Professor Sarah Quinton

Purpose – Acknowledging previous scholarly focus on functional attributes in understanding technology acceptance behaviour, the current study aims to offer a novel perspective by integrating eight different dimensions of utilitarian and hedonic attributes to examine their influence in delivering a holistic web-based retail shopping experience. Design/methodology/approach –The research model was tested and validated through data collected from 370 online shoppers across both hedonic and utilitarian product ranges. Hypotheses were tested using covariance-based structural equation modelling with multi-group analysis to examine the moderation effect. Findings – The findings strongly support the model confirming eight new utilitarian and hedonic dimensions that influence web-based retail shopping behaviour. The findings also confirm that hedonic attributes remain important even for utilitarian product purchasing. Practical implications – The key managerial implication is the demonstrated need to balance utilitarian and hedonic attributes in web-based retail platforms, where previously, there has been an overemphasis on functional features. Web-based retailers should consider the optimal blend of utilitarian (e.g. information quality) and hedonic (e.g. aesthetic) attributes in the design of a retail shopping site, irrespective of the product category. Originality/value – This study integrates multiple dimensions of utilitarian and hedonic attributes into a single model and highlights the interplay of these attributes, thus extending the technology acceptance model. This paper also advances scholarship through its identification of attribute impact across different product categories.

Although there is an ageing population in Europe which acts as an increasingly influential social and economic force there remains limited scholarship concerning the involvement of older people in research. This paper responds to the question of how visual participatory research engages older people through three illustrative case studies,  set in England and Italy,  all of which incorporated different visual elements within their participatory design. These cases highlight; the value of the visual as a trigger  for memories as an entry point for research discussions,  that the sharing of experiences is facilitated by both the participatory and visual elements of the approach, and that greater engagement is forthcoming once trust is established through the socialisation of older research participants. Reflections  and good practice suggestions are offered to other  qualitative researchers on the practicalities of adopting this approach.  

Analogical thinking is a tool that can help resolve complex intellectual challenges that has rarely been employed in tourism and hospitality academic research. This research note briefly explains the background to analogical thinking and introduces the concept of tapestry analogies. The example of a tapestry analogy, adopted as a solution to resolving a mental blockage in a PhD by publication, illustrates how analogical thinking can be applied. Analogical thinking can be utilised in a wide range of hospitality and tourism research challenges. 

This methodological paper investigates how visual methods contribute to the understanding
of consumers' values. The study adopts a digital ethnography approach
in which participant generated photographs and videos unearth complex and
intangible consumer values associated with food consumption. The findings indicate
that visual methods are powerful in moving beyond the representational and offer a
transformative capability for participants in making abstract constructs more
concrete. The research illustrates that embedded visual methods are compelling in
giving “voice” to participants and as such they are more engaged with the research
process. In addition, the study suggests that visual methods provide valuable and
more complete insights into consumer research when text, sound, and image
interplay.

Whilst there is extant research focusing on the link between hotel reviews and pricing there is scant attention paid to the impact of pricing on hotel review ratings. This paper presents a large scale study based on a novel dataset of more than 44,000 guest review ratings linked to the prices paid for rooms of an European hotel group. Through applying a panel regression analysis we reveal that expectancy-disconfirmation is generally stronger than the placebo effect and higher prices have a negative effect on review ratings, not only when assessing perceived value for money but also when evaluating perceived quality. We identify the trip and guest characteristics which impact on the price-review relationship. Findings provide hotel managers with key quantitative information for simultaneously calibrating quality and revenue targets. Substantial implications include an integrated approach for segmentation as a route to better manage pricing, revenue optimization and reputation.

Digital strategy alignment is a dominant concern for today’s managers and information systems researchers. Yet research in this area remains fragmented, particularly on the digital strategy alignment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which is concerning owing to their value to European economies. Employing dynamic capabilities as an analytical lens, we investigate how 43 British, Irish, Italian, and Spanish SMEs, across five industry sectors, enact digital aligning. We identify a model of digital alignment comprising five phases, which we term “passive acceptance,” “connection,” “immersion,” “fusion,” and “transformation,” as well as the specific combinations of sensing, seizing, and reorganizing capabilities associated with each phase. Our model provides a holistic, practice-based perspective and highlights the role of micro-behaviors and leadership in SMEs implementing digital strategy.

Pubs have traditionally been important social and community spaces, hosting multiple consumer segments. Successful pubs have broadened their appeal, for example by expanding their food provision and targeting family segments. However, little is known about the features and practices that make pubs appealing to families. Drawing on a ‘composite’ data set, consisting of 40 qualitative interviews and 387 responses to a directed online discussion thread, this paper examines what contributes to making pubs family-friendly. Data show how parental consumption intersects with parenting work, highlighting how physical and symbolic design features, tailored services, social interactions, and socio-material practices of the food offerings can shape consumption experiences positively and negatively. The paper thus contributes to practical knowledge by identifying how pubs can create family-friendly experiences. It also contributes to theoretical knowledge by conceptualising how ‘framing’ processes or effects, shaped by personal, situational and socio-cultural ‘imperatives’, influence consumer perceptions, behaviours and experiences.

Ethics committees have an important role to play in ensuring ethical standards (e.g. BERA, ESRC, RCUK recommendations) are met by educational researchers. Balancing obligations to participants, society, institutions and the researchers themselves is not, however, easy.  Researchers often experience the Ethics committee as unsympathetic to their research endeavour, whilst Ethics committees find some research approaches do not make ethical implications sufficiently explicit. This potential for misunderstanding is evident in the literature; but studies investigating how participants perceive this relationship is missing. 

This study comprises a novel empirical study which explores researcher perceptions of research ethics committees. Fifty-five participants in Higher Education departments of Education responded to an online survey. Open and closed ended questions were used to collect data on roles, methodological stance, experiences of the research ethics committee, perceived tensions and examples of good practice. 

The results indicated that contemporary educational researchers regard research ethics committees as friends when researcher and reviewer are transparently engaged in a shared endeavour. When this shared endeavour breaks down, for a variety of reasons including apparently unreasonable demands or mutual misunderstanding, the research ethics committees can become foe.  The difference between foe and friend lies in the quality of communication, clear systems and a culture of respectful mutual learning.

The contributions of this study have practical implications for the ways that education researchers and research ethics committees relate to one another within university settings, both to alleviate areas of tension and to arrive at shared understanding which will enable best ethical research practice. 

We are faced with an ageing population whose longer lives need to be lived well. Extant  marketing scholarship has largely neglected older consumers’ behavior in relation to the social  media realm and its influence on well-being. This two-stage qualitative study investigates subjective well-being, exploring whether and how sharing photos on social media increases the dimensions of self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. The findings indicate that photo-sharing is a powerful behavior in augmenting older consumers’ well-being as it enables individual self-reflection, self-representation and transforms the individual experience into a collective one. Contributions include; that photo-sharing acts as a bridge in creating, reinforcing but also breaking bonds among older consumers, also a tension exists between the desire for autonomy and the need for relationships with others, and finally that the digital self exists as a component of subjective well-being in older consumers.

While the competence of subordinates is considered desirable in the workplace, it may create challenges in managing people in organizations. This study examines why subordinates’ competence triggers ostracism within the workplace based on social comparison theory and previous insecurity studies. Data from both managers (N = 130) and their subordinates (N = 231) provided findings which affirm that, first, some managers regard competent subordinates as potential challengers and thus develop a feeling of insecurity, which creates motivation for the ostracism of those competent subordinates. Second, those subordinates who feel ostracized by managers may show less commitment toward their managers, feel less confident and engage in negative gossip about their managers. The implications of competence triggered ostracism for management include that competent subordinates require active management and development to avoid potentially damaging relationships between managers and subordinates emerging which would be detrimental to the organization.

This article reports on a U.K. workshop on social media research ethics held in May 2018. There were 10 expert speakers and an audience of researchers, research ethics committee members, and research institution representatives. Participants reviewed the current state of social media ethics, discussing well-rehearsed questions such as what needs consent in social media research, and how the public/private divide differs between virtual and real-life environments. The lack of answers to such questions was noted, along with the difficulties posed for ethical governance structures in general and the work of research ethics committees in particular. Discussions of these issues enabled the creation of two recommendations. The first is for research ethics committees and journal editors to add the category of ‘data subject research’ to the existing categories of ‘text research’ and ‘human subject research’. This would reflect the fact that social media research does not fall into either of the existing categories and so needs a category of its own. The second is that ethical issues should be considered at all stages of social media research, up to and including aftercare. This acknowledges that social media research throws up a large number of ethical issues throughout the process which, under current arrangements for ethical research governance, risks remaining unaddressed.

Gossip is a common phenomenon in the workplace, but yet relatively little is understood about its influence to employees. This study adopts social information theory and social cognitive theory to interpret the diverse literature on gossip, and to develop and test hypotheses concerning some of the antecedents of gossip, with an aim of developing knowledge of the relationship between gossip and employee behaviour in the workplace. The study analysed survey data in a two-stage process, from 362 employees across a range of industries in Taiwan. The findings revealed that jobrelated gossip predicted employee cynicism and mediated the relationship between psychological contract violation and cynicism, and that non-job-related gossip showed a similar but weaker effect to employee cynicism. The contribution made by this paper is of value to both the academic subject domain and managers in Human Resources. First, we have identified two constructs of gossip, job-related and non-job-related gossip not previously reported and a validated scale has been created. Second, we have confirmed that these different constructs of gossip impact differently on employee behaviour and therefore HR managers should be cautious about gossip in the workplace, as it can cause cynical behaviour amongst employees.

Keywords: abusive supervision; employee cynicism; gossip; human resource management; psychological contract

Purpose – The purpose of this exploratory research paper is twofold. First, to identify how wine is being talked about within the Twitter environment and second to examine whether the constructs of soft and hard value can be demonstrated within the social media, Twitter content. The overall aim is to establish whether Twitter can create value for wine stakeholders.

Design/methodology/approach – A netnographic approach has been adopted through the collection of 1,500 English language tweets on the subject of wine which were analysed using Nvivo qualitative data analysis software against the constructs of value found in the literature.

Findings – The early findings suggest that Twitter can create soft value for wine focused businesses but that hard value is not yet strongly evident. Wine marketers need to be more aware of both the content of wine tweets and the profiles of those who tweet.

Practical implications – The use of social media within wine businesses is in its infancy. Wine focused businesses are currently not optimising value creation through Twitter. Whilst Twitter does exhibit value, wine marketers, wine brands and wine retailers are not engaging with consumers who are talking about wine via Twitter.

Originality/value – This paper has provided evidence that there is value within social media, specifically Twitter. The contribution of this paper lies in identifying not only the types of value that wine businesses could develop by embracing Twitter but also how the different profiles use Twitter differently.

Purpose – The purpose of this exploratory research paper is twofold. First, to identify how wine is being talked about within the Twitter environment and second to examine whether the constructs of soft and hard value can be demonstrated within the social media, Twitter content. The overall aim is to establish whether Twitter can create value for wine stakeholders.

Design/methodology/approach – A netnographic approach has been adopted through the collection of 1,500 English language tweets on the subject of wine which were analysed using Nvivo qualitative data analysis software against the constructs of value found in the literature.

Findings – The early findings suggest that Twitter can create soft value for wine focused businesses but that hard value is not yet strongly evident. Wine marketers need to be more aware of both the content of wine tweets and the profiles of those who tweet.

Practical implications – The use of social media within wine businesses is in its infancy. Wine focused businesses are currently not optimising value creation through Twitter. Whilst Twitter does exhibit value, wine marketers, wine brands and wine retailers are not engaging with consumers who are talking about wine via Twitter.

Originality/value – This paper has provided evidence that there is value within social media, specifically Twitter. The contribution of this paper lies in identifying not only the types of value that wine businesses could develop by embracing Twitter but also how the different profiles use Twitter differently.

Writing a literature review yields many academic benefits. It is an appropriate route for management students to learn academic skills, such as how to search databases and to search off line, and to improve practical and theoretical knowledge. It enables theory development unimpeded by the practical obstacles of gaining access to people and organisations to collect data. It requires the development of expertise in research methods, numeracy, attention to detail, and in the analysis and interpretation of data. Despite these benefits, the pedagogic literature has little to say about the best means of teaching students how to research and write literature reviews. This paper develops a three-stage framework for teaching literature reviews which gives explicit guidance for teachers and simplifies the process for students. The framework comprises a means of learning how to carry out a systematically informed search for relevant literature, demonstrated through examples; an approach to learning how to read and deconstruct a text in a critically informed way, through using a template with a questioning approach; and a way explaining how to reconstruct the material, using a simple metaphor to demonstrate how this is done.

Engaging in reflection is a vital part of learning for university students and its practice should be embedded in course design. Feedback on written work can be used as a vehicle for reflection. Both the gift and receipt of feedback and the habit of reflection require practice and capturing this experiential learning can be achieved in a class environment. This paper outlines how reflection on written feedback may be used formatively by teachers in a university context. The paper reports on the use of a simple tool, a self-copying sheet, given to management undergraduates on the return of coursework, which engages students and captures their reflection on their feedback. The teaching model presented outlines an approach to reflective learning that recognises the need for students to engage with feedback in the classroom, to reflect on it and to feed forward to the next assessment, thus completing the learning cycle.

Purpose - The potential influence of consumer generated communication in the form of online discussion fora has been overlooked by marketers. The purpose of this paper to explore the content of discussion and the relationships between posters on social networks using the wine sector as the research basis. Design/methodology/approach - The paper examines the current usage of discussion fora by wine enthusiasts through a netnographic approach. A non-probability purposive sample of wine discussion fora in three countries is employed to determine the content and style of the contributions posted. Findings - The paper indicates that individuals within fora develop relationships with each other, the network itself and brands. Such relationships are predicated on trust between members, shared interests and experiences and relationships with the brands that they discuss. These relationships can develop into strong bonds and even evolve into offline activities. Research limitations/implications - The paper is an exploratory study with a sample limited to one product type and thus generalisation is difficult. Practical implications - The paper outlines the strength and types of relationships between social network members. It demonstrates how netnography can provide insights into consumer behaviour and relationships between consumers and products. Marketers should consider the content of discussion fora as a valuable resource for learning about contemporary consumer communication and appreciate the power of peer-to-peer online relationships. Originality/value - The paper uses a novel, but accepted, research method to discover useful insights into consumer perceptions and behaviour.

Purpose - Organisations now regard having a web site as mandatory but as more businesses create websites the real challenge lies in driving traffic to a specific web site. Little research attention has been paid to the issues for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of how to increase traffic to their web site. This paper addresses the issue of web site traffic generation for SMEs which have limited resources to determine how SMEs might make more effective use of search engine marketing (SEM) tools to increase web site traffic. Design/methodology/approach - An investigation of specific SEM tools, including press release distribution and directory submission, that are available to SMEs was conducted. This research paper follows a mixed methods approach incorporating Pearson's product moment correlation conducted on web site traffic and backlinks data as well as qualitative analysis of interview transcripts of three SME organisations and their use of search engine optimisation across different industries. Findings - The findings indicate that a combined use of both press release distribution and directory submission does increase traffic generation to a web site. A tentative model is proposed which requires further testing. Practical implications - This paper demonstrates the synergy that can be created from two easily accessible and low cost SEM tools for SMEs in order to improve web site traffic generation. Originality/value - The value of this research lies in the fact that the tools used in the creation of the model are within the means of small organisations and therefore highly relevant to SMEs.