Effects of brand feedback to negative eWOM on brand love/hate: an expectancy violation approach

Purpose This study aims to explore the role of consumers’ expectation violation in brands’ negative eWOM management on social media. The effects of brand feedback strategies (i.e. compensation and causal attribution) and brand type (i.e. full-service vs low-cost) in consumers’ expectation violations and the impact of such violations on consumers’ satisfaction and responses to a brand (i.e. brand love and brand hate) were examined. Design/methodology/approach This study used a 2 (causal attribution: external/brand) × 2 (compensation: present/absent) × 2 (brand type: low cost vs full service) × 2 (industry: airline and hotel) between-subjects experimental design. Findings Results indicated that the presence (vs absence) of compensation can result in positive consumer expectation violations, which can lead to consumer satisfaction and brand love. Alternately, the absence of compensation can result in negative consumer expectation violations, which can lead to consumers dissatisfaction and brand hate. Moreover, brand type (i.e. full-service vs low-cost) significantly interacted with the presence of compensation in influencing consumers’ responses. The attribution of the cause did not significantly influence consumers’ responses. Practical implications This study highlights the importance of knowing consumers’ expectations when responding to negative eWOM on social media. Offering compensation is an effective strategy for restoring consumer satisfaction. Specifically, for low-cost brands, offering compensation can lead to even more favorable responses. Originality/value This study pioneers in exploring the roles of different brand feedback strategies and brand type in influencing consumers’ responses to brands’ handling of negative eWOM. This study revealed the underlying mechanism through the theoretical lens of expectancy violation and examined the impact of expectation violations on consumer satisfaction and brand love and brand hate.

Photograph Based Evaluation of Consumer Expectation on Healthiness, Fullness, and Acceptance of Sandwiches as Convenience Food

Sandwiches are the most common “casual-food” consumed by all age groups in Spain. Due to the importance of visual appearance to promote unplanned or impulse buying, foodservice and hospitality companies focus on improving the visual impression of their food menus to create an expectation that satisfies both sensory and hedonic consumer experiences. To provide a list of attributes about the visual appearance of sandwiches, 25 students were recruited from a university and were invited to participate in two nominal group technique (NGT) sessions. To understand whether a sandwiches’ appearance can influence the expectation of consumers, 259 participants completed an online survey specially designed from the results of the NGT sessions. Data were analyzed using conjoint, internal preference mapping and cluster analysis; the interaction effect by gender was also studied. The conjoint results indicate that visual perception about the filling (vegetal or pork based) plays the most key role overall in consumer expectation. When consumers choose vegetables as the filling, the consumers’ perceived sandwiches as healthier, but the pork filling was perceived as more attractive and satiating. Interaction effect by gender was observed in filling when females perceived pork filling as less healthy than vegetable. By acceptance, consumers were segmented into three groups. The first cluster (n = 80) selected the pork filling. The smaller group (cluster 3, n = 36) prioritized the vegetal filling, and the most numerous cluster 2 (n = 140) liked sandwiches with multigrain bread. These results may help companies to build tailor-made marketing strategies to satisfy consumer segments.

Intelligent Process Automation of Industries Using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

The application of Disruptive Technologies (DT), using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), is still a challenge for many industries in the modern age. Quick transformation of business’ models and enhancement of consumer expectation are fundamental elements of Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) to boosting delivery and production of goods and services. In this research contribution, we will evaluate IPAs and their influence in the management of industries. In that case, major elements of AI and ML will be discussed comprehensively. Areas of application and analysis will be discussed in relation to digital industries. The results in this contribution will be used as a recommend action plan for industries to enhance their management and optimization when it comes to AI and ML.

Sensory characterisation of wines without added sulfites via specific and adapted sensory profile

Aim: In the few past years, consumer expectation has shifted toward low-additive foodstuffs. In the wine industry, this has been evidenced by the development of wines without any added SO2 during the winemaking process, including bottling. This has also led to the development of alternative methods to replace SO2 for winemaking, which, alongside the dearth of studies on these new production methods, raises the question of the sensorial impact of sulfites and sulfite alternatives on wines after aging.Methods and results: Wines were made from Merlot N. grapes at two different maturity levels, with or without SO2 addition throughout the whole process. From the same batch, wines were also produced with bioprotection applied to the harvest only as an alternative to SO2. Sensory evaluation was performed after two years of aging, with the development of specific and adapted training methods to determine the sensory profile of the wines. In this way, a high sensory proximity between wines without SO2 (whether produced with bioprotection or not) was highlighted, and they were described as significantly different from wines with SO2. Conclusion: This approach demonstrated that, for expert tasters and despite the use of bioprotection, wines without SO2 had specific sensory characteristics compared to wines with SO2.Significance of the study: This study was a first sensory step towards characterising wines produced without any added SO2. In future work, it could be used to highlight chemical compounds associated with sensory descriptors discriminating between them.

Manufacturing Or Production Defects And Design Defects

There are generally few difficulties in applying the consumer expectation test of s 3(1) of the 1987 Act to manufacturing or production defects. Thus it can be said that: ‘persons generally are clearly entitled to expect that a product conform with the standard of safety common to the items of a same line of products marketed by a particular manufacturer: an individual product which fails to comply with such a standard because it was not produced and marketed as intended will no doubt be considered defective’. Or to put it another way, in the form of an example, ‘no reasonable or “ordinary” consumer expects to find a snail in a bottle of ginger beer’, or, for that matter, carbolic acid in a bottle of lemonade. Accordingly, when the defect is a manufacturing one the consumer expectation test may be straightforward in its application and advantageous.

Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior to Purchase Sustainable Cosmetic Products in a German Context

In today's markets, corporate social responsibility is a new consumer expectation. Organizations across all industries are trying to meet these expectations by building a positive reputation and sending a signal to their stakeholders. However, consumers’ environmental behavior is not always the result of their positive attitudes towards environmental issues. Potentially, their environmentally friendly attitudes are contradicted by their actual behavior. This means that people, who have positive attitudes about sustainable products and state that they would purchase them, may not actually buy them after all. In addition, consumers often do not wish to spend more money on buying sustainably, even if they have higher expectations towards sustainable products or companies. Further research is therefore needed to explain the gap between consumer awareness and actual purchasing behavior. In several contexts, environmentally friendly consumption, called sustainable consumption, has been explained by the theory of planned behavior (TPB), such as when buying food or apparel. Sustainable consumption often results from planned decisions rather than hedonic reasons.

EKSPEKTASI DAN TINGKAT KEPUASAN PRAJA TERHADAP KUALITAS PELAYANAN LEMBAGA PENDIDIKAN DI IPDN KAMPUS SULAWESI UTARA

This journal entitled “Expectation and Level of Satisfaction of Teachers on Quality of Services Educational Institutions at IPDN of North Sulawesi Campus” aims to know how the level of satisfaction of praja to Quality of Services Educational Institutions in IPDN Kampus Sulut in terms of reliability (Reability), Responsiveness, Assurance, (Emphaty), and Tangibles (Tangibles), to find out whether there is a difference between expectations and perceptions of the quality of services educational institutions in IPDN Kampus Sulut in terms of EDUQUAL instruments and to know how to improve the satisfaction of Praja on the quality of services educational institutions in IPDN North Sulawesi Campus. IPDN North Sulawesi Campus is one of the local campus that currently educates 322 people of praja, in order to produce a quality and ready-made praja required the commitment and effort in the implementation of all campus activities, especially in providing quality services for praja. The findings of this study conclude that partially and simultaneously dimensions of service quality reability, responsiveness, assurance, emphaty and tangibles provided by IPDN Educational Institution in North Sulawesi Campus have a positive and significant effect. This research also findings that IPDN Educational Institution in North Sulawesi Campus has not fully satisfy Praja, because consumer expectation value is still higher than service given. There needs to be a strategy to increase the satisfaction of the services according to the priority of the services needed. Keywords: EDUQUAL instrument, commitment

What Are the Client, Organisational and Employee-Related Outcomes of High Quality Leadership in the Allied Health Professions? A scoping review.

Background: Leadership is viewed as the panacea the complex problems in modern health care where chronic disease, contracting budgets and rising consumer expectation are challenging care provision. As the second largest workforce in Australia, Allied Health Professionals (AHP) are core contributors to health teams however they are largely absent from leadership positions and there is little evidence of their impact on client outcomes. Aim: A scoping review was carried out to synthesise evidence on the client, organisational and employee-related outcomes of high quality leadership in Allied Health. Method: A search of grey literature, peer and non-peer reviewed literature was undertaken using Embase, Emcare, SCOPUS and Psychinfo from 2010-2017. Data were sourced from journals, government reports, conference presentations and other grey literature. The reference list of key articles were hand searched for relevant research. Results: A total of 5880 articles were identified and after screening 35 articles were included for in depth review. Leadership contributed towards positive outcomes in all three domains and had influence across professional groups and services. Leaders are highly valued and respected by their teams. Allied Health leaders did not feature in any of the articles and AHP were the focus of only seven studies. The majority of articles were conference papers or case reviews that provided little robust data making it difficult to draw substantive conclusions on the outcome of AHP leadership. Conclusion: There was a lack of robust data specific to AHP leaders. Future research should attempt to gather evidence of the outcomes of AHP leadership through qualitative and quantitative means to substantiate the anecdotal evidence for high quality AHP leaders.