Customers are influenced not only by how much they trust a company and its representatives but also by how much they trust the broader context where the market exchange is taking place. In this research we test two rival sociological perspectives regarding the influence of customer trust in this broader context. One of these perspectives proposes that trust in the context replaces trust in individual firms and their representatives. This view suggests that firm/representative trust is not always critical, especially for customers with high trust in the context. An alternative perspective is that trust in the context fosters and legitimates trust in firms and their representatives. This view implies that firm and representative trust is a necessary mediator of trust in the context. Using empirical results from two studies implemented in two different countries, we test predictions based on both perspectives. Results from both studies support the proposition that trust in firms and their representatives is a necessary mediator of trust in the context.

Although combining friendship and business in the same relationship can be beneficial, it can also create conflict. A source of this conflict is incompatible relational expectations. True friends are expected to be unmotivated by benefits that can be used beyond the relationship (e.g., money, status), whereas business partners are, by definition, at least partly motivated by these more "instrumental" concerns. Using a role theory framework and data collected from a survey of 685 direct-selling agents, this article reports evidence that a conflict between friendship and instrumentality can undermine some of the business outcomes that friendship might otherwise foster. It also suggests that this conflict is more severe for friendships that become business relationships than for business relationships that become friendships. Study conclusions do not suggest that friendship is entirely "bad" for businesa dn, instead, propose that friendship's influence can be both positive and negative.

Social psychologists conceptualize trust in a manner that differs from conceptualizations used by marketing researchers to date. Building from the social psychology literature, we posit that interpersonal trust in consumer-level service relationships has cognitive and affective dimensions. We examine the relative impact of service provider expertise, product performance, firm reputation, satisfaction, and similarity in influencing customer's perception of these dimensions of trust in a service provider. Using survey data from 349 customers of a firm of financial advisers in the United Kingdom, our results show that cognitive and affective dimensions of trust can be empirically distinguished and have both common and unique antecedents. The results also provide further clarification concerning the relationship between trust and sales effectiveness.

Although consumer demand for authentic market offerings has often been mentioned in consumer research, the meaning of the term "authentic" has not been sufficiently specified. Thus, some important differences among authentic market offerings have not been recognized or examined. This article uses Peirce's semiotic framework to distinguish between two kinds of authenticity--indexical and iconic. We identify the cues that lead to the assessment of each kind and, based on data collected at two tourist attractions, we show that these cues can have a different influence on the benefits of consuming authenticity. Our results also contribute to an understanding of the negotiation of reality and fantasy as part of consumption.

Can a company constantly strive to exceed customers' expectations by providing service that ‘delights’ or ‘amazes’ them? Or is this just another marketing trend that really doesn't ensure that the customer will purchase the service again? Are customers always right, or are there some who may not be profitably worth satisfying? Do customers judge service on the core offering (e. g., the plane flight) or on the supplemental ‘frills’ (e. g., the movie and the meal during the flight?) The authors point out that the concept of customer satisfaction is nothing more than good marketing, something companies should have been striving for all along. They poke holes in a number of marketing trends and suggest that, rather than embracing very new fad that comes along, managers should think creatively and choose their won paths to successful marketing.

Inspired by recent business practices, popular business writers and marketing academics have used the terms "co-creation," "co-production," and "prosumption" to refer to situations in which consumers collaborate with companies or with other consumers to produce things of value. In these new contexts, consumers become more productive contributors to the process of value-creation, and they may even form close ties with the company, blurring the traditional roles of "producer" and "consumer." In this article, we offer a critical analysis of the ways in which the role of the consumer is changing in the broader capitalist system, a system in which consumers serve a fundamental function. Building on Marx's distinction between "use value" and "exchange value," we argue that, when consumers perform tasks normally handled by the company, this does not necessarily represent a fundamental change in exchange roles or economic organization. We then argue that, when individuals who are traditionally defined as "consumers" produce exchange value for companies, this does represent a fundamental change. We also enumerate the implications of this more fundamental shift for the nature of value produced, the activities of production and consumption, and the distribution of profits form those types of activities.

Many social scientists argue that embeddedness facilitates the extension of trust between exchange partners. In this paper, we advance the alternative argument that embeddedness can also make extending trust riskier and more uncertain. In doing so, we explore how the successes of protections for trust depend greatly on the circumstances in which they are deployed and the nature of the social relations between the trust partners. Because embeddedness can also encourage exchange partners to over-estimate the diagnositicity of the information they have about one another and constrain them from punishing untrustworthy behavior, people can be marooned in situations where trust is feigned or illusory. From this perspective, trust in embedded relationships is more complex and ambiguous than has been previously suggested and offers research opportunities that have not yet been fully explored.

Knowledge about difficulties encountered while using a product can provide marketing managers with useful insights about customer needs and how to meet them. Current exploratory methods such as focus groups and depth interviews may not easily uncover such information, because they require customers to remember detailed information about cognitive processes. This paper introduces a new exploratory research method, called subproblem decomposition, that gives a clearer view of customer cognitive processes. With this method, customers are asked to perform product-related tasks, and to think out loud while doing so. Their spoken thoughts are broken down into subproblems (naturally occurring goals and their attendant methods) and individually labeled. By counting subproblems, inferences can be made about product-use difficulties. In this paper, customer data collected via subproblem decomposition are compared with data collected by focus groups and depth interviews that were specifically designed to elicit product-use difficulties. The results highlight the relative advantages of all methods examined, and highlight the potential complementarity of these methods.

Epistemological beliefs are notions that people have aobut the nature of knowledge and knowing. Developmental psychologists have observed that epistemological beliefs change over time: people start with the belief that truth is external to human perception, and then adjust this belief to accommodate the notion that truth is more interpretive and relativistic. In this research, we examine how the epistemological beliefs of children and teenages influence their preferences for certain kinds of truthful representations--for example, the photographs in an encyclopedia or the facts reported on an informational Web site. More specifically, we examine whether epistemological beliefs influence consumer preferences for representations that encourage a limited number of interpretations (that is, more "closed" representations) versus those that encourage multiple interpretations (that is, more "open" representations). Our study also contributes to a debate on the age at which advanced relativist beliefs tend to emerge, and examines the extent to which the development of epistemological beliefs can be distinguished from more biologically-based age-related cognitive developments.

According to some previous research on consumption-oriented communities, people who engage in a community’s focal consumption activity enjoy more (or stronger) psychological outcomes than “aspirants” who merely attend community events or read community-related media. However, other research provides a basis for predicting that so-called aspirants can enjoy the same outcomes as actual consumers. In this paper, we consolidate previous research by identifying three outcomes that have been linked to consumption-oriented communities and three activities that have been shown to lead to these outcomes. Then, based on a survey of 247 respondents, we show that participation in the community’s focal consumption activity does not necessarily provide privileged access to the outcomes. Our results also provide a detailed view of which activities are more or less likely to lead to certain outcomes.

Ontela, a technology start-up company, has introduced an innovative service called PicDeck that improves the mobile imaging experience for wireless subscribers. Ontela sells PicDeck to wireless carriers, who in turn private-label the service to their subscribers. Ontela must decide which customer segments it should target for the service and how to create a positioning strategy and a marketing communication plan to promote it. It must also consider the value proposition of the PicDeck service for wireless carriers (its direct customers), who need to be convinced that the service will lead to higher monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) and/or increased subscriber loyalty. Part A of the case provides qualitative information on customer personae that represent different customer segments. Students are asked to develop a targeting and positioning strategy based on this qualitative information. Part B provides quantitative data on customer preferences that can be used to identify response-based customer segments, as well as demographic and media habits information that can be used to profile the segments. Students are asked to revise their recommendations based on the additional quantitative data.

Ontela, a technology start-up company, has introduced an innovative service called PicDeck that improves the mobile imaging experience for wireless subscribers. Ontela sells PicDeck to wireless carriers, who in turn private-label the service to their subscribers. Ontela must decide which customer segments it should target for the service and how to create a positioning strategy and a marketing communication plan to promote it. It must also consider the value proposition of the PicDeck service for wireless carriers (its direct customers), who need to be convinced that the service will lead to higher monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) and/or increased subscriber loyalty. Part A of the case provides qualitative information on customer personae that represent different customer segments. Students are asked to develop a targeting and positioning strategy based on this qualitative information. Part B provides quantitative data on customer preferences that can be used to identify response-based customer segments, as well as demographic and media habits information that can be used to profile the segments. Students are asked to revise their recommendations based on the additional quantitative data.