Customer Engagement (CE) research has been growing considerably over time, however, most of this research emanates from developed economies and large organizational contexts. Little is known about CE ...strategies when it comes to family-owned businesses in emerging market context. This paper tries to synthesize the extant literature on CE to identify the state of research concerning CE practices followed in family-owned businesses from emerging markets. To achieve this objective, we first conducted a structured literature review of CE research published in last two decades in the top tier management and marketing journals. Second, drawing from the insights received from the findings of the structured review, we design a structured interview schedule to collect first-hand data from the managers working in family-owned businesses in India. This rich data is then analyzed using a qualitative data analysis package. Findings from our analysis reveal that social media platforms, continuous monitoring of the customer feedback and reviews, importance to non-financial goals, safeguarding the reputation, and maintaining the trustful relationship are critical aspects of family-owned firms’ CE strategy. Another interesting aspect about the CE strategies in family businesses vis-à-vis non-family-businesses, specifically from an emerging country context is the reliance on the third-party agencies to manage the content creation and digital marketing. Study findings not only help advance the scholarship within the twin fields of customer engagement and family business, but also provide valuable insights to the practitioners of family-owned businesses.
Previous research has conceptualized and modeled customer orientation (CO) in one of two ways: as a psychological phenomenon antecedent to critical job states (i.e., stress and engagement) or as ...frontline employee behaviors that are caused by these same job states. Building on meta-analytic data, this study finds greater support for the causal relationships implied by a psychological construal of the construct and reveals that CO influences frontline employees'job outcomes through its effects on stress and engagement. Moderation analyses also indicate that CO's influence on model variables is stronger when frontline employees' customer workloads increase and is weaker as the need for customer persuasion increases. These findings contradict widely held assumptions rooted in a behavioral view of CO—namely, that CO is a consequence of job states, a proximate determinant of job outcomes, and most beneficial when ample opportunity for customer engagement exists. Overall, the results support a broadened perspective that recognizes that CO improves job outcomes because it enhances frontline employees' psychological welfare in addition to being good for business. These findings suggest that managers should consider CO an important criterion in frontline employee decisions, recognize CO as beneficial when limited opportunity for customer engagement exists, and avoid efforts to curtail CO's costs at the frontline employee level.
As a motivational factor, uniqueness drives individuals to seek and choose unique goods or experiences. The act of wearing masks obscures individuals' facial features and influences their desire for ...uniqueness. This study aims to explore how wearing masks promotes individual uniqueness- seeking behavior. Three experiments were performed using various product categories (Starbucks coffee cups, sweatshirts, suitcases, and baseball caps) and sample types (college student and adult samples). Experiment results show that wearing masks obscures individuals' facial features and weakens their self- perceived uniqueness, thereby increasing their willingness to actively purchase unique products. This study is the first to examine the effect of wearing masks on individuals' choice of unique products. Practically, the results suggest that customized products can compensate for the lack of self-perceived uniqueness brought about by facial occlusion, thus providing valuable guidance for companies and retailers that offer customized services in formulating and designing marketing strategies.
The significance of online advertising as a primary revenue stream for digital media cannot be understated. However, the rising adoption of ad-blocking software by users has adversely affected these ...revenues. In response to this challenge, digital publishers are exploring various strategies not only to maintain their revenues, but also to enhance them through online advertising, in addition to paid subscriptions. We discuss three potential strategies to overcome ad-blocking. The first is the subscription fee strategy, termed the benchmark strategy in the paper, wherein users pay a subscription fee to access content without encountering any ads. The second strategy is whitelisting, which involves publishers seeking users’ consent to display acceptable ads that support the website. The third approach is ad-recovery, which employs a third-party service to continue displaying ads even to users employing ad-blocking software. We utilize a duopolistic game-theoretical framework and identify conditions under which digital publishers might adopt either symmetric or asymmetric strategies to counter ad-blocking usage. We find that both firms tend to opt for whitelisting when the advertising revenue parameter is relatively low, and the proportion of consenting ad-block users is relatively high. On the other hand, when the advertising revenue parameter is high, and the proportion of consenting ad-block users is low, both firms benefit from an ad-recovery strategy. Further, under some conditions, firms utilize asymmetric strategies. The analysis suggests that a number of consumer- and firm-level factors represent important determinants of the digital marketing strategies of media firms.
•We study the relative profitability of three strategies to combat adblocking.•We link strategic choice to profitability: which strategy is more profitable.•We identify conditions in which symmetric firms might prefer asymmetric strategies.•Showcases interplay of multiple drivers in determining firms’ digital strategies.
Using qualitative studies involving executives and customers, this study explores the nature and scope of customer engagement (CE), which is a vital component of relationship marketing. We define CE ...as the intensity of an individual's participation in and connection with an organization's offerings and/or organizational activities, which either the customer or the organization initiate. We argue that it is composed of cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social elements. Finally, we offer a model of CE, in which the participation and involvement of current or potential customers serve as antecedents of CE, while value, trust, affective commitment, word of mouth, loyalty, and brand community involvement are potential consequences.
How do people approach marketing in the face of uncertainty, when the product, the market, and the traditional details involved in market research are unknowable ex ante? The authors use protocol ...analysis to evaluate how 27 expert entrepreneurs approach such a problem compared with 37 managers with little entrepreneurial expertise (all 64 participants are asked to think aloud as they make marketing decisions in exactly the same unpredictable situation). The hypotheses are drawn from literature in cognitive science on (1) expertise in general and (2) entrepreneurial expertise in particular. The results show significant differences in heuristics used by the two groups. While those without entrepreneurial expertise rely primarily on predictive techniques, expert entrepreneurs tend to invert these. In particular, they use an effectual or nonpredictive logic to tackle uncertain market elements and to coconstruct novel markets with committed stakeholders.
The emergence of 24/7 cable news channels within the US revolutionized news consumption, offering viewers accessibility beyond fixed broadcast schedules. While the phenomenon began with CNN, ...competitors quickly emerged, targeting different political ideologies and mirroring the heightened polarization that has altered American society. Cable news channels must market themselves effectively to their audiences through distinctive product differentiation strategies. Understanding these approaches provides insights into information dissemination, political communication, and audience engagement dynamics. This paper aims to conduct a formal media analysis of current self-promotional advertisements across the big three cable news networks within the US to derive insights into contemporary differentiation strategies crucial for monitoring the industry’s technological transition. As the rest of the world has begun to wrestle with increased polarization, this analysis will be relevant to anticipating how non-US news sources use ideology and values to position themselves within highly competitive markets.
A debate about whether firms with superior customer satisfaction earn superior stock returns has been persistent in the literature. Using 15 years of audited returns, the authors find convincing ...empirical evidence that stock returns on customer satisfaction do beat the market. The recorded cumulative returns were 518% over the years studied (2000-2014), compared with a 31% increase for the S&P 500. Similar results using back-tested instead of real returns were found in the United Kingdom. The effect of customer satisfaction on stock price is, at least in part, channeled through earnings surprises. Consistent with theory, customer satisfaction has an effect on earnings themselves. In addition, the authors examine the effect of stock returns from earnings on stock returns from customer satisfaction. If earnings returns are included among the risk factors in the asset pricing model, the earnings variable partially mitigates the returns on customer satisfaction. Because of the long time series, it is also possible to examine time periods when customer satisfaction returns were below market. The reversal of the general trend largely resulted from short-term market idiosyncrasies with little or no support from fundamentals. Such irregularities have been infrequent and eventually self-correcting. The authors provide reasons why irregularities may occur from time to time.
