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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 27 February 2023

Clemens Hutzinger and Wolfgang J. Weitzl

The purpose of this research is the exploration of online complainants' revenge based on their consumer-brand relationship strength and received webcare. The authors introduce…

1433

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this research is the exploration of online complainants' revenge based on their consumer-brand relationship strength and received webcare. The authors introduce inter-failures (i.e. the perceived number of earlier independent service failures that a customer has experienced with the same brand involved in the current service failure) as the central frame condition.

Design/methodology/approach

To test our hypotheses, both a scenario-based online experiment (n = 316) and an online survey (n = 492) were conducted.

Findings

With an increasing number of inter-failures, online complainants with a high-relationship strength move from the “love is blind” effect (no inter-failures) to the “love becomes hate” effect (multiple inter-failures), when they ultimately become more revengeful than their low-relationship strength counterparts. In addition, the authors show that in the case of no or few inter-failures, accommodative webcare has a lasting positive effect over no/defensive webcare for both low- and high-relationship complainants. More importantly, however, when consumers have experienced multiple inter-failures, accommodative webcare becomes ineffective (for low-relationship complainants) or boomerangs by cultivating revenge towards the brand (among high-relationship complainants), but not strategic avoidance.

Research limitations/implications

The findings have pronounced implications for the literature on customer–brand relationships following service failures and the literature, which predominantly emphasizes the unconditionally positive effects of accommodative webcare.

Originality/value

This study is the first that simultaneously considers the prior customer–brand relationship, inter-failures and webcare to explain online complainants' revenge.

Details

Internet Research, vol. 33 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1066-2243

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 January 2023

Bilwa Deshpande, Puneet Kaur, Alberto Ferraris, Dorra Yahiaoui and Amandeep Dhir

Scholars have noted the impact of advertising on unhealthy food consumption. However, a systematic literature review (SLR) on this topic is currently lacking. This study aims to…

1418

Abstract

Purpose

Scholars have noted the impact of advertising on unhealthy food consumption. However, a systematic literature review (SLR) on this topic is currently lacking. This study aims to find, analyze and synthesize prior literature to set the stage for future researchers and practitioners. It also uncovers research gaps, suggests potential research questions and presents a conceptual framework for use in future research.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper catalogs and synthesizes topic-related literature by using the time-tested SLR methodology. It identifies and analyzes 99 relevant studies that have addressed the impact of advertising on unhealthy food consumption. Research profiling of the selected studies supported the synthesis of key themes in the extant literature.

Findings

The authors identify three key thematic foci: a) viewer attributes pertaining to excessive unhealthy food consumption, b) advertisement attributes pertaining to excessive unhealthy food consumption and, c) unhealthy food consumption regulation. Within these themes, the authors also identify some subthemes, presenting specific advertising and viewer attributes that contribute to unhealthy food consumption. The authors further develop a conceptual framework based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model, summarizing the findings of the study. This could aid future researchers and practitioners in their design of certain strategies.

Research limitations/implications

The study uncovers various gaps in the extant literature and suggests potential areas that can be examined by scholars. From a practical perspective, the study recommends certain actionable strategies for policymakers, helping customers to achieve the long-term goal of obesity reduction.

Practical implications

From the perspective of practice, the study recommends certain actionable strategies for policymakers helping customers achieve the long-term goal of obesity reduction.

Originality/value

The current study makes a novel contribution to the research on advertising and unhealthy food consumption by identifying theme-based research gaps in the existing literature, mapping those with potential research questions and presenting a conceptual framework based on the S-O-R model. Based on the findings, the study also proposes five potential research models examining diverse aspects of advertising and unhealthy food consumption to guide interested scholars and practitioners to shape the future research discourse.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 57 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 19 May 2023

Wolfgang J. Weitzl, Clemens Hutzinger and Udo Wagner

The study of shame has a long tradition in intra- and inter-personal psychology. This paper aims to investigate whether consumers can experience brand shame after self-relevant…

4482

Abstract

Purpose

The study of shame has a long tradition in intra- and inter-personal psychology. This paper aims to investigate whether consumers can experience brand shame after self-relevant consumption incidents. Specifically, this research proposes that consumers follow a complex shame-inducing process in the aftermath of unpleasant experiences involving their favorite brand. The moderating role of relational tie strength between consumers and their favorite brand existing prior to symbolic failures is examined.

Design/methodology/approach

A scenario-based, online survey (n = 660) among consumers who have recently experienced a self-relevant failure with their favorite brand was conducted. Confirmatory factor analysis ensured the reliability and validity of the measurement model. For testing the conceptual model, data was analyzed by means of a moderated mediation analysis. The proposed model was tested against, among others, common method bias and alternative models. The findings were cross-validated with a scenario-based online experiment (n = 1,616).

Findings

Results show that brand shame is a key mediator between customer dissatisfaction and brand anger when self-relevant, symbolic failures happen. Moreover, strong consumer-brand identification triggers brand-detrimental effects. It is shown to influence the connection between consumers’ inward- (i.e. brand shame) and resulting outward-directed (i.e. brand anger) negative emotions on brands, which lead to consumer vengeance.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to introduce the concept of situational brand shame to the literature on favorite brands. Furthermore, it shows that consumer-brand identification moderates the direct and indirect (via brand shame) unfavorable effects of failure-induced dissatisfaction on brand anger. This research adds insights to the investigation of the “love-becomes-hate” effect arising after self-relevant failures involving consumers’ most preferred brand.

Details

Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 33 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1061-0421

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 March 2023

Irna Ishrat, Mohammad Hasan, Ayesha Farooq and Fateh Mohd Khan

Marketing is all about understanding your consumers and giving them what they want. However, this process becomes more complicated in times of economic crisis and national…

Abstract

Purpose

Marketing is all about understanding your consumers and giving them what they want. However, this process becomes more complicated in times of economic crisis and national slowdown. Consumers can become scattered and unpredictable in their behaviour, making it hard to understand what they want or need. At times like these, it is more important than ever to rely on qualitative market research to understand the views of consumers and managers. Thus, this study aims to look at the significant consumer challenges that arise during times of crisis and the marketing strategies that managers prefer to counter the crisis.

Design/methodology/approach

The data collected for this study involves an extensive literature review followed by personal interviews with industry experts. This study presents two separate models, indicating hierarchical relationships among consumer challenges during crisis and marketing strategies using the total interpretive structural modelling approach. Further MICMAC analysis (popularly known as cross-impact matrix multiplication) was also performed to assess each variable's driving and dependence power.

Findings

“Price sensitiveness” and “adaptive buying” result as driving factors with the highest driving and lowest dependence power, which further gives rise to other consumer behaviour challenges. Likewise, the most critical strategies are “information systems” and the formation of “crisis management teams” during a crisis. At the same time, other strategies have resulted as linkage and dependent factors and none as the autonomous factor.

Originality/value

This paper provides a systematic understanding of how a manager can understand the challenges consumers face during a crisis and suggests a powerful summary of strategies companies can implement to sail through a crisis.

Details

Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, vol. 26 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1352-2752

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 20 February 2023

Lino Codara and Francesca Sgobbi

This paper shows how the interplay between organisational resilience and environmental complexity justifies the existence of differentiated yet successful approaches to digital…

2589

Abstract

Purpose

This paper shows how the interplay between organisational resilience and environmental complexity justifies the existence of differentiated yet successful approaches to digital transformation.

Design/methodology/approach

A multi-case method is applied to test our research hypotheses by contrasting the digital transformation of three Italian companies in the valves industry.

Findings

Different combinations of technological and organisational tools, hence diversified digital transformations, can be successful, provided that they are supported by a coherent set of resilience factors and allow for the implementation of strategic approaches aligned with the resilience capacity of the firm.

Practical implications

Awareness that resilience capacity shapes digital transformation and the strategies available to engage with external complexity should focus managers to invest in the alignment and the reinforcement of the factors underlying organisational resilience.

Originality/value

Most literature so far focused on the antecedents to digital transformation. In contrast, this paper focuses on the transformation process and highlights how the resilience capacity of the firm affects the unfolding of digital transformation and the emergence of diversified yet successful paths. In addition, in contrast with a dichotomous approach to external complexity this paper shows that digital transformation involves a mix of complexity reduction and complexity absorption strategies.

Details

Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, vol. 34 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-038X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 November 2023

Wanqi Li and Huaxin Peng

Cyberbullying is a globally pervasive problem and not novel in academia. Previous studies mainly focussed on the features, consequences and technological management of…

Abstract

Purpose

Cyberbullying is a globally pervasive problem and not novel in academia. Previous studies mainly focussed on the features, consequences and technological management of cyberbullying. However, most of the studies took cyberbullying examples in the West, and some issues still need to be addressed in the Chinese context. Thus, this study investigates how participants use cyberbullying words and why they use them in that particular way in China.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses content analysis to summarise the typical features of cyberbullying words, revealing a positive relationship between cyberbullying words and sentimental expressions. This paper also uses the questionnaire (N = 705) to explore the prevalence of cyberbullying among Chinese Internet users and to compare the gender differences in the cognition of cyberbullying words and involvement in cyberbullying, in line with the social cognitive theory.

Findings

This study stated that people prefer repetitively using offensive words to achieve cyberbullying goals. Interestingly, this study does not find obvious gender differences in cyberbullying roles and cyberbullying language use. However, it explained the relationship between cognition and the use of cyberbullying words from a gender perspective.

Practical implications

Theoretically, this study expands cyberbullying studies into a new cultural environment, pointing to a novel term, “imbalanced relation,” for exploring cyberbullying behaviours. This study highlights the significance of technology and education in detecting and preventing cyberbullying, suggesting that educators and social media platforms can directly predict and prevent cyberbullying through textual perspectives and individuals' cognition of cyberbullying.

Originality/value

This study aims to examine cyberbullying linguistic and emotional features and individual differences in cyberbullying behaviour in a high-context culture like China. Its values include comparing the differences between cyberbullying in China and cyberbullying in the West from the linguistic and cultural directions and reconsidering the “power imbalance” feature of cyberbullying.

Details

Online Information Review, vol. 48 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1468-4527

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 June 2023

Tobias Otterbring

The present study aimed to investigate whether male consumers report weaker green consumption values than their female counterparts, and whether such a presumed sex difference, at…

Abstract

Purpose

The present study aimed to investigate whether male consumers report weaker green consumption values than their female counterparts, and whether such a presumed sex difference, at least in part, can be explained by different levels of intrasexual competition. In other words, the study tested the notion that intrasexual competition acts as a psychological mechanism explaining why male (vs female) consumers are sometimes less prone to prefer and purchase sustainable goods, with their higher tendency to compete with same-sex rivals making them less likely to engage in green consumption.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was based on a large cross-sectional survey, in which a final sample of 1,382 participants (823 female and 559 male) provided complete responses on well-validated scales measuring intrasexual competition and green consumption values. The large sample size implies that even small effect sizes could be detected with high statistical power. The data were analyzed using a series of Mann–Whitney U tests to compare the responses made by male and female participants. Subsequently, multiple linear regressions as well as regression-based mediation and moderation analyses were performed with control variables added to show robustness of the results, test the proposed chain of events, and demonstrate generalizability.

Findings

Male (vs female) participants expressed significantly higher levels of intrasexual competition both generally and on the two subdimensions corresponding to superiority striving and inferiority irritation. Further, they were slightly less inclined to express green consumption values. Importantly, the sex difference in green consumption values was mediated by inferiority irritation as well as the entire intrasexual competition scale but not by superiority striving. Thus, men's inferiority irritation, in particular, and their more pronounced propensity to compete with same-sex rivals, in general, drove them away from green consumption, whereas women's weaker willingness to compete with same-sex rivals instead increased their inclination of “going green.”

Originality/value

Drawing on findings from the domains of competitiveness and gender stereotypes, the current research demonstrates a novel mechanism through which green consumption responses can be understood. Specifically, this study provides empirical evidence for the mediating role of intrasexual competition, especially regarding the more negatively charged subdimension of inferiority irritation, in explaining why male and female consumers may differ in terms of their green consumption values. The present research also contributes to the literature by questioning the unidimensional structure of the intrasexual competition scale and showing that the negative (vs positive) subdimension of this scale is more influential in explaining sex-differentiated patterns in consumers' green consumption values, thereby supporting the notion that “bad is stronger than good.”

Article
Publication date: 27 September 2023

Raphael Odoom, Priscilla Teika Odoom and Mavis Essandoh

The study aims to examine social-psychological beliefs and personality traits and their linkage with driver predispositions and road safety behaviour grounded on notions derived…

Abstract

Purpose

The study aims to examine social-psychological beliefs and personality traits and their linkage with driver predispositions and road safety behaviour grounded on notions derived from an integration of the health belief model (HBM) and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) in social marketing.

Design/methodology/approach

The study used a cross-sectional survey to gather data from 587 licenced drivers in 3 major urban settlements in Ghana. The theoretical model was tested by using covariance-based structural equation modelling.

Findings

The study finds that the effects of perceived benefits, perceived behavioural control, social norms and cues to action on road safety behaviour are direct; the effects of perceived susceptibility, severity and barriers on road safety behaviour are fully mediated by driver attitude towards safe driving. Some of these effects were moderated by conscientiousness and neuroticism.

Practical implications

The findings offer empirical grounds for the development of evidence-based social marketing interventions that leverage efficacy-centred messages, social influence through community-based approaches, informational cues with consistent education and are tailored to the personality traits of drivers with the aim of inducing wilful on-road safety behaviour towards achieving sustainable road safety culture.

Originality/value

This study extends the integrative applicability of the HBM and TPB in understanding road safety behaviour and establishes attitude as a vital facilitator, and personality traits as moderators of the belief-preventive behaviour linkage within a developing country context. It contributes towards the use of theory-based outcomes to enhance the efficacy of social marketing road safety campaigns.

Details

Journal of Social Marketing, vol. 13 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-6763

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 January 2023

Chowdhury Noushin Novera, Regina Connolly, Peter Wanke, Md. Azizur Rahman and Md. Abul Kalam Azad

The COVID-19 epidemic has brought attention to the variables that influence the mental health of health workers who are entrusted with nursing individuals. Despite the fact that…

Abstract

Purpose

The COVID-19 epidemic has brought attention to the variables that influence the mental health of health workers who are entrusted with nursing individuals. Despite the fact that many articles have examined the effects of social media usage on mental health, there is a lack of research synthesizing learning from this body of research. The purpose of this study is to use text mining and citation-based bibliometric analysis to conduct a detailed review of extant literature on health workers’ mental health and social networking habits.

Design/methodology/approach

This study conducts a full-text analysis of 36 articles selected on health workers' mental health and social media using text-mining techniques in R programming and a bibliometric citation analysis of 183 papers from the Scopus database in VOS viewer software. But the limitations of the methods used in this study are that the bibliometric analysis was limited to the Scopus database because the VOS viewer program did not support any other database and the text-mining approach caused the natural processing redundancy.

Findings

The bibliometric analysis reveals the thematic networks that exist in the literature of health workers’ mental health and social networking. The findings from text mining identified ten topic models, which helped to find the related papers classified in ten different groups and are provided alongside a summary of the published research and a list of the primary authors with posterior probability through Latent Dirichlet Allocation.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first hybrid review, combining text mining and bibliometric review, on health workers’ mental health where social networking plays a moderating role. This paper critically provides an overview of the impact of social networking on health workers' mental health, presents the most important and frequent topics, introduces the scientific visualization of articles published in the Scopus database and suggests further research avenues. These findings are important for academics, health practitioners and medical specialists interested in learning how to better support the mental health of health workers using social media.

Details

Journal of Modelling in Management, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5664

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 7 March 2023

Vita Glorieux, Salvatore Lo Bue and Martin Euwema

Crisis services personnel are frequently deployed around the globe under highly demanding conditions. This raises the need to better understand the deployment process and more…

Abstract

Purpose

Crisis services personnel are frequently deployed around the globe under highly demanding conditions. This raises the need to better understand the deployment process and more especially, sustainable reintegration after deployment. Despite recent research efforts, the study of the post-deployment stage, more specifically the reintegration process, remains fragmented and limited. To address these limitations, this review aims at (1) describing how reintegration is conceptualised and measured in the existing literature, (2) identifying what dimensions are associated with the reintegration process and (3) identifying what we know about the process of reintegration in terms of timing and phases.

Design/methodology/approach

Following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) protocol, the authors identified 5,859 documents across several scientific databases published between 1995 and 2021. Based on predefined eligibility criteria, 104 documents were yielded.

Findings

Research has primarily focused on descriptive studies of negative individual and interpersonal outcomes after deployment. However, this review indicates that reintegration is dynamic, multi-sector, multidimensional and dual. Each of its phases and dimensions is associated with distinct challenges.

Originality/value

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research that investigates reintegration among different crisis services and provides an integrative social-ecological framework that identifies the different dimensions and challenges of this process.

Details

Journal of Global Mobility: The Home of Expatriate Management Research, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-8799

Keywords

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