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Self-presentation has emerged as a pivotal marketing strategy for service providers seeking to craft virtual images in the peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation sector. However, the literature lacks an understanding of conversational self-presentation, which offers more informal and personal communication.

Drawing upon social interaction theory and uncertainty reduction theory, this study explores the impact of conversational self-presentation and its interplay with space sharing and review ratings on customer purchases.

Utilizing the fixed effects model on a panel dataset comprising 498,817 observations from Airbnb, we discover a positive association between conversational self-presentation and customer purchases. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that space sharing reinforces this positive effect, while review ratings tend to diminish it. A deeper mechanism analysis indicates that perceived authenticity plays a mediating role in the relationship between conversational self-presentation and customer purchases.

This study highlights the importance of conversational communication in enhancing host–guest relationships under information asymmetry. However, the proposed model can be extended to other accommodation-sharing platforms in various regions, identifying whether cultural differences exist in explaining the importance of conversational self-presentation.

Marketers are suggested to build a harmonious customer–brand relationship and achieve superior performance through effective online communication.

This study adds valuable insights to the literature about self-presentation, social interaction and customer behavior by revealing the significance of conversational self-presentation in driving the growth of P2P accommodation businesses.

Informed by trait and self-determination theories, the present study aims to extend the knowledge regarding the link between customer satisfaction (CS) and its antecedents, including job autonomy (JA), conscientiousness, customer uncertainty (CU) and extra-role customer service (E-RCS) in the hospitality industry.

A total of 306 frontline employees were selected from the hotels in North Cyprus, Turkey. Psychometric properties, including the validity and reliability of study variables, were assessed in the first step using confirmatory factor analysis. Then, the data were analyzed utilizing machine learning methods, mainly three exploratory data mining techniques, including lasso regression, decision trees and random forest, as well as partial dependence plots to visualize the role of suggested predictors on the outcome variable.

Data mining analysis shows that employees who can modify their job objectives are better equipped to satisfy customers in uncertain situations (JA8). In addition, the findings reveal that employees who believe they work hard to accomplish their personal and organizational goals (CON7) while also having the freedom to decide how to approach their job (JA1) and choose the procedures to utilize (JA2) are more likely to contribute to CS. In general, CS peaked when JA was high, but conscientiousness was moderate, while CU was low.

This study bridges the gap among various factors at the employee and customer individual, corporate and macro-environmental levels. Hospitality organizations can cultivate a culture of autonomy and independence by promoting open communication and offering growth and development opportunities. This approach enhances conscientious employees’ engagement, leading to exceptional customer service performance, particularly, in uncertain situations.

From the methodology perspective, this work proposes an opportunity for prospective scientists to broaden the trait and self-determination theories research model by relying on the riches of exploratory techniques without the limits imposed by traditional analytical techniques. Further, this study advances the current knowledge about service agility under uncertainty by extending organizational and service management research to consumer behavior literature.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are a critical time for organizations and their consumers. For the company, there are many financial and non-financial risks. For customers, it requires deciding whether or not to continue the relationship that they had with the previous firm. This paper explores the extent to which communicating the family business (FB) brand, and the previous reputation of the acquirer affects customer perceptions and intentions after an M&A event.

Data for this study were collected from 159 Italian participants. We used a 2 (Communication of FB brand: Yes vs. No) by 3 (Reputation: positive, neutral, negative) between subjects’ experiment to test how the communication of the FB brand and the reputation of the acquirer affected perceived trustworthiness and service quality, and how this, in turn, influenced customer purchase intentions.

We find that communicating the FB brand does not influence consumer perceptions and intentions toward the acquired company. However, the previous reputation of the acquiring firm is critical in influencing consumer perceptions and intentions to buy.

Our study continues the growing research on M&A in family firms. It also increases our understanding of the boundary conditions of the FB brand effects, and the relevance that the previous reputation of a family firm can have in M&A scenarios. Finally, our study introduces the “Halo” and “Velcro” effects into the FB literature.

Despite increasing focus among scholars and practitioners on the design of product-service systems (PSS), there exists no compilation of current knowledge on the role played by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in designing such systems. Thus, this paper sets out to identify and organise the existing research and suggest questions for future research.

A systematic literature review was performed to identify and provide in-depth details on key themes in the literature addressing the design of PSS in SMEs.

This paper identifies five themes in the literature on the design of PSS in SMEs: motives, challenges, SME characteristics, methods and digitalisation. The themes are interrelated, and SME characteristics seem to be at the core as they are related to all the other themes. Gaps in the current knowledge are identified, and questions for future research are suggested.

The suggestions for future research provide a starting point for expanding the research on PSS design and devising practical support for SMEs.

The purpose of this study is to provide information that reflects the true state of affairs and to develop a conceptual model that examines the moderating effect of uncertainty on relative brand trust–love.

Extant empirical studies, conceptual literature and related theories were identified and integrated to develop the conceptual model.

Findings of the study suggest that relative brand trust–love arises because of different components of uncertainty. Relative brand trust–love exhibited by the customer is moderated by uncertainty at the individual level, brand level and technology level. These uncertainties represent the situation that considers if relative brand trust–love can be enhanced. A few propositions have been suggested for such situations to enhance relative brand trust–love.

This paper proposes a conceptual model and also makes research propositions that need to be validated and confirmed empirically. It adds value to theoretical advancements in strengthening the customer–brand relationship. Furthermore, results suggest that relative brand trust–love can be improved over time if these components can be supported by increasing information at different levels. The conclusions will be informative to practitioners and brand managers in strengthening a brand into the market more effectively. Moreover, it can transform the brand into a global brand and help build sustainable long-term relationships. Findings can be useful and interesting information for the researchers who are interested in finding strategic ways for effective decision-making related to brand trust and brand love.

The conceptual model, and the propositions related to different levels of uncertainty, and its effect on relative brand trust–love, is a new approach in enhancing relative brand trust–love and hence helpful in strengthening the quality of customer–brand relationships.

This study examines the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and managers' ex ante strategic choice on firms’ fixed and variable costs structure, i.e. cost rigidity and the moderating effect of government contracts and political connections.

Using a sample of 4,162 US firms during 2003–2019 and EPU measure from Baker et al. (2016), the authors examine the association between EPU and cost rigidity using multivariate regression analysis. The authors also examine the moderating effects of government customers and political connections using the subsampling method.

This study finds that increases in EPU leads to higher cost rigidity, suggesting that managers tend to look ahead and make an ex ante commitment to invest more in fixed costs to avoid congestion costs in anticipation of future product demand during EPU. The study also finds that the presence of government customers and political connections moderates the need for adopting greater cost rigidity.

This study measures firms' cost rigidity based on archival data. Future studies could utilize managers' cost structure choices using firms' internal management cost structure forecasts data to measure cost rigidity to examine the relationship between cost rigidity and EPU.

This study demonstrates that managers tend to make a proactive commitment to invest in fixed inputs when facing demand uncertainty from EPU to avoid congestion costs. This study also highlights the value of having government contracts and political connections by demonstrating that managers are less concerned about the congestion costs, hence weakening the impact of EPU on cost rigidity when they have government as major customers and/or political connections.

This study extends the management accounting literature by documenting that cost rigidity is related to EPU and that the relationship between cost rigidity and EPU also depends on whether the firm has government as major customers and/or political connections or not.

The primary objective of this study is to explore consumers' non-adoption intentions towards meta-commerce (or metaverse retailing). Utilizing the Innovation Resistance Theory (IRT) as the theoretical foundation, this study investigates the impact of diverse barriers on non-adoption intentions within the meta-commerce context.

A total of 356 responses were gathered to test the proposed hypotheses. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with SmartPLS 4 software was used to examine these hypotheses.

The findings of this study show that perceived cyber risk, perceived regulatory uncertainty, perceived switching cost and perceived technical uncertainty are significantly linked to non-adoption intention towards meta-commerce. Furthermore, the study suggests that the moderating influence of technostress on these connections is more pronounced for consumers with high technostress compared to those with low technostress.

This study makes a significant contribution to the current body of literature by providing valuable insights into the fundamental barriers that consumers encounter when contemplating the adoption of meta-commerce. This contribution is particularly noteworthy as it fills a gap in the existing literature, as no prior study has comprehensively examined the primary obstacles that shape consumer intentions towards meta-commerce adoption. This novel perspective offers scholars, businesses and policymakers a foundation for developing strategies to address these barriers effectively.

Scholars and practitioners have long debated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction via setting double-carbon goals of peak emissions and carbon neutrality in China. Our study, based on dynamic capability and resource dependence theory (RDT), explores whether digital transformation (DT) affects carbon emissions reduction (CER), and the role of operations and supply chain management (OSCM) factors in this relationship.

The samples are constructed with 454 A-shared listed manufacturing firms with complete financial data from 2010–2021. Regression models with fixed effects are applied to estimate the potential parameters.

We find that DT promotes CER. The performance output of CER is strengthened when supplier concentration and customer concentration are high. In contrast, the performance output of CER is weaker when environmental uncertainty is high.

The findings of our study enrich the literature on CER in Chinese manufacturing firms and highlight DT and OSCM factors as important drivers influencing CER practices.

The increasing popularity of live-streaming commerce has provided a new opportunity for e-retailers to boost sales. This study integrated signaling theory and social exchange theory to investigate how streamer- and product-centered signals influence customers’ likelihood of making an impulsive purchase in the live-streaming commerce context.

An online survey was designed and distributed to the target respondents in China using purposive sampling. A total of 735 valid responses were analyzed with partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Both streamer-centered signals, i.e. streamer credibility and streamer interaction quality, were discovered to significantly influence product-centered signal, i.e. product information quality. Additionally, streamer interaction quality was found to have a significant impact on streamer credibility. Furthermore, it was observed that customer engagement played a significant mediating role in the relationship between product information quality and impulsive buying tendency. Moreover, the paths between product information quality and customer engagement, as well as the connection between engagement and impulsive buying tendency, were found to be moderated by guanxi orientation.

Despite the prevalence of impulsive purchases in live-streaming commerce, few studies have empirically investigated the impact of streamer and product signals on influencing customers’ impulsive purchase decisions. Consequently, to the best of our knowledge, this study distinguishes itself by offering empirical insights into how streamers use reciprocating relationship mechanisms to communicate signals that facilitate impulsive purchase decisions.

Spurred by the high turnover in the pharmaceutical industry, locating pharmacies inside urban areas along with the high product perishability in this industry, the pharmaceutical supply chain management has recently gained increasing attention. Accordingly, this paper unveils an inventory-routing problem for designing a pharmaceutical supply chain with perishable products and time-dependent travel time in an uncertain environment.

In this study, mathematical programming is employed to formulate a multi-graph network affected by the traffic volume in order to adapt to real-world situations. Likewise, by transforming the travel speed function to the travel time function using a step-by-step algorithm, the first-in-first-out property is warranted. Moreover, the Box–Jenkins forecasting method is employed to diminish the demand uncertainty.

An appealing result is that the delivery horizon constraint in the under-study multi-graph network may eventuate in selecting a longer path. Our analysis also indicates that the customers located in the busy places in the city are not predominantly visited in the initial and last delivery horizon, which are the rush times. Moreover, it is concluded that integrating disruption management, routing planning and inventory management in the studied network leads to a reduction of costs in the long term.

Applying the time-dependent travel time with a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles on the multi-graph network, considering perishability in the products for reducing inventory costs, considering multiple trips of transfer fleet, considering disruption impacts on supply chain components and utilizing the Box–Jenkins method to reduce uncertainty are the contributions of the present study.