Effect of Brand Experience on Customer Engagement Through Quality Services of Online Sellers to Students in Bekasi

Customer engagement refers to the emotional attachment a student experiences as a customer during repeated and ongoing interactions. Engagement occurs through satisfaction, loyalty, and excitement about the brand experience. Organizations engage customers at the point of behavioral change by exploring opportunities for emotional connection through continuous and consistent positive experiences. When customers engage with a brand experience, they feel emotionally connected and excited about the product and the service quality. This study’s purpose is examining the effect of brand experience on customer engagement by using service quality as a mediator variable; this research was conducted by collecting data from 254 students of the iGeneration born in 1995. Overall, 254 students participated in this study. Of them, 172 people or 68% of the total respondents in this study were women, and 82 people or 32% were males. The results show no direct effect of brand experience on customer engagement, and there is a role for service quality mediators that mediate brand experience and customer engagement. The results are discussed, and the implications for the organization are mentioned.

Distinctly lonely: how loneliness at work varies by status in organizations

Purpose This paper aims to study the differing pathways to loneliness in managers and their employees. Literature on emotions in organizational life, organizational management and leadership and loneliness are explored to develop and test hypotheses regarding the differential prototypical scripts that can be generative of loneliness in managers and employees. Design/methodology/approach A total of 28 managers and 235 employees from a horticultural company based in Mexico were surveyed, using measures of perceived connection quality, loneliness and meaningful work to test three hypotheses. Findings Data from 28 managers and 235 staff indicate that while loneliness scores do not significantly differ between managers and their subordinates, the predictors of loneliness differ between managers and employees, with emotional connection and mutuality predicting loneliness in employees but not in managers. Originality/value This paper adds specification to the literatures on workplace loneliness, the loneliness associated with management roles, emotions in organizational life and emotions and leadership. The findings are discussed in relation to the literature on manager-subordinate relationships.

National Differences and Gender Stereotypes in Days of Empire

Days of Empire is a freemium mobile strategy video game developed and published by the company ONEMT, whose actual headquarters is in Fuzhou Fujian, China. The company specializes in fantasy video games mostly set in the Middle East and full of references to the history and mythology of the Arab and Turkish peoples. The objective is to provide a description of the game and to perform a qualitative analysis of the attitudes of selected players towards the game, their emotional drivers, and the financial commitment many of them undertake to achieve greater success in the game. As many discussions take place in the chat function of the game, the author is interested in stereotypes referencing the players' country of origin, gender stereotypes, and even the sexual harassment to which female players are subjected. Using the emic approach, an insider's perspective will be shown of the ways in which the players of Days of Empire look at the issues of nationalism and gender stereotypes, and the emotional connection between single individuals and a freemium game of this type.

Storytelling and retromarketing: strengthening brand communication

Brands are becoming more aware of the importance of adding value to their products through storytelling. The aim of this article is to raise awareness of the power of storytelling and retromarketing to enhance the effectiveness of brand communication strategies and increase customer loyalty. The study consisted of an analysis of the chemicals produced in the brain during the telling of different types of stories and their influence on consumer behaviours, and of brand archetypes, based on the work of Carl Jung in this area. The study also conducted a review of experiments that demonstrate the economic value of storytelling and retromarketing narratives. The results show that storytelling and retromarketing enhance brand uniqueness and create a deeper, more genuine relationship between companies and customers. This emotional connection may be achieved when storytelling is targeted at a specific audience as part of a larger marketing strategy.

From Japan to China: Another Interpretation of Taiko

Musical instruments change all the time. When an instrument is played in different contexts, it will show different functions. The same is true of taiko. When taiko came to Shanghai, involved people established an emotional connection with taiko in the process of playing taiko for a long time, and give taiko a new cultural function under their personal understanding, bringing taiko to their life, building another connection with the life of other taiko enthusiasts. At the same time, taiko also affects the performers' thoughts. Involved people also look for the value and purpose of their own existence through taiko in the process of performing taiko.

The Effects of Social Identity and Emotional Connection on Subjective Well-Being in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic for a Spanish Sample

This study analyzes whether the degree of social identity and the degree of emotional connection influence the subjective well-being of individuals that participated in collective acts of support for health personnel fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic. Our sample was composed of 810 participants who resided in Spain (339 women and 471 men) with an average age of 34.22 (SD = 12.56). All of them frequently participated in the acts of support that took place each day of the lockdown decreed by the National Government on 14 March 2020. The results show that the greater identification with the group (the country) and the greater the emotional connection, the higher the scores obtained in subjective well-being. The results also show that emotional connection had a positive effect on emotional subjective well-being, mediated by the social identity activated in the collective act. The results are interpreted from the perspective of social identity that highlights the role played by social identity in influencing health and subjective well-being.

Diaspora-Homeland Connection in Bharati Gautam’s Vigata ra Baduli [Past and Hiccups]

This article aims to explore the way Bharati Gautam’s memoir Vigata ra Baduli [Past and Hiccups] (2020) connects the writer with her homeland. Home and homeland are out of some major loci of diasporic life and the discourse. Diasporic writings deal with homeland both as a real place to return and an imaginary reality for those transnational migrants who have no chance of physical return to the place left back. To study the writer’s homeland connection as expressed in the book, this study uses qualitative methodology with its interpretative approach for analysis. The theoretical input is the diasporic discourse related to home and homeland. For the diasporans, homeland is the root of their life, culture, language and in total the life they live in the hostland. The time a diaspora loses its physical, imaginary or emotional connection with the homeland, it stops being a diaspora. Thus, every diasporic writing has some kind of homeland connection. The study finds that Gautam’s memoirs deal with her love and respect for the root. These feelings are expressed through her nostalgia, symbols and culture she follows in the USA. Similarly, her own and her children’s critical thoughts on Nepal and Nepali socio-cultural praxis also highlight their connection with the homeland. It is hoped that this study is useful to find how Nepali Diaspora connects itself with Nepal. It may encourage the researchers to work in this field.

Learning to mentalize: Exploring vulnerable parents’ experiences of change during video guidance in an infant mental health clinic

Background Interventions that promote infant mental health face challenges when applied for parents who struggle with psychosocial and psychological burdens. Video-based guidance using the Marte Meo method is used in specialized clinical settings with high-risk families to improve parent-child interaction, parental sensitivity and mentalizing. However, knowledge about the lifeworlds of these parents and their experiences of the therapeutic process during video guidance is limited. Aim This qualitative study explores how parents in an infant mental health outpatient clinic who had difficulties mentalizing and maintaining an emotional connection with their infants experienced the change process during Marte Meo video guidance. Methods We identified a strategic sample of parents with difficulties mentalizing and maintaining an emotional connection with their infants through the Parent Development Interview. Twelve parents received video guidance and were afterwards interviewed in-depth. The research interviews were qualitatively analysed via a team-based reflexive thematic analysis. Result We identified four themes: a) feeling inadequate or disconnected as a parent; b) discovering the infant as a relating and intentional person; c) becoming more agentic and interconnected; and d) still feeling challenged by personal mental health issues. Conclusion Parents described positive changes in their interactions, in mentalizing their infants, the relationship and themselves as parents, in their experiences of self-efficacy and on a representational level. They also described increased confidence and improved coping despite ongoing personal mental health challenges. The findings suggest that video guidance using the Marte Meo method can be a critical intervention for vulnerable parents but should be coordinated with parents’ primary treatments when complex parental mental health issues are involved.