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Postulating that individuals exposed to the threat of contagious diseases respond oversensitively toward other people, the current research aims to investigate its impact on consumers’ preferences for human images—human presence—in product packaging.

Five independent online and offline experiments were conducted. Studies 1, 2a, and 2b employed a three-group (threat: contagious vs. control vs. noncontagious) between-subjects design to investigate the main effect and its underlying mechanism. To further examine the moderation effects, Study 3 used a 2 (threat: contagious vs. control) × 2 (product feature: basic vs. antibacterial) between-subjects design, and Study 4 employed a 2 (threat: contagious vs. control) × 3 (human type: non–human vs. human–adult vs. human–baby) between-subjects design.

Studies 1, 2a, and 2b demonstrate that consumers facing the threat of contagious diseases tend to avoid social interaction, leading to a lower preference for products featuring human presence (vs. non-human presence). Studies 3 and 4 contribute to our hypothesized process by providing boundary conditions. Specifically, when the product incorporates an antibacterial function (Study 3) and the packaging depicts a baby (Study 4), the existing effect can be attenuated.

Despite the prevalence of experiencing epidemics and pandemics, little work has examined how threatened consumers respond to product packaging. The present research addresses this gap by exploring consumers' preferences for products featuring human presence on their packaging. Furthermore, this research contributes to the practical understanding of consumer choices by identifying product features and human types as moderating factors.

Interconnections among banks are an essential feature of the banking system as it helps in an effective payment system and liquidity management. However, it can be a nightmare during a crisis when these interconnections can act as contagion channels. Therefore, it becomes essentially important to identify good links (non-contagious channels) and bad links (contagious channels).

The article estimated systemic risk using quantile regression through the ΔCoVaR approach. The interconnected phenomenon among banks has been analyzed through Granger causality, and the systemic network properties are evaluated. The authors have developed a fixed effect panel regression model to predict interconnectedness. Profitability-adjusted systemic index is framed to identify good (non-contagious) or bad (contagious) channels. The authors further developed a logit model to find the probability of a link being non-contagious. The study sample includes 36 listed Indian banks for the period 2012 to 2018.

The study indicated interconnections increased drastically during the Indian non-performing asset crisis. The study highlighted that contagion channels are higher than non-contagious channels for the studied periods. Interbank bad distance dominates good distance, highlighting the systemic importance of banking network. It is also found that network characteristics can act as an indicator of a crisis.

The study is the first to differentiate the systemic contagious and non-contagious channels in the interbank network. The uniqueness also lies in developing the normalized systemic index, where systemic risk is adjusted to profitability.

This research aimed to raise awareness about the need for safety measures and features of online food delivery applications (OFDAs) to build electronic trust (e-trust) with augmented purchase intention among customers. Moreover, this study explores the attributes of electronic commerce (e-commerce) and how e-trust influences the purchasing intention of consumers while ordering food through OFDAs including fear of contagious diseases. Determinants of e-commerce in the digital era profoundly impact the performance of enterprises.

Data from 493 food consumers collected from Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Pakistan, who were regular users of OFDAs. To scrutinize the dataset, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to assess the construct validity in this research study. Structural equation modeling (SEM), which is facilitated by Smart-PLS, was employed to examine the direct, moderation and mediation effects of the proposed model.

Results revealed the positive and significant impact of the e-trust on the purchase intention. Additionally, e-trust acted as a mediating factor in the connection between electronic security (e-security), electronic privacy (e-privacy), usability, electronic payment (e-payment), electronic innovativeness (e-innovativeness) and the buyer's purchase intention. Furthermore, the fear of contagious viruses negatively moderated the e-trust and purchase intention that weakened buying behavior.

This research is primarily centered on enhancing the comprehension regarding safety orientation within the context of an evolving restaurant industry. The findings of this study hold substantial contributions for academics, web developers, application designers, OFDAs, restaurants and other businesses since they indicate the attractiveness of OFDAs in generating feelings of pleasure and boosting users' intentions to keep using the application.

Counter-hedonic entertainment, characterized by evoking negative emotions in consumers, has emerged as one of the most popular and profitable forms of entertainment in Western countries. However, this entertainment type is not as popular in China as in Western countries. This study examines whether the free trial of counter-hedonic entertainment can promote the consumption of such entertainment and explores the moderating effect of contextual factors on this relationship.

This study investigates the promotional effectiveness of the free trial strategy on counter-hedonic entertainment through a quasi-experiment involving the broadcasting of a large-scale free counter-hedonic program. This study has analyzed the counter-hedonic consumption data from 31 major cities in China and employed econometric modeling to test the hypotheses.

Results show that the free trial of counter-hedonic entertainment can promote the sales of entertainment with similar categories. The follow-up moderation analyses show that the positive effect is amplified on days with less sunlight and for consumers with abundant (vs scarce) financial resources, thereby providing evidence to support the underlying drivers of the positive effect – the need for arousal and confidence frame. Meanwhile, the free trial of counter-hedonic entertainment also has a long-term effect after airing.

Based on existing research on consumers’ counter-hedonic consumption motivation, this study confirms the effectiveness and boundary conditions of the free trial strategy in promoting counter-hedonic entertainment consumption for the first time. The results also offer actionable insights for counter-hedonic entertainment marketers and practitioners.

This study explores the contagion of greenwashing strategies among ESG mutual funds. It investigates how the greenwashing behaviors of peer funds within the same family influence a fund’s decision to engage in greenwashing. The research also examines the impact of greenwashing on genuine ESG funds and explores the mechanisms through which greenwashing strategies spread across ESG mutual funds.

This paper employs a two-stage least squares regression model with cross-fund returns standard deviation as an instrumental variable to disentangle the peer effects of greenwashing from family-level characteristics. The analysis incorporates various fund characteristics and introduces four contagion channels through which greenwashing may influence genuine ESG funds.

The study finds greenwashing behavior in ESG funds is positively influenced by similar practices within their fund family. Larger assets under management and older funds with higher management fees show resilience against greenwashing influences, while team-managed funds are more susceptible. Additionally, socially responsible investors struggle to distinguish between genuine and greenwashing ESG funds, which may contribute to the persistence of greenwashing practices.

This paper contributes to the literature by delineating the mechanisms of greenwashing contagion within ESG mutual funds. It also examines the demand-side incentives for adopting greenwashing strategies, offering insights into the implications for fund flows and investor behavior. This study is among the first to analyze the contagion effects of greenwashing strategies across an extensive network of ESG funds, enriching our understanding of the broader impacts of greenwashing in the context of socially responsible investing.

Our research takes inspiration from stories of kindness in the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic and investigates what generational entrants, namely those entering the workforce in large numbers, dubbed emerging leaders (ages 19–39) think of the phenomenon of kindness and its potential role in organizations. Guiding the study is the question: “What can emerging leaders tell us about kindness and work?”

Adopting discourse analysis fused with kindness as research praxis, we conducted 66 qualitative interviews with young leaders (born between 1981 and 2001) across North America, Europe and Africa. Interviews were conducted in the summer and fall of 2020.

Our research sets out to expand theorizing related to kindness as a phenomenon, illustrates implications relevant to management and organizational studies and offers insights into the value of kindness as research praxis. This paper makes three related contributions and one methodological one: (1) it contributes to the literature on kindness and how it can be theorized in management and organizational studies, (2) it explores emerging leaders perceptions of kindness in a pandemic context, (3) it offers insights into how kindness might be leveraged as a model of moral and ethical behaviour valued in organizational environments, and (4) the paper promotes epistemic properties of kindness when fused with research praxis.

Authored during a rapidly unfolding scholarly conversation on the influences of the pandemic on organizational life, our research draws insights from experiences of kindness during COVID-19. This paper applies discourse analysis fused with kindness as research praxis to an understudied area of human behaviour (kindness) which has implications for management and organizational theory and practice. These implications include: (1) individual kindness capacity or inclination towards kindness behaviour that may be depleted by stressors such as the pandemic, (2) that kindness has socially contagious qualities, (3) and kindness as praxis has material benefits in the context of research methods, benefiting the research team and the research outputs.

Using a video revealing unhygienic practices in Chinese five-star hotels as the case study, this study aims to understand the impact of service failure online exposure on hotel revenue performance in terms of seriousness, magnitude and duration, as well as to identify the hotel-characteristics and hotel-responsiveness factors that influence revenue recovery.

This study uses the actual Revenue per Available Room data of ten hotels involved in the incident and five different market segments during 2016–2019. Event study method is used to investigate the effect of online exposure on hotel revenue performance.

This study confirms the significant negative effect of online exposure and that hotels take nearly nine months to fully recover. The results indicate that hotel size, hotel age and response strategy play an important role in reducing negative impacts. Moreover, this study reveals the dynamic spillover effects of online exposure on different hotel market segments. These effects change from a competitive to a contagious effect with a decrease in class ratings.

Low-class hotel managers should take effective actions to avoid possible negative spillovers from others’ service failure incidents. Hotel managers could consider the synergy of different strategies rather than a single response strategy to minimize losses.

This study theoretically broadens knowledge about the negative impact of online exposure on Chinese hotel revenue. Additionally, the findings examine the dynamic spillover effects on hotels in different segments. Furthermore, they extend the existing findings on the negative impact of online public opinion crises.

本研究以一段揭示中国五星级酒店不卫生行为的视频为案例, 旨在了解网上曝光的服务失败事件在严重程度、规模和持续时间方面对酒店收入绩效的影响, 并确定影响收入恢复的酒店特征和酒店回应因素。

本研究使用了2016–2019年期间10家涉及酒店和5个不同的细分市场的实际每间可用房收入（RevPARs）数据。采用事件研究法（ESM）来研究网上曝光对酒店收入绩效的影响。

本研究证实了网上曝光的显著负面效应, 酒店需要近9个月的时间才能完全恢复。结果表明, 酒店规模、酒店年龄和回应策略在减少负面影响方面发挥了重要作用。此外, 本研究还揭示了在线曝光对不同酒店细分市场的动态溢出效应。这些效应随着酒店星级的下降而从竞争效应变为传染效应。

低星级酒店管理者应采取有效行动, 避免其他酒店的服务失败事件可能带来的负面溢出效应。酒店管理者可以考虑不同策略的协同作用, 而不是单一的回应策略来减少损失。

本研究从理论上拓宽了关于网上曝光对中国酒店收入绩效的负面影响的知识。与此同时, 本研究的结果考察了不同细分市场的酒店的动态溢出效应。此外, 还扩展了现有的关于网络舆情危机的负面影响的研究结果。

Este estudio utiliza los datos reales de ingresos por habitación disponible (RevPAR) de 10 hoteles implicados en el incidente y cinco segmentos de mercado diferentes durante 2016-2019. Se utiliza el método de estudio de sucesos (ESM) para investigar el efecto de la exposición en línea en el rendimiento de los ingresos de los hoteles.

Utilizando como caso de estudio un vídeo que revela prácticas antihigiénicas en hoteles chinos de cinco estrellas, este estudio pretende comprender el impacto de la exposición online de fallos en el servicio sobre el rendimiento de los ingresos hoteleros en términos de gravedad, magnitud y duración, así como identificar las características y los factores de respuesta del hotel que influyen en la recuperación de los ingresos.

Este estudio confirma el importante efecto negativo de la exposición online, tardando los hoteles casi nueve meses en recuperarse totalmente. Los resultados indican que el tamaño del hotel, su antigüedad y la estrategia de respuesta desempeñan un papel importante en la reducción del impacto negativo. Además, este estudio revela los efectos indirectos dinámicos de la exposición online en diferentes segmentos del mercado hotelero. Estos efectos cambian de un efecto competitivo a un efecto contagioso con una disminución de las calificaciones de la categoría o clase hotelera.

Los revenue managers de los hoteles de categoría baja deberían tomar medidas eficaces para evitar posibles repercusiones negativas de los fallos en el servicio de otros hoteles. Los directores de hotel podrían considerar la sinergia de diferentes estrategias en lugar de una única estrategia de respuesta para minimizar las pérdidas.

Este estudio amplía teóricamente los conocimientos sobre el impacto negativo de la exposición online en los ingresos de los hoteles chinos. Además, los resultados examinan los efectos indirectos dinámicos en hoteles de diferentes segmentos. Además, amplían los resultados existentes sobre el impacto negativo de las crisis de opinión pública online.

This study examines whether common directors are guilty of contagion of corporate frauds from the customer side and, if so, how contagion occurs. Moreover, it explores a way to mitigate it, which is the increased digital orientation of firms.

Secondary data analysis is applied in this paper. We extract supply chain relations from the China Stock Market and Account Research (CSMAR) database as well as corporate fraud data from the same database and the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). Digital orientations are estimated through text analysis. Poisson regression is conducted to examine the moderating effect of common directors and the moderated moderating effect of the firms’ digital orientations.

By analysing the 2,096 downstream relations from 2000 to 2021 in China, the study reveals that corporate frauds are contagious through supply chains, while only customers’ misconduct can contagion to upstream firms. The presence of common directors strengthens such supply chain contagion. Additionally, the digital orientation can mitigate the positive moderating effect of common directors on supply chain contagion.

This study highlights the importance of understanding supply chain contagion through corporate fraud by (1) emphasising the existence of the contagion effects of corporate frauds; (2) understanding the potential channel in the process of contagion; (3) considering how digital orientation can mitigate this contagion and (4) recognising that the effect of contagion comes only from the downstream, not from the upstream.

Dysfunctional customer behavior (DCB) is costly and problematic for organizations. This research seeks to understand how DCB spreads and how businesses can effectively deal with it through employee intervention.

This research conducted a survey study and an experimental study to examine the proposed model.

Through two studies, we discovered that when an employee intervenes to stop DCB and is perceived as having high coping ability, observing customers learn from the employee’s action, resulting in reduced empathy toward the dysfunctional customer and diminished intentions to engage in DCB. Conversely, if they perceive the employee as having low coping ability, the intervention backfires, enhancing the observers’ empathy toward the dysfunctional customer and consequently leading them to engage in more DCB.

This research unveils an additional mechanism that explains the spread of DCB. It also contributes to the employee intervention literature by shedding light on when employee intervention can backfire. Further, our application of social learning theory along with the person-situation interaction literature offers a fresh perspective in explaining service exchanges.

Bullying knowledge hiding has been recently identified as a manifestation of knowledge hiding behavior. As a relatively new concept, it is still underexplored. Previous research has focused on the antecedents of bullying hiding. However, there is a lack of research on the negative consequences that bullying hiding may have on employees. This study aims to uncover the effects of supervisor bullying hiding on employees knowledge behavior. The study also aims to examine the moderating effect of power values and the mediating effect of job stress.

Data were gathered in two waves from 444 employees with higher education in Poland. Data collection was conducted in July and August 2022. A general linear model mediation analysis with jamovi Advanced Mediation Models software was used to examine the hypotheses.

The results indicate that bullying knowledge hiding by supervisors triggers subordinates’ job stress and aggression in the form of bullying knowledge hiding toward co-workers. Contrary to expectations, job stress does not mediate the relationship between supervisor bullying hiding and subordinate bullying hiding toward co-workers. Power-dominance values, contrary to power-resources values, moderate the above relationship.

As bullying hiding has significant potential to spread among organizational members, managers seeking to reduce it should check the personal values of job applicants and employees.

Based on the behavioral contagion and frustration–aggression–displacement theories, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the relationships between supervisor bullying hiding, job stress, power values and subordinate bullying hiding toward co-workers.