PurposePartial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) has become an established soc... more PurposePartial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) has become an established social sciences multivariate analysis technique. Since quality management researchers also increasingly using PLS-SEM, this growing interest calls for guidance.Design/methodology/approachBased on established guidelines for applying PLS-SEM and evaluating the results, this research reviews 107 articles applying the method and published in eight leading quality management journals.FindingsThe use of PLS-SEM in quality management often only draws on limited information and analysis results. The discipline would benefit from the method's more comprehensive use by following established guidelines. Specifically, the use of predictive model assessment and more advanced PLS-SEM analyses harbors the potential to provide more detailed findings and conclusions when applying the method.Research limitations/implicationsThis research provides first insights into PLS-SEM's use in quality managemen...
Il boom dei siti di social couponing, trainati dal leader Groupon, \ue8 uno dei fenomeni caratter... more Il boom dei siti di social couponing, trainati dal leader Groupon, \ue8 uno dei fenomeni caratterizzanti l\u2019e-commerce a livello mondiale degli ultimi 3-5 anni. I pochi studi disponibili sull\u2019argomento prendono in considerazione prevalentemente gli impatti di tale fenomeno sugli acquirenti finali, che possono accedere a servizi a prezzi particolarmente scontati. Dall\u2019altro lato, nella prospettiva dei c.d. merchant, cio\ue8 delle imprese \u201cinserzioniste\u201d, i siti di couponing rappresentano un nuovo strumento di marketing e anche la prima concreta possibilit\ue0 di accesso all\u2019e-commerce per molte imprese di micro-piccole dimensioni. Il presente lavoro esamina il social couponing da questa seconda prospettiva, quella dei merchant, esplorando i driver della loro soddisfazione e della loro fedelt\ue0 al sito di couponing. Attraverso una ricerca su un campione di 121 merchant italiani che hanno pubblicato offerte su Groupon, si evidenzia un forte legame tra sod...
Tourism firms have been severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis as a result of lockdowns and str... more Tourism firms have been severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis as a result of lockdowns and strict health regulations imposed by national authorities (Kreiner & Ram, 2020). As the tourism industry has started to gradually reopen, tourism firms have been applying a wide array of responses, ranging from compliance with health measures to innovating their services, adopting new technologies and searching for new customer segments (Alonso et al., 2020). Some studies have addressed firms\u2019 resilience and begun identifying the strategies adopted by tourism and hospitality firms to cope with the COVID-19 crisis (Breier et al., 2021; Kaushal & Srivastava, 2020; Lai & Wong, 2020). However, evidence about the effects of different types of responses on firm performance is still lacking. This study aims to provide a first assessment of the effects of three groups of responses to the COVID-19 crisis \u2013 marketing, cost cutting and organizational changes \u2013 on customer loyalty and economic performance. In particular, this study proposes a model employing partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using a sample of agritourism firms
Il contributo esamina le motivazioni per le quali il social couponing \ue8 adottato dagli hotel i... more Il contributo esamina le motivazioni per le quali il social couponing \ue8 adottato dagli hotel italiani e discute l'efficacia di tale strumento
Purpose of the study Given the growing influence that online reviews have on traveler\u2019s deci... more Purpose of the study Given the growing influence that online reviews have on traveler\u2019s decisions, several hospitality operators are actively soliciting their customers to post reviews on TripAdvisor and similar websites. This paper intends to investigate how widespread this phenomenon is and how customers react to such solicitations. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a cross-sectional approach. Data were collected from a sample of Italian tourists, posting the link to a questionnaire on two of the most popular Italian tourism-related blogs. The questionnaire included questions measuring both the diffusion of the phenomenon of soliciting reviews and constructs related to consumer reaction (consumer reactance, perceived intrusiveness, intention to review, etc.). Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling. Findings Currently available data reveal that the majority of respondents have been solicited at least once by hospitality operators to write a review on TripAdvisor and similar websites. In addition, they show the existence of a significant level of consumer reactance related to consumers\u2019 perceptions that their freedom is threatened. Originality/value Based on the well-known influence that online travelers\u2019 reviews have on other travelers, some recent studies have suggested that the hospitality operators should actively solicit their customers to write online reviews for their hotels, restaurants, etc.. Nonetheless, to other knowledge and up to now, this is the first study to measure how customers react to such solicitations. Research limitations/implications Despite being based only on a sample of Italian tourists, this study may stimulate further research to understand the effects of solicited reviews in the tourism and hospitality fields. Practical implications The findings may assist hospitality operators in deciding whether to solicit their customers to write online reviews for them and in designing their overall strategy to effectively manage their brand image on travel review websites
Purpose Although sales activities in the wine industry are becoming increasingly important, there... more Purpose Although sales activities in the wine industry are becoming increasingly important, there has been little research on the sales capabilities in wine businesses. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by examining the most important salesperson and sales management capabilities and emerging trends related to the management of sales capabilities in the wine industry. Design/methodology/approach Empirical analysis based on an explorative research design was conducted in the Italian wine industry. Sales directors from 4 of the 30 largest Italian wine producers were interviewed. Textual data were analysed using template analysis. Findings Analysis of the findings revealed the most important capabilities of salespeople and sales managers and identified four emerging trends related to sales capability management in the wine industry – capabilities enrichment, capabilities balance, capabilities specialisation and capabilities acquisition process. Research limitations/impli...
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 2019
Purpose Establishing thought leadership by disseminating relevant digital content through social ... more Purpose Establishing thought leadership by disseminating relevant digital content through social media has become one of the main priorities for marketers in business-to-business (B2B) settings. However, academic research has only recently started to address this phenomenon. In particular, researchers have not yet examined whether and how thought leadership positively influences a firm’s relationship with its customers. This paper aims to propose and test a model to explain how a firm’s thought leadership improves its customer relationship performance. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional research design was applied using covariance-based structural equation modeling to estimate the suggested model. Data were collected from a sample of 160 firms in different industries that create and share content on social media. Findings Thought leadership on social media positively influences brand performance and, in turn, customer relationship performance in B2B settings. Moreover, es...
PurposeIn the past decades, a growing body of studies has assessed the importance of brands in bu... more PurposeIn the past decades, a growing body of studies has assessed the importance of brands in business-to-business (B2B) markets. However, until date, a comprehensive understanding of B2B branding strategies is lacking. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to select and manage B2B branding strategies.Design/methodology/approachThis study’s arguments are developed in line with MacInnis’s (2011) guidelines on conceptual contributions in marketing.FindingsAs a result of the arguments of this study, a framework is developed to identify the relationships between the types of B2B contexts and effective B2B branding strategies.Research limitations/implicationsDespite deriving from an extensive analysis of the literature, the framework requires future empirical validation. Moreover, the relationship linking a supplier to its customer is unique, and hence, each supplier should carefully select a branding strategy depending on the specific situation.Practical implicatio...
Purpose Accommodation sharing is a major trend shaping the hospitality industry, and Airbnb is th... more Purpose Accommodation sharing is a major trend shaping the hospitality industry, and Airbnb is the most prominent sharing platform driving this growth. While price convenience is reported as one of the main strengths of Airbnb accommodations, only a few studies have examined price determinants. In particular, it is unclear whether hosts dynamically adjust prices for shared accommodation based on their experience with price management and on the level of market demand. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by suggesting and testing a comprehensive hedonic pricing model. Design/methodology/approach Data from all 1,056 Airbnb listings for accommodations available in the city of Verona, Italy on four booking dates in 2016 are collected and analysed through regression analysis. Findings The results highlight that price is significantly related to the level of the host’s accumulated experience and the level of market demand on a specific booking date. The findings provide support ...
With the aim of enhancing their online reputation, several hospitality businesses have started so... more With the aim of enhancing their online reputation, several hospitality businesses have started soliciting their guests to write online reviews. Available studies have not yet evaluated the effects of this strategy. To fill this knowledge gap, this study draws on the theory of psychological reactance and investigates guests’ attitudinal and behavioral reactions to received solicitations. Evidence collected from a sample of Italian travelers indicates that soliciting reviews has both benefits and drawbacks: It increases the number of reviews for the business, but it also irritates a significant share of guests. Particularly high levels of irritation arise when a business explicitly asks its guests to write positive reviews. The implications of these findings for the reputation management strategy of hospitality businesses are discussed.
The number of defective and unsafe products recalled from the market has increased dramatically i... more The number of defective and unsafe products recalled from the market has increased dramatically in the last decade. While several studies have investigated consumer reaction to product recalls, the impact of such events on utilitarian versus hedonic attitudes towards the brand involved in the recall has not yet been assessed. Similarly, it is not clear whether brands with utilitarian positioning and brands with hedonic positioning are equally affected by recalls. Through an experiment based on a real-world stimulus from the laptop product category, this study shows that hedonic brands are more resistant to the negative effects of voluntary product recalls than are utilitarian brands. Furthermore, data show that brand familiarity mitigates the effect of the recall on utilitarian attitudes for both utilitarian and hedonic brands. Brand familiarity also positively moderates the impact of the recall on hedonic attitudes, but only for hedonic brands.
Sulla scia della rapida crescita di Groupon.com e degli altri siti di social couponing, un cresce... more Sulla scia della rapida crescita di Groupon.com e degli altri siti di social couponing, un crescente numero di studi ha esaminato i benefici di tale forma promozionale per l’acquirente. Tuttavia si osserva una scarsita di contributi sull’efficacia di tale strumento nella prospettiva dei c.d. merchant, cioe delle imprese "inserzioniste" che scelgono di promuovere le vendite attraverso il social couponing. Il presente lavoro si propone di colmare tale lacuna, indagando gli obiettivi che i merchant perseguono tramite il social couponing e la loro soddisfazione rispetto ai risultati raggiunti per ciascun obiettivo, operando anche dei confronti in base ai settori di appartenenza dei merchant. Attraverso una ricerca su un campione di 157 merchant italiani che hanno pubblicato offerte su Groupon, l’analisi evidenzia che il social couponing non viene percepito come ugualmente efficace da parte delle imprese indagate.
Management researchers have traditionally perceived the need to balance between rigor and relevan... more Management researchers have traditionally perceived the need to balance between rigor and relevance, thus simultaneously advancing theory and offering managerial insights. The selection of proper research methods plays a fundamental role. Among them, structural equation modeling (a second-generation technique for multivariate analysis) has witnessed remarkable popularity in the last decades to assess relationships among constructs. There are two main approaches to structural equation modeling: the covariance-based approach (CB-SEM) and the variancebased approach (PLS-SEM). However, until recently, the PLS-SEM has been to a large extent ignored and many scholars have considered structural equation modeling as synonymous with CB-SEM. In the last decade, PLS-SEM has gained a huge interest from social sciences researchers from all over the world and many management journals (such as Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Management, and many others) have published special iss...
Purpose of the paper: To recover from the Covid-19 crisis, tourism firms had to quickly introduce... more Purpose of the paper: To recover from the Covid-19 crisis, tourism firms had to quickly introduce effective service innovations to accommodate their customers\u2019 changed attitudes and behaviours and to adapt to the changed scenario. Drawing on these premises, this study examines the effects that customer involvement in service innovation had on tourism business performance in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. In detail, this work suggests a model which explains the direct and indirect mechanisms through which customer involvement in service innovation positively impacts tourism firms\u2019 recovery. Methodology: Data were collected through a questionnaire-based survey among a sample of Italian agritourism firms. Data were then analysed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to provide a prediction-oriented model assessment. Main Findings: The findings highlight that firms that more intensely involved their customers in service innovation w...
Purpose. The increasing importance of online reviews in hospitality and tourism has been widely a... more Purpose. The increasing importance of online reviews in hospitality and tourism has been widely assessed. A specific stream of research has addressed the motivations to write online reviews, highlighting the effects of both altruistic and egoistic motivations. In fact, some guests write reviews mainly for altruistic reasons such as the desire to help others, not only other customers but also the firms (hotels and restaurants in particular). Other guests post reviews mainly for egoistic motives such as to relive the experience but also to wreak revenge on hotels/restaurants. However, up to now the effects of these different motivations on online reviews writing behaviour have not been fully explored. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to fill this gap by examining the effects of altruistic and egoistic motivations on the frequency of writing online reviews. Methodology. Data were collected through a questionnaire-based survey among a sample of Italian hotels’ and restaurants’...
Objectives. Previous studies on agritourism entrepreneurship have identified a variety of economi... more Objectives. Previous studies on agritourism entrepreneurship have identified a variety of economic and noneconomic motivations driving farm operators to start the agritourism activity. Nonetheless, local heritage preservation and enhancement have been completely overlooked. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether “heritage preservation and enhancement” (in its three facets related to: tangible rural heritage; agrifood heritage; rural way of life heritage) is a specific non-economic motivation for agritourism entrepreneurship. Methodology. A survey on a sample of 226 Italian agritourism operators was conducted in March 2015. Data were first analysed through a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and then through the importance-performance analysis (IPA). Findings. The results show that there are 5 different groups of motivations to start the agritourism business, namely: i) economic motivations; ii) personal and family-related motivations; iii) tangible rural heritage prese...
Advances in Marketing, Customer Relationship Management, and E-Services, 2019
Despite the rapidly increasing popularity of social media influencers and of influencer marketing... more Despite the rapidly increasing popularity of social media influencers and of influencer marketing, academic and managerial knowledge on this phenomenon is still limited. The purpose of this chapter is to examine to what extent cultural and tourism social media influencers are able to influence their followers' consumption decisions. In particular, the chapter provides new evidence based on data collected among 341 followers of hospitality and tourism bloggers and 208 followers of cultural bloggers in Italy. By comparing the results from the two subsamples, conclusions about the effectiveness of bloggers in the two contexts are drawn. Based on the findings, some avenues for future research and some practical guidelines for social media influencers are suggested.
PurposePartial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) has become an established soc... more PurposePartial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) has become an established social sciences multivariate analysis technique. Since quality management researchers also increasingly using PLS-SEM, this growing interest calls for guidance.Design/methodology/approachBased on established guidelines for applying PLS-SEM and evaluating the results, this research reviews 107 articles applying the method and published in eight leading quality management journals.FindingsThe use of PLS-SEM in quality management often only draws on limited information and analysis results. The discipline would benefit from the method's more comprehensive use by following established guidelines. Specifically, the use of predictive model assessment and more advanced PLS-SEM analyses harbors the potential to provide more detailed findings and conclusions when applying the method.Research limitations/implicationsThis research provides first insights into PLS-SEM's use in quality managemen...
Il boom dei siti di social couponing, trainati dal leader Groupon, \ue8 uno dei fenomeni caratter... more Il boom dei siti di social couponing, trainati dal leader Groupon, \ue8 uno dei fenomeni caratterizzanti l\u2019e-commerce a livello mondiale degli ultimi 3-5 anni. I pochi studi disponibili sull\u2019argomento prendono in considerazione prevalentemente gli impatti di tale fenomeno sugli acquirenti finali, che possono accedere a servizi a prezzi particolarmente scontati. Dall\u2019altro lato, nella prospettiva dei c.d. merchant, cio\ue8 delle imprese \u201cinserzioniste\u201d, i siti di couponing rappresentano un nuovo strumento di marketing e anche la prima concreta possibilit\ue0 di accesso all\u2019e-commerce per molte imprese di micro-piccole dimensioni. Il presente lavoro esamina il social couponing da questa seconda prospettiva, quella dei merchant, esplorando i driver della loro soddisfazione e della loro fedelt\ue0 al sito di couponing. Attraverso una ricerca su un campione di 121 merchant italiani che hanno pubblicato offerte su Groupon, si evidenzia un forte legame tra sod...
Tourism firms have been severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis as a result of lockdowns and str... more Tourism firms have been severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis as a result of lockdowns and strict health regulations imposed by national authorities (Kreiner & Ram, 2020). As the tourism industry has started to gradually reopen, tourism firms have been applying a wide array of responses, ranging from compliance with health measures to innovating their services, adopting new technologies and searching for new customer segments (Alonso et al., 2020). Some studies have addressed firms\u2019 resilience and begun identifying the strategies adopted by tourism and hospitality firms to cope with the COVID-19 crisis (Breier et al., 2021; Kaushal & Srivastava, 2020; Lai & Wong, 2020). However, evidence about the effects of different types of responses on firm performance is still lacking. This study aims to provide a first assessment of the effects of three groups of responses to the COVID-19 crisis \u2013 marketing, cost cutting and organizational changes \u2013 on customer loyalty and economic performance. In particular, this study proposes a model employing partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using a sample of agritourism firms
Il contributo esamina le motivazioni per le quali il social couponing \ue8 adottato dagli hotel i... more Il contributo esamina le motivazioni per le quali il social couponing \ue8 adottato dagli hotel italiani e discute l'efficacia di tale strumento
Purpose of the study Given the growing influence that online reviews have on traveler\u2019s deci... more Purpose of the study Given the growing influence that online reviews have on traveler\u2019s decisions, several hospitality operators are actively soliciting their customers to post reviews on TripAdvisor and similar websites. This paper intends to investigate how widespread this phenomenon is and how customers react to such solicitations. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a cross-sectional approach. Data were collected from a sample of Italian tourists, posting the link to a questionnaire on two of the most popular Italian tourism-related blogs. The questionnaire included questions measuring both the diffusion of the phenomenon of soliciting reviews and constructs related to consumer reaction (consumer reactance, perceived intrusiveness, intention to review, etc.). Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling. Findings Currently available data reveal that the majority of respondents have been solicited at least once by hospitality operators to write a review on TripAdvisor and similar websites. In addition, they show the existence of a significant level of consumer reactance related to consumers\u2019 perceptions that their freedom is threatened. Originality/value Based on the well-known influence that online travelers\u2019 reviews have on other travelers, some recent studies have suggested that the hospitality operators should actively solicit their customers to write online reviews for their hotels, restaurants, etc.. Nonetheless, to other knowledge and up to now, this is the first study to measure how customers react to such solicitations. Research limitations/implications Despite being based only on a sample of Italian tourists, this study may stimulate further research to understand the effects of solicited reviews in the tourism and hospitality fields. Practical implications The findings may assist hospitality operators in deciding whether to solicit their customers to write online reviews for them and in designing their overall strategy to effectively manage their brand image on travel review websites
Purpose Although sales activities in the wine industry are becoming increasingly important, there... more Purpose Although sales activities in the wine industry are becoming increasingly important, there has been little research on the sales capabilities in wine businesses. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by examining the most important salesperson and sales management capabilities and emerging trends related to the management of sales capabilities in the wine industry. Design/methodology/approach Empirical analysis based on an explorative research design was conducted in the Italian wine industry. Sales directors from 4 of the 30 largest Italian wine producers were interviewed. Textual data were analysed using template analysis. Findings Analysis of the findings revealed the most important capabilities of salespeople and sales managers and identified four emerging trends related to sales capability management in the wine industry – capabilities enrichment, capabilities balance, capabilities specialisation and capabilities acquisition process. Research limitations/impli...
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 2019
Purpose Establishing thought leadership by disseminating relevant digital content through social ... more Purpose Establishing thought leadership by disseminating relevant digital content through social media has become one of the main priorities for marketers in business-to-business (B2B) settings. However, academic research has only recently started to address this phenomenon. In particular, researchers have not yet examined whether and how thought leadership positively influences a firm’s relationship with its customers. This paper aims to propose and test a model to explain how a firm’s thought leadership improves its customer relationship performance. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional research design was applied using covariance-based structural equation modeling to estimate the suggested model. Data were collected from a sample of 160 firms in different industries that create and share content on social media. Findings Thought leadership on social media positively influences brand performance and, in turn, customer relationship performance in B2B settings. Moreover, es...
PurposeIn the past decades, a growing body of studies has assessed the importance of brands in bu... more PurposeIn the past decades, a growing body of studies has assessed the importance of brands in business-to-business (B2B) markets. However, until date, a comprehensive understanding of B2B branding strategies is lacking. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to select and manage B2B branding strategies.Design/methodology/approachThis study’s arguments are developed in line with MacInnis’s (2011) guidelines on conceptual contributions in marketing.FindingsAs a result of the arguments of this study, a framework is developed to identify the relationships between the types of B2B contexts and effective B2B branding strategies.Research limitations/implicationsDespite deriving from an extensive analysis of the literature, the framework requires future empirical validation. Moreover, the relationship linking a supplier to its customer is unique, and hence, each supplier should carefully select a branding strategy depending on the specific situation.Practical implicatio...
Purpose Accommodation sharing is a major trend shaping the hospitality industry, and Airbnb is th... more Purpose Accommodation sharing is a major trend shaping the hospitality industry, and Airbnb is the most prominent sharing platform driving this growth. While price convenience is reported as one of the main strengths of Airbnb accommodations, only a few studies have examined price determinants. In particular, it is unclear whether hosts dynamically adjust prices for shared accommodation based on their experience with price management and on the level of market demand. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by suggesting and testing a comprehensive hedonic pricing model. Design/methodology/approach Data from all 1,056 Airbnb listings for accommodations available in the city of Verona, Italy on four booking dates in 2016 are collected and analysed through regression analysis. Findings The results highlight that price is significantly related to the level of the host’s accumulated experience and the level of market demand on a specific booking date. The findings provide support ...
With the aim of enhancing their online reputation, several hospitality businesses have started so... more With the aim of enhancing their online reputation, several hospitality businesses have started soliciting their guests to write online reviews. Available studies have not yet evaluated the effects of this strategy. To fill this knowledge gap, this study draws on the theory of psychological reactance and investigates guests’ attitudinal and behavioral reactions to received solicitations. Evidence collected from a sample of Italian travelers indicates that soliciting reviews has both benefits and drawbacks: It increases the number of reviews for the business, but it also irritates a significant share of guests. Particularly high levels of irritation arise when a business explicitly asks its guests to write positive reviews. The implications of these findings for the reputation management strategy of hospitality businesses are discussed.
The number of defective and unsafe products recalled from the market has increased dramatically i... more The number of defective and unsafe products recalled from the market has increased dramatically in the last decade. While several studies have investigated consumer reaction to product recalls, the impact of such events on utilitarian versus hedonic attitudes towards the brand involved in the recall has not yet been assessed. Similarly, it is not clear whether brands with utilitarian positioning and brands with hedonic positioning are equally affected by recalls. Through an experiment based on a real-world stimulus from the laptop product category, this study shows that hedonic brands are more resistant to the negative effects of voluntary product recalls than are utilitarian brands. Furthermore, data show that brand familiarity mitigates the effect of the recall on utilitarian attitudes for both utilitarian and hedonic brands. Brand familiarity also positively moderates the impact of the recall on hedonic attitudes, but only for hedonic brands.
Sulla scia della rapida crescita di Groupon.com e degli altri siti di social couponing, un cresce... more Sulla scia della rapida crescita di Groupon.com e degli altri siti di social couponing, un crescente numero di studi ha esaminato i benefici di tale forma promozionale per l’acquirente. Tuttavia si osserva una scarsita di contributi sull’efficacia di tale strumento nella prospettiva dei c.d. merchant, cioe delle imprese "inserzioniste" che scelgono di promuovere le vendite attraverso il social couponing. Il presente lavoro si propone di colmare tale lacuna, indagando gli obiettivi che i merchant perseguono tramite il social couponing e la loro soddisfazione rispetto ai risultati raggiunti per ciascun obiettivo, operando anche dei confronti in base ai settori di appartenenza dei merchant. Attraverso una ricerca su un campione di 157 merchant italiani che hanno pubblicato offerte su Groupon, l’analisi evidenzia che il social couponing non viene percepito come ugualmente efficace da parte delle imprese indagate.
Management researchers have traditionally perceived the need to balance between rigor and relevan... more Management researchers have traditionally perceived the need to balance between rigor and relevance, thus simultaneously advancing theory and offering managerial insights. The selection of proper research methods plays a fundamental role. Among them, structural equation modeling (a second-generation technique for multivariate analysis) has witnessed remarkable popularity in the last decades to assess relationships among constructs. There are two main approaches to structural equation modeling: the covariance-based approach (CB-SEM) and the variancebased approach (PLS-SEM). However, until recently, the PLS-SEM has been to a large extent ignored and many scholars have considered structural equation modeling as synonymous with CB-SEM. In the last decade, PLS-SEM has gained a huge interest from social sciences researchers from all over the world and many management journals (such as Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Management, and many others) have published special iss...
Purpose of the paper: To recover from the Covid-19 crisis, tourism firms had to quickly introduce... more Purpose of the paper: To recover from the Covid-19 crisis, tourism firms had to quickly introduce effective service innovations to accommodate their customers\u2019 changed attitudes and behaviours and to adapt to the changed scenario. Drawing on these premises, this study examines the effects that customer involvement in service innovation had on tourism business performance in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. In detail, this work suggests a model which explains the direct and indirect mechanisms through which customer involvement in service innovation positively impacts tourism firms\u2019 recovery. Methodology: Data were collected through a questionnaire-based survey among a sample of Italian agritourism firms. Data were then analysed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to provide a prediction-oriented model assessment. Main Findings: The findings highlight that firms that more intensely involved their customers in service innovation w...
Purpose. The increasing importance of online reviews in hospitality and tourism has been widely a... more Purpose. The increasing importance of online reviews in hospitality and tourism has been widely assessed. A specific stream of research has addressed the motivations to write online reviews, highlighting the effects of both altruistic and egoistic motivations. In fact, some guests write reviews mainly for altruistic reasons such as the desire to help others, not only other customers but also the firms (hotels and restaurants in particular). Other guests post reviews mainly for egoistic motives such as to relive the experience but also to wreak revenge on hotels/restaurants. However, up to now the effects of these different motivations on online reviews writing behaviour have not been fully explored. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to fill this gap by examining the effects of altruistic and egoistic motivations on the frequency of writing online reviews. Methodology. Data were collected through a questionnaire-based survey among a sample of Italian hotels’ and restaurants’...
Objectives. Previous studies on agritourism entrepreneurship have identified a variety of economi... more Objectives. Previous studies on agritourism entrepreneurship have identified a variety of economic and noneconomic motivations driving farm operators to start the agritourism activity. Nonetheless, local heritage preservation and enhancement have been completely overlooked. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether “heritage preservation and enhancement” (in its three facets related to: tangible rural heritage; agrifood heritage; rural way of life heritage) is a specific non-economic motivation for agritourism entrepreneurship. Methodology. A survey on a sample of 226 Italian agritourism operators was conducted in March 2015. Data were first analysed through a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and then through the importance-performance analysis (IPA). Findings. The results show that there are 5 different groups of motivations to start the agritourism business, namely: i) economic motivations; ii) personal and family-related motivations; iii) tangible rural heritage prese...
Advances in Marketing, Customer Relationship Management, and E-Services, 2019
Despite the rapidly increasing popularity of social media influencers and of influencer marketing... more Despite the rapidly increasing popularity of social media influencers and of influencer marketing, academic and managerial knowledge on this phenomenon is still limited. The purpose of this chapter is to examine to what extent cultural and tourism social media influencers are able to influence their followers' consumption decisions. In particular, the chapter provides new evidence based on data collected among 341 followers of hospitality and tourism bloggers and 208 followers of cultural bloggers in Italy. By comparing the results from the two subsamples, conclusions about the effectiveness of bloggers in the two contexts are drawn. Based on the findings, some avenues for future research and some practical guidelines for social media influencers are suggested.
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