ludic spectacle such as a brandfest. Moreover, the authors find that this can go on outside the established spatial and temporal frames normally considered by the marketing literature.

Research limitations/implications
This has implications for theories of emplacement (servicescape) and brand meaning actualization in terms of where, when and whom is involved in brand meaning actualization.

Practical implications
The paper develops four strategic propositions which broaden the type of brandfests that allow managers to define a range of potential strategies for engaging consumers and other enactors in a broader range of brandfests.

Originality/value
The paper reconceptualizes a dormant concept in the marketing literature to develop strategic implications based on the play theory. It challenges the prevalent centrality of the brand and consumer brand involvement.
The role of the academic Library Information Specialist (LIS) in teaching and learning in the 21st century
Authors: Allen Lee E. , Taylor Deborah M. 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
This study aims to examine the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) usage with mobile technologies and e-learning in academic libraries.

Design/methodology/approach
Selection of appropriate resources using the Communication and Mass Media, EBSCO, Web of Science and Library Literature and Information Science Fulltext databases.

Findings
The “Library as place” concept requires libraries to explore and re-purpose its physical space while redefining its virtual, online space to align with the needs of those who are native to the digital age. Library information specialists (LIS) must also be knowledgeable of – and comfortable with – the use of the new technologies introduced. As mobile technologies continue to evolve and advance in developing countries, libraries and LIS may be best positioned to assist students and researchers in accessing information required to be proficient and productive in scholarly pursuits without physical boundaries.

Practical implications
The existing research literature surveyed here implies that the growth of ICT and evolving concepts of libraries require the need for LIS training and greater understanding of the use of mobile technologies in providing academic library services.

Originality/value
Academic librarians are at the forefront of providing aspiring academics and professionals with access to digital collections and e-learning courses using mobile information communication and technology devices; the implications of the research discussed in this survey of the current literature discloses a need for diverse skills for the appropriate and continuing effectiveness to support students and academic researchers.
Testing technology to enhance patient safety in seclusion
Authors: Johnson Paula , Evans David J.W. , Khan Zulaikha 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether an example of Seclusion Room Contactless Monitoring Technology (VitalGuardTM) is able to accurately detect the presence of life in a ward seclusion room ensuring patient wellbeing, without interference from background “living noise” (e.g. voices) or “electronic noise” (e.g. other systems).

Design/methodology/approach
The authors assessed the system’s ability to monitor movement caused by human respiration through its ability to discriminate false positives (i.e. presence of an inanimate object ± movement or noise, in the absence of a person in the seclusion room) and false negatives (i.e. failure to detect a human presence) in a ward setting.

Findings
The system displayed 100 per cent validity in terms of determining false positives (six conditions, each n=5) and the system did not alarm under either of the two false negative conditions tested (each n=5).

Research limitations/implications
These findings demonstrate that this example of technology is able to monitor movement caused by human respiration and can accurately and reliably detect the presence of life in seclusion rooms, in the ward setting, without interference from background noise (living and electronic). This was a small evaluation study and further research on its effectiveness in practice would be beneficial in both the intellectual disability forensic setting and other settings of segregation and isolation.

Originality/value
This study suggests that the use of technology in a seclusion room setting can be used as a reliable tool to enhance patient observations and assist in the delivery of care in a safe and unobtrusive manner.
The challenges of working with sexual offenders who have autism in secure services
Authors: MacDonald Shaunagh , Clarbour Jane , Whitton Clare , Rayner Kelly 
Published: January 2017

Purpose
Previous literature has reported that working with sexual offenders can impact staff negatively (Hatcher and Noakes, 2010). In addition, working with individuals with intellectual disability also appears to be challenging. There are benefits stated of working with sexual offenders and the purpose of this paper is to seek to highlight the challenges and positive experiences of staff members working with sexual offenders who have autism.

Design/methodology/approach
As working with this population has not been previously investigated, a semi-structured interview was conducted to explore the challenges and benefits of working with this population. Eight participants were interviewed who work on the autism specialist ward at a forensic secure hospital in the UK.

Findings
Template analysis identified three master themes: mediating factors, challenges and consequences, which were incorporated into the Model of Person-Organisation Wellbeing (M-POW). The findings show the specific challenges of working with a population that has not been previously studied.

Research limitations/implications
The study utilised a small, heterogeneous self-selecting sample from one clinical site.

Practical implications
Findings suggest there are a number of specific challenges this staff group face, and steps that can be taken at the personal and organisational level to mediate these. Recommendations are made for how staff are supported in their work from recruitment and induction onwards.

Originality/value
The M-POW highlights mediating factors that can be adjusted to develop more effective coping strategies for working in what, for some, is a challenging environment. This model provides a framework that can be adopted by organisations to ensure that the likelihood of their staff experiencing negative feelings is reduced and also suggests future avenues of research.
Explicating the role of innovation intermediaries in the “unknown”: a contingency approach
Authors: Agogué Marine , Berthet Elsa , Fredberg Tobias , Le Masson Pascal , Segrestin Blanche , Stoetzel Martin , Wiener Martin , Yström Anna 
Published: January 2017

PurposeInnovation intermediaries have become key actors in open innovation (OI) contexts. Research has improved the understanding of the managerial challenges inherent to intermediation in situations in which problems are rather well defined. Yet, in some OI situations, the relevant actor networks may not be known, there may be no clear common interest, or severe problems may exist with no legitimate common place where they can be discussed. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the research on innovation intermediaries by showing how intermediaries address managerial challenges related to a high degree of unknown.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw upon the extant literature to highlight the common core functions of different types of intermediaries. The authors then introduce the “degree of unknown” as a new contingency variable for the analysis of the role of intermediaries for each of these core functions. The authors illustrate the importance of this new variable with four empirical case studies in different industries and countries in which intermediaries are experiencing situations of high level of unknown.FindingsThe authors highlight the specific managerial principles that the four intermediaries applied in creating an environment for collective innovation.Originality/valueThereby, the authors clarify what intermediation in the unknown may entail.