The purpose of the present research is to propose a cognitive process model which exhibits why and how distanced international sports consumers become loyal consumers, namely fans, of a sports team. Distanced sports consumers indicate those who are geographically and socioculturally distanced from their consumption object (sports team) which leads them to be isolated from any local and team influence throughout the consumption experience. The target population of distanced consumers selected for the present study is South Korean football fans who support European football teams. Building on a literature review ranging from relationship marketing to organisational behaviour, and taking into account the unique features of the sports product, industry and consumers, a cognitive process model is constructed and tested applying mixed research methods through three research stages (preliminary interviews, a web-survey and confirmatory interviews). The cognitive process model illustrates the associations between sports consumers consumption motives and their loyal behaviours which are mediated by emotional attachment. Hence, this model illustrates why/how distanced consumers are motivated and evaluate their relationship with the team to become loyal to it. The research model aims to demonstrate: 1) two psychological consumption motives (hedonic experience and communality) that exist as higher-level motives, which contribute to the understanding of the underlying dimensions of distanced consumers' selection of a sports team and supporting behaviours, and provide a conceptual basis for linking consumption goals and consumers' behavioural consequences as loyal consumers; 2) different types of emotional attachment (identification, affective commitment and normative commitment) as mediating mechanisms, which are identified to evaluate their separate role in the process model to predict different types of loyal behaviours (retention and membership behaviour); and 3) increasing levels of knowledge about the team contributes to encouraging identified consumers to affectively commit towards the team regardless of consumers' length of relationship duration. The results show that measuring levels of identification does not directly predict different loyal behaviours while affective commitment is able to predict consumers' membership behaviour and normative commitment can predict consumers intentions to stay in the relationship The findings of the present study explain how distanced international sports consumers develop and strengthen their relationship with sports teams as loyal consumers, and provide an opportunity for marketing practitioners to work on a strategy premise that may be applied across borders while still being tailored, where necessary, to the characteristics of the local market and specific socio-demographic segments. -

For almost half a century, advertising attitudes have been a popular topic of study among researchers in consumer behaviour (Bauer and Greyser, 1968; Petrovici and Marinov, 2007). In parallel with the long history and ever-growing interest in this area, the framework to examine consumers' attitudes towards advertising has also gone through a considerable evolution. The evolution demonstrates how researchers in the field want to look at this phenomenon from a very detailed perspective. However, most of previous studies have not examined advertising attitudes from any specific frame of reference. Therefore, this present study is concerned with how consumers form attitudes towards advertising which are derived from a more specific source of advertising reference. In this study, Malaysia tourism is used as a context in order to (i) examine how tourists respond towards advertising media, particularly the ones that are utilized in promoting Malaysia as a top-of-mind tourism destination i.e. traditional print and television advertising as well as the modern-day internet advertising, and to (ii) exhibit a selection of advertising references exclusively for this study. This study is a quantitative survey based on a sample of 425 respondents, 255 are international tourists (60%) and 170 are local visitors (40%). Data were collected between April and June 2009 in Malaysia. All international tourists who were approached based on quota sampling methods and based on international tourist arrival statistics (2007). Based on extensive and rigorous literature reviewing, instrument design and subsequent pilot testing, the study shows that attitudes towards advertising in specific media (A Media) emerged ii as another important determinant to attitudes towards advertising (AG). Specifically, the results indicated that AG is best explained by the television advertising frame of reference. As a matter of fact, the study arrived at a noteworthy finding that attitude towards television advertising (ATV) acts as the strongest predictor of AG. Additionally, the study has also established the mediating effect of AMedia in the relationship among the tested variables. Other supporting findings especially concerning tourists' responses towards the three advertising media are also presented as well as the limitations of the research, and suggestions for future research endeavours.

This study concerns the role of CRM in enhancing and maintaining fairness in relationships between a firm and its customers. This study has two aims. The first main aim of this research is to understand how customers form perceptions of unfairness of CRM by investigating the influence of CRM offerings on the advantaged and disadvantaged customers in the retailing sector. The second aim is to develop a comprehensive model of perceptions of unfairness in a CRM context and to empirically test the relationships between CRM offerings, relationship stage, inequality comparisons, negative inferences and unfairness feelings. Data collection was conducted in 3 phases using a mixed method approach, including an exploratory-, pilot-, and main study. Several modes of interviews were conducted, including face-to-face, telephone interview and email enquiries. The survey for the main study generated a response rate of 13.75%. The findings from the mam study provided insights for both academics and practitioners. It was found that CRM offerings can be effective in managing perceptions of unfairness. Efforts should be emphasised in preventing inequality comparisons by altering negative inferences into positive inferences. This study further provided significant insight into the implications for marketers in understanding the differential effectiveness of a firm's CRM offerings on the advantaged- (favoured) and disadvantaged (unfavoured) customers. Service and communication concern the advantaged customer more strongly, whilst price issues concern the disadvantaged customer more strongly. Customization and reputation did not exert a statistically significant influence on the two groups and their feelings of unfairness. This study starkly reveals the importance of understanding the role of unfairness in customer relationship management. It allows managers to develop a better grouping of their customers; to identify the group which needs more attention; and, to deploy appropriate action In order to retain those customers and to maintain customer loyalty

Competition between nations increasingly takes place across all the outputs of a nation, including products, tourism, location for foreign direct investment and many more. A favourable national image for outputs to benefit from is a competitive advantage in the international arena because foreign publics tend to use a nation's image to infer the quality of its outputs. They are more receptive to outputs from certain countries and are willing to pay more for them, such as French perfume, Swiss timepieces, Italian design, et cetera. However, a nation's image is often steeped in stereotypes, which mayor may not be true. Therefore, many nations are undertaking branding exercises to enhance their images. It has been suggested by academics and practitioners that a nation brand can be managed like a corporate brand. While there is a great deal of intuitive appeal to the proposition, there is neither theoretical foundation nor empirical data to support it. This thesis attempts to fill this gap in knowledge by looking at whether there is a basis for nation branding. The possible links between a nation's image, the image of its outputs and how they affect consumer behaviour are examined. This thesis proposes that a nation brand can be conceptualised like a corporate brand because there are similarities between the two. The first similarity is that like a corporation with many products, a nation has many outputs. The second similarity is that both a nation brand and a corporate brand face multiple stakeholders. While a nation has citizens, government, foreign publics that consume its different outputs, a corporation has staff, a management team, consumers of its products and so on. Last, and most importantly, the corporate masterbrand vs. product sub-brand architecture is a suitable structure for conceptualising the relationship between the nation's overall image and the image of its output sub-brands. Since there is little in the literature to guide specific hypotheses, four research propositions were formulated to guide the research. Using the 'theory of reasoned action' (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) as a framework, a theoretical model on how the overall image of the UK affects three of its outputs, namely products (for export), tourism and education, was developed and tested. If there are national images that hold true across different outputs and can predict consumers' intention to consume, then they can be used in a nation branding exercise. In order to test the theoretical model, proper measurement scales to measure the constructs are essential. The scale for the overall national image needs to be generic, so that it can straddle across all the outputs of a nation. A Corporate Character Scale by Davies et al. (2004) was adopted for this purpose. Scales for measuring image of the individual outputs were developed specific to the characteristics of the three outputs. Structural equation modelling was used to test the model against data collected from China and India. After re-specification, a parsimonious model, which showed that Chic (prestigious, refined, elegant) and Enterprise (innovative, cool, trendy) were image dimensions that best represented the UK and affected its three outputs of products, tourism and education in the eyes of Chinese and Indian young adults. Analysis and discussions on the findings are furnished, with suggestions for future research.

The manner in which the Internet has transformed services and more especially the banking industry is discussed. The main objective of the research is to develop, test and validate a model that identifies the key factors driving usage of Internet banking. An extensive review of the literature, and exploratory qualitative research helped develop a conceptual model depicting the multiple influencing factors relevant to usage of Internet banking. The critical cornerstone of the research is a large scale electronic survey of Internet banking users. The Web survey was conducted using a non-probability sample of convenience, whereby 964 respondents constituted a final sample that broadly resembled the profile of Internet banking users which is cited frequently in the literature. Although, the branch continues to be the most favoured channel for a number of banking products and services, findings from this research indicate that the majority of respondents are willing to consider buying a wider range of banking products and services online in the future (e. g. current account, personal/car loan, and investment/savings), but also that the majority would definitely not buy more complex products (i. e. mortgage, life and pension) online in the future. The research has identified a number of significant demographic differences with respect to Internet banking. Also, people who have been using Internet banking for longer are more likely to use the services of more than one Internet banking provider. A number of variables showed large average estimated differences in the population groups when tested against the constructs. Most of the constructs are positively related to each other and there is a particularly strong positive relationship between Usefulness and Attitude to Internet banking. The results indicate a weak relationship between Usage and Satisfaction; and between Usage and Intentions. Control and Fun/Enjoyment are two significant predictors of Internet banking Usage, and Demographic are relatively weak in predicting Usage. A number of items were identified as strongly encouraging Usage. A revised conceptual model depicting Internet banking Usage is presented. CHAID analysis results suggest that many of the construct, behavioural, and demographic factors included in the revised model can be used to distinguish between high and low users of Internet banking.

This study examines market orientation and service quality constructs within the public sector sport and recreation providers in the U.K. A preliminary review of the literature regarding marketing as a concept, its implementation and the constructs of service quality concludes that two models measure the constructs of market orientation and service quality adequately. These are the Kohli and Jaworski (1990) market orientation model and the Cronin and Taylor (1992; 1994) service quality measure. The market orientation model has been effectively linked to performance in other studies. Related studies concerning marketing in this sector have either concentrated upon generic issues, or attempts to measure service quality, but not the implementation of the marketing concept i.e. market orientation, simultaneously combined with the measurement of service quality. This research thus attempts to ful a void in knowledge by examining the market orientation and service quality constructs, and the link to organisational performance measured directly by income, expenditure and attendance for this service sector. This is in order to make a contribution to the more effective marketing and service quality management practice for this service industry. Employing a combined research design this study investigates the dimensional structures of the two constructs and the link to performance vía quantitative means. This approach also determines the existence of other related dimensions via the qualitative research methods adopted. Finally, evaluating the results against performance criteria to determine, where appropriate statistical significance. The nature of this service provisión enabled staff to be used for the quantitative study to measure the market orientation and service quality constructs to gain a surrogate "customer perspective". The two construct models proved to be reasonably robust, with many of the elements being retaíned in both after the iterative removal of elements via Cronbach alpha reliability tests. After principal component analysis, the dimensional constructs of both models were confirmed with the retained elements, although some dimensions subdivided due to questionnaire content (negatively worded items) and contextually specific items discovered in the service quality constructs (staff and physical facilities being considered as tangibles, but in two dimensional constructs). Múltiple analysis of variance identifíed some significant differences between the four cases, identifying a statistically significant link with performance for market orientation and service quality against the more extreme measurements of income, and attendance. This was only for two of the dimensional constructs of "Reliability" and "Tangibles" for the service quality dimensions however but still providing a useful method to determine a "non management" perspective for these two elements. The qualitative phase identifíed the possibility of other important dimensions whích included elements of the Narver and Slater (1990) market orientation dimensional construct, "competitor orientation" and "interfunctional coordination", and a further dimensión of "resources", which is probably unique to this service sector. lt was concluded that use could be made of the statistically significant elements that were found from this study of the dimensions of market orientation and service quality as a single measurement instrument. They could provide an indicative means of identifying important measures linked to functional issues underlying the marketing processes i.e. intelligence gathering, intelligence dissemination and responsiveness, as well as effective perceptual measurements of the "reliability" and "tangibles" which make up this service provisión.

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