This article introduces ‘virtual design competitions’ as a new means of opening up the innovation process and enriching the companies, ‘design‐ideas’ by utilizing the creativity of a multiplicity of external designers and enthused consumers all over the world. The ‘Swarovski Enlightened™ jewellery design competition’, explored in this study, demonstrates the enormous potential of virtual co‐creation platforms. It further highlights the importance of the co‐creation experience and its impact on the quantity and quality of designs submitted. First, we introduce the idea of virtual co‐creation platforms and the requirements on the design of such a platform. Second, we explore the impact of the co‐creation experience on the content contributed by participants. Our study shows that co‐creation experience significantly impacts the number of contributions by consumers as well as the quality of submitted designs. Our paper contributes to a better theoretic understanding of the impact of a participant's perceived autonomous, enjoyable, and competent experience, as well as participants' perceived sense of community on their experience. From a managerial perspective, it provides guidance in designing successful idea and design competitions. While innovation managers may be interested in creative contributions, for participants, it is the experience which matters. Fully featured community platforms rather than single idea submission websites are required to attract creative users to submit their ideas and designs.

Purpose -Customer satisfaction is seen to be one of the main determinants of loyalty. However, the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty does not seem to be linear, many researchers have reported doubts about the predictability of loyalty solely due to customer satisfaction ratings which ignore image as predictor of loyalty. This paper aims to address the issues. Design/methodology/approach -The authors report a study of ski resorts where they first established a causal model of customer satisfaction and image predicting customer loyalty, and then map the scores in a four-fields-grid. Additionally the authors conducted a moderator analysis to assess the relative importance of image and satisfaction for loyalty intentions between two different groups (first-time-visitors, and regular guests). Findings -The results show that those ski resorts with the highest satisfaction ratings and the highest image ratings have the highest loyalty scores. Among first-time-visitors overall satisfaction is more important than image, with increasing number of repeat visits the importance of overall satisfaction declines and that of image relatively augments. Practical implications -Besides measuring customer satisfaction, managers must assess also image ratings in order to get a realistic view of the loyalty intentions of their customer base. The scores can than be mapped together with the ratings of other ski resorts, and serve as a benchmark study. Originality/value -Second order analysis of image (comprising three different dimensions), the image-satisfaction-grid, moderating effect of experience to relative importance of satisfaction and image on loyalty.

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PurposeThis study seeks to investigate the role of internet trust as a specific form of technology trust in the context of internet banking. Furthermore, the integration of propensity to trust within the hierarchical structure of personality and its applicability to technological systems are investigated.Design/methodology/approachThe approach takes the form of an empirical study with 381 bank customers in Austria (adopters and non‐adopters) and the use of a basic model of the adoption of internet banking with structural equation modelling (SEM).FindingsThe results confirm the influence of internet trust on risk perception and consumer attitudes towards internet banking. Propensity to trust is a determinant not only for interpersonal relationships but also for trust in technological systems.Research limitations/implicationsThis is not a representative study. Future research is encouraged to systematically investigate further facets of the personality structure in trust and adoption research, as well as to test interaction effects of psychological determinants (from the study) and external stimuli (web site characteristics).Practical implicationsMaking the internet banking interface for the customer more attractive and easier to navigate is not enough to increase the adoption rate of internet banking. Trust‐creating activities to increase internet trust and to diminish perceived risk must be continuously pursued. Propensity to trust is an important determinant in the fruitfulness of these actions.Originality/valueThe paper presents the conceptualization of internet trust as a specific form of technology trust, and its pivotal role in the adoption process of internet banking, together with the extension of the propensity to trust concept to technological systems.