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The purpose of this paper is to examine the non-linear effects of work engagement (WE) on the job outcomes’ creative performance (CRP), extra-role customer service (ERCS) and turnover intention (TI).

Data were collected from 405 millennial frontline employees (FLEs) working in the hospitality industry in Kenya. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the hypothesized relationships.

The results yielded support for one relationship. WE was found to have a significant non-linear relationship with TI. This finding provides evidence of a ceiling to the positive impact of WE on reduced TI. WE and CRP and ERCS were however found to be non-significant and linear, and significant and linear, respectively.

A large number of studies have evidenced positive individual and organizational outcomes associated with WE. This study however, is important, as the “dark side” of WE is empirically examined, therefore providing a different perspective of the concept.

The study findings affirm that management must exercise caution with excess levels of WE among millennial FLEs as this may lead to unfavourable outcomes.

In this research, the assumption of linearity is challenged. Empirical evidence for the need to systematically explore non-linear associations for a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between variables is provided. Moreover, this study is among the few in which the presence of curvilinear relations between WE and job outcomes is examined in a non-Western context.

This paper aims to extend research on exploration and exploitation by investigating the effects of competence exploration and exploitation on new product development outcomes in China. Premised from the perspective of environment‐performance relationship and the fit‐as‐moderation view, the authors argue that exploration and exploitation have curvilinear effects on new product development performance due to external environmental factors.

The paper is based on a questionnaire survey/analysis of a sample of 289 firms in China.

Consistent with the two perspectives mentioned above, the curvilinear link between competence exploration and new product performance was negatively moderated by environmental dynamism but positively moderated by environmental competitiveness. In contrast, the non‐linear effect of competence exploitation on new product performance was positively moderated by environmental dynamism but negatively moderated by environmental competitiveness.

The exploration and exploitation‐performance link emerges as more complex than previous research has shown. The results indicate the need for simultaneous consideration of environmental dynamism and competitiveness as moderators in the discourse on the curvilinear effects of exploration and exploitation on new product performance.

The satisfaction‐trust paradigm has been recently criticized regarding its ability to deliver positive consumer behavioral outcomes. This study aims to argue that – amongst others – a reason for this unpleasant situation may be the failure of service managers to account for non‐linearities in the satisfaction‐trust paradigm.

The setting for this study was the supermarket retail channel. A total of 942 respondents were “intercepted” in supermarket stores, employing a face‐to‐face personal interviewing method. For the detection of curvilinear effects the study employed the two‐step single indicant method of Ping.

It is posited that consumer trust is an important intervening variable through which non‐linear service evaluation effects translate into word‐of‐mouth. Findings imply that investing resources in satisfaction programs do not do a good job in building positive word‐of‐mouth from a point on. Economic value evaluations and trust judgments seem to be both necessary and sufficient conditions for building consumer relationships.

Theoretically, the work extends the relationship marketing research stream suggesting that curvilinear mechanisms are likely present in the well accepted satisfaction‐trust paradigm. Limitations of the study relate to the generalization of the findings in other sectors besides grocery retailing and its cross‐sectional nature.

The findings of this study suggest that relationship marketing managers would be ill‐advised in their investment decisions should they use a linear‐only terms trust model.

This article extends the trust literature in that it investigates whether consumer trust suffers from diminishing returns. Service providers who strive to build long‐term relationships with their customers may not do a good job if they continue to invest in trust determinants that present diminishing returns to scale.

This paper aims to bring a new insight by examining the satisfaction model in a more complex manner to capture the variations of the satisfaction construct better.

The paper presents a subsequent expansion from a previous research. The methodology used is similar, as the researcher believes that it is the best way to measure and to capture the curvilinear relationship of the variables under study. Regression of a higher form has been discussed and established and three variables were tested, i.e. word‐of‐mouth referrals (dependent variable), satisfaction (independent variable), and ownership (moderating variable). In order to test for the moderating effect, the hierarchical moderated regression analysis has been employed.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge in two ways. First, a literature review and exploratory study suggest that marketers should consider a higher‐order model in the models of satisfaction. Second, further considerations should be made to determine the curvature of the relationship where the researcher suggested that there might be a “U”‐shaped relationship between satisfaction perception and word‐of‐mouth referrals when there is a change in ownership.

Customer satisfaction should be seen as a non‐linear construct. In fact, in most industries there are tendencies to build marketing strategies around their core services. However, this research suggests that customers in Malaysia view beyond satisfaction in choosing their banks. Malaysian bank customers prefer patronizing banks from the same ethnic group as theirs, where banks owned by the same ethnic group as the customers are able to moderate the satisfaction level.

The paper shows and suggests how satisfaction construct should be measured in a non‐linear form with interaction in a different cultural context as in the banking sector in Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to posit and empirically demonstrate that positive and negative leader behaviors have a linear relationship with subordinate outcomes. The authors challenge this notion, and test a model where leader positive and negative behaviors have a curvilinear relationship (inverse-U shaped) with subordinate job satisfaction.

Cross-sectional design, based on a sample of 131 employees working across organizations and industries in the USA. Subordinates provided information on all study measures.

The authors show that higher levels of positive and negative behaviors from the leader will not generate a corresponding linear increase in employees’ satisfaction. Instead, the relationship is non-linear, with diminishing returns in subordinate job satisfaction for positive leader behaviors and higher ones for negative leader behaviors. In addition, subordinates with high levels of hardiness are more satisfied with positive leader behaviors, and report less dissatisfaction with negative leader behaviors.

Limitations are cross-sectional design, self-reported data, measurement of a limited number of leader behaviors as representative of leader positive and negative behaviors, and focus on only one dependent construct (subordinate job satisfaction).

Above a certain point, leaders’ positive behaviors have limited effect on increasing subordinates’ job satisfaction. Likewise, leaders’ negative behaviors decrease subordinates’ job satisfaction only above specific levels of leader behaviors.

The authors challenge this notion of linearity by theorizing and demonstrating that subordinates’ job satisfaction is influenced by leader positive and negative behaviors in non-linear relationship characterized by an inverse-U-shaped and a specific increase and decrease pattern.

This study focuses on service quality and satisfaction judgments of customers in banking institutions throughout Malaysia. The study attempts to determine the relationship between service quality and satisfaction, where service quality is the independent variable and satisfaction is the dependent variable. On top of this, the inclusion of ownership as a moderator has also been studied. Findings show that service quality is the antecedent of satisfaction. The findings also support a curvilinear relationship for the variables under study. The results also show that bank‐ownership moderates the relationship between service quality and satisfaction. Hierarchical moderator regression is used to test the moderating effect. Implications and future research are also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to understand e-loyalty in the travel industry. Specifically, this paper aims to examine the curvilinear relationship between predictors and e-loyalty.

An empirical study was conducted using an online survey with one of the largest travel companies in China. Structural equation modeling was used to test the models, and pair-wise nested F-tests were used to compare the models.

Results show that the curvilinear model has greater explanatory power of loyalty than traditional linear models. The results of pair-wise nested F-tests show that the loyalty model exhibits statistically significant R2 improvement compared to the linear model. However, the R2 improvement in the integrated model is not statistically different from that in the linear model. Confirmation and satisfaction are found to be salient factors influencing loyalty.

This study makes important contributions to the online community literature by understanding the drivers of loyalty in the travel industry. However, there are limitations. First, this study addressed member loyalty of an online travel community with data collected from one company. Thus, generalizability is limited. Online communities and firms may have different characteristics, resulting in different factors influencing consumer loyalty. The authors plan in the future to collect data from other online travel companies and examine their model with different samples so as to check the generalizability of the current findings. Second, the authors collected a snapshot view on loyalty. Both researchers and managers note that small changes in loyalty and retention can yield disproportionately large changes in profitability (Reichheld et al., 2000). Consumer loyalty may change over time, so to maintain and increase profits, it is important to monitor such change. In the future, the authors plan to conduct a longitudinal study of community members to evaluate their loyalty over time.

As China seeks to gain additional market share in the global tourism market, travel companies should make use of websites as a marketing tool to attract and retain customers. These actions enable a travel company to enhance its competitiveness. More and more people use the internet for tour deals, bookings and finding tour-related information. Effective use of websites can affect the competitiveness of ecommerce companies. E-vendors could assess and adopt the dimensions recommended in this paper to help better understand areas for improvement. It is common today for consumers to buy travel products online instead of going through a travel agent. Considering the importance of reciprocity in formulating consumer satisfaction and loyalty in the virtual environment, companies should monitor reciprocal behavior on the virtual community. With advancement in technologies, consumer behaviors have changed and more consumers prefer social interactions in the virtual world. Companies can analyze posts in the virtual environment to assess reciprocity and may design a mechanism to foster reciprocal behaviors. By leveraging reciprocity, firms can better connect satisfaction with loyalty. More than 70 per cent of executives surveyed by McKinsey (2012) said that they regularly generate value through their Web communities. In addition, to pay attention to consumer to consumer reciprocity in the virtual world, companies should listen to what customers say in their online community, as this attention is an indication of reciprocity between consumers and companies. The ideas and opinions expressed in the online community tell the company customers’ perception of the value of its products and customers’ needs. Such attention to the voices in the online community will help companies to better tailor products/services to meet customers’ needs. Furthermore, the voices expressed in the virtual community are also effective in developing and maintaining new internet marketing opportunities such as email marketing, giveaways, search engine optimization, pay per click and shopping comparison marketing. Companies interested in retaining and attracting customers should leverage their established virtual communities and pay close attention to online posts and evaluate members’ satisfaction. Such effort will provide tangible benefits. As shown in Ye et al.’s study, traveler reviews produce a significant impact on online sales (Ye et al., 2011), with a 10 per cent increase in traveler review ratings, boosting online bookings by more than 5 per cent. This finding suggests that businesses should link online user-generated reviews to business performance in tourism. Finding incentives for users to share might be one way to improve interactivity and further create stickiness on the part of the website.

This paper is one of the first studies to address the need to move beyond linear models of e-loyalty and to additionally examine potential curvilinear and interactive effects. This study also identifies key variables such as reciprocity and satisfaction as determinants of e-loyalty in the Chinese online travel and tourism industry.

The relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance (FP) has bourgeoned widespread debate among researchers. In recent years, the debate has explored more dynamic links, one of which is the curvilinear relationship, between CSR and FP. This paper aims to empirically test the curvilinear relationship between CSR and FP in the context of Indian companies.

This paper empirically tests the curvilinear relationship between CSR and FP in the context of Indian companies. The study used a panel data of 43 listed companies over a period of ten years from 2008 to 2017. A correlation and panel regression were carried out to examine the possible link.

The findings demonstrate that a curvilinear relationship exists between CSR and FP, suggesting that two long competing viewpoints may be complementary.

The study mainly focuses on top companies, so the generalizations of results to other small companies are unwanted.

An immediate managerial implication of the findings suggests that to serve the interests of the shareholders, a long-run planning and considerable resources should be dedicated at this direction, given that CSR expenditure does not pay off immediately.

In the Indian context, very few studies have analyzed the linkages between CSR and FP. Using an improved and distinctive approach, the study empirically tests the relationship between CSR and FP from non-linear perspective.

Gives introductory remarks about chapter 1 of this group of 31 papers, from ISEF 1999 Proceedings, in the methodologies for field analysis, in the electromagnetic community. Observes that computer package implementation theory contributes to clarification. Discusses the areas covered by some of the papers ‐ such as artificial intelligence using fuzzy logic. Includes applications such as permanent magnets and looks at eddy current problems. States the finite element method is currently the most popular method used for field computation. Closes by pointing out the amalgam of topics.

Drawing upon the “too-much-of-a-good-thing (TMGT)” effect and conservation of resources (COR) theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the mediation mechanism between empowering leadership and employee job performance. Specifically, the authors propose a curvilinear relationship between empowering leadership and job performance, and also suggest that employee harmonious and obsessive work passions mediate the curvilinear relationship between empowering leadership and job performance. Further the moderation role of collectivism orientation (CO) in the relationship between empowering leadership and job performance is also examined.

Questionnaires are used to obtain survey data from 256 supervisor–subordinate dyads in three companies in the communication sector of Ghana. A follow-up interview was also conducted to enhance explanation of research findings. Hierarchical regression analysis is used to analyze the associations among the variables.

The results revealed that the significant inverted U-shaped relationship between empowering leadership and subordinate job performance is mediated by both harmonious and obsessive passion for work. A significant moderation effect of CO in the empowering leadership–job performance relationship could not be established.

This study adapts the “TMGT” effect and COR theory in the explanation of an integrated model including empowering leadership, job performance, employee passion for work, and CO in the Ghanaian context.