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Drawing on the service-dominant logic and the institutional theory, this paper aims to explore the value-creating mechanisms of branding in the destination context and the brand co-creation process at and between different levels of a service ecosystem.

An exploratory research design was used to generate qualitative data from 18 in-depth interviews with important stakeholders and investigate how and why brand co-creation is fostered in the service ecosystem.

The study proposes a stepwise process of strategic imperatives for brand co-creation in the destination context. It presents the multi-directional flows of the brand meaning across levels of the tourism ecosystem and thereby interprets stakeholders’ efforts to co-create sustainable brands that gain prominence in the global tourism arena.

Future research might validate the framework in a quantitative research setting. The extended analysis of the value-creating ecosystem could investigate the role of institutions and brand value propositions across levels.

Acknowledging their limited control over the brand co-creation process, tourism practitioners are offered step-by-step guidance to help shape a destination brand that may retain relevance in the tourists’ minds. Critical insights are provided into resource sharing between actors and subsequent responsibilities for a sustainable destination branding strategy.

The paper considers the significance of the various levels in the ecosystem and the underlying mechanisms of brand co-creation in a somewhat neglected branding domain.

The first purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of prior CSR information on the perceived degree of danger, attribution of blame, brand evaluation and buying intentions after a product‐harm crisis in the food industry. The second purpose is to examine the moderation effect of CSR importance ascribed by the consumers on the above mentioned relations.

An experimental design consisting of three between‐subjects conditions was applied and three CSR initiative conditions were selected (positive, negative CSR and no CSR information as a control condition). In this framework, three different scenarios were designed and tested under the condition of a product‐harm crisis related to margarine.

This study highlights that CSR has an impact on attribution of blame, brand evaluation and buying intention but not on the perceived degree of danger. CSR importance has a moderation effect on the relationship between CSR and blame attribution, brand evaluation and buying intention.

Companies in the food industry should generate CSR strategies and should develop favourable CSR history not only because CSR has an impact on brand evaluation and buying intention in routine situations but because it is a part of crisis management and response strategy as well.

There is lack of research directly emphasizing the role of CSR in product‐harm crises, in the food industry. Besides, the assessment of CSR as an antecedent assurance factor in crisis situations has significant meaning due to the high vulnerability of food industry.

The purpose of this study is to add new insights into the discussion of how a city’s destination marketing organization (DMO) can apply operant resources to act upon its operant resources to create, market and manage a unique brand over time.

The study uses an abductive approach to advance understanding of how to execute a branding strategy that evolves over time while strategically curating its unique and valued resources. This understanding is based on an in-depth review of Louisville’s branding journey, including written documents and interviews with people involved in building the branding strategy.

This paper presents a model to help destinations focus on how to create, market and manage the delivery of a branded ecosystem that capitalizes on its resources. The study adds new insights into how DMOs can curate a destination’s resources into an ecosystem that delivers its brand promise over time.

The study introduces the idea of ecotopes to expand an understanding of tourism ecosystems, it presents the concept of a customer journey to depict a destination’s branding strategy, incorporates Barney’s Resource Based Theory (Barney & Clark, 2007) into the process of creating a destination’s brand and applies Barnard’s (1938) classic Acceptance Theory of Authority to explain how DMOs can execute a destination’s branding strategy.

This paper aims to formulate COVID-19 benchmarks that international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) have considered to recover from the sudden stopping of operations swiftly and consequences of COVID-19 pandemic; thus, to move forward toward readiness for both, the unpredictable spreading or disappearing of the virus (case of INGOs operating in Jordan).

This exploratory research has been informed by the broader social constructivism paradigm and the basics of grounded theory method to identify the common themes. Six semistructured interviews have been conducted with INGOs’ leaders. The findings have been categorized, triangulated and prioritized toward the final identification of benchmarks.

Seven COVID-19 benchmarks for INGOs’ effective responses during COVID-19 pandemic have been proposed, comprising of (1) donors’ policies and regulations, (2) needs, expectations and relevancy, (3) coordination, (4) staff management, (5) business continuation plans, (6) balanced short-term and long-term planning and (7) permanent adoption of successful modalities.

INGOs play a vital role in the lives of vulnerable people around the world through their international development and aid (IDA) projects. However, the restrictions of movements associated with COVID-19 pandemic drive more burden on these communities and interrupted their access to assistance and support. This paper helps to sustain the crucial support of INGOs to those people who need it.

COVID-19 pandemic has interrupted the implementation of IDA projects, which added further obstacles toward the achievement of quality implementation of these projects. The proposed COVID-19 benchmarks help INGOs to overcome the consequences of pandemic on the near longer-term alike.

The purpose of this study is to discern the underlying dimensions of destination branding and social media in the socio-geographical context of Pakistan. The study while selecting an event – Pakistan Tourism Summit 2019 – has explored the narratives of foreign social media influencers (SMIs). These narratives and content of tourism website of Pakistan have been comparatively analyzed to disentangle the voluntary and involuntary branding eventualities.

Qualitative research strategy has been adopted. Using the interface of NVivo 12, thematic analysis on the narratives of foreign influencers and content of tourism website has been performed. Eventually, influencer’s videos and website’s content have been transcribed and integrated into inductive themes.

The findings implies that multiple halt points exist in tourism branding of Pakistan. Stigmatized image as a dangerous place for visitation, superficial/exaggerated branding by the influencers, colonial mindset to marginalize the domestic influencers, domestic branding through foreign influencers and veiled tourism potential are the various dimensions emerged during analysis phase.

Given the limitations of the qualitative research approach, the current study lacks statistical avenues of quantitative or mix-method studies. Selection of a single event and website further limits this study and calls for the necessity of future studies having wider units of data collection and other portals of social media.

For policy makers, academia and supply sector, this study offers touchpoints to be emphasized in the strategic, legal and theoretical fronts of destination branding.

Despite the hegemony of SMIs in destination branding, there is scarcity of research on the paybacks of such branding campaigns. This endeavor in response to this call, accentuated the destination branding via foreign social media activists regarding the tourism potential of Pakistan. Findings provides novel insights and branding ethos deemed necessary to be considered in destination branding strategies/campaigns.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing citizens' willingness to participate in the development of smart cities.

Citizens drawn from 30 second-tier cities in China were chosen as the research object for this empirical research. Based on citizenship behavior theory, research hypotheses were tested and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results indicated that information publicity has a direct and positive effect on residents' participation behavior. Perceived benefits, personal responsibility and subjective norms are positively associated with residents' citizenship. Additionally, citizenship was found to affect residents' participation intention positively. Finally, the moderating effect of information credibility in this context was also verified.

As one of the first empirical studies on this topic, this paper offers important guidance for future research regarding residents' participation in the development of smart cities. On this basis, the implications of this research with respect to policies that aim to encourage residents to participate in the construction of smart cities are discussed.

This study aims to develop and test a theoretical model postulating that a hotel customer’s brand attachment is reinforced by positive and negative switching barriers, which, in turn, determine customer citizenship behaviour (CCB) towards hotel brands.

Surveys were conducted and completed by 233 respondents in the USA who had favourite hotel brands and used these brands in the previous year. A framework was developed based on the literature, and eight hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling.

The findings suggest that a customer’s brand attachment (brand-self connection and brand prominence) to a hotel is strengthened not only by relational benefits (positive switching barriers) but also by switching costs (negative switching barriers). Brand prominence can promote CCB, whereas the impact of brand-self connection on CCB is rather limited.

This study highlights the importance of affirmative and passive reasons for customers to remain in a relationship with the hotel brand and how sub-dimensions of switching barriers are interrelated to predict a customer’s attitude and behaviour to the brand. By emphasising the role of customers’ hotel brand attachment, this study also ascertains that cognitive and affective bonds towards a hotel brand can be significant antecedents to their extra-role behaviours.

This research contributes to the hospitality literature by expanding the realm of consumer behaviour research on switching barriers, brand attachment and CCB.

Drawing from the theory of how relevant items are processed in memory when making judgements, this study aims to test for recency effects between CSR advertising and related, negative news on how a company is perceived and the explanatory roles of environmentalism, attribution and both feelings and attitudes towards the advertising itself.

This study uses between-subjects experimental design with pretests.

Order effects exist, which, when ads and news are similarly influential, evidence a recency effect. The process is explained by both the mediating influence of attribution of blame and the moderation of this influence by attitude towards the environment. Differences between the effectiveness of ads are explained by the mediating influence of attitudes towards and feelings about the ad together with the moderation of this influence by involvement in the ad context.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) ads should be pretested in the context of related but negative news, and not just on their own, to ensure they can buffer such news. CSR ads can be more effective when following rather than preceding such news and should not be withdrawn if such a crisis occurs.

The research first attempts to explain recency effects theoretically from the influence of CSR ads on negative CSR-related news. It also shows the determining factors in how such effects influence consumers by considering attribution, environmentalism, attitude to the context and attitude and feelings towards CSR ads.