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There is research evidence that suggests that perceptions of price unfairness give rise to consumer resistance to prices and result in decreased profit to the firm. However, it is as yet unclear what factors influence perceptions of unfairness. Answers the question, “What is fair?” by proposing that consumers sometimes infer a firm’s motive for a price and that the inferred motive influences perceived price fairness. A study provides evidence that consumers use contextual information to infer a firm’s motive. When consumers infer a negative motive, the price is perceived to be unfair and when consumers do not infer a negative motive, the same price is perceived to be fair. Suggests that marketers should: provide reasons for prices; consider consumers’ likely inferences of motive and either avoid taking actions that are likely to give rise to inferences of negative motive or manage the motive inferred; and consider the inferences that consumers may make for other marketing actions in addition to price.

Although digital content marketing (DCM) research and industry-wide expenditure is growing very rapidly owing to the positive outcomes associated with this new pull marketing strategy, research has not completely mapped how DCM activities can be optimized in the social media brand community context. This paper seeks to understand how social media DCM activities can be optimized to achieve greater relational and monetary outcomes for different products.

A structural equation modeling procedure was used to analyze 416 survey responses obtained from members of Facebook brand communities in South Africa.

The results reveal that social media DCM consumption motives exert significant differential effects on both relational and monetary marketing outcomes in search and experience product contexts while also demonstrating the mechanism through which social media DCM consumption motives lead to contributing social media engagement behaviors.

The study findings call for the need for firms to understand the motives that drive the consumption of DCM in social media brand communities. Specifically, marketers of search products should deploy more of hedonic contents such as images while simultaneously keeping highly textual DCM to a minimum in Facebook brand communities as this works better for experience products. Finally, more authentic SM-DCM activities that effectively address the authenticity SM-DCM consumption motive can result from the DCM activities of social media opinion leaders and genuine consumer–brand interactions in the context of Facebook brand communities.

This paper broke new grounds in three unique directions in terms of: (1) the relative salience of SM-DCM consumption motives in enhancing WTP and different aspects of SMBE; (2) the contextual influence of product type on SM-DCM activities optimization and (3) the mechanisms that underlie the effects of SM-DCM consumption motives on contributing SMBE in the Facebook brand community context.

Electric cars (EC) adoption represents a strategic action aimed at promoting environmental sustainability. Although Millennials and Gen Z represent the greatest potential market for EC, their adoption remains low; thus, this study focused on examining the role of motive in predicting EC adoption intention within these two generations’ population. Built upon the fundamental motive framework, this research explores the motives that lead to EC adoption intention. Subsequently, this study aims to examine the role of performance expectancy as the mediating variable and EC attributes beliefs as the moderating variable that can promote EC adoption intention.

Both exploratory and confirmatory methods were used in this investigation. Using an exploratory approach, this research explores the fundamental motives and the attributes of EC that influence EC adoption intention. Using a confirmatory approach, this research tests the mediating role of performance expectancy. To collect the data, an online survey was administered to 260 young consumers in Indonesia.

The results of PLS-SEM analysis from the data revealed that self-protection, kin-care, status and affiliative motives influence EC adoption. Furthermore, performance expectancy mediates the relationship between self-protection, mate acquisition, affiliative motives and EC adoption intention. Among EC attributes, the short-haul performance strengthens the indirect relationship between affiliative motive and EC adoption intention.

The main limitation of this study is that it only focuses on the practical attributes of EC, whereas psychological attributes that were found to be more influential in consumer’s purchase decisions were not examined.

Marketers need to explore EC attributes that can strengthen the relationship between consumers’ motives and EC adoption intention by increasing consumers’ evaluation of performance expectancy. In this study, marketers can promote short-haul performance, as it will lead to EC adoption for consumers with affiliative motives.

This study ties together two lines of research on the adoption of EC, exploring EC attributes and examining consumers’ motivation to choose EC, especially Millennials and Gen Z. In this way, EC attributes facilitate the fulfillment of consumers’ needs and promote EC adoption intention.

This study aims to examine the moderating role of principle-based entity (PBE) of luxury brands and its effect on perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) motives, consumer situational scepticism and brand resonance.

Structural equation modelling using multigroup analysis was used. Data were collected through a consumer panel.

Values-driven motives lowered consumer situational scepticism (CSS) significantly more in PBE than non-PBE. However, egoistic-driven motives increased CSS significantly more in PBE than non-PBE. Stakeholder-driven motives and strategic-driven motives did not elicit CSS, contrary to prior studies in non-luxury brands. PBE status also weakens the relationship between CSS and brand resonance more than non-PBE status.

This study is the first to provide empirical insights into PBE status and its effects on perceived motives, CSS of CSR initiatives and its influence in consumer and management outcomes in luxury brands.

Research on vertical line extensions shows that consumers tend to evaluate upward extensions higher than downward ones. This paper examines the opposite situation. It also investigates the process underlying consumer responses by identifying a moderator and mediators.

Two studies were conducted to assess the effect of extension direction (upward vs downward) on consumers' extension evaluations. Study 1 incorporated implicit theories of relationships (the growth belief) as a moderator and inferred motives for launching a vertical line extension as mediators in the effect. Study 2 presented a firm's rationale for undertaking the extension to examine whether it influenced evaluations.

Consumers' preferences for downward over upward extensions appeared in markets where the exclusivity of luxury brands had been reduced. However, the resistance to upward extensions was weaker when consumers endorsed stronger growth beliefs in human relationships. Consumers inferred customer- and selling-oriented motives more strongly from downward than upward extensions, enhancing the evaluations. Finally, when presenting a rationale for launching an extension in the launch announcement, customer-oriented reasoning raised the evaluations higher than selling-oriented reasoning but did not elevate the evaluations higher than the announcement showing no reason.

This study advances the literature on vertical line extensions and shows that consumers' preference for upward over downward extensions is not universal. The opposite pattern exists in markets with a lower distinction between high- and low-end brands. It supports the theoretical notion that responses are driven by the differences in growth belief and in cognitive inferences vis-à-vis motives.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether consumers’ attitude toward sporting goods retailers depends on who engages in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and where CSR takes place. The study aims to replicate previous findings on football teams (Kulczycki and Koenigstorfer, 2016) for for-profit sporting goods retailers by looking at how organization size and proximity of the supported cause to the retailers’ headquarters interact with consumers’ motive attributions for CSR (philanthropic vs profit).

In total, 200 participants took part in the experimental study. The study applied a between-participant design manipulating both the proximity of the supported social cause (local vs distant CSR) and the size of the organization (small- vs large-sized organization) and measured perceived motives for CSR as independent variables. Attitude toward retailers was the dependent variable.

The results of regression analyses showed that perceived philanthropic motives increased attitude toward retailers. This relationship became stronger for large-sized sporting goods retailers, in particular when they engaged in CSR activities at distant locations. For small-sized retailers, the proximity of CSR did not impact on the relationship between motive attribution and attitude toward the retailer.

Large-sized retailers are encouraged to take particular care that consumers perceive CSR activities as philanthropy-driven, especially when supporting social causes at distant locations.

The study replicates previous findings and shows that not only for sports teams, but also for sporting good retailers, CSR can increase consumer attitudes even when the consumer population at the organization headquarters’ location does not directly benefit from CSR.

The purpose of this study is to investigate motives for engaging in electronic word of mouth (eWOM) about organizations on social media sites. This study explores motives for posting positive eWOM and motives for posting negative eWOM. It also investigates whether existing WOM frameworks adequately capture consumers’ motives for spreading eWOM within the context of social media. This study seeks to confirm established motives in literature while also identifying new motives specific to social media.

A qualitative study was conducted using the critical incident technique. In all, 64 positive incidents and 60 negative incidents were analyzed.

This study provides a typology for understanding consumers’ motivations for engaging in positive and negative WOM within the context of social media. Four new motives for sharing eWOM are identified; eight established WOM motives are re-confirmed; and new subcategories for eWOM motives are proposed. The study also finds that further refinement of WOM motives and scales within a social media context is needed.

An integrated conceptual framework of both positive and negative motives is developed to illustrate a more comprehensive model of motives of eWOM within social media. Managerial implications for managing negative eWOM and amplifying positive eWOM are discussed. A limitation is that the study is exploratory in nature.

This study identifies new motives for sharing eWOM, re-labels existing WOM and eWOM motives with more descriptive and comprehensive titles and confirms established WOM and eWOM motives within the context of social media. This study is conducted across multiple firms and industries, leading to more generalizable results.

Cause-related marketing (CRM) is an increasing popular marketing strategy in which a firm donates a specific amount to a designed cause when customers engage in revenue-providing exchanges. Based on balance and attribution theory, this paper aims to explore the interaction effect of donation amount and ad orientation, two important factors of formulation and communication of CRM, respectively, on consumer response and the mediating effect of consumers’ perceived company motives.

Two 2 (donation amount: small vs large) × 2 (ad orientation: product- vs cause-oriented) between-subjects experimental studies were conducted in marketing course with 284 and 157 Chinese undergraduate students participating in Studies 1 and 2, respectively. ANOVA and regression were used to test the hypotheses.

Study 1 shows the significant interaction effects of donation amount and ad orientation on consumers’ response. When CRM has a large donation amount, cause-oriented (vs product-oriented) ad leads to consumers’ more positive company attitude and higher purchase intention. The opposite is true for the small donation amount condition. Study 2 shows that the above interaction effect is mediated by consumer-attributed company motives. The attributed motive of sincerely caring about social cause has significant positive effect on consumer response, whereas the attributed motive of increasing sales or improving corporate image does not.

This paper contributes to the literature by empirically examining the interaction effect of donation amount and ad orientation on consumer-inferred motives and behavioral response. The findings are valuable because they indicate the importance of matching between factors at formulation and communication stage. In addition, this paper found that consumers are “tolerant” of companies using CRM to promote product sales and improve brand image.

Consumers’ underlying motives to co-create value are important when determining their willingness to engage in co-creation activities. However, the importance of their motives may vary according to different service contexts. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the value co-creation research by investigating how the service contexts shape consumers’ motives to co-create.

This paper is based on a survey of 284 consumers. By focusing on professional vs generic services (context), based on differences in knowledge intensity and workforce professionalism, the paper pinpoints the contextual nature of consumer motives to co-create.

The results show that in professional services consumers are positively influenced to co-create by developmental motives, whereas empowerment motives have a negative impact. In turn, the positive effects of individualizing and relating motives are predominant in generic services. Willingness to co-create is a strong determinant of intended co-creation behaviors, regardless of the service type.

This study clearly shows the contextual nature of motives to co-create value, thereby questioning the generalizability of single-context studies.

This is the first paper to compare consumer motives to co-create across different service contexts.

This study aims to investigate the role of consumers’ (patients) motives in knowledge sharing and value co-creation with the service provider in the context of physiotherapy services.

The authors used partial least squares structural equation modeling for the analysis of the physiotherapy services users’ data from Germany and Pakistan.

The results show that in both consumer groups, individualizing, empowering and development motives are common influences on the willingness to share knowledge leading to value co-creation. However, the relating, ethical and concerted motives show varying influences in the data set.

A key research implication relates to specifying the link between consumer knowledge sharing and value creation and the role of cultural factors in this context. It is one of the first studies to undertake a comparative analysis in this specific context by highlighting the changing role of consumers from collective and individualistic societies, in influencing service provision through participation in the service exchange.

For the managerial audience, this paper highlights the importance of being sensitive to cultural elements as they tend to influence personal knowledge sharing by the consumer, especially in the well-being sector, which ultimately influences the value co-creation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current paper is one of the first studies focusing on the knowledge sharing motives of consumers in the specific context of physiotherapy services leading to value co-creation. Moreover, specific focus on individual consumer’s motives and their role in comparative, cross-cultural settings, adds further value to the contribution of this study.