Issue #2 (Volume 18 2022)

The new modality caused by COVID-19 has significantly affected tourism, from the decrease in demand and the deterioration of facilities due to lack of budget to the point of becoming unattractive. In response to this, the objective of this research work is to design and validate a scale to measure Brand Personality in Tourist Destinations (BPTD). The results were structured in three phases. In the first phase, an exhaustive search of the bibliography and first version of the instrument were generated. Moreover, a panel of 12 professionals between academics and managers was held, who evaluated the features and content validation by a panel of 7 experts. In the second phase, data collection was carried out with the participation of 998 tourists. In the third phase, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was carried out, obtaining a KMO of 0.979 and a p-value of 0.000. The total explained variance of the 21 items grouped in three dimensions represents 87.27%. In the confirmatory analysis, χ2 = 921.57, p = 0.000, RMR = 0.069, GFI = 0.917, AGFI = 0.829, CFI = 0.980, TLI = 0.976, NFI = 0.975, IFI = 0.980 and RMSA = 0.065, with an appropriate internal consistency (performance: α = 0.984; social innovation α = 0.982; honesty α = 0.964). Composite reliability was CR > 0.70 and convergent validity was AVE > 0.5. In conclusion, the values imply an acceptable adjustment, for which the model is adequate, and the scale is valid to be applied in tourism.

This study analyses the comparative effects between E-WOM on online shopping platforms and social networking platforms on consumers’ purchase intention of smartphones in India. The E-WOM effect on buying intention has become an important context for many researchers due to its increasing importance in today’s world of digitalization. This study aims to assess the influence of E-WOM factors on these two platforms, including E-WOM credibility, E-WOM attitude, E-WOM quantity, and E-WOM format, on purchase decisions of smartphones. The data were collected using a questionnaire from 361 respondents in Uttar Pradesh, India. Multiple regression has been applied to empirically measure the influence of independent factors (E-WOM credibility, E-WOM attitude, E-WOM quantity, and E-WOM format) on the dependent factor (consumers’ purchase intention). The result indicates that E-WOM credibility, E-WOM quantity, and E-WOM format on online shopping platforms have more impact than E-WOM on social media on the purchase intention of smartphones. This study aids online companies in understanding the purchase patterns of consumers, and E-WOM on online shopping platforms is more effective in terms of credibility, quantity, and format as compared to E-WOM on social networking platforms toward buying intention of smartphones.

The study aims to detect the relative impact of the basic advertising elements on attaining advertisement objectives. It also seeks to determine if the location and quality of billboards have an essential moderating impact on the effectiveness of advertising elements concerning their ability to achieve desired advertisement objectives in a developing country such as Jordan.
A quantitative survey methodology and an online questionnaire were used to a convenient sample of 450 university students from different academic years and their family members and acquaintances in Amman, Jordan, to achieve the study goals. IBM SPSS version 25 and Smart PLS 3 were used to test the hypotheses. The study revealed a statistically significant impact (p ≤ 0.05) of three billboard advertising elements in achieving the goals of promoting advertisements, namely: headline (t = 3.483), color (t = 2.308), and the number of elements (t = 2.418). However, the study failed to prove the effectiveness of other two elements in achieving these objectives. The analysis did not confirm the effect of moderation of billboard locations and quality between independent variables and billboard’s advertising objectives; however, the location of billboards (independent variable) directly affects the achievement of advertising objectives. The study came up with a set of conclusions, the most important of which is that the billboard still has an important impact on customers’ purchasing behavior or power, regardless of the location and the quality of billboards as a moderator variable.

The generation gap has been present since the beginning of humanity and has symbolized one of the challenges of decision-making in families. It affects family members’ consumption behavior, namely buying decisions, and creates an interrelated impact on consumption behavior among family members. The aim of this study is to examine factors related to the parents’ perceptions of how the new online purchase behavior of their Generation Z children affected their consumption behavior. To meet the research objective, the paper has shed light on Generation Z’s new online purchase behavior. A survey was sent to 384 Indonesian parents of Generation Z children to collect their perceptions of consumption behavior. The data were then computed and processed using factor analysis, reliability analysis, regression analysis, as well as correlation and a t-test. The research results indicate that the new online purchase behavior of Generation Z children significantly affected their parents’ consumption behavior through different factors, such as online purchase illiteracy and self-control of consumption behavior. The findings also asserted that family consumption behavior is easily influenced by factors associated with parents’ perceptions. Moreover, this study also discussed the implications of the findings and identified the areas for future research.

Flash sale (FS) is a marketing strategy that is widely used and developed in sales through e-commerce. The implementation of the FS strategy is to provide discounts or special propositions on products offered within a certain time limit. Time restrictions aim to encourage consumers’ emotions to make impulse buying (IB). This study examines the effect of consumer emotions as a mediating variable on IB among Shoppee consumers in Indonesia caused by FS activities that are not carried out on certain important days. The required data were collected through the distribution of online questionnaires to respondents who, in the last three months, had made transactions through Shoppee e-commerce platform. A total of 150 questionnaires are analyzed using PLS-SEM. The results of the analysis show that the flash sale strategy carried out by the Shoppee e-commerce platform in Indonesia has a direct effect on increasing consumer emotions. This means that the higher the intensity of the FS promotion, the stronger the influence on consumer emotions. Emotions increase IB. FS has no significant effect on increasing IB. Subsequent findings show that FS indirectly has a positive and significant effect on IB through emotions. In other words, this study proves that the emotions are a mediating variable in online IB. This study is helpful for companies in developing appropriate strategies for their promotions in utilizing consumers’ impulse buying behavior by using strategies that trigger consumers’ emotions.

Product/service extension is crucial for product/service development strategies; therefore, the study aims to investigate the impact of brand extension on consumers’ purchase intentions. Data were collected by questionnaire from 221 clients of Jordanian banks. SPSS 25 supported with AMOS has been used for structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the relationship and hypothesis. The study revealed that the eight brand extension sub-variables (companion product extension, brand prestige extension, brand distinction extension, component brand extension, leveraging a lifestyle, product form extension, company expertise extension, and customer franchise extension) are co-related. In general, the brand extension affects the consumers’ purchase intention, whereas companion product extension, brand prestige extension, brand distinction extension, component brand extension, and leveraging a lifestyle extension significantly affect consumer’s purchase intention. On the contrary, product form extension, company expertise extension, and customer franchise extension do not significantly affect consumers’ purchase decisions. In conclusion, a larger number of customers in future research as well as a similar research in different countries and a specific brand case study are recommended.

For the last decade, the Korean beauty market has skyrocketed in terms of sales. Despite differences in usage steps, culture, and geography, Korean beauty products are the fastest-growing market segment in Indonesia. In addition, they are aimed primarily at millennial consumers. Therefore, this study looked at the effect of the brand-consumer relationship on the experience of Korean beauty products in Indonesia. The research sample consisted of millennial female users. As a result, 255 valid responses were obtained. Using SEM Lisrel, the study revealed that all study hypotheses were accepted. All the variables had a significant influence on each other. Notably, brand commitment had the strongest impact, and it was significantly related to and contributed more to brand love. The contribution of this brand-consumer relationship stems from the fact that brand commitment is more consistent in achieving brand love than brand experience. Furthermore, it was found that brand experience is more subjective, resulting in irrational consumer behavior toward brand love.

Advertisers regularly utilize endorsers as credible sources to conciliate purchaser awareness, customer attitude, and buying objectives. The current paper aims to examine the influence of owner endorsers’ expertise, knowledge, integrity, familiarity, and credibility on consumers’ buying decisions and purchase intentions. The population of this study includes customers of prominent gold and diamond jewelry brands in the southern part of India. The data are subjected to quantitative examination. A comprehensive review was undergone to make a situational analysis. A multi-stage sampling approach was administered to collect the feedback of respondents from the southern states of India. The samples were analyzed using statistical tools like multiple regression and structural equation modeling to find the model fit and relationships among different variables. The outcome of the study highlights that brand endorsers’ expertise, integrity, and credibility play a vital role in conveying trustworthiness and genuineness about the product and its usage. This study also contributed insights into the implication of owners’ endorsement by influencing buying decisions and purchase intentions of jewelry customers.

The study looks into the role of microinsurance awareness in predicting microfinance entrepreneurs’ intentions to purchase microinsurance in Yemen. It is based on a survey of 201 microfinance entrepreneurs who received loans from Yemen’s National Microfinance Foundation (NMF) for various purposes. The analysis and hypothesis testing used PLS-SEM. Along with additional tests regression analysis was employed to examine the effect among the study variables. According to the results, microinsurance awareness and the intention of microfinance entrepreneurs in Yemen to acquire microinsurance services were found to have a significant positive association. The study specifically demonstrated the potential of microinsurance awareness to predict the desire of around 17% of microfinance entrepreneurs to purchase microinsurance services. The study proposes focusing more on increasing microinsurance awareness among microfinance entrepreneurs to attain optimal benefits. The sample size of the prospective study could be expanded to include more microfinance organizations. It could also investigate the role of formal and informal institutions in the country’s acceptance or rejection of microinsurance services.

In this technological era, online business is expanding due to increased internet conveniences. Smartphone users are drastically growing in Bangladesh, where it plays a vital role as a strong catalyst for economic development. On the other hand, the success of the online business is associated with creating online purchase tendency by determining influencing factors of consumers’ intention. The ultimate purpose of this paper is to identify the influential variables of consumers’ purchase intention to buy smartphones on online platforms. To fulfill the aim, a structured questionnaire has been elaborated based on the literature review to find this study’s objective. Cronbach’s alpha value was used to assess the inner surface of this study. The non-probability convenience sampling method and a 5% significance level are used to accept the hypotheses. Altogether, 350 survey questionnaires were distributed among the online-based social media customers, and finally, 288 responses were received genuinely, where the response rate was 82%. Henceforward, the sample size of the study is n = 288. SPSS version 26.0 has been applied to scrutinize hypothesis tests in this study. This paper also offers implications for online business people and several impactful guidelines for future research studies.

This paper analyzed the factors affecting consumers’ purchase intentions and decisions while purchasing wine. The study was performed based on the primary data collected with the help of a survey and a structured questionnaire using convenience sampling. A total of 120 respondents above 21 years old across India who were wine consumers and likely to purchase wine were the study population. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, descriptive analysis, and cluster analysis were the main methods used to analyze the data. The information gathered was subjected to further quantitative analysis using SPSS. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure (KMO) of sampling adequacy was 0.759, and Cronbach’s alpha was 0.817 indicating high reliability of the study. Factor analysis brought out six essential factors affecting the wine purchase decisions of Indian consumers. They are as follows: quality concerns, consumption preferences, consumption deterrents, consumption reasons, social factors, and risk factors. Furthermore, the study found that the purchase intentions of Indian wine consumers are affected by the attitude and awareness of consumers. The cluster analysis further helped to divide the Indian wine market into three segments, i.e., regular consumers comprising 44.2%, non-consumers comprising 29.2%, and occasional consumers comprising 26.7%. A few of the key factors influencing wine purchase are attributes and knowledge of the wine ingredients. In addition, friends and family play an important role in wine purchasing decisions.

Nowadays, social media influencers are one of the most important assets of many businesses that originate purchase decisions. The relevance of this paper is determined by the fact that it tries to fill in the research gap of literature determining the factors that might influence the purchase decisions of millennial consumers based on the theories of the constructs. The purpose is to determine the impact of brand value on the credibility of influencers over the purchase decision. Therefore, 412 millennial consumers from the city of Arequipa, Peru, were surveyed through an online form provided by Google. Then, the validation and descriptive statistics were made on the program SPSS. Additionally, the inferential statistics using the software Smart PLS. The results show a positive, significant, and direct relationship between the credibility of influencers and customers’ purchase decisions. Moreover, this relationship increases through the brand value when incorporated into the model as a mediator variable, facilitating the decision of consumers. In conclusion, it was estimated that consumers feel even more confident when social media influencers transmit the message showing specific brand attributes.

Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Universidad Nacional de San Agustin de Arequipa for its support in developing this project.
The present study has been self-financed by the authors.

There is a growing interest in understanding the factors affecting the success of online food delivery (OFD) systems because online food ordering has increased considerably in recent years. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of brand image on customer satisfaction and purchase intention based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework by adopting DeLone and McLean IS success model. A convenience sample of 251 respondents, who use the most popular OFD applications in 3 largest cities of Turkey, was surveyed by an online self-administered structured questionnaire. The results were first organized as descriptive statistics for observed variables and frequencies of demographic variables. In the second phase, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) followed by structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the measurement and structural model. The results reveal that among OFD system success factors, only the system and service quality positively influence brand image, accounting for 46% of the variance. On the other hand, this study could not validate the proposed positive effect of information quality on brand image. For the role of brand image in customer responses, the findings evidence a significant positive effect of brand image on both customer satisfaction and intention to use. The variable explains 34% and 22% of the variance in satisfaction and purchase intention, respectively. In line with these results, this paper concludes that brand image can be introduced into the e-commerce success model as a new variable due to its partial mediating role and significant effects on customer responses.

The COVID-19 pandemic affected all sectors of the economy, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, it has been observed that while some SMEs succumb to the pandemic, others thrive. Therefore, the study investigates the influence of market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation as well as their dimensions on the performance of SMEs in the COVID-19 era. A cross-sectional research design was adopted in the study. The data were collected through a questionnaire administered to 385 SME owners and managers in Lagos State, Nigeria. 328 copies of the questionnaire, representing 85.1%, were retrieved and used for the analyses. The results of structural equation modeling revealed that entrepreneurial orientation and its dimensions significantly influenced SME performance. Innovativeness and pro-activeness positively influenced performance, while risk-taking negatively influenced performance. Furthermore, the findings indicate that market orientation and its dimensions have no significant influence on SME performance during COVID-19. The insights from the findings will help SME owners and managers to run their operations in a challenging business environment. It will also help SME development agencies in their efforts to encourage SME growth and long-term viability.

Acknowledgments
The authors appreciate the SME owners and managers who served as respondents for the study.

An increase in the number of privately-owned higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa has created greater competition among private and public HEIs since all are competing for the same pool of potential students. Thus, marketers of HEIs have begun to realize the importance of placing a renewed focus on their students’ (customers’) needs. This study aimed to establish whether students perceive themselves as customers of HEIs, as well as the extent to which they perceive the attitude of academic and administrative staff toward them as being customer-focused.
A total of 411 online questionnaires were administered to students at select private and public HEIs in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were conducted on the survey data using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. As a result, the majority of students perceived themselves as customers of the HEI. Furthermore, students’ perception of the attitude of academic and administrative staff toward them reinforced the view that they are indeed customers of their HEI. Thus, by working with the academics and administrators, HEIs should consistently identify and satisfy the service needs of students.

Financial service industries have experienced dynamic technological innovation. The research objective of this paper is to identify factors influencing the intentions of potential users to adopt the newly launched innovative mobile payment applications. This study proposes a theoretical framework based on the technology acceptance model (TAM). One hundred sixty-nine respondents were involved in this investigation, and the data were gathered using an online survey. The collected data were analyzed using the SEM technique. The findings reveal that users’ attitude has an essential role in mediating the impact of the benefit and trust on the intention to adopt a mobile payment technology. This study also shows different results from the previous studies regarding user perceptions of attitudes. The ease of use of innovative digital applications does not significantly affect attitudes.
Furthermore, an attitude positively impacts users’ intention to adopt innovative mobile payment applications. Therefore, user attitudes have an essential role in communicating the impact of the benefits derived from the intention to adopt an innovative mobile payment application. This study proves that innovative digital application providers need to pay attention to strategies for promoting their services. It is also vital for the providers to include the trust component in their service.

This paper aims to investigate the association between variables of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, cyber-market mavenism, and information sharing behavior, particularly among social network sites (SNS) users in Iraq.
This study depends on a quantitative method to test the variables. The sample contains 388 Iraqi customers or users using social network sites to share information about different products and services. The study conducts a purposive sample to determine the characteristics of users who have much information about different products and services. A questionnaire was prepared based on previous research and distributed to participants. The statistical analysis program (SPSS) for descriptive statistics and PLS-SEM were used to analyze the measurement and structural models to test the hypotheses.
The study results showed that altruism, moral obligation, and self-efficacy as intrinsic motivations influence cyber-market mavenism. However, self-enjoyment appears to have no impact on cyber-market mavenism. Moreover, reputation and social interaction also influence cyber-market mavenism. In addition, reciprocity and belongingness have no effect among Iraqi users. Thus, cyber-market mavenism plays a significant role in information-sharing behavior. The reason for such an outcome may develop a competitive advantage for marketers through understanding the market maven behavior on social network sites.

Consumers expect companies to practice fair pricing. Understanding the underlying cognitive mechanism that determines consumers’ price fairness perceptions is significant. It could help mitigate negative outcomes from unfairness perceptions and place firms in a better competitive position. This study examines the role of consumers’ thinking styles in perceived price fairness and purchase intention in a price increase situation. An online experiment was conducted wherein 171 participants across India, primarily from tier-1 cities frequently using car rental services, took part from September to December 2021. The majority of the participants (72) were 21-30 years old (42%). All involved participants met the initial criteria of using car rental services at least once a week. Proposed hypotheses were checked by one-way ANOVA following Tukey post hoc test and PROCESS. One-way ANOVA results shows a significant influence of thinking styles on cognitive attribution with large effect size, F(2, 168) = 28.04, p < .001, η2 = 0.25; presents a significant influence of thinking styles on perceived price fairness with large effect size, F(2, 168) = 30.07, p < .001, η2 = .0.26; demonstrates a significant influence of thinking styles on purchase intention F(2, 168) = 19.94, p < .001, η2 = .0.19. Findings revealed that, in the face of a price increase occurrence, consumers thinking holistically and analytically differ in perceived price fairness and purchase intention. Furthermore, holistic thinkers with higher cognitive attribution perceive a price increase as fairer. Thereby, they have higher purchase intention than analytic thinkers.

Acknowledgment
This study received support from Internal Grant Agency (project number IGA/FaME/2022/010), Tomas Bata University in Zlín.