The main objective of this research is to measure the relation between different dimensions, or constructs of service quality with customer satisfaction and brand loyalty; thereby identifying the most important factors of service quality that affect customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, in the context of subscription video on demand (SVOD) services in the Swedish market. This study utilised a mixed methods approach divided into two stages, whereof the first involved multiple focus groups for collecting qualitative data. The second stage consisted of quantitative data collection through online questionnaires from 122 valid respondents, ranging from the age of 18 to 29 by a non- probability sampling method. SPSS was used to analyse the data with three statistical analysis methods: bivariate correlations, for establishing evidence of construct validity; a reliability analysis to test Cronbach alpha for internal consistency; and multiple regression analysis to examine the relationship between independent and dependent variables. The research findings indicate that there is a positive, significant relationship between customer satisfaction and certain constructs of service quality. Also, findings indicate that the statistical relationship between the constructs of service quality and brand loyalty are partially mediated by customer satisfaction. As a result, companies operating in the Swedish SVOD-industry need to focus on improving the significant factors of service quality, as they may increase customer satisfaction of 18 to 29-year-old customers, and further create long-term relationships as a way of gaining competitive advantage.

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.

Esta pesquisa avalia a percepção dos cooperados em relação às ações de cocriação de valor oferecidas pela cooperativa e se as características do cooperado e da cooperativa impactam na percepção. Para avaliação, desenvolveu-se um modelo de mensuração da percepção da cocriação de valor das atividades desenvolvidas pela cooperativa e as características do cooperado. O método de pesquisa usado foi a aplicação de um questionário aos membros de uma cooperativa agropecuária de café e, para testar o modelo proposto, usou-se o método Partial Least Square (PLS). As ações de cocriação de valor, profissionalização da gestão, satisfação e fidelidade e orientação temporal de longo prazo dos cooperados foram medidos tendo como base a percepção dos cooperados. A amostra teve 204 respostas válidas. Os resultados da análise descritiva indicam que os cooperados percebem mais valor nas atividades do processo produtivo de café, operados pela cooperativa aos seus cooperados em forma de ações operacionais, do que nas atividades fim. Os resultados do modelo demonstram uma associação significativa entre satisfação e fidelidade e percepção das ações de cocriação de valor e uma associação positiva entre orientação temporal de longo prazo dos cooperados e percepção das ações de cocriação de valor, ou seja, a percepção dos benefícios gerados pela organização com ações de cocriação de valor pode ser influenciada pelo horizonte temporal do cooperado e pelo nível de satisfação e fidelidade. Os dados também indicam que a variável latente profissionalização da gestão apresentou uma relação positiva com a satisfação e fidelidade e também com a orientação temporal de longo prazo do cooperado. Também foi feita uma análise complementar de sensibilidade para verificar se as características dos cooperados tornam o grupo homogêneo ou heterogêneo. Foi possível observar que há heterogeneidade na percepção dos cooperados em relação às características de tamanho da propriedade rural, nível de escolaridade, tempo de associação e endividamento. As principais contribuições deste trabalho foram o desenvolvimento de um instrumento para mensuração do nível de percepção das ações de cocriação de valor, bem como a investigação empírica sobre a relação desta com as demais variáveis. Como implicações práticas tem-se que os resultados das ações de criação de valor com características de inovação (cocriação de valor) tendem a ser percebidos no longo prazo e influenciados pelas características específicas dos cooperados. / This research evaluates the perception of the members in relation to the actions of value co-creation offered by the cooperative and if the characteristics of the cooperative and the members impact on the perception. For evaluation, a model was developed for measuring the perception of value co-creation of the activities developed by the cooperative and analyzed the relationship between the perception of value co-creation actions developed by the cooperative and the characteristics of the members. The research method was the application of a questionnaire to the members of an agricultural coffee cooperative and, to test the proposed model, the Partial Least Square (PLS) method was used. The actions of value co-creation, professionalization of management, satisfaction and loyalty and temporal orientation of the members were measured based on the perception of the members. The sample had 204 valid answers. The results of the descriptive analysis indicate that the cooperative members perceive more value in the activities of the coffee production process, operated by the cooperative to its members in the form of operational actions, than in the end activities. The results of the model demonstrate a significant association between satisfaction and loyalty and perception of value co-creation actions and a positive association between the member\'s time orientation and perception of value-co-creation actions, that is, the perception of the benefits generated by the organization with actions of value co-creation can be influenced by the time horizon of the member and by the level of satisfaction and loyalty. The data also indicate that the latent variable professionalization of management presented satisfaction and loyalty as the main indicator. A complementary sensitivity analysis was also made to verify if the characteristics of the member make the group homogeneous or heterogeneous. It was possible to observe that there is heterogeneity in the perception of the member in relation to the characteristics of rural property size, level of schooling, time of association and indebtedness. The main contributions of this research were the development of an instrument to measure the level of perception of value co-creation actions, as well as the empirical investigation about its relation with the other variables. As practical implications, the results of value co-creation actions with innovation characteristics (value co-creation) tend to be perceived in the long term and influenced by the specific characteristics of the member.

Thesis advisor: Peter Skerry / This thesis is a further study of Peter Skerry’s 2011 article, “the Muslim-American Muddle,” in which he argues that not only non-Muslim Americans are worrying about Muslims’ loyalty issue due to the fear of radical Islamism and terrorism, but also Muslims are confused. My basic argument is that Muslims are still suffering from their muddled loyalty. It is not because they are disloyal but because, in light of Grodzins, their organizations guide them in different directions which are not always en route to national loyalty as non-Muslims expect. Inspired by Morton Grodzins’s theory on social structure and national loyalty in liberal democracies and James Q. Wilson’s insightful study on political organizations, this research has sought to understand the Muslim muddle with an in-depth inquiry and examination on one of the most common and important Islamic organizations—Islamic centers and mosques with an ethnographical method. The evidence of this thesis was collected between April 2016 and December 2017. In fact, I almost visited every mosque in Massachusetts. However, I was not always lucky to build strong connections with many centers for various reasons. In this thesis, I only select those mosques that I had visited more than three times. And I try my best to interview as many leaders as possible. I also manage to keep a geographical and sectarian balance in my sample. I hope to cover all types of mosques in Boston area. My findings are interesting, though of course often confusing and may contradicting with each other but I am duty-bound to report them even if it may had negative impact on the generalization power of my argument. I find that Islamic centers have different goals and offer different incentives to overcome collective actions problems. Both solidarity and political engagement are valued by Islamic centers in general, but individual organizations have different preferences which are results of divergent immigrant experiences. So the organizational aspect of Muslims community is fragmented. However, the increasing external political pressure in the post 9/11 period did not overcome the problem but aggravated it by simply empowering purposive mosques like ISBCC in public sphere. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

O interesse em entender o comportamento do consumidor de Baixa Renda vem ganhando importância nos últimos anos. Este interesse crescente baseia-se no entendimento de que o crescimento futuro das economias e organizações empresariais dependem, cada vez mais, da inserção desses consumidores no processo de consumo. Esta dissertação teve como objetivo verificar se os consumidores de Baixa Renda apresentam diferenças no que se relaciona ao comportamento de lealdade à marca de produto em comparação à marca de varejo. Adicionalmente buscou comparar o comportamento de lealdade à marca de produto e marca de varejo entre os indivíduos de baixa renda e alta renda, e identificar as causas possíveis das diferenças encontradas. Para tanto foi realizada uma pesquisa tipo survey com consumidores de Baixa Renda e Alta Renda através de dois questionários estruturados, um para marcas de produtos (televisores) e outro para marcas de varejo. O processo de análise envolveu testes de proporção de diferenças, de médias e associação e de análise de variância múltipla.Os resultados indicaram que a posição na classe de renda não influenciou, de maneira estatisticamente significativa, o comportamento de lealdade, seja em relação às marcas de produto, seja em relação às marcas de lojas de varejo. Porém o estudo indicou a existência de diferenças significativas no processo de lealdade entre loja e produto, não associadas à renda, que indicam que o consumidor apresenta uma relação mais intensa com as marcas de produto do que com as marcas de loja. Neste sentido, os consumidores que responderam sobre marcas avaliaram melhor os construtos de Valor e Comprometimento, reconhecidos como antecedentes do comportamento de lealdade, do que aqueles que responderam sobre a marca de varejo. Ao final, são apresentadas as contribuições acadêmicas e gerenciais do estudo e sugestões para a realização de novos estudos. / Interest in understanding the behavior of Low Income consumer has been gaining importance lately. This increasing interest is based upon the understanding that the future growth of economies and enterprises depend more and more on the insertion of these consumers in consume process. The aim of this essay was to verify if Low Income consumers present differences concerning loyalty behavior towards the product brand and retail store brand. Moreover it tried to compare the loyalty behavior towards the product brand and retail store brand among people of Low Income and High Income and to identify the possible causes of the found differences . To reach this purpose it was performed a research type survey with Low Income and High Income consumers by means of two structured questionnaires, one concerned to product (television) brands and other concerned to retail stores brands. The analyses process dealt with tests of difference proportion , averages and association and analyses of multiple variance The results showed that the position in the income class had no influence, in a statistically significant way, on the loyalty behavior, either concerning product brands or retail store brands. However the study showed the existence of significant differences in the loyalty process between store and product not associated to income, which show that consumer has a more intense relationship with product brands than with store brands. In this way, the consumers that responded about brands evaluated better the constructs Value and Commitment, recognized as antecedents of the loyalty behavior, than the ones that responded about the retail store brand. At the end, the academic and managing contributions of the study as well the suggestions concerning further studies are presented.

Em um mercado cada vez mais competitivo como o de telefonia celular pós-paga as organizações modernas estão em constante busca por lucratividade e crescimento contínuo. Nesse sentido, a retenção dos clientes atuais e a busca por fidelidade tornam-se pauta de discussões acadêmicas e empresariais. No estudo dessa fidelidade, a academia se divide em duas correntes: a primeira defensora da satisfação como antecessor necessário da lealdade e a segunda, da lealdade como elemento independente da satisfação. O presente trabalho buscou aclarar esses conceitos, com definição dos termos e principais pensamentos. Por meio de pesquisa realizada junto aos consumidores de telefonia celular pós-paga, verificou-se a avaliação desse público quanto à satisfação, vínculo, imagem da operadora, bem como a manutenção ou não desse relacionamento. / In a competitive market as the mobile post paid, the modern companies are in a constant search for profitability and growth. In that sense, the consumer retention and the study of loyalty become topics into the agendas of the academics and the business discussions. Through the study of the consumer´s loyalty the academics are divided in two different ideas: the first one defends the satisfaction as a prior to the loyalty and, for the defenders of the second idea, the loyalty is an independent element from the satisfaction. The current paper tried to dig into these concepts, with the definition of the main terms and thoughts. By researches made with the mobile post paid consumers, the evaluation of topics such as satisfaction, link, image and the capacity to keep the relationship.

A tecnologia da Internet oferece novas formas de relacionamento entre clientes e empresas, mas os desafios da lealdade permanecem. O objetivo deste estudo foi identificar os fatores influentes na lealdade ao fornecedor e ao canal de distribuição, focando possíveis diferenças entre opiniões e atitudes dos consumidores online e dos offline de livros, CDs e DVDs. Com tal intuito, as principais referências foram os modelos UTAUT (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology), de Venkatesh et al. (2003), e ECM-IT (Expectation-Confirmation Model in IT Domain), de Bhattacherjee (2001b) e, ainda, os modelos de Coyles e Gokey (2002), Heijden, Verhagen e Creemers (2003) e Bramall, Schoefer e McKechnie (2004). Numa pesquisa qualitativa inicial, investigaram-se os atributos de lealdade inerentes às compras online e offline e, a partir destes, realizou-se uma pesquisa quantitativa com resultados analisados com o uso de técnicas estatísticas uni, bi e multivariadas. Entre os principais resultados, obteve-se que a maioria de consumidores destes produtos não é leal ao fornecedor e orienta-se sobretudo pela localização da loja (lojas físicas) ou pelo preço (lojas online) para voltar a uma mesma loja. Quanto à lealdade ao canal, para os consumidores exclusivos do canal offline, os aspectos mais relevantes para uma possível migração são a atitude em relação ao uso da tecnologia, a confiança, e a expectativa de performance. Para os que já compram pelo canal online, os fatores essenciais para continuar nesse canal são a satisfação, a confirmação de expectativas pós-compra, a expectativa de performance, e as condições facilitadoras. / Internet-based technology has allowed new relationship approaches between companies and their customers but customer loyalty has maintained itself as a challenge. The aim of this study was to identify key factors of loyalty to supplier and distribution channel, paying attention to possible disparities between opinions and attitudes of online and offline buyers of books, CDs and DVDs. Keeping this aim in mind, main adopted references were UTAUT (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology) model by Venkatesh et al. (2003), ECM-IT model (Expectation-Confirmation Model in IT Domain) by Bhattacherjee (2001b), and models developed by Coyles and Gokey (2002), Heijden, Verhagen and Creemers (2003) and Bramall, Schoefer and McKechnie (2004). Starting from a preliminary qualitative research, loyalty attributes related to online and offline purchase transactions were identified. Based on these attributes, a field quantitative research was conducted and the collected data were submitted to uni, bi and multivariate statistical techniques. Results of this study have suggested that major part of buyers of books, CDs and DVDs is not loyal to suppliers (stores), and store location, for offline buyers, and pricing, for online buyers, are key factors for guaranteeing their return to the same store. Considering the loyalty to distribution channel, it was suggested that factors such as attitude toward using technology, trust and performance expectancy are more important for offline buyers to decide to go online, while factors such as satisfaction, post-consumption expectation confirmation, performance expectancy and facilitating conditions are more valuable for online buyers continuance.

This project explores Japan’s complex literary and cultural negotiation with China from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries, focusing on the role of intermediary texts (dictionaries, encyclopedias, and commentaries) and the different modes of receiving and constructing Chinese culture depending on historical periods and scholarly lineages. As the larger process by which Chinese history and literature became part of the Japanese literary culture has long been studied on the assumption that there is direct textual continuity between Japanese texts (in literary Sinitic) and Chinese continental texts, the tracking down of citations, allusion, and references to Chinese source texts has commanded great scholarly attention. Yet this assumption obscures other, equally important histories – such as a popular understanding of Chinese culture, or a conceptual perception of Chinese culture, that was NOT based on direct textual continuity – that lies at the heart of this project. The introduction outlines three modes of receiving and constructing Chinese literary culture in pre-modern japan. One was the text-based, canonical view of Chinese history and literature, which relied almost exclusively on texts and genres that were canonized in the Nara and Heian periods state university (daigakuryō) – Confucian classics, Chinese official dynastic histories, and Chinese poetry. In contrast with it was a more popular, name-based understanding of Chinese culture that emerged from various intermediary genres (such as anecdotal literature, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and commentaries) both in China and in Japan. This mode of reception and construction was not based on texts so much as on what I call “cultural signs” (particularly Chinese names, well-known anecdotes, and visual cues) and required no knowledge of the original literary Sinitic. Third was a conceptual, term-based perception, manifested in such concepts as “loyalty” and “filial piety.” Written in the same kanji characters, these terms served as common threads linking Chinese and Japanese literary writings on the one hand, but also took on new meanings and associations in the Japanese cultural imagination. Chapter 1 outlines the importation of Chinese books and manuscripts in relation to the center of scholarship and the main intellectual groups up until the twelfth century. Drawing on evidence from commentaries on the Wakan rōeishū (The Collection of Japanese and Chinese Poems for Recitation, 1013) and from The Tales of China (Kara monogatari, late Heian period) on the themes of exile and loyalty, I discuss the rising interests in referencing anecdotal literature and compiling intermediaries (dictionaries, encyclopedias, and commentaries) in the twelfth century that eventually contributed to the formation of a more popular, name-based understanding of Chinese history and literature. Chapter 2 investigates the Japanese medieval interpretations of Chinese official histories (“Chūsei Shiki”), which features a tension and negotiation between the canonical and the non-canonical texts and gravitates towards recurring themes, character types, and core values. In particular, I look into the themes of wisdom, virtue, loyalty, and filial piety in A Miscellany of Ten Maxims (Jikkinshō, 1252) and The Tales of the Heike (Heike monogatari, ca. 1308-1311), which were largely constructed from a relatively more classical, Tang-based perspective, in despite of the fact that Chinese Song dynasty culture had already been imported to Japan along with the introduction of Chinese Chan (J. Zen) Buddhism in the thirteenth through fourteenth centuries. In Chapter 3, I examine the Taiheiki (A Chronicle of Great Peace, 1340s-1371), a unique text that acts as a nexus for many themes of this project. Analyzing the use of Chinese tales, maxims and proverbs, and poetry in relation to the themes of loyalty, wisdom, righteousness, and filial piety, I show that, unlike The Tales of the Heike, the Taiheiki revealed a thriving concern with the Song culture, which involved new editions, new commentaries, and new poetic theory. I also show that a conceptual, term-based perception of Chinese culture was taking shape. Chapter 4 explores the suddenly intensified scholarly exchange among different intellectual groups – the Zen monks, the Shintō priests, warriors, and court aristocrats – in the fifteenth through sixteenth centuries. Tracing the threads of new books and new theories in Kiyohara Nobukata’s lecture notes on the Mōgyū (Inquiry of the Youth), The Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars, and the picture scroll (emaki) of the Xianyang Palace, I discuss the expansion of knowledge and audience from priests and aristocrats to influential military families and wealthy commoners in late medieval Japan, the formation of new imaginations regarding Chinese history and literature, and the final transition from a pro-Tang prospective to a Song-centered understanding of China. In conclusion, I argue for the literary and cultural reception and construction of Chinese culture as not only a large and complex source text, in a long history of Sino-Japanese intertextuality, but as a complex cultural construction that was packaged and modified, sometimes for easy consumption, to reinforce key values (such as loyalty and filial piety), and that was readily identified even by those with limited access to literary Sinitic. By illustrating the processes by which Chinese history and literature were largely filtered through and transmitted by intermediaries into medieval Japanese literary culture, this project provides a new history of the reception of Chinese culture in the Japanese literary imagination.

Syfte och forskningsfrågor: Syftet är att undersöka tjänsteföretags insatser för att skapa servicekvalitet och goda kundrelationer, med hänsyn till de möjlighet som den digitala utvecklingen medför. 1. Vilka insatser står i centrum för det fysiska mötet respektive virtuella kontakterna? 2. Vad har den digitala utvecklingen skapat för möjligheter för företagen till att erbjuda servicekvalitet och värdeskapande? 3. Vilka variationer finns det i företags prestationer mellan olika målgrupper? Metod: En kvalitativ metod med ett växelspel mellan ett induktivt och ett deduktivt tillvägagångssätt har tillämpats. För datainsamlingen har semistrukturerade intervjuer med nio respondenter från banksektorn ägt rum. Slutsats: För att skapa servicekvalitet och goda kundrelationer med hänsyn till de möjligheter som den digitala utvecklingen medfört, har vi funnit att tjänsteföretag bör kombinera det traditionella servicelandskapet och det virtuella servicelandskapet på ett sömlöst sätt. Att behålla relationerna personliga ses även det som viktigt och något segmentering och kundanpassning skapar förutsättningar för. Genom att två välfungerande servicelandskap erbjuds för kunden, skapas en större möjlighet och valfrihet som gör att kunden utför sina ärenden på det sättet som passar dennes behov och önskemål bäst. Genom att tjänsteföretag tillhandahåller kunder digitala lösningar, kan en högre kvalitet i det fysiska mötet skapas. / Purpose and research questions: The purpose is to examine the service companies efforts to create service quality and good customer relations, taking into account the opportunities that digital development entails. 1. What efforts are at the centre of the physical meeting and virtual contacts? 2. What kind of opportunities has the digital development created for companies to offer quality of service and value creation? 3. What variations are there in companies' performance between different target groups? Method: A qualitative method with an interaction between an inductive and a deductive approach has been applied. For data collection, semi-structured interviews with nine respondents from the banking sector have taken place. Conclusion: In order to create service quality and good customer relations regarded to the opportunities the digital development entails, we have found that service companies should combine the traditional service landscape and the virtual service landscape in a seamless kind of way. Keeping the relationships personal is also seen as important and something segmentation and customization create the conditions for. By offering two well-functioning service landscapes, greater opportunity and freedom of choice are created for the customer. When service companies provide customers with digital solutions, a higher quality in the physical meeting can be made possible.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:37:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Bruna Francinetti Menezes Castro dos Santos.pdf: 486716 bytes, checksum: a2d8cd231579f80945f35c897e8f33fc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-10-21 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This study aimed to understand the repetition of the given name within a family considering two concepts: Family Loyalty, by Boszormenyi-Nagy and Differentiation of Self, by Bowen. We became interested in this issue when we realized that the given name repetition within families is perceived to be something present in all regions of Brazil, regardless of social, economic and cultural strata. In addition to this there is a scarcity of studies that relate the repetition of the first name with the Family Loyalty and Differentiation of Self. This study was done through a qualitative research design of case study and was conducted in the city of Macapá - Amapá, with two people from the same family who have family roots in the city of Cametá, state of Pará. The participants were the father and the son who have the first name in common, belonging to a family in which seven people have the same first name over five generations. The semi-structured interview was used in the data collection with one participant and secondly, the construction of the Family Genogram was done with the participant who was in the previous step and his son. The results showed that in the history of the participants lives both Family Loyalty and Differentiation of Self are present, however it was noticed there is a loyalty to himself and to the Accredited Family that in many instances, is more pronounced than the loyalty to his origin family / Este trabalho teve como objetivo compreender a repetição de nome próprio em uma mesma família a partir de dois conceitos: Lealdade Familiar, de Boszormenyi-Nagy, e Diferenciação de Bowen. Ficamos interessados nessa questão ao percebermos que a repetição de nome próprio em uma mesma família é algo presente em todas as regiões do Brasil, independentemente da classe social, econômica e cultural. Soma-se a isso a escassez de pesquisas que relacione a repetição de nome próprio com a Lealdade Familiar e a Diferenciação. O estudo se deu por meio de uma pesquisa qualitativa com delineamento de estudo de caso e foi realizado na cidade de Macapá Amapá, com duas pessoas de uma mesma família que possuem raízes familiares no município de Cametá, no estado do Pará. Os participantes foram pai e filho que possuem o prenome em comum, sendo que pertencem a uma família na qual sete pessoas têm esse mesmo prenome ao longo de cinco gerações. Na coleta de dados foi utilizada a entrevista semiestruturada com um participante e em um segundo momento, ocorreu à construção do Genograma da família, com o participante que estava na etapa anterior e seu filho. Os resultados mostraram que na história de vida dos participantes tanto a Lealdade familiar como a Diferenciação são presentes. Contudo, observou-se a existência da lealdade a si próprio e a Família Credenciada que em muitos momentos é mais acentuada do que à lealdade com a sua Família de Origem