Marketing ZFP – Journal of Research and Management publishes four issues and 16-20 peer-reviewed articles per year. As subscriber you find fulltext access (PDF) and search function to the complete archive of all issues on elibrary.vahlen.de.
Please find detailed information on the current issues below:
ISSUE 1/2024
Drivers and Moderators of Direct Selling Business Outcomes: Why I Participate Affects How I Perform
Anne T. Coughlan, Michael Gerke, and Manfred Krafft
Firms using a direct selling (DS) distribution channel delegate selling and sales management responsibilities to an independent-contractor distributor force. The DS firm’s inability to directly control distributors’ efforts, and the fact that most active distributors choose to work part-time rather than full-time at their DS business, makes an examination of the drivers of DS performance outcomes important for academic study and empirical insight. Drawing on the sales performance, organizational commitment, and direct selling literatures, we investigate the effects of continuance commitment factors on distributors’ two most salient performance outcomes (income from direct selling and size of downline) with a dataset from 16,388 DS distributors across 68 companies. We further consider two reasons for being a DS distributor as moderators of the drivers of our performance outcomes: ‘direct selling as a career and products at a discount’. The associations of our continuance commitment factors with performance outcomes are reinforced with the identification of a career reason, and with the non-identification of a discount buying reason, for being a distributor. Our moderator ‘direct selling as a career’ is the strongest, but both moderators are significant. The model’s strong explanatory results and significant moderating effects show that DS distributors are segmented by their underlying reasons for participation in the DS business opportunity. (-> to the Executive Summary)
Evaluating Customer Experience Management in the Insurance Industry – Empirical Studies of Company and Customer Perspectives
Lisa-Marie Klopfer
Customer experience management has become a widely discussed topic within the insurance industry, with a growing number of insurers adopting the customer-oriented management approach to meet the challenges of today’s highly competitive market. As research and practice lack a comprehensive understanding of both the company and customer perspectives, this article contrasts insurers’ current efforts regarding the management approach with customers’ perceptions of their experiences. The results of an online survey among insurance companies show that insurers are in the midst of implementing the management approach, evaluating ist success using customer satisfaction and loyalty indicators. The proposed four-stage maturity model, which is developed on the basis of the survey data, can serve insurers as a decision-making tool to prioritize investments and activities regarding customer experience management. In a second online survey, insurance customers evaluate their experiences with their insurance provider. Structural equation modeling reveals that an effective customer journey design positively affects customer satisfaction and subsequently customer loyalty. (-> to the Executive Summary)
The Role of Self-Determination Theory in Explaining Patients’Motivation to Continue Using Telemedicine in a Post-Pandemic World
Teresa Ries and Daniel Baier
COVID-19 has led to a considerable increase in telemedicine use by physicians and patients. However, usage is expected to decline post-pandemic despite the benefits in terms of convenience, reachability, accessibility, and cost. We are investigating antidotes to this supposed decline from the patient’s perspective: Which psychological needs and motivations may increase the patient’s satisfaction with telemedicine and her or his continuance intention? Our research combines the well-known Expectation-Confirmation Model (ECM) from satisfaction research with motivation antecedents and outcomes according to Self-Determination Theory (SDT). We developed and shared a self-administered questionnaire in online health communities. A patient sample (n = 464) participated in the survey. A subsample (n = 151) had experiences with medical teleconsultation or similar medical applications, whereas other patients (n = 313) with teleconsultations in administration, business, or education only. Overall, both subsamples reveal almost the same results. Perceived usefulness (e.g., time-saving and quick access to healthcare treatment) is the most important continuance intention predictor. However, psychological needs from SDT (e.g., perceived competence and perceived relatedness) also determine motivation, satisfaction, and continuance intention. The combination of ECM and SDT appears to lay the foundation for improved research for digitalized healthcare delivery. Further, both subsamples demonstrate high satisfaction with telemedicine. Nevertheless, telemedicine providers and marketers should carefully optimize the patient journey while minimizing patient waiting time and focus on understanding users’ health needs to differentiate their services in the market. (->to the Executive Summary)