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This study aims to investigate the social, utilitarian and hedonic benefits associated with a brand behavioral performance from an attitude contagion theory perspective. An integrated empirical model was constructed to identify the antecedents and consequences of consumer attitude contagion.

Data were obtained from 609 members of Facebook apparel brand fan pages using purposive sampling. Structural equation modeling was used to validate the proposed theoretical model.

Social, utilitarian and hedonic benefits could be used to explain the effects of attitude contagion on various relationships. Attitude contagion factors partially mediate exogenous factors and the behavior of brand fans. Regarding the attitude contagion effect, perceived community attitude and attitude toward fans’ sponsored recommendation posts have stronger explanatory powers for attitude toward products than for attitude toward brands. Specifically, attitude toward brands can indirectly influence members’ purchase intention through brand recall. The proposed model exhibited desirable goodness-of-fit.

The findings can give brand community managers insight into the development of consumer attitude contagion and assist companies to improve their community management.

This study contributes to multiple perspectives in the literature regarding social, utilitarian and hedonic benefits and adopted an extension viewpoint to explain that the formation of consumer attitude is a complex process.

This study developed a new interpretation of the attitude contagion theory, with the information adoption model (IAM) as the theoretical basis. A review of electronic word-of-mouth studies was conducted by using informational and individual determinants to develop an integrated empirical model that identified the antecedents and consequences of consumer attitude toward online reviews.

This study recruited 750 members of Facebook beauty fan pages in Taiwan and used the structural equation model to test research hypotheses.

Results revealed that perceived “ electronic word-of mouth (eWOM) credibility of online reviews” and “product involvement” could be used to explain the effects of attitude toward online reviews. Regarding the attitude contagion effect, the effect of “attitude toward online review” on both “attitude toward a product” and “attitude toward a brand” is stronger than that on “eWOM adoption.”

This paper provides valuable insights into the antecedents, consequences and mediating mechanisms that determine consumer attitude toward online reviews.

Mobile messaging applications (MMAs) have surpassed top social media platforms. Recent and rapid use of MMAs has made it extremely difficult to ignore the existence of customer-to-customer (C2C) mobile information. This study, therefore, aims to expand the knowledge of customers' adoption behaviour of such information.

Through applying and utilizing social support theory (SST) and the information adoption model (IAM), this study introduces a holistic theoretical model, explaining customers' adoption of information derived from MMAs and exploring the antecedents of IAM. Based on the data collected from 305 UK MMA users, this study empirically tests the research model using structural equation modelling estimation.

The results of this study reveal that social support is a key antecedent of information quality and credibility and support IAM in terms of its ability to explain MMAs' information adoption.

The insights are valuable for businesses and marketers to understand customers' mobile communications and be socially support-oriented while developing marketing communication strategies.

The study integrates SST and IAM to improve the understanding of customers' information adoption behaviour. It is the first attempt that establishes that social support is a key antecedent of IAM.

The authors investigated the effects of the characteristics of reviews, reviewers and corporate factors on review helpfulness and assessed the role of culture in moderating these relationships.

A research model was established based on the elaboration likelihood and information adoption models. To empirically analyze this research model, 10,611 TripAdvisor reviews from 9 countries were collected. In addition, a zero-inflated negative binomial model and multilevel analysis were employed in consideration of the data characteristics.

The results revealed that review depth had a positive effect on review helpfulness, and review ratings and reviewer expertise had a negative effect. As a corporate characteristic, hotel size had a negative effect on review helpfulness. In addition, the effects of review rating, reviewer expertise and hotel rating exhibited significant differences based on the moderating effects of uncertainty avoidance and power distance level.

The results of this study expand the review helpfulness literature by explaining the inconsistent findings of previous studies via cultural theory. In addition, past research in this field has mainly focused on analyzing only review and reviewer characteristics, while this study demonstrated that company size negatively affects review helpfulness based on the signaling theory. Finally, this study contributes to cultural comparison literature by discovering that the processing of review information by consumers differs according to their cultural background.

The extant literature has utilized the SERVQUAL scale to measure service quality dimensions and their importance towards customer-satisfaction using close-ended survey-based questions and not open-ended questions and/or user-generated qualitative responses. On the other hand, while measuring customer-satisfaction drivers from user-generated content (UGC), extant studies have majorly used overall or aspect-wise evaluations and not evaluations specific to SERVQUAL dimensions. In this study, the authors try to bridge the gap.

The authors suggest a methodology consisting of text mining, machine learning and econometric techniques that can measure consumer evaluations of SERVQUAL dimensions. The authors used qualitative and quantitative UGC obtained from 27,052 online reviews on 362 airlines by reviewers of 158 nationalities for our analysis.

The authors established a unique method which combines qualitative and qualitative UGC to measure service quality. The authors have also uncovered the comparative importance of such dimensions in creating customer-satisfaction and recommendation in the context of the airline industry.

The paper is one of the pioneering studies that try to find measures of SERVQUAL dimensions from online consumer reviews and their influence on customer satisfaction.

Abusive supervision is associated with many detrimental consequences. In this theory-review chapter, we extend the abusive supervision literature in two ways. First, we argue that more attention needs to be given to the emotion contagion processes between the leader and followers. More specifically, leaders’ negative affect can lead to followers’ experiences of negative affect, thereby influencing followers’ perception of abusive supervision. Second, we explore how employees draw upon their cognitive prototypes of an ideal leader or Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs) to evaluate leader behaviors. In this regard, we argue that ILTs can influence the (negative) emotional contagion process between the leaders’ negative affect and followers’ perception of abusive supervision. In our proposed model, leaders’ expressions of negative affect, via emotional contagion, influence followers’ negative affect, perception of abusive supervision, and two behavioral responses: affect- and judgment-driven. The negative emotional contagion process between the leader and followers also differs depending on followers’ susceptibility to emotional contagion and their ILTs. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our model.

This paper aims to determine the factors that influence the consumer’s online shopping intention in the current pandemic context (COVID-19). For this purpose, a conceptual model has been developed by introducing the constructs “attitude,” “perceived utility,” “intention” as well as the variable “perceived risk of contagion.”

After collecting data from the questionnaire diffused in Moroccan e-commerce websites, this study used various statistical analyses with the multiple regression model on the SPSS statistical software to confirm or refute the research hypotheses.

The results indicate that attitude and perceived utility positively affect online shopping intention. However, the variable “perceived risk of contagion” has a weak effect on such intention, which can be explained by the period in which the survey was started (a few months after the confinement).

The scientific contribution of this study lies in the insertion of a new factor that will be called “perceived risk of contagion” in the research model. This factor has been inspired by the perceived risk theory of Bauer (1960). Furthermore, all studies dealing with this topic have been carried out in developed countries, such as France, Great Britain, Germany and the USA. For this reason, the researcher believe that it is more appropriate to study the intention to buy online during the COVID-19 pandemic in one of the developing countries, such as Morocco. This is based on the fact that to develop theories, it is necessary to examine a given problem in several countries. The context plays a determining role in such situations.

The purpose of this paper is to address the following question: Can a bank capitalize on its well-established self-service technologies (SSTs) in order to entice customers to adopt a newly introduced SST, namely, mobile banking? More specifically, it proposes an integrative model that simultaneously investigates the transference effects of attitudes, trust and the contagious influences of social pressures on mobile banking adoption intentions.

Structural equation modeling is applied to data collected from banks’ clients who are actually non-users of mobile banking.

The results indicate that attitude toward and trust in mobile banking along with coercive, normative and mimetic pressures are key antecedents to mobile banking adoption intentions. In addition, attitudes toward automated teller machines (ATMs) and online banking significantly predict attitude toward mobile banking. The results also support the effects of trust in ATMs as well as trust in online banking on trust in mobile banking. Moreover, predicted differences in the relative effects of attitude and trust are supported. Particularly, attitude toward online banking has a stronger impact on attitude toward mobile banking compared to the impact of attitude toward ATMs. In the same vein, the effect of trust in online banking on mobile banking is significantly stronger than the effect of trust in ATMs.

The study’s results hint at some practical and worthwhile guidelines for banks that can be leveraged in communication campaigns aiming at boosting the adoption rates of mobile banking. Banks can take advantage of the transference effects of the established attitudes toward and trusting beliefs in their mature SSTs as well as the contagious social influences in inducing the adoption of a newly introduced SST.

The present study represents a first step toward generating new insights into the role of the joint effects of attitudes, trust and social influences in the adoption of a new SST.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the emotional contagion theory in print ads, and expand the literature of smiling to different type of smiles and gender congruency. Emotional contagion happens when an emotion is transferred from a sender to a receiver by the synchronization of emotions from the emitter. Drawing on emotional contagion theory, the authors expand this concept and propose that smiles in static facial expressions influence product evaluation. They suggest that false smiles do not have the same impact as genuine smiles on product evaluation, and the congruence between the model gender–product in a static ad and the gender of the viewer moderates the effects.

In Experiment 1, subjects were randomly assigned to view one of the two ad treatments to guard against systematic error (e.g. bias). In Experiment 2, it was investigated whether viewing a static ad featuring a model with a false smile can result in a positive product evaluation as was the case with genuine smiles (H3). In Experiment 3, it was assumed that when consumers evaluate an ad featuring a smiling face, the facial expression influences product evaluation, and this influence is moderated by the congruence between the gender of the ad viewer and the product H gender of the model in the ad.

Across three experiments, the authors found that the model’s facial expression influenced the product evaluation. Second, they supported the association between a model’s facial expression and mimicry synchronization. Third, they showed that genuine smiles have a higher impact on product evaluation than false smiles. This novel result enlarges the research on genuine smiles to include false smiles. Fourth, the authors supported the gender–product congruence effect in that the gender of the ad’s reader and the model have a moderating effect on the relationship between the model’s facial expression and the reader’s product evaluation.

Marketing managers would benefit from understanding that genuine smiles can encourage positive emotions on the part of consumers via emotional contagion, which would be very useful to create a positive effect on products. The authors improved upon previous psychological theory (Gunnery et al., 2013; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006) showing that a genuine smile results in higher evaluation scores of products presented in static ads. The theoretical explanation for this effect is the genuine smile, which involves contraction of both zygomatic major and orbicularis oculi muscles. These facial muscles can be better perceived and transmit positive emotions (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006).

The purpose of this paper is to study the applicability of a crossover model of work–family conflict (WFC) in the work setting among supervisor–subordinate dyads. It examines the positive association between supervisor’s WFC and subordinate’s WFC and analyses the moderating effect of subordinate’s susceptibility to emotional contagion (SEC).

Data were gathered using a questionnaire survey method and tested in 193 matched supervisor–subordinate dyads from select organisations representing the services sector in India.

The authors found a significant direct crossover path from the supervisor to his/her subordinate’s WFC. The effect of supervisor reported WFC on subordinate reported WFC was found to be strong when the subordinate displayed higher SEC with his/her supervisor.

Examining the crossover of WFC contributes to theory by broadening crossover research to include transmission of negative experiences in the work context. This study significantly adds to emotional contagion theory by substantiating the existence of WFC contagion in supervisor–subordinate dyads. Given the constraints of cross-sectional research design, future research should replicate these findings using a larger sample in other cultural contexts as well to generalise the results. Future research should consider using longitudinal data and including information from both the supervisor and the subordinates collected at different points in time. Crossover of positive work–family experiences (e.g. work–family enrichment) and the role of other individual difference variables such as the personality of the subordinates, empathy, etc., could also be considered.

Supervisors should be advised of the potential adverse effects of their WFC and organisations should be made cognizance of the impact that the WFC of employees can have on their job outcomes. Organisations should provide the required formal and informal support to their employees to deal with their WFC efficiently.

This study has attempted to examine the crossover of WFC in supervisor–subordinate dyads and the potential effect of one of the individual difference variables namely SEC. To the best of the authors knowledge, it has rarely been examined earlier.