Matthias Rüfenacht

Purpose: This paper delineates the impact of social context and savings attitudes on consumer's self-reported long-term savings and discusses how these drivers can be influenced to increase an individual's savings rate. Design/methodology/approach: An online survey was conducted among 993 German savers. A structural equation model quantified the influence of the social context and an individual's attitudes on long-term savings behavior, as stated by consumers. Findings: Both social context constructs - subjective norms and relationship quality - exert a significant influence on the savings attitudes of perceived anxiety and perceived importance, which in turn significantly affect long-term savings. Furthermore, the results of a mediation analysis indicated that the social context only has an indirect effect on long-term savings. Research limitations/implications: The study was conducted in Germany only. Therefore, the results may not apply across cultures. In addition, the salient belief structures, access channels used, and savings product categories were not part of this study. Practical implications: The results showed that financial institutions can influence an individual's attitudes toward long-term savings by providing a satisfying and trusted relationship. The positive effect on savings attitudes will translate to an increased long-term savings rate. According to the analysis, financial service providers can only have an indirect effect on long-term savings behavior. Originality/value: This paper delineates the impact of the social environment on long-term savings. This relationship has not been investigated in previous research. In addition, the influence of the social context within the attitudes-behavior framework for long-term savings is expounded.

The authors investigate the savings behavior in an empirical study and define social context and attitudes towards saving as the main drivers. By applying a behavioral approach hypotheses are formulated in order to test the influence of the social context on the saving attitudes perceived anxiety, perceived importance and involvement. In addition, the authors research the impact of these attitudes on short and long-term saving. The inclusion of self-control and household income further helps to explain saving behavior. Both, social context constructs, social influence and relationship quality, exhibit a significant influence on all attitudes. Moreover all attitudes show a significant impact on short- and long-term saving. Thus, savings institution can influence the savings behavior by offering a high and trustworthy relationship quality. This in turn affects perceived anxiety, involvement and perceived importance which are the main drivers of saving as shown by the authors.

Previous research has not yet discovered the value that consumers associate with a particular channel choice. Moreover, the effect of personal traits on consumers' value attribution has not been examined in the multichannel literature. In our paper we address this research gap by studying the influence of a chosen search channel (online vs. offline) on a consumer's value attributed to using this channel for later purchase. We introduce the construct channel willingness to pay (CWTP) as a measurement of a consumer's valuation of a specific buying channel.This term expresses the amount a consumer is willing to pay in order to change the chosen buying channel.

Fierce global competition urges the requirement for companies to excel. As an effective strategic rationale, the customer value (CV) concept has been considered by researchers and practitioners alike. In this paper we relate the perceived customer value anticipation (CVA) to loyalty and favorable word-of-mouth (WOM) in an international service environment. Further, we investigate the process by mediation analysis, finding cognitive and conative loyalty as pivotal constructs. By including power distance (PD) as a moderator we delineate the effect of cross-cultural differences regarding our proposed framework. We find PD amplifying the indirect effect of CVA on WOM through the loyalty constructs.

In respect of an increased global competition the customer value (CV) concept has been considered as an effective strategic rationale by researchers and practitioners alike. However, neither its theoretical conceptualization nor its practical implementation has been unambiguously defined. In this paper we propose a CV framework and study the effect of perceived customer value anticipation (CVA) on word-of-mouth (WOM) mediated by cognitive and conative loyalty. By including the construct power distance as a moderator we delineate the effect of cross-cultural differences regarding our proposed framework. To collect the necessary data, insurance customers from 17 countries have been surveyed.

The increasing competition and the high connectivity among companies have resulted in a focus on networks, rather than on a single company. Accordingly, literature has emphasized network value as a focal construct. No studies have yet examined the value of network theory on performance outcomes. In this paper, we investigate the importance of applying a network perspective on channel members, namely on the relationship between companies and their intermediaries. We do this by means of a global survey in the financial service industry (n=538). Doing so, we enhance the understanding of the intermediaries performance.