ABSTRACT. This paper focuses on the framing effects of free promotional product offers (PPOs). It uses prospect theory as a framework for describing alternative framing scenarios (e.g., “emphasizing the PPO” versus “emphasizing the product to be purchased”). Promotional product offers are among the most popular forms of consumer-oriented sales promotion; yet, little is known about their impact in different time periods (DelVecchio et al. 2006; Raghubir & Celly 2011). Research propositions are developed regarding the framing effects of PPOs in promotion time periods and post-promotion time periods, and whether the effects will have a beneficial or detrimental impact on perceived value of the promoted product

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this research is to better understand the role judgments of ad typicality—the representativeness of an ad for a product category—play in the processing of television advertising. Such judgments would include the expected themes and feelings to be experienced from viewing ads of a product category. This is a vital undertaking because consumers’ judgments of typicality are used in judgments of originality (divergence)—a key dimension of creative ads. However, the nature of ad typicality judgments remains mostly unexplained. Specifically, researchers have not offered rich explanations regarding the antecedents of ad-typicality judgments, or the complex effects of ad-typicality judgments regarding attitude toward the ad. This study addresses these issues and offers new understanding for such phenomena related to ad typicality.

ABSTRACT. Racial diversity has recently attracted a lot of attention - especially in the United States of America where Generation Z is one of the most racially diverse generations. Therefore, companies are increasingly incorporating racial diversity messages into their marketing campaigns to create and reinforce a racially diverse and inclusive brand image. As a result, the most watched and highest priced commercials, the Super Bowl commercials, have begun to promote racial diversity. However, to our knowledge, the effectiveness of these commercials in creating a racially diverse brand image has not been studied. Therefore, in this study, we developed a multidisciplinary approach with the use of neuro-tools to examine how Super Bowl commercials that promote racial diversity work with Generation Z to create a racially diverse brand image.

ABSTRACT. Pets are ubiquitous in our lives and marketing communications. Surprisingly, we have yet to empirically evidence pets’ effectiveness as endorsers and understand the key success factors behind their persuasiveness. Dessart (2018) suggests that animals’ presence in ads leads to a decrease in brand attitudes because they are less easy to identify with. We propose ad immersion and product congruence as means to offset the identification challenges associated with animals. Specifically, the research investigates: With regard to ads featuring pets as endorsers, does product congruence enhance purchase intentions? Do immersive ads amplify this effect? What mechanism explains this process? Two experiments and one field study address these questions. The findings suggest that when pets endorse products consumable by humans, increased immersion (e.g., lively outdoor background) is more effective in capturing consumers’ attention and positive responses (e.g., purchase intentions). Conversely, less immersive ads (e.g., neutral background) are more effective with pet-related products. Customer attention mediates these effects. The results, first, provides empirical support for pets’ effectiveness as endorsers, even for non-pet-related products. Second, we provide the earliest empirical support for product congruence and immersion’s roles in ads effectiveness. We provide novel relevant implications to practitioners and delineate future research plans.

ABSTRACT. With the onset of the 21st century, developing economies have also kept pace with global standards in terms of information and technology. Indian consumers have already been introduced to this technology revolution and are now progressing further with digitalization & empowering influence. This has been observed in terms of online advertisements, which are now influencing consumers & attitudes towards online purchase intentions. This study examines the attitude of youth towards online advertising and its influence on their purchase Intentions. The factors related to youth & attitude towards online advertisements and purchase intentions were extracted from literature and were confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation modeling was used to measure the influence of these factors on the purchase intentions of youth. The results demonstrate that the factors that positively influenced youth's behavior were security and privacy risk, social role and image, entertainment, credibility, and assurance. There are few studies in this area in the context of emerging markets. The conceptual model and hypotheses derived in this study are original and novel.

ABSTRACT. Despite firms' desires to manufacture and sell products that meet or exceed customer expectations, product failures happen and have negative impacts on customer-firm relationships. This research uses 2 studies to investigate the role of Brand Coolness and Virtual Presence in product-failure-recovery efforts. Study 1 investigates the impact of Brand Coolness (cool vs. uncool) on consumer response to product failures (causing harm vs. no harm). Study 2 builds on the first study by adding a 3rd factor, that of virtual presence (VP vs. no VP) in the firm’s response and investigates the 2x2x2 interaction on consumer response to product failures. We find that Brand Coolness helps reduce negative responses to product failures and that virtual presence reduces the benefits of being a Cool brand.

ABSTRACT. Undoubtedly, social media has created some phenomenal opportunities for its stakeholders (e.g., consumers, firms, brands) to interact freely with one another across the world. Accordingly, social media platforms offer plenty of means for marketers to reach and engage with consumers. However, social media also can have tremendous negative consequences for consumers, firms, and society. Drawing on the concept of social traps, this research (i) conceptualizes the social media social trap as the behavioral inability of entities (firms, individuals, social groups) to go beyond the pursuit of short-term personal interests toward long-term positive consequences of social media for themselves and society, and (ii) identifies set of significant issues associated with social media platforms that can meaningfully form the future of social media platforms through three themes – consumers, firms, public policy. Accordingly, articulating each issue within each theme, this research presents and discusses the future of social media platforms and their impact on marketing practices. Finally, the authors conclude with a discussion of the implication of their research for theory and practice and identify relevant future research agendas for academics and practitioners.

ABSTRACT. In this study we investigate what CMOs’ personality traits are responsible for creating powerful marketing organizations that can resist CEOs' attempts to myopically manage marketing budgets. Building on Upper Echelons Theory and Applied Psychology Research, we hypothesize that CMOs’ ability to create powerful marketing organizations rests on high levels of Extraversion and Openness, and low levels of Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Agreeableness. We furthermore expect CEO power to weaken this relationship by enabling CEOs to push their own agenda despite others’ oppositions, and firm market share to enhance it, by increasing marketing department’s importance in market power acquisition. The study presented here draws on a sample of 68 CMOS from Forbes’s list of the most influential CMOs for the years 2016 to 2021 to explain what makes marketing leadership successful in creating powerful marketing organizations, and how this relates to the marketing function's empowerment vis-a-vis the CEO.

ABSTRACT. In a rapidly changing environment characterized by an increasingly strong social and environmental awareness among various stakeholders, innovating for sustainability is considered a strategic approach from the standpoints of organizational competitiveness and performance outcomes. Relatedly, sustainable innovativeness, a firm’s sustainable innovation capability, is crucial for its survival and sustainable development. Given the shortage of conceptualization and operationalization of sustainable innovativeness, this study adopts an integrative approach to define sustainable innovativeness as a two-dimension construct comprising sustainability orientation and firm innovativeness. More importantly, we provide empirical evidence on drivers and outcomes of sustainable innovativeness as well as its underlying mechanism by analysing primary data gathered from 213 French firms drawn from several industries where innovation is important. The results of this study are expected to hold fruitful conclusions for innovation managers and practitioners as it is the first effort to shed light on the complex and dynamic relationships among external forces, internal drivers, and outcomes of sustainable innovativeness.

ABSTRACT. This research article highlights the relationship between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Intellectual Property (IP). This research synthesizes the findings of prior studies for the understanding of Intellectual Property and its usage in order to show approaches for meeting the most ambitious development agenda in human history – the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The paper discusses possible gaps – while IP does play a significant role in tackling many SDGs, it seems that IP is hardly considered when drafting SDG policies and strategies, and also vice versa, SDGs may be hardly in the focus of IP strategy making. Implications for academics and practitioners are discussed and directions for future research are pointed out.

ABSTRACT. Environmental, Social and Governance - ESG Sustainability is a critical framework originating in the international standards and policy guidance. It is now adopted by legacy to start-up organizations as a direct response to customer awareness about product-people-planet relationship. The key question is – is Sustainability cost prohibitive or will generate shared-value? There are several existing models for mapping ESG maturity as companies implement and evolve. This study of selected brands and companies across industry sectors has shown that Legacy organizations are beginning to implement ESG policies, whether due to stakeholder demand, company values, or regulation. The research study data analysis suggests that due to more flexible organizational structures, and smaller value chains than traditional companies, start-ups have more potential to achieve comprehensive ESG maturity. Furthermore, start-up founders have introduced a critical fourth factor in ESG: the role of the individual stakeholder within the organization, and how the organization shapes the individual mindset for brand sustainability. While start-ups may lack the capital that powers the impact of larger legacy organizations, these smaller companies could radically change the ESG landscape, and often could be considered more mature in ESG brands than the established legacy organizations.

ABSTRACT. In recent years, brand activism (BA) has gained considerable attention, as consumers increasingly expect brands to take a stand on divisive social- and political issues. More and more brands engage in brand activism, expressing their public stance on a variety of topics, such as poverty reduction, gender equality, gun control, minority rights, environmental concern, racial equity, income inequality, immigration, food waste, and climate change. Despite the growing importance of brand activism, empirical investigations of consumers’ understanding of activism remain rather scarce. We argue that one reason for this is the absence of a valid and reliable measurement instrument for analyzing and comparing consumer perceptions of brand activism. In an attempt to address this issue, this paper develops a new consumer Brand Activism Perception (BAP) scale. Through an extensive analysis of the literature, we have identified the relevant characteristics of brand activism, which form the basis for the BAP scale development. Following a standard scale development process, we then qualitatively and quantitatively assess and refine these characteristics to develop a new 14 items BAP scale. The new scale consists of five distinct characteristics and will offer future researchers a valid and reliable measurement instrument to capture how consumers perceive BA.

ABSTRACT. As the COVID-19 virus mutates, and booster shots continue to be developed to address those genetic changes, public health crisis communication which is at its core a type of marketing communication, continues as a prominent feature of the COVID-19 pandemic. Effective communication among and between governments, health professionals, scientists, the media, and the public is a key component of an effective response to a public health crisis. Such communication serves three primary functions, namely informing, advocating/persuading for policies and reforms, and engaging citizens. It also plays a role in raising public confidence and mobilizing public cooperation. However, the ‘communication chaos’ which characterized COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic involved confusion, inconsistencies, changing narratives, and half-truths and presents an ongoing challenge to government and health professionals. In this paper, we bring a Sensemaking perspective (Weick, 1995) to the COVID-19 communication. We explore how a sensemaking perspective can help crisis communication by discussing the sensemaking processes of ecological change, enactment, selection, and retention. This discussion adds to the literature on public health communication in dynamic contexts.

ABSTRACT. Labor inclusion plays a prominent role in contemporary marketing and public policy. For adults with intellectual disability (ID), labor inclusion represents the strongest influence on the quality of life but are still underrepresented in the service sector workplace, despite public policy promoting their inclusion. Successful inclusion at the frontline would only happen if consumers agreed to it. Yet surprisingly no research has operationalized attitude towards intellectually disabled frontline employees. Managers need insight into where, when, and how the inclusion of employees with ID results in a positive outcome for the business and the customers. Certainty about favorable consumer attitudes would motivate managers to adhere to inclusionist public policy. As a contribution, this study offers a reliable and valid scale for assessing consumers’ attitudes towards intellectually disabled frontline employees. The scale development was informed by intergroup contact theory and followed accepted procedures. A 2-factor 8-item scale that shows internal consistency, reliability, construct validity, and nomological validity was developed. This scale is also useful to agencies responsible for the development of public policy. The understanding of consumers’ attitudes concerning people with ID at the frontline can serve as an indicator for the most suitable service contexts for promoting and implementing inclusionist practices.

ABSTRACT. During the COVID-19 pandemic, customers had to adopt new behavior patterns. Keeping distance from others is a key measure and difficult to achieve in crowded retail settings. We examine the effectiveness of nudges in two field studies. In study 1, we investigate the effectiveness of three salience nudges that support distance keeping in a retail setting: duct-taped lines, footprints, and footprints with distance information as a more transparent nudge. Results show greater nudging effects for footprints in comparison with duct-taped lines. The more transparent nudge proved to be the most effective, with 3.3 times greater odds of nudging customers compared with lines. In study 2, we investigate the long-term effect of the transparent salience nudge. Results show a drastically declined nudging effect after one year of exposure. These findings support managers and public policy makers in designing nudges and draw attention to wear-out effects.

ABSTRACT. This research examines the link between anti-consumption and subjective wellbeing and the mediating role of time orientation. Consumer culture exacerbates individuation and feelings of emptiness, time pressures that are detrimental to wellbeing, and materially intensive modes of living that are problematic from an environmental and social sustainability perspective. Thus, an enhanced understanding is needed of the effect of anti-consumption on wellbeing and its boundary conditions. By using a quantitative, two-wave online survey with 332 UK participants and structural equation modelling, this research tests the interconnections among anti-consumption attitudes, subjective wellbeing, propensity to spend time meaningfully and long-term orientation. Results confirm our hypotheses, establishing that anti-consumption attitudes alone are insufficient to impact individual wellbeing, and that this relationship is mediated by spending time meaningfully. Additionally, long-term orientation exerts a significant and negative moderating influence on the relationship between spending time meaningfully and subjective wellbeing. While prior research has signaled long-term orientation as a desirable trait to attain reduced levels of consumption, our results establish that it can be detrimental to more immediate subjective wellbeing. Theoretically, our research contributes to the literature on anti-consumption by adding the novel theoretical lens of time orientation. Implications for firms and policy makers are also discussed.

ABSTRACT. Whereas a growing interest in e-commerce and local consumption, there is little research addressing individual support/reject patterns across local e-commerce and global e-marketplaces (i.e., substitution or complementarity effects). Current work identifies three different dynamics between local e-commerce and global e-marketplace across a sample of e-consumers. E-commerce supporters, who try to favor local e-commerce but do not reject global e-marketplaces were the most numerous segment. Most importantly for the anti-consumption field, a global e-marketplace anti-consumers segment emerged. For this segment, supporting local e-commerce implied rejecting global e-marketplace. This group reflects the support/reject pattern identified in anti-consumption literature. Interestingly, this group showed high levels of both global and local identity. In addition, they were shopping more frequently in local e-commerce for most product categories. Hence, the rule “think global act local” applies perfectly for this segment. Finally, the emergence of a third segment of global e-marketplace supporters, who do neither support nor purchase from local e-commerce reflects how global e-marketplaces are substituting local retailers in the online environment. Interestingly, this segment showed the lowest scores in both global and local identity, which shows how both identity dimensions are important in forging local e-commerce support.

ABSTRACT. In the late 1970s, the term “voluntary simplification” was coined for a strategy some consumers adopted for coping with economic conditions by “…changing their lifestyles and values of conspicuous consumption and economic growth.” By May 2022, the U.S. annual inflation rate was measured to be 8.6%, a value it had not reached since voluntary simplification gained popularity in the marketing literature. In this research, we seek to determine if today’s consumers consider voluntary simplification a viable strategy for navigating the strain on their financial resources caused by rapid increases in product prices as well as exploring differences in consumers’ preferences for the various ways companies could adjust their marketing strategies in response to the rising costs they must endure. Elucidating these perceptions and preferences will allow for a comparison of today’s consumers with those of past years. The findings will inform researchers and practitioners with regard to marketing strategy formulation. Future research should examine differences in consumer preference tied to consumer groups and product types. Cross-cultural comparisons based on cultural dimensions such as Hofstede’s Indulgence vs. Restraint or Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation might also prove informative.

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study is to evaluate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) corporate narratives and identify how corporations interpret it, the essential topics of communication and the key actors from the ESG-related ecosystem that need to be considered in the public exchange of information framework. Our study focuses not only on identifying the main components of ESG in corporate narratives but also their relationship with overall corporate sustainability. For this analysis, we use the narratives paradigm based on a theoretical framework incorporating elements from the Theory of Reciprocal Determinism (TRD) and the ecosystems’ framework. We analyze corporate communications for companies from the Corporate Knights list of the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the world for year 2022. While the environmental part of the framework is well reflected in communication, the social and governance part especially emphasizes a need for an ecosystem-view of ESG and a better structure that reflects the micro, meso, and macro level actors. Moreover, the findings show the applicability of reciprocal deterministic elements in the formulation, implementation, and effective communication of ESG strategies in a global business ecosystem.

ABSTRACT. Our research utilizes natural language processing techniques to assess the relevance of customer reviews of physical and mental health applications in service personalization (Sabrina et al., 2017; Herbas & Frank, 2019). Physical health and mental health applications are increasingly becoming a part of our lives. However, the literature provides minimum insights into these applications and their customer reviews (Linnhoff & Smith, 2017).

Using the novel structured topic modelling (STM) technique, we perform our analysis in four steps. We initially identify the topics and since STM allows us to incorporate document metadata, we introduced two dummy covariates Negative = 0 and Negative = 1 into the model. Negative= 0 refers to reviews those positive sentiments and Negative = 1 refers to reviews with negative sentiments. We defined each review as positive and negative using the VADER sentiment Analysis. We further performed the topic correlation analysis. Finally, we analysed the moderating effect of ratings of the reviews. The results allow us to elucidate the proactive nature of customer experiences and emotions in application usage and service personalization (Beltz et al., 2022). We believe our paper is a standalone gateway in this area, where we make significant contributions to academia and practice.

ABSTRACT. Firms boost brand appeal, product engagement, and purchasing behaviors by tailoring marketing messages to consumers’ values. However, the relative importance of values is likely to change across the lifespan of consumers, thus requiring firms to continuously re-assess whether brand and product values are aligned with the intended target market. To develop an accurate understanding of the intertwined relationship between consumers’ values and age, we collaborated with TIME Magazine and surveyed 77,000 global consumers. We argue - and demonstrate robustly across 36 analytical-model-choices, and 180,000 simulation-based decisions - that value development is more nuanced than typically assumed. Specifically, we systematically investigate age-graded differences in values from late teenage years to post-retirement across different aggregation levels, revealing heretofore unappreciated dynamics. Furthermore, we examine methodological challenges with important implications for marketing research. Commonly, researchers aggregate individual questions into parsimonious higher-order concepts to ease interpretation. However, for values, the individual items represent more granular, underlying value nuances that diverge in their importance and development throughout consumers’ lifespans. For the first time, we study the asynchronous change of value nuances, consequently, finding that aggregation i) leads to a loss of critical information, ii) creates conflicting results when nuances diverge and iii) significantly reduces predictive power.

ABSTRACT. Recommendation systems – that is, a class of machine learning algorithm tools that filter vendors’ offerings based on customer data and automatically recommend or generate personalized predictions – are empowered by AI technology and embedded with AI characteristics; but the potential consequences for customer well-being are greatly overlooked. Hence, this research investigates the impact of AI characteristics on customer well-being (self-efficacy, technology satisfaction, emotional dissonance and autonomy) through two mechanisms: intuitiveness VS intrusiveness. A systematic review which conceptualizes AI characteristics and technology well-being in the recommendation system context is followed by a US-based survey approach (N=600) which shows that higher levels of information optimization, predictability, human likeness, and customizability lead to higher levels of intuitiveness, whereas only information optimization and human likeness leads to increased intrusiveness. However, both intuitiveness and intrusiveness are found to promote technology well-being in the context of a recommendation system, especially for those more vulnerable individuals who respond positively to intrusiveness. Hence, the conclusion is “the recommendations are not always annoying”, whereby the relationships between AI characteristics and technology well-being are significantly influenced by perceived intrusiveness. These findings help business practitioners to identify how consumers engage different AI characteristics and better take care of consumer well-being.

ABSTRACT. The research described in this proposal aims to develop and validate a generally applicable patient-centric decision-making tool healthcare (technology) providers can use to (1) design/implement technologies that contribute to patient well-being and (2) actively manage, evaluate and optimize patient well-being through the use of technology.

ABSTRACT. The research proposal aims to help understand how public (versus private) donation events may influence blood donations over time. Specifically, we aim to explore whether public (versus private) donation events influence short-term and long-term blood donations. Further, the research addresses the mechanisms through which donation events influence short and long-term donations and examines potential boundary conditions for such potential effects.

ABSTRACT. Panel Proposal:

This panel brings together three experts with different perspectives to identify how major changes impact business schools in general and marketing education in particular. The panelists offer insights from the perspective of an accreditation agency that accredits business schools in more than 70 countries worldwide; from an industry vantage point representing one of the leading corporations that partners with universities to achieve their strategic objectives; and from the perspective of a senior faculty and editor of the Journal of Marketing Education.

ABSTRACT. In 1981 the World Health Organisation passed the International Code of Marketing Breast Milk Substitutes (BMS/formula). One of the major points in the code was the banning of advertisements and “gifts” of breast milk substitutes to both mothers and health care professionals. Global baby food market was worth $67.3 billion (2021). China’s market size was $26.90 billion and is expected to grow 10% annually. In 2017, China repealed the specific provisions of the law pertaining to marketing that protected consumers and enforced the Code. While the health system encourages women to breastfeed, however the increasing labour force participation, and related issues create barriers for women to continue to breastfeed. BMS manufacturers capitalize on these vulnerabilities, and may provide disinformation about the benefits of BMS, marketing them as being equal to or even superior to breastmilk. This study aims to examine linkages of various marketing communication strategies of BMS marketers and the efficacy of these. Using qualitative and quantitative data we examine how marketing communications affects mothers and other stakeholders in their decision regarding infant feeding choices. Additionally, we aim to understand the interplay of various factors at individual, social, and demographic levels that influence such decision making.

ABSTRACT. Historically, Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) has entailed communicating a singular, consistent message delivered through a campaign across platforms towards a target segment/s to achieve marketing, branding and business results. However, with the advent of digital and social media, the behavior of the same chosen target segment is significantly different across global and national platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Metaverse etc. This requires New Age IMC approaches that will be responsive to multiple personas of the same target audience - across a range of platforms. The same applies to Brand values that must be specific to the platform. The core objective of this ongoing research study is to analyze and outline progression from “Integrated Marketing Communications” to the new model of “Aligned Marketing Communications”. The evolving global and digital marketing communications must align across - digital/technology platforms, purpose driven values, and platform specific persona of the target audience/customers. The research paper will build on IMC evolution over the years and apply Change Management theory to capture individual persona transformations for customers across multiple platforms; and how to align brands and marketing communications with purpose driven values relevant for specific platforms.

ABSTRACT. This presentation explores how to design trustworthy live commerce experience surrounding live streaming, which is rapidly emerging in the U.S., following its booming development in China, India, Thailand, Brazil, and other countries.

The presentation will begin with a review of the development and features of the live commerce, and then will center the talk on a comparison of a Chinese case and an American case to illustrate how technical content is effectively presented to target audiences during live stream events for cultural differences. A design framework of discursive affordances is used to demonstrate how instrumental affordances such as content-focused communication and social affordances such as community-focused communication were designed in those events to build swift trust, shorten the last mile, and thus convert live stream viewers into happy and future returning shoppers.

This presentation shows why designing trustworthy live commerce experiences matters: It is not just a marketing strategy, but a new production model as well.

ABSTRACT. Short life cycle products as smartphones face high replacement rates pointing out the need of finding ways to reuse existing phones in order to combine sustainability, profitability and dysfunctional supply chains. Refurbishment is known as an end-of-life strategy which allows prolongation of a smartphone’s lifespan. Since the acceptance of refurbished products in Austria, Germany, and Poland is little explored yet, this research aims to gain valuable insights into the consumers’ perceptions of refurbished smartphones by adopting a quantitative survey approach (n=421). Drawing on the consumer decision-making model and the theory of perceived risks and perceived benefits, this research maps drivers and barriers that consumers associate with refurbished smartphones across different economies and cultures. By testing the effectiveness of specific pre-selected incentives, marketers will be supported in setting measures to market refurbished smartphones in Austria, Germany, and Poland.

ABSTRACT. The future of marketing will be shaped by research focusing on customer value generation and MarTech in line with marketplace developments towards new technologies, disruption, and systemic interdependencies. At the same time, demographic and ethnic diversity, sustainability concerns, personalization, and individualism are gaining importance in society. Reflecting and connecting these dynamics from a conceptional point of view, the concept of Transformative Marketing (TM) emerged. However, there is no literature review available that analyzes the state of TM research and outlines future research angles. Our paper therefore contributes to TM literature through two research questions: What is the current state of TM research (RQ1) and, based on this, which research agenda on TM can be outlined (RQ2)? We provide new insights through a systematic literature review containing of a bibliometric review and a Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methods (TCCM) analysis intending to pave the way for future studies.

ABSTRACT. Numerous dynamic challenges and megatrends such as increasing digitalization, demographic change and environmental issues lead to an increasingly complex market environment. Addressing this phenomenon, we draw on the business ecosystem [BES] concept that describes the embedding of firms in their market context. Although BES have gained attention within recent years, reviews on structural BES types and dimensions are scarce. Therefore, this conceptual paper offers three consecutive contributions: First, an analysis of the basic theories that inform the BES view. Second, a definition and characterization of the BES including a derivation of distinctive criteria. Third, a differentiation of the BES view from further ecosystem subtypes. The methodological approach is based on a systematic literature review consisting of bibliometric analyses and a qualitative content analysis (Mayring 2014).

ABSTRACT. Artificial intelligence (AI) based autonomous vehicles (AVs) are the ultimate step in the automobile industry. Despite promising to improve many aspects of our life, such as well-being and safety, AVs will have to face dramatic situations such as accidents resulting in the death of the victims. This raises questions about the morality of algorithms car or user responsibilities, guilt, and well-being as research on these subjects is scarce. Therefore, we contribute to theoretical knowledge by developing a conceptual model that integrates user responsibilities, guilt, and well-being to better understand the consequences of those dramatic accident situations. We realize two studies in Germany: one online, and the other is a field experiment using a virtual reality-based AV simulator. Our results show a negative indirect impact of the accident victim’s death on responsibilities, guilt, and the well-being of the driver.

ABSTRACT. The emerging world cannot ignore circular bioeconomic development for long. A study of circular bioeconomy pointers at the local level is required to expedite the outgrowth of local economies. The narrative of "for the locals, by the locals, and at the local'' is pursued in the study. Herein, we proposed seven themes derived by collating semantic and latent codes into potential themes and applying thematic analysis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with circular organizations in Afro-Asian states resulting in seven themes: patriotism, psychological safety, sustainable leadership, intrusive thoughts, ancestral footprints, waste valorisation, and developing green brand evangelists. The study and findings seek to contribute to micro-level circular bioeconomy indicators. Theoretical ideas, practical applications, and limitations are discussed.

ABSTRACT. Multilevel analysis can generate insight into how social media is utilized within the work- orientated environment. We elucidate these complex relationships by drawing upon rich qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 67 managers across a range of hierarchical levels. This research contributes to the theorization of work-orientated social media and attempts to control managers’ use of such media to extend the current state of knowledge within paradox theory. Specifically, we illustrate how social media magnifies a societal paradox between economic and non-economic objectives, which cascades to trigger other paradoxes that cut across macro, meso, and micro levels. In this regard, we contribute insights into how the navigation of multi-level paradoxes involves negotiating different forms of work-life boundaries. The managerial contributions address multiple parties such as middle managers, HR practitioners, senior managers, policymakers, and trade unions, and highlight the need for employers to focus more on addressing social media paradoxes and cutting across different levels through their behaviors and strategies.

ABSTRACT. The idea that “someone has to suffer” is one that emerged repeatedly in business history to excuse the exploitation of the vulnerable. Occasionally, members of a more powerful group (whether based upon race, gender, socioeconomic status, or species) begin to argue that members of another group currently excluded from a certain circle of cultural protection from exploitation should be extended some measure of protection beyond what they may currently claim. This frequently and unsurprisingly gives rise to a backlash from those who benefit most directly from the exploitation of this group. Today, corporate representatives may claim that to commit to more humane or sustainable practices, would present significant cost burdens, inhibit innovation, and render businesses unviable. We should take care, however, to remember that this argument has been offered as an objection to reforms that we would now consider the most basic humane regulations. For example, 19th century factory owners claimed that to disallow child labor would cause widespread economic collapse, which of course it did not. The repetitive nature of arguments against the regulation of business practices demonstrates the necessity of prioritizing the social contract and the expansion of protections for vulnerable individuals over anxieties concerning loss of profits.

ABSTRACT. Although existing studies established the importance of parasocial interaction and parasocial relationship in marketing, some conceptual problems remain, especially the debate about the main domain characteristics of these two concepts. Amidst calls to distinguish PSI and PSR, only a few researchers have attempted to do so. To date, no clear criteria that could distinguish between PSI and PSR have been put forward. The purpose of this paper is to resolve the long-standing definitional debate and to propose prerequisites that can identify PSI and PSR in the offline and online environment, respectively. To do so, this study adopts a systematic literature review. A total of 113 high-quality journal articles related to PSI and PSR were identified from 1956 to 2021 based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and then analyzed. Presented systematic analysis proposes seven prerequisites that allow to fundamentally distinguish between PSI and PSR both offline and online. Further, this work puts forward new definitions of PSI and PSR. Finally, it compares potential conditions for PSI and PSR in the offline and online environments to explore how the two concepts change between environments.

ABSTRACT. This research presents the first steps towards developing a two-dimensional scale that measures cancel culture behavior. After reviewing the literature and finding a gap, 31 qualitative interviews with participants from Gen Z were conducted. Coding by three independent raters revealed themes that were used to create a ten-item scale. Results from a survey using a sample (n= 200) from a national panel supported the hypothesized two dimensions identified as boycotting and actively commenting. This first data collection utilized exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and future research will included a second data collection and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

ABSTRACT. This abstract aims to identify the research field of the connected consumer by mapping and organizing the academic literature in the last ten years. Internet has 5.0 billion users, social media 4.65 billion users and there are 6.6 billions of smart phones. These technologies have enabled behavioral interactions among consumers, brands and, and machines (e.g. chatbots). This ‘connected consumer’ is categorically different from the standard consumer in that connected consumers require the convergence of smart devices, digital connectivity, and social interactions. Results from the bibliometric analysis show that the topic of the connected consumer is heavily focused on social networks and Facebook. Research is conducted by isolated, small teams of researchers in USA, China, and UK. Theories from social network, cognitive models, technology adoption models, and seminal methodological papers highly cited in marketing helped to extend scientific production in time. However, if we see the mobile’s screen of a connected consumer, there are many more interacting channels than only Facebook. Research on the topic needs to consider other types of applications, level of social interaction, technology affordances, value co-creation, and the issues of privacy and trust.

ABSTRACT. Despite privacy concerns and data violations, sharing economy users continues to grow and its market size is expected to reach 1.5 trillion US dollars by 2024 (BBC Research, 2024). Recent literature refers to this conflict as a privacy paradox; consumers’ trade-off between willingness to compromise their privacy and to gain certain benefits. This risk-benefit-related decision-making process is defined as privacy calculus, where consumers weigh potential perceived risks and anticipated results. While there is extensive research on how consumers’ privacy concerns influence consumers' information disclosure, the question of how privacy protection initiatives such as data regulations, transparency and perceived control over information interplay in consumers’ privacy calculus processes remain limited. Drawing upon privacy calculus theory and privacy paradox lens, this research explores the influence of data regulation, transparency and control on consumers’ privacy calculus assessment to disclose their information in the sharing economy context.

ABSTRACT. This research examines how cuteness influences luxury brand equity. While cuteness has been studied in the context of mainstream brands, it has not been examined for luxury brands. This research examines the role of a cute logo as a form of brand communication for a luxury brand. Two studies demonstrate that a cute logo indeed enhances luxury brand equity perception. A cute logo also increases purchases intention. These effects are caused by perceived uniqueness as it is less common for cuteness to be associated with luxury brands. The results suggest that a cute logo in a luxury brand communication can have a positive impact on consumers’ brand equity perceptions.

ABSTRACT. Prior research has examined the effects of image interactivity technology on consumer responses. However, such effects have not been fully investigated in the context of online luxury shopping. In this study, we seek to extend the theoretical understanding of the effectiveness of image interactivity technology (zoom, rotation and 3D) by examining the relationships between image interactivity of displayed luxury products, perceived control, as well as mood and willingness to purchase online. We also are interested in exploring whether the type of interfaces (touch screen vs mouse) moderates these relationships. A confirmatory study was conducted. The data were collected through an online survey (n=395). The results show that image interactivity positively influences perceived control and willing-ness to purchase luxury product online. The effect of image interactivity on willingness to purchase becomes stronger when this relation is mediated by perceived control. Image interactivity has no effect on mood, which, in turn, does not seem to predict willingness to purchase. The results indicate no significant differences when accessing interactive images through a touch screen compared to a mouse. Managerial implications for luxury brands are discussed.

ABSTRACT. Influencers on social media platforms artistically create and control their content, connecting brands and audiences. They build relationships through content creation. However, limited studies examined the luxury travel influencers’ content creation (e.g., visual, text, and captions) to pivot during times of crisis, including the Covid-19 pandemic. Hence, this study initiates the discussion by exploring the themes among the content created by luxury travel influencers. This study also focuses on content-posting behavior pre- and during the crisis.

ABSTRACT. This study aims to understand in a cross-cultural setting how feminist-self-identification and support for women’s rights, which are at the core of femvertising purpose, relate to brand-related effects of femvertising and how consumers from different countries with different gender gaps respond to femvertising. A survey was conducted to provide evidence from two countries: Mexico, a country with lower gender equality index representing Latin America, and Spain, which has a higher-gender-equality index, representing Southern-Europe. Results show that the effects of femvertising might be extrapolated to different nations. Results also demonstrate, contrary to expectations that feminist consumers from countries with lower gender equality negatively moderate the attitude toward femvertising.

ABSTRACT. This study aims to identify possible explanatory mechanisms in the information and communication technologies (ICT)-export relationship to help researchers understand how and when country-level investments yield returns by indicating ideas. Specifically, the objectives of this research are to (i) investigate the main effect of country-level digital resources on exporting, (ii) examine the mediating effect of digital adoption in the above relationship, and (iii) explore whether a country’s human resources influence the relationships stated above.

ABSTRACT. In international marketing, one of the most important and highly investigated areas of research is a brand’s origin. The brand origin story is comprised of descriptions about the setting where the products were made (i.e., place-of-origin), and the characters who made the products (i.e., person-of-origin). However, prior brand origin research has predominantly focused on setting-based descriptions related to place-of-origin, overlooking critical character-based associations regarding the person-of-origin. We rectify this oversight by investigating both types of brand origin stories. Across three experimental studies, we find that the match between brand origin stories emphasizing the person-of-origin (vs. place-of-origin) and consumers’ trait collectivism (vs. individualism) differentially influence consumer attitudes and brand-related outcomes. Thus, the main contribution of this research is that it extends the conceptualization of brand origin beyond well-established place-of-origin effects (e.g., country-of-origin, etc.), and offers an additional type of brand origin story emphasizing person-of-origin effects concerned with who made the product.

ABSTRACT. Although artificial intelligence (AI) outperforms humans in many tasks, research suggests some consumers are still averse to having AI perform tasks on their behalf. We examine consumer autonomy as a determinant of AI utilization in the purchasing context. Across three experiments, we found that the delegation of purchasing tasks to AI, which includes choice and decision dimensions perceived autonomy, reduces the likelihood of AI adoption. We also found that identity salience moderates the relationship between autonomy and AI adoption, such that identity interacts with decision autonomy but not with choice autonomy. Specifically, despite lacking decision autonomy, consumers who identify strongly with an activity are more likely to use the AI-enabled app to purchase the product needed to perform the activity. Finally, satisfaction with the level of choice and decision autonomy mediates the relationship between autonomy and adoption of AI. With these insights into when and why consumers are likely to use AI-enabled technology, marketers might effectively increase its adoption.

ABSTRACT. Artificial intelligence (AI), a wide category of digital technologies, entails intelligence shown by computing technologies and of late has come of age. Accordingly, its use is not limited to a few applications and is seen making waves in many areas including organization coaching. However, the use of AI for coaching employees is not devoid of challenges. Extant research has studied the challenges faced by an outbound call center in terms of reduced sales performance due to the linear implementation of AI coaching across all levels of its sales force. However, the issue has not been addressed from the viewpoint of an inbound call center which differs in terms of control and mission from its outbound counterpart and as such, warrants a separate study. With Information Processing Theory as the predominant theory, this paper sets out to address this issue (of uniformity in the use of AI coaching) across all levels of an inbound customer service call center.

ABSTRACT. As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly prevalent, humans and organizations must make decisions regarding its adoption and use. However, the adoption of AI can be a complex process that challenges existing beliefs and practices. Cognitive dissonance, the discomfort that arises when individuals are faced with conflicting beliefs or behaviors, can exist within both the individual and organizational AI adoption journey. This article explores the concept of cognitive dissonance in relation to the adoption and use of AI, particularly when users may not even be aware that they are interacting with AI. By understanding the role of cognitive dissonance in the adoption process, individuals and organizations can make informed decisions that promote its successful integration and potentially lead to greater acceptance of its capabilities. 

ABSTRACT. Marketing as a social business technology focuses on thinking and feeling in the mind of the consumer, but also simultaneously or subsequently appealing to the mind and heart of the consumer. To be able to do this, systematic information management, but also action management, is a necessary (business technology) requirement to achieve this goal. In recent decades, emerging approaches such as neuromarketing and artificial intelligence has generated much interest and is being increasingly used by marketers as a sophisticated customer intelligence competence to uncover hidden information about consumer preferences and responses regarding their mind and heart. According to Kotler et al. (2021), the combination of this kind of advanced business technology applications can be described as Marketing 5.0 that enables marketers and marketing teams to increase their capabilities. Apart from the two organizational disciplines, namely data-driven and agile marketing, Marketing 5.0 consists of three intelligence pillars related to predictive, contextual and augmented marketing. The planned special session will further explore and critically reflect on these three pillars of intelligence from an academic as well as a business perspective to further bridge the gap between science and practice in light of these emerging insights technologies for marketing purposes.

ABSTRACT. Marketing education needs to advance practices in addressing the needs and wants of an increasingly diverse society. Practical marketing modules, such as Marketing Research offer limited opportunities for inclusive practices compared to other, more theoretical modules, such as Consumer Behaviour. To inform inclusive practices in developing diverse and inclusive modules, this study develops an inclusive curriculum framework for the marketing research curriculum. First, we conduct bibliographic research to identify good inclusive curriculum practices. Upon application of those in an MSc Marketing Research module, we conduct focus groups with students (n=60) to explore students' views on the inclusive curriculum, and lastly, we compare two years HE data on students’ awards and module evaluations to identify the impact of the ICF in Marketing modules. Findings of this study are summarised using the SOR (Stimuli-Organism-Reaction) framework. Suggestions of good practice on curriculum design as emerged from this study included in an online checklist for user friendliness purposes and delivered to academics to support and inspire educational practices. This study contributes to the diversity and inclusion stream of literature in marketing education and pedagogy and offers a new perspective on how marketing research modules can be more diverse and inclusive.

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this work is to discuss how current marketing majors and alumni now employed in the marketing field perceive the role of Applied Class Projects (ACP) in their business education. ACPs are defined as "class projects, usually in a team format, where students apply course content to real world companies." Also explored are how current students perceived ACPs to be coordinated between various marketing courses as well as student thoughts for improving project experiences. Specifically, a survey was sent to current students and alumni to better understand if they believed the ACPs were beneficial in the development of team building skills and application of key course concepts. Qualitative interviews were later conducted with marketing alumni from the classes of 2015-2020. With the aid of mixed-use research results, we developed several recommendations based on the findings.

ABSTRACT. Due to the increasing desire of young people to acquire tertiary education, competition among higher education institutions and especially among business schools has intensified. Consequently, the need to establish and build a strong brand strategy has been put in the spotlight to attract prospective students and ensure the satisfaction of enrolled students with the university’s services. This systematic literature review maps relevant theories to explore the role of emotions within the student-business school relationship and describes explicit & implicit measures of emotions, which sought to enable business schools to position their brand more effectively from an emotional point of view.

ABSTRACT. Voice assistants (e.g., Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant) allow consumers to communicate with smart speakers (e.g., Amazon Echo, Google Home) with their voice to get access to personalized information, control other smart objects, and make purchases. Amazon and Google even allow other firms to develop their own software (e.g., Alexa Skills, Google Actions) for voice assistants, to provide consumers with new capabilities. While many firms in the last several years have developed and announced such software, no research has looked at how firms have designed their software, or whether they have been rewarded financially for pursuing the voice channel. We apply the event study methodology to learn whether, and under what conditions, investors reward firms for announcing voice assistant software. While we find an overall positive effect on firm value, software capability type is found to have important moderating effects. Informational capabilities have a positive moderating effect, object-control capabilities have no moderating effect, and transactional capabilities have a negative moderating effect. We discuss the implications of these results for firms, and make recommendations in terms of changes that are needed within this domain of software and directions for future research.

ABSTRACT. Supplier diversity (SD), the purchase of goods or services by firms from minority-owned and/or -operated businesses (Adobor and McMullen 2007) or traditionally under-represented or under-served groups such as LGBQTs and veterans, etc. (Bateman, Barrington, and Date 2020), is a prominent supply chain management strategy practiced among US firms. Ever since GM introduced the strategy in 1968, the popularity of supplier diversity programs has steadily increased, resulting in its widespread adoption by a plethora of firms in the US and in the rest of the world. Recent articles and case studies in the popular press and practitioner journals have suggested several benefits of SD implementation, ranging from competitive advantage, relationship advantages and cost benefits, prompting a stream of academic studies on firms’ adoption of SD strategies.

ABSTRACT. This study analyzes how competition influences the launch of new products after an innovation shock (resulting in a change in the environment). Using the awareness-motivation-capability (AMC) framework, we argue that organizations will rush to commercialize new products in a post-shock market position when they are compared in competitive terms by other companies with any of their innovative products. Moreover, this effect will also occur when the company develops an intentional cannibalization strategy. To analyze this issue, we will estimate logit models with random coefficients and mixed-effects Cox regressions. Using these methodologies, we will try to control for the presence of unobserved heterogeneity derived from the existence of unmeasured covariates. We will focus on products commercialized in the EV market between 2003 and 2017, considering the second-generation Toyota Prius as an innovation shock. Our results support the relationships assumed in the hypotheses and have important implications for firms. Specifically, we test that—after an innovation shock—subjective evaluations of rivals and the strategy used by firms are drivers of the strategic decision to anticipate launching new items in the market.

ABSTRACT. The purpose of the current study is to identify the key characteristics of organizations that excel in accomplishing strategic changes. As market environments are becoming increasingly dynamic and uncertain, organizations need to be constantly ready for change. However, existing literature lacks consensus on what differentiates firms that fail to change from those that change successfully. We address this research gap by introducing the concept of “Strategic Change Capability” (SCC). Based on data from 26 interviews with consultants and top-level managers as well as a Delphi study with 8 academic experts, SCC is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional capability that is manifested in a firm’s ability to design, prepare for, execute/control, and sustain strategic changes for managing its competitive standing. This new concept enriches the dynamic capabilities theory by suggesting that aspects of the change process play a fundamental role in understanding why some organizations are better than others in producing effective strategic change. Given the high failure rates of change initiatives, our findings have also significant managerial implications. We provide practitioners with a contemporary framework for developing or improving their organizations’ capacity to accomplish strategic changes, and as such, remain competitive in an era that change is the “new normal”.

ABSTRACT. Microtransactions represent an increasingly popular business practice within many video games, enabling players to purchase digital items and in turn gain various advantages over their peers. A particularly interesting segment of digital content captures those purely cosmetic and aesthetically oriented goods that do not provide users with concrete mechanical or technical benefits, yet are nonetheless valued and pursued by members of the gaming community. Building on in-depth interviews with a group of 20 active video game players from France, the present study explores variations in user preferences, motivations, expectations and perceived benefits associated with microtransaction and the consumption of cosmetic digital goods in video games. Key motivations identified include personal and achievement goals, social and belonging needs, prestige seeking and status signaling motives, and the pursuit of novelty. Based on these emergent themes and categories, we construct six gamer personas together with certain core attributes that capture needs, perceptions and expectations concerning the valuation of digital transactions. Ultimately, our results can offer guidance to marketing professionals and consumer researchers to mitigate their approach towards this massive, complex and dynamically growing consumer group of video gamers and identify effective strategies to cultivate user engagement. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

ABSTRACT. This study seeks to investigate the drivers of customer engagement (CE) by employing mobile service quality and consequently, influence on brand attachment and brand advocacy in the m-banking application context. The study further investigates the moderating role of age in the relationship between mobile service quality, CE, brand attachment, and brand advocacy. The results reveal that value-added feature and privacy influence CE in the m-banking application domain. The analysis confirms that customer engagement influences brand attachment and brand advocacy. Finally, age moderates all the relationships except the relationship between interactivity and CE and the association between CE and brand advocacy.

ABSTRACT. Normative social influence has benefitted firms through the increase of positive product evaluations by observing others’ positive evaluations. However, it has not consistently increased desired purchasing decisions when applied to cross-cultural differences. Confounding results in the literature leave the findings on individualistic versus collectivist culture and their effect on normative social behaviors unclear, especially in the online context. This abstract aims to address gaps through the guiding research question: how does online normative social influence differ between individualistic and collectivistic countries? Sustainable consumption has been selected as a dependent variable to address grand challenges in which the management literature can contribute to societal impact.

ABSTRACT. Using a stimulus–organism–response framework (S–O–R framework) as the theoretical basis, this study examines the impact of consumer perceptions of website atmospheric cues (platform informativeness, e-service quality) on the development of flow and its subsequent impact on satisfaction, trust, and brand equity. To comprehend the Flow experience with shopping in one of the largest and fast-growing e-retailer (Taobao), this study explores the position of flow experience, a feeling that arises as a consequence of significant cognitive attachment. Consumer experiences, an important key to recurring spending, thus, this study focused on analyzing the antecedents of Flow and e-loyalty behavior in terms of brand equity and trust for the particular e-retailer (Taobao) and the effects of Flow on customer satisfaction. The analysis was based on 238 participants collected via an online survey evaluating shopping experiences in Taobao. Results from the structural equation modeling in support of the model and most of the set hypotheses demonstrate that website service innovativeness is the stronger antecedent’s impact on consumer Flow experience. Findings confirm that overall e-service quality and website service innovativeness for the online shopping platform directly and positively affects consumer trust toward e-retailer.

ABSTRACT. Nowadays, luxury brands embrace the internet as a vehicle for sustaining their myth and signaling their values. Web aesthetics play a crucial role to the communication of luxury values, especially in the fashion industry, that aesthetics and creativity are highly appreciated and necessary. “White” space (both in its classical/minimal and expressive/creative version) constitutes a significant design tool, associated with luxury values, that adds to the stimulus’ comprehensibility and novelty. However, no prior study examined its impact on attention, Abr and PI, via perceived classical and expressive aesthetics, perceived informativeness and perceived luxuriousness. Building on Silvia’s (2005) study on appraisal theory and Kusumasondjajas’s (2019) research on classical and expressive aesthetics, the present research applies an eye-tracking experiment on 119 participants and proves that when extended “white” space (classical or expressive) is incorporated in luxury fashion brands’ websites, positively affects attention towards “white” space. Additionally, the study proves the serial mediation effect of attention towards “white” space on Abr and PI, via ehanced perceived classical and expressive aesthetics and decreased perceived informativeness, which in turn positively affect perceived luxuriousness. The current study provides fruitful evidence to both academics and practitioners.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, we argue that the terms “conspicuous” and “inconspicuous” documented in extant literature fall short of explaining the whole picture of luxury consumption. Although the co-existence of conspicuousness and inconspicuousness has long existed in luxury consumption, it is rarely investigated and comprehended. To fill this gap, we first reviewed the literature on conspicuous and inconspicuous consumption. Then, we introduce the concept of inconspicuously conspicuous consumption by adopting Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective. Last, based on the initial findings from a netnographic study, we contrast inconspicuously conspicuous consumption with conspicuous and inconspicuous consumption and reveal its nature through a dramaturgical lens. Theoretical and practical implications are offered.

ABSTRACT. Consumer attention plays a significant role in marketing. Over several decades scholars have provided multiple pieces of evidence confirming that consumer attention determines purchase intention, behaviour and brand loyalty. The advancement of technology has enabled many brands to further undertake practices attracting individuals’ attention. Considering the proliferation of brands in the market, capturing and keeping individuals’ attention would lead to a competitive advantage. Despite, the importance of understanding how to attract consumers’ attention, there is a lack of research in the context of luxury brands. Thus, this paper conducted a systematic literature review and content analysis using the WordStat software to structure the data extracted from the initial texts analysis of the papers, and Wolfram Mathematica software to mean the data. The results of the analysis revealed three main hot elements to catch consumers’ attention in the luxury sector: (i) brand extension, (ii) price, and (iii) product characteristics. Future research suggestions are provided in the paper.

ABSTRACT. This study aims to explore the different effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the food acculturation process of American, British and German professional expatriates and their families. Three qualitative studies were conducted. A first qualitative study was carried out during the pre-Covid-19 period. 25 interviews were collected from 16 households of American, British and German professional expatriates and their families (spouses and children included) temporarily settled in Alsace (France). The life stories method was selected (Bah, Ndione and Tiercelin, 2015) focused on the narratives of different expatriation experiences of individuals and their food habits. The first study has been extended with a second study during the pandemic by contacting again some respondents for a second interview. More specifically, we asked them to tell us how the pandemic and its consequences have impacted their daily food habits compared to the period before Covid-19. Finally, a third study was conducted with a netnography. The results obtained allow us to identify three main changes induced by the health crisis on the food acculturation process of expatriates and their families.

ABSTRACT. While mass vaccinations against the COVID-19 virus are widely considered the fastest way out of the pandemic, considerable vaccination hesitancy in the U.S., Canada, and Europe has fueled societal controversy between the vaccinated majority and unvaccinated minority. We use the Health-Belief-Model (HBM) to explore differences between these two uneven groups comparatively in Germany and Poland. Multigroup structural equation modeling based on a datasets of around 1,800 online survey participants identifies concerns about long-term side effects as the strongest barrier against vaccination or booster intention in Germany whereas it is the concern about insufficient protection despite being fully vaccinated in Poland. Benefits significantly drive booster (vaccinated sample) and vaccination intention (unvaccinated sample), yet severity of a Covid-19 infection strongly affects those benefits, but only directly affects booster - not vaccination intention in both countries. Neither self-efficacy nor cues-to-action promote vaccination or booster intention in both countries. Increasing age reduces and knowledge increases the negative effect of barriers on booster intention among the vaccinated Germans, but not in the other groups. Implications suggest increasing transparency to enable knowledge-based consumer health decisions, to regain trust in official reporting, and to appease the societal controversy and therewith contributing to consumer well-being.

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this review-based paper is to compare and contrast the U.S.’s antitrust law and the EU’s competition policy within today’s changing markets, digital models, public policy, and technology platforms. Consumers, monopolistic firms, MNCs, and fair competition are at the heart of this debate in the U.S., the EU, and international markets. In layman’s language, antitrust/competition policy encompasses “microeconomics/price theory, industrial organization, law and economics, and public choice” (Shughart II, 2022, p. 1). Within the ‘2023 AMS Annual Conference’s special theme (‘Welcome to the new normal: Life after the chaos’), this structured abstract compares and contrasts the U.S.’s antitrust law and the EU’s competition policy which continues to attract academic scholars and practitioners alike because of their wide-ranging impact and ramifications on both sides of the Atlantic and global markets. To compare and contrast the U.S.’s antitrust law and EU’s competition policy issues, we systematically followed the literature and its interdisciplinary contents because of diverse legal philosophies and multifaceted regulatory standards. After reviewing the literature, the U.S. and the EU’s antitrust laws remain to be inherently unique and distinctly different when dealing with markets, public policy, consumers, and industries.

ABSTRACT. Crisis will become more normative, and there will disruptions of what is considered “normal”. Time has become invaluable tool in responding to the unexpected and this along with the development of smartness has created the opportunity for destination ecosystems to reduce of the gap between the physical and the digital world. Marketing is fundamental to destination. However, connectivity and coordination problems following the onset of a natural hazard can be problematic and stymie the extent of recovery efforts. Smart tourism therefore coordinates the effort of the entire tourism ecosystem and marketing is critical for the clarity of communications which leads to effective recovery and resilience at the destination.

It is within the context of crisis and disasters that the synergies between regional destination ecosystems can be scaled up. There must be a dynamic smart response system in place for destinations in the event that they are unable to have the non-mediated, direct connection with their market. This paper argues that the development of an independent tourism marketing body that represents the collective interest, could become a broker or an intermediary between the impacted destination and its market providing real-time coordination of information of the destination's reality on the ground.

ABSTRACT. COVID-19 has caused many challenges including bankruptcy and furloughing, but it also provided opportunities for creativity and growth. The hospitality and tourism industry has had to rely on innovation to maintain its customers and revenue. However, research is lacking on innovative event strategies so, this study aims to explore the innovation concept and examine the effect of customer perception of event business innovations on their purchase intentions. The study was designed in a mixed-method approach. The qualitative results of this study show six dimensions of innovation. Drawing from a sample of 509 participants, results show 30 variables that are categorized under these six dimensions. The mediation effect of perceived event innovation was significant. The structural model demonstrates satisfactory model fit, reliability, and validity. The findings of this study provide theoretical and practical to implications for academia and the events industry.

ABSTRACT. Esports has quickly evolved into a billion-dollar industry. Especially, during the recent pandemic, esport viewership enjoyed tremendous growth due to the shutdown of traditional sports, and the ease of accessing esports on online channels during work-from-home orders. Post-pandemic, esport organizations are continuously seeking change and trying to understand consumers' rapidly changing tastes on the way to ‘normalcy.’ Hence, a new understanding of these ‘shifted’ consumers is in need for esport organizations to adjust to the ‘new beginning.’ Accordingly, this study aims to explore esport fan behavior based on different types of sponsorships. This study examines the role of the consumers’ ideal self-congruity with esports to the different types of sponsors. Following an in-depth literature review, an experiment will be conducted, and participants will be asked to provide their thoughts, attitudes (attitude toward esports), and behavioral intentions (merchandise purchase intent, attendance intent, streaming intent) based on the different types (brand image, match-up) of sponsors. Demographic questions will also be asked for further exploration on providing in-depth findings on esport consumers. Theoretical and practical implications will be provided, along with future research implications.

ABSTRACT. This Special Session will seek to set the agenda for sustainable place marketing theory and practice. Place marketing and place branding are rapidly growing fields of academic inquiry and practical application. However, their connection to the requirements of a sustainable future development of our places remains unclear and underexplored, and that is a major theoretical oversight of marketing academia. The session aims at making AMS 2023 a reference point for the future of marketing application for places in terms of theoretical development, as well as methodological refinement regarding social, economic and ecological sustainability. The 90-minute-long session will be a Panel Discussion with pre-submitted initial statements by the panel members (40 minutes), further elaboration during the session (15 minutes), an open discussion with the audience (20 minutes) and the proposition of the Responsible, Inclusive, Smart and Equitable (RISE) place branding research agenda (15 minutes). The session will be interesting for scholars in various fields of marketing scholarship - in addition to those working directly on place marketing and branding - particularly including marketing scholars in the areas of tourism, hospitality, retailing and services, public sector, and sustainability.

ABSTRACT. Analytics courses in management education are gaining popularity, and observations indicate a high level of anxiety amongst its learners. Most learning-anxiety related studies focus on young learners, and limited studies conducted for higher education deal with specific subjects like ‘mathematics’, ‘statistics’ etc. However, a consolidated view of anxiety-related factors is missing. Also, anxiety among analytics students has not been studied. The current study explores and examines the reasons for anxiety among learners and then contextualizes it to learning business analytics (BA). Observation research method (one trimester each for three years), semi-structured interviews (10) and a focused group discussion (7 students) were used to gather data. Results show the presence of a high level of anxiety among BA learners, which we term as ‘BA anxiety’ and offer a comprehensive definition of the same. The findings of this study can be used by educators, policymakers, and ed-tech service providers to design their programs and policies so that the anxiety-triggering factors can be acknowledged and addressed.

ABSTRACT. Drawing on the SCARF neuroscience framework, this research focuses on improving understanding whether differences in perceived status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness explain the perils of the worst learning experiences and possibilities of the best learning experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze data from marketing students at two universities. We find that each of the SCARF framework elements is significantly associated with differences in learning experience satisfaction between great classes and horrible classes that the marketing students attended during the pandemic. At the same time, students reported that some SCARF elements are more important to them, in general, when taking classes during the pandemic crisis, with status (feedback) and certainty (ambiguity) often being more important. We outline several practices that marketing educators can do in order to improve the student perceptions and experiences.

ABSTRACT. This is study adopts a task technology fit (TTF) perspective to explore the indirect impact of self-regulated learning (SRL) on learning performance in a flipped and blended classroom. Self-regulated learning refers to the self-directing processes and beliefs that enable students to transform their mental abilities into academic performance (Zimmerman, 2001, 2008). Previous research has examined separately and with mixed results the direct effects of self-regulation, blended teaching and flipped approaches on performance. This study contributes by exploring the indirect effects of online self-regulation on student learning in the context of flipped and blended learning. More specifically, the serial mediating effects of task technology fit as well as students’ perceptions of flipped learning are explored. A sample of 115 student respondents from 3 postgraduate modules in a business school in the UK was collected. The data are analysed using Hayes process model 6 in SPSS. This study shows that self-regulatory strategies and behaviours can result in higher perceived learning, but this can only be achieved indirectly, via a serial indirect effect through TTF and perception of the flipped model, and one simple direct effect through TTF.

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study is to examine the learning styles of students and their relationship with different teaching methods. Every individual possesses a distinct method of acquiring knowledge, referred to as his or her learning style (Yasim, Akbar & Yan (2017). The learning styles of students can significantly influence their preferred teaching method. This paper is an empirical study of students' overall learning styles and preferences for different teaching methods (n=224) from small liberal arts and R1 University in the Midwest. The research questions included an examination of the learning styles of students in determining how student preferences affect teaching methods. The result of this study revealed that students want real-world and hands-on experiences that will help them better grasp the concepts taught in the classroom and enable them to apply what they have learned outside of the classroom.

ABSTRACT. Using data from listed firms in the luxury fashion industry with high Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ratings, the aim of this study is to analyse the impact of environmental sustainability communications on online customer engagement–on social media–and sales performance.

ABSTRACT. The importance of corporate philanthropy (CP) has grown substantially over the last 50 years in virtually all organisations (Gautier and Pache, 2015). However, there remains an inherent contradiction regarding whether CP can help improve a commercial brand and at the same time make a genuine contribution to social benefits. In response, this systematic review synthesises the growing literature and displays how the mature field of philanthropy can be applied to the prolific marketing context. This review guided by an agreed-on protocol and research questions and the findings are based on 102 selected works within the latest 20 years.

This research contributes to the literature by critiquing the traditional view of corporate philanthropy as an altruistic activity. Effectively demonstrating the reciprocal mechanism of CP provides a deeper insight into how to link CP to its competitive context. Another contribution is from the critical review of CP classification and its related effects, which advances our understanding of the diversity of customers’ and employees’ role in philanthropic involvement. These new understandings should pave the avenue for researchers and practitioners to reconsider CP as a new set of remarkable marketing tools and cope with the change in enhancing synchronised social and economic impact.

ABSTRACT. What resources enable multinational entreprises to adapt their global social responsibility activities effectively? We argue that managerial cultural intelligence positively impacts the propensity and ability of firms to adapt these strategies. While much is known about how managerial cultural intelligence impacts organizational effectiveness in market-related activities, there is a gap in the literature regarding the impact of cultural intelligence on corporate social responsibility activities. We fill this gap by theorizing a more comprehensive approach to studying global social responsibility strategy and including the factors related to top management’s influence on these activities. Accordingly, the key contribution of this paper is to develop a conceptual model of the impact of top management’s cultural intelligence on the adaptation and effectiveness of a multinational entreprise’s global corporate social responsibility activities.

ABSTRACT. This exploratory study examines how consumers respond to CSR conscious brands’ disinformation. With the use of a case study of a Korean beauty brand, whose advertising campaign was criticised for false claims of eco-friendly packaging, we analyze online posts of three YouTube clips from August of 2020 until August of 2022. Following a content-thematic analysis of three threads of over 150 posts, two main themes emerged that of exploitative disinformation, and inadvertent misinformation. Our findings reveal that consumers express their criticisms against the brand into two directions: 1) accusing the brand of the intentional spreading of disinformation, and 2) accusing the brand of the unintentional spreading of misinformation. The level of the negativity of the criticism towards the SCR brand depends on the brands’ role in such incidents as perceived by the consumers (e.g. the brand as a creator/producer/enhancer versus the brand as a victim/purveyor), and if they perceive the action by the brand as intentional (e.g. a brand’s malicious-deceptive intention versus a brand’s good-honest intention). The theoretical and practical implications of our findings with regards to the role of disinformation in brands’ promotional activities conclude the study.

ABSTRACT. Research on Expectancy-Disconfirmation Theory (EDT) has explored and confirmed the relationships between every element involved in a variety of industries, including e-commerce. In addition to much of the research efforts focusing on moderators on consumerism through the technological aspects of the website, there is a dearth of research on factors that potentially cause discrepant asymmetric results between negative disconfirmation and customer satisfaction. Consumer-related moderators, such as consumer entitlement and brand loyalty, contain a vast amount of research support and evidence, however there is yet to be an analysis of research on factors of product externality that catalyze the asymmetry as well. Our paper argues against the assumptions of expectancy-disconfirmation theory, by proposing signal theory and scarcity effects as potential moderators that create an asymmetric relationship between negative disconfirmation and customer satisfaction, specifically in an e-commerce context.

ABSTRACT. Marketers have enhanced sensorial aspects of shopping online, such as providing vibrations through mobile devices. Though, it remains unclear how adding such vibrotactile feedback affects consumer decision-making. Thus, this research answers the following questions. Does adding vibrotactile feedback result in more purchase satisfaction? And if so, why? Through an online survey and two online experiments, this research finds that adding vibrotactile feedback can increase consumers’ anticipated satisfaction. While the survey revealed that the feedback increases attention, mood, and perceived ownership, the experiments specifically provide evidence that anticipated satisfaction is increased because of perceived ownership. This research contributes to the literature on technology-mediated touch in digital shopping environments and has practical applications for digital retailing.

ABSTRACT. This study has two aims. The first aim is to provide additional insights on the annoyance factor of pop-ups on owned sites. An owned site is a branded site that is owned by the advertiser. For example, a nonprofit’s corporate website is an owned site where website visitors may experience a pop-up message to “donate now” to the nonprofit or “learn more” about it. We investigate the annoyance factor of pop-ups on a website at four intervals: upon immediate entrance of a webpage, at mid-page, at the end of the page, and on exit. The second aim is to identify if consumers are more, or less, willing to engage in cross-channel engagement behaviors with a brand when the brand utilizes pop-ups on its owned site, and whether the timing interval of the pop-up makes a difference. We investigate cross-channel engagement behaviors such as intentions to: engage in WOM, participate in the brand’s social channels, and accept emails from the brand.

ABSTRACT. Effectiveness of new product development and innovation depends on a wide range of environmental and personal factors. Building design and aesthetics play an increasingly important role in every step of market transactions, from product creation to distribution to in store purchases. The impact of architecture on employee performance has been well documented in other disciplines, but to date little research or theorizing has specifically explored potential relationships between architectural design and new product design outcomes. This article attempts to provide a roadmap that will be beneficial to future efforts to study the impact of architectural design on employee behavior and productivity by merging the research streams of architecture and marketing science. The resulting conceptual model is justified using past domain specific research and architectural use studies, describing additional sources of data that currently exist in these other disciplines that would prove invaluable to continuing research along these lines.

ABSTRACT. The aim of this study is to provide a better understanding of the factors that explain resistance to hybrid product from designer perspective. To this end, an exploratory qualitative study was carried out with 16 French product designers. The findings show that product affordance is one of the factors with an impact on designers’ willingness to conceive hybrid innovation.

ABSTRACT. As the automotive industry and automobiles are subject to incremental changes due to new market players, new innovative drive technologies and increasing implementation of vehicle electrics and electronics, customer’s evaluation of passenger vehicles also changes. Specifically, additional technical systems and features such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) gain in importance. Although ADAS market penetration is still low, a growing number of elaborated ADAS is available, particularly considering the additional usage of real-time traffic information and augmented reality features. Against this backdrop, the current work focusses on the comprehensive evaluation of ADAS in general and on analysing the acceptance of so-called head-up displays (HUD) as emerging and efficient systems “that present data without requiring the user to look away from the usual field of view”.

ABSTRACT. Firms are constantly faced with the dilemma of developing products that are both cutting edge, but also easily understood by customers. Customers may reject products that diverge too much from prior generations of products, but products that are too similar to prior products may not stand out. Thus, we analyze 423 firms to better understand how both product newness to the firm and product newness to the customer impact NPD performance in varying environments. In stable technological environments, we find that product newness to the firm increases NPD performance while newness to the customer negatively impacts NPD performance. In turbulent technological environments, newness to the customer has a positive impact on to NPD performance. Thus, while firms may generally benefit from technological innovations, they must be careful not to alienate customers in stable environments. However, customers are more likely to seek out new products and technology, even those that are difficult to understand, in a technologically turbulent environment. These findings highlight that firms are generally effective at innovating on their own, but customers need some turbulence in order to adopt new innovations. Therefore, firms should continue to innovate and be ready when a turbulent environment provides innovative opportunities.

ABSTRACT. This timely research introduces mobile ethnographic research as a superior research method tool and makes conceptual and methodological contributions. First, mobile ethnography (ME) is a timely and cost-effective research method tool that allows the researcher to probe the participants for greater insights and get immediate results. Second, through an ME study, this paper demonstrates the steps and procedures that are followed in using ME in testing a new app. Third, specific in-the-moment insights and results demonstrate how researchers can use ME to circumvent lapses in memory by capturing observations in real time. This timely and new research method could provide managers with the benefits of using ME as a methodological tool that can generate rich data and insights hitherto unknown. The paper offers a discussion on the merits of ME followed by the pivotal role of this research method for feedback on app testing, usage, and development.

ABSTRACT. Despite both regression analysis and structural equation modeling are prominent methods in many research areas, there is little research on methods to operationalize dependent variables. The well-established methods provide several outstanding solutions for analyzing (complex) cause-effect relationships between dependent and independent variables. Unfortunately, there is no method to study effects of an independent variable on several components of a (decomposed) dependent variable (e.g., different products of a brand, different distribution channels, or regular and promotional product prices). Thus, previous approaches for regression analysis and structural equation modeling are limited. With this research, I reduce these limitations by introducing a new method to decompose dependent variables into multiple components. To apply this new method, I propose a three-step procedure: (1) decomposition of the dependent variable using a categorical variable; (2) sequential integration of the decomposed variables and calculation of the empirical results; (3) output report and comparative interpretation of the results. In addition to the introduction of this new method, I test it by conducting two empirical studies. Furthermore, I discuss some limitations and provide several directions for further research for research and practice in marketing and beyond.

ABSTRACT. The authors propose a new metric called methods variance extracted (MVE). MVE is a universal measurement of methods variance identified through the process of item level correction. The majority of this paper discuss the process of item level correction, which is a data transformation approach to identify and remove detectable common methods variance from cross-sectional survey data. This practical guide provides a step-by-step approach to evaluate, prepare, and transform a dataset by removing and replacing common methods variance with random variance. When the process is completed, the results allow for the calculation of MVE. This process should occur almost immediately after data cleaning and before any statistical analysis. In doing so, researchers can avoid many of the numerous real and perceived pitfalls of common methods variance in their analysis, results, and conclusions. ILC, and by extension MVE, are solution-oriented approaches which begin to move past the discussion of when or how much common methods variance is acceptable. Some of the benefits of performing item level correction include the use of multiple-method factors in way that does not negatively impact sample size calculations, and more accurate reporting of construct reliability, validity, correlation, regression, and SEM results based on CMV-reduced measures.

ABSTRACT. Comparing different models to explain behavioral phenomena is standard procedure in consumer research. However, instead of choosing just one narrow winner and discarding the rest, researchers can more accurately represent their state of knowledge through multimodel inference. This paper describes an approach using multimodel inference with bootstrapping and Akaike weights—weights reflecting the relative probability of each candidate model—for addressing model selection uncertainty, capturing variation in parameter estimates across models. This paper includes a brief overview of the uncertainty-centric approach to measurement, describes using Akaike weights to quantify model selection uncertainty, and includes a complete R script for an example using factor analysis.

ABSTRACT. With the abundance of data available in today’s digital economy, most marketing decisions are now influenced by marketing analytics. The financial impact of marketing analytics, however, remains somewhat murky. A handful of empirical papers on this topic report that the deployment of marketing analytics typically enhances firm performance. Yet, no work has examined the impact of innovating novel marketing analytics. This study investigates whether and when, these home-grown analytics innovations provide a financial return to justify their substantial investment. The patent data collected from S&P500 firms evinces the recent years’ exponential growth of marketing analytics innovations (MAI)– defined as data-enabled inventions that are specially adapted for creating or updating one or more marketing analytics processes. Our panel data analysis results show that a firm’s engagement in MAI is positively associated with an increase in firm value. In addition, firms with higher operations capability benefit more from that engagement compared to firms with lower operations capability. Furthermore, firms that are in high-tech industries would experience smaller positive effects from MAI compared to those experienced by firms in low-tech industries. Our findings encourage companies to consider MAI as an additional source of differentiation to leverage and bring competitive advantage.

ABSTRACT. Supply chains are becoming progressively complex due to increasing amount of interactions, rising customer expectations, and expanded need for tailored products and services. The ability to make informed decisions fast has become a priority. This requires data analytics tools that allow the right people to have the right data at the right time. But does data-driven supply chains improve efficiency and actual financial performance of the companies? As industrial digitization is booming, might the efficiency of data-driven supply chains vary in industries with different digitization levels? A study combining manager-reported survey data, secondary company performance data, and industry digitization index, suggests that big data analytics in supply chain management improves company profits. The effect is even greater when digital engagement with customers and suppliers is high. However, investments in assets such as hardware, software, data and IT services, or digital engagement with employees do not moderate the effect of big data analytics on company profits. The findings shed light on the varying effects of industry digitization on the efficiency of big data driven supply chain management.

ABSTRACT. After two years of nearly "no-tourism" or chaotic touristic situations, people are starting again to travel around the globe, leading to relief to tourism destinations. However, the threat of climate change and the global call for the reduction of CO2-gas emissions forces tourism destinations, primarily when related to winter tourism, to foster a long-term sustainable transition towards a more resilient, low-carbon tourism strategy. Therefore, besides reducing CO2-gas emissions, measures against potential over-tourism effects have to be taken, and a more qualitative than quantitative tourism approach should be fostered. This study validated insights of big data and image recognition technology discloses tourism behavior patterns, which can be used to split and guide tourists to various routes, to reduce huge crowds in tourism hot spots (threat of overtourism), to transform tourism transportation to CO2-friendly options, and to balance the negative externalities for the environment, as well as for the local population, besides encouraging a long-term sustainable economy.

ABSTRACT. Today, many firms employ artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance their market performance through extracting insights from Big Data. While some firms (e.g., Tailor Brands) achieve radical innovation through these AI projects, other firms (e.g., the Bank of Montreal) achieve incremental innovation. Despite AI’s potential for achieving both radical and incremental innovations, many AI projects fail to achieve their goals. What determines a successful AI application in Big Data analytics? We respond to this question by studying potential mediating factors (radical innovation and incremental innovation) of the effect of AI usage on market performance. Additionally, we study whether a firm’s level of ignorance-based view (i.e., the state of scientific inquiry in which individuals admit that ignorance outweighs knowledge) of a firm moderates these mediating effects, and possibly explain challenges in AI projects. In doing so, first, we develop the very first scale of the ignorance-based view specifically for Big Data research. Second, through a survey on 228 Japanese firms, we test whether the ignorance-based view moderates the mediating effects of radical and incremental innovations in relation to the effect of AI usage on market performance. Finally, we discuss managerial and theorical implications of our research.