Upendra Kumar Maurya

There is an upsurge of research interest regarding authenticity in contemporary tourism consumption as modern tourists have been found to prefer involve in real backstage experiences to participating in pseudo-events and mass congregations. This paper presents a netnographic analysis of tourists’ reviews on village destinations and explores how authenticity is experienced by tourists in a village setting and the indicators pertaining to it. Trip Advisor reviews of three Indian villages were downloaded and analysed. Findings reveal that tourists consider authenticity as a critical factor in rural village experience. The indicators of rural authentic experience and their implications are also highlighted.

The importance of corporate reputation for improving organizational performance has long been recognized by academicians all over the world, as this is the only way to account for lack of tangibility in this globalized economy. However, despite the critical role of reputation for organizational performance, there is a conspicuous absence of the discourse on the enablers, dimensions and consequences of customer based corporate reputation (CBR) in general and developing countries in particular. This study attempts to bridge this knowledge gap by investigating the link among sub-dimensions of CBR. The study has considered enablers such as Customer Satisfaction (CS) and Trust (T) and the outcome variables considered for testing includes Word of Mouth (WOM) and Loyalty. Partial Least Squares (PLS) path modelling technique was chosen to evaluate the proposed model. 224 consumer responses of leading banks in India have been collected and analysed. Based upon findings, guidelines for better CBR management have been suggested along with the unique contribution of the study.

Corporations are actively embracing corporate social responsibility (CSR) in response to expectations of customers, employees, society and other stakeholders. In many cases, CSR is used as a tool for enhancing the legitimacy of the business among its stakeholders and for the development of a positive corporate image (Morimoto et al. 2004). This paper looks at the use of CSR as mechanism for corporate image resurrection by two business houses in Odisha. The paper looks at the activities undertaken by the business houses to communicate a positive brand image among its stakeholders. Though the paper draws on the stakeholder theory of the instrumental and moral duty of businesses to meet stakeholder norms for desirable organizational behaviour, it goes beyond it to look at CSR as an image makeover and a brand-building exercise. The paper describes the case of two India-based mining corporations located in the state of Odisha which were in the eye of controversy and drew global criticism. The business houses soon realized the importance of corporate reputation and inherent benefits associated with it. The first step they took was to resurrect their image in the eyes of stakeholders through CSR activities. The focus of the cases is on this aspect of their activity. The cases have been analysed in the light of stakeholder approach.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to transformative service research by drawing on self-determination, elicitation of emotions framework and feelings-as-information theories to explore how customer participation, task-related affective well-being, customer knowledge, task complexity and service outcomes relate with each other. Design/methodology/approach: A synthesis of relevant literature on customer participation and customer well-being reveals a conceptual model with 11 testable propositions. Findings: The conceptual model shows that task-related affective well-being mediates the link between customer participation and service outcomes. Moreover, customer knowledge and task complexity moderate these links. Research limitations/implications: An empirically testable conceptual model models the roles of task-related affective well-being, customer knowledge and task complexity in the process by which customer participation influences service outcomes. Practical implications: Service managers can use the model to design services based on the effects of different types of customer participation on task-related affective well-being. Originality/value: This paper is one of the first to study the mediating role of task-related affective well-being in the relationship between customer participation and service outcomes. It does so by revealing the differential impact various types of participation have on service outcomes and the moderating role of customer knowledge and task complexity.