Abstracts Category : Other

Customerengagement with brands in smart device mediated online environmentand flow construct

by Nandishkumar Shah

Today's customers can be characterised by having richinformation at their fingertips, a short attention span and accessto multiple channels. This makes it challenging for organisationsto engage such customers, especially in online environments, whichare characterised by rapid changes in technology. This researchapplied Hoffman and Novak's (1996) initial insights of the flowconstruct in smart devices mediated online environments to solvethe modern battle for customer attention and engagement. Thisresearch aimed to establish antecedents of engagement and flowconstructs and their interplay during online product/serviceconsumption scenario. By undertaking a quantitative descriptivestudy, 274 valid responses by means of an electronic survey werereceived from South African consumers of online mobile bankingservices. By enhancing brand engagement and flow scales used inprevious studies, 41 statements measured the brand engagement andflow perceptions through 10 antecedents. Structural equationmodelling (SEM) was used to analyse structural relationshipsbetween latent constructs of engagement, flow and loyalty. Thestudy established that although all seven antecedents werepredictor of flow experience, four antecedents (skills, perceivedusefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived control) werestronger predictor of the flow compared to the other three (Hedonicvalue, concentration and positive challenges) in smart devicesmediated online service environment such as mobile banking App.Usage intensity was found to be a better predictor of userengagement compared to Brand self-concept (BSC), and brandinteraction value (BIV). Also it was found that brand engagementwas stronger predictor of flow experience and was a moderatepredictor of brand loyalty in online service environment. Astechnology landscape is evolving on continuous basis and smartdevices are becoming integral part of the consumer's life, brandsneed to ensure that above mentioned antecedents are present ontheir online service platform to engage users and to providecompelling flow experiences.Advisors/Committee Members: Chipp, Kerry (advisor).