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This study aims to investigate how psychological motivations influence the knowledge-sharing intention of employees and how these effects are moderated by traditional Chinese culture.

A questionnaire survey was conducted in China to test the research model. The target samples comprised MBA students who have enough practical experience, as well as considerable academic experience.

The results suggest that anticipated reciprocal relationships, anticipated extrinsic rewards and sense of self-worth exert different effects on knowledge-sharing intention. In addition, traditional Chinese culture plays different roles in the relationships among these three psychological motivations and knowledge-sharing intention. Specifically, guanxi orientation positively moderates the effect of anticipated reciprocal relationships and negatively moderates the effect of sense of self-worth. Face gaining negatively moderates the effect of anticipated reciprocal relationships and positively moderates the effect of sense of self-worth. Face saving negatively moderates the effect of anticipated reciprocal relationships and sense of self-worth.

A few studies in extant knowledge management (KM) literature provided insights into how traditional Chinese culture could directly affect knowledge sharing. The authors depart from these studies by integrating these characteristic indigenous concepts (i.e. face and guanxi orientation) into this study. The authors offer an indigenous cultural view of how these indigenous concepts truly influence an individual’s psychological states and inclination in KM literature. Through this approach, the results confirm that these cultural factors do play an important role during the formation of knowledge-sharing intention and reveals several important research findings.

Luxury consumption in China is featured by clear conspicuous purposes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this phenomenon from the indigenous perspective of face consciousness.

Drawing on Ho’s (1976) framework of gaining vs losing face process, the authors decomposed the construct of face consciousness into two dimensions, namely, desire to gain face and fear of losing face, and developed a multi-dimensional scale for face consciousness. Then, a survey that consisted of 338 participants was conducted to test the relationship between face consciousness and luxury consumption.

The face consciousness scale was shown to be reliable and valid. Furthermore, the authors found both desire to gain face and fear of losing face had a unique contribution in explaining why Chinese consumers purchase luxury products.

This paper fills the gap in the extant literature by developing a multi-dimensional face consciousness scale, providing convenience for empirical research in future. Moreover, this research shows that Chinese consumers’ luxury consumption behavior contains both promotion and prevention motivation.

Given the progressive rise of online health communities (OHC) that have predominantly changed health delivery services, healthcare organizations still face tremendous challenges of low patient participation and lack of high-quality contribution to OHC. Prior scholars indicated that inducing patient value co-creation behavior (VCB) is substantially beneficial for the sustainable growth of OHCs. However, what drives patients' behavior to co-create value is still unknown. To fill this important gap, this study used the service-dominant logic of value co-creation theory and face (mianzi in Chinese) literature to discover how patient co-creation attitude (CA) affects patient VCB. Also, this study aimed to explore the joint mechanism of how face gain (FG) and face loss (FL) impact patients' VCB in OHCs.

The survey data of 322 patients actively using OHC in China were analyzed via partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The results revealed that patient CA positively influences VCB, that is participation behavior (PB) and citizenship behavior (CB). Face gain (FG) strengthens the impact of CA and patient PB and CB, whereas face loss (FL) weakens the impact of CA and patient PB and CB. Furthermore, the fsQCA findings signify the robustness of the study model.

This study explores the multifaceted mechanism of patient value co-creation in OHC and discloses the crucial role of face for the first time. Further, the novel findings of this study provide a robust framework for advancing the understanding of important drivers of patient VCBs that significantly helps healthcare service providers and OHC managers to sustain OHCs.

This paper aims to examine the effect of face consciousness on purchase intention of organic food, to test whether this relationship would be moderated by purchase situation (group vs individual) and advertising appeal (altruistic vs egoistic), and to explain the mediating role of perceived social value in these moderating effects.

Four between-subjects experiments were carried out (N = 123, N = 126, N = 130, N = 123) by using online questionnaires. Measured variables were introduced to assess participants' face consciousness, perceived social value and purchase intention. Two manipulated between-subjects variable were introduced to test how purchase situation (group vs individual) and advertising appeal (altruistic vs egoistic) moderates the relationship between face consciousness and purchase intention of organic food. SPSS Statistics 24 was used for the analysis of all experimental data.

Consumers with high face consciousness were more willing to buy organic food. Compared with the individual situation, face consciousness had a stronger impact on the purchase intention when the individual was in a group situation. Compared with egoistic appeals, face consciousness had a stronger impact on the purchase intention when the advertising appeal was altruistic. Perceived social value partly mediated the moderating effect of purchase situation and advertising appeal.

This study validates previous contributions on the effect of face consciousness on purchase intention of organic food and extends them by introducing two moderating variables. Additionally, it introduces perceived social value as a mediating variable to explain the mechanism of this effect.

The purpose of the paper is to advocates the use of gendered economic policies to stimulate a post-COVID-19 recovery. It alerts on the risk of ignoring the female dimension of the current crisis and of resorting again to austerity programs that, like the ones enacted after the 2008 crisis, would hit women and mothers disproportionally harder than other groups.

The authors use data from the British Household Panel Survey on female participation and account for gendered constraints and enablers missed by mainstream economics. Using a sequential empirical approach, the authors simulate various welfare policy scenarios that address factors, such as childcare costs, personal and social nudges, that could help women back into the labor market in the aftermath of a crisis.

The authors found that incentive-type interventions, such as subsidies, promote female labor market participation more effectively than punishment-austerity type interventions, such as benefits' cuts. Policies oriented to alleviate childcare constraints can be sustainable and effective in encouraging women back to work. Considering factors wider than the standard economic variables when designing labor market policies may provide fruitful returns.

The sequential methodology enables to estimate current and counterfactual incomes for each female in the sample and to calculate their prospective financial gains and losses in changing their labor market status quo, from not employed into employed or vice-versa. Welfare policies affect these prospective gains and losses and, by interacting with other factors, such as education, number and age of children and social capital, prompt changes in women's labor market choices and decision.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a loss of face on the psychological well-being of frontline employees (FLEs) in an Eastern cultural context (Thailand) when subjected to customer aggression. Importantly, it adopts a contingency approach and examines moderating effects by which social status, a “customer is always right” organisational philosophy and a public/private context impact the nature of the association between customer aggression and loss of face. Finally, it examines the moderating effect of regulation of emotion on the association between loss of face on psychological well-being.

A survey, administered to 319 FLEs in retail stores in Thailand, asked them to recall a recent experience dealing with customer aggression. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling and a moderator regression.

Customer aggression expressions are associated with FLEs’ loss of face, which in turn affects FLEs’ emotional exhaustion and anxiety. FLEs social status and a “customer is always right” organisational philosophy moderate the association between customer aggression and loss of face, and FLEs’ loss of face is greater when their physical well-being is threatened publicly rather than in private. In addition, regulation of emotion was found to increase the negative impact of loss of face on emotional exhaustion.

The way FLEs respond to customer aggression during service encounters, as well as the FLEs’ status and the context, can intensify their loss of face and psychological well-being. This has implications for the extent to which organisations impose a “customer is always right” dictum on FLE, as well as the need for counselling and peer support immediately following customer aggression incidents.

This study is the first to investigate the moderating effects of social status, a “customer is always right” philosophy and public/private context on the expression of customer aggression and FLEs’ accompanying loss of face. In other words, rather than simply examining what causes face loss, the authors shift the focus from the “Is” question to “When” – i.e., under what contingency condition is there more or less face loss?

This study aims to investigate the moderating effect of in-group social presence on the relationship between face concern and hotel customers’ behavioral responses to service failures.

Participants were randomly assigned to two conditions: in-group presence vs control group. They read a scenario describing a hotel check-in service failure and answered questions regarding their behavioral intention after the failure and level of face concern.

The results indicate that face concern is positively associated with the intention to voice a complaint, to spread negative word-of-mouth and to post negative online reviews. While the impact of face concern on complaint intention became insignificant in the presence of an in-group, its effect on posting negative online reviews was enhanced when surrounded by an in-group.

It addresses the long-lasting debate about the association between face concern and various types of behavioral responses to service failure. Practically, extra attention should be paid to the process quality when serving face concerned customers, particularly when they are accompanied by important others.

This study enriches the literature on cultural effects by identifying the situational effect of face concern on customers’ service failure responses. A model that describes the situational effect of face concern on different types of behavioral intention has been built.

The purpose of this paper is to expand the peer effect analysis to investments in the stock market, where neither direct competition nor interaction with other investors exists.

A total of 772 subjects dwelling in six countries completed a questionnaire about their satisfaction with the performance of their hypothetical investment in the stock market. They were informed about the performance of the local stock market and the performance of their peer group, referred to in the questionnaire as their “friends.”

Only 5 per cent of subjects are indifferent to their friends’ investment performance, as advocates by expected utility paradigm. Most subjects are happier when their friends earn lower rather than higher returns. On average, subjects are better off losing rather than gaining money as long as their friends lose more money, which violates the univariate monotonicity axiom. A negligible number of subjects exhibit a consistent favorable response, which is a necessary condition for pure economic altruism. Hostility is greater in less-wealthy countries. No link is found with regard to economic inequality.

This paper shows that when a conflict between absolute wealth and relative wealth arises, the latter dominates, even when the comparison is not with an opponent or a colleague but with the subject’s friends. The astonishing result is that subjects prefer having less wealth as long as their friends lose more, despite no direct competition between subjects as in ultimatum games and despite the performance being equal to market performance.