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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact that several of these factors have on a consumer’s decision to hold a credit card, as well as those involved in determining the level of credit card limit.

Potential explanatory variables were identified in the literature, then used to build a binary logit model to test the impact of the card and consumer characteristics on credit card ownership. Data were collected via a structured interview of 409 consumers living in Hebei Province, China.

The results indicate that convenience in use, level of credit card interest rates, the application process, number of people in the household, a rewards programme, marital status, credit limit and age influence the likelihood of the respondent holding a credit card. Further, an anaylsis shows that the number of credit cards held, duration of holding a credit card, monthly credit card purchasing volume and having a degree at the tertiary level, are significantly and positively related to different levels of credit limit.

In summary, in order to attract more consumers to credit card use, the banks and credit card companies should consider making it more convenient for consumers to use their credit cards. Moreover, banks can increase their networking and degree of cooperation with merchants to increase the acceptance of payment by credit card. The most heavily used businesses such as supermarkets and smaller retailers, where consumers purchase goods frequently, would be good targets for banks’ attention. In addition, banks might also improve credit card reward programmes to make these more efficient and perhaps increase the size of the rewards customers can earn through card use.

This study isolates the effect of immersion on players’ learning in a virtual reality (VR)-based game about cellular biology by comparing two versions of the game with the same level of interactivityand different levels of immersion. The authors identify immersion and additional interactivity as two key affordances of VR as a learning tool. A number of research studies compare VR with two-dimensional or minimally interactive media; this study focuses on the effect of immersion as a result of the head mounted display (HMD).

In the game, players diagnose a cell by exploring a virtual cell and search for clues that indicate one of five possible types of cystic fibrosis. Fifty-one adults completed all aspects of the study. Players took pre and post assessments and drew pictures of cells and translation before and after the game. Players were randomly assigned to play the game with the HMD (stereoscopic view) or without the headset (non-stereoscopic view). Players were interviewed about their drawings and experiences at the end of the session.

Players in both groups improved in their knowledge of the cell environment and the process of translation. Players who experienced the immersive stereoscopic view had a more positive learning effect in the content assessment, and stronger improvement in their mental models of the process of translation between pre- and post-drawings compared to players who played the two-dimensional game.

This study suggests that immersion alone has a positive effect on conceptual understanding, especially in helping learners understand spatial environments and processes. These findings set the stage for a new wave of research on learning in immersive environments; research that moves beyond determining whether immersive media correlate with more learning, toward a focus on the types of learning outcomes that are best supported by immersive media.

The purpose of this study is to add insights into the business-to-business (B2B) branding literature by investigating the mechanism by which brand orientation affects relational performance in the B2B context.

A theory-based model is developed and tested using data collected from 201 Chinese B2B companies. Partial least squares analysis is used to test the hypotheses.

The results suggest that relationship commitment serves as an important means that translates a firm’s brand orientation into superior relational performance. Moreover, this positive effect is more prominent when the supplier is co-branding with its buyer. In addition, state-owned buyers are more inclined to develop affective commitment than calculative commitment when their suppliers are brand-oriented.

This study examines the research questions from only the buyer side. In addition, the causal interface of the results might be limited due to the cross-sectional nature of the data.

While brand orientation generally leads to enhanced relational performance, it depends on the buyer’s involvement in co-branding and its ownership structure.

This study is among the first to uncover the underlying mechanism by which brand orientation adds value to B2B relationships. The findings provide compelling insights for managers who are interested in promoting a brand orientation to improve relational performance within their organizations.

This study aims to examine the role of face consciousness, materialism and risk of embarrassment in determining consumer purchase intention toward counterfeit luxury brand. In addition, the authors explore boundary conditions of these relationships.

Study 1, a survey research (N = 321), examines the mediating role of risk of embarrassment between face consciousness on the purchase intention toward luxury counterfeits. Study 2 (N = 345), an experimental study, examines the moderating role of brand prominence of counterfeit (i.e. whether it contains prominent brand signals). Study 3 (N = 315) explores how the above-mentioned relationships are moderated by consumers’ moral rationalization (i.e. whether consumers seek rationalization when behaving unethically).

First, this research shows that risk of embarrassment mediates the negative relationship between face consciousness and Chinese consumers’ purchase intention toward luxury counterfeits, whereas this relationship was not found between materialism and counterfeit purchase intentions. Second, this negative mediating effect holds only when the counterfeit brand is highly prominent. Third, the mediating effect depends on consumers’ moral rationalization, with a positive impact on the purchase intention toward luxury counterfeits, regardless of brand prominence.

This study represents a preliminary inquiry into the dynamics between face consciousness and materialism in influencing Chinese consumers’ purchase intention toward counterfeit luxury products. Unlike their Western counterparts, whose materialistic views of possessions predict their counterfeit luxury consumption (Davidson et al., 2019), Chinese consumers are more likely to be driven by the social implications of counterfeit luxury to communicate a prestigious social image to others on account of genuine luxuries’ high social recognition.

While Chinese consumers are one of the most potent global luxury buyers, they are immersed in the world’s biggest counterfeit luxury market. By digging into the core value of Chinese consumers (i.e. face consciousness), this research provides a number of managerial implications for luxury goods companies to engage in international efforts to educate consumers against counterfeit luxury.

This study makes at least three contributions to the counterfeit consumption literature. First, this study represents a preliminary inquiry into the dynamics between face consciousness and materialism in influencing Chinese consumers’ purchase intention toward counterfeit luxury products. Second, this research identified the complex mechanism of face consciousness as an independent variable on consumers’ purchase intention toward luxury counterfeits. Finally, the authors examined the boundary conditions of brand prominence and consumers’ moral rationalization. The findings may help luxury brand managers identify strategies to discourage counterfeit consumption.

The preservation and disappearance of indigenous people’s traditional knowledge system, under mainstream social culture immersion and fusion, have presented a dynamic and changing acculturation interactive relationship impacting Truku women’s health concepts. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore how the traditional Gaya knowledge system and mainstream culture confinement care model affect the beliefs and behaviours of postpartum self-care amongst contemporary Truku women.

An ethnographic semi-structured method, based on cultural care factors and the Leininger Sunrise Model, was conducted to interview 17 Truku women with childbearning experience in eastern Taiwan. As data were collected, UDIST Vivo 11.0 software was applied for analysis.

Amongst the three knowledge system categories, namely, traditional, mainstream and reconstruction, the traditional knowledge system, including Gaya norms, provides the overall cultural value of a Truku family. While taboo is inherited through the experience of the elders, the mainstream knowledge system favours the Han. However, the reconstruction knowledge system highlights the “functional” response strategies based on Truku women’s comfort and conveniences.

Limited relevant studies have focused on the health and postpartum self-care knowledge of ethnic Truku women in Taiwan. The results are expected to provide clinical medical personnel with a reference and strengthen cultural sensitivity and the ability to implement the cultural congruency care of postpartum indigenous women in Taiwan.

This study examines the potential of foreign business-to-business (B2B) firms to select high-status local partners in emerging markets to achieve positive relationship outcomes. Because a domestic firm’s high status may also promote opportunism, the study also examines if the foreign B2B firms may mitigate such behavior through either or both transaction-specific investments (TSIs) and socialization.

The research is conducted via a model that suggests a positive correlation between high local partner status and the focal relationship outcomes and the moderating effects of structural TSIs and social governance systems. The model was developed and empirically tested using data collected from 96 foreign firms operating in China.

Using multiple regressions, the findings suggest that foreign B2B firms are likely to achieve more beneficial relationship outcomes with high-status local partners. Standing alone, foreign B2B firms’ TSIs mitigate the positive relationship outcomes, whereas their socialization with the high-status partners enhances the beneficial outcomes. Most importantly, combining socialization with TSIs increases beneficial outcomes.

This study adds to B2B marketing, status theory and the application of transaction cost economics (TCE) and social exchange theory to foreign-local B2B exchange relationships in emerging markets. The findings confirm the attractiveness of high status in emerging markets by exploring how the selection, formation and chosen B2B governance processes may lead to competing outcomes of opportunism or success. Future research will benefit from simultaneously securing data from both sides of the dyad.

The paper suggests that foreign B2B firms consider high status as a key criterion in selecting local partners in emerging markets and the importance of managing high-status partners’ potential opportunism by effective governance mechanisms.

This study is one of the first to apply and explore the workings of status theory in the foreign-local B2B partner selection process and relationship outcomes in emerging markets and thereby contributes to B2B marketing, status theory and both TCE and social exchange theories in the focal foreign-local B2B context.

Empirical research on leadership for social justice is in progress in many parts of the world. The purpose of this paper is to explore principals’ school-leadership journeys in response to social-justice issues caused by specific contextual changes at times of uncertainty. It seeks to answer the following key questions: What social-justice issues do principals identify as arising from their schools’ transformation due to contextual changes? How do principals practise leadership for social justice in response to these contextual changes at different levels?

This paper is based on qualitative data from a cross-case study of two principals’ school-leadership journeys. The authors pay particular attention to the understanding of leadership for social justice grounded in principals’ efforts to foster equality in learning development for a diverse student population.

Timely adverse conditions may be required to foster leadership for social justice in schools. The principals reacted to contextual changes at several levels, planning and implementing innovative and flexible interventions to ensure equality in students’ learning development. These findings contribute to international accounts of educational leadership.

This study of leadership for social justice in schools is contextually specific. Therefore, more empirical comparisons of school leadership are required in future studies, as principals’ practices vary between education settings.

This paper offers insights into the evolution of leadership for social justice in schools in response to contextual changes. Principals’ leadership strategies can be reoriented and their actions reshaped to overcome threats to social justice in schools. Accordingly, although leadership for social justice in school communities is culturally and pedagogically inclusive, it is also socially distinctive.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of organizational factors such as culture, leadership, structure and top management support on organizational commitment in Bangladeshi service sector.

This study is based on empirical findings administered on 217 managerial personnel in the service organizations based in Bangladesh.

Findings of this study reveal that among the variables that are hypothesized in this study; team orientation, stability, transformational leadership, transactional leadership, decentralization, formalization and top management support have an influence on organizational commitment.

This study has identified and integrated factors that can influence organizational commitment in Bangladeshi service sector. Larger sample size including multiple country or culture may bring more explanatory power, comparability and increased generalizability.

The outcome of this study will help business managers to identify and understand the organizational factors that can influence organizational commitment.

This study extends current research on organizational commitment by identifying and integrating the organizational factors and providing a simplistic model for the relationship between organizational factors and organizational commitment in the context of Bangladeshi service organizations.

This study’s purpose is to analyze the international mobile marketing (IMK) in order to stage the importance of this tool in the internationalization of companies. Our understanding of mobile marketing is constantly evolving, due to its high business penetration in a world globalized by technologies.

A review of the relevant literature on IMK, companies and customers is undertaken to understand the link between them. The paper begins by explaining the coronavirus disease 2019 is accelerating the change of the rules of the game in traditional and online commerce around the world. Furthermore, this study uses secondary data from organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD), Sensor Tower, mobile marketing association (MMA), App Annie, among others, to support research results.

The results have shown that IMK has opened a melting pot of opportunities for companies and consumers in this period of pandemic; the potential of this tool is being redefined, in order to identify, anticipate and satisfy customers requirement profitably and efficiently. This study aims to provide an assessment of new concept of IMK and how this tool has to be integrated into the firm’s digital marketing strategies.

The study contributes to make better future decisions in the international digital expansion of companies by company executives and marketing experts. This paper provides a comprehensive framework intended to guide research efforts focusing on digital marketing as well as to aid practitioners in their quest to achieve IMK success.

Grounded on the value-based adoption model and innovation diffusion theory, this study examined consumer purchase decisions of mobile Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation apps. In addition, this study also investigated the moderating role that perceived availability of free substitutes (PAFS) plays in the relationship between perceived value and purchase intention. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Data collected from 219 mobile users were analyzed against the research model using the partial least squares approach.

The results showed that compatibility, relative advantage, perceived enjoyment, perceived cost (positively), and complexity (negatively) influenced these users’ value perceptions and purchase decisions. Furthermore, PAFS significantly weakened the positive relationship between perceived value and purchase intentions.

Based on these findings, the authors provide practical suggestions for mobile app developers to increase mobile app sales. This study also helps advance knowledge of mobile internet marketing.

This study is a pioneering effort in explaining consumer purchase intentions in the context of mobile GPS navigation app.