Influence of social media posts on service performance

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Esmark Jones ◽  
Stacie Waites ◽  
Jennifer Stevens

Purpose Much research regarding social media posts and relevancy has resulted in mixed findings. Furthermore, the mediating role of relevancy has not previously been examined. This paper aims to examine the correlating relationship between types of posts made by hotels and the resulting occupancy rates. Then, the mediating role of relevancy is examined and ways that posts can increase/decrease relevancy of the post to potential hotel users. Design/methodology/approach Within the context of the hotel industry, three studies were conducted – one including hotel occupancy data from a corporate chain – to examine the impact of social media posts on relevancy and intentions to stay at the hotel. Experimental studies were conducted to explain the results of the real-world hotel data. Findings The findings show that relevancy is an important mediator in linking social media posts to service performance. A locally (vs nationally) themed post can decrease both the relevancy of a post and the viewer’s intentions to stay at a hotel. This relationship, however, can be weakened if a picture is included with the post, as a visual may increase self-identification with a post. Originality/value These results have important theoretical and practical implications as social media managers attempt to find the best ways to communicate to their customers and followers. Specifically, there are lower and upper limits to how many times a hotel should be posting to social media. The data also show many hotels post about local events, such as school fundraisers or a job fair, that can be harmful to stay intentions, likely due to the irrelevant nature of local posts to customers who are likely to stay in a hotel. National posts are seen as more relevant and likely to increase stay intentions, and the inclusion of a picture can help local posts seem more relevant.

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heejin Lim ◽  
Michelle Childs

Purpose The new focus of brand communication in social media has driven firms to develop the effective visual content strategy. In light of narrative transportation theory, this study aims to investigate the impact of a photo’s narrative elements on self-brand connection through viewers’ transportation and emotional responses. Additionally, this study tests the role of telepresence on Instagram in this psychological mechanism. Design/methodology/approach Using between-subjects experimental design, two experimental studies test the effect of implied movement (Study 1) and diverse narrative elements such as a character, implied motion for chronology and the relevant background (Study 2). Findings Results demonstrate that a single narrative element, i.e. implied motion, does not induce a viewer’s transportation to the presented image. Rather, the viewer’s transportation occurs as a function of complex and diverse narrative elements, such as implied motion and the background as a context. Practical implications Findings suggest that the concept of photo narrative should be taken into consideration in a visually-oriented social media environment. To increase self-brand connection, social media communication should be designed with diverse elements to promote viewers’ active simulation and create meaning to the branded photo story. Originality/value This study expands the theory of narrative transportation by applying it to a visual form. Additionally, this research investigates the effect of social media communication on self-brand connection; the findings of this study demonstrate that a major goal of social media communication is not to sell products but to strengthen consumer-brand relationships through branded storytelling.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatima Batool ◽  
Jihad Mohammad ◽  
Siti Rahmah Awang

Purpose The main concern of this research is to examine the indirect effects servant leadership on organisational sustainability (OS) through creativity and psychological resilience in the hoteling sector in Malaysia.Design/methodology/approach A survey method based on a questionnaire was employed to gather data from 441 employees working in the hotel industry in Malaysia. The partial least squares technique, SmartPLS3.3.7, was employed to examine the hypotheses.Findings The result of the study found support for effect of servant leadership on creativity and psychological resilience. In addition, the effect of creativity and psychological resilience on OS was supported. Moreover, the mediation role of creativity and psychological resilience between servant leadership and organisational suitability was also supported by data.Originality/value This is a pioneering study that has combined human capital elements (i.e. servant leadership, creativity and psychological resilience) to examine their impacts on OS. Besides, this work has established comparatively new relationships, i.e. the impact of servant leadership on OS through the mediating role of creativity and psychological resilience. In addition, this study has developed relatively new link between psychological resilience and OS. In addition, it has confirmed the validity and reliability of servant leadership and OS at first and second orders.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Purvendu Sharma

PurposeThe present research aims to introduce and understand the promising nature of destination evangelism in the context of social media-based tourism communities (SMTCs). Further, factors that influence evangelism and information-seeking behaviors on SMTCs are examined.Design/methodology/approachA conceptual model is developed that features an interplay of destination distinctiveness, destination evangelism, travel commitment and information-seeking engagement. Data were collected from 215 active users of SMTCs and analyzed using structural equation models.FindingsThe research findings indicate that destination distinctiveness and information-seeking positively lead to destination evangelism. Information-seeking is found to mediate the relationship between (1) destination evangelism and travel commitment and (2) destination evangelism and distinctiveness.Research limitations/implicationsThe research offers meaningful insights into exploring constituents of destination evangelism. The research also understands and highlights the critical role of information-seeking engagement about distinct destinations.Practical implicationsThis research highlights key areas to build, improve and inspire destination evangelism on SMTCs.Originality/valueThis study offers a fresh contribution to tourism literature by investigating destination evangelism and its drivers. This is explained by closely uniting vital research streams of evangelism, tourism and engagement. It further highlights the dual mediating role of information seeking, suggesting that these engagements are critical to evangelizing destinations.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Denni Arli ◽  
Fandy Tjiptono

PurposeReligious doctrines generally encourage people to behave ethically. However, in daily life, individuals notice inconsistencies between religious beliefs and behavior, leading them to ask, in the context of commerce, why religious consumers would behave unethically. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of consumers' intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity on their ethical behavior. Specifically, the moderating effect of ethical ideology on the relationship between Indonesian consumers' religiosity and their ethics was examined by means of a survey.Design/methodology/approachThe data derived from the questionnaire were complemented by convenience samples of Indonesians living in Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta (DIY) in central Java. The researchers distributed 600 questionnaires in two major shopping malls and several housing areas in the region, of which 467 were completed and returned, for an overall response rate of 77.8%.FindingsThe results indicated that the participants' intrinsic religiosity negatively impacted their ethical beliefs and was mediated by their idealistic ethical ideology. The present study also found that idealism had negative effects on three of the four dimensions of the consumer ethics scale (CES) (actively benefiting, passively benefiting and questionable behavior), while relativism had positive effects on two of the dimensions (passively benefiting and questionable behavior.Research limitations/implicationsOne limitation of the present study was that the analysis did not distinguish among the religions practiced by the respondents to the questionnaire.Originality/valueThis is one of the first few studies investigating the mediating role of ethical ideology in a religious society. This study contributes to the literature on these issues in theoretical and managerial terms by extending the Hunt-Vitell theory (1986) to the context of consumer ethics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 218 ◽  
pp. 04014
Author(s):  
Yixing Jin ◽  
Peiying Wu ◽  
Cheng Lin ◽  
Yingda Wang

This study investigated the impact of emotional leadership of leaders on organizational commitment of hotel employees, as well as the mediating role of job satisfaction. The results indicate that: (1) Emotional leadership and job satisfaction have positive effects on organizational commitment. (2) Emotional leadership has a positive effect on job satisfaction. (3) Job satisfaction plays a mediating role between emotional leadership and organizational commitment.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gligor ◽  
Sıddık Bozkurt

Purpose The concept of agility has been applied to several domains to help firms develop the capability to quickly adjust their operations to cope and thrive in environments characterized by frequent changes. Despite the soaring number of social media users and the benefits associated with agility in other domains, the application of agility in a social media context has yet to be explored. Further, little is known about how agility in a social media context impacts desirable customer-related attributes, such as customer engagement and customer-based brand equity (CBBE). This paper aims to address this gap by adapting the construct to social media (i.e. perceived social media agility) and exploring its impact on customer engagement and CBBE. Design/methodology/approach This paper conducted an online survey with 200 adult subjects. This paper used multivariate regression analyzes to empirically test a scale for perceived social media agility and explore its impact on CBBE and customer engagement, along with the moderating role of customer change-seeking behavior. Findings The study results show that perceived social media agility directly and indirectly (through customer engagement) positively influences CBBE. Also, results show that the positive impact of perceived social media agility on CBBE is further magnified for customers high on change-seeking. However, customer change-seeking does not affect the strength or direction of the impact of perceived social media agility on customer engagement. Originality/value This paper contributes to social media literature by adapting and testing a measurement scale for the construct of perceived social media agility and exploring its role in enhancing customer engagement and CBBE.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Son Thanh Than ◽  
Phong Ba Le ◽  
Thanh Trung Le

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating roles of knowledge sharing behaviors (knowledge collecting and donating) in linking the relationship between high-commitment human resource management (HRM)practices and specific aspects of innovation capability, namely, exploitative and exploratory innovation. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on quantitative approach and structural equation modeling to examine the correlation among the latent constructs based on the survey data collected from 281 participants in 95 Chinese firms. Findings The findings of this study support the mediating role of knowledge sharing (KS) behaviors in the relationship between HRM practices and aspects of innovation capability. It highlights the important role of knowledge donating and indicates that the effect of knowledge donating is more significant than that of knowledge collecting on exploitative and exploratory innovation. Research limitations/implications Future research should investigate the impact of high-commitment HRM practices on innovation capability under the moderating effects of organizational variables to bring better understanding on the relationship among them. Originality/value The paper significantly contributes to increasing knowledge and insights on the correlation between high-commitment HRM practices and specific forms of innovation. The understanding on mediating role of KS contribute to advancing the body of knowledge of HRM and innovation theory.


2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (9) ◽  
pp. 1510-1525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sriji Edakkat Subhakaran ◽  
Lata Dyaram

Purpose Despite the increasing prominence of employee voice in organizational innovation and productivity, employees continue to struggle to influence matters that affect them at work. The purpose of this paper is to model work group context and manager behavior as the predictors of employee upward voice. Further, a mediating role of employee psychological safety is examined in this link. Design/methodology/approach With data from 575 employees representing various technology firms in India, the authors test the hypothesized relationships using covariance-based structural equation modeling. Findings Results indicate coworkers upward voice and manager pro-voice behavior to significantly impact employee upward voice with a mediating impact of psychological safety. This implies that perceived psychological safety plays a significant role in explaining the impact, coworkers and manager behavior would have on regulating employee upward voice. Originality/value This study contributes to the employee voice literature from an Indian context, where upward communication is culturally discouraged.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dhoha A. Alsaleh ◽  
Michael T. Elliott ◽  
Frank Q. Fu ◽  
Ramendra Thakur

PurposeAs social media have become very popular and an integral part of the world economy in recent years, identifying factors that influence consumers’ attitudes toward social media sites has become a major goal of many researchers in academia and industry. This paper aims to identify factors that predict consumers’ attitudes and intentions toward usage of Instagram, a relatively new social media tool. In addition, it examines the role of an important dimension of culture – individualism vs collectivism –to determine cultural influences on the adoption of social media in the USA (i.e. an individualistic culture) and Kuwait (i.e. a collectivist culture).Design/methodology/approachData were collected from a convenience sample of undergraduate business and MBA students from Kuwait and the USA. To validate the measures for the constructs depicted in the conceptual model, the authors conducted an exploratory factor analysis using all items. They then conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to further evaluate the adequacy and validity of the measurement model. They also tested the hypotheses using structural equation modeling (SEM).FindingsOut of the nine hypotheses that were tested for significance, the SEM results indicated that seven hypotheses were significant. The results indicated a non-significant result between perceived critical mass is not a predictor of perceived usefulness and social influence to attitude.Research limitations/implicationsThe current study has some limitations that need to be recognized and can be used as guidelines for future research. First, college students represent only a portion of online users and may impact the external validity of our study. Hence, a more diverse sample with a broader range of ages, incomes, education levels, cultures and national origins would be advisable. Second, this study featured a dynamically continuous innovation (Instagram) rather than a discontinuous innovation. Third, other factors can be carried out to see other variables other than those described in this study to predict consumer’s attitude and intention to use the social media.Practical implicationsCultural characteristics such as individualism/collectivism would seem to be potentially useful when segmenting countries. The results of the current study indicate that the modified model is applicable to a cross-national group of social media users. This study demonstrates the impact of cultural characteristics on various technology adoption. Hence, managers must be aware that countries can be grouped according to the type of cultural effect within each. Each social media category, clusters can be formed consisting of countries that are expected to have similar usage patterns based on technological capability and social norms. By understanding the factors that influence each cluster of countries, firms can design customized social media programs.Social implicationsThis research provides valuable information to better understand the consumers’ attitudes and intentions toward the emerging social media landscape. Indeed, the popularity of social media has greatly changed the way in which people communicate in today’s world. In particular, Instagram has gradually become a major communication media for both social and business purposes. This research shed light into the factors that influence intentions to adopt social media across different cultures. It empirically examines the role of culture – individualism vs collectivism – by using two samples (i.e. Kuwait and the USA) to determine cultural influences on the adoption of social media in different cultures.Originality/valueUsing data drawn from Kuwait and US samples, this current study draws upon the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) and the technology acceptance model (Davis, 1989). The results of the analysis indicate that the modified model is applicable to a cross-national group of social media users. Moreover, this study demonstrates the impact of cultural characteristics on various technology adoption constructs in the model.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atefeh Yazdanparast ◽  
Mathew Joseph ◽  
Fernanda Muniz

Purpose The present research investigates the influence of brand-based social media marketing (SMM) activities on metrics of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE). Specifically, the study examines the role of consumer-brand social media experiences on attitude toward SMM activities of brands and its consequent impact on brand perceptions. Design/methodology/approach Paper-and-pencil surveys were administered to undergraduate students in a Southwestern university in exchange for extra credit. Survey questions were adapted from previously validated scales, and measurement adaptations were minimal and only related to the context of questions to assure their relevance with the context of this study. Bi-variate correlation, bootstrapping technique, Sobel test, ANOVA and linear regression were used to test the hypotheses. Findings The results indicate that brand-based SMM is essential in impacting consumers’ attitudes toward brands and consequently, CBBE reflected via perceived value for the cost, perceived uniqueness and the willingness to pay a price premium for a brand. Additionally, the main reason for individuals to use social media impacts their attitudes toward and receptiveness of SMM activities of brands. Research limitations/implications This study used a sample of college students to address the research questions. Considering the higher adoption rate and interest in social media among younger consumer groups, the results may not be representative of the entire population. Much of the existing research on social media, however, has focused on undergraduate college students and is primarily based on studies utilizing the similar research population. Originality/value The present research is one of the few studies that empirically examine the impact of consumer-brand interactions/experiences on consumers’ attitudes toward SMM activities of brands, as well as brand-related knowledge and perceptions as reflected by CBBE. The results indicate that the CBBE model of the twenty-first century should incorporate the role of brand-based SMM activities as facilitators of brand knowledge (i.e. brand awareness and brand image) by reinforcing or even shaping important brand-based associations.


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