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Social media is still influencing consumers and is extending social commerce (S-Commerce) use. Different social media activities can influence the users' trust and e-satisfaction at different levels, which in turn influence the purchase intentions. This is evident for the food and beverage industry as S-Commerce mediated by social media can help realise a shorter time to market and meet buyer demands. In addition, credibility factors may influence trust and purchase intentions. Understanding the various factors of influence such as social constructs, namely ratings, reviews and referrals; design constructs such as credibility and features and behavioural constructs such as trust, satisfaction and motivation; and analysing the relationship between these factors and how they influence purchase intentions can provide deeper insights into S-Commerce research, decision-making process and purchase intentions particularly from a food and beverage context.

Drawing on trust through social media activities and surface credibility as well as e-commerce satisfaction, the authors have proposed a research model to investigate the purchase intention of consumers in S-Commerce platforms. Survey data were collected from six countries in Asia and analysed using SEM-PLS.

Results indicated that both trust and surface credibility significantly influence e-commerce satisfaction leading to purchase intention. Furthermore, surface credibility, which is a novel predictor for purchase intention in S-Commerce context, is highly significant on e-commerce satisfaction. Besides, encouraged by surface credibility, it was identified that trust significantly affects e-commerce satisfaction and results in purchase intention. This research adds contribution to theory and practice in S-Commerce stream as discussed at the end of the paper.

The results of this research contribute to the S-Commerce literature and have practical implications for practitioners in the food and beverage industry. As such, focussing on these constructs, this paper analyses the relationship between the social media activities, trust, e-commerce satisfaction, surface credibility and intention to buy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of offering customer decision authority on customer satisfaction in credence services, and the moderating effects of customer persuasion knowledge and service provider credibility.

A video-based experiment is conducted to achieve high similarity to real service encounters. The video comprises three levels of customer authority while service provider credibility is manipulated. In a subsequent questionnaire, customer response and customer persuasion knowledge are measured.

Results suggest that greater decision authority increases customer satisfaction. However, customer persuasion knowledge and provider credibility together were found to moderate these effects. Offering decision autonomy is most important when source credibility is low and persuasion knowledge is high.

The study setting is an initial healthcare encounter. Other service settings and service provider communication behaviors, such as empathy, responding to customer queries, and length of encounter are not considered in this study but should be further studied.

The study confirms that offering decision authority to customers increases satisfaction only under certain circumstances. Customers are willing to relinquish authority to credible service providers who then direct customer decisions in order to maintain service quality. Offering decision autonomy to customers is suggested when provider credibility is low and customer persuasion knowledge is high.

Analysis of credence service encounters is based on agency theory. Specifically, this study highlights the role of customer (principal) persuasion knowledge, which acts as a qualifier for the principal-agent problem because it alerts the customer to possible persuasion attempts by the service provider, whereas agent credibility eases customer suspicion.

The ever-growing popularity of social media platforms is evidence of consumers engaging emotionally with these brands. Given the prominence of social media in society, the purpose of this paper is to understand social media platforms from a “brand” perspective through examining the effect of consumers’ emotional attachment on social media consumer-based brand equity (CBBE).

This paper develops a model that outlines how emotional brand attachment with social media explains social media CBBE via shaping consumer perceptions of brand credibility and consumer satisfaction. An online survey of 340 Australian social media consumers provided data for empirical testing. The inclusion of multiple context-relevant covariates and use of a method-variance-adjusted data matrix, as well as an examination of an alternative model, adds robustness to the results.

The findings of this paper support the conceptual model, and the authors identify strong relationships between the focal variables. A phantom model analysis explicates specific indirect effects of emotional brand attachment on CBBE. The authors also find support for a fully mediated effect of emotional brand attachment on social media brand equity. Further, they broaden the nomological network of emotional brand attachment, outlining key outcomes.

This paper offers a conceptual mechanism (a chain-of-effects) of how consumer emotional brand attachment with social media brands translates into social media CBBE. It also finds that a brand’s credibility as well as its ability to perform against consumer expectations (i.e. satisfaction) are equally effective in translating emotional brand attachment into social media CBBE.

Social media brands are constantly challenged by rapid change and ongoing criticism over such issues as data privacy. The implications from this paper suggest that managers should make investments in creating (reinforcing) emotional connections with social media consumers, as this will favorably impact CBBE by way of a relational mechanism, that is, via enhancing credibility and consumer satisfaction.

Lately, social media in general has suffered from a crisis of trust in society. The enhanced credibility of social media brands resulting from consumers’ emotional attachments will potentially serve to enhance its acceptance as a credible form of media in society.

Social media platforms are often examined as brand-building platforms. This paper adopts a different perspective, examining social media platforms as brands per se and the effects of emotional attachments that consumers develop towards these. This paper offers valuable insights into how consumers’ emotional attachments drive vital brand judgments such as credibility and satisfaction, ultimately culminating into social media CBBE.

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the factors affecting customer lifetime value (CLV) for Internet service providers in Jordan, namely, technical quality, functional quality, brand credibility, confidence benefits, special treatment benefits, customer satisfaction and commitment.

An online survey was conducted involving a sample of 481 respondents. SPSS was used to analyse the data and test the proposed relationships, while SmartPLS was used to examine the robustness of our results.

Results showed that confidence benefits, special treatment benefits and brand credibility had a significant and positive impact on customer satisfaction and commitment, with brand credibility appearing as the most influential factor leading to customer satisfaction and commitment, and ultimately CLV. Furthermore, research reveals an insignificant relationship between functional quality, technical quality and customer satisfaction.

Services' providers seeking to increase CLV need to build strong and sustainable relationships with their customers.

This study incorporates a set of crucial customer relationship management strategies that could be universally applied to enhance customers benefits and business performance. This is also the first study of its kind conducted in the Middle East, particularly in Jordan.

This study examines the impact of social media information sharing and usage on consumer beliefs particularly in the credibility of the information provided by e-commerce vendors, and consumer trust formation.

Drawing on trust through social media usage and surface credibility, the authors have proposed a research model to investigate consumers satisfaction on food and beverage (F&B) products. Empirical support for the research model was provided by using structural equation modelling using survey data drawn from Malaysian consumers with an account with Facebook.

Results indicate that consumer participation in social media communities support higher levels of consumer trust and ratings of the surface credibility of information provided by an F&B vendor, and surface credibility also helped to develop consumer trust. Trust in the vendor also exerted a positive influence on consumer satisfaction with F&B product offerings. Results suggest that F&B that provide credible and transparent information regarding their branded products, enjoy increased levels of consumer trust, leading to higher levels of consumer satisfaction with their F&B consumption experience.

The result of this research contributes to social commerce branch of literature and has practical implications for practitioners in the F&B industry as a means to survival strategies to embrace critical and challenging period during an endemic, particularly. As such, this study analyses the relationship between social media usage, surface credibility, trust and satisfaction for developing consumer trust while managing enterprise social media.

The rise of social media has gained increasing attention in recent years; however, few studies have focused on social media users’ specific behavior and subjective well-being. To fill this research gap, the purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated model to investigate factors that affect social media user’s share intention and the relationship between user’s share intention and subjective well-being.

Structural equation model is used in this study. A field survey with 398 WeChat users is conducted to test the research model and hypotheses.

The empirical results show that: utilitarian value, hedonic value, user satisfaction and information source credibility are important factors affecting users’ share intention; users’ share intention positively affects user’s subjective well-being; moderating effects show that relative significance positively moderates the relationship between utilitarian value and users’ share intention; and users’ demographic characteristics differences actually exist in users’ share intention.

First, the authors clear that factors affect social media users’ share intention from the perspective of customer-perceived value. The results deepen our understanding about the factors that affect WeChat users’ share intention. Second, the authors focus on the effect of users’ specific behavior on users’ subjective well-being and found that users’ share intention is one of the important aspects that affect user’s subjective well-being. More importantly, the authors tested users’ characteristic differences in social media users’ share intention, which have previously received limited attention.

While satisfaction, value, image, and credibility are commonly assumed to drive customer loyalty, there is nevertheless reason to question whether their effects vary across groups of consumers. This paper seeks to explore how individuals with contrasting need-for-cognition (NFC) levels differ in using memory-based information when forming behavioral intentions towards a current service provider.

The authors tested the hypotheses by means of survey data from customers of retail banks, and applied two-group analysis using structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the moderating effects of NFC.

Satisfaction positively affects loyalty for high NFCs, but not for low NFCs. Image is insignificant in both groups. Value positively affects loyalty for low NFCs, but not for high NFCs. Credibility has a positive effect for low NFCs, but not for high NFCs.

The limited sample size affects the power of the test methodology, but Chow-tests of regression models gave similar results. Further research should test the model in other contexts to enhance external validity.

To develop more effective customer strategies, both researchers and practitioners need to understand how different types of consumers attend to and utilize information when forming behavioral intentions. The standard practice of surveying customer satisfaction and loyalty typically requires the consumer to make a memory-based judgment.

Previous research has primarily focused on how consumer demographics moderate satisfaction-loyalty links. This paper includes additional drivers of loyalty, and assesses moderation by a personality trait (NFC) not previously used in satisfaction-loyalty research. The results indicate that a consumer ' s dispositional tendency to think and elaborate (more or less) can bias survey results.

Face masks have been integrated into daily life and come to signify different meanings due to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on social perception and attribution theories, this paper investigates the possible additional benefits of face mask use in the service marketplace by understanding how consumers react to the new social norm.

Four experimental studies were run across different service contexts. Study 1 examines consumers’ evaluation of a service promotion when an employee wears a face mask; Study 2 focuses on the impact of face mask usage on salesperson credibility and service satisfaction; Studies 3 and 4 investigate the consequences of not using face masks on consumers’ intention to spread positive word-of-mouth for the service provider.

The results revealed that the presence of a face mask in a service promotion determined a higher level of service liking, while in a service encounter, it led to a higher level of salesperson credibility, which then positively affected consumer satisfaction. Finally, the non-utilization of a face mask negatively affected consumer intention to spread positive word-of-mouth about the service provider, even when the social norm is to not wear one.

The manuscript adds to research on salespeople appearance and tries to understand consumers’ reactions toward face mask use in the services sector, as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, few empirical studies in the service marketing literature have investigated the topic so far. Findings also provide useful insights that can further promote companies’ adoption of face masks beyond the COVID-19 emergency.

This study explores consumers' intentions to utilize online food delivery services (OFDS) in a shared economy beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, employing the protection motivation theory (PMT) as the underlying framework.

Utilizing a random sampling technique, a quantitative approach was employed to gather responses from 347 Australian consumers. The proposed model was tested through covariance-based structural equation modelling.

The findings of this study demonstrate significant positive relationships between restaurant credibility, food quality, e-service quality, price, online food delivery applications, consumer e-satisfaction and e-loyalty. It reveals that consumers satisfied with OFDS may continue exhibiting e-loyalty intentions in a shared economy beyond COVID-19. The relationship between consumer e-satisfaction and e-loyalty intention is moderated by consumer-perceived COVID-19 risk.

This study offers practical implications for online food delivery providers, restaurants, regulators, application developers and policymakers. These implications aim to enhance the e-service quality, price value, usefulness and security of OFDS, along with strategies to improve the online food delivery application.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by examining a unique selection of antecedents, including the OFDS app, to determine consumer e-satisfaction and e-loyalty in the context of a shared economy beyond COVID-19. The utilization of the OFDS app as a second-order construct adds a meaningful contribution to the OFDS literature. Furthermore, this study investigates and contributes to the limited understanding of the moderation effect of consumer-perceived COVID-19 risk on consumer e-satisfaction and their intended continued use of OFDS.

The increased popularity of social media has been prompting the recruitment managers to use social media recruitment. Very little has been studied on the effectiveness of social media recruitment from the recruiter's perspective. Influenced by the diffusion of innovation theory, the study measures the usefulness of social media recruitment through various prehire and posthire recruitment outcomes. The study also used the media richness theory to examine the role of credibility and satisfaction as a mediating variable.

Data has been collected from the recruiters in the public and private sector of India. Available literature is studied to develop survey instrument validated through experts from industry and academia. Pilot study was conducted to test for any construct weaknesses. Data is analyzed using AMOS.

The study result proved that social media recruitment is significantly related to both prehire outcomes and posthire outcomes. The result also proved the mediating effect of credibility and satisfaction and suggests recruitment practitioner to emphasize on disseminating credible, relevant and sufficient information through suitable communication mode.

HR professional to be careful about the information provided through a social media recruitment method. Practitioner to establish credibility of the information to create a sense of satisfaction by the applicants toward the information. Thus, as the information becomes more credible, the attraction to the organization also increases, which in turn results in more applicants applying for the job.

This is the first quantitative study to examine effectiveness of social media recruitment under the influence of mediator – credibility and satisfaction considering the data from the recruiters.