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The purpose of this study is to examine young consumers’ financial behavior (e.g. saving) and pro-environmental behavior (i.e. reduced consumption and green buying) as effective proactive strategies undertaken in the present to satisfy materialistic values and maximize well-being.

The study is based on an online survey among a panel of young American adults (N = 968).

The study finds a positive effect of materialism on personal well-being and negative effects on financial satisfaction, proactive financial coping and reduced consumption, but no effect on green buying, a separate and distinct pro-environmental strategy. Both proactive financial coping and reduced consumption are positively associated with subjective well-being.

Future research should re-examine conceptualizations of materialism in the context of climate change and the meaning of possessions in the global digital economy; studies could also focus on the specific well-being effects of reduced consumption and alternative pathways to align materialistic and environmental values.

Consumer education should look to models of financial education to demonstrate how limited natural resources can be managed at the micro level to enhance consumers’ subjective well-being, as well as reduce resource strain at the macro level.

Key contributions are the examination of materialism and consumption in the dual contexts of financial and environmental resource constraints and the effects of these key macro-social phenomena on consumers’ perceived well-being. Another study highlight is the differentiation of two strategies for proactive environmental coping, of which only one, reduced consumption, increased personal well-being and decreased psychological distress.

The purpose of this study was to develop a synthesized retail brand personality scale (RBPS) framework across retail formats. This research also addresses cultural differences by applying an emic-etic approach to scale development with United States (US) and Taiwanese samples.

After two focus group interviews and a pretest were conducted in both Taiwan and the US, a main test was conducted on consumer samples in Taiwan (N = 412) and in the US (N = 411). Confirmatory factor analysis was used to develop a valid, reliable RBPS.

The results revealed that sincerity and sophistication are comparable dimensions to those in the brand personality scale (BPS), and unpleasantness, traditionalism, enthusiasm, antagonism and innovativeness were found to be unique dimensions for retail brands. The findings also indicated that sincerity, unpleasantness and traditionalism are common dimensions across cultures, whereas innovativeness, sophistication and antagonism are culture-specific dimensions in the US, whereas enthusiasm is a specific dimension in Taiwan.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to develop a synthesized scale of retail brand personality that compares the identified dimensions to Aaker's (1997) BPS and includes an emic-etic approach. This research contributes to the branding literature and international marketing field, and has implications for retail practitioners.

This study comprehensively reviews the global literature on busy boards and audit committees.

Six eight articles on busy boards and audit committees from prominent accounting journals are reviewed and analyzed under the “reputation” and “busyness” premise.

Most studies advocating the “reputation” hypothesis have the consensus that busy directors have their benefits (knowledge spillovers), particularly regarding sharing their in-depth knowledge, experiences and expertise. This phenomenon is pronounced for younger and IPO firms, which have high advising and financing needs. From the “busyness” perspective, busy directors are too overboard in carrying out their duty effectively and responsibly.

This study identifies future research avenues on busy boards/audit committees and suggests that policymakers and regulators should limit the number of board appointments.

This is the first study to extensively amalgamate research on busy directors and audit committees. It reveals the various proxies used to measure the busyness of board and audit committee members and the consequences of busyness.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the technology acceptance model, privacy concerns and demographic factors on intention to use (ITU) social networking sites (SNSs).

A questionnaire survey was developed and administered to a convenience sample of 838 university students.

The findings indicate that perceived privacy, demographic factors and perceived usefulness (PU) have a significant effect on the ITU SNSs, and that age does not moderate the relationship between perceived ease-of-use and PU.

This study confirms the growing importance of SNSs. It also provides social networking service providers with insights into user intentions towards such networks.

This study aims to investigate customers’ churning out of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service, one of the most prevalent forms of IT convergence.

Based on the review of current literature, a research model is introduced to depict the effects of select independent variables on customer churning behavior. First of all, the two groups are compared in terms of predictor variables, including switching barriers, voice of customer (VOC), membership period and degree of contents usage. Then, a curvilinear regression was applied to understand the association relationship between the level of IPTV contents usage and variables of switching barriers, VOC and membership period. Third, a logit regression was performed to predict customer churning through the variables of switching barriers, VOC, membership period and level of IPTV contents usage.

Through the empirical analysis, this study analyzed the factors affecting customer churning behavior of IPTV service providers based on switching barriers, VOC and contents usage.

Although several studies on IPTV have been undertaken globally, they have largely depended on self-reporting surveys to examine dynamics between antecedent variables and IPTV performance in terms of customer satisfaction, usage intension and customer retention. This empirical study is performed to understand influential factors of IPTV service defection through the weblog analysis of 3,906 service users, who represented both service defectors and non-defectors during a specific month.

A competitive hospitality environment requires attracting new target markets. The purpose of this research is to investigate how young travelers’ intention to stay and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) are impacted by a hotel’s environmental sustainability communications on social media.

The data were collected from 306 participants via online survey and analyzed in SPSS and AMOS. Structural equation modeling was utilized for hypotheses testing.

The results support the use of social media marketing (SMM) by hotels to communicate sustainability efforts, increasing intentions to stay and expanding eWOM. Hospitality marketers can use these findings to better understand young travelers’ priorities and their information-gathering process when planning travel.

The study revealed the positive relationship between travelers’ perceptions of hotel environmental sustainability and greater intention to stay and positive eWOM. This could lead to increased business and recommendations for hospitality companies from young consumers.

This study advances the understanding of how young customers respond to hotels’ efforts to promote environmental sustainability on social media. The findings add value to practitioners and academics in their understanding of how hospitality marketers can increase intention to stay and eWOM by marketing to young travelers about environmental sustainability on social media.

This paper points out new directions for the deepening and broadening of the institution-based view, by drawing on three streams of research with which I have been involved recently: (1) outward foreign direct investment from emerging economies, (2) bankruptcy laws and entrepreneurship development, and (3) institution-based research focusing on Africa. Such deepening has been accomplished by enhancing our institution-based understanding of foreign direct investment with a focus on emerging multinationals, while broadening has been done both substantively by probing into the impact of bankruptcy laws on entrepreneurship development around the world and geographically by calling for enhanced research attention on Africa via an institution-based lens.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

In the service industry, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is considered a strategic valuable resource. Although previous studies emphasized CSR activities in the service industry, a limited number of studies have examined the combined effect with the service experience. Thus, this study aims to examine the potential antecedents of cruise customers’ positive responses toward the cruise company.

The proposed model includes CSR activities, service experiences, satisfaction and revisit intention. The model is tested using samples of cruise customers from the USA. Tests of the proposed model produce significant results for path coefficients from two-dimensional service experience (i.e. physical quality and staff behavior) and not from CSR activities (i.e. environmental and philanthropic).

Hypothesis testing indicates that among cruise customers, perceived physical quality and staff behavior are more relevant for creating satisfaction and revisit intention than environmental and philanthropic CSR support.

The results provide important implications for scholars concerning the effects of CSR activities on customer behavior for efficaciously managing customers’ positive experience with facilities and employees.

There has been a paradigm shift in the cruise industry. The recent trend shows an increasing number of cruise businesses leading to intense competition. Yet, researchers have not adequately examined the impact of service experience and CSR experience simultaneously. Thus, this study contributes to the existing CSR literature by identifying the important determinants of cruise customers’ behavior.