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As technology increasingly integrates into the restaurant industry, avatar servers present a promising avenue for promoting healthier dining habits. Grounded in the halo effect theory and social comparison theory, this study aims to delve into the influence of avatars' appearance, humor and persuasion on healthier choices and customer satisfaction.

This paper comprises three experimental studies. Study 1 manipulates avatar appearance (supermodel-looking vs normal-looking) to examine its effects on perceived attractiveness, warmth and relatability. These factors influence customer satisfaction and healthy food choices through the psychological mechanisms of social comparison and aspirational appeal. Studies 2 and 3 further refine this theoretical model by assessing the interplay of appearance with humor (presence vs absence) and persuasion (health-oriented vs beauty-oriented), respectively.

Results suggest that avatars resembling supermodels evoke stronger aspirational appeal and positive social comparison due to their attractiveness, thus bolstering healthier choices and customer satisfaction. Moreover, humor moderates the relationship between appearance and attractiveness, while persuasion moderates the effects of appearance on social comparison and aspirational appeal.

This research bridges the halo effect theory and social comparison theory, offering insights enriching the academic discourse on technology’s role in hospitality.

The findings provide actionable insights for managers, tech developers and health advocates.

Despite its significance, avatar design research in the hospitality sector has been overlooked. This study addresses this gap, offering a guideline for crafting attractive and persuasive avatars.

This study aims to explore the connection between travel content consumption in social networks and social comparison, envy as well as travel intention. It analyzes whether tourists’ travel intention is affected by travel content consumption in social networks, and more importantly, whether social comparison and envy play a mediating role in this process.

Data was collected through intercept in four popular tourist spots in Guangzhou and Zhuhai in South China. A self-administered questionnaire was used. A total of 400 participants were recruited, and 291 valid questionnaires were obtained. Bias-corrected nonparametric percentile bootstrap mediation variable test method was used to test hypotheses.

The study yielded three results. First, travel content consumption in the social networks positively influences travel intention. Second, travel content consumption in social networks indirectly affects travel intention through social comparison and envy. Third, the control variables, such as gender, age, education and income, mainly affect envy.

This study constructs a theoretical framework of stimulus–cognitive appraisal–emotion–behavioral responses. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study to reveal that the internal psychological mechanism of travel content consumption affects travel intention. It also discloses that envy of seemingly negative emotions can encourage positive behaviors in certain situations.

This study aims to focus on the dynamics in influencer-consumer relationships to understand how Generation Z consumers’ identification and social comparison with influencers shape their response to influencers’ branded posts. Specifically, this study investigates how perceived similarity and wishful identification lead to distinct social comparison mechanisms that affect Generation Z consumers’ self-improvement motives, which, in turn, drive their message engagement, brand attitudes and purchase intentions.

An online survey was conducted with 295 college students who are digital natives and whose purchase decisions are heavily influenced by social media influencers.

The study findings confirmed that perceived similarity positively influenced assimilative comparison emotions of optimism, admiration and aspiration while negatively influenced contrastive comparison emotions of envy, depression and resentment. Wishful identification positively affected both assimilative and contrastive comparison emotions. Both types of social comparison emotions further affected consumers’ motivations to follow the influencer for self-improvement, thereby enhancing their brand attitude, purchase intention and engagement behaviors.

This study is one of the earliest attempts to investigate the relationship dynamics between influencers and consumers from the lens of social comparison. The study examines the antecedents of perceived similarity and wishful identification, the mediators of upward comparison emotions and self-improvement motives and the brand evaluation outcomes of message engagement, brand attitude and purchase intention.

The rapid growth of social media has changed how people interact and connect with one another while also giving rise to new social-media associated psychological experiences, such as the well-known fear of missing out (FoMO) and the somewhat new phenomena, the joy of missing out (JoMO). This study aims to develop a new scale for measuring JoMO and explore its independent nature and relationships with well-being, social comparison and demographic variables.

A sample of 230 participants filled out an online survey, including questions about demographic details, well-being, social media engagement, social comparison, FoMO and a new JoMO scale. The data was analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, hierarchical regression and structural equation modeling.

The study confirmed the validity and reliability of the new JoMO scale in three sub-categories: active JoMO, passive JoMO and coping with disconnection. Younger individuals and those who were single, with weaker psychological well-being, higher engagement in social media and greater social comparison inclinations tended to experience higher levels of FoMO. Conversely, older individuals, women and those who enjoyed stronger psychological well-being and reduced social media engagement demonstrated higher levels of JoMO. The findings also suggest a complex relationship between FoMO and JoMO.

The creation of an innovative JoMO measurement tool could transform both scholarly research and practical approaches to digital media interactions. This tool offers a deeper understanding of the intricate links between JoMO and factors such as social comparison and FoMO, paving the way for targeted interventions. By utilizing this, experts can foster healthier online behaviors and better psychological health through increased JoMO consciousness, reduced social media engagement and social comparisons, and FoMO management. Therefore, this fresh instrument assists in clarifying and improving how individuals engage with digital technology.

This research validates the JoMO scale, enhancing our understanding of JoMO and its potential effects on well-being, as well as its associations with other variables. In addition, this research provides valuable insights for future studies on social media use and JoMO, and for developing effective strategies for managing healthier online experiences.

Much prior work involving director incentives and corporate behaviour has been focussing on their absolute dollar value or the intrinsic value and generated mixed findings. Comparison theories, however, suggest that the relative value of an incentive may be the main drive for individual performance. This study attempts to investigate the role of director relative pay in promoting the board’s intervention with unrelated diversification decisions.

The analysis uses data from firms operating in more than one segment during the period from 1999 to 2019. Data were obtained from WRDS databases. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis and the two-stage system generalized method of moments (GMM) were run to test the hypotheses. To test the robustness of the findings, alternative proxies for the key independent variables were used in separate analyses.

The results support the hypothesis that unrelated diversification negatively impact firm performance, while higher director relative pay will help reduce unrelated business diversification. The absolute director pay, however, has no significant impact on corporate strategic choices. The results also highlight the moderating effect of director overcompensation. Director overcompensation will cancel out the impact of relative director pay on unrelated diversification.

This study takes a fresh theoretical perspective by framing the investigation using the dimensional comparison theory to address the single untended comparison framework in the director pay structure – the intra-individual framework. It is the first to investigate the role of director relative pay in corporate strategic choices. The findings support the contention that the relative value of the incentive is an important indicator of the effectiveness of the pay.

Despite the dramatic increase in people's use of social media, relatively few studies have examined its effect on careers. Drawing upon social comparison theory and self-regulation theory, this study aims to investigate how career-oriented social media usage interacts with social comparison orientation (SCO) to influence the career exploration of university students.

Three waves of survey data are collected from 482 university students in China. Hypotheses are tested through ordinary least squares analysis.

Results show that career-oriented social media usage increases career anxiety, which in turn promotes career exploration. Furthermore, SCO strengthens such influence of career-oriented social media usage.

Given the limited attention paid to the effects of social media in career contexts, this study distinguishes career-oriented social media usage and proposes insights into its effect on career exploration. In doing so, this study extends social media literature and provides implications for the transition of university students from school to work in the digital era.

The purpose of this study to improve the efficiency of customer acquisition and retention through the design of salary information disclosure mechanism.

This study develops a stylized game-theoretic model of delegating customer acquisition and retention, focusing on how firms choose delegation and wage information disclosure strategy.

The results confirm the necessity for enterprises to disclose salary information. When sales agents are risk neutral, firms should choose multi-agent (MA) delegation and disclose their wages. However, when agents are risk averse, firms may disclose the wages of acquisition agents or both agents in MA delegation, depending on the uncertainty of the retention market.

This paper contributes to the literature on delegation of customer acquisition and retention and demonstrates that salary disclosure can be used as a supplement to the incentive mechanism.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are gaining popularity as investments and personal indulgences, prompting brands to integrate them into marketing campaigns. Thus, understanding consumer personality traits toward NFTs is essential for success. This study presents a model that explores how social comparison orientation (SCO) influences perceived exclusivity and financial benefits of NFT marketing, subsequently impacting experiential evaluations, willingness to purchase NFTs and brand loyalty.

We conducted two experiments to test our model. Study 1 used a quasi-experiment with 1,053 participants and tested the model using partial least squares–based structural equation modeling. In Study 2, we aimed to investigate the causal influence of SCO on NFT marketing effectiveness. We employed a one-factor experiment (social comparison prime: high SCO vs. control) with 123 participants.

NFT users frequently engage in social comparisons and prefer branded NFTs that offer exclusivity (social value) and financial benefits (economic value). Social and financial superiority derived from NFTs enhances branded NFT experiences, leading to a stronger willingness to purchase NFTs and building brand loyalty. Perceived exclusivity, financial benefits and experiential evaluation mediate the effects of SCO on willingness to purchase NFTs and brand loyalty.

This study explores the effectiveness of NFT marketing through the lens of social comparison theory. In doing so, we examined the relationship between SCO and NFT marketing outcomes, revealed the causal influence of SCO on perceived exclusivity and perceived benefits in NFT marketing and shed light on the serial mediation of value- and experience-related constructs.

The existing literature involving director compensation has been concentrating on its absolute or intrinsic values. Although the relevant studies have generated mixed findings, research in other fields suggests that the power of an incentive may be determined by its value relative to the chosen referencing standard more than its absolute value. This study aims to investigate how relative director pay affects corporate investment efficiency.

This study takes a fresh theoretical viewpoint by framing the investigation using the dimensional comparison theory and proposing that a directorship also presents a relative value that may influence the board’s performance. Ordinary least squared regressions and two-stage system generalised method of moments are used to analyse 14,267 firm-year observations.

The empirical results suggest that the relative director pay is a better estimate of the power of the incentive than the absolute pay. A positive association between the relative director pay and investment efficiency is evident, while the absolute pay has no significant effect on investment decisions. Director overcompensation, however, will cancel out the positive effect of director compensation on investment efficiency. Firms with relatively lower unexpected investment (UI) level benefit the most from an increase in the relative director pay, while neither absolute nor relative director pay affects investment choices in firms with a high UI level because of significantly more overcompensation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to investigate the effect of relative director pay. It is also the first to examine the role of dimensional comparison in strategic decisions which is the single untended comparison framework in the director pay design. The current director pay structure has emphasised social and temporal equality by standardising the pay structure and vesting the equity-based pay over a long period. Yet it ignores the fact that people decide their commitment level by comparing the reward with an internal referent too. The findings speak to the dimensional comparison theory in that the inequality emanated from dimensional or internal comparison may be accentuated by the perceived equality in other comparison frameworks, driving the different performances in the roles one assumes.

Users' knowledge contribution behaviors are critical for online Q&A communities to thrive. Well-organized question threads in online Q&A communities enable users to clearly read existing answers and their evaluations before contributing. Based on the social comparison and peer influence literature, the authors examine peer influence on the informativeness of knowledge contributions in competitive settings. The authors also consider three levels of moderating factors concerning individuals' perception of competitiveness: question level, thread level and contributor level.

The authors collected data from one of the largest online Q&A communities in China. The hypotheses were validated using hierarchical linear models with cross-classified random effects. The generalized propensity score weighting method was employed for the robustness check.

The authors demonstrate the peer influence due to social comparison concerns among knowledge contribution behaviors in the same question thread. If more prior knowledge contributors choose to contribute long answers in the question thread, the subsequent contributions are more informative. This peer influence is stronger for factual questions and questions with higher popularity of answering but weaker in recommendation-type and well-answered questions and for contributors with higher social status.

This research provides a new cue of peer influence on online UGC contributions in competitive settings initiated by social comparison concerns. Additionally, the authors identify three levels of moderating factors (question level, thread level and contributor level) that are specific to online Q&A settings and are related to a contributor's perception of competitiveness, which affect the direct effect of peer influence on knowledge contributions. Rather than focus on motivation and quality evaluation, the authors concentrate on the specific content of online knowledge contributions. Peer influence here is not based on an actual acquaintance or a following relationship but on answering the same question. The authors also illustrate the competitive peer influence in subjective and personalized behaviors in online UGC communities.