Within the realm of applications, a relatively new payment form has emerged: called Microtransactions. These small one-time payments (less than 10 Euros) offer an addendum to an existing app, service, or game. Microtransactions have generated a revenue stream largely due to the tech savvy segment of young adults aged 18 to 24, but there hasn’t been significant research from an academic perspective which sheds light on this trend. This issue prompted the research question: Which quantifiable elements of a Microtransaction contribute to a university student’s purchase decision? The phenomenon of Microtransactions has not previously been studied under traditional theories of consumer behavior, which is what the scope of this research provided. The consumer behavior theories selected include: Ego Depletion Theory, Extended Self, and Perceived Value Theory. The selected methodology was a quantitative survey and content analysis. The data collected partially supported Perceived Value Theory, but was unable to validate Ego Depletion and Extended Self as significant influences on purchasing behaviors of Microtransactions among university students. Although the theories were unable to support all our hypotheses, we still concluded with two major findings. First, pricing and functionality are the primary elements of a Microtransaction which university students will consider before purchasing. Second, the Perceived Value Theory’s consumption values of Emotion and Finance are, indeed, consumption values shared among university students.

Background: The e-commerce market has developed and it has become the new marketplace for current manufacturing and service industries. Customers’ behavior on the e-commerce market are changing with this Internet development and the competition is increasing. Customer’s purchase intention on the e-commerce market emerges when the customer compare brands and products in order to decide whether to purchase or not. Achieving e-loyalty is important for e-retailers to be profitable in the long run, which is defined as the customers’ positive attitude towards an e-retailer and results in repeat purchases. The primary antecedents of e-loyalty are e-trust, e-satisfaction and perceived value. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explain how e-trust, e-satisfaction and perceived value impacts customers intentions to purchase from e-retailer(s). Methodology: This thesis had a quantitative research method and a deductive approach with an explanatory purpose. The research design was cross-sectional. An online questionnaire was used as the data collection method, which gathered 212 answers that passed the qualification question through convenience and snowball sampling. Reliability testing, validity testing and significance testing were used to test the data. A multilinear regression was used to test the hypothesis and analyse the results further. Findings: The original model of this thesis was tested and found insignificant. A new model was tested and found significant. 4,6 % of customers’ purchase intention could be explained to impact e-satisfaction. E-trust was found insignificant and had a negative impact on customers’ purchase intentions. Perceived value had a negative impact on the f-value and was therefore taken out of the regression analysis. Conclusion: The thesis contributes with a new conceptual model for the rejected hypothesis of e-trust impact on purchase intentions and the accepted hypothesis of e-satisfactions impact on purchase intentions. There are managerial implications of this study of how they should focus on e-satisfaction in their business practices, as well putting less focus on e-trust.

Alors que la littérature suggère qu’une entreprise socialement responsable atteint une meilleure performance financière (Margolis et Walsh, 2003), la recherche en marketing n’a pas abouti à un consensus concernant cette relation vertueuse du point de vue du consommateur (Chernev et Blair, 2015). Du fait de l’existence de facteurs de contingence, une entreprise responsable ne serait pas forcément le gage de meilleures offres aux yeux des consommateurs. Cette recherche intègre le mode de gouvernance perçu de l’entreprise comme nouveau facteur de contingence, en distinguant des entreprises capitalistiques et des entreprises coopératives. Une première étude met en avant le rôle modérateur de la gouvernance sur l’attitude implicite des consommateurs en matière de responsabilité sociale de l’entreprise –RSE– et de performance de l’offre : les entreprises coopératives (versus capitalistiques) sont moins (versus plus) associées au fait d’être non socialement responsables et moins (versus plus) associées au fait d’être performantes. Les études 2 (étude qualitative) et 3 (expérimentation) évaluent l’impact de la gouvernance sur l’efficacité des arguments de communication relatifs à la RSE ou à la performance. L’intention d’achat des consommateurs est plus forte lorsqu’un argument de communication RSE est utilisé par une entreprise coopérative comparativement à une entreprise capitalistique. / While the literature suggests that a socially responsible organization achieves better financial performance (Margolis and Walsh, 2003), marketing research has not reached consensus on this virtuous relationship from a consumer perspective (Chernev and Blair, 2015). Due to contingency factors, a socially responsible organization would not necessarily be perceived by consumers as a guarantee to better offerings. This research integrates the organization’s perceived mode of governance as a new contingency factor, distinguishing between stock firms and cooperatives. A first study highlights the moderating role of governance on the implicit attitudes of consumers in terms of corporate social responsibility –CSR– and performance of the offering: cooperatives (versus stock firms) are less (versus more) associated with not being socially responsible and less (versus more) associated with being efficient. Studies 2 (qualitative approach) and 3 (experimental design) evaluate the impact of governance on the effectiveness of CSR-related or performance-related marketing communication arguments. The buying intention of consumers is stronger when a CSR-related marketing communication argument is used by a cooperative as opposed to a stock firm.

O luxo é um setor que tem cada vez mais despertado o interesse de acadêmicos e profissionais de marketing, não só pela importância econômica que representa para alguns países, mas também pela sua tendência de crescimento em mercados emergentes, favorecida pelo aumento da renda disponível e do tamanho da clientela potencial. Especificamente no Brasil, o mercado do luxo tem experimentado um incremento anual significativo e superior ao da economia como um todo. A gestão das empresas atuantes nesse mercado apresenta desafios de particular interesse para os estudiosos e praticantes do marketing, pois os produtos luxuosos possuem elevado grau de valores intangíveis, subjetivos e sociais agregados, que são determinantes para a formação de sua demanda e de uma parcela considerável do preço final. O cenário de crescente competição e internacionalização exige processos gerenciais cada vez mais orientados para o mercado, nos quais análises da concorrência e do perfil dos consumidores são formas de gerar um maior valor percebido pelo cliente. Não obstante, criar e entregar esse valor exige uma clara compreensão de sua natureza e dimensões. Nesse contexto, este trabalho teve por objetivo propor e testar um modelo conceitual integrador para o Valor Percebido pelo Cliente dos produtos de luxo, buscando ampliar o corpo teórico sobre o constructo e fundamentar o desenvolvimento de estratégias de marketing. A partir da análise crítica de modelos propostos por diferentes autores, de reflexões teóricas sobre o conceito do luxo, e com base na opinião de consumidores do setor, foram desenvolvidos o modelo teórico e seus respectivos itens de mensuração, testados e refinados pela técnica de modelagem de equações estruturais PLS-SEM em termos de sua confiabilidade e validade. Os resultados mostraram haver um impacto considerável das duas dimensões dos sacrifícios percebidos (não monetários e monetários) sobre o valor percebido total dos produtos prestigiosos, bem como efeitos menores, porém significativos, das dimensões dos benefícios psicológicos, sociais e intangíveis. Os benefícios tangíveis também demonstraram impacto sobre o valor percebido final, porém em menor grau. Tais resultados contribuem para a ampliação do corpo teórico de marketing sobre esse tema, ao propor e validar um modelo mais abrangente que integra os existentes e, ao mesmo tempo, preenche lacunas observadas. Em termos gerenciais, o conhecimento dos aspectos mais relevantes da percepção dos consumidores sobre o valor entregue pelos bens luxuosos é fundamental para gerenciar as marcas, direcionar os esforços de comunicação de marketing e desenvolver estratégias de mercado eficazes, levando em conta as diferentes dimensões de benefícios e sacrifícios propostos pelo estudo. / The luxury industry has been raising greater interest among marketing scholars and professionals, not only due to its economic relevance in some countries, but also because of its growth trend in emerging markets, spurred by increases in disposable income and a greater diversity of its target audiences. Specifically in Brazil, the luxury market has experienced significant annual growth rates, well above those of the total economy. The management of luxury companies presents challenges that are particularly interesting for marketing scholars and practitioners, as prestige products possess high levels of intangible, subjective and social added value, which are determinant for their demand and final price formation. In the present scenario, where growing competition and internationalization demand increasingly market-oriented managerial processes, competition and consumer behavior analysis is a necessary tool to create higher customer perceived value. Nevertheless, creating and delivering value demands a clear understanding of its nature and dimensions. Thus the purpose of this study: to propose and test an integrative conceptual framework for luxury products Customer Perceived Value, aiming to increase the construct\'s theoretical understanding and to serve as a basis for developing marketing strategies. Building upon a critical analysis of models proposed by various authors, the theory on the luxury concept, and luxury consumers\' opinions, the conceptual model and its measurement items were developed, tested and refined in terms of validity and reliability through the structural equation modeling technique PLS-SEM. The findings revealed a considerable impact of the two perceived sacrifice dimensions (non-monetary and monetary) on luxury products total perceived value, as well as smaller, though significant, effects of the psychological, social and intangible benefits dimensions. Tangible benefits have also shown an impact on the final perceived value, but to a lesser extent. Those findings contribute to the marketing theory on the subject by proposing and validating a more comprehensive framework that synthetizes preexisting ones and, at the same time, fills out gaps found in the literature. In terms of managerial practice, a better understanding of the most relevant aspects of luxury customer perceived value is vital for brand management, marketing communications and the development of effective marketing strategies that build upon the various benefit and sacrifice dimensions proposed in this study.

In a more digitalized world the paper industry has struggled to deliver customer value and stay relevant when the digital media has started to emerge. This problem has especially happened to newspaper which has seen a decline in Sweden with over 20% the last decade. Paper mills has also started to destroy shareholder value as many mills only work with offering customers low prices and tries to outlive their competitors. This has led to the following research objective of this study:  To examine the importance of end customer value in paper industry for developing market shares in the digital era. This study has been an exploratory and descriptive study with a qualitative data collection. The data has been to one part been collected through a market survey that has asked end-users how they perceive price and quality when comparing two different types of paper. Also interviews with one paper producer and two printing companies have been done to cover the professional aspect of customer value for the paper industry.  It has been clearly shown in this study that customers and companies inside the paper industry are agreeing in which customer values being most important, quality and price. The importance of being innovative was also stated by interviewed printing companies and the paper producer. The market survey was a good example of how innovation, from a paper producer, related to important customer values – perceived quality and perceived price – can create a potentially higher market share and profitability, instead of just lowering their prices and try to outlive their competitors.  The study has also contributed to see that companies inside the paper industry are conscious that they face tough competition from a more digitalized world. Even though the companies know that they face competition from the digital media the companies have a good understanding of which products they can continue to compete with and which products that digital media has the upper hand on.

沒有中文摘要 Abstract List of Tables List of Figures Chapter Ⅰ Introduction 1 Section 1. Research Background and Motivation 1 Section 2. Research Questions 5 Section 3. Thesis Structure 7 Chapter Ⅱ Literature Review 8 Section 1. Customer Satisfaction 8 Section 2. Customer Expectation 13 Section 3. Customer Perceived Quality/Performance 15 Section 4. Customer Perceived Value 16 Section 5. Importance of Customer Satisfaction 17 Section 6. Measurements of Customer Satisfaction 19 CSI Model 19 SERVQUAL 21 Other Measurements of Customer Satisfaction 23 Chapter Ⅲ Research Hypotheses and Methodology 25 Section 1. Research Hypotheses 25 1.1 Research Model 25 1.2 Research Hypotheses 26 1.3 Research Variables 27 Section 2. LISREL Model 31 2.1 Introduction of LISREL 31 2.2 Structural Equation Model and Measurement Model 33 Section 3. Research Design 42 3.1 Research Target and Sampling 42 3.2 Questionnaire Design 42 Section 4. Comparison of Questionnaires 44 4.1 Design of Sales Questionnaire 44 4.2 Data Analysis of Sales Questionnaire 45 4.3 Design of Service Questionnaire 46 4.4 Data Analysis of Sales Questionnaire 47 4.5 Comparison of Lexus and CSI Questionnaires 47 Section 5. Limitations of Research 49 Chapter Ⅳ Data Analysis and Results 50 Section 1. Data Handling 50 1.1 Handling of Sample 50 1.2 Handling of Customer Loyalty Data 50 1.3 Handling of Customer Complaints Data 51 1.4 Handling of Perceived Value Data 51 Section 2. Analyzed Result 53 2.1 Model Estimation 53 2.2. Squared Multiple Correlation 55 2.3 Parameter Estimation 56 Section 3. Hypotheses Test 60 Section 4. Meaning of Data Result 65 Section 5. Summary of Customer Opinions 67 Chapter Ⅴ Conclusion and Recommendations 69 Section 1. Research Conclusion 69 Section 2. Recent Customer Service Effort of Lexus 72 Section 3. Recommendations 74 List of References 76 List of Appendices 79 Appendix 1. CSI Lexus Questionnaire (English) 79 Appendix 2. CSI Lexus Questionnaire (Chinese) 84 Appendix 3. Lexus Original Sales Questionnaire (English) 88 Appendix 4. Lexus Original Sales Questionnaire (Chinese) 93 Appendix 5. Lexus Original Service Questionnaire (English) 97 Appendix 6. Lexus Original Service Questionnaire (Chinese) 102 Appendix 7. Samples of Lexus Questionnaire Data Analysis Result 106 / As the numbers of manufacturers and providers strive to out-do each other, Taiwan is increasingly becoming a competitive market. As the market becomes competitive, traditional norm was for firms to compete on the basis of price. However, firms are realizing that competing on price does not only decrease their profit margins, but it is also very costly to continuously acquire new customers. Therefore, various firms have started to attach more and more importance on improving customer satisfaction to retain current customers. Lexus is one of those firms, which is striving to increase customer satisfaction level as a way to compete in a very competitive market in Taiwan. With the precious chance to cooperate with Taiwan Lexus, the main purpose of this research is to explore the Taiwanese Lexus system of customer satisfaction by understanding the Customer Satisfaction Index model introduced by Fornell et al. in 1996. From the research result by employing LISREL model, it was found that for Taiwanese Lexus owners, perceived quality is the only variable directly and positively influencing overall customer satisfaction, although through perceived quality, customer expectation indirectly influences overall customer satisfaction. Further, unlike CSI model, perceived value does not exist as one of the antecedents of overall customer satisfaction. Another important founding was that customer complaints have positive influence on customer loyalty. In the final section, based on the research results of LISREL model, some recommendations are offered. Mainly, improve perceived quality, for it is the most effective way of increasing the level of customer satisfaction. In addition, based on the findings from the customer opinion section of the questionnaire, improve the product quality of Lexus’ GS model, lower the costs of repair and parts, improve service reliability, attitude of service personnel, and quality of maintenance and repair. Finally, from the discussion with Taiwan Lexus, it was revealed that the importance of customer satisfaction and its concept are not fully accepted by the Lexus dealers. Therefore, along with the effort of improving customer satisfaction of Lexus owners, educating and getting consensus of the dealers are very important for the success of customer service system at Taiwan Lexus.

Customer loyalty is an important issue for the success and sustainability of an online business. Moreover, the concept of affiliate marketing online business has become well-known among online shoppers in the past several years. Nevertheless, there is little research investigating customer loyalty towards affiliate marketing websites, especially in China, where this kind of websites are known as ‘cash-back website’. Therefore, this research investigates customer loyalty towards cash-back websites (51fanli.com as the leading cash-back website) in the China market. Based on previous studies and interview, this research applies six factors (cash-back promotion, price comparison service, WOM in social community, quality web design, privacy and security, trust) as core and supplementary services which influence customer perspective in loyalty. This study aims to find out which factors in cash-back websites can influence customer loyalty in the China online market. In this research, questionnaires are sent to cash-back website users to collect quantitative data. A statistical analysis is used to verify the nine hypotheses to analyze the collected data. The result points to five factors in both core and supplementary services that support customer perspective towards loyalty, while only ‘WOM in social community’ has no correlation with Chinese customer perspective towards loyalty. After comparing the results of the two groups of customers, those used 51fanli.com and those who did not use 51fanli.com, the research discover that customers who used 51fanli.com have stronger opinions on ‘privacy and security’ factor. Customer perceived value has significant positive relations to customer satisfaction that may influence customer loyalty. Furthermore, managing the loyalty programme in order to maintain high switching cost is only applicable to customers who have high satisfaction towards the website. Finally, some managerial implications suggested cash-back websites to adapt unique strategies to gain more customers and cautiously use switching cost. Maintaining a good reputation on privacy and security is another key success factor of cash-back websites in China market.

The essence of the getting popular online group-buying activities in the Internet age is that the price of products depends on the quantity of orders. The more the orders are gathered, the lower prices we can get. In addition, the price is always a major concern of consumers in shopping. Thus, the accumulated number of orders is of concern to the initiator and all consumers. In the past, some scholars also found the phenomenon of demand externalities. It indicates that the larger the existing orders are, the more consumers will join the group-buying. On the contrary, it is not easy to attract consumers to join the group-buying. So, if the number of orders increases fast and therefore generates the effect of demand externalities, the performance of group-buying will be improved. Therefore, this research, based the concept of free-options price promotion, explored if the quantity-based price promotion will affect the consumers¡¦ perceived value and intention to join the group-buying. Besides, the research also explored if the product preservation will moderate the effect of quantity-based price promotion on the consumers¡¦ perceived value. In this research, the quantity-based price promotion was manipulated as ¡§Buy five and get one free¡¨ in the experiment. A field experiment was done on NeGoGo group-buying website first. Then, based on the observation of the field experiment, an online experiment was designed and implemented. The result found that consumers have greater perceived value on price and emotion in a group-buying with quantity-based price promotion, but there is no interference effect of product preservation. Furthermore, when consumers have greater perceived value on price and emotion, their intention to join group-buying will be higher. Finally, compared to a group-buying with no price promotion, the average consumers¡¦ purchased quantity of group-buying with quantity-based price promotion is significantly higher. In other words, the quantity-based price promotion can improve the performance of group-buying transaction.

Previous studies have indicated that the creation of outstanding consumer value was for spa hotels to achieve sustainable financial and market success. In this study we identified the key factors that affected consumers¡¦ behavior or purchasing decisions, and the process how consumers chose a particular hotel for spa service, which was appropriate for themselves under such intensely competition among spa hotels in Taiwan. The study aims to assess a relational perspective on the value perception relationships, and to examine the main effects and the processes linking perceived value, its antecedents and willingness to buy in Taiwan spa hotel industry. The economical deduction was adopted to provide the constructs positioning and adequate rationality of the conceptual model. The analysis of Pearson correlation indicated that the recent downsizing economy might be the source that affected the attitude of ¡§leisure service consumption¡¨ in more conservative way because of the weakly significant relationship between perceived value and willingness-to-buy. The hierarchical multiple regression (HMR) was used to assess the main effects and the processes. The HMR analyses revealed that customers separately considered perceived quality and perceived price, the immediate situational factors of benefits and sacrifices, particularly when purchasing a spa service product, which will lead to changes in behavior. Perceived quality totally mediated the price-value relationship, and perceived value partially mediated the quality-willingness and price-willingness relationship. Sex and living location moderated the quality-value relationship. Marriage status and consumptive times moderated the value-willingness relationship. The finding indicated that the perception of customer value was very much dependent upon quality and much less dependent upon risk and price in Taiwan spa hotel industry; management and advertising objective should focus on increasing customer value by improving the customer perceptions of overall product and service quality. The moderation of demographic variables provides managers directions to offer proper packages to potential customers.

¡@¡@In recent years, Taiwan's industries actively seeking industrial restructuring in the way of increasing added value to products. That makes many convenience goods brands appeared on the market, but consumer-related studies is scanty; and theoretical studies have indicated that a product¡¦s image will affect the brand image. However, in domestic empirical research, the studies are primarily focus on product image and brand image, and consistency between brand image and product form, and seldom discuss the topic of the product design can enhance brand image. According to the background and motivation, the proposition of this study are as follows¡G (1) Understand the association of product image and brand image. (2) Using demographic variables as moderators to explore how the brand image and product prices affect the perceived value. (3) Analyzing relationships between customers¡¦ perceived value and purchase intention. In this study, product design and product prices are independent variables. First, uses the 24 groups of opposing adjectives that Ming-Chuen Chuang and Ching-Hang Kao (1997) sorted out to do semantic differential analysis on four brands of products to measure the respondents¡¦ feeling toward product form, color, texture, feel, and function. And then, discussing the relationship among product image, brand image, perceived value and purchase intention. The conclusions are summarized as follows¡G (1) Different product design has different effects on brand image. (2) The brand image and product price has a significant impact on the perceived value. (3) Some demographic variables have a moderating effect on brand products. (4) Perceived value has a significant effect on purchase intention. Keywords¡Gconvenience goods, product design, product image, brand image, perceived value, purchase intention