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1 – 10 of over 7000Muhammad Mohsin Butt, Kok Wei Khong and Muhammad Alam
This study aims to establish the psychometric properties of behavioural integrity scale at an organizational level from external stakeholders’ perspective and its subsequent…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to establish the psychometric properties of behavioural integrity scale at an organizational level from external stakeholders’ perspective and its subsequent influence on consumer trust and commitment with a brand. Moreover, the study also examines how different crisis response strategies moderate the relationship between consumer attributions of the responsibility and corporate brand behavioural integrity in the context of emotional product harm crisis caused by alleged violation of Halal certification by an MNC.
Design/methodology/approach
A quasi-experimental design was applied to test the impact of firm crisis response strategies on its corporate brand behavioural integrity.
Findings
The results provide evidence that behavioural integrity scale can be used to measure consumer perceptions of a corporate brand behavioural integrity. In addition, results indicate that crisis response strategies offer some moderating influence on the relationship between consumer attribution processes and corporate brand behavioural integrity.
Research limitations/implications
Results indicate that existing corporate crisis response strategies are not very helpful in the context of emotional product harm crisis. This study demonstrates that behavioural integrity positively impacts customer relationship-oriented constructs. Furthermore, behavioural integrity scale offers excellent psychometric properties when used at the corporate level.
Practical implications
Organizations can use this proposed conceptual model to monitor and manage behavioural integrity of its corporate brand and its influence on customer-brand relationship constructs.
Originality/value
This study is first of its nature that underscores the importance of measuring and monitoring corporate brand behavioural integrity as a customer trust-building mechanism. It is also the first study that investigates consumer reaction towards alleged brand transgression of its Halal certified product.
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This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.
Design/methodology/approach
This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.
Findings
A crisis can trigger perceptions of corporate brand integrity among different stakeholder groups. However, firms that act swiftly by adopting crisis response strategies appropriate to the context can help mitigate the potential harm to trust and commitment.
Originality/value
The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.
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The purpose of this study is to investigate consumers’ subconscious/emotional responses to brand tarnishment.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate consumers’ subconscious/emotional responses to brand tarnishment.
Design/methodology/approach
Brand tarnishment and the responses of business firms in protecting their brands against economic harm have been controversial topics for many years. Unfortunately, those who have resorted to the courts to protect their brands have met with mixed success, mainly because the methodologies used to demonstrate economic harm have proved controversial. One caveat in the history of court cases is the absence of any investigation related to emotional responses to brand dilution in general, and to brand tarnishment in particular. This is so, despite several calls to investigate this relationship.
Findings
It is concluded that the brand tarnishment of fairly well-known brands is largely ineffectual (neutral emotional responses).
Research limitations/implications
The primary contribution of this study is that, for the first time, some light is shed on consumers’ emotional responses to brand tarnishment. Irrespective of the neurophysiological measure used, the results consistently demonstrate that the subconscious responses to brand tarnishment are generally neutral. The results thus do not suggest any likelihood of severe economic harm due to negative emotional responses to brand tarnishment.
Practical implications
The results of this study have important managerial implications for brand managers, and particularly for those responsible for relatively well-established brands. It is clear that at the unconscious level, brand tarnishment is not as harmful as many seem to believe. There is evidence that brands will not be harmed if the “tarnishment” consists of social commentary.
Social implications
It could also suggest that consumers can differentiate between different forms of tarnishment, and that tarnishment involving social commentary is not frowned upon. This may be because the consumer agrees with the social commentary, or finds it amusing. In short, it seems that consumers may see the tarnishment as mildly amusing, but realize that it is not of a serious nature.
Originality/value
The results seem to suggest that legal action against those who tarnish brands is unnecessary and probably ineffective. Instead, this study proposes more innovative ways to respond to brand tarnishment.
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Rubing Bai, Baolong Ma, Zhichen Hu and Hong Wang
This paper aims to explore whether products branded with handwritten scripts suffer more from the effects of product-harm crises than other brands. Most studies on handwritten…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore whether products branded with handwritten scripts suffer more from the effects of product-harm crises than other brands. Most studies on handwritten scripts focus on their positive effects, such as humanizing a product or creating an emotional tie with consumers. However, seldom have researchers investigated the negative effects of handwritten scripts. This paper goes some way to filling this gap.
Design/methodology/approach
Five experimental studies were conducted to test three hypotheses. These experiments provide evidence of the negative effects of handwritten scripts. In addition, they reveal the mechanisms that lead to these outcomes and outline the boundary conditions of the negative effects.
Findings
Framed by attribution theory, three conclusions can be drawn from the experiments: when a product-harm crisis occurs, consumers react with greater negativity toward the brand using handwritten scripts than to those using machine typefaces. The negative effect is explained by a serial mediation process that follows the pattern: typeface → perceived humanization → brand responsibility → brand attitude. The negative effect decreases when the crisis is perceived to be an accident.
Originality/value
This paper enriches the theory of marketing in terms of both handwritten scripts and product-harm crises, providing valuable guidance for enterprises that use handwritten scripts in their marketing activities.
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Melissa Yi-Ting Hsu and Julian Ming-Sung Cheng
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of gender on the neural substrates of theories on consumer behavior (i.e. the original compared with the revised versions of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of gender on the neural substrates of theories on consumer behavior (i.e. the original compared with the revised versions of consumer learning [CL] theory) and to examine whether gender influences brain activation associated with word-of-mouth (WOM) communications (i.e. information specificity, source expertise and tie strength) after a product harm crisis. This article also discusses the WOM effects of product quality perception, negative emotion and purchase intentions by precise localizing brain activity.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applied functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity (i.e. the blood oxygen level-dependent signal) during WOM communication after a product harm crisis.
Findings
The male participants treat the product quality as a constant and tend to support the original CL theory. The female participants, however, showed differentiable brain activation across three factors, suggesting a dynamic representation for product quality (i.e. not a constant), and they appear to be more sensitive to the revised CL theory.
Originality/value
This paper concluded that the original CL theory applies to males and the revised version applies to females. Therefore, gender determines whether the original or the revised version of the CL theory works in consumers’ decision-making, and the extant of research has not focused on the information after a product harm crisis in terms of whether the information being communicated is specific or tensile through WOM communication.
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Rui Xue, Gongming Qian, Zhengming Qian and Lee Li
Customers often trace a product-harm crisis to the deviant firm's capability- or character-relevant issues. This study examines how capability- and character-based stigma…
Abstract
Purpose
Customers often trace a product-harm crisis to the deviant firm's capability- or character-relevant issues. This study examines how capability- and character-based stigma associated with product-harm crises influence foreign customers' product preferences (i.e. brand affect and purchase intention) for other firms from the same country of origin.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative survey data are used to test hypotheses with a structural equation model.
Findings
The authors find that negative capability judgment significantly affects foreign customers' product preferences for other firms from the same country of origin, whereas negative character judgment does not. However, customers' national animosity and product knowledge moderate the stigma spillover effects. Specifically, national animosity and product knowledge weaken the spillover effects of capability-based stigma but strengthen those of character-based stigma.
Research limitations/implications
Future research could examine strategies for uninvolved firms to avoid the stigma-by-association effect. Moreover, due to the lack of resources to collect data, this study does not investigate how customers' generalized favorability and familiarity with crisis-stricken firms and uninvolved firms moderate the stigma-by-association effect.
Originality/value
The findings of this study advance our knowledge on product-harm crises and the stigma-by-association effect.
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Sojung Kim and Mark Yi-Cheon Yim
This study aims to examine how culture influences consumer attitudes toward the brands of products they own during a product-harm crisis. To this end, average consumers from two…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how culture influences consumer attitudes toward the brands of products they own during a product-harm crisis. To this end, average consumers from two countries - the USA, representing a highly individualistic society and China, a less individualistic (i.e. collectivist) society – are compared.
Design/methodology/approach
The study conducts an invariance test of the measurement model for a more rigorous comparison of the two countries. Structural equation modeling is performed to identify how average consumers respond to a product-harm crisis (e.g. iPhone explosion) based on survey results of 188 American and 197 Chinese consumers.
Findings
These results reveal that in both countries, an individual’s susceptibility to a normative interpersonal influence determines their brand consciousness, which, in turn, enhances consumer attachment to well-known brands, resulting in favorable brand attitudes. During a brand crisis, an owned brand’s buffering effect is observed among consumers high in brand consciousness in collectivistic but not in individualistic societies. The moderating role of feelings of betrayal on the brand attachment-consumer attitude relationship is also reported.
Originality/value
Culture shapes consumer behavioral patterns. In today’s global market, a company’s decisions are no longer limited by borders and many companies experience product failures. Thus, findings that show consumers’ distinguishable psychological experiences between different cultures contribute to crisis management literature.
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Can one describe the ‘natural’ process of pregnancy as ‘harm’, even when negligently brought about? What does that harm consist of? Offering a contextual analysis of the English…
Abstract
Can one describe the ‘natural’ process of pregnancy as ‘harm’, even when negligently brought about? What does that harm consist of? Offering a contextual analysis of the English judiciary's characterisation of wrongful pregnancy, this paper demonstrates from a feminist perspective that the current construction of pregnancy as a ‘personal injury’ is deeply problematic. Forwarding an alternative account, this paper argues for law to embrace a richer notion of autonomy that will better resonate with women's diverse experiences of reproduction, and articulate the importance of autonomy in the reproductive domain: notably, women gaining control over their moral, relational and social lives.
Melissa G. Keith, Peter D. Harms and Alexander C. Long
Despite widespread interest in the gig economy, academic research on the topic has lagged behind. The present chapter applies organizational theory and research to compose a…
Abstract
Despite widespread interest in the gig economy, academic research on the topic has lagged behind. The present chapter applies organizational theory and research to compose a working model for understanding participation in the gig economy and how gig work may impact worker health and well-being. Drawing from past research this chapter defines the gig economy in all its diversity and advances a framework for understanding why individuals enter into gig economy. Next, the authors discuss how various characteristics of the gig economy and gig workers can be understood as both demands and resources that influence how gig work is likely to be experienced by the individual. To understand how these characteristics are likely to influence worker health and well-being, we draw from past research on alternative work arrangements and entrepreneurship, as well as the limited extant research on the gig economy. Finally, a research agenda is proposed to spur much needed research on the gig economy and its workers.
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Luke A. Turnock and Honor D. Townshend
With digital spaces an increasing feature of our everyday lives, and the internet now a primary means of sourcing IPEDs and information regarding their use, this chapter seeks to…
Abstract
With digital spaces an increasing feature of our everyday lives, and the internet now a primary means of sourcing IPEDs and information regarding their use, this chapter seeks to understand how digital fitness forum communities shape the dissemination of culturally embedded harm reduction advice. Findings are drawn from two netnographic studies of fitness forums, which identify several key areas in which community norms and structures served to inform harm reduction behaviours. This included embedded forum reputation systems and the ways in which these shaped IPED access, including through elevating ‘expert’ users and encouraging informed discussion regarding product quality, to the emergence of steroid testing services from forums as a community harm reduction tool. Second, forums were observed to often encourage users to conduct research and inform themselves regarding safe use, though limitations to this norm were also documented in relation to poor-quality medical advice, highlighting the issues with IPED users' reliance on anecdotal advice in the contexts of prohibition. Finally, the role of digital fitness forums as ‘digital backstage’ is considered, examining both how this can be harmful to IPED users from excluded or ‘otherised’ groups, but simultaneously offers cultural participants the opportunity for airing vulnerabilities in a space where their masculine identity is not threatened in doing so, thus facilitating harm reduction among cultural ‘insiders’.
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