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Physical stores are increasingly dependent on impulse visits and the impulse purchases of passers-by. Interactive advertising screens in store windows could help retailers increase impulse-visit urges and impulse-buying urges. However, the effects of interactive screens in physical surroundings have not been studied before. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the effect of interactive screens on impulse urges and gain insight into the underlying mechanism that explains the possible effect.

An interactive screen was placed in a store window. Using three field experiments, we studied the effect of interactivity-level (high vs low) on the impulse-visit and impulse-buying urges of passers-by, and the mediating role of self-agency in these effects.

Highly interactive (compared to less interactive) advertising screens in store windows positively affect impulse-visit and impulse-buying urges through self-agency. Retailers can therefore use interactive advertising screens to increase the number of impulse purchases if feelings of self-agency are activated.

This is the first study to examine the extent to which interactive screens in a store window enhance the impulse-visit and impulse-buying urges of passers-by and the mediating factor of these effects. By conducting three field experiments, we achieved a high external validity and managed to share very reliable results owing to the replication of the findings.

Compulsive social media use has the potential to reduce well-being. In this study, the authors propose that there are two main paths to compulsive social media consumption. One is behavioral and based on habit; the other is motivational and rooted in the fear of missing out. This study aims to test the antecedents of these two drivers as well as their consequences for the tendency to engage in compulsive social media consumption.

The authors applied a quantitative research design and collected data through a survey of 600 respondents from a representative sample. The authors used structural equation modeling to test their conceptual model and hypotheses. Gender and age were included as moderators to investigate the model’s boundary conditions.

The authors found support for all the suggested relationships in the conceptual model. The findings indicate two main manifestations of compulsive social media use – always being logged in (i.e. the frequency of social media consumption) and excessive use (the intensity of consumption) – that in turn spurred a reinforcer of compulsivity: disconnection anxiety. The findings also indicate two main paths to compulsive social media consumption. One path is behavioral, based on habit, and the other is motivational, based on fear of missing out. Moreover, the authors identified the key antecedents of both paths. Habit formation was observed to be a function of situational cues (technological nudges in the online sphere) and consumer engagement. Fear of missing out was shaped by both injunctive norms (a consumer norm to be online) and descriptive norms (social proof).

Although the antecedents of compulsive social media consumption suggested in this study have a strong and significant effect, the explained variance in the dependent variables being always logged in and excessive social media use indicates that there might be other drivers as well. These should be explored along with moderators other than gender and age to identify the potential boundary conditions of the model.

The main implications of the present work point to the “ease” with which typical or normal social media use may spiral out of control and become compulsive, with adverse implications for consumer health and well-being.

The behavioral and motivational paths to compulsive social media consumption have been less explored and have not yet been studied in conjunction, nor have their antecedents and consequences. Thus, this is a novel approach to understanding how social media use can potentially lead to reduced control and well-being.

Using food brands as a case in point, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between a local vs global brand positioning strategy and buying impulsivity, as well as the mediating role of construal level. The findings add a psychological argument to the array of reasons for firms to opt for a local instead of a global brand positioning strategy: local food brands promote higher levels of buying impulsivity than global brands by lowering consumers’ level of construal.

Five experiments use student and nonstudent samples, different construal level indices and generic and brand-specific buying impulsivity measures to test the hypotheses.

Local food brands promote higher levels of buying impulsivity than global brands by lowering consumers’ level of construal. Because local brands are proximal to consumers’ lifestyles, values, preferences and behaviors, they decrease the psychological distance between the brand and the consumer, compared with global brands. The smaller psychological distance lowers consumers’ construal level and renders the immediate, concrete, appetitive attributes of the product more salient, thus making consumers more prone to impulsively buy a local brand than a global one.

For the choice between a global or local brand positioning strategy, this paper argues in favor of the latter. Local (food) branding is a concrete brand positioning mechanism that can influence and benefit from consumers’ buying impulsivity.

The research reveals heretofore unknown but important implications of local vs global brand positioning strategies for consumers’ construal level and buying impulsivity.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

For those who appreciate both business strategy and the English language, there is one term that started to gain traction in the 1990s that has always provided a substantial level of discomfort. While a necessary and important term within the realms of globalization, this word nevertheless often raises uncomfortable questions regarding a firm’s strategy, while simultaneously being one of the ugliest words in the English language. The word being referred to is this: glocalization.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This study aims to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework to investigate how green brand positioning strategies positively impact consumer response. It focusses on uncovering the causal mechanism in which such effect is mediated by brand stereotypes. Additionally, it outlines the moderating role of construal level in this formation process.

Three experimental studies were conducted to examine the hypotheses. Study 1 tests the positive influence of green brand positioning on consumer response. Study 2 tests the dual mediating effect of warmth and competence in the relationship between green brand positioning and consumer response. Study 3 further examines the moderating role of construal level in the effects of green brand positioning on brand stereotypes.

The findings reveal that green emotional positioning strategies are predominantly stereotyped as warm while green functional positioning strategies are predominantly stereotyped as competent. Both warm and competent mediate the effects of green brand positioning on consumer response. Furthermore, a congruency between green emotional positioning and high-level construal, as well as the match between green functional positioning and low-level construal, leads to more warmth and competence perception.

This study contributes to green brand management literature by proposing a brand stereotype-based mechanism to explain how green brand positioning strategies trigger consumers’ stereotyping process, leading to positive consumer response. This study also identifies the construal level as a moderating variable that impacts consumers’ warmth and competence perceptions towards two kinds of green brand positioning strategies. Managerially, the findings of this study provide managerial ideas for developing green branding strategies.

A well-accepted proposition in the literature of corporate strategic communication and public relations is that consumer-brand relationships (CBRs) affect corporate crisis communication. However, it is inconclusive whether CBRs protect or work against brands, because both buffering effects and love-becomes-hate effects have been found. This study attempts to explain and bridge the seemingly inconsistent findings by clarifying the effects of different types of CBRs in different brand transgressions.

Re-conceptualizing CBRs into non-identifying relationships and identifying relationships, this study examined the possible interaction effects of CBRs and crises on consumers' attitudes and emotions, which then influence their behavioral intentions. A three-step multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data collected from an online experiment with nearly 900 consumers of two brands.

Although non-identifying relationships offer buffering effects, identifying relationships primarily offer love-becomes-hate effects by intensifying negative emotions such as anger and disappointment, which in turn affect consumers' behavioral intentions. Such patterns hold regardless of whether a crisis directly threatens the core meaning of the brand.

This study clarifies the effects of different types of CBRs in crises and shows that deep psychological connections (i.e. identifying relationships) offer love-becomes-hate effects. It suggests that one promising future research direction for crisis communication and public relations scholars is to examine how to mitigate such love-becomes-hate effects so that brands can keep their loyal consumers.

The aim of this paper is to extend a conceptual understanding of business process outsourcing (BPO) and its prevailing practices in the background of the post‐liberalized economic scenario of India. Efforts have also been made to discuss the major work verticals of Indian ITES‐BPO industry, which further reveals the fact of its domain expertise and in‐time delivery of services in a pre‐determined standard with least possible cost that has made India a BPO hub. The later part of the study deals with an empirical SWOT‐analysis that highlights the key factors that have significant bearing to the very flourishment of this sunshine industry.

The data collected for the analysis are secondary in nature and include various journals, periodicals, survey reports and on‐line business reports/news. The techniques like trend analysis and SWOT analysis in particular have been implemented for the purpose of study.

The paper found that in addition to the growth of traditional industries, patronization of this emerging sector is also a high necessity, looking at its socio‐economic contribution to the society on one hand and considerable amount of employment creation and income generation capabilities for the bright mass of the country that restrict “brain drain”, on the other hand.

The paper describes, analyses and critiques the outsourcing industry in India with reference to a core theory base. It is expected to be helpful in stimulating the analytical mind of the researchers and industry practitioner of the area for scientific decision making and furthering the research on this particular aspect of business.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically establish the boundary conditions of the guilt mitigation process that consumers resort to in justifying consumption under contextual ambiguity, with respect to consumers' discomfit with ambiguity. While well observed, the process of guilt mitigation is less articulated with respect to contextually relevant consumers’ personality trait(s) (such as, discomfort with ambiguity) that may affect decision-making idiosyncratically. This gap is addressed herewith.

Three experiments were conducted across two studies to establish the boundary conditions of guilt mitigation in the specific context of transactions involving trade-ins. In doing so, consumers' direct price imputation or, indirectly, their relative preference for financially equivalent, but structurally distinct, price structures was measured. Guilt was induced among consumers by directly manipulating consumers' degree of attachment with their old product (the trade-in).

Results indicate that consumers resort to guilt mitigation in justifying consumption more extensively when they harbor higher levels of discomfort with ambiguity, not otherwise – the moderating effects of consumers' discomfort with ambiguity or the boundary condition under study.

Hypothetical buying scenarios, albeit constructed based on field information and subsequently tested for realism, were used to conduct the experiments, versus field experiments using real consumers. Further, the respondent pool comprised of Indian nationals only. These remain the primary limitations of this research.

The findings indicate that managers may be able to construe deals in a manner that promotes self-segmentation by consumers, especially when consumers harbor greater discomfort with ambiguity. This, in turn, implies reduction in consumer heterogeneity and a concomitant increase in marketing efficiency.

By considering consumers' discomfort with ambiguity in this research, the efficacy of the guilt mitigation process was established with respect to a contextually relevant individual difference factor. While the fundamentally constructive nature of guilt mitigation necessitates such considerations, this research gap, thus addressed, remained unaddressed hitherto.