• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.5-12
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• 2018

Purpose - The third place plays an important role in complex society. The more customers participate in the third place, the higher they have loyalty. It is necessary to identify the mediator between customer participation and loyalty. Thus, the purpose of the study is to analyze the relationship between customer participation and loyalty and a mediating role of psychological ownership. Research design, data, and methodology - A structural equation model representing the relationships between customer participation, psychological ownership, and customer loyalty was proposed and four hypotheses were tested using data collected from visitors of Starbucks as the third place. Results - Three hypotheses regarding relationships between customer participation, psychological ownership, and customer loyalty were supported at the significance level of 0.001. The hypothesis regarding a mediating role of psychological ownership between customer participation and customer loyalty was supported by Sobel test. Conclusions - Customer participation positively affects psychological ownership and customer loyalty. Psychological ownership positively affects customer loyalty. Psychological ownership plays a mediating role in the relationship between customer ownership and loyalty. This study contributes to finding the missing link between customer participation and customer loyalty. The research model can be applied to various retail services. Some implications for academics and practitioners were suggested.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.15-22
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• 2015

Purpose - This study aims to propose and validate a research model that describes the relationships between customer socialization, customer participation, and customer loyalty in the online service industry. Although customer loyalty is frequently discussed topic in marketing and strategy research, this study takes a novel approach in adopting customer socialization and participation as the antecedents to customer loyalty. Research design, data, and methodology - Based on adopting and modifying measurement items of the constructs from previous studies, this study develops survey regarding the constructs within the proposed research model. Among current registered members of Facebook and DaumKakao, 522 college students and other regular users are selected as the samples for conducting the survey. The collected data is analyzed by structural equation modeling method using SPSS and AMOS. Results Proposed hypotheses of the positive relationships - between customer socialization and customer participation, and between customer participation and customer loyalty are all supported. Conclusions - The results of this study suggest customer participation as an important precursor to customer loyalty in the online service industry. Also, customer socialization is validated as a new strategy to increase customer participation. These results validate the practical importance of communicating mission, purpose, value, and other customer socialization activities that firms undertake.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.1-10
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• 2020

In this study, the structure model including the role of servicescape focusing on service participation and customer experience in theme park service is demonstrated empirically. The servicescape construct of theme park service includes three factors such as ambient atmosphere, functionality and layout, and sign, symbols etc. Customer service participation includes suggestion, passion and citizenship. And the emotional and convenience factors are included to customer experience. As an analysis result of examining the 241 respondents of university students, some implications were described. Customer satisfaction is greatly influenced by customer's participation in theme park service, and customer's participation has a significant effect on improving customer satisfaction by inducing customer experiences. It is desirable to consider servicescape priority in order of signs and symbols, ambient atmosphere, functionality and layout factor. The customer's participation in service is a passion for participation, citizenship, and suggesting for problems or improvements. Therefore, participants in planning and designing servicescape in the future, including IT services, should be creative in the direction of inducing various participations of customers and creating positive experiences for customers. In order to apply these findings to the composition of servicescape, the participation of various experts is required. Also, the expertise and competences of various fields must be gathered for each issues, and a more creative and scientific approach is required.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.907-918
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• 2015

With the pervasiveness of digital environment and expansion of new media, ICT (Information and Communication Technology) leads the role of consumer to change from a passive customer into an active co-producer. As customer participation in the fashion industry increases, this study attempts to explore the cases of customer participation as a co-producer in fashion industry through analyzing business models of companies, including Threadless, Blank label, Cut on Your Bias, Acustom Apparel, Thinkgivers. The results show that customer participation is mainly facilitated through design participation in fashion industry, with different level of participation and IT as well as different contribution target. Compared to the past, consumer’s preference is reflected through participation before the stage of production. Results indicate three main characteristics of customer participation in fashion industry. First, value co-creations using customer experiences and understanding customer needs are important. Second, active online communication among customers are critical. Third, it is important to ensure customer’s own item. From a customer perspective, participation enables them to purchase their own distinctive product and offers exciting experience and satisfaction over the production processes, and compensation can be used to increase customer participation. On the other hand, companies using customer participation can take advantage of cost reduction in product development, inventory, and marketing. Customer participation, as a win-win strategy for business and consumer, is expected to expand further in the future with the development of ICT.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.177-186
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• 2022

This study aimed to measure the impact of societal participation of Saudi banks on customer satisfaction and determine the statistical differences in customer satisfaction according to sex, age, income, education, and work type. Societal participation has economic and environmental dimensions. The study population includes all Saudis in the government, military, and private sectors reaching 3.58 million in 2021. The unit of analysis is Saudi customers of commercial banks. The 12 banks have societal programs. The research tool is a "Questionnaire," It is distributed face-to-face at places of work. The study concludes that economic participation has no impact on customer satisfaction; however, the impact of environmental participation on customer satisfaction is proved. The study shows no statistical differences in customer satisfaction according to mediators (sex, age, income, education, and work type). Despite the environmental participation being the tangible product by Saudi banks in the local market, the study concludes the positive relationship between societal participation and customer satisfaction. The study presents a set of recommendations for enhancing societal participation in the Saudi businesses environment.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.942-955
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• 2015

Hashtag has emerged and become one of cultural trend. Given that more and more firms in the fashion industry are using hashtag on images based on SNS to provide information of their products and to communicate with their customers. Especially, hashtags through voluntary participation of users provides the perspective of how customers consume their products. Therefore, this study focused on the using motives of hashtag in image based SNS with customer social participation as mediator towards brand equity. The purpose of this study is (1) to investigate the usage motivation of hashtag of image contents based SNS, (2) to expose how each usage motive affects customer social participation and (3) to find out how customer social participation has an effect on brand equity. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, first we conducted an in-depth interview on 8 image based SNS heavy users to understand the using motives of hashtags. Furthermore, we conducted online surveys amongst people aged between 20s and 30s of image contents based SNS users. As a result of this study, followings were figured out. First, four of usage motivation of hashtag were examined through in-depth interview and previous studies; interest sharing, social interaction, ease of use and enjoyment. Second, usage motivation of hashtag has a significant effect on customer social participation. Third, customer-media participation and customer-customer participation impact positively on brand equity. Lastly, level of customer social participation has the moderating effect on the relationship between motivation of hashtag and customer social participation.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.137-164
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• 2013

This research examines not only the relationship between customer participation and friendship on which are focused in service marketing, but also their influences on relational outcomes. It has been well-known that customer participation had strong influence on an interaction with service provider in a service encounter which could build up social aspects of customers-service firms, as well as functional aspects. Thus, this paper identify the relational outcomes generated by customer participation and social bonds, not just customer satisfaction or service quality. As results, considering the impact of customer participation on the interaction process, customer participation had a directly positive effect on the friendship significantly. Additionally, friendship influenced by customer participation and interaction with a service provider was examined that it could have influences on relational outcomes such as relationship quality and customer loyalty. Therefore, customer participation can get rich the process of interaction, which can build up friendship between customers and service providers. Ultimately, it is estimated that customer participation and friendship can lead relational outcomes.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.37-51
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• 2020

Customer participation in the service encounter plays an important role in the interaction process. In addition, customer participation is affecting the development of relationships between customer-service provider. Previous researches revealed the role of customer participation through a fragmented and cross-sectional approach, however, given the dynamics of the relationship, it is necessary to identify the role of customer participation from a longitudinal perspective. In addition, it is necessary to determine the cause of the overlap between the antecedent variables and consequent variables. This study aims to identify the relational role of customer participation by clarifying how customer participation affects relationship development from a longitudinal perspective, focusing on trust and commitment variables which are keys to relationship marketing. The related role of customer participation is analyzed through a regression analysis through long-term data. The results of the study showed that commitment(t1) directly had a positive effect on customer participation. However, trust(t1) has been shown to have a direct positive effect on the sub-dimensions of customer participation, such as personal interaction and responsible behavior. Customer participation(t2) affected by this trust(t1) and commitment(t1) again turned out to have a positive effect on trust(t3) and commitment(t3). In conclusion, although customer participation is affected by the relational variables, it can be seen that customer participation is a major factor that can improve the relational variables again through the interaction process. For this reason, a service firm can seek to develop relationships with customers by drawing and utilizing their needs to exchange information and to interact in the service encounter.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.232-242
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• 2007

Consumers are not simply consuming products anymore. They now take part in developing new products. Thus, it is essential that we devise a variety of consumer-oriented marketing strategies to keep close relationships with consumers. The purposes of this study were as follows: 1) to explore the relationship between customer participation and surveys on its effect, 2) to compare groups with respect to customer participation, and 3) to see whether there is a cause-effect relationship between the customer participation and surveys on its effect. Frequency analysis, correlative analysis and discriminate analysis were used to analyze the data. The results of testing hypotheses can be summarized as follows. we find that, as for customer participation factors, there is significant relationships among survey factors including customer satisfaction, cost reduction, customers' prior occupations. The current analysis exhibits favorable results in the customer participation and such factors. The analysis shows that there is significant difference between the active groups and the passive groups in all the new product development related factors; customer satisfaction, cost reduction, customers' prior occupations. Finally, this perhaps indicates that the result of the survey depends on whether firms are positive or negative in introducing customer participation.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.81-96
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• 2019

Because the service is characterized by simultaneous production and consumption, the customer must participate directly in the delivery and production process of the service. For this reason, the variable Customer Participation has aggregated many empirical results in the service marketing field. Recent research on customer participation has focused on the relationship marketing, and is empirically identifying the relevance of customer participation and relative value of relationship marketing. These findings indicate that customer participation should be understood in a relationship between customers and service firms. Using commitment velocity and customer participation velocity considering dynamic of the relationship, this study aims to re-examine the relationship between customer participation and encounter satisfaction which is the foundation of relationship formation. Multiple regression analysis and hierarchical regression analysis are used as research methods. The study found that customer participation has a direct positive effect on encounter satisfaction, and that commitment velocity and customer participation velocity also have a significant effect on encounter satisfaction. However, all assumptions that were expected to moderate the impact of customer participation on encounter satisfaction were rejected. Although the study failed to identify the moderating role, it was clear about the impact on the encounter satisfaction of commitment velocity and customer participation velocity. Applying them to a wider variety of service types provided an opportunity to identify the value of the study, and to broaden the scope of the study suing these variables.