This study attempts to advance knowledge in the area of controversial advertising by examining the antecedents and consequences of controversial advert perceptions in the context of social media, and particularly social networking sites (SNS). Specifically, we explore how ethical judgement and religious commitment shape controversial advert perceptions leading to attitudes towards the advert, brand attitudes and purchase intentions. Our results indicate that when a SNS advert is judged to be ethically acceptable, the level of perceived advert controversy is lower. However, the impact of ethical judgement on controversial advert perceptions becomes significant and positive when intrapersonal commitment and interpersonal religious commitment are introduced as moderators. This result implies that the level of religious commitment changes the ethical judgement–controversial advert perceptions relationship. The results also highlight that controversial advert perceptions negatively influence attitude towards the advert. The study contributes to the limited knowledge on controversial advertising on SNS, yielding significant and relevant implications for academics and advertisers alike, in their effort to improve advertising effectiveness without offending or alienating target audiences.

This paper focuses on dimensions of the perceived service quality measurement for business schools. We propose an adapted SERVQUAL measure of expected and perceived quality, where employees at business schools are split into two groups: faculty and administrative staff, and assessed separately. This measure represents a tool for comparable service quality assessment at business schools. Empirical data were collected among undergraduate students in a developing economy. A total of 282 respondents were used to assess the overall fit of the proposed model and to test the differences between the expectations and the perceptions of service quality in a business school. The results support usability of the proposed adapted SERVQUAL measure. Therefore, the study contributes to the existing literature reporting the findings on service quality in an educational context.

A healthy lifestyle is an important trend shaping business actions today, while packaging on the other hand influences the purchase behavior of consumers. The aim of this research was to explore and understand consumer perceptions of healthy food packaging information. Beside qualitative research, a quantitative research was conducted with a non-probability convenient sample. Data were analyzed using exploratory methods – principal component analysis and linear regression. The influence of advertisements and influence perception of the credibility of packaging information were observed. The research results show that there are gender differences in the importance of different attributes of healthy food packaging information perception. Women are influenced only by advertisements, while men are influenced both by advertisements and the credibility of packaging information.

Abstract The importance of corporate communication to build, protect and maintain corporate reputation has been advocated in numerous publications in recent years. The main goal of this paper is to provide an understanding of the impact of corporate reputation and information sharing on value creation. Both reputation and information sharing represent signals that customers observe in the process of value creation, which is seen as the end focus for corporate marketing. The paper draws on signaling theory and corporate marketing literature from the European and American schools of thought. The empirical test of the hypothesized model focuses on the banking industry. Organizational customers from a South East European country shared their views about banks they currently cooperate with. The research instrument contained multi-item scales adapted from the existing literature. An analysis using structural equation modeling confirmed that corporate reputation positively and significantly influences customer perceived value. The effect of information sharing on customer perceived value is not direct but mediated by corporate reputation. This finding contributes to the existing discussion on the role of corporate reputation and communication as antecedents in the process of value creation.

This paper examines customer perceived value as one of the most important marketing concepts in business markets and its mediating role between corporate reputation and word of mouth. Corporate reputation represents an intangible asset for the company and its positive influence on customer value has been widely researched. Additionally, reputation is usually related with the concept of word of mouth (WOM). WOM is becoming one of the most powerful promotional tools, and this is especially true for business markets as well as for services. Our research is done in the organizational services setting with focus on the relationships of banks with their organizational customers. Data in the study were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling. Results of the study confirm hypothesized model and show that customer perceived value is mediating the relationship between corporate reputation and word of mouth.