ABSTRACT. This research challenges the longstanding and intuitive preference for intentionality and effort. In it, I explore ways in which consumers, employees, and organizations can actually derive benefit from chance outcomes and unintentional outcomes over and above otherwise identical intentional outcomes. The first set of studies illuminates that consumers prefer hedonic products when a company selects the product for promotion using a chance selection method rather than a traditional intentional selection method due to hedonic perceptions elicited by chance selection. The second set of studies reveals that people offer a premium to creations whose inception was unintentional versus otherwise identical creations whose inception was intentional. I find that unintentionality involved in the inception of a creation results in greater downward counterfactual thought about how the creation may have never been created at all. This, in turn, heightens perceptions that the creation was a product of fate, leading people to prefer such creations and to perceive them as higher quality. The third set of studies identifies a novel strategy to help optimize employee and consumer ideation. These studies illuminate how focusing on a history of one’s unintentional outcomes can promote subsequent ideation by inciting motivation to regain threatened personal control.

ABSTRACT. How do young ventures ensure superior sales enablement amidst increasingly frequent external disruptions? This proposal outlines how across three essays, I will examine how resilience and internal social capital contribute to the performance, process, and people aspects of sales enablement. Essay 1 (macro-level) explores how i) organizational resilience is driven by individual resilience and inter-functional coordination; and ii) leads to superior selling performance under adversity. The findings will contribute to research at the sales-entrepreneurship interface and the ‘Performance’ aspect of sales enablement. Essay 2 (meso-level) investigates the dynamic relationship between i) internal social capital (the social ties among sales, marketing, and R&D) and employees’ organizational identification. This longitudinal study will contribute to literature on sales’ interface with marketing and R&D, and the ‘Process’ dimension of sales enablement. Essay 3 (micro-level) studies the resilience and coping strategies of salespeople and examines how the salespeople’s intrafirm relationships facilitates effective coping. This essay will advance the sales force management literature, and the ‘People’ dimension of sales enablement. This proposal also outlines the data, methods, and analytical techniques that will be used in my research. In addition to theoretical contributions, this dissertation will also generate actionable managerial insights.

ABSTRACT. Technological advancements, such as social media, have played a key part in the progression of professional sales as a career and aided salespeople in building client relationships and achieving sales success. As one of the technologies often used within the professional sales role, social selling, the leveraging of social media platforms within the sales process, has served as a catalyst for the evolution of the sales process and has increasingly integrated into the role. Although social media usage has increased within the sales process, there are competing thoughts about the execution of the tactic, its legitimacy as a strategic approach, hesitancies in adoption, and resistance to resources spent on social selling within sales teams. This research explores social selling's place within the sales process and salesperson practices to address the technological changes in society. Through a mixed-methods approach, it seeks to understand the role of social selling attributes throughout the sales process and discover how they impact salesperson value-creating outcomes including adaptive selling, customer orientation, and salesperson ambidexterity. By assessing social selling’s place within sales, researchers and practitioners better asses social selling as a tool leveraged for content creation to forge relationships, communicate product/service offerings, and nurture buyer-seller relationships.

ABSTRACT. While each job market experience is unique, the process includes a variety of common steps that each candidate has to master. This special session is designed to discuss the various aspects of the academic job market and will answer a fundamental question, “how can candidates be more successful and prepared in the job market?” The special session will begin with a discussion of what success in the job market means, followed by an interactive discussion of specific strategies and steps candidates can take to be prepared for the job market. The major benefit for attendees will be the opportunity to share experiences, concerns, and questions concerning the job market. Panel participants will provide first-hand experiences from being part of search committees and provide advice on the do’s and don’ts from a search committee perspective. After attending the special session, candidates will be better prepared for success in the job market and connected with other students on the market.

ABSTRACT. Whereas big data provides companies with valuable insights and invisible patterns about consumer preferences for strategic advancement and competitive advantage, privacy concerns have been a major factor in the collection and use of big data, as the nature of the data is derived from customer engagement processes. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between customers`online engagement and value co-creation with moderating effect of privacy concerns by aporting Social & Exchange theory and Communication Privacy Management theory. The proposed study adopts quantitative method and collects data via 400 online survey sampling aiming half from Spain as the developed market and the rest from Turkey, as the developing market. Although this is ongoing research, preliminary results reveal that there is a positive relationship between customer engagement and value co-creation, although privacy concerns may restrict this result in both countries.

ABSTRACT. The idea that top managers' personality traits influence their strategic choices is emerging in the literature on marketing strategy, although direct measurement of personality remains limited due the scarcity of primary data. Using publicly available secondary data, we introduce a novel, linguistic measure of CEOs’ Big Five personality traits, specifically developed and validated using CEOs’ Twitter texts (tweets). We provide a predictive test of the measure by applying it to CEOs of major US firms to explore the direct and interactive effects of CEOs’ Big Five Traits and firm performance on changes in R&D and Advertising intensity. This study provides a strong foundation for future theory development on the effects of CEOs’ personality traits on firm strategy. Our findings extend our understanding of how CEOs’ personality influences changes in R&D and Advertising intensity and how both personality and performance interact to jointly influence strategic outcomes.

ABSTRACT. Marketing is increasingly based on consumer data, which is not always willingly disclosed by consumers in online shopping due to privacy concerns. It contradicts with rather relaxed personal disclosure behaviors in other online activities, such as social networking. This research gap in not fully addressed with current theoretical backgrounds in use. Other research gaps exist in the disbalance between dispositional and situational antecedents of personal data disclosure and in the lack of knowledge on the key factors that generate trust in online business activities in a multichannel environment that is controlled by strict legal regulations. In order to address these research gaps, an alternative theoretical grounding (Social Exchange Theory) has been suggested and justified empirically with three subsequent studies. Grounding the analysis on Social Exchange Theory helped to relate personal data disclosure in online shopping with behaviors in social networking. It allowed to base the willingness to disclose data on the trust-distrust factors (trust as a human trait, trust in external regulations, trust in online stores) as well as link it with other characteristics of transactions, stores and individuals. This helped to contribute to the knowledge about the factors that impact willingness to disclose personal data in online transactions.

ABSTRACT. In services, many employee-customer interactions have been shifted to customers' usage of self-service technologies (SSTs). In these scenarios the interaction takes place between the customer and the SST. Thus, the successful delivery of the service and its outcome are strongly dependent on the customer's input. A large part of research in this area has concentrated on short-term, non-complex interactions. However, due to recent technological advances, increasingly more complex and longer-lasting services are now being provided through SSTs (legal, consulting, and educational services). In these contexts, customer participation (CP), and its dimension consumer effort (CE), is even more critical to successful service performance. Against this background, we study customers' willingness to invest effort (WIE) in a complex online service setting. On the basis of data of 221 users collected via a service platform, we test a model that captures the antecedents and outcomes of WIE. Our contribution is threefold: first, we identify factors that impact WIE in the use of SSTs in complex service settings; second, we uncover the mechanism through which WIE influences service outcomes; third, we provide managerial implications related to how user interaction with SSTs in complex services can be enhanced, thus leading to better service performance.

ABSTRACT. This study builds on the service-dominant logic (Vargo & Lusch, 2004), Karpen et al. (2012), and Naghina et al. (2014) typology of co-creation interactions, as well as Bhatti, Glowik, and Arlsan (2021) to formulate a set of research propositions regarding motivations to co-create value and their impact on knowledge sharing. We integrate insights from the physician-patient relationship model by Emmanuel & Emmanuel (1992), and the cultural framework by Hofstede (2001) to develop a set of research propositions as to the impact of cultural values on the propensity to engage in value co-creation. By doing so, we advance the value co-creation field and the explanatory value of the service-dominant logic.

ABSTRACT. Purpose: The main objective of this research is to identify the dimensions of university service quality and develop a measurement scale for this construct.

Design/methodology/approach: Two studies using a mixed-method design were utilized to develop and validate the scale of the university service quality (UniQual). Study 1 identified the initial items and dimensions of UniQual through a face-to-face in-depth interview and literature review. In study 2, item analysis, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed to item refinement, scale refinement, purification and validation. 232 international students from 27 nations was collected and analyzed by PLS-SEM with Smart-PLS 3.0.

Findings: The findings confirm UniQual to be a valid and reliable measure of university service quality containing 13 items with 4 dimensions. Through bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap technique with 5,000 subsample, Responsiveness and Empathy plays a significant role in university service quality, which in turn affects student’s satisfaction. While Accessibility & Affordability and eLearning do not have a positively association with students’ perceptions of university service quality. Importantly, health & safety concerns play a mediating role between university service quality and satisfaction.

Originality/value: This scale provides a clear conceptualization and an appropriate measurement tool of UniQual from international student perspective.

ABSTRACT. Guided by the widely held belief— “the customer is always right,” marketing consultants and researchers urge firms to satisfy customers (Cockerell, 2013), delight them (Curtin, 2013), and even hug them (Mitchell, 2003). As an unintended by-product, customer special requests, demands that “push employees to adapt their service delivery and/or to go beyond their typical service tasks” (Beatty et al., 2016, p.158), are on the rise. Although granting such special requests may enhance customer relationships (Ployhart et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2012), this approach may also increase customer expectations and, leading to a possible feedback loop of further requests directed towards FLEs (Fisk & Neville, 2011). It can also lead to increased service costs, inconsistent service delivery, and organizational disruption (Campbell, 2000; Litzky et al., 2006). All past studies address the challenges of special-request service encounters from the FLEs’ or service providers’ perspectives (e.g., Bani-Melhem, 2020; Boukis et al., 2019) while ignoring why and how the customers try to meet their goal. This omission is important as this knowledge can better guide FLE in their approach to special requests and thus mitigate the potential harm to the business from compliance when not appropriate or noncompliance when appropriate.

ABSTRACT. The relationship between social norms and pro-environmental consumer behavior is well established, but what moderates this norm-sustainability relationship is much less clear. Previous studies reported inconclusive results regarding the effects of self-construal. This paper focuses on the reported discrepancies by analyzing the normative influence on pro-environmental behavioral intentions in the US and China. This provides insights into the importance of descriptive and injunctive normative appeals in relation to the activated self-construal level. To clarify the discrepancies in previous research, we demonstrate how the effect of injunctive and descriptive normative appeals changes depending on the activated self-construal level in different countries. Our findings demonstrate that descriptive normative appeals are a stronger motivator of pro-environmental behavioral intentions of more independent consumers. Moreover, the importance of injunctive appeals in combination with the activated level of the self differs between the two countries in our study. Our results are important from a theoretical perspective in that they improve the understanding of the effects of social norms on pro-environmental behavior. From a managerial perspective, we demonstrate how the different self-construal levels can strengthen the effect of normative appeals on pro-environmental behavioral intentions in different cultures. Finally, the study also identifies some promising new research avenues.

ABSTRACT. Humanity is facing one of the most difficult challenges throughout its history in the prevention of a climate catastrophe in order to retain the habitability of our planet for all living species. Even if evidence on the human contribution to environmental degradation is clear, the majority of individuals does not behave accordingly. Some individuals even refuse their own personal influence and are thus not willing to participate in pro-environmental behavior. Remanufacturing can support the transition towards a sustainable future with like-new product quality at significantly lower environmental harm. However, in the B2C market this circular product concept is still fairly novel and not well-established. Hence, this research is focusing on how to defuse the remanufacturing concept, especially for individuals refusing their own influence on the environment. We conduct an online survey in the DACH region and assess the influence of the external environmental locus of control on the willingness to pay for remanufactured products. To identify influential factors on this relationship environmental concern and subjective norms are incorporated in the research considerations.

PRE-DATA COLLECTION RESEARCH STAGE – RESULTS ARE ONLY ANTICIPATED

ABSTRACT. Increasing governmental and public sustainability concerns around single-use packaging is driving major changes in consumer packaging. This research investigates how recycled packaging affects perceived naturalness of products, a major determinant of sustainable consumption. Across six studies, the authors demonstrate that consumers tend to perceive products in recycled plastic packaging, compared with regular plastic packaging, as more natural. Moreover, this effect is mediated by CSR beliefs and moderated by product type (food vs. non-food). The notion that recycled plastic packaging affects perceived naturalness of products is substantially relevant to product manufacturers, public policy makers, and consumers, especially in their efforts to act more environmental friendly.

ABSTRACT. In the data-rich environment, firms and researcher aim at inferring customer preferences from their history of past purchases, to predict whether customers will buy again, what product they will buy, and how they may respond to marketing actions. Firms are often pressured to understand customers at the time they make decisions, right after they are acquired, or when they are still interacting with the firm at a time where such decisions are most effective. However, traditional approaches to understand customer preferences often rely on long history of past purchases. There are many reasons why long-history of purchases by consumers may not be available. First, many product categories may have a long product cycle (e.g. cars), or the customer may purchase very infrequently in the category (e.g. flights). Second, the firm may be particularly interested in understanding specific customers with short purchase history, because they have recently purchased for the first time, or the firm may want to understand the needs of an infrequent customer at the moment of interaction. Third, rising concerns regarding consumer privacy has resulted, and may continue to result, in regulatory changes that limit firms’ ability to store long historical data at the individual level.

ABSTRACT. This paper addresses the general problem of using unstructured text data to generate quantifiable market feedback typically obtained through surveys; the specific application is to use restaurant reviews to generate attribute level ratings of restaurants. This work addresses two novel and challenging problems: (i) convert text into fine-grained numerical sentiment scores on pre-specified attributes (e.g., food, service) by accounting for language structure; and (ii) accounting for missing attributes in attribute sentiment scoring. For the first problem, it uses a deep learning convolution-LSTM model that exploits the spatial and sequential structure of language to improve sentiment classification, especially on “hard” sentences. For addressing missing attributes, the paper develops and estimates a structural model of reviewer rating behavior that takes into account the data generating process to develop a model-based imputation procedure to address attribute silence. Overall, the paper illustrates the value of combining “engineering” thinking underlying machine learning approaches with “social science” thinking from econometrics to answer novel marketing questions.

ABSTRACT. There has been considerable academic research on the impact of celebrity endorsers (for a review, see Schimmelpfennig and Hunt, 2020). One stream within this larger body of research has focused on the impact of endorsers’ transgressions on the endorsed brands. Recent statistics have suggested that Asian cultures, particularly India, have increased their use of celebrity endorsers (Mahanta and Sangameshwaran 2010; Winterich, Gangwar, and Grewal 2018). Despite this increase in celebrity endorser spending, most of the research remains focused on the US market. This paper adds to the discussion by comparing American and Indian consumers’ responses to athlete endorsers’ transgressions using the concept of Long-Term Orientation. In addition, this work examines novel contextual factors that affect how a celebrity athlete’s transgressions impact consumers’ attitudes and purchase intent of the endorsed brand. Specifically, we explore how a celebrity athlete’s reputation for being badly behaved and the target consumers’ cultural long-term orientation (LTO) impact the relationship between celebrity endorsers’ transgressions on consumers’ attitudes and intent to purchase the endorsed brands.

ABSTRACT. This research investigates the impact of advertising a product with its reflection on consumers’ aesthetic appraisal of the product as well as their behavioral intentions. A unique visual property of reflections is that they are endowed with an inherent shine since they are formed by the interaction of light with the object and a reflecting medium (Cavanagh, Chao, and Wang 2008; Corballis 2000; Fleming, Dror, and Adelson 2003). We draw upon this property along with established literature from evolutionary psychology as well as marketing that document an innate human attraction towards glossy visuals (Danko-McGhee 2006; Han and Pandelaere 2021; Henshilwood et al. 2001; Meert, Pandelaere, and Patrick 2014, Silvia et al. 2018) to predict a positive impact of product reflections on product aesthetics. Findings evidence that the presence of an advertised product’s reflection in the ad indeed enhances product aesthetics, which in turn, has a positive effect on downstream outcomes like consumer inclinations to buy the product. Further building on evolutionary psychology literature as well as the unique visual properties of reflections, we evidence that this positive effect of reflection on product aesthetics is mediated by perceptions about the product being considered more pristine in the presence of its reflection.

ABSTRACT. Use of stylistic visual elements like product shadows that do not alter the core features of a product’s design is a popular advertising practice (Peracchio and Meyers-Levy 2005). Despite their peripheral nature, previous marketing research establishes a tangible impact of product shadows on consumer perceptions (Sharma 2016; Sharma 2018; Sharma and Romero 2020). However, prior research has only explored the effects of shadows that typically touch the casting object, thereby simulating surface contact. The goal of this research is to understand the effects of drop shadows that do not touch the casting object and lend a floating appearance to the object. Such shadows are commonly used by brands like Apple and Fitbit to showcase product lightness. This research makes a first attempt to systematically study if drop shadows enhance product lightness perceptions. Furthermore, using the theoretical underpinnings of Adaptation Level (AL) theory, it investigates specific conditions under which product weight perceptions formed in the presence of drop shadows as visual ad cues translate to positive versus negative downstream product outcomes.

ABSTRACT. To counter the declining number of donations, charities have started to invest heavily in online advertising. Drawing on Ekman’s discrete emotion theory, this study investigates the impact of endorser’s emotion display (sad vs. smiling) in online charity advertisements and brand awareness on consumers’ empathy and resultant success metrics, that are, intentions to click on the ad, word-of-mouth communication, and donation intention. The study further examines whether brand awareness moderates the effect of sad-looking endorsers on consumers’ empathy. The results of an experimental study show that sad-looking endorsers directly affect consumer responses, and consumers’ brand awareness drives empathy and consumer responses. Importantly, brand awareness negatively moderates the impact of endorser’s emotion display on consumers’ empathy, suggesting that endorser’s emotion displays are more relevant for consumers with low brand awareness. By considering both consumers’ brand awareness and endorser’s emotion displays, this study contributes to the current charity marketing literature by providing new insights into drivers of online charity advertising success, which in turn helps to increase donations, and thus, to help society reducing social causes. Suggestions for online marketing research, public policy and charity marketing management are discussed.

ABSTRACT. AI-based digital assistants are Internet-enabled devices that provide daily technical, administrative and social assistance to their users and can be used as tools for online shopping, learning, controlling other smart applications and devices as well as for communications and companionship. However, many of the current voice-activated digital assistants offer additional modality options to interact with their users, including “type-in” features. While the ways in which we interact with technology, and particularly with digital voice assistants, is variegate, few studies have explored the influence that digital voice assistant modality has on consumers' responses and behaviors. The present research aims to fill this gap and, by focusing on consumers-digital assistants’ interactions, it investigates the effect of interaction modality (i.e., voice vs text) on consumers' feelings of power and recommendation acceptance. The study adopts an experimental approach in the form of three laboratory studies to test the predicted effects. Preliminary insights show that when individuals interact with AI digital assistants through text (vs voice) interfaces, they tend to feel higher levels of power over the technology, more comfortable and more inclined to accept the recommendation.

ABSTRACT. Intelligent Conversational Agents (ICAs) or chatbots are among the most widely positioned in recent years of Artificial Intelligent (AI) based technology evolution, with exceptional social skills. They have become a cornerstone for supporting brands' interactions with consumers. Due to the chatbots' massive scientific boom and their relevance for brand management, its practitioners and scholars wake up growing interest. While some authors proposed models concerning the acceptance and use of chatbots in different environments, no consensus and systematic model allows practical and academic use of these systems. The present study aims to solve this epistemological gap through a bibliometric and systematic study supported by machine learning (ML) techniques. We discovered the social, human, and brand equity characteristics involved in the way users perceive chatbots' quality. In the first phase of our study, we conducted a bibliometric analysis discovering the research streams around chatbots and brands. Also, by using techniques such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Dynamic Topic Modeling (DTM), we identified those latent topics on which chatbots made a priority contribution to brand management. In the second phase, we reviewed the dimensions and proposed the model for the adoption and continuance of ICAs.

ABSTRACT. Voice-based virtual assistants (VAs) have become an important part of many individuals’ everyday lives. However, we have very little understanding of the factors that influence perceptions about them. Using artificial intelligence and advanced technology, these VAs perform multiple tasks based on user commands. Despite that, they are prone to mistakes and most users encounter such mistakes at least once in their usage terms. Based on SEEK theory of anthropomorphism and Pratfall effect, the current research aims to understand the influence of the VAs’ mistake as well as VAs’ gender cues (male vs female voice) on anthropomorphism perceptions.

ABSTRACT. Many investors lack the skills to make sound investment decisions. Robo-advisors offer a prospect of help. We show, however, that investors provided with a robo-advisor still hold a strong tendency to fall for the disposition effect, the tendency to sell a gaining position too early while holding a losing position too long. Robo-technology by itself has a limited effect on this behavioral bias, suggesting that investors prefer not to use robo-advisors in decisions that involve realization of gains and losses. Only when investors receive just-in-time education, or training on behavioral finance, right before they make investment decisions, they become more likely to rely on robo-advisors. Critical for investors, our model provides a possible alternative to reduce the disposition effect and increase consumers’ investments performance.

ABSTRACT. The competition for marketing jobs after graduation creates two significant issues for students: remembering what they have learned, and demonstrating it. Recent graduates forget learned material starting immediately after graduation, with most being lost within two years. Relearning what has been lost is inefficient, wasteful, and often impossible, since the resources needed may be hard to find, or only available a select places, such as universities and think tanks. Students also need to showcase their skills and application for employer benefit. This paper introduces a solution called the Personal Toolbox, a student driven project creating a personal portfolio or library of self-completed work, and other collected materials. Students collect and catalogue items they determine for themselves are important to their futures by maintaining access to their educational experiences and providing a platform of evidence of their skills and experiences to others. This creates a bridge between marketing education and practice. The effectiveness of the Toolbox has been demonstrated by reports from its users-students who have maintained and further developed their Toolboxes as their personal library and portfolio and for use in demonstrating their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Tins paper describes how the Toolbox works and provides a model.

ABSTRACT. This paper aims to examine the role of experiential learning in developing the skillset of marketing graduates and identifies the depth and multifaceted nature of the skills required by those who wish to pursue a future career in marketing. This paper recognises both the role of assessment for learning (formative assessment) in addition to the standard assessment of learning (summative), all while building key work readiness skills in our undergraduate student population. This research was carried out in an undergraduate Integrated Marketing Communications setting at a third level institution with 129 students. Assessment for this module was divided into three experiential learning tasks, which placed students in three real world situations that marketing graduates could expect to face early in their marketing careers. Students recorded their perceptions of their learning through reflective journals. Findings suggest that formative experiential learning are perceived to facilitate lifelong skills and the paper proposes a ‘skills wheel’ to demonstrate the multifaceted nature of skills required by marketing practitioners.

ABSTRACT. Innovation is a key driver of progress in all sectors including retail and higher education (HE) was accelerated during the global pandemic, with the increase of the use of technology to deliver teaching and a simultaneous increase within the retail sector to facilitate shopping whilst stores were closed. We argue that, as educators of retail marketing, we need to reflect and mimic technological developments within the retail sector and ensure that students are graduating from HE with industry ready skills. In this paper, we present an enhanced framework of experiential learning theory (ELT) using an example of an authentic retail assessment, that illustrates how as marketing educators, we need to enable creative skill development by delivering experiential learning opportunities to ensure that students graduate with “futureproof” employability skills. We demonstrate that creative innovations in HE and the retail sector are inextricably intertwined, forming an eco-system and that we need to enable students to become creative innovative marketers. Our mission as educators is not only vocational education but high-quality research-based skills development. These challenges, which form the basis for this paper, demonstrate how an experiential learning approach can enable students to develop their business skills for industry.

ABSTRACT. The modern marketing practitioner increasingly relies on quantitative analyses to justify decision-making. By extension, marketing students need to be prepared for this demand yet many students experience quantitative anxiety which undermines their potential to meet these expectations. To address this issue, our study explores ways to alleviate quantitative anxiety and increase effort in quantitatively oriented marketing courses. To this end, we investigate the roles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors, and our findings suggest that peer support significantly reduces quantitative anxiety in marketing students. Results also suggest that self-efficacy, perceived usefulness, and the desire for a career in Marketing Analytics increase the level of effort with which students invest in quantitative coursework. Based on these findings, we propose commendations for marketing educators to help marketing students prepare for data-driven marketing jobs.

ABSTRACT. Product design is a key driver of consumer behavior and product success. While the majority of research has focused on how product design affects consumer behavior at the point of purchase, thus by “simply” visually perceiving the product, this research focuses on the influence of product design on consumer behavior when a customer actually uses the product, thus analyzing the changes in design perception and consumer behavior in the course of user-product interaction. A longitudinal empirical study shows that the influence of the product design dimensions of aesthetics, functionality, and symbolism on purchase intention and word-of-mouth (WOM) changes from consumers’ first visual product perception to the first product interaction to a long-term product use in daily life. With increasing user-product interactions the influence of aesthetics on purchase intention and WOM decreases while the effects of product design functionality and symbolism on consumer behavior increase. Implications for theory, management, and future research are discussed.

ABSTRACT. Previous research shows that product design affects consumer emotions and behavior, and thus, generates competitive advantage. To date, however, both research and practice have primarily focused on positive emotions triggered by product design. Negative emotions and the coexistence of positive and negative emotions as well as their effects on consumer behavior have been largely neglected. Similarly, little research in industrial design and marketing has explored the relevance and role of single emotions (e.g., joy, boredom). An empirical study reveals that the three product design dimensions aesthetics, functionality, and symbolism significantly influence consumer purchase intention and word-of-mouth behavior (WOM) with these effects being mediated by positive emotions. Findings show that negative emotions also mediate the relationship between product design and consumer purchase intention, while mostly being irrelevant for WOM. A comprehensive analysis of seven positive and seven negative emotions evoked by product design extends prior research on design-driven consumer emotions and behavior. Results show that consumer purchase intention and WOM are primarily affected by the positive emotion of joy, while the negative emotion of boredom is the most powerful restraining factor. Based on these findings, suggestions for theory, management, and future research are discussed.

ABSTRACT. This article provides evidence for a significant relationship between the Extreme response style (ERS), and self-regulatory focus (SRF). Promotion focused individuals more often use the extremes of a scale than prevention focused individuals, and differences in decisiveness drive this effect. The findings are relevant as higher extremity bias has dire consequences for the way we measure self-regulatory focus with self-reports. Specifically, high extreme responding, explained by promotion focused people, lead to a biased and less reliable SRF scale. Concrete, high promotion focus respondents have noisy factor scores on any promotion focus measure. So, a relationship between the promotion subscale and any other construct becomes spurious due to the present bias. In addition, some respondents high in promotion might be wrongly classified as low in promotion, although they truly have high promotion scores, because their scores contain lots of noise.

ABSTRACT. Building on Sport and Marketing literature, we propose the concept of perceived sportivity as a tool that both marketers and researchers can use to study leisure activities. Through six studies (one qualitative and five quantitative), we refine the concept, develop a measure of perceived sportivity and test it in a real life context. Results show that perceived sportivity is a reflexive second order construct composed of three dimensions – physicality, commerciality, and equipment– that has broad effects on consumer engagement and behaviour

ABSTRACT. Our research aims to better understanding how Adaptive Marketing Capabilities positively contribute to the adaptation of SME's business model in times of crisis. Based upon a sample of 173 observations collected between march and June 2021, our study focuses more specifically on the contribution of two main dimensions of the AMCs (Open Marketing Capabilities and Adaptive Market Experimentation capabilities) and three facets of the business model adaptation (Value Offering, Value Architecture and Value Revenue). Our results reveal that Open Marketing capabilities reinforce Adaptive Market Experimentation capabilities and enhance the adaptation of Value Architecture. We also confirm that the adaptation of the business model follows a sequential logic, starting with the definition of the value offering and ending with the value capture. On the contrary, we do not find evidence of the contribution of Adaptive Market Experimentation capabilities on the Value offering adaptation.

ABSTRACT. Shared micromobility is an innovative way of urban transportation that provides low-emission short-distance travel options and can reduce reliance on using private vehicles, especially in urban areas. However, publicly available solutions show several disadvantages such as random parked vehicles on sidewalks, risky riding behavior and vandalism. Closed-campus solutions are deployed in limited areas such as university or office campuses, only available to the respective campus community, and one promising way to overcome issues of publicly available solutions. This article is the first to analyze user acceptance of closed-campus micromobility innovations. Based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, we considered how constructs from consumer’s perceived value theory and employee enablement theory influence behavioral intention, which in turn influence real use and organizational identification. To test our framework, we used survey as well as real usage data from DHBW Drive, a field laboratory for micromobility at Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Stuttgart, Germany. Our results reveal that perceived job enablement, hedonic, utilitarian, economic and environmental benefits, and performance expectancy all have a strong influence on behavioral intention, which in turn positively effects real use and strengthens the identification of users with the organization.

ABSTRACT. Hitherto, entrepreneurship government policies aim to motivate entrepreneurial intention (EI) for start-up creation, mainly among young people. Thus, government policy communications (GPC) are the instrument for this knowledge sharing and promotion. However, the study considers the GPC quality and consistency (this last based on the integrated marketing communication -IMC-) could improve the policy knowledge transfer into a higher entrepreneurial intention. The study develops a research design based on structural equation modeling (SEM), with preliminary data from 132 observations to test the hypotheses. Following the results, the GPC quality has a negative mediation effect between entrepreneurship GPC knowledge and entrepreneurial intention relationship while GPC consistency does not affect mentioned relationship. Despite these, entrepreneurship GPC knowledge positively affects entrepreneurial intention through GPC quality and consistency. Finally, the article mentions the theoretical implications to the scientific literature and practical implications for policymakers.

ABSTRACT. Business model (BM) research has attracted considerable attention over the last two decades. Still, the question of how BM adaptions take place in Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), especially in times of crisis and under pressure has only recently emerged. We add to the extant literature by exploring in-depth how SMEs have been adapting their BM during the COVID-19 crisis. The study focuses on the customer and revenue related elements of the BM (i.e. value proposition, customer segment, customer relationship, channel, and revenue streams). We deployed an exploratory research approach, implementing a cross-case-study method. For source and method triangulation, we obtained data from 25 SMEs through secondary sources (reports, company websites and their social media content) over a one-year period. This was triangulated with qualitative data collected through interviews with 13 of these companies. Our results show that all customer and revenue elements of the BM were impacted by the adaptations made in the SMEs. Whilst there were some diverging findings between SMEs, the overriding findings demonstrate that digitalization played a strong part in reshaping the studied elements of the BM. The study brought to light which adaptational efforts had a positive impact on the businesses amidst the crisis.

ABSTRACT. Modern consumers are looking for organizations whose values and desire to have a positive impact on society and the environment matches their own. Toward end, consumers take a variety of factors into account when assessing the extent to which an organization is socially responsible. In this research, we propose CEO pay ratio as a novel driver of consumers’ CSR evaluations. We find that consumers perceive firms with a low CEO pay ratio relative to the average worker to be more socially responsible than firms with a high CEO pay ratio. Our results further reveal that CEO pay impacts CSR evaluations through serial mediation, whereby higher CEO pay diminishes consumers attitude toward the firm which in turn leads to more firm-serving motivations and ultimately, lower CSR evaluations.

ABSTRACT. Much academic literature has explored reasons for women’s interest in and antecedents to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) career fields. One area unexplored is the parental role when buying children's toys. Simultaneously, toy producers and retailers may affect parent choices. Extensive marketing literature has documented the influence of product descriptions and packaging that can affect choice. In a sorting and categorizing task of 212 adults with children, consumer’s classification of STEM and gender categories were significantly different than marketers' packaging and description. The investigation determined consumers categorized significantly fewer STEM toys than a marketed by the producer. Additionally, consumers’ classified toys by gender differently than marketers. A hierarchical logistic regression analysis predicting consumers’ classification STEM toys from their classification of toys by gender indicated differences by consumer’s demographic characteristics of gender, marital status, ethnicity, household income and education. Overall, despite the marketer’s description of STEM and gender specific products, consumers would buy toys for other non-STEM purposes or for the marketer’s intended audience.

ABSTRACT. Diversity is vital for firm success. Yet, the relationships of its relevant concepts and brand hate have not been widely discussed in academic studies. The current paper examine the antecedents and consequences of brand hate and how a multi-dimensional construct of brand hate relates its diversity related antecedents and outcomes. This study contributes to the marketing literature in a holistic view of brand hate and diversity.

ABSTRACT. The advent of Internet facilitated the emergence of sustainable consumption where consumers can easily buy second-hand products through websites or applications. As a cross-cultural study, this research aims to investigate under what circumstances customers buy second-hand products through online environment. A fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) was used on a set of factors by seven marketing professors to rank the most important variables (based on literature review) associated with second-hand online shopping behavior from which price, brand nostalgia, eco-consciousness, need for uniqueness, and brand involvement were identified. Furthermore, to examine the customers’ perspective towards the extracted factors, this study used a survey approach from a sample of 261 Malaysian and 317 French online shoppers. Structural equation modelling was applied to assess the measurement and structural models. While price, eco-consciousness, and brand involvement are found as the main factors conducive to second-hand online shopping amongst Malaysians, the results of French sample indicate that price, need for uniqueness, and brand involvement are the most significant variables. The results also imply that the sense of nostalgia is not relevant to second-hand online shopping in both cultural settings.

ABSTRACT. Smiley faces have become part of consumers’ language. Not surprisingly, smileys often appear in marketing communication, in brand logos, advertisements, and billboards. The present research examines the role of smiley faces in restaurant logos. A set of experiments examines how brand logos with smiley faces (versus no smileys) influence perceptions of price and healthfulness. We find that offerings associated with restaurant logos that include smileys are perceived as lower in healthfulness, which in turn leads to lower price perceptions. This effect is caused by an association with a fast-food restaurant category. The authors conclude that including a smiley face logo (versus no smileys) in a restaurant’s marketing communication can have unintended consequences on consumers’ perceptions.

ABSTRACT. In this study, we examine the technological, psychological, cognitive, and sensory processes that foster positive brand outcomes when users engage with augmented reality brand experiences, or what we have termed as ARBEs. Using commercially available experiences on Snapchat, we conducted a series of between-subjects experiments with over 1,500 participants and examined the following research questions: 1) does consumer engagement with an AR experience have a lasting impact on behavioral intentions? 2) What cognitive processes optimize the experience of a brand upon engagement with an AR experience? 3) What psychological and sensory processes influence behavioral intentions upon engagement with an AR experience? Results indicate that marketers have tremendous opportunities to utilize key technological, psychological, cognitive and sensory aspects of ARBEs to positively influence behavioral intentions. We provide implications for designers and marketers alike to help them to create ARBEs that foster a positive return on investment.

ABSTRACT. This paper specifically looks at the effect of user-generated images (UGI), a popular form of user-generated content, and its effects on the brand image. While the written form of user-generated content has been widely studied little has been researched focusing on the image/visual form of user-generated content. As such, this paper sheds light on how UGI, i.e., an appealing image vs. a repulsive image of a brand, will influence the perception of the consumer’s brand image. As they say, an image is worth a thousand words and hence, the assumption here is that a UGI will have a deeper effect on consumers' opinions as compared to written content. Source credibility will be examined as a moderating variable on the effects of UGI on brand image. The hypothesis here purports that the effect of UGI on a brand image will be enhanced when the source credibility is high. Purchase intentions and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) will also be examined as dependent variables.

ABSTRACT. Globally, brand love is a widely analyzed concept that recently attracted the attention of many branding scholars. Previous research has focused on the antecedents, outcomes, and dimensions of brand love. The findings of these studies are scattered, and there is still much to learn about brand love. One topic not explored is how self-identified brand lovers talk about their love for brands; and whether there is a difference between the love for services brands and physical product brands. With the significant research on the outcomes of brand love, there is still more room to research how consumers declare and talk about their brand love on social media. Managers of global brands could benefit from a deeper understanding of how brand ambassadors communicate and express brand love. This understanding is necessary if managers desire to patriciate in the conversations and effectively communicate and control the online narrative with brand ambassadors. Therefore, this study focuses on understanding what brand love means for consumers of services and physical products by analyzing consumers’ visual and verbal posts about the brands they say they love.

ABSTRACT. Research across different disciplines has demonstrated how race impacts social judgments in a variety of interpersonal contexts. However, largely absent from the discussion of how race impacts social judgments concerns the area of luxury marketing, specifically in the context of status signaling. Such potential differential conferrals of status have wide social implications for the signaler. Therefore, documentation of differential status judgments dependent upon race represents an important area of research for the advancement of our understanding about the mechanics behind perceptions of luxury consumer behavior.

ABSTRACT. Luxury brands are still slow to adopt digitalization and multi-faceted interactions at service encounters. However, the COVID-19 pandemic forces not only firms to cope with unprecedented challenges but also customers to change their purchasing habits. In fact, luxury customers follow an online and offline pattern by seeking the information of peers on social media before visiting a store. The pandemic has forced many luxury executives to employ digitalization. One can realize that there is a multi-actors evolution in terms of a supply-demand coin. On the supply side, firms are eager to boost digitalization to build up their liked-mind community. On the demand side, consumers actively search for product’s information and brands mainly through SM. Hence, the integration of specialized web resources and SM for the effective use of appropriate information is critical and relevant for digital marketing in luxury brands. In this study, we argue that the concept of SSM is still scarce in the field of luxury brand research and test its impacts on the consumer buying decision. Particularly, this study relies on Holmqvist et al. (2020)’s perspective of technology-enhanced multi-actor interactions at the customer’s service counter to uncover the process lead to customer purchasing decision on luxury brand.

ABSTRACT. Compared to a traditional luxury product market, which has a long history and has grown rapidly for more than two decades, the secondhand market is comparatively new and has existed in the shadow of the primary market. However, this trend has already changed as the demand for pre-owned products have increased dramatically. The emerging secondhand luxury market calls for more research as it has some distinguishing features. One of them is that the information asymmetry regarding the product quality is a big hurdle that prevents many consumers from making purchases. This research uses a secondary dataset from a large secondhand luxury goods resale platform to investigate factors that influence consumers' decision making and how sellers can use pricing and information disclosure strategy to reduce frictions. We find the consumers use price and seller type information to infer product quality. A price promotion strategy is effective for originally higher-priced products. But this strategy can backfire for more experienced sellers, but they can use more visual cues to mitigate this negative impact. An experiment is used as a robustness check and further test the mechanism.

ABSTRACT. The luxury experience is an important and evolving area in luxury marketing. In addition to products and service offerings, the experience encourages consumers to indulge in luxury consumption. Although numerous empirical and conceptual studies have elucidated the emergence, adoption, and popularity of luxury experiences amongst consumers, research that examines the existing knowledge holistically is scarce. To fill this gap, this study systematically reviews 130 luxury experience and consumer behavior articles using the Theory–Context–Characteristics–Methodology (TCCM). By analyzing the applied theories, research contexts, study characteristics, and methodologies used in the luxury experience and consumer behavior literature, the study aims to (1) portray the complete picture of the area from its beginning to the present and (2) suggest future research prospects to help advance the area. We found that luxury experience research has been primarily conducted in the context of luxury services such as hospitality and tourism. Thus, there is significant scope for future researchers to explore avenues in the luxury products industry. Furthermore, we identify a need for more research to understand the impact of the recent covid-19 pandemic and technological advances on consumers’ luxury experiences.

ABSTRACT. The paper explores business actor engagement dynamics that include the critical incidents that affect the engagement process of B2B actors. We followed a systematic combining approach, and report on field study that studies sustainability collaboration between real estate firms and their commercial tenants, as initiated by a voluntary environmental program (green lease) in the form of a value proposition. The qualitative analysis of interview data (B2B customer firms), focused on identifying how customers engaged with their supplier and what affected the engagement process of these actors. The study revealed that the process of B2B customer firms’ engagement with their landlords could be viewed in three phases in relation to the sustainability value proposition (green lease): (i) initiation, (ii) emergence, and (iii) management. The study adopts recent conceptualizations to analyze engagement in voluntary B2B contexts, to highlight the engagement process in business actor relationships and contributes with theoretical and managerial insights regarding the critical incidents that form and affect the relationship between supplier and customer firms in a process of accumulation or aggregation. Finally the study offers managerial guidance on how to manage value propositions and their various customer relationships.

ABSTRACT. Blood donations are integral to global healthcare service industries, which suffer from insufficient short-term supply to meet long-term patient demands as companies struggle to convert short-term donors into long-term donors. In response, companies seek to encourage long-term blood donations by altering the public nature of events, a practice with questionable efficacy. Across three field studies, including a longitudinal secondary data analysis of 15,059 blood drives across two years, a secondary data analysis of 101,462 individuals across two years, and a field study matched with five years of archival (and five months of longitudinal) data, the authors establish longitudinal differences between public and private donation events. Specifically, a two-level hierarchical liner model shows that whereas private events are more effective in the short-term, public events are more effective in the long-term. Attribution theory provides an explanation: Private donation events increase short-term donations through an external attribution of community, whereas effects are reversed for long-term donations. Age emerges as a boundary condition, such that the positive effects of public events are stronger among younger individuals.

ABSTRACT. Understanding a deeper level of fan experience, to enhance fan loyalty has attracted growing research attention. Yet insights are limited to how fan experience can be used to cultivate fan loyalty behaviors in football (soccer) games to yield greater returns for the football clubs. Based on the stimulus–organism–response paradigm, this study develops a theoretical model investigating the effects of psychological involvement with the football game (perceived socialization, interest in team, interest in football, and transactional satisfaction) on fans’ experiences (fanship and overall satisfaction) and subsequently their loyalty intention (attitudinal and behavioral). The results from 762 football fans from three countries (Brazil, China, and Germany) indicate that football fan loyalty behaviors towards a sports team are determined by fanship and cumulative satisfaction with the team. Fan experiences, in turn, were also found to be influenced by fan perceptions relating to perceived socialization, interest in the team, interest in football, and transactional satisfaction which are controllable elements by the football team and the club management.

ABSTRACT. In many restaurant settings, a normal part of the payment process is for the restaurant patron to leave a tip for the server. In two studies, we explore how patron tip amounts change when tips are framed in different ways. We examine different tipping frames such as tip percent and wordings meant to indicate the quality of the tip (example: “Poor”, “Average” and “Great”). In Study 1, we find that participants have no significant difference in their tipping patterns when presented with a positive word frame (“Good”, “Better” and “Best”) when compared to tip percent framing (18%, 20% and 22%). In study two, we find that patrons viewing tips framed in a continuum (“Poor”, “Average” and “Great”) tip significantly more than percent framing and positive word farming. The results of these studies have practical implications by offering restaurants specific strategies to increase tips.

ABSTRACT. The suitability of 12 selected theoretical antecedents to measure brand loyalty in eight industries are evaluated to determine if these antecedents are relevant at all, which antecedents are generic across all the industries, or alternatively, which ones are industry-specific. Some 2035 questionnaires were collected and analyzed from the industry-stratified samples from industries like the fast-moving consumer goods, agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, and pet food industry). Cronbach’s alpha coefficient showed that all 12 loyalty antecedents are reliable (α≥0.68). Three important generic brand loyalty antecedents (σ≥50%) were identified, namely are Brand affect, Repeat purchase, and Brand trust. The other nine antecedents are all regarded as industry-specific ones because they fail to show importance in all the industries involved. Although the results are valuable to managers, researchers and academia aiming to measure and manage brand loyalty, an obvious drawback is that, despite the model’s success in a variety of industries, most of the data originated from South African based consumers. Country-specific influences may have played a role in the model construction. Although there is no evidence to support this suspicion, future users of the model should take this factor in consideration when using the model

ABSTRACT. Brand engagement is a well-established concept that has been proven to drive positive consequences, including purchase intention, brand loyalty, and likelihood to recommend. Extant brand engagement literature includes a diverse group of proposed antecedents and pathways to best create brand engagement. Triggers to brand engagement in literature include consumer involvement, customer participation and customer satisfaction, but the void in identifying an empirically-driven, significant pathway to create brand engagement remains.

We propose the path to create and increase brand engagement is brand authenticity. We test a model linking brand authenticity to brand engagement which also includes actionable antecedents of authenticity and desirable outcomes of engagement. We also test the mediation effect of trust/commitment in the brand authenticity-brand engagement relationship.

We propose that our full model will provide managers levers they can control to drive brand authenticity and create and increase brand engagement.

ABSTRACT. As most scholars and practitioners focus on positively valenced consumer engagement, studies on positive comsumer engagement have been well developed in recent years. Given the expansion of the online interactions and the importance of brands, it is not surprising that a lot of academic research focuses on online brand engagement with a positive nature, and there are clear attempts to define and capture it. However, existing literature can only offer limited insight into negative consumer brand engagement. Although a number of studies highlight the importance of negatively valenced brand engagement, the concept is relatively new in the field of marketing research and has a small number of studies reported so far and is yet to be robustly developed. There is no conceptually adequate and valid scale to capture negative online brand engagement. This paper details a scale developing process for measuring negative online brand engagement.

ABSTRACT. Science and practice are increasingly emphasizing that storytelling emotionalizes content, which facilitates effective communication and builds strong relationships with customers. However, little evidence exists about its efficient implementation in an online shopping context and in fulfilling hedonic and pragmatic needs throughout the online journey. Therefore, this paper examines in detail how the use of storytelling with parallax technology can influence the user experience (UX) in online shops as well as brand- and behavior-relevant variables. Explicit and implicit paths of human information processing are considered to holistically consider the human perception of online shops. A sample of 266 respondents completed a web-based experiment under two conditions (text-based vs. parallax storytelling online shop). In addition, to measure implicit information processing, a single category implicit association test was applied. The findings show, that applying the storytelling technique with parallax scrolling, increases the online shop visitors’ UX on explicit and implicit information-processing levels and the online shop’s overall perceived attractiveness. Storytelling with parallax motion enables an efficient transmission of brand-related associations to consumers’ minds, enhances their explicit and implicit brand attitudes, and increases their willingness to pay a higher price.

ABSTRACT. Marketing scholars are increasingly calling for marketing-based theories on markets (e.g., Akaka, Koskela-Huotari, and Vargo 2021). A recent special issue in the AMS Review (Kjellberg and Murto 2021) started to address these calls by drawing attention to theoretical work on markets across a variety of marketing-related research streams, including service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch 2011), consumer culture theory (Penaloza and Mish 2011; Schau, Muniz and Arnould 2009), systems theory (Giesler & Fischer 2017), markets-as-practice (Kjellberg and Helgesson 2007), and market-shaping (Nenonen et al., 2019). Growing research in these areas draws attention to social, cultural, and other institutional elements of exchange and value cocreation and underscores the dynamic and evolutionary nature of markets. However, there is a continuing need for additional theoretical synthesis and related and empirical studies on market- formation and functioning. More broadly, to advance the field, the marketing discipline requires a cohesive marketing-based theoretical framework for understanding and studying markets. The aim of this Theory Forum is to draw attention to the importance of prior research theorizing markets and to integrate and extend a variety of perspectives that can aid in the development of marketing-centric market theories. A panel of knowledgeable scholars will discuss important theories that explain market phenomena and how they can increase the impact of the marketing field.

ABSTRACT. Artificial Intelligence has become an important topic amongst individuals and firms over recent years, particularly given the growth of voice assistants. These voice assistants including Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, have all contributed to the changing way in which individuals consume content, complete tasks, search for information, and make decisions. Because decision-making is such an essential part of consumer behavior, it is essential that marketers attempt to understand how such technologies affect the consumer’s decision-making process and how this might impact the field of marketing. To understand to what extent voice assistants impact consumer behavior, this study recruited 309 respondents to participate in an A/B experiment. The result found that voice assistants with a higher level of anthropomorphism increase effort saving, leading to higher levels of satisfaction. Moreover, we found that people who are already more prone to decision delegation are less influenced by the anthropomorphism of the interface.

ABSTRACT. Abstract The concept of correctly targeting an audience with a targeted message in marketing is not new. However, the body of research in the advertising–consumer matching literature focuses on demographic fit rather than fit between the advertising message and the consumer’s consumption goal. Further, little is known how the felt targetedness influcnes customer satisfaction. Thus, beyond the demographic fit, this study suggests that a match-up between consumers’ consumption goals and advertising appeals can improve felt targetedness and further satisfaction related to the featured product. Based on the functional matching hypothesis and literature on felt targetedness, we investigate the role of a goal-appeal fit in the relationship between advertising targetedness and satisfaction using two methods, empirical testing with secondary data and an experiment. The findings suggest a positive relationship between advertising targetedness and customer satisfaction and support that a goal-appeal fit, particularly a hedonic goal-appeal fit versus utilitarian goal-appeal fit, strengthens the relationship. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

ABSTRACT. Millions of young people have, under the shadow of the covid-19 pandemic and the resulting consequences, started to think more seriously about how to manage their financial resources. As a result, personal finance has become trendy to speak about amongst influencers. This research aims at exploring this emerging phenomenon. Using text-mining techniques we examine the content of personal finance influencers on Instagram to investigate how consumers respond to the recommendation of more utilitarian oriented products and services.

ABSTRACT. While consumer-brand relationships bring to mind commonalities like shared interests and values, it is important to note that the way consumers construe information can be different depending on the situation and their connections to the brand. Thus, this research proposes that construal level impacts how consumers process information, and specifically looks at how two dimensions of psychological distance—social and temporal distance—affect the persuasiveness of different types of advertising appeals. Further, consideration is given to the consequences that occur when both dimensions are simultaneously activated, but the valences move in opposite directions. As such, these studies contribute to theory and practice by extending knowledge to include which types of construals are more salient when competing construals are triggered, and by helping marketing managers to identify the most effective ad appeals for consumers under these different conditions.

ABSTRACT. The second-hand economy maintains an impressive trajectory in the past few years and currently traditional retailers massively create a second-hand space within their stores or their online sites to compete in the second-hand multi-billion-dollar market. Omnichannel retailers therefore connect two conflicting retailing universes: that of the brand-new products and that of the second-hand items. These two universes are sometime presented in the same physical space, the store, or as part of the online offer. As the pace of development of these extensions has accelerated, it is becoming imperative to better understand how customers evaluate the second-hand extension employed by omnichannel retailers – especially, how they perceive the retailer image before and after the extension and what the behavioral consequences are because of the second-hand extension. Drawing on signaling theory and the forward spillover effect, we test a brand extension research model and empirically validate it in the context of omnichannel retailers, with a special attention dedicated to the perception of in store or online consumers. We specifically examine the pre-extension phase with the customers’ perceptions of initial retailer brand image and the post-extension phase with customers reactions to the newly introduced second hand space by the retailer.

ABSTRACT. Starting from the analysis of the importance of the omnichannel strategy, we gave a detailed definition to further understand the role of marketing in this approach.The Pandemic has pushed companies more and more towards an omnichannel strategy. As the omnichannel strategy is the result of the synergistic management of the touchpoints between companies and customers, marketing plays a vital role.6-question questionnaires were answered by a sample of 12 companies from different fields. The aim was to understand the impact on sales and awareness of the omnichannel approach both from a customer’s and a company’s point of view. The path towards omnichannelism is yet to be traced, and its driveshaft is Marketing.

ABSTRACT. This paper attempts to fill this gap by exploring factors that affect omnichannel adoption by customers. The paper is structured as follows. First, we review the main contributions on omnichannel and build upon the extant literature by providing a systematic summary of the main conceptualisations. Second, we present the results of a qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with users of fashion retailers’ omnichannel. Third, we illustrate managerial implications and future research directions.

ABSTRACT. In omnichannel retail, It is crucial to understand how to increase consumer engagement. Among the possible activities that the retailer can implement, communication plays an important role. Among communication activities, communication of sustainability policies can be considered a valid strategy to increase brand engagement. For these reasons, our study aims to understand how omnichannel retailers can communicate their sustainability efforts in one consistent message across offline and online channels in order to increase customer brand engagement.As a possible methodology, we propose to conduct a mixed method study of two steps: a case study to analyse retailers communication strategy across different touch points and a survey to examine consumers’ perceptions of retailers communication of sustainability. This could highlight the most promising touch points that an omnichannel retailer can employ to communicate its sustainability and deepen our understanding of omnichannel retailing and its potential for communication strategies.

ABSTRACT. With the rise in popularity of online shopping, marketers are challenged to find new ways to make their product appealing to consumers without the ability of physical experiences that help connect a consumer to a product (Thaler, 1980; Peck and Shu, 2009). Narratives may be a powerful way to differentiate a product online and generate product attachment without the product’s physical presence. This paper uses Narrative Transportation Theory to explore the process through which shoppers create impressions of an online product based on the online product description type. A conceptual model is proposed and tested with consumer transportation and product attachment mediating the relationship between narrative product descriptions and product substitutability. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

ABSTRACT. Consumers expect digital retailers to provide lower prices than brick-and-mortar retailers and likely expect digital products to be lower-priced than equivalent physical products. Two studies measure digital and print magazine prices in the market, measure consumers’ beliefs about digital and print magazine pricing, and identify factors that influence those beliefs.

ABSTRACT. Self-service technologies (SSTs) are revolutionizing the interactions of consumers with providers. One of the latest generations of SSTs relies on chatbots that are computer programs with natural language capabilities, conceptualized as automated advice-givers configured to converse with human users. Chatbots can replace human service employees and thus increase the level of customer service while decreasing costs. However, even if companies are increasingly adopting these conversational agents, research on how chatbots must be designed and deployed has yielded mixed results. While many factors may influence customers’ interactions with chatbots, we focus on the interplay between two common features of the customer service chatbot experience: gaze direction and anthropomorphism. Accordingly, this study aims to contribute to the literature on SSTs considering the effects of gaze direction and anthropomorphism of chatbots design on consumers’ willingness to share personal information and future intentions. By considering consumers’ skepticism about the psychological mechanism that explains the outcomes of anthropomorphism and gaze direction, this study wants to explain mixed results that research in this field has far achieved.

ABSTRACT. Business-to-Business firms increasingly transform from providers of products into providers of solutions. Solutions are attractive from the supplier's perspective because they enable them to gain deep insights into their customers' needs. Customers benefit from solutions because they are tailored to their specific business problems and contribute to the achievement of their goals. While previous research has investigated solutions primarily from the supplier's perspective, the customer's perspective has received less attention in the literature. In this paper, we investigate how customer adaptiveness contributes to solution effectiveness from the customer's point of view. Furthermore, we analyze several customer, supplier, and relationship characteristics that impact customer adaptiveness. We use data generated from surveying customers purchasing solutions from a leading international trade show supplier and objective archival data from the supplier's database. Our study provides valuable theoretical insights into when solutions are beneficial for customers and which customers are suited for the solution business.

ABSTRACT. Senses play a crucial role in humans’ everyday perception of the world. As one of our major senses, olfaction has a pervasive influence on humans’ cognition and behavior. Academic literature shows that the olfactory system interacts constantly with other senses (e.g. taste and touch) in a phenomenon called crossmodal correspondences, which is understood as a developmental mechanism that helps humans’ to make sense of the complexity of stimuli they come across in their everyday lives. In this study, we aim to unveil novel connections between scents and visual perception as well as emotional states. In two studies, we provide preliminary evidences that specific scents can be associated to rounded shapes and happier emotional states. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

ABSTRACT. Consumers are social by nature. Incidentally, consumers are nearly always anticipating a future indulgence. This research examines how anticipating indulgence influences indulgent behavior in the present. Secondary data and four experimental studies show that when anticipating indulgence individuals engage in more indulgent behavior in the present than when they are not anticipating indulgence.

ABSTRACT. Humans use sensorial experiences to make inferences about the world. A kind and affectionate person is often described as a warm person; whereas cold individuals denote social distance. This research aims at further understanding the effect of temperature cues on interpersonal judgments and its marketing consequences. More specifically, we focus on the association between temperature and interpersonal attractiveness. In an Implicit Association Test, we demonstrate that people intuitively associate higher temperatures with superior attractiveness. However, in the second study, we show that the association does not hold when judgments of a model attractiveness are explicit. We also reveal that the higher temperatures negatively affect attitudes towards the advertisement. The superior level of arousal that participants report when exposed to warm temperature cues explains both effects. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

ABSTRACT. To the exception of a newborn startup, all companies have a past and the research in management looks at the management of this past. The past can be a firm-specific resource (Foster et al., 2011), used in the brand positioning (Rose et al., 2016). But the past can also include elements (e.g. events, characters, or decisions) that are problematic in the light of todays’ standards (Phillips et al., 2020). In this case, is it better to acknowledge or to hide it? How would present consumers react when exposed to a transgression that happened 50 or more years ago? Within this historical CSR stream, the present research engages with the past-as-CSR, that is how the past influences contemporary perceptions of corporate and managerial responsibility (Phillips et al., 2020). Building on the literature about the use of the past in brand management (e.g. Rose et al., 2016), and on brand transgressions (Aaker et al., 2004), the present paper builds and tests a framework mapping out the consequences of disclosing a historical transgression on the company’s website. Two studies investigate the effects on warmth, competence and sincerity.

ABSTRACT. In the current geopolitical environment, we are witnessing a resurgence of political leaders who encourage higher levels of patriotism, nationalism, and ethnocentrism from their constituents. This political evolution has increased interest in studying the consumer ethnocentrism concept. While most studies on the concept focus on the preference for domestic goods and services over foreign ones, we extend the concept to the actual political candidates in the United States, and explore preferences for natural-born citizen candidates over naturalized citizen candidates. We adapt the Shimp and Sharma (1987) consumer-ethnocentrism scale to the political context, and examine what antecedents determine the political-ethnocentricity of a political constituency. Testing via structural equations modeling, we find that social-conservatism and religiosity are highly positively associated with political ethnocentrism, while consumer-cosmopolitanism is highly negatively related with political ethnocentrism. We also find that in the United States, self-reported republicans display significantly higher levels of political ethnocentrism than their democratic counterparts. Guidelines for candidates running for office, based on the findings, are also presented.

ABSTRACT. Social influencer marketing has developed into one of the most powerful forms of marketing communication. However, influencers, like any type of endorser, may cause scandals. As influencers’ main field of activity is the Internet, a scandal may propagate very swiftly and cause maximum damage to the influencer and endorsed brand. Against this backdrop, we close a major research gap by developing a framework that includes five scandals typically caused by influencers and map the size of the detrimental impacts on the influencer and brand. We verify our assumptions by means of an empirical investigation including 429 participants. In this way, we fill a gap in scandal frameworks and attempt to align our work with works on other types of other celebrities, such as politicians and athletes. The results reveal significant differences in the seriousness of the different scandals. However, the negative effects of the scandal have a highly similar impact on the influencer and the endorsed brand. Even supposedly, minor scandals, such as the use of swearwords have negative impacts.

ABSTRACT. Brand polarization, an affective and cognitive phenomenon that involves simultaneous and extreme positive and negative emotions, is not clearly operationalised and there is no identification of its dimensionality. Following a multi-stage procedure, this study offers a novel conceptualisation and operationalisation of brand polarization as a multi-faceted and multi-dimensional construct. Results indicate that the developed brand polarization scale seems a reliable and valid instrument. The study enhances the knowledge of the brand polarization phenomenon, helping managers to understand antecedents and outcomes of the way polarizing brands are perceived.

ABSTRACT. AMS has survived half a century. Originally envisioned by Harold W. Berkman, who survived nearly a full century, the association has grown in numbers and in prominence. While AMS is well-known for its two leading academic journals and for hosting well-attended annual conferences and the World Marketing Congress, relatively little has been written about AMS history. We contribute a brief history of AMS that emphasizes the organization’s missions and values. In particular, AMS, along with its publications and conferences, has been, is, and will continue to aim to represent, a bridge between the academic and practicing marketing community. Further, that bridge should be built upon quality, service, and integrity.

Babin, B.J., Moulard, J.G. & Lindquist, J.D. A bridge to relevance: on the history of the Academy of Marketing Science® (AMS). AMS Rev 11, 454–463 (2021)