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Two-sided messages in advertising, which contain both negative and positive information, can have varying effects on persuasion. Thus, it is crucial to understand the conditions under which such messages are more or less effective compared to one-sided messages that only contain positive information. This research investigates the moderating role of the visual angle (close-up vs. long shot) of an image by drawing upon construal level theory.

This research reports two experimental studies employing a 2 (message: two-sided [positive and negative information], one-sided [positive information as a control condition]) × 2 (visual angle: near [close-up], distant [long shot]) between-subjects design.

The results demonstrate that two-sided messages paired with a close-up image decrease positive electronic word of mouth (eWOM) due to increased feelings of ambivalence, while two-sided messages paired with a long-shot image increase positive eWOM due to increased perceived authenticity.

These findings provide insight into the impact of two-sided messages on advertising persuasion and provide guidance for marketers in developing effective communication strategies to leverage positive eWOM.

The proliferation of industry platforms has disrupted several industries. Firms adopting a platform business model have experienced a substantial expansion in size and scale, positioning themselves as the foremost valuable entities in market capitalization. Over the past two decades, there has been a substantial expansion in the body of literature dedicated to platforms, and different streams of research have emerged. Despite considerable efforts and the significant progress made in recent years toward a comprehensive understanding of industry platforms, there is still room for further harnessing the field’s diversity. As a result, the aim of this article is to examine the field’s structure, identify research concerns and provide suggestions for future research, thereby enhancing the overall understanding of industry platforms.

We conducted a thorough examination of 458 articles on the topic using bibliometric methods and systematic review techniques.

Through co-citation analysis, we identified five distinct clusters rooted in various bodies of literature: two-sided markets, industry platforms, digital platforms, innovation platforms and two-sided networks. Furthermore, the examination of these five clusters has revealed three key areas that demand further consideration: (1) terminologies, (2) classifications and (3) perspectives.

While previous reviews have provided valuable insights into the topic of industry platforms, none have explored the structure of the field so far. Consequently, as a first step toward advancing the field, we uncover the structure of the literature, identifying three major areas of concern. By addressing these concerns, our goal is to converge different clusters, thereby harnessing the diversity in the field and enhancing the overall understanding of industry platforms.

This study examines the interplay between media-induced emotional crisis framing (anger vs sadness) and message sidedness of crisis response on publics’ attribution of crisis responsibility as well as subsequent company evaluation and supportive behavioral intention.

A 2 (emotion: anger vs sadness) x 2 (crisis response: one-sided vs two-sided) online experiment was conducted among 161 participants in the USA.

Results showed that anger-inducing media framing of the crisis elicited higher levels of crisis responsibility attribution and more negative company evaluation, compared with sadness-inducing media framing. One-sided message response was more effective than two-sided message response in lowering attribution of crisis responsibility when sadness was induced, but no difference was found under the anger-induced condition. Attribution of crisis responsibility fully mediated the effects of emotional crisis framing on company evaluation and supportive behavioral intention toward the company.

This study is among the first to examine the interaction effect between emotional media framing and response message sidedness in an ambiguous crisis. Drawing on the interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks, this study integrates the situational crisis communication theory, appraisal-tendency framework and message sidedness in persuasion literature. As such, it contributes to theoretical development in crisis communication and offers communication managers guidance on how to effectively address emotionally framed crises.

This study highlights the impact of mental accounts on a user's decision-making regarding payment schemes and aims to determine the pricing strategy for the first-enjoy-after-pay service offered by the two-sided media platforms.

This study establishes a game-theoretic model and utilizes backward induction to derive the equilibrium price by maximizing the monopolist's profit.

The findings indicate that the conditions for a two-sided media platform to offer the first-enjoy-after-pay service depend on the trade-off between pleasure attenuation and pain buffering and the effect of time discounts. Moreover, the authors found that the time discount is a critical factor in determining pricing strategies under various payment schemes offered by the platform.

This work adopts a uniform pricing strategy for users who opt for either immediate or post-payment schemes. Nevertheless, it is important to note that this approach has limitations in terms of offering discriminatory pricing for those who choose both payment schemes.

This analytical work provides valuable insights for two-sided media platforms to optimize their payment scheme strategies and pricing considering the influence of a user's mental account.

In a two-sided media platform, the authors provide applicable conditions for the platform to offer first-enjoy-after-pay service considering the effect of mental accounts. Further, the authors show the optimal pricing strategy under different payment schemes provided by the platform.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a pivotal technology in both marketing and daily life. Despite extensive research on the benefits of AI, its adverse effects on customers have received limited attention.

We employed meta-analysis to synthesise effect sizes from 45 studies encompassing 50 independent samples (N = 19,503) to illuminate the negative facets of AI's impact on customer responses.

Adverse effects of AI, including privacy concern, perceived risks, customer alienation, and uniqueness neglect, have a negative and significant effect on customers' cognitive (perceived benefit, trust), affective (attitude and satisfaction) and behavioural responses (purchase, loyalty, well-being). Additionally, moderators in AI (online versus offline), customer (age, male vs. female), product (hedonic vs. utilitarian, high vs. low involvement), and firm level (service vs. manufacturing) and national level (individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation) moderate these relationships.

Our findings inform marketing managers about the drawbacks of utilising AI as part of their value proposition and provide recommendations on how to minimise these effects in different contexts. Additionally, policymakers need to consider the dark side of AI, especially among the vulnerable groups.

This paper is among the first research studies that synthesise previous research on the dark side of AI, providing a comprehensive view of its diminishing impact on customer responses.

Although e-wallet adoption has grown in recent years, there are some countries like Peru with low penetration rates. Contrary to prior studies that focused on customers' adoption of e-wallets, this study focuses on merchants' adoption to fully understand the use of these services. Additionally, considering that e-wallets are two-sided markets with the co-existence of two distinct economic agents (customer and merchants) interacting through these platforms, this study is the first to assess the dynamics of inter-side benefits from the merchants' perspective. Finally, interoperability was also included to determine its role in countries where the interaction between different e-wallets is limited.

Based on two-sided markets and social cognitive theory, a model was proposed including merchants' perceived benefits associated with the use of e-wallets, for them and for their customers (inter-side). Additionally, technical issues such as interoperability were measured. Data were collected from nanostore owners in Lima in 2022. A structural equation modeling technique was used to determine the impact of both types of benefits and technical features on merchants' adoption of e-wallets. Finally, a polynomial regression with response surface methodology was used to assess the interaction of the benefits for both sides of the platform from the merchants' perspective.

The two-sided-market features of e-wallets were validated. From merchants' view, the use of these platforms is the result of balancing the benefits for them and for their customers, and the interaction between these two types of benefits varies according to the socio-economic level in which the nanostore operates. Additionally, interoperability was found to be important for merchants, so future policies should commit to achieve an ecosystem that facilitates the interoperability not only among e-wallets but also between e-wallets and third-party services. Finally, since service availability is also important for merchants, e-wallet providers should invest in improving their infrastructure's scalability.

Prior studies have mainly focused on the customer side of e-wallets, with little research about the adoption of digital payment methods by the merchant side. In addition, no study has focused on the effect of one of the sides of the platform on the other side (inter-side benefits) when adopting these services. Finally, the effect of interoperability across platforms has not been addressed in detail yet. This study aims to fill these gaps by proposing a framework to understand the adoption of these services by merchants in terms of inter-side benefits and technical issues.

This paper aims to investigate how user expectations affect value-added service (VAS) investment and pricing decisions of two-sided platforms. It draws on the information asymmetry theory and offers suggestions on how platform operators can manage user expectations.

According to the game theory, this study considers three user expectations (responsive, passive and wary). By framing the Hotelling duopoly model and comparing the VAS investment, price and platform profits, the optimal platform decision is analyzed and discussed.

The conclusions demonstrate that the monopolistic two-sided platform obtains more profits from the informed users with responsive expectations than uninformed users with passive or wary expectations. The marginal investment cost and cross-network externalities are two key factors that determine the platform's VAS investment and pricing strategies of passive or wary users. Furthermore, considering the expectation preferences, i.e. the uniformed users hold wary expectations with more information and hold passive expectations with less or no information, the results suggest that the proportion of wary users to all uninformed users increases the platform's VAS investment, profits and the price of informed users, and increase (decrease) the price of uninformed users when the cross-network externalities of informed users are relatively small (larger).

These results can provide insightful enlightenment into how platform operators utilize bilateral users' expectations and information level to guide their VAS investment and pricing decisions.

This paper is one of the first to explore the impact of three user expectations and the heterogeneity of preferences in informing users' passive or wary expectations, based on different levels of information on the decision-making of two-sided platforms regarding VAS.

Focusing on the adoption of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles in universities, this research paper explores how the “soft” dimensions of TQM trigger its “hard” dimensions considering them at the individual (micro-) and the university (meso-), and eventually at cluster (system-), levels.

Adopting a qualitative approach, this study presents an in-depth, longitudinal case study of University of Siena, one of the oldest Italian universities, that has been at the core of the research-based cluster on vaccines, today converged in the Tuscan Life Science Cluster. In particular, data were collected between 2018 and February 2022 and consists of archival data (press articles, websites, books), nine interviews to key informants, multiyear experience of the Life Sciences sector by two of the authors and other material put at disposal by university offices, and emails. Data analysis relied on a timeline, a coding procedure that considered three levels of analysis (individual, organization and cluster). Finally, the authors looked at the “how” and “why” the emerged themes have contributed to academic excellence.

This paper unveils how “soft” and “hard” sides of TQM are blended across multiple levels for reaching academic excellence. The grounded model emerged enlightens the importance of an individual “soft” dimension, academic passion (composed by its three subdimensions of individual research, teaching and entrepreneurial passion) and also sheds light on the organizational “soft” and “hard” sides that the university has been able to design for encouraging research, teaching and third mission quality. Academic excellence has been possible thanks to the capitalization of the individual and organizational “soft” sides into real outcomes as represented by the organizational and individual “hard” sides.

The paper suggests the importance of TQM principles applied at universities' level, providing an in-depth description of “soft” and “hard” sides dimensions of TQM and their impact on all the three pillars of academic excellence. The study findings suggest implications for managers and professionals in the higher education domain as well as for policymakers emphasizing the importance of supporting the individual and organizational soft sides of TQM. The authors provide practical implications recommending universities to consider not only the organizational dimensions but also individual ones when pursuing higher education excellence. In particular, individual passion plays a crucial role and universities need to identify ways of nurturing it. The authors also recommend policymakers to think about new ways to sustain universities as crucial actors in boosting a cluster development, as well as to consider higher education institutions, especially in more rural areas, as a privileged player not only capable of nurturing academic excellence but also able of creating an internationally renowned cluster.

TQM principles have been intensively analysed from an industrial perspective focusing on manufacturing and services, while this paper focuses on TQM in universities, presenting a grounded model that blends the individual and organizational “soft” and “hard” sides.

Omnichannel has become increasingly important with the development of e-commerce. In omnichannel, merchants expect customers to get the products and services at anytime, anywhere and in any way, and the same is true for customers. This drives multihoming in online platforms for both merchants and customers. Thus, once both customers and merchants are multihomed, what price and subsidy decisions should be made between platforms to compete to obtain optimal profits? The main purpose of this paper is to solve these problems and provide decision-making for two-sided platforms in omnichannel.

This study builds a dual Hotelling model to capture the utility and network effects of customers and merchants on two-sided platforms. This study introduces the exposure effect and convenience effect of multihomed customers and merchants in the model and analyzes the impact of these effects in the market with multihoming on one side. Then, this study extends the model to the market with multihoming on both sides and makes the pricing decision for two-sided platform when considering the exposure effect and convenience effect through an equilibrium solution. Finally, this study also uses numerical analysis to simulate the decision and profit of the platform.

This paper finds that the convenience effect will only increase social welfare when customers are single-homed and merchants are multihomed. In addition, when both users are multihomed, the platform will subsidize to attract merchants and customers if the convenience effect and exposure effect are relatively high. This study also finds that network effects come not only from the same platform but also from another platform in the case with multihoming on both sides. And network effects in the heterogeneous platform will be reduced by the convenience effect and exposure effect.

According to the behavioral characteristics of merchants and customers in omnichannel, this paper first adopts the dual Hotelling model to study the pricing of two-sided platforms with multihoming on both sides. This paper shows that network effects originate not only from the same platform but also from another platform and that the exposure effect and the convenience effect can exist as cross-platform network effects, which provides a new explanation for network effects in markets with multihoming on both sides. This research extends the theory of network effects and plays an important role in the development of two-sided platforms in omnichannel.

The authors aim to explore how perspective-taking and attribution of blame lead to side-taking by human resource professionals (HRPs) when making judgements and handling complaints of sexual harassment.

Employing qualitative methodology, the authors used semi-structured in-depth interviews with 35 HRPs from 30 companies in Sri Lanka. Attribution theory and perspective-taking were used as theoretical lenses.

In handling complaints of sexual harassment incidents, HRPs take the perspectives of the alleged perpetrator, complainant, or the company and attribute the blame to the alleged perpetrator or the complainant. Irrespective of the gender of the HRPs and the perspective they take, they would most often blame the female complainants due to sexual harassment myths and misperceptions and traditional sex-role beliefs. Thus, they either take the side of the alleged perpetrator or the company, explicitly/implicitly or intentionally/unintentionally.

The central originality of this research is the finding that HRPs take sides in resolving complaints of sexual harassment and perspective-taking and attribution of blame by HRPs lead to this side-taking in organisational settings.