Search results

This study aims to examine how employee advocacy, via the value and credibility of their professional social media content, affects their followers’ attitudes toward the brand through the mediating role of parasocial relationships.

A quantitative research was used, and questionnaires were answered by LinkedIn users who follow at least one person they consider to be an employee advocate. A total of 390 responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that the credibility of an employee advocate positively impacts the parasocial relationship between the user and the employee, which, in turn, impacts the user’s attitude toward the brand represented by the employee advocate.

The results of this study suggest that employee advocacy on LinkedIn can shape positive attitudes toward the advocate’s brand. These findings suggest that organizations should consider employee content and credibility as strategic tools in marketing communications.

This study delineates the linkages between the credibility and content value of the employee advocate, the parasocial relationship they have with followers and their attitude toward the brand. This research contributes to the literature on employee advocacy and studies on the concepts of parasocial interactions and relationships.

This study aims to focus on the information sharing behavior of employees in the context of online brand advocacy based on the cognition–affection–behavior framework.

Online surveys were distributed to 840 employees, and the gathered data was analyzed by using structural equation modeling.

The effects of perceived organizational justice, employee emotions, organizational trust on online brand advocacy and the moderating role of organizational identification were empirically supported in this study. Noteworthy exceptions to these findings included the lack of evidence of the effect of informational justice on emotions, the effect of procedural justice on negative emotion and the effect of negative emotion on online brand advocacy.

This study expands brand activism research by investigating online brand advocacy and the employee context. Moreover, this work also extends online brand advocacy research through the employee points of view.

The online brand advocacy behaviors of omnichannel shoppers, who mainly rely on integrated brick-and-mortar stores (recognized as a vital channel for delivering a seamless shopping experience and meeting the dynamic needs of the shoppers), are still understudied. This study aims to investigate how integrated store service quality (ISSQ) may elicit both positive and negative emotions that contribute to a memorable omnichannel shopping experience and have an impact on shoppers' attachment to the store, leading to their exhibition of online brand advocacy behaviors (brand defense, brand positivity, brand knowledge sharing and virtual positive expression).

The study is a cross-sectional, descriptive and quantitative investigation. The research participants were chosen using a purposive sampling technique. Using a validated self-administered questionnaire, data were gathered from 886 Indian omnichannel shoppers who often purchase at the integrated brick-and-mortar store. The proposed conceptual model was tested using Smart PLS software for partial least squares-structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that positive and negative emotions mediate the relationship between ISSQ and memorable omnichannel shopping experiences, subsequently impacting omnichannel shoppers' attachment to the store and leading to online brand advocacy behaviors. The relationship strength perceived by shoppers significantly positively moderated the relationship between store attachment and different online brand advocacy behaviors (brand defense, brand positivity, brand knowledge sharing and virtual positive expression).

The study relied upon single cross-sectional data from the Indian population, where omnichannel retailing is still nascent.

This study addresses the need to investigate the different emotions that arise while evaluating service quality in omnichannel retail purchase journeys leading to memorable shopping experiences. Emphasizing post-purchase behaviors like different online brand advocacy behaviors (brand defense, brand positivity, brand knowledge sharing and virtual positive expression), this study is the first to show that ISSQ might affect four different OBAs through memorable omnichannel shopping experience and the shopper's sense of attachment to the store. The moderating effect of relationship strength perceived by shoppers with the retailer on a few proposed hypotheses was also tested to give managerial recommendations.

The purpose of this study is to explore the comparative effects of mainstream celebrities and social media influencers on consumer advocacy and relationship intentions. The study also examines the direct and serial mediation effects on those relationships.

The survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 718 respondents throughout Malaysia, with convenience and snowball sampling techniques employed. The data were analyzed based on the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach through the AMOS version 24. The PROCESS MACRO v-4.20 was applied to evaluate mediating effects in the model.

The results reveal that celebrity endorsers' involvement in social media significantly influences the uses of social media, which also impacts the attitudes and, subsequently, consumer relationship and advocacy intentions. The study found that mainstream celebrities and social media influencers effectively promote brands, and it discovered insignificant differences in their effects on the analyzed relationships.

This study has been conducted on consumers in Malaysia; it may have different effects on consumers in other countries.

Brand managers and policymakers may benefit from following the study's guidelines for making consumer relationship and advocacy intentions by celebrity endorsers and uses of social media.

The brand community can benefit from tightening their social bondage by sharing and managing crucial information from celebrities and using social media.

The study explores the effects of mainstream celebrities on consumer relationship and advocacy intentions using social media networks and managing consumer attitudes.

The young members of Generation Z, who are hyperconnected and addicted to social media, are thought to be particularly sensitive to environmental and social concerns. This study aims to draw on a conceptual model that is based on the stimulus-organism-response paradigm. Exposure to sustainability content on social media is considered to be a stimulus that affects the development of sustainability advocacy among GenZers, who modify their lifestyles. Five hypotheses are developed and tested. The goal is to define the antecedents of sustainability advocacy.

A Web survey was distributed to 660 Italian members from Generation Z (aged between 14 and 25) to detect the frequencies of exposure to sustainability content on social media, sustainable habits, sustainable consumption behaviours and actions that are related to sustainability advocacy on social media. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relationships between these factors.

The results show that exposure to sustainability content on social media affects both sustainable habits and sustainable consumption behaviour. These three factors influence the propensity to promote sustainability-related issues on social media and should, therefore, be considered to be antecedents of sustainability advocacy.

The study, which takes the social responsibilities of large companies into account, is conducive to understanding how brands can intervene in the soliciting processes of sustainability advocacy through social media to gain legitimacy and increase brand awareness.

This study is among the first to consider the use of social media for advocating sustainability among Generation Z, thus enriching academic research on this cohort.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of celebrity endorsers on consumer advocacy, customization and entertainment intentions based on the notion of the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework. In addition, this study aims to examine the mediating and moderating role of customization and entertainment intentions on the proposed relationships. The authors also intend to highlight the comparative effects between male and female young social media consumers on those proposed associations.

In the pursuit of comprehensive and rigorous data collection, this study adopted a quantitative methodology using a meticulously crafted questionnaire. The questionnaire survey was conducted in major cities of Malaysia using the convenience and snowball sampling techniques. A total of 576 responses were collected, even though 549 retorts were used for data analysis. In this investigation, the authors strategically used covariance-based structural equation modeling through the use of AMOS v. 24 as the primary data analysis tool. Augmenting the analytical depth, the authors also conducted a supplementary bootstrap analysis. The additional layers of examination were crucial for appraising the mediating and moderating effects inherent within the model, in which the PROCESS MACRO v.4.20 was used.

The results of this study revealed the significant direct positive effects of celebrity endorsers on consumer customization, entertainment and advocacy intentions. Consumer customization and entertainment intentions also found significant direct affirmative effects on consumer advocacy intention, along with the significant direct positive effects of consumer entertainment intention on consumer customization intention. The results further revealed that consumer customization and entertainment intentions cannot mediate the relationship between celebrity endorsers and advocacy intention. The entertainment intention also declined the mediating effects between celebrity endorsers and consumer customization intention. On the contrary, consumer customization intention significantly and positively, and entertainment intention also significantly but negatively, moderate the association between celebrity endorsers and consumer advocacy intention. This study also illustrates that the effects of those examined relationships differ between male and female young social media consumers.

This study investigates the impact of celebrity endorsers on consumer behavior, focusing on their customization, entertainment and advocacy intentions. It extends current SOR framework, enhances source credibility theory, fills gaps in the literature on social media brand engagement and underscores the significance of customization and entertainment intentions. The findings provide insights for managers aiming to harness consumer brand advocacy through celebrity endorsers effectively.

Once a corporate crisis is entangled with a social issue, how consumers make sense of the crisis can be impacted by issue-based opinion polarization. This study investigates the underlying mechanisms as consumers go through this process. This study also examines whether corporate social advocacy (CSA) can be an effective crisis-response strategy for mitigating reputational loss.

Theoretical inquiries were empirically tested using an online experiment (N = 792). The experiment set the context in China, in a working-overtime-issue-related crisis. It had a 2 (online exposure: anti-issue opinion vs. pro-issue opinion) × 2 (CSA: absence vs. presence) between-subject design with a continuous variable (pre-existing issue attitudes) measured before the manipulation.

This study found that pre-existing issue attitudes can be directly and indirectly associated with corporate reputation, for the issue attitudes influence how consumers attribute crisis blame. Such a direct effect of pre-existing issue attitudes varies depending on which polarized opinion consumers were exposed to on social media. This study also found CSA to be a robust crisis response strategy, through multiple mechanisms, in protecting the corporate reputation.

Scholars are scarcely aware of the threats that issue-based opinion polarization poses to corporate reputation. This study serves as an early attempt to provide theoretical explanations. In addition to this, this study extends the current conceptual understandings of CSA during corporate crises that involve social issues while adding fresh insights into the established typology of crisis-response strategies.