Purpose – This paper analyzes previously unmeasured effects of a response to a service incident called
“benevolent” within the customer –firm relationship.
Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire was administered to telecommunication customers in a Western European country, and the model was estimated using partial least squares (PLS).
Findings – This study shows that the customer–firm relationship is surprisingly affected by the response to expected incidents that the customer interprets as acts of benevolence or opportunism. This research also shows that the firm’s incident response interpreted as benevolence or opportunism has an effect that merely positive or negative events do not. Acts of benevolence response towards an incident positively affect customer–firm relationship quality, and expectations of such acts may lead to an upward spiral in customer commitment.
Originality/value – While benevolence trust has been proposed and studied before, the response to incidents interpreted as benevolent or opportunistic and their consequences have been under-studied, hence exhibiting a research gap.
Keywords – Customer relationships, Service incidents, Expectancy and disconfirmation, Benevolence,
Opportunism
Paper type – Research paper

The adoption of blockchain technology by companies can change the way they interact with stakeholders, redefining communication strategies and other marketing processes. In this study, we investigated the relevance of blockchain applications for marketing management from the perspective of marketing-related professionals. Answers about blockchain technology application in the marketing arena were collected from the social platform Quora. The data were analyzed through text mining and Spearman’s correlation coefficient to assess the degree of association, inherent intensity, and the association significance between the variables payments, supply chain, loyalty programs, digital marketing, credential management, and marketing management, using Quora- specific metrics, namely, upvotes, shares, and views. The results posit blockchain technology as being an asset for marketing, with greater relevance in supply chain and internal management among marketing operations. Professionals will be able to potentially improve internal management systems and marketing campaigns, which will enhance companies’ competitive advantage.

We study a quasi-natural experiment that altered the structure of commission fee schedules applied to retail investors in the Portuguese stock market in 2003.Using a difference-in-differences analysis, we show that investors with a university degree, financial knowledge and numerical skills demonstrate greater ability and eagerness in adjusting their trading patterns to the new commission schedules. The impact of education was stronger for those lacking trading experience. Investors with a university degree that were more prone to issue small orders before the event were also more eager to scale up their order size.

The purpose of this paper is to study the monthly seasonality structure of demand
in the hotel industry in continental Portugal before the outbreak of the COVID-19
pandemic in 2020. The tourism sector accounts for more than 10% of Portugal’s GDP,
as well as being a key factor for regional development and employment. Understanding
the seasonality structure of the hotel sector provides useful insight about business
viability and aids operational decisions, namely concerning the post-pandemic recovery.
Therefore, we analyze time-series data collected from Statistics Portugal, concerning
net bed occupancy rates for continental Portugal, as well as according to region and
hotel category, for the pre-pandemic period between 2014 and 2019. This allows us to
identify the seasonal peaks according to region and compare the differences in demand
for hotels according to hotel category. We also analyze the relationship between the
seasonality coefficients and the average income per night (room rate).

Air transport has increased almost fifteen-fold worldwide in the last half-century (1970-
2019) and is expected to return to this trend in the next few years, after falling from
4.558 billion passengers in 2019 to 1.809 billion passengers in 2020 due to the Covid-19
pandemic. Airport capacity has not kept pace with such growth and, therefore, more than
two hundred major airports worldwide face capacity constraints and are “coordinated”.
Efficient allocation of scarce airport capacity is critical for air traffic growth, as well as
for the overall air transport dynamic efficiency. However, the allocation of airport slots
in Europe and elsewhere is still ruled by administrative processes, based on the IATA
Worldwide Slot Guidelines, which follow historical precedence (called “Grandfather
Rights”) and time adjustments of historical slots. Several objections have been raised to
the adoption of market mechanisms in slot allocation, as an alternative to administrative
processes, and they are still rarely used. Despite often being suggested in the literature,
the use of auctions for slot allocation has only been implemented in some local routes in
China, and apparently this underemployment of auction mechanisms has been due to
the reluctance of coordination authorities to face the risks that have been pointed out
regarding airlines’ long-term route planning, the usage costs related to excess slots,
origin-destination pairing, and competition distortions. However, scoring auctions have
never been considered and our research shows that their properties combined with an
appropriate auction design could overcome most of those objections and mitigate the
associated risks. Furthermore, the current drop in air traffic provides an opportune
window for the introduction of auctions as a mechanism for the allocation of airport
slots with minimal risks of disruption to airline business models.