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Country of origin is a well-studied topic for developed countries that have a favourable image. However, how country of origin image affects the consumers of an emerging country on a frontier market with high uncertainty avoidance still needs to be shed light. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship of country of origin image with consumer purchase intention through consumer uncertainty. The study further explored the conditional effect of brand image between country of origin and consumer uncertainty.

The data for this study was collected from 400 Pakistani consumers. As this study assessed purchase intentions and consumer uncertainty related to high technology products of China, therefore, the consumers of the Huawei brand were selected.

The findings revealed a negative influence of country of origin image on consumer purchase intentions both directly and indirectly through consumer uncertainty. Furthermore, the positive brand image of high tech products was found to moderate the effect of country of origin image on consumer uncertainty.

This study is the first of its kind that explores the intervening role of consumer uncertainty between country of origin image and consumer purchase intention in an emerging market. In addition, the study highlights the importance of strong brand image as it buffers consumer uncertainty because of stereotypes.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the study examines the prolonged effect of policy-related economic uncertainty on hotel operating performance, particularly the room demand (occupancy). Second, the study attempts to explain why occupancy drops when the perceived economic uncertainty is high by studying the mediating effect of consumer sentiment in the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and hotel demand.

This quantitative study uses secondary data – US economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index, University of Michigan's index of consumer sentiment (ICS), and property-level hotel operating data from three states of the US – California, Florida and New York. Data were analyzed using random effect regression and structural equation modeling. Robustness tests were conducted to enhance the reliability of the research findings.

Random-effects regression analysis reveals that policy-related economic uncertainty has a negative and lead-lag effect on hotel occupancy, average daily rate and revenue per available room (RevPAR). Structural equation modeling results show that the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and hotel occupancy is significantly mediated by consumer sentiment. Robustness test results support the findings from the main analysis.

This study offers valuable implications for the hotel professionals in regard to anticipating the economic impact of policy-related uncertainty on hotel industry and understanding how consumer sentiment affects demand at such crises times. Moreover, the study suggests potential course of actions to deal with declining room demand at times of uncertainty.

This empirical study explores how economic policy uncertainty affects hotel performance at the property level and explains the mediating effect of consumer sentiment on hotel room demand. The study provides a first-hand evidence of how consumer sentiment relates to the perception of economic uncertainty and leads to decline in consumer demand. In that regard, findings of the study have valuable implications for hospitality industry practitioners and relevant policymakers.

This paper seeks to investigate the effects of different influential factors on consumer perceptions of uncertainty for online shopping.

In this research, consumer perceptions of uncertainty have been divided into perceived commodity uncertainty and perceived seller's behavior uncertainty, and the influential factors concerned are experienced commodity attributes, online communication, buyer's comments, and the warrants of the consumer to consumer (C2C) operator. Based on the theoretical framework, this paper takes a structural evaluation model to analyze the research hypotheses.

Taking TAOBAO.com as an example, the empirical research results indicate that perceived commodity uncertainty can be reduced by all the influential factors directly, and the perceived seller's behavior uncertainty can be reduced by online communication. In addition, the results also show that the perceived seller's behavior uncertainty can significantly affect the buyers' will, and perceived commodity uncertainty can indirectly affect the buyers will through the perceived seller's behavior uncertainty.

Based on the empirical results, the paper argues that in order to effectively reduce the seller's behavior uncertainty and eliminate information asymmetry, the main issues C2C are faced with currently is to establish a more comprehensive protection mechanism and to develop more equitable trade rules.

Compared with previous research on risk and uncertainty, this paper provides experimental analysis of the consumer perceptions of uncertainty for online buyers. It reveals the effects of different influential factors on the perceived uncertainty of consumers, which would help to explain the online consumer's behavior. Furthermore, the results from this research can enrich the understanding of the theory of risk.

People usually try to avoid uncertainty. Recently, however, uncertainty has become an emerging marketing tool in the hedonic product industry. In the case of blind box consumption, for example, the consumers become addicted to the uncertainty created by businesses, leading to repeat purchases and even indulgences. Previous research has, yet, to focus on the impact of uncertainty on indulgence and the role of emotions.

This paper constructs and validates a chain mediation model of uncertainty triggering indulgent consumption based on the information gap theory, positive emotion theory and uncertainty resolution theory and examines the difference between resolved and unresolved uncertainty. This study also explores differences in the impact of whether uncertainty is resolved on emotions. The uncertainty-resolved group elicited a more positive emotional response than the uncertainty-unresolved group, leading to a more indulgent consumption.

The results of three studies show that uncertainty influences indulgent consumption through curiosity and positive emotion, and that curiosity and positive emotion play separate and chain mediating roles between uncertainty and indulgent consumption, respectively. We validate our central hypothesis with questionnaires among blind box consumer groups, examining the moderating role of perceived luck and risk preferences.

The findings shed new light on firms' use of uncertainty to promote consumer purchases.

This study explores the response of consumer confidence in policy uncertainty in the Japanese context. The study also considers the dynamism of stock market behavior and financial stress and its impact on consumer confidence, which has remained unaddressed in the literature. The role of these control variables has important implications for policy discussions, particularly when other countries can learn from Japanese experiences.

The nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model postulated by Shin et al. (2014) was used for studying the asymmetric response of consumer confidence to policy uncertainty. This method has improved estimates compared to traditional linear cointegration methods.

The findings confirm the asymmetric impact of policy uncertainty on the consumer confidence index in Japan. The impact of the rise in policy uncertainty is greater than that of a fall in asymmetry on consumer confidence in Japan. Furthermore, the Wald test confirmed asymmetric behavior.

The contribution of this study is threefold. First, this study contributes to the extant literature by analyzing the asymmetric response of consumer confidence to policy uncertainty, controlling for both the financial stress and stock price indices. Second, to test the robustness of the exercise, the study utilized different frequencies of observations. Third, this study is the first to utilize the concept of Arbatli et al. (2017) to formulate a combined index of uncertainty based on economic policy uncertainty index, along with uncertainty indices such as fiscal, monetary, trade and exchange rate policies to study the overall impact of policy uncertainty.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of the uncertainties and benefits influencing the repurchase intentions of buyers in cross-border e-commerce (CBEC).

The authors draw on the valence framework to hypothesize effects of positive valences (utilitarian benefits) along with negative valences (pre- and post-contractual uncertainties) on buyers’ repeat purchase intentions. Data were collected using an online survey from 378 international B2C buyers on a CBEC platform in China.

Results explain 51.4 percent of the variance and reveal that overall value, as determined by monetary saving, convenience and product offerings as positive valences, exerts the strongest effect on repeat purchase intention. However, negative valences remain significant, and are particularly salient for female shoppers.

The authors extend the valence theory into the study of repeat purchase behavior and contribute to much needed literature on why consumers return to repurchase from a CBEC platform.

Repeat purchase and loyalty of online consumers is essential for success of e-commerce providers. The results help online providers competing in international markets understand how buyers form repurchase intentions based on their evaluations of both value and uncertainty.

Buyer behavior in CBEC has received relatively less attention than domestic e-commerce. This paper is among the first to examine how both positive and negative valences combine to effect repurchase intention of international buyers in CBEC.

Points out that since consumers are seldom familiar with all the competing brands or the attributes of these brands, brand uncertainty exists in every market. Presents theoretical and empirical evidence from several disciplines to demonstrate that brand uncertainty affects brand attitudes and preferences, and consequently affects brand performance. Demonstrates the importance of actively managing brand uncertainty. Identifies and discusses marketing tools that can be used to reduce brand uncertainty at different stages in the consumer decision process. Discusses how managers can modify these tools to deal with high‐involvement versus low‐involvement products, how these tools should be scheduled for maximum impact, and the amount of control managers have over each tool.

Although consumption of spirituality and growth of the market in this area have been well documented, it has been largely neglected in marketing. Existing literature exploring spirituality has suggested consumers in this area can experience uncertainty, but lacks clarity as to whether this uncertainty results in negative or positive affective states. The aim of this paper is to explore the theoretical concept of consumer uncertainty.

The research adopts a qualitative exploratory approach through the use of interviews. It explores the theoretical concept of consumer uncertainty and its impact on affect.

The research reveals that consumers of spirituality did indeed embrace many of the products and services offered by the market in this area and they also experienced uncertainty, however, rather than negative as much of the literature surrounding uncertainty suggests, the uncertainty they experienced resulted in positive affective states.

It is acknowledged that the current research is limited by its exploratory nature, however, it highlights that consumer uncertainty should not always be viewed as negative and provides important insights into the consumption of spirituality.

The current research makes a number of contributions. First, consumption of spirituality in marketing is under researched. The current research found that individuals did embrace the market in this area and enjoyed the uncertainty inherent in many of the products/services on offer. Second, uncertainty as pleasure is under researched generally in the literature. The current research has contributed to this literature through findings which reveal that uncertainty can result in positive effect and this is stable even when individuals do not know that the outcome of uncertainty will be positive or that their uncertainty will be reduced.

This paper aims to examine the role of a large competitor’s entry and level of innovativeness in consumer adoption of new products.

This paper is based on a comparison between market uncertainty and technological uncertainty. This paper henceforth defines and analyzes the following key factors affecting the purchase intention of small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) new products: type of new products and entry of large competitors. The study further verifies mediator variables that exert impacts: uncertainties regarding both technology and market.

The findings are as follows: purchase intention of SME new products does vary according primarily to the product types and entry of large competitors. More specifically, the entry of large competitors reduces uncertainties about really new products, thereby positively affecting SME new products.

There was no causal relationship found, however, on incrementally new products. Further findings clarify that the mediator variables affecting reciprocal interactions between purchase intention of SME new products and the entry of large competitors hold valid only for market uncertainties and not for technological uncertainties.