CERES :: Browsing by Author "Wilson, Hugh"

Browsing by Author "Wilson, Hugh"

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Open Access
Addressing the ghost in the machine or “Is engagement a sustainable intermediate variable between the website drivers of consumer experience and consumers’ attitudinal and behavioural outputs?”
(Cranfield University, 2007-09) Mollen, Anne; Wilson, Hugh
Background and Purpose: In response to the cost transparency of the internet which has facilitated consumer switching behaviour, marketing practitioners have used the umbrella term of engagement to describe the experiential response to mechanisms by which consumers can be enticed and co-opted into behaviour presumed to be conducive to purchase or future purchase. It is a concept that, until recently, has been largely circumvented by the marketing academic world. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review is to generate a workable definition of consumer brand engagement online, predicated on a research model that builds on extant academic and practitioner evidence, which by virtue of its construction: 1. Shifts the locus of theoretical attention from a mechanistic/structuralist view of online consumer experience, increasingly recognized by the academic world as insufficient in its explanatory power, to more a more unitary approach that aligns behaviourist causality with ‘experiential intensity’ 2. Establishes a common discourse, thereby reconciling academic and practitioner perspectives 3. Provides the theoretical base for preliminary work on experiential metrics, and creates a platform for future research. Methodology: The review uses ‘realist synthesis’ to refine theory from a broad range of heterogeneous sources. The chapter on methodology provides a clear audit trail showing how decisions were made, evidence scrutinised and evaluated, and findings synthesised. Findings: The review provides support for the model and the definition of online consumer brand engagement, as well some steps towards operationalising the construct. The limitations of the methodology and learning points are discussed, as well as the contribution to future research and practice.
Open Access
The adoption of consortium B2B e-marketplaces: An exploratory study
(Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam., 2007-03-01T00:00:00Z) White, Andrew; Daniel, Elizabeth; Ward, John; Wilson, Hugh
Despite the considerable number of electronic B2B marketplaces formed and the benefits cited as arising from their use, many have gone out of business. This exploratory study seeks to provide a qualitative exposition of the specific factors influencing the adoption of consortium-owned B2B e-marketplaces. The study is based upon case studies of twelve companies trading through three different consortium B2B e-marketplaces. Twenty-six specific factors are identified and their impact on adoption is discussed. The identification of a significant number of factors specific to this domain provides real meaning and depth to those interested in the future of e-marketplaces. In particular, the factors identified provide those that operate such e-marketplaces with a detailed and actionable understanding of the issues they should address in order to survive, and provide users or potential users of consortium marketplaces with a practical framework with which to assess individual marketplaces. The factors can also form the basis of future studies of other types of marketplaces and of quantitative studies of adoption.
Open Access
All for one and one for all : encouraging prosocial behaviours through brand-convened consumer groups
(Cranfield University, 2013-05) Champniss, Guy; Wilson, Hugh; Macdonald, Emma K.
Academic and practitioner interest in sustainable consumer behaviour continues to grow. Yet the focus remains on marketing appeals based on awareness raising, perspective taking and concern. Whilst such an approach may be suitable for an established niche of committed consumers, it continues to be inappropriate for the majority. Situated within the debates on consumer behaviour, prosocial behaviour, brand communities and social identity theory, this study proposes an alternative route towards sustainable behaviours. This study focuses on such behaviours via the brand's formation of 'pop-up' consumer groups, and the subsequent influences these groups can exert on group members. Adapting aspects of social identity theory and self-categorisation theory, the study uses a novel field-based experiment to manipulate consumers into specific group structures (high/low group salience; normal/sustainable group goals) and measures the effects of these manipulations on prosocial behaviours both within and beyond the group. The effects on the consumer brand relationship are also observed. The results show first that such rapid group formation can lead to prosocial behaviours. Second, the results show that social identification with the group mediates the relationship between group salience and prosocial behaviours, but does not mediate the relationship between group goal and prosocial behaviours. Hence, it is suggested that two distinct processes are at work: social identity influence and social norm influence. Third, the study shows that group manipulations increase the consumer brand connection. Fourth, the study proposes novel distinctions between money and time as tradeable consumer resources, and suggests how the context of the request for these resources may alter the propensity to give. This study is the first of its kind to create a novel, minimal and temporary group within a natural consumer context, in order to encourage prosocial behaviour. The creation of these ‘pop-up’ groups provides an original contribution to both theory and practice.
Open Access
Assessing value-in-use: A conceptual framework and exploratory study
(Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam., 2011-07-01T00:00:00Z) Macdonald, Emma K.; Wilson, Hugh; Martinez, Veronica; Toossi, Amir
Developing approaches for understanding customer perceived value is a priority for managers and scholars alike. A conceptual framework for assessment of value-in-use is proposed and explored within the context of a maintenance service provider. In contrast to value models in previous empirical research, the framework includes assessment not just of provider attributes but also of the customer's usage processes, as well as customer evaluations of the value-in-use they obtain. Interviews with members of a cross-disciplinary buying group provide support for the framework, including the observations that individuals can assess the quality of their usage processes and that they can articulate value-in-use at both organizational and individual levels; the further concept of network quality also emerges from the data. Assessment of usage process quality as well as service quality evolves as the customer's goals evolve. Practitioners may wish to elicit usage process quality and value-in-use as well as service quality. Research directions include scale development for both usage process quality and value-in-use.
Open Access
The best I can be: how self-accountability impacts product choice in technology mediated environments
(Wiley, 2017-04-11) Rowe, Zoe O.; Wilson, Hugh; Dimitriu, Radu; Breiter, Katja; Charnley, Fiona
Technology-mediated environments are important not only as the location for an increasing proportion of purchases, but also as an even more pervasive part of the purchase journey. While most research into online consumer behavior focuses on attitudes as an antecedent of product choice, this article focuses on an important but hardly explored variable that may be impacted by technology-mediated environments: self-accountability. Laboratory experiments suggest that self-accountability may influence online purchases, but this has not been confirmed in field studies. Furthermore, although this prior work suggests that self-accountability may impact product choice through the elicitation of guilt, the role of positive emotions has not been explored. Using two surveys with online retailers, this paper (a) shows that in a technology-mediated environment, self-accountability influences product choice; (b) proposes and confirms a complementary route for this effect through pride that is stronger than that through guilt; and (c) evidences the relationship between self-accountability and perceived consumer effectiveness. These results show a clear opportunity for digital marketers to encourage self-accountability, to thereby elicit pride and not just guilt, and hence to impact consumer decision making in technology-mediated environments, particularly when choices have sustainability implications.
Open Access
Best practice: charity marketing
(2012-02-01T00:00:00Z) Blades, Fiona; Macdonald, Emma K.; Wilson, Hugh
Charity marketers are taking advantage of their long-standing expertise in areas such as speaking with authenticity and brand advocates
Open Access
Best practice: immersive market research
(2011-11-01T00:00:00Z) Macdonald, Emma K.; Wilson, Hugh
When and how to use immersive techniques for understanding customers
Open Access
Best practice: social media marketing
(2012-04-02T00:00:00Z) Macdonald, Emma K.; Wilson, Hugh
Embedding social media into marketing practice
Open Access
Customer engagement: "only connect", a reconciliation between scholastic and practitioner perspectives.
(Cranfield University, 2022-05) Mollen, Anne; Wilson, Hugh; Macdonald, Emma K.
The scholastic view of customer engagement is that it is a critical metric, albeit within the academic world there is a debate as to whether this critical metric is best represented experientially or behaviourally. The practitioner world is divided: for some the construct is a “vanity metric” (Weigel, 2011); others recognise the importance of the phenomenon but discard the experiential metric in favour of behavioural proxies. This thesis aims to achieve concordance between these perspectives by challenging the assumptions of both worlds about the concept’s provenance and utility It is structured around three papers. The conceptual paper (paper 1) defines customer engagement as an experiential construct, distinguishes it from neighbouring constructs (notably telepresence and interactivity), and establishes its dimensions, laying the groundwork for scale development. This paper was published in Journal of Business Research in 2010. It has become a central part of academic discourse on engagement, having 1590 Google Scholar citations by May 2022. Paper 2 explores the scholastic-practitioner disconnect about engagement. Through two large-scale surveys of media websites (n=12,125 and 3,030), it: (1) refines paper 1’s definition of engagement to take account of conceptual work in the intervening decade; (2) develops and validates an engagement scale reflecting that revised conceptualisation; (2) compares the impact on outcomes (loyalty, satisfaction and NPS) of this experiential engagement measure (‘CE’) with a behavioural measure (‘CEB@Site’), showing that the former outperforms the latter; (3) refutes the hypothesis, reflecting practitioner heuristics, that CEB@Site is a robust proxy for CE; and (4) illustrates that CEB@Site nonetheless remains a valuable metric in its own right. Context (here, different site ‘genres’) is a moderating factor that does not, however, inhibit comparisons between sites within the same category. Paper 3 examines the effect of CE on advertising receptivity (AdRecep), another crucial outcome for practitioners. Reusing paper 2’s second survey, it finds that: (1) CE drives AdRecep; (2) CE dimensions differ in their impact on AdRecep by context; (3) contextual targeting is an effective driver of AdRecep, and (4) respondents who are ‘receptive’ to advertising are also ‘responsive’ to it and exhibit a propensity to be ‘micro-influencers’. Paper 3 thereby makes the case for CE as an advertising metric of value.
Open Access
Customer experience quality: an exploration in business and consumer contexts using repertory grid technique
(Springer Science Business Media, 2011-09-08T00:00:00Z) Lemke, Fred; Clark, Moira; Wilson, Hugh
This study proposes a conceptual model for customer experience quality and its impact on customer relationship outcomes. Customer experience is conceptualized as the customer's subjective response to the holistic direct and indirect encounter with the firm, and customer experience quality as its perceived excellence or superiority. Using the repertory grid technique in 40 interviews in B2B and B2C contexts, the authors find that customer experience quality is judged with respect to its contribution to value-in-use, and hence propose that value-in-use mediates between experience quality and relationship outcomes. Experience quality includes evaluations not just of the firm's products and services but also of peer-to-peer and complementary supplier encounters. In assessing experience quality in B2B contexts, customers place a greater emphasis on firm practices that focus on understanding and delivering value-in-use than is generally the case in B2C contexts. Implications for practitioners' customer insight processes and future research directions are suggested.
Open Access
Customer perceived value : reconceptualisation, investigation and measurement
(Cranfield University, 2013-09) Bruce, Helen Louise; Wilson, Hugh
The concept of customer perceived value occupies a prominent position within the strategic agenda of organisations, as firms seek to maximise the value perceived by their customers as arising from their consumption, and to equal or exceed that perceived in relation to competitor propositions. Customer value management is similarly central to the marketing discipline. However, the nature of customer value remains ambiguous and its measurement is typically flawed, due to the poor conceptual foundation upon which previous research endeavours are built. This investigation seeks to address the current poverty of insight regarding the nature and measurement of customer value. The development of a revised conceptual framework synthesises the strengths of previous value conceptualisations while addressing many of their limitations. A multi-dimensional depiction of value arising from customer experience is presented, in which value is conceptualised as arising at both first-order dimension and overall, second-order levels of abstraction. The subsequent operationalisation of this conceptual framework within a two-phase investigation combines qualitative and quantitative methodologies in a study of customer value arising from subscription TV (STV) consumption. Sixty semi-structured interviews with 103 existing STV customers give rise to a multi-dimensional model of value, in which dimensions are categorised as restorative, actualising and hedonic in type, and as arising via individual, reflected or shared modes of perception. The quantitative investigation entails two periods of data collection via questionnaires developed from the qualitative findings, and the gathering of 861 responses, also from existing STV customers. A series of scales with which to measure value dimensions is developed and an index enabling overall perceived value measurement is produced. Contributions to theory of customer value arise in the form of enhanced insights regarding its nature. At the first-order dimension level, the derived dimensions are of specific relevance to the STV industry. However, the empirically derived framework of dimension types and modes of perception has potential applicability in multiple contexts. At the more abstract, second-order level, the findings highlight that value perceptions comprise only a subset of potential dimensions. Evidence is thus presented of the need to consider value at both dimension and overall levels of perception. Contributions to knowledge regarding customer value measurement also arise, as the study produces reliable and valid scales and an index. This latter tool is novel in its formative measurement of value as a second order construct, comprising numerous first-order dimensions of value, rather than quality as incorporated in previously derived measures. This investigation also results in a contribution to theory regarding customer experience through the identification of a series of holistic, discrete, direct and indirect value-generating interactions. Contributions to practice within the STV industry arise as the findings present a solution to the immediate need for enhanced value insight. Contributions to alternative industries are methodological, as this study presents a detailed process through which robust value insight can be derived. Specific methodological recommendations arise in respect of the need for empirically grounded research, an experiential focus and a twostage quantitative methodology.
Open Access
The diffusion of e-commerce in UK SMEs
(Westburn Publishers, 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z) Wilson, Hugh; Daniel, Elizabeth; Davies, Iain A.
The concept of the Internet as a cluster of related innovations, along with the staged approach to organisational learning exhibited by SMEs in other domains, suggest that e-commerce is likely to be adopted in a sequence of stages. This exploratory survey, carried out by means of a postal questionnaire with 678 respondents, uses cluster analysis to derive a grouped classification of e- commerce adoption. Four groups of organisations emerge, which we term developers, communicators, promoters and customer lifecycle managers. Through inductive analysis of these groups we are able to suggest that they represent four stages in the adoption of e-commerce. Five factors found to influence this adoption are top management support, management understanding of business benefits, presence of IT skills, availability of consultancy, and prioritisation of e-commerce. In addition to these factors, several other factors influence the value of e-commerce to the enterprise for any given adoption level, notably perceived risk and customer demand. Further research is encouraged to validate and extend the stage model: further stages are hypothesised, for example, termed supply chain managers and virtual value deliverers. Implications for practitioners include the need to include customer demand information and a risk assessment in decisions on adoption, and the importance of building in-house skills as part of the adoption plan.
Open Access
Engagement, telepresence and interactivity in online consumer experience: reconciling scholastic and managerial perspectives
(Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam., 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z) Mollen, Anne; Wilson, Hugh
We propose a conceptual framework that reconciles the practitioners’ view of engagement as central to online best practice and the scholarly view that tends to use other constructs to assess consumer experience. Building on research in e-learning as well as online marketing, we characterize the consumer experiential response to website and environmental stimuli as a dynamic, tiered perceptual spectrum which includes interactivity, telepresence and engagement. We construe engagement as a cognitive and affective commitment to an active relationship with the brand as personified by the website, and we propose dimensions of this construct. We discuss how the constructs of flow and involvement are related to but distinct from the constructs within our conceptual framework. We offer suggestions for future empirical research into developing a scale for engagement and assessing its importance and utilit
Open Access
Engaging stakeholders in sustainablilty-orientated innovation.
(Cranfield University, 2018-10) Watson, Rosina; Wilson, Hugh; Macdonald, Emma K.
Companies increasingly collaborate with external stakeholders to deliver sustainability- oriented innovations intended to address environmental and social challenges. These partnerships have the potential to combine the diverse resources and capabilities required to implement systemic change, but suffer from conflicts and tensions arising from differences in partners’ objectives driven by their contrasting institutional logics (or ‘value frames’). Through three interconnected studies written as journal articles, this thesis contributes to our understanding of how companies can effectively engage their stakeholders in sustainability-oriented innovation. A systematic literature review integrates evidence from 88 scientific articles into a framework revealing the hierarchy of capabilities required to integrate a company’s stakeholders in sustainability-oriented innovation. Notably, a tier of second-order stakeholder learning capabilities is identified which enables companies to acknowledge, work positively with and learn from differences between themselves and their partners. These differences, as well as the mechanisms and strategies employed to navigate them, are further investigated through eight case studies of sustainability-innovation partnerships. First, findings from a subset of five business-nonprofit partnerships are synthesized into an action-oriented ‘CIMO- logic’ framework which sets out the stakeholder interventions used and the value outcomes generated. Whilst project outcomes are achieved by partners enforcing their own interests through agent control, total value is enhanced when partners recombine their resources and capabilities through resource integration; this process is facilitated by partners navigating differences between their value frames through value empathy. Second, analysis of all eight case studies focuses in on this issue of recognizing and reconciling difference. Five dimensions of difference between partners emerge (goal salience, goal instrumentality, temporal focus, language and collaborative intent) along with five strategies deployed to reconcile tensions arising from these differences (engagement logic alignment, cultural bridging, partner positioning, project scoping and success measurement). Taken together, the thesis’s findings advance our understanding of how companies can effectively integrate stakeholder perspectives into their sustainability-oriented innovation processes. They may have implications for other innovation and partnerships contexts involving stakeholders, including those from diverse institutional settings.
Open Access
An exploratory case study analysis of contemporary marketing practices
(Taylor & Francis, 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z) Palmer, Roger; Wilson, Hugh
The Contemporary Marketing Practice (CMP) research tradition has formulated and investigated a set of different marketing practices or archetypes ranging from transactional to relationship and network approaches. We identify gaps in previous research, and report on a case study in the house-building industry, which begins to fill these gaps. Specifically, we propose some amendments to the definition and detail of the marketing practices, arguing for example that e- marketing does not exist as a separate practice but rather that marketing practices are independent of the specific media and technology used at the customer interface. We also explore drivers and enabling factors of transitions between practices. Further case study research is called for in this domain.
Open Access
Harnessing difference: a capability-based framework for stakeholder engagement in environmental innovation
(Wiley, 2017-06-02) Watson, Rosina; Wilson, Hugh; Smart, Palminder; Macdonald, Emma K.
Innovation for environmental sustainability requires firms to engage with external stakeholders to access expertise, solve complex problems, and gain social legitimacy. In this open innovation context, stakeholder engagement is construed as a dynamic capability that can harness differences between external stakeholders to augment their respective resource bases. An integrative systematic review of evidence from 88 scientific articles finds that engaging stakeholders in environmental innovation requires three distinct levels of capability: specific operational capabilities; first-order dynamic capabilities to manage the engagement (engagement management capabilities); and second-order dynamic capabilities to make use of contrasting ways of seeing the world to reframe problems, combine competencies in new ways, and co-create innovative solutions (value framing), and to learn from stakeholder engagement activities (systematized learning). These findings enhance understanding of how firms can effectively incorporate stakeholder perspectives for environmental innovation, and provide an organizing framework for further research into open innovation and co-creation more broadly. Wider contributions to the dynamic capabilities literature are to (i) offer a departure point for further research into the relationship between first-order and second-order dynamic capabilities, (ii) suggest that institutional theory can help explain the dynamic capability of value framing, (iii) build on evidence that inter-institutional learning is contingent on not only the similarity but also the differences between organizational value frames, and (iv) suggest that operating capabilities impact the effectiveness of dynamic capabilities, rather than only the other way around, as is usually assumed. A methodological contribution is made through the application of quality assessment criteria scores and intercoder reliability statistics to the selection of articles included in the systematic review.
Open Access
How business customers judge solutions: solution quality and value in use
(American Marketing Association, 2016-05) Macdonald, Emma K.; Kleinaltenkamp, Michael; Wilson, Hugh
Many manufacturers look to business solutions to provide growth, but success is far from guaranteed, and how solutions can create superior perceived value is not clear. This article explores what constitutes value for customers from solutions over time, conceptualized as value-in-use, and how this arises from quality perceptions of the solution’s components. A framework for solution quality and value-in-use is developed through 36 interviews combining repertory grid technique and means-end chains. Significantly extending the extant view of quality as a function of the supplier’s products and services, findings show that customers also assess the quality of their own resources and processes, and of the joint resource integration process. Contrasting strongly with prior research, value-in-use corresponds not just to collective, organizational goals but also to individuals’ goals. Four moderators of the quality-value relationship demonstrate customer heterogeneity across both firms and roles within what the authors term the usage center. When shifting towards solutions, manufacturers require very different approaches to market research, account management, solution design and quality control, including the need for a value auditing process.
Open Access
How companies use customer insight to drive customer acquisition, development and retention
(Cranfield University, 2008-06) Bailey, Christine R.; Wilson, Hugh; Clark, Moira
In theory, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology and processes should help firms to identify the ‘right’ customers, understand their needs, predict their behaviour and develop tailored propositions. Yet numerous studies have found that CRM projects have failed to deliver the expected benefits. Academics and practitioners have begun to refer to a key resource required to fulfil the promise of CRM as ‘customer insight’. Project one explores how companies use customer insight to drive customer acquisition, retention and development and proposes a theoretical framework for actioning customer insight. Five case studies with UK-based large companies were undertaken, involving 25 in-depth interviews. Companies were found to be synthesising data from five areas: competitors, customers, markets, employees and channel partners. From this data they are generating four types of customer insight: market predictions, customer segments, propensity models and customer analytics. This insight is guiding strategy, operations, marketing, sales, product portfolio management and customer service. Project two explores a particularly promising area of practice uncovered in project one, namely how customer insight is used in inbound service call centres to drive crossselling, up-selling and retention. Empirical research into this practice of sales through service is sparse. A cross-sector multiple-case exploratory study of six UK-based organisations was undertaken, using interviews and agent observation. Customer insight in the form of predictive models delivered to agents’ screens appears to improve the effectiveness of sales through service. Contrary to common practitioner concerns, insight-based sales offers can have a positive impact on satisfaction, and introducing sales through service does not necessarily increase average handling time. Agents are more likely to make successful offers if they believe that they are ‘doing the right thing’ for the customer. A balanced set of targets covering productivity, satisfaction and sales seems important for agents combining sales and service roles. Further research is needed to validate and refine the seven propositions generated.
Open Access
How organisations generate and use customer insight
(Taylor & Francis, 2015-05-07) Said, Emanuel; Macdonald, Emma K.; Wilson, Hugh
The generation and use of customer insight in marketing decisions is poorly understood, partly due to difficulties in obtaining research access and partly because market-based learning theory views knowledge as a fixed asset. However, customer insight takes many forms, arrives at the organisation from increasingly diverse sources and requires more than mere dissemination if it is to be useful. A multiple case study approach is used to explore managerial practices for insight generation and use. Multiple informants from each of four organisations in diverse sectors were interviewed. Findings reveal the importance of value alignment and value monitoring across the insight demand chain, to complement the information processing emphasis of extant research. Within the firm, the study suggests the importance of customer insight conduct practices including insight format, the role of automation and insight shepherding, to complement the much-researched process perspective. The study provides a basis for assessing the effectiveness of insight processes by both practitioners and scholars.
Open Access
How shareholder activism influences company non-financial performance.
(Cranfield University, 2018-12) Cundill, Gary; Wilson, Hugh; Smart, Palie
Shareholders have become increasingly active in endeavouring to influence companies’ non-financial performance, but enquiries into this form of shareholder activism are limited and fragmented. It is as yet unclear what aspects of company non-financial performance are of most interest to shareholders. Researchers have yet to uncover the conditions under which shareholder interventions succeed, or how boards respond beyond simple increases in disclosure. Furthermore, research in emerging markets is almost non-existent. This thesis addresses these gaps in two main ways. First, a systematic literature review provides a synthesis of the state of academic knowledge about shareholder activism that aims to influence corporate environmental and social performance. Theoretical perspectives appropriate to this phenomenon are critically appraised, and data from the literature are organised into a new process model of shareholder influence. An agenda to direct future research in this burgeoning field is articulated. Second, an empirical study investigates non-financial shareholder activism in the context of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, drawing on interviews with a range of participants, as well as media reports and company documentation. An enhanced process model of the phenomenon is proposed that details a broad range of shareholder interventions, and shows how their impact is moderated by several variables. A typology of directors’ actions and concomitant outcomes is detailed, showing the presence of a feedback loop to the factors moderating the process. A set of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues of interest to contemporary shareholders is presented, showing what shareholders believe constitute company non-financial performance. Insight is provided into contradictions in the concept of ESG, particularly in the conflation of company environmental and social performance and company governance processes. A concluding discussion then explains how this two-pronged approach has enriched the existing knowledge base, implications for practitioners are provided and an enhanced research agenda is offered.