Purpose: - The purpose of this paper is to empirically test a theoretical model on how different customer engagement behaviors (CEBs), such as giving feedback and helping other customers, affect the role stress-job strain relationship among frontline employees. Design/methodology/approach: - Drawing from the job demands-resources model, this paper hypothesizes that some CEBs weaken the role stress-job strain relationship among frontline employees, whereas the opposite holds for other CEBs. To test these hypotheses, the study involved a survey among 279 frontline employees in 20 nursing home teams in Belgium. Findings: - The results reveal that the impact of role stress on job strain is stronger when frontline employees notice more helping behaviors among customers and weaker when frontline employees receive more customer feedback or notice that customers spread positive word-of-mouth about the nursing home. Originality/value This research contributes to the customer engagement and frontline employee literature by showing that CEBs can act as both job demands and job resources for frontline employees

In response to diversifying music delivery modes, consumers increasingly combine various music platforms, both online and offline, legal and illegal, and free or paying. Based on survey data (N?=?685), the current study segments consumers in terms of the combination of music delivery modes they use. We identify four latent classes based on their usage frequency of purchasing CDs, copying CDs, streaming music, streaming music videos, peer-to-peer file sharing, and purchased downloading. All-round users (9.9 %) use most or all acquisition modes, but at a low frequency. Traditionalist (33.7 %) typically makes no use of any of the acquisition modes except buying CDs. Streamers-downloaders (20.7 %) use several acquisition modes intensively, especially streaming (video and/or music only) and downloading (legal and illegal). Light users (35.6 %) also use multiple acquisition modes, but less frequently. We draw theoretical and practical implications, discuss limitations, and suggest ideas for future research.

In four experiments, we demonstrate a direct contrast effect and an indirect assimilation effect (mediated by perceived assortment expensiveness) of Known Value Item (KVI) prices on target products' price expectations and evaluations. We find that the relative strength of contrast versus assimilation depends on assortment size and user status