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Based on mental accounting theory, this study explored whether the comparability of missed and subsequent promotional formats/frames affects inaction inertia.

Four experiments with imaginary and incentive-compatible designs were conducted to test the hypotheses.

Consumers are more likely to express inaction inertia after having missed a comparable promotion than after having missed a noncomparable promotion. Devaluation of the promoted target mediates the impact of comparability on inaction inertia, while referent others' actions do not moderate the comparability effect. Finally, when consumers accept a subsequent inferior promotion, they prefer using a different payment format because it reduces comparability of the two promotions.

Companies should use different promotional formats/frames to reduce comparability and inaction inertia when a new promotion is relatively inferior to a recent previous one. Companies should offer different payment options to help customers actively avoid comparing a current promotion with a missed promotion.

This study provides a more comprehensive conceptual structure for understanding the relationship between psychological comparability and inaction inertia. It provides insights into what actions companies should take to reduce inaction inertia. Furthermore, this study empirically tests the influence of multiple comparison referents, which provides a reference point for future studies on the factors affecting inaction inertia. A new method to examine whether consumers actively avoid comparisons is used, which clarifies the internal mechanism of inaction inertia.

Inaction inertia is the phenomenon in which people are less likely to accept an opportunity after having previously missed a relatively superior one. This research explores how framing quantity promotions as either a freebie (e.g. “buy 1, get 1 free”) or a price bundle (e.g. “buy 2, get 50% off”) influences inaction inertia. Relevant mediators are also identified.

Three experiments, two using imaginary scenarios and one using an incentive-compatible design, test the hypotheses.

Consumers who miss a freebie quantity promotion express higher inaction inertia than consumers who miss a price bundle promotion. The cause of this difference is higher perceived regret and greater devaluation that result from missing a superior freebie (vs price bundle) promotion.

Future research should examine how factors influencing perceived regret and devaluation moderate the quantity promotional frame effect on inaction inertia.

The findings provide insights into which quantity promotional frames practitioners should use to reduce inaction inertia.

This study's comprehensive theoretical framework predicts quantity promotional frame effects on inaction inertia and identifies relevant internal mechanisms. The findings are evidence that inaction inertia is caused by both perceived regret and devaluation in certain contexts. Furthermore, this study identifies the conditions in which a price bundle promotional frame is more beneficial than a freebie promotional frame.

The purpose of this paper is to present the concept of consumers' erroneous affective self‐forecasts, and discuss the implications of such forecasts for consumer purchasing behaviour and marketing planning.

First, the literature on inaction inertia – the lowering of the likelihood that a bargain will be taken once a better bargain has been missed – is reviewed. Second, the literature on affective self‐forecasting is reviewed. Finally, the implications that the authors synthesis of the behavioural evidence carries for marketing are discussed.

The inaction inertia literature implicates the regret that consumers associate with purchasing a discounted item once they have missed a much larger discount on it as a major contributing factor to consumers' unwillingness to purchase the item on the second occasion. The literature on affective self‐prediction suggests that regret (and other emotions) is systematically mispredicted.

The likely effect of erroneously anticipated regret in inaction inertia situations is depressed purchasing behaviour. The paper argues that because affective anticipations are typically erroneous, their impact on consumer decision‐making processes cannot be deemed rational. It is proposed that marketing should intervene to either increase the accuracy of such anticipations, or to lead consumers to discount them.

Price promotions can have negative side effects, such as those observed in inaction inertia circumstances. To some extent, these are driven by consumers anticipated regret (and possibly other relevant emotions). Marketing techniques can counteract the disproportionate impact of such emotions.

The paper offers a synthesis of behavioural evidence on inaction inertia and affective self‐forecasting – two quite separate literatures that have yet to be brought together in the present context. In addition, the paper outlines implications for marketing and suggests possible strategies to moderate the discussed effects.

Amidst compounding crises and increasing global population’s nutritional needs, food supply chains are called to address the “diet–environment–health” trilemma in a sustainable and resilient manner. However, food system stakeholders are reluctant to act upon established protein sources such as meat to avoid potential public and industry-driven repercussions. To this effect, this study aims to understand the meat supply chain (SC) through systems thinking and propose innovative interventions to break this “cycle of inertia”.

This research uses an interdisciplinary approach to investigate the meat supply network system. Data was gathered through a critical literature synthesis, domain-expert interviews and a focus group engagement to understand the system’s underlying structure and inspire innovative interventions for sustainability.

The analysis revealed that six main sub-systems dictate the “cycle of inertia” in the meat food SC system, namely: (i) cultural, (ii) social, (iii) institutional, (iv) economic, (v) value chain and (vi) environmental. The Internet of Things and innovative strategies help promote sustainability and resilience across all the sub-systems.

The study findings demystify the structure of the meat food SC system and unveil the root causes of the “cycle of inertia” to suggest pertinent, innovative intervention strategies.

This research contributes to the SC management field by capitalising on interdisciplinary scientific evidence to address a food system challenge with significant socioeconomic and environmental implications.

Service research typically relates switching costs to customer loyalty, and portrays them as effective switching deterrents that engender harmful word‐of‐mouth (WOM). Rather than to customer loyalty, this paper aims to relate switching costs to consumer inertia, and show that while switching costs may result in customer retention, they can engender positive and negative WOM. This depends on whether the inertia stems from satisfaction or indifference.

A mall‐intercept survey investigated 518 customers' perceptions of their mobile phone service providers. Structural equation modelling fitted the data to the conceptual model.

Switching costs deterred switching and engendered negative WOM, but only with low‐inertia customers. With high‐inertia customers, retention and WOM behaviours depended on whether the inertia stemmed from satisfaction or indifference. Satisfied customers with high switching costs tended to stay, gave more positive and less negative WOM. With indifferent customers, switching costs were unrelated to retention or WOM behaviours.

While they may be perceived negatively, switching costs can engender PWOM. Hence, research should not consider switching costs alone without considering the context that produces them.

Service providers should segment their customers into low‐inertia, high‐inertia/satisfied and high‐inertia/indifferent, and target each segment differently. By converting customers into the high‐inertia/satisfied segment, service providers can make the best use of switching costs – not only in the traditional sense as a barrier to defection, but also as a way of generating positive WOM.

This study is the first to consider the role of inertia with switching costs, positive WOM, and negative WOM. The findings suggest that past studies portraying switching costs as negative impediments that evoke only negative WOM might be misleading.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of option choice reversibility on the number of options chosen, total spending, and upset/regret from actions/inaction, using 124 Singaporean adults.

The experiment employs two levels of option choice reversibility: fully reversible without a penalty vs strictly irreversible. Participants add options to a base model or delete options from a full model and are either allowed or not allowed to change options in a condominium purchase scenario.

Compared to participants in the irreversible choice condition, those in the reversible choice select more options and end up with higher total spending. In the irreversible option choice condition, participants anticipate more upset (one aspect of regret) when they take actions than inaction, but in the reversible option choice condition, the reverse is true.

The study uses only one decision stimulus, which is a condominium purchase, and the purchase scenario might not be as realistic as an actual purchase decision.

Refunds and option change permission policies make consumers feel they can reverse their buying decisions, making them feel the decisions are less risky and thus inducing them to buy more than when no refunds or option change is allowed after purchase. To drive consumers to take actions, marketers should allow consumers to change their mind after making decisions and assure them of such policy.

The paper shows the effect of decision reversibility on the total spending (i.e. the total costs of choices made) and extends the theory about omission biases by demonstrating that regrets from actions/inaction depend on decision reversibility.

By expanding on the work of White and Yanamandram (2007), the purpose of this paper is to examine the direct and indirect influences of switching barriers on the relationship between recovery satisfaction and repurchase intentions in an online auction environment.

Data were collected from 272 customers who had experienced online service recovery in the past six months. Partial-least squares and mediated moderation analysis are employed to test the research model.

The interrelationships among recovery satisfaction, relationship quality, and repurchase intentions are confirmed. Both lost benefit switching costs and inertia moderate the relationship between recovery satisfaction and repurchase intentions. Attractiveness of alternatives mediates the moderating effect of inertia on the relationship between recovery satisfaction and repurchase intentions.

Unlike previous studies, which have treated switching cost as a switching barrier, or used various components to represent switching barriers, this study incorporates switching cost, relationship quality, inertia, and attractiveness of alternatives as four switching barrier factors. This study further examines the direct and indirect effects of switching barriers on the relationship between recovery satisfaction and repurchase intentions.

The purpose of this study is to examine if consumers, after missing a price discount on a desired product, prefer to buy the latter at a smaller discount or prefer to pay full price but offset some of it with windfall money.

In four experiments, participants imagine that they have missed an opportunity to buy a box of chocolates at $50 off and are offered a second chance to buy them at a less attractive discount ($25) or pay full price, but partially offset the full price with various windfall lotteries ($25, $50, $75) and gift cards ($50).

Participants are more likely to buy the chocolates at the less attractive (second) discount rather than pay full price using windfall money. In doing so, they show that they are willing to be more, rather than less, poor from an overall wealth perspective to acquire the chocolates. This anomaly surfaces irrespective of the windfall amounts or preference elicitation methods (joint versus separate evaluation). The negative transaction utility of paying full price mediates the purchase method effect (discount versus windfall) on purchase likelihood, but gift cards are able to reduce the negative transaction utility of paying full price.

The research reveals a judgmental anomaly in how consumers assess product acquisition value following a lost opportunity and suggests that marketing managers may be able to reduce consumer inertia by strategically matching rewards with the source of the lost chance.

Prior to e‐commerce, tourists could only purchase souvenirs at a destination. The goal of this research is to develop and test a theory to explain how adding a retail web site affects tourists' decision‐making for souvenir purchases.

The researcher conducts two experiments using scenarios to simulate a souvenir purchase. The researcher manipulates item type and web site availability, and then measures purchase intent, attitudes toward the souvenir, and regret.

Purchase limitation increases initial purchase intent by increasing the souvenir's reminder value, regardless of item type. Non‐purchase regrets are greater than purchase regrets, which in turn increases purchase intent at a later time.

The stimuli are necklaces, and although the findings do not show gender effects, the stimuli could limit the generalizability to other souvenir types. The research tests hypotheses using scenarios and less‐experienced travelers. Future research should examine different types of souvenirs in a naturalistic setting.

Retailers should not mention web sites until after a tourist decides not to buy in‐store and should do so subtly.

This research contributes to souvenir research by identifying a purchase limitation, available in‐store only, as a new determinant of a souvenir's reminder value. The research also contributes to scarcity research by identifying reminder value as a new and qualitatively different type of valuation affected by scarcity. Lastly, the research extends the regret literature by reversing inaction inertia at a later purchase opportunity while maintaining a regret minimization goal.

Paradoxical leadership (PL) is a style that can bring stability and flexibility simultaneously, which helps organizations to manage the uncertain external environment. The purpose of this study is to identify if PL could moderate the relationship between organizational silence and employee voice.

Data for the study were collected from a sample of 617 gainfully employed factory employees using three standardized questionnaires. The data were analyzed using structural equation modelling (SEM) through Python programming. SEM was used to test the mediating, moderating, and serial-parallel relationship of the proposed model.

The research study found that organizational inertia led to silence among employees. It was also found that PL moderated the relationship between organizational silence and employee voice.

A fair review of the literature showed that studies that examine the effect of PL on organizational silence are scarce. The present study is a modest effort towards addressing this gap in the literature. The findings of the study are significant and have made a substantial contribution to management literature.