Javaria Abbas

The shopping mall literature is deficient in understanding the Pakistani shopper’s behavior and especially in cities other than metropolitan. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to bridge this research gap by examining the relationship between mall mix environments and shopping wellbeing, a relatively new and adapted term. The research reported in this paper also investigates the mediating role of shopping wellbeing between mall mix environment and word of mouth, loyalty, commitment and shopping value. A shopper survey through mall intercept technique was used (N=208) in two shopping malls of Multan. Though gender is momentous marketing segment but the disparity can be easily witnessed when it comes to deriving fun and enjoyment from shopping quest i.e. hedonic dimension of shopping value which is more female dominated due to lack of leisure opportunities for females in agrarian city of Multan governed by feudal minded lords supporting suppression of females. It is ...

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize the attitude of university students towards advertising on social-networking sites (SNS). The study examined how infotainment, credibility, irritation along with personalized product, price and promotion content affect the value generated through social-networking site's advertisement (SNA) and how the value generated mediates the relationship between the antecedents and the consumer's attitude towards SNA. A deductive, quantitative research approach was adopted, where data was collected using a questionnaire administered to a sample of 310 university students. The results showed that consumers take SNA as infotaining, credible and do not consider it as irritating. They enjoy the personalized content of product, promotion and price of SNA. They have more of advertisement value and shows positive attitude towards SNA. Advertisement value have found to mediate relationship between infotainment, credibility, irritation and consumers' attitude towards SNA, but fails to mediate personalized product, price and promotion content. Managers need to build mutually satisfying long-term relationships with key constituents in order to earn and retain their business. Manager should develop the proper strategies for being socialized on social-networking sites. The paper enables marketing managers to assess how to utilize the newer media in order to generate value for consumers and get maximum long-term benefits for the company.

The main purpose of this study is to determine the level of satisfaction from the existing service quality in the retail banking sector of Pakistan and to investigate mediating role of customer satisfaction in determining the customer loyalty from prevailing service quality. So far, a limited study has been conducted in retail banking sector of Pakistan to understand the impact of customers' perceived service quality on customer loyalty via customer satisfaction. Literature was reviewed in order to comprehend what makes service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and to identify nature of relationship between them. Total of 180 responses were received from banking customers having active accounts in different banks in six cities in the area of Northern Punjab of Pakistan. Correlation matrix revealed significant positive relationship between all attributes of service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in retail banking sector in Pakistan. Regression analysis demonstrated customer satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between reliability and customer loyalty as well as assurance and customer loyalty, partially mediates empathy and customer loyalty, while no mediation found between tangibility and customer loyalty as well as between responsiveness and customer loyalty. Tangibility, however, showed a direct impact on customer loyalty. The bank managers in Pakistan must be vigilant about providing service quality with a special emphasis on reliability, assurance and empathy which are antecedents of customer satisfaction that in turn mediates the impact of these antecedents towards customer loyalty. Furthermore, bank managers must be watchful about provision of service quality in terms of tangibility which has a direct influence on customer loyalty.

Creativity has vital impact on organizational performance and when it is the case of service firms, the creativity of frontline employees become more crucial. This study investigates the role of contextual factors such as job complexity and relationship with supervisor on employee creativity that in turn have positive effect on firm's innovation and performance. This study further investigates that employee intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between contextual factors and employee creativity. Data were collected through convenient sampling from banking employees working in different branches of seven Pakistani banks operating in Multan city through 164 questionnaires which then analyzed using SPSS 16. The results showed the direct relationship of job complexity and supervisory relationship with employee creativity keeping the mediating variable unaffected. Further, employee creativity has shown significant positive relation with organization innovation capability and firm performance. Managerial implications, limitations and recommendations for future research have also been discussed.