Branding decisions are becoming increasingly important in services, but little service-specific research has focused on this domain so far. This is surprising, as the service industry accounts for an ever-growing share of the global economy, whereas service aspects have become increasingly important for all goods. Marketing managers may want to capitalize on previously acquired brand equity by extending a reputable brand to a new category. Little is known, however, about the extent to which consumerbased brand equity transfers to unrelated categories in a services context. The authors have replicated Aaker and Keller’s (1990) study and extended it to the services domain. Our data set provides evidence that in a services context, consumers use complementarity to the original category as a major cue to evaluate extensions. As a consequence, brand extension strategies could probably be used most successfully in cases where a significant similarity in service delivery processes exists.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Brand communities may manifest the ultimate degree of connectedness between a consumer and a brand. Research typically approaches such communities as collections of highly homogenous members but generally fails to recognize them as individual persons with their own idiosyncratic backgrounds and reasons to join the community. This article aims to explore whether a community population can be meaningfully segmented on the basis of different motivations to join. Design/methodology/approach -Information from two communities is collected, following the customer-centric model of brand community of McAlexander et al.. The relationship variables in this model are used as a segmentation basis in cluster analysis to identify various segments. Different kind of motivations can be identified with the relationship variables of the McAlexander et al. model. Findings -Multiple segments based on different consumption motivations exist. Two investigated communities show significant overlap in the identified segments. Furthermore, the findings suggest that segments evolve in relation to the lifecycle stage of the community.Practical implications -Segmentation is important for fine-tuning marketing efforts, particularly for brand communities. Members of communities share dedication to the brand but are heterogeneous in many respects. Originality/value -Treating a brand community as a marketing tool requires an understanding of the composition of its population. This study explores how to achieve this understanding and links community characteristics to theoretical concepts surrounding consumer behaviour.

Successful innovation is crucial for firm survival in high-technology service industries. This article reports on an empirical study, exploring internal innovation success factors-success factors associated with the innovating firm's competenciesby taking a decision-making perspective. The likelihood of innovation success is associated with the systematic reduction of decision-making uncertainty, as a result of organizational information gathering, diffusion, and processing activities. Effects of interfirm differences are investigated in the new service development phase of the innovation process. Cross-sectional data were collected about 251 innovation projects from companies in Europe, the United States, and Japan. Innovation success is found to be related positively and directly to how well informed and knowledgeable decision-makers are. Furthermore, the study provides evidence that a market orientation contributes as an internal success factor: An organizational climate favorable to information sharing powerfully mediates the positive effects of intelligence gathering with respect to customers and technology. The effects of competitor orientation carry a negative sign, and managerial seniority appears not to play a major role in this turbulent business. Managerial and research implications are provided.

The authors have performed an experimental study to assess whether an extension with relatively low service intensiveness compared to the parent product is evaluated differently from an extension with higher service intensiveness. The empirical evidence from this article indicates that the quality of an extension product will be evaluated more favorably when it involves lower service intensiveness than higher service intensiveness. Furthermore, the results reveal that the difference in extension evaluations, due to the varying levels of service intensiveness involved in the extension products, is positively affected by the perceived similarity between an extension and its parent product. Finally, it is also found that consumers have different postevaluations on the parent brand due to different degrees of service intensiveness involved in the extension products. Meanwhile, the perceived similarity will reinforce this difference in consumers’postevaluations.

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