Abstract Word-of-mouth (WOM) personal referrals are more efficient and influential than other forms of advertising; however, there is a lack of information regarding the value of referral programs. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perceptions of business owners, staff, and customers of alternative health care organizations in a Midwestern U.S. state about efficient referral strategies, measuring the effect of those strategies, and motivations of consumers to make referrals. Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory of motivation and customer decision-making theories provided the conceptual framework. The research questions addressed how industry leaders perceived and ranked referral strategies and addressed customers' perceptions and motivations to make personal referrals. Data collection consisted of semistructured interviews with 4 business owners, 2 staff members, and 10 client participants. Data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis methods, and member checking enhanced the accuracy of the findings. Results indicated that participants viewed WOM personal referrals as the most efficient nontraditional strategy to make or receive referrals, and they perceived referrals from impartial and trustworthy sources as the most valued information. This research has implications for positive social change. Findings may be used to enhance business owners' understanding of the value of personal referrals in their marketing mix, and of the motivation for customers to make referrals. WOM personal referrals may be used as a marketing strategy to increase sales and lower costs of formal advertising, which may contribute to the growth of the business.

The interest of researchers and practitioners in e-Word-of-Mouth has accelerated with the rise of social media platforms. In the last decade it became more apparent that customers are not merely recipients of product and brand information, but also active participants in shaping product and brand perceptions. However, still no comprehensive understanding of customers’ desire to engage in positive and negative e-Word-of-Mouth has been found. Therefore, this study focuses on Customer Engagement in order to provide knowledge on what makes customers engage in e-Word-of-Mouth. We narrow our study to New Product Introductions due to their crucial role in both business success and failure. In order to study this topic, quantitative methodology using big data analysis of around 20 millions tweets in total, with text analysis of around three million items, obtained from Twitter has been applied. The findings indicate that Brand Benefits and Innovativeness Level are two important aspects that impact Attitudinal Engagement which enables Customer Engagement Behavior.

The mobile app market is continuously increasing and an increasingly number of actors aims to gain market shares in this business sector. At the same time the number of app stores with a significant influence on the market are few; with Google Play and Apple App Store as the major actors of the app store market. With few distributions channels, and many large companies with resources as competitors, it is crucial for initiated startups to find suitable marketing strategies in order to compete on the app market. This study focuses on startups which are in their earlier phase of existence and do not have an excess of resources. The case of Truecaller is of interest to mobile app startups in general because of its exceptional successfulness in a relative short amount of time. First a thorough research of secondary literature was performed to find marketing activities applicable to mobile app developers. These marketing activities were divided and applied by using the four P’s of marketing in order to achieve a perceivable framework which is possible to grasp. The marketing activities were reformed into open-ended questions which were conducted during the interviews on Truecaller’s Marketing Manager, and Release/Project Manager. The gathered marketing activities that were demonstrated to be successful by the case of Truecaller, which is the empirical example of a startup in this study, were structured into a marketing strategy framework. The central findings of this study were firstly that unpaid promotional marketing activities in form striving for customer reviews, social media integration and sharing functions implemented to the app should be done in order to increase the word of mouth spread. It is also emphasized to build good relationships with different opinion leaders and further on to send push notifications to remind users of the app. Paid promotional activities were found to be optional for startups in the context of this study. Secondly the central findings regarding the Product strategies were frequent updates of the app to remind users of its existence, strive for feedback, and try to build on network effects. Furthermore in addition to build a unique and functional app which enables a positive user experience, it is important to offer users instant support and to execute localizations strategies. Thirdly the findings of the Place category were the visibility aspects to choose an appealing app name and app description, have an attractive app icon and screenshots, and to choose effective keywords and categories. Moreover it is emphasized to ensure availability and compatibility by supporting several platforms. Lastly concerning Price it is important for startups to find their own customized strategy, but the case of Truecaller stressed the freemium pricing strategy.

No / Marketers desire to utilise electronic word of mouth (eWOM) marketing on social media sites. However, not all online content generated by marketers has the same effect on consumers; some of them are effective while others are not. This paper aims to examine different characteristics of marketer-generated content (MGC) that of which one lead users to eWOM. Twitter was chosen as one of the leading social media sites and a content analysis approach was employed to identify the common characteristics of retweeted and favourited tweets. 2,780 tweets from six companies (Booking, Hostelworld, Hotels, Lastminute, Laterooms and Priceline) operating in the tourism sector are analysed. Results indicate that the posts which contain pictures, hyperlinks, product or service information, direct answers to customers and brand centrality are more likely to be retweeted and favourited by users. The findings present the main eWOM drivers for MGC in social media.

This dissertation discusses Gayl Jones’s and Toni Morrison’s characterisation of black women’s journeying towards empowered subjectivity and agency. <p><p>Through comparative analysis of eight fictional works, I explore the writers’ idea of female freedom and emancipation, the structures of power affecting the transition from oppressed towards liberated subject positions, and the literary techniques through which the authors facilitate these seminal trajectories.<p><p>My research addresses a corpus comprised of three novels and one book-long poem by Gayl Jones, as well as four novels by Toni Morrison. These two writers emerge in the US literary scene during the 1970s, one of the decades of the second black women’s renaissance (1970s, 1980s). This period witnessed unprecedented developments in US black literature and feminist theorising. In the domain of African American letters, it witnessed the emergence of a host of black women writers such as Gayl Jones and Toni Morrison. This period also marks a turning point in the reconfiguration of African American literature, as several unknown or misplaced literary works by pioneering black women writers were discovered, shifting the chronology of African American literature. <p><p>Moreover, the second black women's renaissance marks a paradigmatic development in black feminist theorising on womanhood and subjectivity. Many black feminist scholars and activists challenged what they perceived to be the homogenising female subject conceptualised by US white middle-class feminism and the androcentricity of the subject proclaimed by the Black Aesthetic Movement. They claimed that, in focusing solely on gender and patriarchal oppression, white feminism had overlooked the salience of the race/class nexus, while focus by the Black Aesthetic Movement on racism had overlooked the salience of gender and heterosexual discrimination. <p><p>In this dissertation, I discuss the works of Gayl Jones and Toni Morrison in the context of seminal debates on the nature of the female subject and the racial and gender politics affecting the construction of empowered subjectivities in black women's fiction.<p><p>Through the metaphor of journeying towards female empowerment, I show how Gayl Jones and Toni Morrison engage in imaginative returns to the past in an attempt to relocate black women as literary subjects of primary importance. I also show how, in the works selected for discussion, a complex idea of modern female subjectivities emerges from the writers' re-examination of the oppressive material and psychological circumstances under which pioneering black women lived, the common practice of sexual exploitation with which they had to contend, and the struggle to assert the dignity of their womanhood beyond the parameters of the white-defined “ideological discourse of true womanhood” (Carby, 1987: 25).<p><p><p> / Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation langue et littérature / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished