This paper looks at “dance” or “rave”, a phenomenon usually associated with youth culture. It suggests that there is a hidden consumer who falls into the 30-40 age group. The paper examines the emergence of dance/rave, and the process of commodification of a sub-cultural movement. It suggests that youth-related activities are migrating up the age scale and draws on the results of a phenomenological study to support this. The findings suggest that the experience is closely related to cognitive age and the dimensions of “felt” age, “look” age, “do” age, and “interest” age.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of self-congruence on consumer satisfaction with services and to develop and test a conceptual model of the antecedents and consequences of consumer satisfaction in the hospitality industry. Design/methodology/approach – The conceptual framework consists of the following constructs: actual self-congruence, ideal self-congruence, desires congruence, service quality, consumers' overall attitude to a service firm, and intention to return. Moreover, 12 hypotheses were developed and tested. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used to test the validity of the measures, while PLS was used in hypotheses testing. Data were collected from 185 consumers who had recently visited a restaurant or hotel. Findings – Strong support was found for 11 of the 12 hypotheses. Findings reveal that ideal self-congruence and desires congruence have positive effects on consumer satisfaction. In contrast, it is shown that actual self-congruence is not related to consumer satisfaction. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the two dimensions of service quality – physical quality and staff behaviour – have a positive impact on both desires congruence and consumer satisfaction. Importantly, consumer satisfaction is found to be a better indicator of the consumers' overall attitude to the service firm than service quality. The study confirms that consumer satisfaction mediates the relationship between the two service quality dimensions, ideal self-congruence, and intention to return. Originality/value – This study makes four important contributions. First, satisfaction research is advanced by integrating self-concept theory into the postpurchase evaluation of services. Second, the relationship between the multidimensional nature of service quality and consumer satisfaction is examined by testing paths from two posited dimensions of service quality – physical quality and staff behaviour – to satisfaction. Third, the consumers' overall attitude to a service firm is integrated into existing models of satisfaction and its impact on behavioural loyalty (intention to return) is tested. Finally, a contribution is made to the satisfaction research literature by testing the effect of service quality on desires congruence, and the effect of desires congruence on consumer satisfaction.

Purpose – The paper aims to look at some of the problems commonly associated with qualitative methodologies, suggesting that there is a need for a more rigorous application in order to develop theory and aid effective decision making. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines three qualitative methodologies: grounded theory, ethnography, and phenomenology. It compares and contrasts their approaches to data collection and interpretation and highlights some of the strengths and weaknesses associated with each one. Findings – The paper suggests that, while qualitative methodologies, as opposed to qualitative methods, are now an accepted feature of consumer research, their application in the truest sense is still in its infancy within the broader field of marketing. It proposes a number of possible contexts that may benefit from in-depth qualitative enquiry. Originality/value – The paper should be of interest to marketers considering adopting a qualitative perspective, possibly for the first time, as it offers a snap-shot of three widely-used methodologies, their associated procedures and potential pitfalls.

Purpose – The key objective of this research is to test how two trust dimensions (cognition-based trust and affect-based trust) mediate the effects of three personal characteristics (psychological distance, the marketing manager's sales experience, and the marketing manager's relative level of formal education) on the following outcome variables: dysfunctional conflict, functional conflict, and perceived relationship effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on the interaction approach, the paper develops a conceptual framework to better understand the nature of the working relationship between marketing managers and sales managers. In total, it develops and test 13 hypotheses. Partial least squares was used to assess the validity of the measures, and to estimate the structural model. Using a cross-sectional design, data were collected from 101 marketing managers in Australia. Findings – The hypothesized model has high explanatory power and it was found that both trust dimensions strongly affected all three outcome variables. However, though both forms of trust were positively related to perceived relationship effectiveness, affect-based trust had the strongest impact on this outcome. The results also confirm that both cognition- and affect-based trust have negative effects on dysfunctional conflict, and strong positive effects on functional conflict. In addition to these new findings, the paper shows that while psychological distance has a strong negative impact on cognition-based trust, it has no impact on affect-based trust. Moreover, it was found that when marketing managers had greater levels of sales experience, it increased their affect-based trust but it had no impact on cognition-based trust. Finally, the marketing manager's relative level of formal education had no impact on either forms of trust. Originality/value – This is one of a handful of studies to employ a large-scale empirical approach to examine the neglected cross-functional relationship between marketing and sales. Also, it is one of the few studies to examine the effects of cognition-based trust and affect-based trust on performance outcomes.