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Traditionally, it has been held that strong attitudes are a result of the conscious cognitive process of elaboration where one engages in effortful issue-relevant thinking. The purpose of this work is to show that attitude strength can follow from processes not just limited to elaboration – as a function of certain embodied states. This work examines bodily manipulations that could alter perceptions about the quality of the information describing a target (e.g. notion of “hard/soft” evidence), and, finds that such an embodiment leads one to have strong attitudes toward the target object. This work proposes an attitude-rehearsal-based mechanism to explain the phenomenon.

This work has relied on lab experiments as a methodology – undergraduate students and American residents served as participants. There is a pre-registered study included as well.

This work shows that strong attitudes can result from processes not just limited to elaboration, as a function of certain embodied states. This paper examines bodily manipulations that could alter perceptions about the quality of information describing the target (e.g. notion of “hard vs soft”; “converging vs diverging” information), and, find that such an embodiment leads one to have strong attitudes toward the target. This paper consistently observed that the bodily manipulations influence attitude accessibility, a direct and operational indicator of attitude strength. This paper further validates an attitude-rehearsal-based mechanism to explain the observed phenomenon.

While much work has investigated the impact of embodiment on attitudes, little attention has been paid to whether, and, how embodied states can impact the “strength” of the attitude without impacting the attitude itself – to the knowledge, this paper is the first to document this. Moreover, traditionally, it has been held that strong attitudes are a result of the conscious cognitive process of elaboration where one engages in effortful issue-relevant thinking. This work however shows that attitude strength can follow from processes not just limited to elaboration – as a function of certain embodied states.

This chapter reviews research on the question–behavior effect, the phenomenon that asking questions influences respondents’ behavior. Two distinct research streams, the self-prophecy effect, concerned with socially normative behaviors, and the mere measurement effect, dealing with purchase behaviors without socially normative significance, are identified. Despite the recent attempt at integration, it is argued that there are fundamental differences between the two effects. Distinctions are also drawn between lab-based and field-based mere measurement effects, and between normatively consistent and implicit attitude-driven, normatively inconsistent self-prophecy effects. Key studies, theoretical explanations, and moderators of each effect are discussed, potential unanswered questions and research opportunities are identified, and significant managerial and policy implications are highlighted.

Accessibility is now a major issue in the design and maintenance of housing estates. This paper considers the reasons why this issue has emerged and the main obstacles to accessibility encountered by housing estate residents. Focusing on a mature estate in South Belfast, Northern Ireland, investigates the obstacles to accessibility experienced by the residents in order to produce a hierarchy of impacts. Residents were surveyed on a number of issues including location, roads and pavements, transportation, level change, wayfinding, safety and security, and public areas. It was discovered that obstacles relating to wayfinding created the greatest problems for residents; however, attitudes towards accessibility varied according to the age of the respondent. The study concludes that accessibility should be introduced estate‐by‐estate dependent on a resident profile in order to maximise resources and advocates the adoption of a co‐ordinated interagency approach.

The purpose of this study is to explain predictors that discriminate users’ preferences for online health services, focusing on a downtown area in a developing country.

Drawing on rational choice theory (RCT), the authors test a model that links the frequency of online health service usage to access-activators and access-inhibitors. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and the discriminant analysis model were used to analyze data from a sample of 215 internet users.

Results confirm the significance of responsiveness, user’s attitude, accessibility and perceived ease of use, indicating their discriminating role in the usage of online health services.

The study demonstrates the relevance of RCT in measuring perceived online health service quality in an emerging context. Future research should consider the influence of electronic health (eHealth) literacy, norms and trustworthiness to increase the generalizability of the findings.

The findings of this study can help enhance the eHealth service quality by encouraging service providers to improve the interactivity and ease of use of their platforms, thus delivering value to both consumers and firms and improving the well-being of the society at large.

Few existing studies draw attention to access-activators and access-inhibitors to predict users’ preferences for online health services. This study shows the applicability of RCT in preparing the instrumental dimensions of online health service quality.

This paper examines the effects of resource dependency and contract exclusivity on the attitudes and intentions of consumers in brand alliances. Findings indicate that attitudes of the brands before the alliance (pre‐attitudes) have a positive effect on the attitude toward the alliance, which has a positive effect on perceived quality of the alliance, willingness to pay a premium price and purchase intention. Further, attitudes toward the brands after the alliance (post‐attitudes) reveal a positive spillover effect for both the host and ally brands. Interestingly, the moderating effects of dependency and exclusivity differ based on whether the brand serves as the host or the ally brand in the alliance. Analyses conducted after controlling for the effects of familiarity of the ally brands revealed consistent results.

This paper seeks to examine expansions of online brands into the offline market via brand extensions and via brand alliances. Specifically, it aims to compare the formation of reciprocal spillover effects for both strategies.

Empirical survey data are analyzed through a series of standard and hierarchical multiple regressions. Different combinations of online brands, product categories and offline brands are studied.

The main results indicate that: the attitude towards the new product is determined by fit and by the functional offline brand image for alliances, while it is determined by fit and by the emotional and commitment dimensions of online brand image for extensions. Moreover, the online brand image is more vulnerable in brand alliances than in extensions.

This work shows the applicability of commonly used theories in brand extensions and alliances to the online‐offline market expansion. Moreover, these theories allow differences across marketing strategies and across distinct brand image dimensions to be explained.

The results obtained may guide the management of these market expansion strategies. Particularly, the present findings are useful to predict the contribution of each brand image dimension on the attitude towards the new product and upon the feedback effects swaying the online brand image.

This study addresses “a hot topic” in branding by comparing two expansion strategies: brand extensions and brand alliances. This comparison is made within the under‐researched area of online branding, and in a novel scenario that is the online‐offline expansion.

Purpose – This study explores U.S. consumer attitudes toward organic foods in order to demonstrate that multiple and meaningful segments can be identified based on attitudes and beliefs rather than demographics and that a more targeted marketing strategy could likely create a better fit with consumer wants and needs.

Methodology – Q-methodology is employed, in part to demonstrate its usefulness for segmentation purposes.

Findings – Six meaningful segments of consumers are generated based on attitudes toward organic foods: Health Enthusiasts, Organic Idealists, Hoban's Hogwashers, Unengaged Shoppers, Bargain Shoppers, and Cynical/Distrustfuls. These groups vary in attitudes toward organic food, and despite conventional wisdom, exhibit a reasonable match between attitude and purchase behavior. Segments are also generated for viewpoints toward conventionally grown foods, revealing that consumers do not simply hold binary positions (pro-organic, anticonventional), but instead consider each food type on its respective merits. Positioning and media choice strategies are considered for each organic food segment.

Originality – This chapter distinguishes between different types of consumers of organic food by using Q-methodology, with the result being a rich, detailed description of the values and preferences of each group. With these descriptions, the organic food industry can better align its marketing efforts with the priorities of individual consumer groups, rather than their simplistic demographics as are commonly utilized. The chapter also offers a unique perspective on the attitude–behavior gap, revealing that when the attitude is understood in greater detail, the gap appears to disappear.

Earnings management is a common term in the academic community and is likely understood by managers and professional investors, but how the large community of non-professional investors interprets this term is less clear. We examine non-professional investors’ attitudes toward earnings management and their resulting investing behaviors using a 2 × 2 mixed design. We manipulate investor role (prospective vs current) between participants and the method of earnings management within participants. We believe that different investment goals (prevention vs promotion) between current and prospective investors should lead to different investing behaviors. Consistent with our expectations, we find that current investors are more likely to maintain an equity than prospective investors are to invest in the same opportunity. Further, the consistent link between investors’ attitudes and actual investment behavior is only present for prospective investors. The prevention goal drives the current investors to maintain their investment, while the prospective investors remain more objective and focus on a goal of promotion. Importantly, prior research examining investor attitude toward earnings management has failed to link investors’ attitudes with actual investing decisions; our study attempts to fill this void by examining attitudes toward earnings management as well as subsequent investment behavior.

Luxury goods manufacturers may find it profitable to enter a different demographic segment, and several strategies are available to do so. Nevertheless, such market expansion can be risky, and the luxury goods company must avoid tarnishing the equity contained in the luxury brand. This study examines the effects of a co-branding strategy between luxury brands and retailers on consumers’ evaluation of the luxury brand's image. We use information integration theory (IIT) as the basis for our study, as it can be used to explore how attitudes are formed and changed as new information is combined with existing cognitions and thoughts. A theoretical model based on IIT is built and empirically tested using a sample of 240 Taiwanese adult consumers. We conduct an experimental survey study in which we manipulate luxury brand familiarity and product and brand fit between luxury brand and the co-brand, and assess prior-attitudes and post-attitudes toward the luxury brand and attitudes toward the co-brand. We find support for many of our hypotheses: prior-attitudes toward the luxury brand is positively related to the attitude toward the co-brand, brand fit is related to attitudes toward the co-brand, and brand fit is marginally related to the post-attitude toward the luxury brand. Other hypotheses, however (such as those regarding product fit) were not supported. We conclude by discussing our theoretical and managerial contributions.