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This study aims to analyse what type of premium, hedonic or utilitarian, is preferred in a promotional context. Additionally, it seeks to examine the role of affective and cognitive reactions in decision processes where utilitarian and hedonic premiums are involved.

Three experiments were conducted. A single factor within-subjects design was employed, with the nature of the premium (hedonic/utilitarian) as the treatment factor. Respondents were asked to make their choice between two promotional offers. Affective and cognitive reactions were measured. Regression analyses were conducted to test the hypothesized effects.

The results show that hedonic premiums are preferable to utilitarian ones in a promotional context, other characteristics of the premium (e.g. premium attractiveness) being equal. The findings also identify that a preference for the hedonic/utilitarian premium is more likely to emerge when affective/cognitive reactions are incited, and indicate that the nature of the preferred premium determines the mediating effect of cognitive reactions.

The paper only focuses on the hedonic/utilitarian nature of the premium. However, premiums come in very different forms and several characteristics – such as a premium with a relatively low price, the reception delay of the premium, and the perceived fit between the product and the premium – may reverse the relative preference for hedonic premiums.

The hedonic vs utilitarian nature of the premium should be considered when planning premium promotion. It appears that the use of more hedonic premiums increases the effectiveness of promotional actions alongside other variables such as premium attractiveness, the promotional benefit level or the product-premium fit. Furthermore, the type of premium offered influences the role of affective and cognitive reactions aroused during shopping. Thus, the nature of the premium may influence the reactions of consumers when participating in promotional actions.

The research extends the factors that may explain the effectiveness of premium promotions, since few studies to date have focused on the hedonic or utilitarian nature of premiums.

The purpose of this paper is to assess cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions of employees to merger and acquisition (M&A) situations.

The paper reports responses of 225 managers of four banks that have gone through mergers (two merger cases), recently in India. Data are collected on a structured questionnaire containing standard scales of leader‐member exchange (LMX), leader communication and employees' reactions to M&As. The psychometric properties of the measures are established before testing the hypotheses.

Results show that affect mediates the relationship between cognitive and behavioral reactions to M&A. Leader communication fully mediates the relationship of the contribution dimension of LMX with cognitive reactions.

The results have implications for using LMX and communication with the leader in M&A situations. Though, single source data may be a limitation but primary data from real‐life M&A situation is strength of the paper.

The study offers insight into the affective, cognitive and behavioral reactions of employees to merger and acquisition situations.

This study aims to understand how digital storytelling advertising impacts online consumers’ responses towards advertisements on Facebook considering the different story features and the different consumers’ cultural backgrounds.

The grounded theory approach guided the development of this study that adopts an interpretivist positioning with an abductive approach that links the already existing knowledge on how storytelling affects consumer behaviour to the empirically retrieved data from two qualitative studies between France and Tunisia using a netnographic method to collect consumers’ responses to culturally adapted storytelling advertising.

The results reveal similarities and differences between Tunisian and French consumers regarding the effectiveness of digital storytelling advertising in influencing their cognitive, affective, and behavioural responses. Specifically, Tunisian consumers tended to hold more cognitive reactions originating from story plot and characters features as compared to French consumers who performed more affective responses towards the story plot feature. Interestingly, only French consumers performed behavioural reactions aligned with a cognitive and behavioural engagement with the storytelling advertising generated by story plot and verisimilitude elements. Findings also highlight the impact of some cultural influences on consumers’ reactions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first known study to explore and compare the effects of digital storytelling advertising between Tunisia and France. The major contribution of this study lies in investigating and comparing consumers’ reactions to digital storytelling advertising across countries. This study adds to the body of literature on international marketing communication by offering two frameworks associating story’s elements with their outcomes in their relevant context and providing fruitful insights for future research and for brand managers to design effective storytelling content.

Scholars and practitioners alike wish to understand what makes workplace conflict beneficial or injurious to, for example, performance and satisfaction. The authors focus on parties’ personal experience of the conflict, which is complementary to studying conflict issues (i.e. task- or relationship-related conflict). Although many authors discuss the personal experience of conflict, which the authors will refer to as conflict personalization, different definitions are used, leading to conceptual vagueness. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop an integrative definition of the concept of conflict personalization.

The authors conducted a systematic literature review to collect definitions and conceptualizations from 41 publications. The subsequent thematic analysis revealed four building blocks that were used to develop an integrative definition of conflict personalization.

The authors developed the following definition: Conflict personalization is the negative affective as well as cognitive reaction to the self being threatened and/or in danger as a result of a social interaction about perceived incompatibilities.

The integrative definition of this study enables the development of a measurement instrument to assess personalization during workplace conflict, paving the way for developing effective research-based interventions.

Conceptual vagueness hampers theoretical development, empirical research and the development of effective interventions. Although the importance of conflict personalization is mentioned within the field of workplace conflict, it has not been empirically studied yet. This paper can serve as the basis for future research in which conflict issue and personal experience are separated.

Frontline employees (FLEs) are a key source of competitive advantage for organizations and have a significant impact on the quality of customer–firm interactions. This study aims to use the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model as a theoretical lens to examine whether internal communication (IC) (stimulus) evokes FLEs’ organizational identification (emotional) and job satisfaction (cognitive), and whether these in turn shape FLE customer-oriented behavior (response). The study also tested whether these mediated relationships are moderated by perceived communication formalization.

The hypothesized mediated and moderated effects were tested using data collected from a cross-sectional survey of 293 full-time salespeople working for a large general insurance company.

Both organizational identification and job satisfaction simultaneously mediate the relationship between IC and customer-oriented behavior. Perceived communication formalization was found to weaken the mediated relationship between IC and customer-oriented behavior, but only when this is via job satisfaction.

This study has shown that where IC is positively viewed by FLEs, it can be leveraged as a key driver by organizations to evoke simultaneous positive emotional and cognitive reactions, leading to increased customer-oriented behavior.

This study informs both theory and practice related to effective IC among customer-contact FLEs.

The study shows how IC can simultaneously produce two simultaneous emotional and cognitive reactions leading to FLE customer-oriented behavior and how these mediated relationships can be moderated by perceived communication formalization. The study used the S-O-R model as the theoretical lens to test these relationships.

Although the term “trigger event” is commonly accepted and frequently mentioned by many disciplines in conjunction with sensemaking, research attention on the trigger event construct is sorely lacking. We chose to examine this construct within a specific setting that global leaders have to master – the intercultural context. After reviewing the relevant literature, we created an original model of trigger events and sensemaking in the intercultural context, which is accompanied by propositions that determine the likelihood of an event rising to the level of a trigger. It is our hope that this theoretical model will lead to a better understanding of how trigger events function in general. The chapter contributes to a greater understanding of the cognitive element of global leadership effectiveness. Finally, the model has practical implications for intercultural and global leadership training and executive coaching.

Sponsorship rarely occurs in a one sponsor-one sponsee dyad (single sponsorship), yet a large portion of sponsorship research takes this perspective. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model that reflects the complexity and rich diversity inherent in the field. The sponsorship network model considers the plurality of stakeholders to a sponsorship and their potential relationships to each other.

This conceptual paper develops a theoretical and conceptual framework to better identify the effect of sponsorship networks on consumer behavior.

Based on a review of the multiple sponsorships literature, the authors propose an innovative theoretical framework and a set of research propositions. The model considers simultaneously the potential relations between sponsors, sponsees and ambushers at the cognitive, affective and conative levels.

This research emphasizes the managerial implications for stakeholders involved in sponsorship and ambush marketing actions in order to maximize their investment. The model provides a comprehensive understanding of the complex nature of sponsorship networks and their ability to influence consumer behaviors. These effects are more complex than is currently recognized.

This paper aims to explore the role of emotions in consumers' evaluations of service quality.

The study uses empirical qualitative data from in‐depth interviews with 26 senior citizens who are consumers of long‐term residential care services in a Swedish rural community. The empirical findings are analysed inductively in terms of dimensions derived from the literature on the role of emotions in consumers' evaluations of service quality.

When explaining their overall evaluations of service quality, the respondents referred exclusively to service dimensions that had evoked emotional reactions. However, although these service dimensions were the only ones to influence the consumers' perceptions of service quality, respondents tended to reflect about these dimensions in a cognitive manner. The remaining service dimensions, which did not evoke any emotional memories, did not influence the respondents' perceptions of the overall quality of services rendered.

Emotional reactions can direct the attention of consumers to certain service dimensions, and subsequently trigger cognitive evaluations of these dimensions. The emotional and cognitive responses of consumers to services are thus interrelated. More research is needed into the mechanism of this interaction.

Service providers should recognise that consumers' emotional and cognitive reactions are intertwined. For providers of aged‐care services, this study suggests certain service dimensions that are worthy of further attention in seeking positive evaluations of services from users.

Previous research has tended to distinguish between emotional and cognitive evaluations of services. This study challenges this distinction by demonstrating that dimensions that have traditionally been viewed as “non‐emotional” can be influenced by “emotional” reactions. Thus, the study shows that “emotional bias” can lead to some dimensions having a disproportionate influence on overall evaluations of service.

This study examined organizational change in universities as it relates to discomfort among the organization's members.

Using the critical incident technique (CIT), data was collected from the informants in an Indonesian public university that had been mandated by the government to enter the top 500 world university ranking. This would make it a “World-Class” university.

The findings describe the causes, courses and consequences of the discomfort felt in response to the organizational change in the university context. The causes of discomfort were categorized as a fear of loss, organizational culture, systems and policies, work overload and a lack of resources. Discomfort can manifest through negative affective, cognition and behavioral tendencies. Meanwhile, the consequences result in active and passive participation in the process of the organizational change itself.

Discomfort with organizational change is a new variable that has rarely been explored, thus it requires testing and validation using different methods and contexts, as offered by this study. We have also shown that in the initial stage of organizational change (unfreezing), discomfort will always emerge that must be immediately managed in order not to trigger resistance to change. Furthermore, this study exhibits the use of the critical incident technique in the context of organizational change. Finally, we offer comprehensive views by exhibiting the causes, the reactions shown and the consequences of discomfort with the change.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how change leadership activities help bring about employee support for planned organizational change.

Using a non-experimental quantitative research design, and a self-administered Likert-type questionnaire survey, the study sourced data from employees in an organization undergoing significant change. Data analysis was by structural equation modeling (SEM).

Change leadership behaviors bearing on; visioning, communication, participation, support and concern for change participants' interests were found to be of significant importance in ensuring employee buy-in and support for planned change efforts. Although change leadership had no direct effect on employees' behavioral intentions to support change, it was strongly related to employee cognitive appraisal of change. The relationship between change leadership and employee behavioral intentions to support planned change was serially mediated by employee cognitive appraisal and emotional response toward the planned change event.

In appraising planned organizational change efforts, managers tend to focus on employee behaviors toward the change instead of conditions that drive such behaviors. This study underscores the need to focus on employee attitudes as precursors to desired behavior toward change.

Prior research suggests that change leadership behaviors affect employee attitudinal reactions to change but yet lacked empirical validation. By applying a multidimensional approach to attitude and investigating its hierarchy of effects, this study enhanced our accuracy in explaining the influence change leadership has on employee attitudinal support for change.