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Inaction inertia occurs when people are less likely to act on a similar but inferior option after missing a superior opportunity, compared to if they had not missed out. This study aims to explore how promotional formats and their sequence affect the inaction inertia effect in online shopping, under the assumption of economic equivalence.

The authors performed two online experiments and analyzed the data by analysis of variance.

The findings indicate that, under the premise of economic equivalence: Monetary promotions exhibit a higher inaction inertia effect on consumers than nonmonetary promotions. When consumers miss a more favorable promotion and subsequently encounter a relatively less attractive one presented in a different promotional format, the inaction inertia effect is lower than when reencountering the same promotion format. When consumers miss a better monetary promotion and presently encounter a relatively less attractive nonmonetary promotion, the inaction inertia effect is lower than when they miss a superior nonmonetary promotion and currently encounter a relatively less attractive monetary promotion.

This study reveals the sequence effects of promotional formats, indicating that nonmonetary promotions following monetary ones effectively reduce inaction inertia. A strategically sequenced set of formats enhances consumer recommendations, mitigating inaction inertia. These findings open new research paths, providing insights into the impact of promotional format sequences on the inaction inertia effect. Consequently, this knowledge helps e-retailers in implementing effective promotional strategies and driving online purchases.

Racial stigma and racial criminalization have been centralizing pillars of the construction of Blackness in the United States. Taking such systemic injustice and racism as a given, then question then becomes how these macro-level arrangements are reflected in micro-level processes. This work uses radical interactionism and stigma theory to explore the potential implications for racialized identity construction and the development of “criminalized subjectivity” among Black undergraduate students at a predominately white university in the Midwest. I use semistructured interviews to explore the implications of racial stigma and criminalization on micro-level identity construction and how understandings of these issues can change across space and over the course of one's life. Findings demonstrate that Black university students are keenly aware of this particular stigma and its consequences in increasingly complex ways from the time they are school-aged children. They were aware of this stigma as a social fact but did not internalize it as a true reflection of themselves; said internalization was thwarted through strong self-concept and racial socialization. This increasingly complex awareness is also informed by an intersectional lens for some interviewees. I argue not only that the concept of stigma must be explicitly placed within these larger systems but also that understanding and identity-building are both rooted in ever-evolving processes of interaction and meaning-making. This research contributes to scholarship that applies a critical lens to Goffmanian stigma rooted in Black sociology and criminology and from the perspectives of the stigmatized themselves.

This study examines whether a firm’s management earnings forecasts affect its technical innovation activities. Our study also examines whether the cost of debt plays a mediating role between the management earnings forecasts and the innovation nexus.

We obtained data from 1,032 Chinese non-financial firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2005 to 2022 (i.e. 18,576 firm-year observations). We used various econometrics techniques, such as Heckman’s (1979) two-stage selection method and two-stage least square, to examine the relationship between management earnings forecasts and the firm’s technical innovation activities.

We find a positive relationship between management earnings forecasts and the firms' technical innovation. We also find that the cost of debt mediates the relationship between management earnings forecast and technical innovation. Further analysis indicates that frequent earnings forecasts provide incremental information regarding a firm’s future value and cash flows, thus reducing the volatility and uncertainty in cash flow calculations. Our findings are robust to several tests.

Our study has implications for policymakers, practitioners and high-level management of Chinese firms, enabling them to understand the relationship between management earnings forecasts and firms' innovation activities.

The main purpose of the study is to investigate the influence of live streaming participation on purchase intention, specifically focusing on how fear of missing out (FOMO) impacts live streaming purchase intention and its subsequent effect on inaction inertia. Additionally, the study aims to ex-amine the indirect influence of FOMO on the relationship between live streaming participation and purchase intention.

The research employs SEM to assess the properties of measures. The investigation consists of four main constructs: live streaming shopping participation, fear of missing out, live streaming purchase intention, and inaction inertia. Live streaming shopping participation is further divided into two dimensions: live streaming immersion and live streaming social presence, with the latter encompassing social presence and telepresence.

The study reveals the significant role of FOMO in livestream shopping. Viewers' fear of missing out on information and products presented in livestreams results in heightened attention to these streams and an elevated willingness to purchase. This finding emphasizes the impact of FOMO emotions in driving consumer action and purchasing intent, particularly in situations of product scarcity.

The study uniquely explores FOMO as a factor disrupting consumer inertia, influencing decisive purchasing. It shows that FOMO enhances perceived value of products, altering consumer behavior in live streaming and e-commerce, thus providing a novel perspective on FOMO’s extended impact.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether companies with high audit quality (AQ) are expected to use trade credit (TC) as a financing source. Traditionally, vendors are most likely to extend TC to creditworthy customers.

The author uses the data from 134,099 firm-year observations of nine Asian emerging markets from 2001 to 2017. Further, to check the impact of AQ on trade credit, the authors employ ordinary least square (OLS) with fixed effects, cluster effect regression and random effect.

The findings indicate that vendors extend more TC to the companies audited by the BIG4 auditors as, these independent practitioners have greater competencies, expert intellectual capital, global networking connections, and high investment in information technology. The authors, therefore, conjecture that the company's use of TC increases with their improved AQ, especially audited by BIG4. The results are found consistent with this prediction and robust to the alternative measures of trade credit. Similarly, this positive association is more pronounced with the BIG4 partner's unqualified audit opinion.

This study uses the sample of Asian Emerging countries but the researchers cannot generalize the results to developed countries or other regions.

This paper's findings have significant implications for the management, board of directors, shareholders and suppliers. Further, results are in favor of appointing BIG4 auditors to gain the trust of suppliers.

Despite the wide-ranging literature that discusses the importance of quality audits in enhancing the firms' financial disclosures that leads to better access to finance through investors and lenders. But the TC as a financing source is ignored in relation to AQ. The study’s results extend the literature associating companies' AQ with financial decisions.

The purpose of our study is to investigate the effects of politically-connected boards (PCBs) on over-(under-)investment in labor. We also examine the impacts of the supervisory board (SB)’s optimal tenure on the association between PCBs and over-investment in labor.

We constructed the proxy for PCBs using a dummy variable set to 1 (one) if a firm has politically-connected boards and zero (0) otherwise. For the robustness check, we used the number of politically-connected members on the boards as the proxy for PCBs.

We find that the presence of PCBs reduces over-investment in labor. Consistent with our prediction, we found no significant association between PCBs and under-investment in labor. We also find that the SB with optimal tenure strengthens the negative association between PCBs and over-investment in labor. In our channel analysis, we find that the presence of PCB mitigates over-investment in labor through a higher dividend payout ratio.

Due to the unavailability of data in firms’ annual reports regarding the number of poorly-skilled and highly skilled employees, we were not able to examine the effect of low-skilled and high-skilled employees on over-investment in labor. Also, we were not able to examine over-(under-)investment in labor by drawing a distinction between general (generalist) and firm-specific human capital (specialist) as suggested by Sevcenko, Wu, and Kacperczyk (2022). Generally, it is more difficult for managers to hire highly-skilled employees, specialists in particular, thereby driving the choice of either over- or under-investing in the labor forces. In addition, in the firms’ annual reports, there is no information regarding temporary employees. Therefore, if and when such data become available, this would provide another avenue for future research.

Our study offers several practical implications and insights to stakeholders (e.g. insiders or management, shareholders, investors, analysts and creditors) in the following ways. First, our study highlights significant differences between capital investment and labor investment. For instance, labor investment is considered an expense rather than an asset (Wyatt, 2008) because, although such investment is human capital and is not recognized on the firm’s balance sheet (Boon et al., 2017). In addition, labor investment is characterized by: its flexibility which enables firms to make frequent adjustments (Hamermesh, 1995; Dixit & Pindyck, 2012; Aksin et al., 2015), its non-homogeneity since every employee is unique (Luo et al., 2020), its direct impact on morale and productivity of a firm (Azadegan et al., 2013; Mishina et al., 2004; Tatikonda et al., 2013), and its financial outlay which affects the ongoing cash flows of a firm (Sualihu et al., 2021; Khedmati et al., 2020; Merz & Yashiv, 2007). Second, our findings reveal that the presence of PCBs could help to reduce over-investment in labor. However, if managers of a firm choose to under-invest in labor in order to obtain better profit in the short-term through cost saving, they should be aware of the potential consequences of facing a financial loss when a new business opportunity suddenly arises which requires a larger labor force. Third, our findings help stakeholders to re-focus on the labor investment. This is crucial due to the fact that labor investment is often neglected by those stakeholders because the expenditure of labor investment is not recognized on the firm’s balance sheet as an asset. Instead, it is written off as an expense in the firm’s income statement. Fourth, our findings also provide insightful information to stakeholders, suggesting that an SB with optimal tenure is more committed to a firm, and this factor plays an important role in strengthening the negative association between PCBs and over-investment in labor.

First, our findings provide a valuable understanding of the effects of PCBs on over-(under-)investment in labor. Stakeholders could use information disclosed in the financial statements of a publicly-listed firm to determine the extent of the firm’s investment in labor and PCBs, and compare this information with similar firms in the same industry sector. Second, our findings give a better understanding of the association between investment in labor and political connections , which are human and social capital that could determine the long-term survival and success of a firm. Third, for shareholders, the appointment of board members with political connections is an important strategic decision to build political capital, which is likely to have a long-term impact on the financial performance of a firm; therefore, it requires thoughtful consultation with firm insiders.

Our findings highlight the role of PCBs in reducing over-investment in labor. These findings are significant because both investment in labor and political connections as human and social capital can play an important role in determining the long-term survival and success of a firm.

This study aims to examine the influence of board gender diversity on audit quality demand, considering auditor choice and audit efforts within the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries. It further examines the role of political connections and the impact of gender equality policy initiatives on this relationship.

Fixed-effects regression models are employed in a sample of 1,822 firm-year observations for financial firms across the GCC from 2011–2022 to test the hypotheses. Moreover, the two-stage-least-squares and the propensity score matching methods are used for sensitivity analysis.

The study shows a negative relationship between board gender diversity and the demand for audit quality, reflected auditor choice and audit efforts. However, the study shows a positive association between firm’s political connections and audit quality demand, which is more pronounced in gender-diverse boards. Policy initiatives for gender equality show no significant effect on the relationship between board gender diversity and audit quality demand.

The results inform governments, policy-makers, regulatory authorities and corporations by providing new evidence on the relationship between board gender diversity and the demand for audit quality, as well as the moderating role of political connections and policy initiatives in this relationship. To promote the meaningful participation of female directors in board decision-making, the findings indicate that gender stereotypes, both explicit and implicit, that can hinder female directors’ influence in board decision-making need to be addressed. Second, the study underscores for governments, policy-makers regulatory authorities and corporations that the mere appointment of female directors does not necessarily ensure their engagement in board decision-making. The appointment of female directors should go beyond symbolism and translate into meaningful engagement and influence with the board.

This study contributes to the corporate governance literature by offering new insights on the link between board gender diversity and the demand for audit quality. Beyond confirming a negative relationship between board gender diversity and the demand for quality audit, this study provides new insights on the moderating role of a firm’s political connections on this relationship. In addition, existing studies are primarily based on firms in Western countries and cannot be generalized due to differences in governance and legal structures. Given that the GCC countries have different cultures, economies, institutions, governance practices and norms compared to developed and emerging countries, our study offers a pertinent discussion on the relationship between board gender diversity and the demand for audit quality, as well as the moderating role of political connections in this relationship in the GCC countries.

Green signaling refers to the notion that environmentally friendly purchases signal consumers' prosociality and willingness to pay more, thus enhancing their social status. This study investigated the green signaling effect among Gen Z and Millennial consumers on social media by adopting costly signaling theory.

A series of experimental studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. Thus, a 2 (organic vs. nonorganic) × 2 (luxury vs. non-luxury) between-subjects design was used in Study 1 (150 participants) and a 2 (organic vs. nonorganic) × 2 (high vs. low brand authenticity) between-subjects design was employed in Study 2 (148 participants).

The results of Studies 1 and 2 confirmed the mediating role of perceived status in the relationship between apparel greenness and purchase intention. However, brand label and authenticity did not have a moderating influence. The overall findings confirmed the green signaling effect of organic apparel in the social media marketing context.

This study contributes to the existing literature by suggesting a cultural capital perspective for promoting green products among Gen Z and Millennial consumers. It also encourages marketers to implement green messaging on social media, highlighting the amount of resources and efforts invested in sustainable production.

This study adopted existing brands to test the hypotheses, using images of female influencers.