The quality of the relationship between customers and service firms has been found to be a major driver of customer loyalty in traditional (i.e., offline) service contexts. The increasing use of electronic services, or e-services, raises questions concerning the extent to which the relationship...

In many countries retailers use private label brands (i.e., brands sold under retailers' own labels) to differentiate assortment and price. As private label brands enjoy growing popularity and are increasing in both their quantity and quality, they continue to attract the attention of scholars...

The brand clutter in many product categories and increasing numbers of similar products, some of which are deliberate look-alikes, make it more difficult for consumers to distinguish between brands, which can lead to more mistaken and misinformed purchases. Moreover, increasing brand similarity...

Purpose - Consumer sovereignty assumes that consumers have adequate product information and are able to understand that information in order to make an informed choice. However, this is not the case when consumers are confused. Recently, Walsh et al. identified dimensions of consumer confusion...

Marketplace discrimination, which involves a differential treatment of customers in the marketplace based on perceived group-level traits, is common in service encounters. In the past, research has focused on discrimination experienced by members of ethnic minorities, however, not much is known...

This paper has four purposes. First, to establish the policy background leading to a special financial reporting standard for small firms (FRSSE), aimed at reducing compliance costs. An indirect policy implication of this was that small firms would be stimulated, for example, in terms of...

The problem domain of the investigation presented in this dissertation is knowledge increase. In particular the research is concerned with the process of knowledge increase. The research problem formulated is formulated a posteriori: "Which factors determine the increase of personal knowledge...

This article focuses on the consequences of networking for advertising planning.

This paper explores the social dynamics by means of which market forces are enacted at the level of everyday consumption. In particular, it draws on Holt's (2002) notion that as 'unruly bricoleurs', consumers kick-start processes of market adjustment and innovation through improvising ways to...

This work analyses make or buy decisions from the transaction cost economics perspective and the resource-based view of the firm. The aim is to analyse the extent to which the presumptions of the two theories are valid in the service sector in terms of specific assets. The study was conducted on...