Purpose – The purpose of this research was to explain the determiners that influence customer loyalty in rural grocery stores with a comparison of Sweden and Spain. Design/methodology/approach – This is a quantitative research using a multi-cross sectional design with an explanatory approach. The data was collected with a questionnaire survey that was distributed using a face-to-face and online method. Findings – The findings of the research revealed significant support for customer perceived value, satisfaction, trust and commitment to influence customer loyalty. The research also confirms that there are differences in customer loyalty regarding rural grocery stores between Sweden and Spain. Research limitations/implications – This thesis extend previous research by testing an adapted conceptual model of customer loyalty in a context of rural grocery stores and explain the determiners of customer loyalty in Sweden and Spain. The limitations of the research are discussed and directions for future research areas are suggested. Practical implications – The study provides rural retailers with suggestions for marketing strategies related to the determiners (i.e. customer perceived value, satisfaction, trust and commitment) that might influence customer loyalty and attract the rural customers. Originality/value – This research adds to the current stream of rural research by investigating how customer loyalty can enhance profitability. This research has originality since it makes a comparison of two countries, which can be of great interest and inspiration for how to maintain and develop rural grocery stores. Lastly, the research is significant as it provides implications to rural retailers as well as Provincial Governments.

During recent years corporations have been focusing on revenues rather than profits. This led to decreased margins and unstable financial performances. To increase profits, new pricing strategies have emerged. One promising pricing strategy that focuses on increasing profits is value-based pricing, which constitutes the monetising of customer perceived value. The purpose of this paper is to identify what factors influence customer perceived value in the global high-tech service industry. With this knowledge corporations can draw precise evaluations of customer perceived value and hence utilise value-based pricing in the best possible way. A qualitative method was used to study the case of MB Services, the service division of the Meyer Burger Technology Group, and the global high-tech service industry represented at the Hannovermesse 2011, an industrial exhibition in Hanover, Germany. The empirical data collected was analysed together with the theoretical framework. The findings are that customer perceived value of high-tech services is influenced by the overall benefits the customer can obtain from the service, the sacrifices in terms of costs the customer has to pay for the service, competitors’ offerings, different segments, subjective judgments of distinctive people within a corporation, and the industries’ and customers’ level of maturity. Customer perceived value is an underresearched subject, which requires further investigation.

Abstract Nowadays¡Mclinics are facing much heavier pressure than ever before¡O While under the National Health Insurance Program¡Mclinics are also faced with a dramatic increase in rivalry and a steep decline in outpatient population¡F how to obtain a competitive advantage has become the priority of each clinic¡O This study adopted literature reviews which focus on Relationship Quality¡]Trust¡BCommitment¡BSatisfaction¡^¡BPerceived Value and Customer Retention¡Mwhich employed to evaluate the empirical data collected from the 199 valid questionnaire samples¡O¡§Considerate toward patients¡¨¡B ¡§Patient satisfaction¡¨¡B ¡§Service quality¡¨¡B ¡§Cost effectiveness¡¨¡B¡§Medical service¡¨and ¡§Basic living¡¨are motives elicited from the data¡Mand analyzed by using principal component analysis¡Mvalidity analysis and reliability analysis¡O The results are as follows¡O ¡§Considerate toward patients¡¨ motivation has an obvious positive effect on the females¡O The education levels of outpatients has a correlation with ¡§Considerate toward patients¡¨ and ¡§Patient satisfaction¡¨ where the motivation constructs become stronger¡O In addition¡M¡§Considerate toward patients¡¨ and ¡§Medical service¡¨ motivations are correlated with the young adults¡O With the multivariate demographic data for reference¡Msustainable actions can be incorporated into the strategy management process for community clinics¡O The clinics can then possess key success factors from mastering outpatient preferences and clinic traits. Keywords¡G Perceived Value¡MRelationship Quality¡]Trust¡BCommitment¡BSatisfaction¡^¡M Customer Retention

As health care services get more competitive, the health care practitioners and academic researchers are increasingly interested in exploring how patients perceive their care quality and value, form their satisfaction levels and generate their behavioral intentions. Outpatient services provide an alternate setting for patients to have initial contact with health care providers. Besides, two-thirds of Taiwan¡¦s total NHI expenditure is spent on outpatient services. Thus, it is of great significance to note outpatients¡¦ perceptions of health care services. Drawing from marketing literature, perceived value can be viewed as the consequence of service quality and as the antecedent role of satisfaction and behavioral intentions. This study conducted empirical test an integrative model of customers¡¦ perceptions of outpatient services based on the established relationships among four key constructs (service quality, perceived value, satisfaction and behavioral intentions). First, this study conducted focus group discussion to identify the factors of quality of outpatient services as follows: (1) the personal interaction between medical staff and patients, (2) the assurance from medical staff, (3) the speed of timely access to a service, and (4) tangible aspect. Later, structural equation model was used to examine the research model which addresses the hypothesized relationships among the four constructs of interest in the health care industry. The main findings are summarized as follows: (1) perceive value had a greater direct influence on behavioral intentions than did service quality and patient satisfaction; (2) service quality had both an indirect effect (through perceived value and satisfaction) and a direct influence on behavioral intentions; and (3) both service quality and value are antecedents of patient satisfaction; the most important determinant of patient satisfaction is quality of health care. Finally, this dissertation ends with a discussion of the results and implications for the managerial practices, followed by suggestions for future research.

Enterprise 2.0 has become popular in firms. Many Enterprise 2.0 researchers and practitioners have recognized the importance of benefits and costs in using Enterprise 2.0 by individuals. However, their effects on adoption intention in enterprise contexts are not discussed. To investigate this issue, we proposed a model to understand the intention to adopt Enterprise 2.0. Three factors are identified based on value-based adoption model (VAM), namely perceived benefits, perceived costs, and perceived value. An empirical survey was conducted to collect data. 500 samples were collected within 18 days. Of which 150 was valid. This yielded a response rate of 30%. Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used to analyze the data and verify the model. The result showed that perceived value not only played an important role in mediating the relationship between perceived benefits and costs, and adoption intention but it also exerted a significant effect on intention to adopt Enterprise 2.0. Moreover, we identified major factors that may affect perceived value. We find that both perceived benefits and perceived costs have significant impacts on perceived value, and cause intention to adopt Enterprise 2.0. Implications of such finding are discussed.

This thesis aims at studying customer perceived value in language test training industry through an empirical research on four dominate IELTS training institutes in China. Customer questionnaires are used to get customers’ preferences about language test training service, as well as their perceived value of each institute. Based on that, a measurement of each institute’s performance according to the customer preferences is conducted. After analysis, the strength and weakness of each institute is clearly showed, followed by relative explanations and suggestions for their weaknesses.

Whether they are renting a neighbor’s used tools, using a bike sharing program to get to work rather than owning a car, or streaming a movie online through Netflix, consumers are forgoing traditional ownership of goods in favor of gaining mere access to them. This behavior reflects a change in the way consumers view possession and ownership. While it is known that consumers become attached to possessions and that possessions mean a great deal to the identities and lives of consumers, it is unclear how consumers feel about goods which they can possess and use but do not own. Specifically, it is unknown whether consumers perceive and become attached to accessed goods in the same way they do owned goods. The answer to this question has strong implications for marketing theory and practice. This study found no significant difference in the perceived value of the good or the perceived value of the possession experience between owned and accessed goods. However, psychological feelings of ownership were found to affect these measures both directly and as a mediating factor between the method of possession and the perceptions of value. This relationship was not found to behave in the same way for both hedonic and utilitarian goods. Utilitarian goods appeared to benefit slightly more than hedonic goods from feelings of ownership. This research has strong implications for theory, including the development of a new conceptual model that ties together disparate research areas, the lack of differences in ownership effects between owned and accessed goods, and the important role played by psychological ownership in shaping consumer perceptions. This research also has strong implications for managers relating to consumer perceptions of owned vs. accessed goods, the importance of generating feelings of psychological ownership within customers, and the differential effect this process has on the perception of utilitarian products.

O shopping center ainda é, sem dúvida nenhuma, um local atraente para os clientes realizarem suas compras. O mix de lojas presentes neste modal varejista, responsável pela oferta de serviços como estacionamento, entretenimento, alimentação, além de uma gama interminável de todo tipo de mercadoria que se possa imaginar, é o responsável por atrair, todos os dias, milhares de clientes para seu interior. Não obstante todas essas facilidades, os lojistas de shopping centers estão enfrentando uma forte concorrência de outros modais varejistas como as vendas diretas (por meio de demonstradores), as compras eletrônicas; a venda automática (por meio das máquinas de venda) e os serviços de compras (varejo sem loja que atende a clientes específicos). Em função disso, este trabalho propôs-se a discutir como as lojas poderiam atrair uma maior atenção de seus clientes por intermédio do valor percebido por eles. Este valor, sob a perspectiva do benefício, deriva da avaliação global do cliente quanto às vantagens que ele ganha ao ponderar os benefícios e os sacrifícios percebidos quando adquire produtos. Tais sacrifícios podem ser de ordem não monetária (custos de transação, pesquisa, negociação, tempo incorrido na aquisição do produto etc.). Também se estudou o impacto deste valor na fidelização do cliente a certa loja. Após extensa consulta bibliográfica sobre os conceitos apresentados, adotou-se a metodologia do Discurso do Sujeito Coletivo (DSC) para se analisar os resultados obtidos na coleta dos dados por meio de entrevista com clientes fiéis de lojas situadas em shoppings. O DSC apoia-se na teoria da representação social, de Jodelet, segundo a qual grupos sociais específicos compartilham ideias e valores comuns em um dado momento. Ele busca, portanto, estabelecer um caminho sistemático para descobrir estas representações sociais destes grupos específicos no que tange aos temas propostos. Os resultados apresentados revelaram que o ambiente da loja e sua imagem influenciaram, muito positivamente, a percepção dos clientes como atributos importantes para se gerar valor percebido, enquanto o prestígio e o local onde a loja está situada dentro do shopping foram avaliados por eles como características medianamente influenciadoras neste sentido. Além disso, verificou-se que o valor percebido pelo cliente influencia, positivamente, em sua decisão de se tornar fiel a determinada loja. No final, foram lembradas ações de marketing que poderiam ser desenvolvidas pelos gestores de loja a fim de alavancarem o valor de loja percebido pelo cliente, na perspectiva dos benefícios, vital à sua fidelização. / The shopping mall is also, undoubtedly, an attractive location for customers to conduct their purchases. The mix of shops present in this retailer modal, responsible for the provision of services such as parking, entertainment, food, and an endless array of all kinds of unimaginable merchandises, is responsible for attracting, every day, thousands of customers to inside the mall. Despite all these easinesses, shopping center tenants are facing strong competition from other retailers modal as direct sales (through demonstrators), electronic shopping; automatic sale (through vending machines) and shopping services (retail without store that caters to specific customers). As a result, this study aimed to discuss how the stores could attract more attention of their customers through the non-monetary value perceived by them. This value, from the perspective of benefits, derives from the overall assessment of the client as to the advantages that he gets to weigh the benefits and perceived sacrifices when he purchase products. Such sacrifices may be non-monetary order (transaction costs, search, negotiation, time incurred in acquiring the product etc.). This Thesis also studied the impact of this value in the loyalty of the customer towards the certain store. After extensive bibliographical research on the concepts presented, we adopted the Collective Subject Discourse methodology (CSD) to analyze the results obtained in data collection through interviews with loyal customers of stores located in malls. The CSD is based on the theory of social representation, from Jodelet, according to which specific social groups share common ideas and values at a given time. It seeks therefore to establish a systematic way to discover these social representations of these specific groups regarding the proposed themes. The presented results show that the store environment and its image influenced very positively the perception of the customer as important attributes to generate non-monetary perceived value, while the prestige and the place where the store is located inside the mall were evaluated by them as moderately influential features in this regard. In addition, it was found that the non-monetary perceived value by the customer influences positively in his decision to become loyal to a particular store. In the end, marketing actions were reminded that could be carried out by store managers to promote the non-monetary perceived value by the customers, vital to their loyalty

Multiple facets of perceived value perceptions drive loyalty intentions. However, this value-loyalty link is not uniform for all customers. In fact, the present study identifies three different segments that are internally consistent and stable across different service industries, using two data sets: the wireless telecommunication industry (sample size 1,122) and the financial services industry (sample size 982). Comparing the results of a single-class solution with finite mixture results confirms the existence of unobserved customer segments. The three segments found are characterized as "rationalists", "functionalists" and "value maximizers". These results point the way for value-based segmentation in loyalty initiatives and reflect the importance of a multidimensional conceptualization of perceived value, comprising cognitive and affective components. The present results substantiate the fact that assuming a homogeneous value-loyalty link provides a misleading view of the market. The paper derives implications for marketing research and practice in terms of segmentation, positioning, loyalty programs and strategic alliances. (authors' abstract)

Abstract A high level of customer perceived value is the key to customer loyalty and to the profitability of customers and companies. It is not enough to meet the customer's needs in order to win customer loyalty. Instead the aim for companies should be to try to delight customers. Customers are delighted when they feel that the product or service not only fulfils their needs and expectations, but also gives them unexpected additional value. Value has been studied widely and there are several different models and theories to describe customer perceived value. In the main, they tend to be too general or insufficient or they do not provide a useful guide for management practices. Therefore the aim of this thesis is to generate a theory for consumer perceived value which could be useful for managements trying to develop superior value so as to improve their customer loyalty. Pre-purchase consumer value was examined applying Grounded Theory methodology and by synthesizing the existing research results. The resulting theory from this synthesis consists of three main stages namely, gaining, sacrifice and purchase factors. The gaining stage has three sub elements: substance, reputation and interaction. All these sub-elements have the same four subcategories: emotional, social, functional and economical elements. What is novel about this research is its treatment of customer perceived value firstly, from the perspectives of the companies – based on three functionally different factors: substance, reputation and interaction – and secondly from the perspective of the customers based on the identified subjective outcomes (i.e. emotional, social, functional and economic factors). Based on this approach companies can develop products based on a better understanding of consumer perceived value.