ABSTRACT MCGOWAN, KRISTIE LEE. Understanding and Validating Cyberscape Dimensions in the Personal Luxury Goods Industry (Under the direction of Dr. Nancy L. Cassill) Marketing scholars and practitioners have long recognized the importance of evolving with target customers’ wants and needs to create memorable customer experiences. By focusing on the personal luxury goods industry and current mobile, social and e-commerce technologies, this research identifies and validates digital cyberscape dimensions that add to Bitner’s (1992) conceptual Servicescape Framework. Digital innovation has become progressively important for extending the ways in which consumers and businesses interact, both in traditional brick and mortar retail environments as well as online. This research utilized a qualitative research methodology with inductive, iterative content and cluster analyses. Primary and secondary sources were utilized, as well as a database of 601 luxury firms created and maintained by the North Carolina State University Global Luxury Management Program. Research Objective I establishes a foundational understanding of the cyberscape for luxury markets by identifying 61 features used for the digital delivery of the customer experience on luxury brand website homepages. Research Objective II develops evaluative criteria for analyzing and organizing identified features into three cyberscape dimensions – availability, engagement, and service - and conducts an assessment of these criteria from a sample of 88 personal luxury companies to better understand the luxury cyberscape. A cluster analysis groups the 88 luxury companies into homogenous groups based on absence and presence of features and dimensions – The Digitally Unengaged, The Digital Hit or Misses, The Digitally Highly Social, The Digital High Performers, and The Digitally Sporadic Participants – while spider charts visually illustrate the participation of each group across features and dimensions. Research Objective III validates the cyberscape dimensions and evaluative criteria with personal luxury executives by confirming the relevancy of the research with the current digital landscape of the personal luxury industry. Executive commentary from the interviews clearly aligns with the clustering of the firms, thereby validating this research. Overall, the three dimensions identified in this study properly represent the evolution of Bitner’s (1992) Servicescape Framework. By contributing digital dimensions that account for current mobile, social and e-commerce technologies as found in this study, the conceptual Servicescape Framework is now more representative of the current state of the personal luxury goods industry. The theoretical implications of this research are further strengthened by the practical implications validated during the executive interviews and the influence of these dimensions on broader corporate digital strategies. Future research can build upon the new conceptual framework outlined in this research to other luxury industries and sectors (e.g., experiential luxury, luxury transportation). This research can also serve as a guide for exploring and identifying dimensions that evolve as a result of future technological innovations. The cluster analysis approach utilized in this research also serves as a guide for understanding and comparing corporate digital strategies. © Copyright 2016 Kristie Lee McGowan All Rights Reserved Understanding and Validating Cyberscape Dimensions in the Personal Luxury Customer Experience by Kristie Lee McGowan A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Textile Technology Management Raleigh, North Carolina 2016 APPROVED BY: _________________________________ _________________________________ Dr. Nancy Cassill Dr. Marguerite Moore Committee Chair _________________________________ _________________________________ Dr. Yingjiao Xu Dr. Jonathan Bohlmann DEDICATION This research is dedicated to my mother, Wendy Lee DiLuna (deceased), and my grandmother, Mary Josephine DiLuna. Both of these women instilled in me a lifelong passion for textiles and exemplified the limitless possibilities and joy that can be achieved through working with fabrics. ii BIOGRAPHY The author, Kristie Lee McGowan, was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania on August 5, 1979. Her husband is Patrick McGowan with whom she has two children, Aylin and Tristan. Her parents are John and Wendy (deceased) DiLuna. Kristie grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in 1997. She went on to study at the University of Rhode Island and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Textile Marketing in 2001. Kristie then moved to Raleigh, North Carolina to pursue her Master of Science degree in Textile Technology and Management and graduated in 2003. Following the completion of her M.S. degree, Kristie worked for Tommy Hilfiger Corporation, VF Jeanswear and Cotton Incorporated. Kristie returned to NC State University in 2013 to pursue her doctorate in Textile Technology Management. During her degree program, Kristie was awarded a North Carolina State University Graduate Fellowship. Throughout her doctoral program, Kristie was a teaching and research assistant in the Poole College of Management Global Luxury Management program. She completed the requirements for her degree in the spring of 2016 and is pursuing a career in the global luxury textile industry. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables........................................................................................................................................ vi List of Tables - Appendix ................................................................................................................vii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures - Appendix ............................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 Purpose of the Study............................................................................................................................................ 3 Significance of Research .................................................................................................................................... 3 Limitations of Research ..................................................................................................................................... 5 Definition of Nominal Terms ........................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2 Literature Review ............................................................................................ 9 Servicescape – Conceptual Framework ..................................................................................................... 9 Evolution of servicescape to cyberscape. .................................................................................................. 13 Customer Experience ....................................................................................................................................... 23 Defining the customer experience. .............................................................................................................. 24 Emotion as a factor of customer experience....................................................................................... 26 Subjectivity as a factor of customer experience. ............................................................................... 28 Time as a factor of customer experience. ............................................................................................ 29 Delivery of the customer experience. ......................................................................................................... 29 The competitive advantage of the customer experience. .................................................................... 30 Service Design ...................................................................................................................................................... 31 Relationship between customer experience design and service design. ....................................... 32 The Luxury Industry ......................................................................................................................................... 34 Definition of luxury. .......................................................................................................................................... 35 Luxury brands and digital technology........................................................................................................ 36 Mobile commerce and social media....................................................................................................... 38 The luxury customer experience.................................................................................................................. 38 Chapter 3 Methodology .................................................................................................... 42 Purpose of the Study........................................................................................................................................