Uses survey results from a national sample of quality managers to examine the relationship between how a firm defines quality and what product quality dimensions it considers important to its competitive strategy. Garvin proposed a well‐known framework for thinking about product quality based...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying strategic intent of quality performance. Specifically, the study aimed to examine the individual impact of differentiation and cost leadership as well as their interaction effect on quality performance....

Describes how focusing on total product quality (TPQ) can provide a new form of competitive differentiation, bearing in mind the move towards product parity. Considers that the role of marketing is vitally important in building TPQ, as a good quality product can be so easily let down by poor...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine competition between tourism destination brands in terms of how they share travelers with each other. Design/methodology/approach – The study analyzes survey data from four international markets (USA, UK, Japan and Singapore). The study...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine consumer characteristics, buying behaviour, and the factors that influence the Chinese wine consumer. Design/methodology/approach – The study applies qualitative and quantitative methodology, together with a literature review and a...

Purpose This paper aims to explore the impact of the internet and related information and communications technology developments on how financial services (FS) are distributed and how customers are managed, in particular, not only how companies can differentiate between “good” and “bad”...

The goal of this study was to gauge brand loyalty. To do this, a brand loyalty acid test was used, which involved an out‐of‐stock (OOS) experiment where the complete product line of a brand was removed from several stores in order to estimate the OOS responses of consumers. Three types of...

Reviews various methods for handling competition in dynamic market models. Proposes a research strategy which considers the method in relation to quantitative considerations of market validity and behavioural factors of implementation. Gives a case study where this research strategy is applied.

Purpose – Organizations continually seek new ways to achieve competitive advantage and word of mouth (WOM) represents such an opportunity because it has a powerful influence on consumers' attitudes and behaviors. However, prior research offers little insight into what WOM really means. The...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore consumer patronage of extreme value retailers in the USA. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs a sample generated from Retail Forward panel data ( n =1,107) to explore consumer patronage of extreme value retailers. Descriptive...