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This study aims to recognize the significance of branding in the academic field to enhance students' loyalty. The research has examined the effect of e-word of mouth as a moderator on loyalty and exploring the intention to get enrollment variable as a mediator in the context of higher education institutes. In order to establish theoretical foundation of study, theory of planned behavior and expectancy-value theory have been used to hypothesize relations.

Quantitative research methodology has been used in this research while structured questionnaires have been used to collect the sample data which is comprised of 201 students. Population for this study included students of universities in Pakistan from both private and public sector.

It has been found that e-marketing has a positive relationship with student loyalty. Further, eWOM acts as a moderator between e-marketing and student loyalty. The study also found that intention to get enrollment mediates the relationship between e-marketing and student loyalty.

This study is a contribution to higher education literature and provides implications that how effectively HEIs should employ e-marketing techniques that not only attract new students to get enrolled but also help to develop long-term relations leading toward student loyalty.

The study has been unique as it has examined the increasing role of e-marketing on students' loyalty. The study is the first in nature which has explored how universities can use e-marketing to enhance students' loyalty and how this relationship can be enhanced through the use of electronic word of mouth (eWOM).

Social media influencers have become constant companions of a large audience of young consumers, but a crucial yet underexplored area of examination relates to the implications of exposure to influencers for an individual’s self-concept. This study aims to examine if and how individuals experience self-discrepancies when exposed to influencers and the impact of such discrepancies on their affect, cognition and behaviors toward the influencers and the brands they endorse.

The authors thematically analyze 17 semistructured interviews, develop a conceptual model and present a set of hypotheses. The hypotheses are tested by analyzing survey data from 503 respondents using structural equation modeling.

Individuals actively engage in comparisons with influencers’ virtual self-presentation and treat them as emblematic of an ideal self. The associated self-discrepancy can lead to both negative and positive affect, but while the latter has a positive impact on e-word of mouth (WOM) and purchase intent, the former has a negative impact. Perceived homophily dampens the impact of exposure to influencer content on discrepancy and strengthens the link between discrepancy and positive affect. Self-acceptance and mindfulness positively moderate the impact of discrepancy on positive affect and negatively on negative affect. Perceived authenticity strengthens the impact of positive affect on e-WOM and dampens the impact of negative affect on purchase intention.

The authors contribute to the literature on self-discrepancies by identifying a consumer context where, in addition to the theoretically predicted negative affect, an individual may experience more positive emotions like feeling motivated or inspired because of the perceived attainability of an influencer as an ideal self. The authors contribute to the influencer marketing literature by examining the influencer–follower relationship and its implications for an individual’s self-concept, including the role played by perceived homophily and authenticity. The authors also contribute to the literature on consumer well-being and identify the role of self-acceptance and mindfulness in shaping consumer experiences.

The authors provide a nuanced analysis of the impact of influencer marketing on consumer behavior with a focus on its impact on an individual’s self-concept. The authors argue for the role of perceived homophily and authenticity in shaping favorable consumer behavior outcomes and offer evidence for more inclusive approaches to marketing.

The authors identify the influencer–follower relationship as a unique social exchange where the source of self-discrepancy is also a homophilic solution provider for achieving one’s ideal self and report both positive and negative effects as outcomes of experiencing a self-discrepancy induced by a target perceived as more attainable. The authors situate understandings of perceived homophily and authenticity along these relationships and identify self-acceptance and mindfulness as mechanisms used by individuals to deal with discrepancies.

Restaurant dining is an important part of people's live, and the restaurant industry is one of the largest industries in the hospitality sector. Thus, this study explores the effects of restaurant diningscape on customer satisfaction and word of mouth.

Based on a literature review on restaurant servicescape and special functions of dining spaces, diningscape was conceptualized as a multidimensional construct. Data were collected from 378 restaurant patrons using snowball sampling in Macao, China. The validity and reliability of constructs were assessed using confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation modeling was used to validate the proposed hypotheses between constructs.

Results showed that diningscape has a second-order factor structure consisting of five dimensions, namely food and drinks, service quality, servicescape, social functions and soundscape. Diningscape positively influences customer satisfaction and word of mouth.

Social function is the dominant factor of diningscape while female customers are more sensitive towards food and drinks, service quality, servicescape and soundscape. Thus, restaurants should not overcrowd their premises. Additionally, restaurants must strive to provide a wide variety of food and drinks, show service intimacy and be decorated specially with appropriate sonic environment as female customers can have a big influence on where to dine.

The study reveals that diningscape is multidimensional and shall be characterized in a holistic manner. Additionally, it helps restaurant managers to focus on the more important features, such as social functions, and food and drinks that customers value most.

This study aims to examine the influence of condominium attributes on resident satisfaction and word of mouth from the perspectives of the elderly in Thailand.

Data were collected from 338 elderly residents through a questionnaire survey and analysed by using descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling procedures.

The results showed that the strongest predictor of resident satisfaction was design functionality, followed by social environment, safety and security and service quality. In addition, the strongest predictor of word of mouth was safety and security, followed by design functionality, proximity, service quality and social environment.

The data were drawn at the level of the overall characteristics of elderly residents. People may be different in terms of their demographic characters such as gender, age, and user experience.

The study suggests that condominium developers and designers should pay attention to design functionality both physically and mentally such as suitable materials, lighting and common areas. Moreover, the developers should focus on the proximity of the nearest hospitals, safety and security measures, well-trained security personnel and social activity arrangement.

Elderly condominium markets are increasingly growing as a result of the ageing society in Thailand. However, very few empirical studies investigate condominium attributes that affect resident satisfaction and word of mouth provided by real estate developers. The paper aims to determine driving factors that enhance the better well-being of elderly residents.

This study explores the role of smart voice assistants (SVAs) as purchase recommenders, a phenomenon the authors term “word of voice” (WOV) communication. By integrating human–computer interaction (HCI) literature and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) research, the authors examine what makes consumers trust in SVA-transmitted WOV communication following their initial interactions with their SVAs during a purchase process (i.e. post-trust); and the authors propose that consumers' perceptions of their SVAs' smart capabilities (i.e. cognitive, emotional and social) are critically important for building this trust. Moreover, the study explores the influence of post-trust on consumers' adherence to WOV communication, measured by three types of behavioural intentions.

Data from a survey of 202 United States (US)-based SVA users who employ them to obtain purchase recommendations were collected and analysed. They confirmed the validity of the measurement scales and provided input for the partial least squares modelling (PLS-SEM).

The results demonstrated that post-trust in WOV communication partially or totally mediates the effect of smart capabilities on consumer adherence to WOV communication; identified the key role of cognitive, emotional and social smart capabilities for building consumers' post-trust in WOV and demonstrated the influence of this trust on behavioural intentions.

The present study contributes by examining the employment of SVAs as recommenders during the purchase process; the authors term this type of communication WOV. It analyses consumers with experience of using SVAs in their purchase processes, revealing that post-trust in WOV communication is the psychological mechanism that explains how the smart capabilities of SVAs determine consumer adherence to the recommendations they receive.

This study aims to examine the roles of advertising (ADV) and sales promotion (SP) in creating airline brand equity (BE) in the UAE, and to test the mediational effect of customer perceived value on the proposed relationships. Additionally, the study examines the outcomes of airline BE (i.e. trust, satisfaction and loyalty).

A structured and self-administered survey was used targeting 234 passengers, from which 197 were valid for the analysis. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the research constructs unidimensionality, validity and composite reliability.

The empirical findings support the direct relationship between ADV and BE. Perceived value fully mediates the effect of SP on BE. In addition, BE positively affects trust, satisfaction and loyalty.

Future research could investigate BE and perceived value as multidimensional constructs. Additionally, future research should expand the effect of other variables such as airline type, airline class and other marketing mix elements.

The findings from this research highlight the importance of both ADV and sale promotion in enhancing airline BE, and the pivotal role of perceived value.

The originality of this research is highlighted in conceptualizing a parsimonious model of the preceding constructs (i.e. ADV, SP, customer perceived quality) and subsequent constructs of BE (i.e. customer trust, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty), which has never been investigated collectively in one model in the literature particularly in the airline’ context of emerging economies such as UAE.

This study aims to reveal the knowledge structure of social media influencer marketing literature by performing science mapping analysis through a state-of-the-art bibliometric approach to determine the current and future trends. Social media influencer marketing is one of the most effective approaches to presenting a brand and offering value to consumers via social media.

This study evaluates the knowledge structure to uncover the emerging trends and future predictions in social media influencer marketing through bibliographic coupling and co-word analysis. In total, 917 journal publications were retrieved from the Web of Science database and analyzed using VOSviewer software.

The central theme in social media influencer marketing reflects digital engagement between influencers and followers and communication between influencers and followers. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

This study unleashes the knowledge structure according to the fundamental literature of social media influencer marketing and the underlying themes related to the phenomenon.

Budget hotels are becoming an emerging industry for convenience and affordability, where consumer sentiments are of paramount importance. Tourism has become increasingly dependent on social media and online platforms to gather travel-related information, purchase travel products, food, lodging, etc., and share views and experiences. The user-generated data helps companies make informed decisions through predictive and behavioural analytics.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This study uses text mining, deep learning, and machine learning techniques for data collection and sentiment analysis based on 117,151 online reviews of the customers posted on the TripAdvisor website from May 2004 to May 2019 from 197 hotels of five prominent budget hotel groups spread across India using Feedforward Neural Network along with Keras package and Softmax activation function.

Findings: The word-of-mouth turns into electronic word-of-mouth through social networking sites, with easy access to information that enables customers to pick a budget hotel. We identified 20 widely used words that most customers use in their reviews, which can help managers optimise operational efficiency by boosting consumer acceptability, satisfaction, positive experiences, and overcoming negative consumer perceptions.

Practical Implications: The analysis of the review patterns is based on real-time data, which is helpful to understand the customer’s requirements, particularly for budget hotels.

Originality/Value: We analysed TripAdvisor reviews posted over the last 16 years, excluding the Corona period due to industry crises. The findings reverberate in consonance with the performance improvement theory, which states feed-forward a neural network enhances organisational, process, and individual-level performance in the hospitality industry based on customer reviews.

Given the popularity of online health communities (OHCs) and medical question-and-answer (Q&A) services, it is increasingly important to understand what constitutes useful answers and user-adopted standards in healthcare domain. However, few studies provide insights into how health information characteristics, provider characteristics and recipient characteristics jointly influence user information adoption decisions. To fill this research gap, this study examines the combined effects of physicians' certainty tone as information characteristics, seniority as provider characteristics and disease severity as recipient characteristics on patients' health information adoption.

Drawing on dual-process theory and information adoption model, an extended information adoption model is established in this study to examine the effect of attitude certainty on patients' health information adoption, and the moderating effects of online seniority and offline seniority, as well as patient motivation level—disease severity. Utilizing logit regression models, the authors empirically tested the hypotheses based on 4,224 Q&A records from a popular Chinese OHC.

The results show that (1) attitude certainty has a significant positive impact on patients' health information adoption, (2) the relationship between attitude certainty and information adoption is negatively moderated by physicians' online seniority, but is positively moderated by offline seniority; (3) there is a negative three-way interaction effect of attitude certainty, online seniority and disease severity on patients' health information adoption.

This study extends the information adoption model to examine the two-way interaction between argument quality and source reliability, as well as the three-way interaction with user motivation level, especially for health information adoption in the healthcare field. These findings also provide direct practical applications for knowledge contributors and OHCs.

Since the success of online communities depend on physicians' participation, understanding factors that influence community participation and content contribution are critical for online health communities (OHCs). Drawing on the self-determination theory (SDT), an empirical model was proposed to explore the effects of social returns and economic returns on physicians' community participation, private content contribution and public content contribution, and the moderating effect of their online seniority. This paper aims to address these issues.

Empirical data of 4,343 physicians were collected from a Chinese OHC, and ordinary least squares (OLS) and negative binomial regression models were employed to verify the proposed theoretical model.

The authors’ results indicate that both social and economic returns have a positive effect on physicians' community participation and private content contribution, and their online seniority strengthens the positive effects of economic returns on community participation and private content contribution.

The authors’ research extends physicians' community participation by dividing content contribution into private and public, and enhances our understanding of the determinants of physicians' participation in OHCs by exploring the effects of social and economic returns, as well as the moderating effect of online seniority. Their findings contribute to the literature on e-Health and user participation, and provide management implications for OHC managers.

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-11-2021-0615/