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This study aims to explore how attribute performance and hosts’ service quality attributes affect room sales on peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms from the cue congruence perspective.

More than 9.53 million reviews concerning 258,473 listings located in 35 major cities worldwide were collected from Airbnb. Data was collected from December 2019 to December 2020 and was analysed using a generalised linear model.

Results show that when attribute performance and hosts’ service quality attributes give positive signals, Airbnb room sales are significantly higher than when the two kinds of cues give inconsistent or negative signals; when attribute performance gives positive signals and hosts’ service quality attributes give negative signals, room sales are higher than when the former gives negative signals and the latter give positive signals; surprisingly, when both kinds of cues give negative signals, room sales are higher than when attribute performance gives positive signals and hosts’ service quality attributes give negative signals.

This paper adds useful insights on understanding of cue congruence (incongruence) effect on room sales of P2P accommodation platforms. This study has practical implications for hosts, online platform managers and guests regarding how to use online strategies and promotions on the Airbnb platform.

This study is an early attempt to explore how the combination of attribute performance and hosts’ service quality attributes affects Airbnb room sales under the conditions of consistency and inconsistency.

Leader secure-base support, consisting of leader availability, noninterference and encouragement of growth, has important implications for stimulating employee proactivity. This study is aimed at examining whether, why and when leader secure-base support may motivate employees to engage in approach job crafting behavior. Drawing upon regulatory focus theory, we propose leader secure-base support is positively associated with employee approach job crafting via employee state promotion focus. Based on cue consistency theory, we further examine the moderating role of organizational learning culture in the associations of leader secure-base support with employee state promotion focus and subsequent approach job crafting.

Two-wave data were collected from 281 Chinese workers. Path analyses with Mplus 7 were conducted to test the hypotheses.

As predicted, we found that leader secure-base support was positively related to employee state promotion focus and, in turn, facilitated employee approach job crafting. Moreover, organizational learning culture accentuated the impact of leader secure-base support on employee job crafting process.

This study is the first to examine the influence of leader secure-base support on employee job crafting. It also identifies a boundary condition for such an influence.

Understanding customer behavior from the perspective of channel integration has become a major stream of research in multi-channel retailing literature. Yet, despite recent advancements in scholarship, how retailers can most effectively sustain customers in online retailing remains unclear. Scholars have suggested online–offline channel integration (OOCI) as an effective multi-channel approach for increasing online loyalty; yet, few studies have explored OOCI's influencing mechanism. This study addresses that gap by investigating how OOCI helps achieve customer loyalty online and further examines the moderating role of retailer credibility in the influencing mechanism of OOCI.

The research model driving this study draws upon the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model and cue consistency theory. The authors collected a sample of 259 customers in China with experience making multi-channel purchases from retailers that have implemented OOCI in online retailing. Structural equation modeling and response surface analyses were employed to conduct data analysis.

The results revealed that the relationship between OOCI and customers' online channel loyalty was mediated by customers' perceptions of the usefulness and risks of online channel usage. The results also found that congruence and incongruence between informational OOCI (IOOCI) and fulfillment OOCI (FOOCI) had different curvilinear associations with perceived online channel usefulness and perceived online channel risk. In addition, retailer credibility weakened the effects of IOOCI on perceived online channel usefulness and FOOCI on perceived online channel risk but strengthened the effect of IOOCI on perceived online channel risk and had no impact on the effect of FOOCI on perceived online channel risk.

Theoretical and practical implications of this study are also discussed.

This research aims at understanding the routes public e-marketplaces take, in the motor carrier spot market, to generate trust among participants.

This work borrows cue signaling theory and an e-marketplace content analysis instrument from information systems literature. Our primary data captures differences in usage of a broad spectrum of cues between motor carrier spot e-marketplaces and a control sample.

Transportation e-marketplaces use graphical cues more frequently than the control sample, display these cues on their “operational path” (where users click to conduct transactions) and try to generate beliefs in participants' integrity and competence.

The motor carrier online spot market constitutes a relevant test bed for trust-related theories. Several levels of trust-building conceptualizations are tested; the cue level shows the most potential. This paper extends cue signaling theory in the transportation e-marketplace context and calls for further work on operational path cues to enrich swift trust theories.

This study helps e-marketplace designers by identifying essential and facultative cues for the motor carrier spot market.

Research on public spot e-marketplaces in the motor carrier context is scant. The context is described in detail to show its specificities in structures and behaviors. This helps to contribute to both practice and research. By evolving an existing research instrument from information systems literature, this study ensures replicability (problematic in academic research) .

Drawing upon the consistency literature, the theory of visual rhetoric and social judgment of warmth and competence, this study examines the determinants and impacts of perceived interface design consistency in the context of charity websites.

To identify design factors of perceived interface design consistency, this study separates charity website interface design into two aspects: main appeal design (i.e. appeal quality) and peripheral design (i.e. image type). The authors designed a two (appeal quality: low vs high) × three (image type: control vs adults vs children) controlled lab experiment to investigate the effects of various interface choices. A total of 217 subjects participated in the experiment. The authors used structural equation model (SEM) analysis and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to test the research hypotheses.

This study found that appeal quality and human images increase perceived interface design consistency. The authors also found that the relationship between appeal quality and perceived interface design consistency is moderated by image type. Finally, the authors showed that perceived interface design consistency increases perceived warmth and competence of charity websites, which in turn affect intention to use the website for donations.

The authors’ findings provide novel insights for theory on consistency and interface design and practical implications for charity website designers by identifying determinants and consequences of perceived interface design consistency.

Internet celebrities have become key resources for consumers making purchase decisions. An increasing number of internet celebrities have begun to exert their influence by creating self-branded products. This study aims to examine the antecedents of consumer attitudes and purchase intentions towards internet celebrity self-brands by integrating cognitive consistency theory, cue utilisation theory and the literature on brand authenticity and celebrity involvement.

Two sub-samples of different social media brand communities were collected via online surveys of consumers with experience purchasing targeted internet celebrity self-brands. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse the data.

The results of the two sub-samples provide convergent evidence that brand–consumer congruence, brand authenticity and internet celebrity involvement have positive correlations with consumer attitudes towards internet celebrity self-brands, which then positively correlate with purchase intentions in both psychological (Sub-sample 1) and social (Sub-sample 2) brand communities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to develop a comprehensive model of consumers’ attitudes towards internet celebrity self-brands, which predict purchase intentions. The model is empirically tested in different social media brand communities, and the convergent results show the power of the proposed model. Internet celebrity involvement is proposed as a key driver of brand attitudes, which has received little attention. We conceptualise internet celebrity involvement and develop a scale to measure it. Based on the findings, we propose strategies to improve the marketing effectiveness of internet celebrity self-brands.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a conceptual model on the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) “fit” on organizational attractiveness among job applicants under the boundary conditions of chief executive officer (CEO) activism and CSR credibility.

The study is based on archival research, largely reviewing extant in CSR and drawing propositions based on existing theory.

Paper draws propositions based on CSR fit, credibility and CEO activism. The paper asserts the influence of CSR fit on organizational attractiveness among job applicants. It further explains moderated mediating mechanism through which CSR fit influences organizational attractiveness among job applicants.

Recruitment has primarily explored the role of CSR in attracting potential job candidates. This paper presents the role of CSR “fit,” an aspect not explored before in recruitment. This paper also introduces the role of CEO activism in recruitment.

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which a cause-brand alliance (CBA) leads to improved attitude toward cause-brand alliance, which in turn leads to improved brand identification.

The approach uses a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design to examine the interaction effect of the brand ally, the non-profit ally, and the perception of cause controversy on a customer’s attitude toward the CBA, which in turn affects identification with the brand ally.

On average, customers’ perception of cause controversy influences attitude toward the CBA and subsequently the level of identification with the brand ally. When a non-profit organization is connected to a controversial issue, managerial options for building a successful CBA are more limited than when the non-profit is noncontroversial.

We contribute to consumer learning theory in the context of CBA research by identifying an important boundary condition – perceived cause controversy. Perceived cause controversy impedes the customer’s learning about partners in CBA. Moreover, fit and cue consistency are separate constructs.

CBAs help build customer brand identification. Brand managers must include the customer’s perceived cause controversy, the ally’s unique information, and the customer’s attitude toward the nonprofit in the decision calculus. Brands have an opportunity to demonstrate corporate social responsibility and build identification by helping a less well-established nonprofit to build positive customer attitudes. If the non-profit is linked to controversy, this opportunity is constrained.

A boundary condition-perceived cause controversy influences how the partners in a CBA differentially influence the customer’s attitude toward the CBA and, ultimately, brand identification.

Knowledge adoption is the key to effective knowledge exchange in virtual question-and-answer (Q&A) communities. Although previous studies have examined the effects of knowledge content, knowledge source credibility and the personal characteristics of knowledge seekers on knowledge adoption in virtual Q&A communities from a static perspective, the impact of answer deviation on knowledge adoption has rarely been explored from a context-based perspective. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of two-way deviation on knowledge adoption in virtual Q&A communities, with the aim of expanding the understanding of knowledge exchange and community management.

The same question and the same answerer often yield multiple answers. Knowledge seekers usually read multiple answers to make adoption decisions. The impact of deviations among answers on knowledge seekers' knowledge adoption is critical. From a context-based perspective, a research model of the impact of the deviation of horizontal and vertical answers on knowledge adoption is established based on the heuristic-systematic model (HSM) and empirically examined with 88,287 Q&A data points and answerer data collected from Zhihu. Additionally, the moderation effects of static factors such as answerer reputation and answer length are examined.

The negative binomial regression results show that the content and emotion deviation of horizontal answers negatively affect knowledge seekers' knowledge adoption. The content deviation of vertical answers is negatively associated with knowledge adoption, while the emotion deviation of vertical answers is positively related to knowledge adoption. Moreover, answerer reputation positively moderates the negative effect of the emotion deviation of horizontal answers on knowledge adoption. Answer length weakens the negative correlation between the content deviation of horizontal and vertical answers and knowledge adoption.

This study extends previous research on knowledge adoption from a static perspective to a context-based perspective. Moreover, information deviation is expanded from a one-way variable to a two-way variable. The combined effects of static and contextual factors on knowledge adoption are further uncovered. This study can not only help knowledge seekers identify the best answers but also help virtual Q&A community managers optimize community design and operation to reduce the cost of knowledge search and improve the efficiency of knowledge exchange.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effectiveness of the mere integration of social network applications to provide a signal concerning the “trustworthiness” of an unfamiliar e‐vendor in order to enhance subsequent purchase intentions.

To investigate the impact of web communities on consumers' initial trust beliefs (i.e. ability, benevolence and integrity), a 2×3 between‐subjects full factorial online experiment was carried out, using a fictitious web site for a gift gadgets selling company, manipulating it for inclusion or exclusion of a “social networking site”, and for inclusion or exclusion of “a corporate blog (text only blog, photo and text blog, or no blog)”. Data were obtained from 226 online shoppers.

Although the authors could not reveal any effects of the integration of social network applications on “ability” beliefs, it was possible to demonstrate their capacity to “signal” “benevolence” and “integrity”, which in turn have a significant impact on purchase intentions. Unfamiliar e‐retailers may foster perceptions of “integrity” by utilizing text‐blogs into their web sites, but they should avoid embedding facial photos of shop representatives in the blog. If e‐retailers want to make use of “a corporate blog with facial photo”, it is recommended to combine it with the integration of a social networking site such as Facebook in order to boost perceptions of “benevolence”.

The simple integration of “social network applications” can affect “initial trust beliefs” towards unfamiliar e‐tailers and subsequent “purchase intentions”, but it appears essential to utilize just the right cue combination in order to obtain the desired effect. The effectiveness of integrating a social network application may vary according to the type and may affect different trust beliefs (benevolence, integrity).

An important issue in e‐commerce remains how trust is developed between consumers and e‐retailers. This paper investigates the use of different web communities and the influence of their integration in the commercial web site on consumers' initial trust beliefs in the online environment. The findings will help business managers to understand how social media should be used to lead to optimal results.