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This paper aims to draw on values theory, associative network theory and schema congruity theory to examine how consumers attribute human-like values to product categories and products, and how these attributions affect product evaluations.

Study 1 randomly assigned 925 respondents to one of three product categories (cars, mobile phones and vacations). They were asked about their values and to attribute values to an assigned product category. Study 2 randomly assigned 919 respondents to one of the four value-expressive car conditions. They were asked to attribute values to the car, and then about their attitudes and purchase intentions.

Respondents attributed human-like values to product categories and products that were distinct and reflected the motivational compatibilities and conflicts inherent in the circular structure of human values. Moreover, multifaceted value congruity effects were found to positively influence attitudes and intentions to purchase a car, including congruity with product category values-schema, consumers’ personal values-schema and the structure of human values.

The authors demonstrate how a cognitive memory-based view can be used to better understand the complexities of the attribution of human-like values to products and product categories. Moving beyond the attribution of brand personality, this study shows the importance of not only understanding the attributions of values to a product but also considering how these attributions interact with the more abstract product category values to influence evaluations.

Research on online user privacy shows that empirical evidence on how privacy literacy relates to users' information privacy empowerment is missing. To fill this gap, this paper investigated the respective influence of two primary dimensions of online privacy literacy – namely declarative and procedural knowledge – on online users' information privacy empowerment.

An empirical analysis is conducted using a dataset collected in Europe. This survey was conducted in 2019 among 27,524 representative respondents of the European population.

The main results show that users' procedural knowledge is positively linked to users' privacy empowerment. The relationship between users' declarative knowledge and users' privacy empowerment is partially supported. While greater awareness about firms and organizations practices in terms of data collections and further uses conditions was found to be significantly associated with increased users' privacy empowerment, unpredictably, results revealed that the awareness about the GDPR and user’s privacy empowerment are negatively associated. The empirical findings reveal also that greater online privacy literacy is associated with heightened users' information privacy empowerment.

While few advanced studies made systematic efforts to measure changes occurred on websites since the GDPR enforcement, it remains unclear, however, how individuals perceive, understand and apply the GDPR rights/guarantees and their likelihood to strengthen users' information privacy control. Therefore, this paper contributes empirically to understanding how online users' privacy literacy shaped by both users' declarative and procedural knowledge is likely to affect users' information privacy empowerment. The study empirically investigates the effectiveness of the GDPR in raising users' information privacy empowerment from user-based perspective. Results stress the importance of greater transparency of data tracking and processing decisions made by online businesses and services to strengthen users' control over information privacy. Study findings also put emphasis on the crucial need for more educational efforts to raise users' awareness about the GDPR rights/guarantees related to data protection. Empirical findings also show that users who are more likely to adopt self-protective approaches to reinforce personal data privacy are more likely to perceive greater control over personal data. A broad implication of this finding for practitioners and E-businesses stresses the need for empowering users with adequate privacy protection tools to ensure more confidential transactions.

This paper aims to specifically analyze the interrelationships of employee political skill and personal reputation with both workplace and non-workplace outcomes. The study further focuses on performance and career development as workplace outcomes and entrepreneurial intentions as a non-workplace outcome, while analyzing employee political skill and personal reputation.

The study uses a survey method, where multi-source data were collected in a time-lagged fashion from the employees working in the textile sector in an under-researched emerging economy setting of Pakistan.

The findings establish that political skill is a significant predictor of employee job performance, career development and entrepreneurial intentions. Moreover, the mediating role of personal reputation was confirmed for the proposed relationships. Hence, the findings highlight the contributory role of personal reputation in the enhancement of workplace and non-workplace outcomes, such as entrepreneurial intentions linked to political skill.

Despite some limitations, this paper offers theoretical implications both for political skill and indirect reciprocity literature. A vital theoretical contribution is extended by studying the mediating role of personal reputation in the main relationships analyzed in this paper. The scope of indirect reciprocity is expanded by identifying personal reputation as a vital mechanism for indirect reciprocity.

Organizations should focus on developing political skill amongst their employees, as these skills are salient for amassing a favorable reputation, that eventually leads to performance, career growth and development of entrepreneurial intentions. Organizations should put in place careful selection and coaching and mentoring programs that equip employees with such skills that eventually lead toward the alignment of employees’ personal goals and organizational goals. Employees, then, could focus on priming both organizational and personal goals.

This paper is one of the pioneering studies that specifically link employee political skill with job performance, career development and entrepreneurial intentions, especially in the relatively volatile and under-researched context of Pakistan. Another novelty of this research is the investigation of personal reputation as a psychological mechanism underlying the primary relationships proposed in this research.

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors leading to adoption of social networking sites (SNS) by librarians of entrepreneurial libraries to provide support to business community in their market research. Identification of these adoption factors will help to design SNS in the way that led to their seamless diffusion in university libraries, making them capable of providing reliable and useful market knowledge to the business community.

To meet the research objectives, this study is based on the technology adoption model (TAM). The survey was conducted with 50 librarians of various universities across Europe, Asia, America, Africa and Australia, sampled through non probabilistic sampling techniques-purposive and snowball sampling. The collected data are analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to estimate the formulated structural equation model using SmartPLS 3.2.9 software version.

The results indicate that university librarians have high perception about usefulness and ease of using SNS for meeting their business objectives. The perceived usefulness (PU) is solely based on the prolonged adoption of SNS technology in personal lives of the librarians. The perceived ease of use (PEU) is triggered by the increasing quality of evolving SNS technology, especially user friendliness. The prolonged use of technology, increasing market entry of brands and improving quality of SNS will overcome librarian resistance to use SNS for market research related support to business community. Evolving technologies are more likely to be adopted seamlessly in entrepreneurial libraries.

This study has implications for librarians, entrepreneurs and technology providers. Librarians should have flexible technology adoption policies in place to keep technology adoption synchronized with changing market conditions. Entrepreneurs should share clear and accurate business needs as well as practicing ethical and lawful business practices. They should also help libraries to gain new skills to make future adoption easier. Technology providers should focus on improving the quality of their technology by increasing their functional utilities, performance and reliability as well as making them more user-friendly.

This study investigates technology adoption of SNS in libraries from the perspective of providing market research related services to entrepreneurs rather than just digitalizing library services for student users.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the practices that owners of public profiles in social networking sites can leverage to actively build online reputation and to evaluate the impact of the adoption of such practices on the initial formation of trust toward these individuals when they are presented as new virtual work partners.

A theoretical model was developed and an experiment with 233 participants was utilized to assess the model using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that individuals can build their online reputations in public profiles of social networking sites via a series of practices of self-disclosure of information and that the adoption of these practices has significant effects on the initial formation of trust toward the profile owner in virtual work contexts. Categorization mechanisms such as stereotyping, unit grouping and reputation categorization have been found to contribute to the initial formation of trust, both from an affect and cognition-based perspectives.

Little is known about the information disclosure practices in public profiles of social networking sites that new work partners can adopt to facilitate the formation of trust between them before they start working together. This study has contributed to the existing body of literature by clarifying these practices and the relative importance of online reputation to the initial formation of trust during the outset of a new virtual work relationship.

This study aims to investigate the negative interpersonal antecedents, emotional mediators and boundary conditions of knowledge sabotage behavior.

The authors collected data from 275 Chinese employees using convenience sampling and snowball sampling across three stages. Subsequently, the authors used both hierarchical regression and bootstrap methods to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results confirmed that workplace ostracism has positive effects on employee knowledge sabotage behavior both directly and via employee anger. In addition, the authors found that employee bottom-line mentality (BLM) moderates not only the direct effect of workplace ostracism on employee anger but also the indirect effect of employee anger in this context. Employee conscientiousness moderates only the direct effect of workplace ostracism on employee anger and does not moderate the indirect effect.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study not only explores the influence of workplace ostracism on employee knowledge sabotage behavior for the first time but also elucidates the underlying emotional mechanisms (anger) and boundary conditions (employee BLM and conscientiousness) by which workplace ostracism influences employee knowledge sabotage behavior, thus deepening the understanding of how knowledge sabotage emerges in organizations.

The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual model explicating the development of expatriate social capital and its influence on expatriate effectiveness in terms of knowledge transfer and adjustment. Drawing upon social capital theory and weak tie theory, we elucidate the process through which expatriate social capital facilitates expatriate knowledge transfer and adjustment via greater access of role information and social support.

This study reviews and distills research on expatriate social capital development and proposes a conceptual model of expatriate effectiveness and suggests potential research avenues for global mobility scholars.

This study contributes to the understanding of the development of expatriate social capital in the host country and its impacts on expatriate effectiveness as a process. With regard to expatriates’ social capital accumulation, this study also highlights the important but less-known role of accompanying spouse/family members as expatriates’ weak tie enablers. We articulate a framework that outlines the sources of social capital for expatriates and the processes through which social capital transmits (via expatriates’ access to role information and social support) and then enhances expatriate effectiveness. This conceptual model aims to establish a basic “roadmap” for use by practitioners and researchers.

Before the proposed conceptual model can be theoretically refined or extended by future research, its veracity needs to be tested empirically. Although we do not incorporate “time,” “personal characteristics” and “context” in our model, we recognize their potential importance and urge future researchers to incorporate them in studying the role of social capital on expatriate effectiveness.

A conceptual model is presented that enables multinational corporations (MNCs) to map their current (and future) strategies to enhance expatriate effectiveness by further strengthening the expatriate social capital.

Drawing upon social capital theory and weak tie theory, this paper links various sources of expatriate social capital to expatriates’ access to role information and social support in supporting expatriate effectiveness. From this, several avenues of future research are drawn.

This study sought to examine how women founders navigate gender and cultural influences in constructing network ties in Jordan.

In-depth interviews document the experiences of 14 women founders operating digital technology-based businesses in Amman, Jordan.

Gender homogenous ties were perceived to be of diminished quality, limiting the ability of the women founders to acquire resources while risking isolation from diverse networks. Formal professional, male-centric ties were perceived to offer more business impact due to the applicability and usefulness of information. Formal communication, use of intermediaries and industry events were used to develop network ties. These approaches enable founders to respect gendered collectivist norms, such as adhering to family members’ expectations about occupational roles, while meeting new business associates. The strength of network ties emerged as a continuum with strong, weak and midpoint ties. Midpoint ties offered valued encouragement and emotional support but were perceived to be less effective and provided fewer resources compared to strong network ties.

Mechanisms of gender inequality are evidenced in how gender, culture and social networks operate in relation to each other. Perceptions reflect culturally situated, within-group stereotypes, informing how women founders discount other women’s knowledge and experience.

Collaboration and preference for teamwork play a fundamental role in strengthening practical completion of team tasks. An organizational culture should facilitate learning systems where knowledge creation occurs through socialization. The purpose of this study is to develop a moderated mediation model, investigating the conditional indirect effect of co-worker support on the relationship between preference for teamwork and communities of practice.

Questionnaire survey was conducted via Google Forms to collect data from 210 employees working in the private and public sector in India. Hayes PROCESS macro models were used for analyzing the mediation of personal interaction and moderation of co-worker support.

This study showed evidence regarding the mediating role of personal interaction on the relationship between preference for teamwork and communities of practice. Co-worker support moderated the relationship between personal interaction and communities of practice. It also moderated the conditional indirect effect.

The results approve the substantial role of preference for teamwork in influencing personal interaction and communities of practice. The mediating role of personal interaction on preference for teamwork and communities of practice can lead to creation and sustenance of communities of practice. Furthermore, the moderating role of co-worker support as a conditional indirect effect shows that social support and exchange can lead to social learning.

Theoretical explanations and analytical approaches provide insights into the relationship between the preference for teamwork and communities of practice through a conditional indirect effect, a one of its kind of a study.

Personal influence is one of the most powerful strategies to influence publics’ behaviours. Yet, there is scant attention on how personal influence is leveraged for different public relations purposes in different cultural contexts. This study empirically investigates the presence and use of personal influence among Italian public relations professionals.

A survey was conducted through a self-administrated, web-based questionnaire and was developed from earlier studies investigating personal influence in public relations literature. Survey participants included public relations professionals across public, non-profit and private sectors.

The findings empirically show the presence and regular use of personal influence by professionals from all sectors to cultivate interpersonal relationships. Personal influence is considered a personal resource and used to leverage own influencing power. The findings also document four major manifestations of personal influence, which were named: relational closeness strategy, engagement strategy, expertise strategy and added value strategy.

This study enhances our understanding of personal influence in a specific cultural context and offers strategic insights for international professionals seeking to leverage influence in the socio-political environment of Italy. It also offers elements to improve public relations education and training.

The study offers some preliminary understandings of how Italian professionals leverage their personal influence in their daily public relations activities contributing with empirical evidence to the body of knowledge in public relations.