Journal of Consumer Behaviour

/ Consumer liehav. 5: 97-101 (2006)

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www,interscience,wiley,com), DOI: 10,1002/cb,37

Editorial
Changing Perspectives on Customer
Behaviour

This special issue of the Journal of Consumer Behaviour on

'Changing Perspectives on Customer Behaviour' represents the
culmination of the fourth conference in the very successful
international series of Customer Research Academy Workshops
(CRAWS4) held in Manchester March 31 -April 2nd 2004,
Co-chaired by Professor Barbara Lewis, Dr, Kalipso Karantinou
and Professor Margaret Hogg, the fourth workshop was attended by
over forty academics from the United States, Canada, South Africa,
Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Eire as well as the
UK, Sessions covered: the impact of new technology on customer
behaviour; identity and consumption; retailing and relationships;
and service quality. The emphasis in the workshops is on
interaction. With some strict chairing (!) presentation of papers
was successfully restricted to half of the timetable, to allow wide-
ranging discussion by all participants of topical issues such as:
surfing and purchasing on the Net; psychic distance and online
internationalisation; the use of longitudinal methods for examining
internet shopping behaviour; young consumers and their dislikes;
alcohol consumption of young adults; older consumers online;
unwrapping Christmas in the UK; compulsive consumption; the
impact of the euro on customers' perceptions of prices; simulating
service encounters in consumer research; service excellence and
relationship management and the knowledge economy.
After a rigorous revie^v process ^vhich involved two or three
rounds of revision, four of the best papers have been chosen for
publication in this special issue. All the papers reflect, in different
ways, changing perspectives on customer behaviour—and all the
papers offer theoretical, empirical and practical insights to our
understanding of customer behaviour.
The first paper: Predicting and exptaining the propensity to bid
in online auctions: a comparison of two action-theoreticat modets
by Michael Bosnjak, Dirk Obermeier and Tracy Tuten captures one
of the key changes in retailing and customer behaviour over the past
10 years, the development of online auctions. The authors used two
online research methods to collect data in two stages from nearly

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Journat of Consumer Behaviour, March-Aprit 2006
^* Editorial

200 German participants in order to compare two well-established

theoretical models in consumer behaviour research: theory of
planned behaviour (Azjen 1985,1991) and Technology Acceptance
Model (JAM) (Davis, 1989). The study seeks to determine which
theory is best suited to predict and explain consumers' propensity
to use online auctions and actual usage, and in so doing aims tofilla
gap in the literature by addressing the processes leading to the
decision to enter an online auction where past studies focused on
antecedents and moderators. Confirmatory factor analysis and
structural equation modelling were used to analyse the data, and to
compare the two models for their predictive power and practical
utility for understanding customer behaviour in relation to online
auctions. The authors conclude that while both models were
capable of explaining a large amount of variance associated with
predicting the propensity to bid in online auctions, the TAM was
more parsimonious and provided more actionable recommenda-
tions for improving online auction sites. However, they also indicate
that customer behaviour in online bidding is not just an economic
activity, but also involves entertainment and pleasure (from the
process of bidding and winning), thus pointing to the need for
theory-building in this area to combine rational and hedonic aspects
of customer behaviour.
In the second paper: Emerging perspectives on customer
relationships, interactions and loyalty in Irish retail financial
services Deirdre O'Loughlin and Isabelle Szmigin question the
appropriateness of Relationship Marketing theory to understanding
the interactions between customers and their financial suppliers
(Irish banks). The increasingly competitive and turbulent market-
place for Irishfinancialservices (caused, for instance, by deregula-
tion and technological advances) has meant that Irish banks have
had to re-evaluate their marketing strategies (including the use of
relationship marketing) and their understanding of what constitutes
'loyalty'. Using qualitative data collected via structured interviews
with 50 customers (aged between 26 and 63 and drawn from a range
of socio-economic groups), the authors investigate the nature and
type of customer interaction and the incidence and nature of
customer loyalty in this industry sector. Their research identifies
shortcomings in the relationship approach and suggests that
relationships, other than particularly opportunistic ones, are rare
within Irish financial services. The authors thus problematise the
relevance of Relationship Marketing to this industry sector,
extending earlier critiques (e.g. Fournier etal., 1998), and suggest
that we must move on from a Utopian, wishful thinking on business
relationships to considering alternative concepts, which better
depict the current customer-supplier exchange reality.
With the third paper: Social meanings in Christmas consumption:
an exploratory study of UK celebrants' consumption rituals by Sally
McKechnie and Caroline Tynan the focus moves from customers to
consumers. Their paper contributes to the increasingly important

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, March-April 2006
Editorial 99

group of studies into the social meanings which surround

consumption. Their chosen site for investigation is Christmas. They
develop a conceptual framework (derived from McCracken, 1986;
Holt, 1995) which they use to analyse their qualitative data collected
via focus groups with seventeen women (held before Christmas,
and w^hich dealt w^ith anticipation of and preparation for Christmas;
the experience of Christmas; and the post-festivity clearing up) and
follow-up reflective interviews with six of the original focus group
participants about a month after Christmas. From their data they
identify how special rituals (e.g. possession, exchange, grooming
and divestment, see McCracken, 1986) are combined with ordinary
behaviours (playing, classifying, experiencing and integrating see
Holt, 1995) by these women to create the social meanings which
surround their families' experiences of Christmas.
The fourth paper: Getting hammered... students coping with
alcohol by Maria Piacentini and Emma Banister deals with a topic
which has attracted increasing attention from public policy makers:
attitudes to alcohol amongst the young. They draw on identity and
coping theories to develop an understanding of attitudes amongst
drinkers and non-drinkers within social settings dominated by
alcohol. A two stage research design was used for this exploratory
study. In the first phase, stories were collected from 16O young
people about the role that alcohol plays in their life and in their
friends' lives. In the second phase, eight depth interview's were held.
The findings indicated that young people have a range of possible
selves (Markus and Nurius, 1986) and multiple identities which are
relevant to alcohol consumption, and employ a range of coping
strategies to help them deal with social situations linked to the
consumption of alcohol. Participants who prioritised higher order
personal goals (e.g. self-realisation via academic or sporting
achievements) tended to emphasise these identities when discussing
the role of alcohol in their lives; and they tended to prioritise longer-
term goals over shorter-term goals (such as fun, relaxation and
abandonment) associated with drinking occasions. A focus on the
consequences of drinking alcohol (rather than simply the immediate
hedonic experience) appeared to moderate their consumption
behaviour. Those who did not feel in control of their drinking relied
on emotion-focused strategies, aimed at helping them either alter the
meaning of the source of distress or avoid thinking about it.
The fifth and final paper in this special issue Lean Consumption
and its influence on brand by Edward Truch was not presented at
CRAWS4. However, it offers an academic's view informed by the
practitioner world because Truch's consultancy company (Knowl-
edgePartners) undertakes market research for many leading U.K.
companies. His paper makes two potentially significant contribu-
tions to the debates about changing perspectives on customer
behaviour. First of all, he takes the very current concept of Lean
Consumption, which was first discussed by Womack and Jones in
their Harvard Business Review article (2005) and operationaUses it.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, March-April 2006
100 Editorial

Womack and Jones (2005) described six principles of lean

consumption and these are operationalised by seven dimensions
tested via a Likert-type scale. Second, the study establishes an
important linkage between lean consumption and brand warmth.
Brand warmth represents the positive feelings which customers
have towards product and retail brands, assessed via the same seven
dimensions derived from Womack and Jones' (2005) six principles
of lean consumption. Brand warmth is intricately linked to customer
loyalty and customer satisfaction, and thus feeds directly into
company financial performance. Lean consumption and brand
warmth both potentially represent important hidden drivers of
corporate and national wealth. This paper underlines the centrality
of the workshop theme in current marketing thought i.e. the
importance of customers to company success; and our changing
perspectives on customers as representing one of the key intangible
assets of companies.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the reviewers for their invaluable
contribution to this Special issue of the Journal of Consumer
Behaviour (2005) on 'Changing Perspectives on Customer Behaviour'.
Dr Susan Auty, Lancaster University Management School
Dr Charles C Cui, Manchester Business School
Professor Chris Easingwood, Manchester Business School
Professor Robert East, Kingston University
Dr Sue Eccles, Lancaster University Management School
Professor Christina Goulding, Wolverhampton University
Dr Mark Healey, Leeds University Business School
Dr Kathleen Keeling, Manchester Business School
Dr Andrew Lindridge, Manchester Business School
Professor Pauline Maclaran, Leicester Business School, De Montfort
University
Professor Vincent-Wayne Mitchell, Cass Business School, City
University
Professor Jonathan Schroeder, Exeter University
Dr Avi Shankar, Exeter University
Dr Julie Tinson, Stirling University
Professor Sarah Todd, Otago University, Dunedin, NZ
Dr Darach Turley, Dublin City University
Dr Helen Woodruffe-Burton, Lancaster University Management
School
Dr Judy Zolkiewski, Manchester Business School.

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Kalipso M. Karantinou, Margaret K. Hogg and

Barbara R. Lewis
American College of Greece
Lancaster University Management School and
Manchester Business School, UK
October 2005

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, March-April 2006