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Fueled by the soaring popularity of the digital medium, consumers are increasingly relying on dynamic images to inform their decisions. However, little is known about how changes in the presentation of movement impacts these decisions. The purpose of this paper is to document whether and how movement speed–a fundamental characteristic of dynamic images in the digital medium–influences consumers' risk judgments and subsequent decisions.

Three experimental studies investigate the impact of movement speed displayed in the digital medium, focusing on different risk-laden domains including health (pilot study), gambling (Study 1) and stock market decisions (Study 2).

The authors find that faster movement speed displayed in the digital medium elevates consumers’ feelings of risk and elicits cautionary actions in response. The authors reveal a mechanism for this effect, showing that faster movement reduces feelings of control over outcomes, which predicts greater feelings of risk.

Future work could expand upon these findings by systematically examining whether certain individuals are more susceptible to movement speed effects in the digital medium. Research could also investigate whether different ways of experiencing movement speed (e.g. physical movement) similarly influence risk judgments and whether movement speed can have positive connotations outside of risky domains.

The authors offer important insights to marketing practitioners and public policymakers seeking to guide consumers’ judgments and decisions in risk-laden contexts through the digital medium.

By showing how movement speed alters judgments in risk-laden contexts, the authors contribute to literature on risk perception and the growing body of literature examining how moving images shape consumers’ behaviors.

Productivity is often cited as a key barrier to the adoption of metal laser-based powder bed fusion (ML-PBF) technology for mass production. Newer generations of this technology work to overcome this by introducing more lasers or dramatically different processing techniques. Current generation ML-PBF machines are typically not capable of taking on additional hardware to maximise productivity due to inherent design limitations. Thus, any increases to be found in this generation of machines need to be implemented through design or adjusting how the machine currently processes the material. The purpose of this paper is to identify the most beneficial existing methodologies for the optimisation of productivity in existing ML-PBF equipment so that current users have a framework upon which they can improve their processes.

The review method used here is the preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis (PRISMA). This is complemented by using an artificial intelligence-assisted literature review tool known as Elicit. Scopus, WEEE, Web of Science and Semantic Scholar databases were searched for articles using specific keywords and Boolean operators.

The PRIMSA and Elicit processes resulted in 51 papers that met the criteria. Of these, 24 indicated that by using a design of experiment approach, processing parameters could be created that would increase productivity. The other themes identified include scan strategy (11), surface alteration (11), changing of layer heights (17), artificial neural networks (3) and altering of the material (5). Due to the nature of the studies, quantifying the effect of these themes on productivity was not always possible. However, studies citing altering layer heights and processing parameters indicated the greatest quantifiable increase in productivity with values between 10% and 252% cited. The literature, though not always explicit, depicts several avenues for the improvement of productivity for current-generation ML-PBF machines.

This systematic literature review provides trends and themes that aim to influence and support future research directions for maximising the productivity of the ML-PBF machines.

This paper aims to explore practice innovation and organizational resiliency during exogenous service ecosystem disruptions. This inquiry focuses on the extreme disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which required service firms to recodify long-established service scripts, adapt digital and physical material elements of the service encounter and ultimately reconfigure a system of practices. The specific context is forced practice innovation in Starbucks servicescape (kiosks and coffeehouses). Starbucks is best known for its custom beverages and third-place strategy. Their strict adherence to a complex service script and unique ordering practices altered during pandemic stay-home disease prevention mandates.

Thematic coding consistent with prior research on practice innovation and diffusion and a grounded theory methodology was conducted. Data were triangulated and analyzed within and across a variety of sources. These include field notes from direct observation, interviews, focus groups, firm-authored collateral in the form of marketing communications and third-party authored secondary sources such as news, social media, blogs and forums.

Data reveal how practice innovation occurs through the reconfiguration of a system of practices, which support organizational resiliency and can force brand evolution, in prolonged exogenous service ecosystem disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic required service industries to adapt and recodify service scripts and alter physical and digital elements of service encounters. While the pandemic affected all firms in the sector, we argue that Starbucks' established scripts and third-place strategies, which characterized the brand experience, were particularly vulnerable. We find that practice innovation occurs through the reconfiguration of practice elements – competences, meanings and materiality – and restructures the service encounter. Practice codification, transposition, adaptation and stabilization support organizational resiliency and brand evolution. We find that Starbucks' brand experience emphasis on the third place is reconceptualized from an in-person community-based retailscape to a platform-based strategy necessitating script recodification and practice adaptation. Our analysis of Starbucks' kiosks and coffeehouses illuminates how a distinctly branded service encounter is constituted by a system of practices that can be reconfigured and diffused anew in the face of disruption.

The conceptualization of practice innovation as systems reconfiguration establishes a novel approach to understanding innovation in service ecosystems. The COVID-19 pandemic is a unique context to study a sector-wide exogenous extended service disruption. We focus on a firm with an elaborate pre-pandemic service script and commitment to a third-place brand experience guiding its system of practices. We reveal unique insights on practice innovation within service ecosystems during exogenous prolonged disruptions in which brands evolve through the recodification of service scripts and sustained reconfiguration of systems of practice.

This paper explains why some firms manage to capture disproportionate value from their network of relationships, leading to superior performance. The paper examines how a firm's dependencies affect its value appropriation potential (VAP) in economic networks.

The paper follows the axiomatic method and the embeddedness perspective of firms to develop an index called nodal power, which captures the power that accrues to a firm in exchange-based economic networks. Thereafter, using the formal method and simulation, it shows nodal power reflects a firm's VAP in economic networks.

The study analysis and findings prove that a firm's dyadic level exchange relations and the embedded network structure determine its VAP by affecting the nodal power. A firm with lesser nodal power is likely to appropriate less value from its relations even if it equally contributes to the value creation. This finding explains how the structural and relational characteristics of a firm's network enable disproportionate value appropriation.

Nodal power furthers the scope of analyzing firms' economic relationships and changing power equations in dynamic networks. It can help firms build optimal strategic networks and manage the portfolio of relationships by predicting the impact of changing relations on firms' VAP.

The paper's original contribution is to explain, through formal analysis, why and how the structure and nature of relations of firms affect their VAP. The paper also formalizes the power-dependence principle through a dependency-based index called nodal power and uses it to show how interfirm dependencies are key to value appropriation.

Product color names related to a consumption setting are commonly used in advertising to persuade. This study aims to use consumption imagery fluency as an underlying mechanism for assessing how such a naming tactic impacts product evaluation.

Three between-subjects experiments examine how product evaluation, in response to the use of color names containing consumption situation information, varies as a function of their accessibility (Study 1), and also test the role of a naming explanation (Study 2). How readily a consumer takes in consumption imagery is evaluated as a mediator. The studies further check if color attribute serves as a moderator of such color naming effect and that the naming factor contributes to consumption imagery fluency directly or indirectly alters such through their impact on comprehension fluency (Study 3).

Marketing products with color names related to the consumption setting is more effective than using generic names. Consumption imagery fluency mediates the results. This positive outcome is reduced when color names are less accessible. Fortunately, including an explanation to facilitate reasoning for product color names is helpful to reverse this disadvantage. The same patterns are not evident for highly accessible names. In addition, the effectiveness of consumption situation-related color names is restricted to the circumstance of color attribute as secondary, as opposed to primary. Furthermore, naming factors influence the ease of consumption of imagery whether or not facilitated by comprehension fluency.

This research provides evidence of consumers’ responses to product color naming that involves consumption situations and identifies consumption imagery fluency as a potential means for mediating the studied effect.

Naming a product color in consumption situation-related terms triggers consumption imagery, driving evaluation when color is the secondary attribute of a product.

This research contributes to understanding the influence of naming a product’s color in promotional communication and correlates to productive tactics for advertising messages.

The paper aims at analyzing the co-movements between stock returns and oil prices (West Texas Intermediate, Brent) controlling or not for COVID-19.

It uses continuous wavelet transforms and wavelet coherence over the period July 19, 2019 to August 16, 2021 based on daily data. Continuous wavelet transforms provide an over complete representation of stock returns signals by letting the translation and scale parameters of the wavelets vary continuously.

There are not significant evidence supporting the fact that the COVID-19 has altered the relationship between stock returns and oil prices except perhaps in the case of South Africa. In fact, Southern African Development Community stock markets react more to oil prices than to health shock such as the COVID-19.

The findings of the study are original and have not been published anywhere prior.

This paper aims to examine primarily the readiness for change at an individual level. Additionally, this study examines the impact of internal change factors on individual readiness for change as well as their effect across nations.

The research relies on a quantitative research approach. A survey was conducted among 241 managers across 33 countries. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) approach and multigroup analyses have been applied for hypothesis testing.

Our research contributes a novel perspective on individual readiness for change and unveils how employees' perceptions of context, process and intensity as internal change factors influence their readiness for change. The findings give support to the assertion that employees' attitudes toward change are altered by individual perceptions.

Our research explores the moderating effect of nationality used through a grouped variable and finds significant impacts of clusters of nationalities. Thus, nationality may serve as a proxy for culture that might be examined in future research studies in a more deeply focused way to include beliefs, values and societal norms.

The new understanding of the topic “individual readiness for change” opens up new research directions and enriches ongoing discussions about societal change and sustainable project management. This topic creates a link to situational leadership principles, considers cultural factors and, therefore, advocates for a people-centric approach to modern stakeholder management in order to achieve commitment toward change initiatives and consequent project success.

Considering that the path toward the successful implementation of any change project is highly contingent on personal dispositions to change, our research uncovers the potential impact of individual perceptions on employees' readiness for change.

Our major contribution is to highlight the importance of considering individual perceptual drivers of readiness for change and to acknowledge the moderating effect of nationality as a contextual factor altering the relationship between perception of change and individual readiness for change.

The complexity of contemporary societal challenges in emerging countries reanimates the necessity of collective action to resolve them. What is required is system change, namely, transformations in policy, practice, power relationships, market dynamics and social customs that underlie social and environmental issues. Technological innovations, paired with intentional social changes, might play a transformative role in this effort. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the adoption of technologies in social enterprises (SEs) and their contribution to achieving system change. It also addresses the effects of their hybrid nature on this relationship.

The analysis relied on data collected through a survey of the global population of Ashoka fellows, which is largely based in emerging economies. Three models were developed concerning different pathways to achieve system change identified in the theoretical framework. These were tested using Probit regressions.

The investigation confirms that technology can support SEs in navigating complex pathways to achieve system change rather than merely enabling linear scaling operational strategies. The pursuit of economic value creation, in conjunction with a social mission, decreases the ability of SEs to achieve system change. This is because the scaling paths which hardly create revenues are neglected.

The study conceptualises a multifaceted model of system change. It tests the framework empirically to show that SEs can adopt technologies to unleash complex system change processes to generate societal impact, on top of merely demonstrating linear approaches to scaling or replication. The paper questions the capacity of SEs to facilitate system change without appropriate financial support and the inherent tensions between hybridity and the depth of system change dynamics.

This study examines how users' multidimensional representational fidelity factors affect sociability and cyberself engagement in the Metaverse platform; that is, how they interact with newly defined self-images as their personas in the environments. It investigates how representational fidelity serves platform users to perform social roles and increase their sociability by establishing a new cyberself, thus influencing continuous platform use.

This study surveyed 314 users of the Metaverse platform Horizon, where users can create a virtual agent avatar, meet people in the same online environment in real time, and interact with a sense of three-dimensional immersion. Data were analyzed using partial least squares regression models.

User socialization significantly influenced the intention to use the Metaverse platform. Representational fidelity was a crucial variable for sociability, and activity representational fidelity was the most influential aspect among the four other elements. Platforms should consider how to enable users to create and use activities that faithfully represent their personas.

The novelty of this study is that it introduces representational fidelity based on representation theory into the context of virtual persona in the Metaverse platform. This study extended representational fidelity to the socialization perspective by utilizing the integrated model of user satisfaction and the technology acceptance model. Through the results, this study emphasized that users' sociability significantly influences their intention to use the Metaverse platform. Finally, this study provides a feasible guideline on how practitioners could design and strengthen their platforms so that users can represent their cyberselves faithfully.