Chain liability denotes a phenomenon where consumers blame a market-facing focal firm for an inci... more Chain liability denotes a phenomenon where consumers blame a market-facing focal firm for an incident caused by a contractor in the upstream value chain. Using Trust Repair Theory, this study analy...
Business Strategy and The Environment, Dec 30, 2019
Carsharing is often promoted as a potentially environmental-friendly alternative to individual ca... more Carsharing is often promoted as a potentially environmental-friendly alternative to individual car ownership. However, various carsharing programs have displayed limited success in the past. An initial field study of a new carsharing service is such a story of failure: The introduction of this new service at a medium-sized German university generated unexpectedly low adoption rates so that the service was eventually scaled down and then suspended. Quantitative field study results as well as additional qualitative focus groups reveal that missing compatibility is a key barrier to adoption. Drawing on extant conceptual frameworks of user participation in sharing business models, a factorial survey identifies the importance of different dimensions of carsharing business models for their acceptance. The results reveal that a set of convenience and lifestyle dimensions influences usage intentions, including mode of drive, pickup and drop-off mode, service level, price model, availability, and type of market mediation. In contrast, vehicle fleet does not appear to influence carsharing models' acceptance. These findings contribute to research on business model configuration as well as the attitude-behavior gap in the sharing economy by determining relevant dimensions of a carsharing business model that can bridge the gap between basically positive attitudes and usage resistance. Thereby, they also serve for concrete managerial recommendations.
Kollaborativer Konsum, der durch eigentumsersetzende Dienstleistungen ermoglicht wird, ist eine F... more Kollaborativer Konsum, der durch eigentumsersetzende Dienstleistungen ermoglicht wird, ist eine Form der Markttransaktion, die zunehmend verbreitet ist. Im vorliegend Beitrag wird zunachst kollaborativer Konsum von verwandten Konstrukten abgegrenzt. Hierzu werden drei Kriterien herangezogen: (1) Anzahl und Typ von Akteuren, (2) Art des Austausches, (3) Direktheit des Austausches. Durch systematisches Aufarbeiten der Literatur wird ein Bezugsrahmen entwickelt, der die Rollen der Akteure im kollaborativen Konsum nach drei Dimensionen beschreibt: Motive, Aktivitaten und Ressourcen sowie Fahigkeiten. Basierend auf einer qualitativen Studie mit Wissenschaftlern sowie mit Praktikern werden abschliesend Forschungslucken herausgearbeitet.
The ever-increasing demand for health care services, together with heightened expectations for qu... more The ever-increasing demand for health care services, together with heightened expectations for quality care, continue to put pressures on health care professionals. In this editorial, we introduce our perspective on managing patient expectations through gaining research insights on health service experiences of patients and their support network. Drawing upon research from social psychology, we examine the types of threat that typically confront patients during health care service experiences, and their subsequent coping strategies. We call for enhanced focus on social science research for effective delivery of high-quality health care services.
The proliferating gig economy relies on online freelance marketplaces, which support relatively a... more The proliferating gig economy relies on online freelance marketplaces, which support relatively anonymous interactions through text-based messages. Informational asymmetries thus arise that can lead to exchange uncertainties between buyers and freelancers. Conventional marketing thought recommends reducing such uncertainty. However, uncertainty reduction and uncertainty management theories indicate that buyers and freelancers might benefit more from balancing—rather than reducing—uncertainty, such as by strategically adhering to or deviating from common communication principles. With dyadic analyses of calls for bids and bids from a leading online freelance marketplace, this study reveals that buyers attract more bids from freelancers when they provide moderate degrees of task information and concreteness, avoid sharing personal information, and limit the affective intensity of their communication. Freelancers’ bid success and price premiums increase when they mimic the degree of ta...
Trading communities provide non-commercial members with an online platform on which to exchange g... more Trading communities provide non-commercial members with an online platform on which to exchange goods. Its success depends on member participation; however, little is known about its drivers. Based on literature we identify five drivers. To capture their impact over time,we test a latent growth curve model with longitudinal data, comparing the effects at an initial point of time with their impact on the growth of member participation over three subsequent periods. The results show that providers’ responsiveness and community identification have a positive effect on the initial level, but not on growth. Members’ enjoyment has no level effect, but a growth effect. Only role clarity has an impact on level and growth. Interestingly, co-members’ cooperation weakens member participation, which leads us to conclude that too much cooperation – which appears as professionalism in a trading community – ‘kills’ member participation. We conclude with theoretical and managerial implications.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to make two main contributions: first, showcase the diversity... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to make two main contributions: first, showcase the diversity of service research in terms of the variety of used theories and methods, and second, explain (post-publication) success of articles operationalized as interest in an article (downloads), usage (citations), and awards (best paper nomination). From there, three sub-contributions are derived: stimulate a dialogue about existing norms and practices in the service field, enable and encourage openness amongst service scholars, and motivate scholars to join the field.Design/methodology/approachA mixed method approach is used in combining quantitative and qualitative research methods while analyzing 158Journal of Service Management(JOSM) articles on several criteria such as their theory, methodology, and main descriptive elements (e.g. number of authors or references) and then using automated text analysis (e.g. investigating the readability of articles, etc.).FindingsThe results show that the...
ABSTRACT Enhancing customers' positive attitude towards a company does n... more ABSTRACT Enhancing customers' positive attitude towards a company does not exploit the whole potential of what can be done to increase sales. A more defensive approach focuses on the avoidance of customers' negative attitudes and behavior of withdrawal. Since ...
ABSTRACT Changes in eating habits comprise two major trends: The increasing demand for healthy pr... more ABSTRACT Changes in eating habits comprise two major trends: The increasing demand for healthy products, and a stressful pace of life that leads to a growing convenience orientation. We link these trends by investigating whether stress, operationalized as time pressure and irregular daily routines, suppresses health orientation in on-the-go consumption. Based on current literature and qualitative research a structural model was developed and empirically tested. Our results surprisingly show that time pressure fosters health orientation regarding on-the-go consumption. Implications for industry and retailers are derived. The contribution of our re-search is to advance the understanding of consumer behaviour regarding on-the-go consumption.
Unternehmen steht zunehmend die Nutzung von Investitionsgütern im Vordergrund. So entscheiden sic... more Unternehmen steht zunehmend die Nutzung von Investitionsgütern im Vordergrund. So entscheiden sich immer mehr Firmen gegen Eigentum und Kauf und nutzen KoKonsum-Dienstleistungen als alternative Zugangsform. Bisher galt die Annahme, dass ausschließlich finanzielle Motive diese Entscheidung bedingen. Der Beitrag zeigt am Beispiel von IT, dass auch performancegetriebene Motive eine Rolle spielen.
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Jul 1, 2016
Although the amount of food and beverages consumed on-the-go has been increasing, existing resear... more Although the amount of food and beverages consumed on-the-go has been increasing, existing research has not sufficiently examined this behavior. This study uses a mixed methods design with a qualitative study to identify four determinants of on-the-go consumption: time pressure, price consciousness, health orientation, and enjoyment. Combining the qualitative results with Behavioral Decision Theory, eight hypotheses are derived about the influence of the four determinants as well as their interrelations. Hypotheses testing and predictive validity assessment are based on two large-scale consumer samples, one main study and one validation study. The results confirm a significant influence of utilitarian determinants (time pressure and price consciousness), though they are less important than the hedonic determinant. Implications for retail managers are presented, as these results challenge conventional practices. Moreover, existing theory is extended beyond a distinction between utilitarian and hedonic motives by regarding health orientation as a hybrid determinant of on-the-go consumption.
Customer misbehavior in service settings is problematic for two reasons: (1) because of the direc... more Customer misbehavior in service settings is problematic for two reasons: (1) because of the direct damage it causes and (2) because of additional negative effects that arise from the contagion of such misbehavior. The authors extend existing theory of customer misbehavior by studying its contagious effect. The investigation focuses on access-based services, defined as transactions in which multiple consumers successively gain temporal, short-term access to a good, while legal ownership remains with the service provider (e.g., car sharing and fashion rentals). Due to the nature of these services, they are especially prone to indirect customer misbehavior, which is directed at the accessed product and occurs in the absence of others. Two online experiments provide the first empirical evidence for a contagiousness of misbehavior and reveal that this effect is driven by customers' perceptions of the social norms among the customer group. Moreover, they indicate that greater strength of the accessed product's brand as well as lower anonymity of the accessed product's owner attenuate contagion. A field experiment shows that an increase in the communal identification among access-based service customers reverses the contagious effect, with customers more likely to remove signs of previous users' misbehavior. The results suggest that access-based service providers should address customer misbehavior by (a) investing in the products they offer access to, (b) establishing more personal relationships with customers, and, foremost, (c) increasing communal identification among customers.
Developments in marketing science: proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science, Oct 8, 2014
In line with other authors we believe that marketing is currently in a process of a profound para... more In line with other authors we believe that marketing is currently in a process of a profound paradigm shift. A lively discussion about a Service Dominant Logic (SDL) for Marketing has been launched by an article from Vargo/Lusch (2004) in the Journal of Marketing, which generated considerable attention. Since then several authors have contributed to the advancement of this discussion. However, agreeing with Ballantyne/Varey (2005) there still seems a lot of work to be done to have an in depth understanding of a SDL and all its different areas before a shift in marketing becomes realistic.
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and assess the importance of proposed determinant... more PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and assess the importance of proposed determinants of the growing consumer preference for renting consumer goods, as opposed to the actual transfer of ownership.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a qualitative preliminary study and a literature review, six factors are identified as possible determinants of a preference for non‐ownership modes of consumption. These are examined in a quantitative study using a sample of 461 members of a German online peer‐to‐peer sharing network. Hypotheses regarding the proposed determinants are tested using factor analysis and structural equation modelling.FindingsThe results show that the demand for non‐ownership services is negatively influenced by “possession importance” (the importance that a consumer attaches to full ownership) and positively influenced by “trend orientation” and “convenience orientation”. The other proposed determinants – “experience orientation”, “price consciousness”, and “environmentalism” do not appear to influence a preference for non‐ownership modes of consumption.Practical implicationsAlthough the renting of goods is an increasingly popular form of consumption, consumers still value ownership. Suppliers should therefore consider offering a mixture of “ownership” and “non‐ownership” modes of consumption to their customers.Originality/valueThis study complements existing research in this area, which has largely been conceptual in nature, by undertaking an empirical evaluation of the importance of several proposed determinants for non‐ownership preference.
Chain liability denotes a phenomenon where consumers blame a market-facing focal firm for an inci... more Chain liability denotes a phenomenon where consumers blame a market-facing focal firm for an incident caused by a contractor in the upstream value chain. Using Trust Repair Theory, this study analy...
Business Strategy and The Environment, Dec 30, 2019
Carsharing is often promoted as a potentially environmental-friendly alternative to individual ca... more Carsharing is often promoted as a potentially environmental-friendly alternative to individual car ownership. However, various carsharing programs have displayed limited success in the past. An initial field study of a new carsharing service is such a story of failure: The introduction of this new service at a medium-sized German university generated unexpectedly low adoption rates so that the service was eventually scaled down and then suspended. Quantitative field study results as well as additional qualitative focus groups reveal that missing compatibility is a key barrier to adoption. Drawing on extant conceptual frameworks of user participation in sharing business models, a factorial survey identifies the importance of different dimensions of carsharing business models for their acceptance. The results reveal that a set of convenience and lifestyle dimensions influences usage intentions, including mode of drive, pickup and drop-off mode, service level, price model, availability, and type of market mediation. In contrast, vehicle fleet does not appear to influence carsharing models' acceptance. These findings contribute to research on business model configuration as well as the attitude-behavior gap in the sharing economy by determining relevant dimensions of a carsharing business model that can bridge the gap between basically positive attitudes and usage resistance. Thereby, they also serve for concrete managerial recommendations.
Kollaborativer Konsum, der durch eigentumsersetzende Dienstleistungen ermoglicht wird, ist eine F... more Kollaborativer Konsum, der durch eigentumsersetzende Dienstleistungen ermoglicht wird, ist eine Form der Markttransaktion, die zunehmend verbreitet ist. Im vorliegend Beitrag wird zunachst kollaborativer Konsum von verwandten Konstrukten abgegrenzt. Hierzu werden drei Kriterien herangezogen: (1) Anzahl und Typ von Akteuren, (2) Art des Austausches, (3) Direktheit des Austausches. Durch systematisches Aufarbeiten der Literatur wird ein Bezugsrahmen entwickelt, der die Rollen der Akteure im kollaborativen Konsum nach drei Dimensionen beschreibt: Motive, Aktivitaten und Ressourcen sowie Fahigkeiten. Basierend auf einer qualitativen Studie mit Wissenschaftlern sowie mit Praktikern werden abschliesend Forschungslucken herausgearbeitet.
The ever-increasing demand for health care services, together with heightened expectations for qu... more The ever-increasing demand for health care services, together with heightened expectations for quality care, continue to put pressures on health care professionals. In this editorial, we introduce our perspective on managing patient expectations through gaining research insights on health service experiences of patients and their support network. Drawing upon research from social psychology, we examine the types of threat that typically confront patients during health care service experiences, and their subsequent coping strategies. We call for enhanced focus on social science research for effective delivery of high-quality health care services.
The proliferating gig economy relies on online freelance marketplaces, which support relatively a... more The proliferating gig economy relies on online freelance marketplaces, which support relatively anonymous interactions through text-based messages. Informational asymmetries thus arise that can lead to exchange uncertainties between buyers and freelancers. Conventional marketing thought recommends reducing such uncertainty. However, uncertainty reduction and uncertainty management theories indicate that buyers and freelancers might benefit more from balancing—rather than reducing—uncertainty, such as by strategically adhering to or deviating from common communication principles. With dyadic analyses of calls for bids and bids from a leading online freelance marketplace, this study reveals that buyers attract more bids from freelancers when they provide moderate degrees of task information and concreteness, avoid sharing personal information, and limit the affective intensity of their communication. Freelancers’ bid success and price premiums increase when they mimic the degree of ta...
Trading communities provide non-commercial members with an online platform on which to exchange g... more Trading communities provide non-commercial members with an online platform on which to exchange goods. Its success depends on member participation; however, little is known about its drivers. Based on literature we identify five drivers. To capture their impact over time,we test a latent growth curve model with longitudinal data, comparing the effects at an initial point of time with their impact on the growth of member participation over three subsequent periods. The results show that providers’ responsiveness and community identification have a positive effect on the initial level, but not on growth. Members’ enjoyment has no level effect, but a growth effect. Only role clarity has an impact on level and growth. Interestingly, co-members’ cooperation weakens member participation, which leads us to conclude that too much cooperation – which appears as professionalism in a trading community – ‘kills’ member participation. We conclude with theoretical and managerial implications.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to make two main contributions: first, showcase the diversity... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to make two main contributions: first, showcase the diversity of service research in terms of the variety of used theories and methods, and second, explain (post-publication) success of articles operationalized as interest in an article (downloads), usage (citations), and awards (best paper nomination). From there, three sub-contributions are derived: stimulate a dialogue about existing norms and practices in the service field, enable and encourage openness amongst service scholars, and motivate scholars to join the field.Design/methodology/approachA mixed method approach is used in combining quantitative and qualitative research methods while analyzing 158Journal of Service Management(JOSM) articles on several criteria such as their theory, methodology, and main descriptive elements (e.g. number of authors or references) and then using automated text analysis (e.g. investigating the readability of articles, etc.).FindingsThe results show that the...
ABSTRACT Enhancing customers' positive attitude towards a company does n... more ABSTRACT Enhancing customers' positive attitude towards a company does not exploit the whole potential of what can be done to increase sales. A more defensive approach focuses on the avoidance of customers' negative attitudes and behavior of withdrawal. Since ...
ABSTRACT Changes in eating habits comprise two major trends: The increasing demand for healthy pr... more ABSTRACT Changes in eating habits comprise two major trends: The increasing demand for healthy products, and a stressful pace of life that leads to a growing convenience orientation. We link these trends by investigating whether stress, operationalized as time pressure and irregular daily routines, suppresses health orientation in on-the-go consumption. Based on current literature and qualitative research a structural model was developed and empirically tested. Our results surprisingly show that time pressure fosters health orientation regarding on-the-go consumption. Implications for industry and retailers are derived. The contribution of our re-search is to advance the understanding of consumer behaviour regarding on-the-go consumption.
Unternehmen steht zunehmend die Nutzung von Investitionsgütern im Vordergrund. So entscheiden sic... more Unternehmen steht zunehmend die Nutzung von Investitionsgütern im Vordergrund. So entscheiden sich immer mehr Firmen gegen Eigentum und Kauf und nutzen KoKonsum-Dienstleistungen als alternative Zugangsform. Bisher galt die Annahme, dass ausschließlich finanzielle Motive diese Entscheidung bedingen. Der Beitrag zeigt am Beispiel von IT, dass auch performancegetriebene Motive eine Rolle spielen.
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Jul 1, 2016
Although the amount of food and beverages consumed on-the-go has been increasing, existing resear... more Although the amount of food and beverages consumed on-the-go has been increasing, existing research has not sufficiently examined this behavior. This study uses a mixed methods design with a qualitative study to identify four determinants of on-the-go consumption: time pressure, price consciousness, health orientation, and enjoyment. Combining the qualitative results with Behavioral Decision Theory, eight hypotheses are derived about the influence of the four determinants as well as their interrelations. Hypotheses testing and predictive validity assessment are based on two large-scale consumer samples, one main study and one validation study. The results confirm a significant influence of utilitarian determinants (time pressure and price consciousness), though they are less important than the hedonic determinant. Implications for retail managers are presented, as these results challenge conventional practices. Moreover, existing theory is extended beyond a distinction between utilitarian and hedonic motives by regarding health orientation as a hybrid determinant of on-the-go consumption.
Customer misbehavior in service settings is problematic for two reasons: (1) because of the direc... more Customer misbehavior in service settings is problematic for two reasons: (1) because of the direct damage it causes and (2) because of additional negative effects that arise from the contagion of such misbehavior. The authors extend existing theory of customer misbehavior by studying its contagious effect. The investigation focuses on access-based services, defined as transactions in which multiple consumers successively gain temporal, short-term access to a good, while legal ownership remains with the service provider (e.g., car sharing and fashion rentals). Due to the nature of these services, they are especially prone to indirect customer misbehavior, which is directed at the accessed product and occurs in the absence of others. Two online experiments provide the first empirical evidence for a contagiousness of misbehavior and reveal that this effect is driven by customers' perceptions of the social norms among the customer group. Moreover, they indicate that greater strength of the accessed product's brand as well as lower anonymity of the accessed product's owner attenuate contagion. A field experiment shows that an increase in the communal identification among access-based service customers reverses the contagious effect, with customers more likely to remove signs of previous users' misbehavior. The results suggest that access-based service providers should address customer misbehavior by (a) investing in the products they offer access to, (b) establishing more personal relationships with customers, and, foremost, (c) increasing communal identification among customers.
Developments in marketing science: proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science, Oct 8, 2014
In line with other authors we believe that marketing is currently in a process of a profound para... more In line with other authors we believe that marketing is currently in a process of a profound paradigm shift. A lively discussion about a Service Dominant Logic (SDL) for Marketing has been launched by an article from Vargo/Lusch (2004) in the Journal of Marketing, which generated considerable attention. Since then several authors have contributed to the advancement of this discussion. However, agreeing with Ballantyne/Varey (2005) there still seems a lot of work to be done to have an in depth understanding of a SDL and all its different areas before a shift in marketing becomes realistic.
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and assess the importance of proposed determinant... more PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and assess the importance of proposed determinants of the growing consumer preference for renting consumer goods, as opposed to the actual transfer of ownership.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a qualitative preliminary study and a literature review, six factors are identified as possible determinants of a preference for non‐ownership modes of consumption. These are examined in a quantitative study using a sample of 461 members of a German online peer‐to‐peer sharing network. Hypotheses regarding the proposed determinants are tested using factor analysis and structural equation modelling.FindingsThe results show that the demand for non‐ownership services is negatively influenced by “possession importance” (the importance that a consumer attaches to full ownership) and positively influenced by “trend orientation” and “convenience orientation”. The other proposed determinants – “experience orientation”, “price consciousness”, and “environmentalism” do not appear to influence a preference for non‐ownership modes of consumption.Practical implicationsAlthough the renting of goods is an increasingly popular form of consumption, consumers still value ownership. Suppliers should therefore consider offering a mixture of “ownership” and “non‐ownership” modes of consumption to their customers.Originality/valueThis study complements existing research in this area, which has largely been conceptual in nature, by undertaking an empirical evaluation of the importance of several proposed determinants for non‐ownership preference.
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Papers by Sabine Benoit