Purpose This research investigates the impact of brand resilience on consumer attitude and purchase intention. Additionally, it identifies service quality and perceived value as antecedents of brand resilience. The study aims to understand how these antecedents enable a brand to maintain consumer loyalty in a changing business environment. Design A descriptive research design using cross-sectional research was applied in this study. Data collected from 500 respondents was used to establish the reliability and validity of the constructs. The study adopted structural equation modeling (SEM), fuzzy-set qualitative comparative (fsQCA), and necessary condition analysis. This comprehensive methodology provides a deeper understanding of the factors influencing brand resilience and its substantial impact on consumers. Findings The results indicate that service quality and perceived value contribute to brand resilience in the repair of consumer durable goods. The service quality of consumer durable goods is positively affected by perceived safety and price perception. However, there is a negative link between perceived risk and service quality. Perceived benefits, necessity boost perceived value. Both perceived value and service quality positively relate to brand resilience. Additionally, brand resilience positively impacts consumer attitude and purchase intention. Originality The study identified price perception, perceived safety and perceived risk as determinants of service quality, while perceived value was preceded by perceived necessity and benefit. These findings enhance the literature on brand resilience and equity theory. The novelty of this study lies in determining two antecedents of brand resilience, namely service quality and perceived value, and their differential impact on consumer attitude and purchase intention. Additionally, this could be pioneering work on consumer durable goods by applying the asymmetric fsQCA. This reinforces the notion that a strong and adaptive brand can cultivate positive consumer sentiment in driving purchase behavior.

This study investigates the impact of virtual influencers (VIs) on consumer engagement and purchase intention in social media marketing by examining how VIs’ marketing efforts and individuals’ tendencies for online social interaction influence engagement with VI-related content on social media. Additionally, it explores the role of influencer type (human vs. virtual) and characteristics (expertise and trustworthiness) in purchase intention. Through two empirical studies, the effectiveness of VIs was assessed: Study 1 established baseline effects and explored the influence of VI content on social media engagement (SME), while Study 2 investigated how the type of influencer (human vs. virtual) moderates the interactive effects between social media influencers’ characteristics (expertise and trustworthiness) and purchase intention. The findings indicate that VI content positively impacts SMEs and purchase intention, but the influencer type does not significantly explain the relationship between endorser characteristics and purchase intention. Our findings highlight that brands should assess VIs’ traits before integrating them into social media marketing strategies. Additionally, we provide insightful recommendations for fostering effective collaboration with VIs in marketing endeavors targeting consumers.

Relationship marketing has been and continues to be a dominant subject in the marketing literature due to its roots in the effective co-creation of value between firms and their customers. However, recent societal changes and technological advancements have created new opportunities, benefits, and challenges for customer-centric marketing, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As businesses across the globe continue to feel the lasting impacts of the pandemic in various areas such as human resources, retail, corporate social responsibility, and employee dynamics, a firm’s ability to leverage new technologies to enhance internal and external relationships is imperative to gaining a competitive advantage within the globalized marketplace. With increased globalization and connectivity resulting As a result of increased digital connectivity from both the pandemic and new technology, marketers are required to navigate both the opportunities and challenges – including more frequent use, longer duration of use, and higher levels of conflict associated with the use of digital tools – related to reaching and collaborating with internal and external stakeholders virtually. This conceptual research synthesizes and reviews the Relationship Marketing schools of thought. It also proposes that firms that can effectively navigate these challenges and integrate relationship marketing principles at their micro- (employer-employee) and meso- (firm-vendor) levels will experience a heightened competitive advantage at the macro- (firm-customer) level.

This study provides a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of customer relationship management (CRM) research from 1985 to 2024, using 3,483 records from Scopus. It identifies the most productive countries, journals, authors, and key papers, as well as six main research clusters through keyword co-occurrence analysis. Co-citation analysis reveals 1,018 articles with a minimum of 10 citations each, and we examined their methodology and focus. The study highlights the evolution of CRM research, with most publications between 2001 and 2024, and identifies six forefronts in recent CRM research (2020–2024). These insights offer a detailed understanding of CRM’s intellectual structure and emerging trends, guiding future research and practical applications in business–customer relationships.

Accurately evaluating consumer-perceived innovation is essential for driving enterprises to adopt innovative strategies under appropriate guidance, ultimately leading to the establishment of competitive advantages. However, the ongoing debate regarding the inconsistent results of brand innovativeness highlights the need for researchers to explore how and to what extent consumer-perceived innovation can yield positive outcomes, such as brand loyalty and consumer satisfaction. More specifically, investigating the mechanisms through which consumer-perceived innovation influences brand loyalty—particularly with a focus on Consumer-Perceived Brand Innovation based on Urban Culture (hereinafter, CPBIUC)—is crucial for enterprises seeking to develop effective brand innovation strategies and build brand equity. Drawing on the Customer-Based Brand Equity (hereinafter, CBBE) model, this study examines the mediating role of brand resonance and brand image in the relationship between CPBIUC and brand loyalty, while also exploring the moderating effects of government policies and city image. A survey of 303 consumers was conducted to test the conceptual model. The empirical findings indicate that CPBIUC enhances brand loyalty through brand resonance and brand image. Additionally, government policies and city image negatively moderate the relationships between CPBIUC and brand resonance. These findings provide valuable insights into leveraging urban culture capital for brand innovation from the consumer perspective, elucidate the mechanism linking CPBIUC to consumer brand loyalty, and highlight the intervention effects of public administration and tourism fields, such as government policy and city image.

Most research on Airbnb focuses on the guests’ perspective or the effects of host-guest interaction. This paper explores the way professional and nonprofessional hosts develop relationship marketing with their guests. The results of 30 semi-structured interviews with Portuguese Airbnb hosts show the conscious importance of interactions with guests and customization to generate trust and increase guest satisfaction. The paper shows that the interactivity and functionalities of the Airbnb platform deepens the relationships between hosts and guests. Nonprofessional hosts are those who develop a closer relationship with guests, requiring guidance toward possible advanced electronic relationship marketing tools in the future.

The rise of the Internet has enabled the consumers to share their brand related emotion in social media brand communities. Members of brand communities frequently use the company’s intellectual and cultural assets, which further foster the forming of close bonds. It improves community members’ social ties and reciprocity standards. As a result, the brand community members become more cooperative. The stimulus-organism-response paradigm has been followed as theoretical framework to determine consumers’ social participation as stimuli which affect their social capital—bridging and bonding (organism) that ultimately improves their brand commitment (response). Select Facebook brand communities provided the data for this investigation. Also, structural equation modeling, which uses different fit indices to test the theoretical framework, has been done. Innovative aspect of this study is how online social interactions between consumer brand communities influence consumers’ social capital, which in turn influences consumers’ brand attitude. Additionally, by creating brand communities for their brands, brand managers can capitalize on the satisfactions of the members. Based on the uses and gratification theory, the study that highlights members’ desire to participate in brand communities’ events can be used by brand managers to advance their businesses.

This study reviews the concept of detachment in interpersonal relationships by examining its drivers and outcomes laying the foundation for detachment to potentially be extended to customer-employee relationships. Information from several studies in the fields of psychology and marketing was used to identify and categorize the drivers and outcomes of detachment. Using various search platforms, a total of 75 articles were deemed appropriate for this study and were thus included in the review. The results from this review provide a condensed list of preexisting and potential drivers and outcomes for detachment, each of which, were assigned to broader categories based on similarities and other relevant factors. Similarities were also drawn between detachment in adult interpersonal and customer-attachment figure relationships to solidify detachment’s extension to customer-employee relationships. This study contributes to theory by being among the first to provide a summarized list of potential drivers and outcomes of detachment within a single paper, thereby advancing the existing knowledge of detachment. The results of this review may also be of particular importance to psychologists and marketing managers as it provides a comprehensive discussion of how detachment could occur in both interpersonal and customer-employee relationships and the possible consequences thereof.

This research employs two scenario-based experiments to explore whether consumers “think of the firm” in setting their normative expectations regarding a customer-benefitting firm change. Results indicate that consumers take the firm benefit of potential firm actions into account in setting their expectations for what firms should do. Even in the absence of strong relationship ties, the associated firm benefit increases normative expectations for firms to enact a change. However, the customer benefit associated with a potential change dominates consumer expectations as it impacts normative expectations both directly as well as indirectly via an apparent lay belief that “what’s good for the customer is good for the firm.” In addition, the customer and firm benefits of potential changes positively interact in driving expectations; when customers believe that a change will be a “win-win” for themselves and the firm they strongly expect the firm to enact it. The findings suggest that firms must make clear how the costs associated with a potential change will be borne by their customers.

The concept of this research springs from the controversy of previous research findings on the effect of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) which is seen as an integrated concept and applied only to large companies and is rarely to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The main purpose of this research is to build a model and to investigate the effect of e-CRM capability, which is a development of the traditional CRM with internet technology support, as an effort in improving the marketing performance of SMEs through the exploration of innovative products development to address the gap. Innovation on products and services is a key component of SMEs business as a series of efforts to enhance their competitiveness in attaining superior business performance. However, SMEs have to be wary of innovation made if it is unplanned and not knowing their customers well. CRM comes to light as a management approach that enables companies to identify, fascinate, and increase profitable retention of customers through a good management relationship with customers as a support for innovative product development capability. The design of this research was descriptive research design. The data collection employed survey method with questionnaires distributed to 150 respondents of owners and managers of SMEs in Indonesia. The questionnaires were then processed and analyzed with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with Amos 20.0 software.