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 3/2025
Improving or Enhancing the Self? Beliefs About Body Shape Malleability Influence Consumer Product Evaluation and Preference
Silvan Burri, Sascha Steinmann, and Dirk Morschett
Body shape is perceived as stable by entity theorists but malleable by incremental theorists. It remains unclear whether these lay theories about body shape malleability affect product evaluation and preference. We hypothesize that entity theorists, as compared with incremental theorists, will more favorably evaluate self-enhancement products that make body shape more visually appealing without objectively improving it, whereas incremental theorists, as compared with entity theorists, will more strongly prefer self-improvement products that help develop body shape to products without this characteristic. After excluding a link between malleability beliefs and body shape satisfaction in initial exploratory Study 1, we test the hypotheses in two experiments. Study 2 demonstrates that entity (vs. incremental) theorists evaluate self-enhancement apparel goods more favorably, then Study 3 indicates that incremental (vs. entity) theorists more strongly prefer selfimprovement food items to regular alternatives. The results provide insights on marketing strategies for self-improvement and selfenhancement products. (->to the Executive Summary)
Beyond Immersion: Multidimensional Construction and Measurement of the Service Value Concept in Germany’s Virtual Reality Gaming Service Ecosystem
Reinhard E. Kunz, Christian Zabel, Alexander Roth, and Sebastian Cramer
This study contributes to service management research by developing and validating a framework for understanding service value and its outcomes, with a focus on Virtual Reality (VR) gaming. Using a mixed-methods approach, Study 1 qualitatively explores service dimensions among German university students (n = 832), identifying ten service value dimensions. Study 2 validates the higherorder service value construct through confirmatory factor analysis based on an online survey in Germany (n = 1,783). Covariancebased structural equation modeling confirms the positive associations between service value and customer satisfaction, as well as between service value and recommendation intention. The results suggest that managers in the VR gaming industry should enhance immersion and system quality. They should also focus on fostering a flow experience through effective game design and real-time feedback to optimize service value and resource allocation. This research provides a comprehensive framework for understanding service value, facilitating both exploratory and quantitative research, particularly within VR gaming contexts. (->to the Executive Summary)
Understanding and enhancing price Fairness perceptions of value-based pricing
Dominik Ebinger and Marc Wouters
Value-based pricing is potentially beneficial for relationships in business markets, but customers may also perceive this pricing approach as unfair. Drawing on the dual entitlement principle, we find that pricing norms play a role in fairness perceptions of value-based pricing. We find that fairness perceptions of value-based pricing can be enhanced by transparent and consistent sharing of customer value. Explicitly applying the identical value-sharing rule when promising customer value ex-ante and achieving it ex-post significantly increases price fairness perceptions. We find the same effect when applying the identical value-sharing rule for the focal customer and other customers, even if this leads to higher prices for the focal customer. This study shows specific ways how the dual entitlement principle forms price fairness perceptions. (->to the Executive Summary)