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This paper aims to examine a core member-customer threat in co-operatives (co-ops) by drawing from ostracism research, assessing co-op ostracism’s impact on critical membership and relational exchange outcomes and discussing why relationship marketing research needs to pay more attention to the overlooked role of implicit mistreatment forms in customer harm-doing.

Three studies were conducted. In Study 1, ostracism in co-ops was explored, and a measurement scale for co-op ostracism was developed. In Study 2, the core conceptual model was empirically tested with data from members of three different co-ops. In Study 3, a coping strategy was integrated into an extended model and empirically tested with a new sample of co-op members.

Ostracism is present in co-ops and “poisons” crucial relational (and membership) outcomes, despite the presence of other relationship-building or relationship-destroying accounts. Coupling entitativity with cognitive capital attenuates ostracism’s impact.

Inspired by co-ops’ membership model and inherent relational advantage, this research is the first to adopt a co-op member-customer perspective and shed light on an implicit relationship-destroying factor.

Co-op decision makers might use the diagnostic tool developed in the paper to detect ostracism and fight it. Moreover, a novel coping strategy for how co-ops (or other firms) might fend off ostracism threats is offered in the article.

The present study illuminates a dark side of a relationally profuse customer context, painting a more complete picture of relationship marketing determinants. Little attention has been given to ostracism as a distinct and important social behaviour in marketing research and to co-ops as a research context.

Considering the ongoing discourse on diversity, equity and inclusion, brands aim to develop marketing campaigns that demonstrate respect for all individuals. Despite these intentions, many advertisements still provoke strong negative reactions from consumers due to brand transgressions in social media marketing campaigns that violate these values. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the repercussions that such social media marketing campaigns have on brands, categorizing these campaigns as brand transgressions in social media advertising.

This research uses a mixed-method design that includes semi-structured interviews (Study 1), a content analysis (Study 2) and an online experiment (Study 3).

This paper clarifies the elements that qualify as brand transgressions in advertising within the diversity, equity and inclusion discourse. The negative electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) associated with brand transgressions in advertising comprises negative emotions (e.g. anger, contempt, disgust and hate) and behavioural intentions to penalize the brand (e.g. negative word-of-mouth, brand avoidance and protest behaviours). The negative e-WOM stemming from these transgressions amplifies the adverse consequences for consumer–brand relationships by negatively influencing other consumers through sympathy towards the offended parties.

This paper offers brand managers guidelines for preventing and managing negative consumer reactions towards brands based on their responses to marketing campaigns that contradict the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion.

This paper contributes to the literature on brand transgressions related to diversity, equity and inclusion values by exploring their impact on consumer–brand relationships and highlighting the pivotal role of sympathy in perpetuating negative consequences.

This study aims to investigate the impact of the innovative ritual-based redesign of a routine in the challenging context of the dining-out sector, characterized by low employee commitment and high turnover.

This study adopts a mixed methods experimental design. This study focuses on a field experiment in a real restaurant centered on the restaurant’s welcome entrée routine. The routine is first observed as it happens, after which it is redesigned as a ritual.

The ritual-based redesign of the routine enhances employee sharing of the purpose of the routine and reduces the variability of the execution time of the routine, which increases group cohesion among the restaurant staff. Besides the positive impact on the routine’s participants, the ritual-based redesign has a beneficial effect on the performance of the routine by increasing the enjoyment of the end-consumers at the restaurant.

The ritual-based redesign of routines is a powerful managerial tool that bonds workers into a solidary community characterized by strong and shared values. This allows guidance of the behavior of new and existing employees in a more efficient and less time-consuming way.

Rituals have been traditionally analyzed from the customer perspective as marketing tools. This research investigates the employees’ perspective, leveraging ritual-based redesign as a managerial tool for increasing cohesion among workers.

The purpose of this paper is to build cyber-physical-psychological ternary fusion crowd intelligence network and realize comprehensive, real, correct and synchronous projection in cyber–physical–psychological ternary fusion system. Since the network of crowd intelligence is the future interconnected network system that takes on the features of large scale, openness and self-organization. The Digital-selfs in the network of crowd intelligence interact and cooperate with each other to finish transactions and achieve co-evolution eventually.

To realize comprehensive, real, correct and synchronous projection between cyber–physical–psychological ternary fusion system, the authors propose the rules and methods of projection from real world to the CrowdIntell Network. They build the mental model of the Digital-self including structure model and behavior model in four aspects: identity, provision, demand and connection, thus forming a theoretical mental model framework of Digital-self.

The mental model is excepted to lay a foundation for the theory of modeling and simulation in the research of crowd science and engineering.

This paper is the first one to propose the mental model framework and projection rules and methods of Digital-selfs in network of crowd intelligence, which lays a solid foundation for the theory of modeling, simulation, intelligent transactions, evolution and stability of CrowdIntell Network system, thus promoting the development of crowd science and engineering.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an innovative branding method based on the hermeneutical approach and interpretive theory, to respond to the need of a simple and effective tool to build corporate identity through an industrial brand identity design and, being a new business, has been considered the brand perception of their stakeholders as the main input to analyze.

The case study of a small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME), that produces nanomaterials for the business-to-business (B2B) industrial market, is used to design the new hermeneutic branding method. The methodology process has been structured in four phases that have marked the investigation and that correspond to four different levels of knowledge that, in succession, between them, constituted the so-called hermeneutic circle.

This new approach allowed us to understand the social phenomenon related to the brand: its characteristic, context and the brand itself. Though hermeneutic analysis has confirmed that business strategy is only part of a more complex system of brand management, it must also consider the competitive environment and the views of the stakeholders.

This paper contributes to research on industrial branding by adopting the hermeneutical approach in managerial practice. This paper is the first of its kind in detail modelling the design phases of a B2B brand, providing an operational tool for marketing specialists.

There is a lack of research studies in the methods for designing industrial brands. The contribution of this paper lies in proposing a new interpretative approach that, acknowledging the different expectations of the stakeholder in the supply chain, allows to draw a B2B brand that communicates the system values of the product and company.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the measures that could be taken to combat the risk of economic crime in the aftermath of South African disasters.

This paper used secondary sources including, but not limited to, institutional reports, newspaper articles and peer-reviewed academic journal articles.

The COVID-19 pandemic was used as an example in this paper to discuss the susceptibility of post-disaster funding to the risk of economic crime and to assess how the South African government attempted to combat this risk during the pandemic. The Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) conducted a real-time audit of the government’s essential COVID-19 initiatives in collaboration with the newly established Fusion Centre. Through their collaborative efforts, they successfully identified mismanaged funds, facilitated the recovery thereof and prosecuted individuals and entities involved. This paper found that to proactively combat economic crime in future post-disaster events, the collaborative use of the AGSA and the Fusion Centre, in conjunction with existing bodies established under the Disaster Management Act, should be considered.

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge in disaster risk management and forensic accountancy. As the frequency of disasters is expected to increase in the future, so will the economic crime risk associated with post-disaster funding. This paper demonstrates that post-disaster funding is especially susceptible to the risk of economic crime and it is therefore important to research methods to combat this problem and prevent further losses.

This study aims to explore the dialectical interplay between traditional roots and contemporary challenges faced by family businesses, specifically focusing on “Osmice” (in Slovenian; in Italian, “Osmize”), which are family enterprises that embody the cultural and historical heritage at the intersection of Italy and Slovenia. In particular, the purpose of this study is to understand how these businesses, deeply rooted in the communal life of the Karst region, evolve amidst changing social, economic and cultural landscapes.

Building on an alternate template analysis, the research includes the examination of archival data and 34 in-depth narrative interviews. This approach captures details about the historical establishment, persistence and evolution of Osmice, with a particular focus on their ways of facing contemporary challenges while preserving their traditional roots.

The findings reveal that Osmice navigate the tension between past and present through high sensitivity to the cultural identity of the land in which they are embedded. Thus, the study interprets these dynamics through a dialectical lens as the synthesis of preserving traditional roots and adapting to contemporary challenges, articulated through a particular sensitivity to cultural identity.

This investigation contributes to the discourse on how family businesses can maintain their traditional roots while adapting to contemporary challenges. It offers novel insights into the role of cultural identity in balancing tradition and modernity. Through this lens, the study underscores the capacity of family businesses such as Osmice to thrive amidst change, providing implications for both theory and practice in the field of business studies.

This article intends to explore the Sub-Saharan African students' perceptions on their cross-cultural adaptation to the Moroccan society by probing into their adaptive strategies adopted in order to overcome day-to-day challenges as well as factors impeding their adaptation processes. To this end, three central research questions are advanced: (1) what are the factors that influence Sub-Saharan students' cross-cultural adaptation to the Moroccan society? (2) How do Sub-Saharan students perceive the role of host communication competence, host interpersonal relationship, ethnic proximity, host receptivity and personality type in facilitating or hindering their adaptation? And (3) how do they undergo their cross-cultural adaptation to the Moroccan society?

The main aim of this article is to explore African Sub-Saharan students' perceptions on their adaptation to Moroccan society as well as factors affecting their adaptive experiences. Due to the complex nature of this research, opting for mixed-methods research, the combination of both qualitative and quantitative, would best serve the objective of this study. For this purpose, qualitative methods (interviews) are used to collect non-numerical data about factors that facilitate or hinder the cross-cultural adaptation of Sub-Saharan students in Morocco in the first phase, and then quantitative methods (questionnaires) are used to collect numerical data about their perceptions of their adaptation in the Moroccan society in the second phase.

The results of the present study revealed that a large number of Sub-Saran African students are well adapted to the Moroccan culture, but with discrepant degrees. Their adaptation is mainly influenced by an array of intersected factors. Firstly, the participants showed that the more they were aware of the Moroccan culture and language, the more likely they would be able to function properly and effectively in different social settings. Secondly, it was found that establishing social ties with the host members was perceived as significant for easing their adaptation due to the cultural, emotional and academic support these ties provided. Thirdly, host receptivity was perceived as an important factor that facilitated the students' cross-cultural adaptation. With the case of some participants, host receptivity, however, hindered their adaptation because they were subject to different types of discriminatory and racist behaviours by some Moroccans. Lastly, intercultural personality traits displayed in flexibility, prior cross-cultural move and intercultural empathy were found to contribute to the students' overall functional fitness in the

This is the first research to tackle the issue of Sub-Saharan African students' cultural adaptation in Morocco.

Only a few concepts in the service literature are as pervasive yet as undertheorized as is the concept of the actor. With a growing interest toward value creation as a systemic and institutionally guided phenomenon, there is a particular need for a more robust conceptualization of humans as actors that adopts a processual, as opposed to a static, view. The purpose of this paper is to build such processual conceptualization to advance service-dominant (S-D) logic, in particular, and service research, in general.

The paper is conceptual and extends S-D logic's institutionally constituted account of the actor by drawing from identity theory and social constructionism.

The paper develops a processual conceptualization of the human actor that explicates four social processes explaining the dynamics between two identity concepts—social and personal identity—and institutional arrangements. The resulting framework reveals how humans are simultaneously constituted by institutions and able to perform their roles in varying, even institution-changing, ways.

By introducing new insights from identity theory and social constructionism, this paper reconciles the dualism in S-D logic's current description of actors, as well as posits the understanding of identity dynamics and the processual nature of actors as central in many service-related phenomena.

This paper is among the few that explicitly theorize about the nature of human actors in S-D logic and the service literature.

This article explores brand positioning and authenticity within the global-local continuum, utilizing the evolution of the Italian rock band, Måneskin, as a case study.

Employing Greimas’s (1987) semiotic framework, I analyze social media and media articles on Måneskin’s success, unveiling consumer perceptions of global, local and intermediate brand positionings and related authenticity dimensions. I particularly uncover a narrative centered on “global” versus “local” brand positioning and their counterparts (i.e. “not global” and “not local”), forming a semiotic square.

In the “global” perception, the band is evaluated in terms of conforming to global standards, while, in the “local” understanding, the emphasis shifts to connections to local roots. In the “glocalization” perspective (global and local), the band’s activities are assessed concerning an integration between global conformity and local connections. The “glalienation” viewpoint (neither global nor local) is related to consistency, in the sense of being unique and avoiding a commitment to either global or local values. The data also highlight issues of inconsistency regarding brand positioning’s contradictions, such as the band’s incoherently merging local and non-local elements.

The proposed structural semiotics approach enriches previous theories by examining authenticity within global-local dynamics, offering insights into various authenticity dimensions and their interplay. It underlines shifts in authenticity perceptions and challenges binary brand positioning, advocating for strategic placement across the global-local continuum. Moreover, it emphasizes leveraging cultural elements and semiotics to effectively communicate authenticity.