This research aims to investigate the effect of word-of-mouth (WOM) on the purchase of genuine and counterfeit luxury brands with a focus on the roles of attitude functions, product type, valence of WOM, and brand popularity. It consists of two experimental studies. Study 1 examines the effect of WOM on the purchase of luxury brands and attempts to investigate the mediating role of attitude functions in the relationship between WOM and purchase intentions for luxury brands, with regard to different product types and valence of WOM. Study 2 compares the effects of WOM communications with traditional advertising on the purchase of counterfeit and genuine luxury brands. It also examines the differences between popular and non-popular luxury brands. Results reveal that social-adjustive and value-expressive functions fully mediate the effect of WOM on luxury brand evaluation while partially mediate the effect of product type on luxury brand evaluation. The effect of WOM on attitude functions is more pronounced for high (vs. low) susceptibility to interpersonal influence consumers. Findings of Study 2 support the moderating role of subjective norm in the self-monitoring and counterfeit luxury brand evaluation relationship, indicating that compared to advertising, WOM is a more effective way to decrease counterfeit luxury brand consumption. Managerial implications for strategic brand management and directions for future research are discussed.

This research study involves three essays and examines CRQ-driven decision making from the points of view of the common firm, social-commerce platform provider, and social-commerce echo-system. It addresses CRQ's progression from traditional business-to-consumer (B2C) initiatives to social platform-specific antecedents and to environment-driven factors lying outside the direct control of the platform provider, yet influencing social commerce business decisions, such as user-generated content from peers (e.g. family, friends) and expert authority (e.g. specialists, experts, professional organizations). The research method used statistical, data mining and computer science techniques. The results suggest that social platform providers should take a proactive approach to CRQ, fully leverage their online platform to improve CRQ while paying special attention to security as a potential barrier, and consider the analysis of elements of the echo-system such as the electronic word of mouth (eWOM) to further drive CRQ and determine the level of alignment between customers and experts, suppliers and products featured, that may lead to value-added managerial insights such as the prioritization, promotion and optimization of such relationships.

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Abstract         Title: How to create positive place ambassadors?   Level: Final assignment for bachelor’s degree in business administration   Authors: Helena Green & Jessica Olsson   Supervisor: Jonas Molin & Lars-Johan Åge   Examiner:  Maria Fregidou-Malama   Date: May 2020   Aim: The aim of the study is to understand and investigate how residents can become positive place ambassadors for their place of residence. This by researching which factors that can contribute to developing positive ambassadorship of residents in a city and how the interaction between these factors relates and connects.   Method: The study has a phenomenological research philosophy with a deductive basis. The study applies a qualitative research method based on a web-based survey.   Result & Conclusions: The result of the study can be summarized in a dynamic model where the residents' experiences and opinions can be related from the theoretical frame of reference, and create an applicable view around the city of Uppsala as a place brand, this in relation to the inhabitants in the city. The results show that the residents largely act as ambassadors for their place of residence and a high degree of participation from the inhabitants gives the brand a greater complexity and dynamism, which means that the residents identify with the brand. This increases the chances of the inhabitants acting as positive place ambassadors for their place of residence.   Contribution of the thesis: The thesis contributes by developing a dynamic model for place ambassadorship that is applicable to location marketing when it comes to developing place brands and its brand-building activities.   Suggestions for future research: The study is limited to Uppsala. For future studies we propose the possibility of a deeper analysis on the impact of residents as place ambassadors and how it can be adapted into different areas.   Key words: Place marketing, place ambassadorship, word-of-mouth, place branding

The Internet allows customers to share their experiences with, and opinions on, goods and services with other customers, that is, to engage in e-WOM communication. This paper consists of two major sections. The aim of the first one is to define the main e-WOM behaviour characteristics of Czech consumers and their motivations for transmission and exposure e-WOM behaviour. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey (n = 220) is conducted with a target group of people aged 16 to 54 years. The results indicate that the main reasons for exposure e-WOM behaviour are saving decision-making time, making better buying decisions, reducing cognitive dissonance and advice seeking when having product issues. In the case of transmission e-WOM behaviour, consumers are motivated by altruistic reasons, benefits of collective power and venting negative feelings. The second, experimental, section of this work examines the consumer's attention depending firstly on the e-WOM valence, the structural elements and the brand type, and secondly on the different characteristics of online reviews. In the first place, the results of the eye-tracking research (n = 24) illustrate a statistically significant impact of the interaction between the brand type and the e-WOM valence on consumer attention and in the second place it shows the dominance of the reviewer's name in attracting consumer attention. An in-depth interview is conducted in order to enlighten the results of eye-tracking research. Academic and managerial implications are discussed.

This dissertation explores an unintended consequence of using personalized recommendations, that is, recommendations that are targeted to an individual consumer (e.g., personalized music playlists). I conceptualize that using personalized recommender systems can impede consumers’ learning of their own preferences and tastes from product experiences. Therefore, using these systems can decrease preference clarity, which is defined as certainty about individuals’ own preferences. For example, people may feel less certain about their own music preferences after listening to auto-generated personalized playlists. This reduced preference clarity, in turn, reduces consumer willingness to generate word-of-mouth (WOM) about their consumption experiences, such as their intent to talk about music they listened to with others, or to post social media content on their favorite musicians. Eight studies, using correlational and experimental designs and conducted with consumers who actively use personalization services (in the fashion and music domains), support this theorization. I end with a discussion of the potential theoretical extensions of this novel finding, as well as its practical implications.

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SAMMANFATTNING  Datum: 2022-01-13 Nivå: Kandidatuppsats i företagsekonomi, 15 hp  Institution: Akademin för Ekonomi, Samhälle och Teknik, Mälardalens universitet Författare: Dolshi Hayllie  Ranim, Mashhadi  Mohammed Salman  (000517) (920627) (960229) Titel: Kundlojalitet ur kundens perspektiv Handledare: Ulf Andersson Nyckelord: CRM, engagemang, word of mouth, kundlojalitet, förtroende, relation Frågeställning: Vilka faktorer påverkar lojalitet hos digitala klädföretag ur kundens perspektiv? Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att öka kunskapen kring kundlojalitet och undersöka vilka faktorer som kan påverka lojalitet. Syftet är också att skapa förståelse kring hur CRM kan påverka kunders lojalitet i digitala klädföretag. Metod: Denna studie är baserad på en kvalitativ metod. Insamling av primärdata kommer att tas via en strukturerad intervju hos två fokusgrupper. Kvalitativ metod valdes då den lägger vikt på ord vid datainsamling snarare än kvantifiering. Syftet med uppsatsen är att studera dessa faktorer som kan påverka kunders lojalitet i digitala klädföretag, har det valts att använda en kvalitativ metod. Studien utgår från det deduktiva synsättet för att redogöra förhållandet mellan teori och forskning. Slutsats: Studien visade att flera faktorer har bidragit till en ökad kundlojalitet och att CRM är ett effektivt sätt för att hantera sina kundrelationer. Engagemang, förtroende och relation har visat sig vara de mest centrala faktorerna samt att CRM bör nyttjas hos alla företag Digitala klädföretag har sina utmaningar med att upprätthålla kundrelationer och att ett digitalt CRM förenklar processen och gör det möjligt att ta reda på hur man skapar, värvar och behåller kunder i längden.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate and identify which factors using eWOM contribute to reduced returns in the purchase decision process. Theory: The study is based on theories that contain the purchase decision process, electronic word of mouth (eWOM), social media, positive and negative eWOM and the website´scredibility. Method: The study is based on a qualitative research approach where a convenience selectionis applied. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted on both male and female online consumers. Conclusion: The study shows that respondents tend to spend more time and focus on the purchase decision process for online purchases from foreign e-commerce companies compared to Swedish e-commerce companies to avoid a costly and time-consuming return process. The respondents actively engage in the search for information before making anonline purchase to reduce the uncertainty about the quality and fit of the clothing products, which has proven to be the main reason for dissatisfaction and return after an online purchase. The study also shows that eWOM contributes to better purchasing decisions and reduced returns, partly because it helps to create a holistic view of the clothing products. The contributing factors to reduced returns are eWOM in the form of consumer reviews, consumer- images and videos that complement the available product information. Other contributing factors are the combination of positive and negative consumer reviews and the credibility of the website.

Strategic alliances have become a recognized strategy used by firms in the pursuit of their diverse organizational objectives. Consequently, the literature on alliances is replete with research investigating the value strategic alliances generate for participating organizations. Strategic alliances have been shown to contribute to firm value through numerous sources, including scale economies, effective risk management, cost efficient market entries, and learning from partners. Largely overlooked in the literature however, are issues investigating the relationship between strategic alliances and one of the organization's most important constituents, the consumer. Questions such as how the consumer reacts to inter-firm alliances, how strategic alliances impact consumer value, satisfaction, and customer post-purchase behavior have yet to be answered. This lacuna has been recently highlighted by prominent researchers in the discipline (Rindfleisch and Moorman 2003). Focusing on marketing alliances, the present dissertation attempts to address this gap in the alliance literature by advancing and testing a theoretical framework examining consumers' cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions to organizational strategic alliances. The dissertation also contributes to the satisfaction literature. Scholars in this area have traditionally viewed satisfaction as a cognitive response to the comparison of actual consumption experiences with some comparison standard (confirmation/disconfirmation paradigm). Recently however, there have been increasing calls for satisfaction measures to capture not just how the customer thinks the product performed relative to the comparison standard, but also the resulting customer emotion. The study provides additional support of an affective route to customer satisfaction, particularly when customer hedonic value is enhanced. Moreover, the association between customer satisfaction and behavioral outcomes is also examined. While prior research shows that satisfaction is positively related to loyalty and word of mouth and negatively related to intentions to switch, it was found that these relationships are even stronger in the presence of alliances. The results of this dissertation provide important theoretical and managerial insights. The strategic alliance literature is enhanced insofar as this is the first effort aimed at investigating the impact of strategic alliances on the consumer. The study examines the relationship between marketing alliances and customer value, particularly utilitarian and hedonic value, as well as the moderating role of alliance type (functional or symbolic) in this relationship. From a managerial perspective, engaging in strategic alliances is strategically critical and costly. By providing insight into how alliances enhance consumer value, and how in turn value enhancement is related to customer satisfaction and behavioral outcomes, the present research will help managers make more appropriate and better-informed alliance decisions.