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This study aims to explore how and why self-discrepancy affects materialism and impulsive buying and the extent to which subjective well-being mediates the relationship between self-discrepancy, materialism and impulsive buying.

The authors have tested the hypothesis with a convenience sample (N = 434) from Lithuania. Descriptive analysis, principal components analysis (PCA), serial mediation hypothesis tested with model 81 from regression-based path analysis modeling tool PROCESS Macro for IBM® SPSS® Statistics 24.7 statistical software.

The serial and parallel mediation analysis results indicated that greater self-discrepancy was related to poorer life satisfaction, which was related to greater materialism centrality, which promoted greater impulsive buying. Also, the greater the self-discrepancy, caused more occurrence of negative affect, which relates to increased materialism happiness, which triggers impulsive buying. Self-discrepancy was negatively associated with the frequency of positive affect, which was positively related to materialism, which stimulates impulsive buying.

The study was dominated by younger respondents. The survey was conducted during the lockdown of the Covid-19 virus pandemic.

There is little empirical evidence to support the reasoning behind why self-discrepancy predicts a higher degree of materialism, which increases impulsive buying. This study suggests the mechanism of how subjective well-being affects relationships of self-discrepancy on materialism and impulsive buying.

This paper aims to investigate the ways in which “non-collaborative co-creation” can affect brand equity as perceived by independent observers. It reports a study of the different effects on that perception attributable to non-collaborative co-creation that takes the form of either “brand play” or “brand attack” and is executed either by established artists or mainstream consumers.

A 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment (brand play versus brand attack; consumer versus artist) measured observers’ perception of brand equity before and after exposure to purpose-designed co-created treatments.

Non-collaborative co-creation has a negative effect on observers’ perceptions of brand equity and brand attack, causing a stronger dilution of brand equity than brand play. Artists either mitigate the dilution or have a positive effect on those perceptions.

Future research could usefully investigate the relative susceptibility of brands to non-collaborative co-creation, the effects on brands of higher complexity than those in our experiment, exposed in higher-involvement media, and the effects of more diverse forms of co-creation.

Brand managers must recognise that co-creation carries considerable risks for brand equity. They should closely monitor and track the first signs of non-collaborative co-creation in progress. It could be beneficial to recruit artists as co-creators of controlled brand play.

This study offers a more complete insight into the effect of non-collaborative co-creation on observers’ perceptions of brand equity than so far offered by the existing literature. It connects the fields of brand management and the arts by investigating the role and impact of artists as collaborative or non-collaborative co-creators of brand equity.

Soil quality is in decline in many parts of the world, in part due to the intensification of agricultural practices. Whilst economic instruments and regulations can help incentivise uptake of more sustainable soil management practices, they rarely motivate long-term behavior change when used alone. There has been increasing attention towards the complex social factors that affect uptake of sustainable soil management practices. To understand why some communities try these practices whilst others do not, we undertook a narrative review to understand how social capital influences adoption in developed nations. We found that the four components of social capital – trust, norms, connectedness and power – can all influence the decision of farmers to change their soil management. Specifically, information flows more effectively across trusted, diverse networks where social norms exist to encourage innovation. Uptake is more limited in homogenous, close-knit farming communities that do not have many links with non-farmers and where there is a strong social norm to adhere to the status quo. Power can enhance or inhibit uptake depending on its characteristics. Future research, policy and practice should consider whether a lack of social capital could hinder uptake of new practices and, if so, which aspects of social capital could be developed to increase adoption of sustainable soil management practices. Enabling diverse, collaborative groups (including farmers, advisers and government officials) to work constructively together could help build social capital, where they can co-define, -develop and -enact measures to sustainably manage soils.

Wine consumer behavior has long been a topic of discussion among scholars and industry professionals aiming to understand the underlying predictors of key behavioral outcomes. To help explain wine consumer behavior, concepts such as involvement, expertise, loyalty, satisfaction and perceived risk are often examined. The overarching objective of this study is to determine the relationship between these predictors and their impact on wine purchase intention utilizing a meta-analytical structural equation modeling (MASEM) technique.

As MASEM provides substantive evidence regarding the relationships between theoretical constructs through the combination of multiple studies, the researchers’ aim is to make definitive statements about the predictors of purchase intention.

Findings revealed several relationships that support previous research but also identified relationships that contradict previous literature. This study contributes valuable insights into consumer behavior that wine brands can utilize to improve their marketing efforts.

Wine marketers with a greater understanding of the stronger predictors of purchase intention should be able to create marketing plans that drive wine sales.

Despite the abundance of research that has utilized these theoretical constructs to demonstrate their propensity for determining behavioral outcomes such as purchase intention, no previous attempts have synthesized this body of literature through the use of meta-analysis.

The objective of this paper is to generate further knowledge about strategic management accounting (SMA) in the public sector context. The authors attempt to do this through a study of SMA work in a public sector agency (PSA), the Swedish Transport Administration (STA). The paper elaborates on the formation of the agency's strategies and the challenges the agency's SMA work had to deal with, and focuses its analysis on the interplay between SMA and the characteristics of the public sector as well as how it is constitutive of strategy.

The empirical material was gathered between 2013 and 2015 and consists of documents that include the STA's appropriation, mandate, strategic and operational plans, and balanced scorecard, as well as interviews with 35 civil servants at various levels of the STA.

The study finds that, depending on the performances of PSAs in their specific environment and the influences from the environment's constituents, SMA may function as an instrument that makes or breaks strategies. The characteristics of the public sector context may therefore affect SMA, and by extension, strategy, in several ways. First, the present case shows that the inherent reduction that the focus of SMA techniques entails, and their inability to deal with the complexity of a PSA's context, places them at constant risk of becoming strategically irrelevant in the eyes of knowledgeable local managers in a PSA. Second, interventions from the government may override a PSA's SMA and in effect make a PSA's strategic focus ambiguous. Third, outside monitoring performed by such actors as the National Audit Office and the mass media may influence a PSA's SMA work both directly and indirectly when the agency and the government are responsive to the agenda set by such scrutiny.

The paper broadens the scope of earlier SMA research in the public sector by including the specific characteristics of the public sector in the analysis and how accounting techniques may come to compete for strategic placement as they are propelled from within and from without the organization.

Loyalty programs (LPs) in a business-to-business (B2B) context have been under-researched when compared to consumer markets. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if and to what extent the loyalty program activity (LPA) based on recency, frequency and monetary framework reflects the effectiveness of a specific LP.

Using the data obtained from 818 business customers enrolled in a LP, logistic regression models are run to find the impact of LPA on the company’s sales.

The results suggest that in a linear LP, the frequency of rewards impacts sales the most, compared to recency and amount of points redeemed. The intensity of a LPA is influencing the expected sales in a company.

The current study is not focused on the redemption patterns and the value of the rewards offered in the program. Limitation of the study only to one country and in a single company does not allow to generalize presented findings.

Companies should focus their efforts on defining the best level of frequency rewards in their LPs. Reward timing should be considered as a factor that influences the change in customer purchasing behavior more than the amount of points accumulated.

The research provides empirical evidence to support the highest influence of frequency of rewards on sales, compared to recency and amount of points redeemed. This is one of the few LP studies conducted in the context of the B2B market.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an inside-out perspective on the practices and effects of talent management (TM) in a multinational organization.

The study adopts an autoethnographic approach focusing on the experiences of the first author during her employment in a multinational organization. This approach contributes to the literature by providing an insider talent perspective that thus far has not been presented in TM research.

Applying autoethnography as a means to address the inside-out perspective in TM reveals a tension. The authors label this phenomenon the “talent paradox,” defined as the mix of simultaneously occurring opportunities and risks for individuals identified and celebrated as a talent.

The paper may be of value to TM scholars and practitioners, as well as to employees who have been identified as high potentials or talents in their organizations. In contrast with the TM literature’s optimism, the findings illuminate that being identified as a talent may paradoxically produce both empowerment and powerlessness. Attending to personal aspects of TM processes is relevant for organizations as well as for individuals as it enables reflection and sensemaking.

In this study, the authors aim to probe the relationship between listening and lurking and discuss types of lurking that occur on social media sites based on the motivations driving them. Although listening is a significant practice of online attention, intimacy, connection, obligation and participation as much as voice is, it is yet to receive the kind of attention voice is given in the context of social media. In the rather limited studies on online attention, the concept that has gained consideration is “lurking”, and this practice has often been treated as a derogatory non-activity or as passivity. The interest to study lurking is based on the premise that lurking is a significant ground on which listening occurs in social media and through which voice can be given attention.

This study adopted a phenomenological approach to understand motivations for lurking in online spaces. Phenomenological research involves data gathering through inductive, qualitative methods with the aim of explaining specific phenomena from the perspective of research participants. In this research, the lived experience studied was lurking and what drives lurking. A total of 12 members of the Licence to Talk project, a research project based at the School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University, South Africa, took part in the study. They shared their personal experiences of online lurking through a critical reflective writing. Based on the experiences shared, the authors identified and categorised the various types of lurking based on the varied motivations driving them.

Through the phenomenological approach, the study has theorised a more useful understanding of lurking as a form of online listening by identifying and categorising seven lurking behaviours that are nested within the lurking activity. This study, thus, provides a tentative framework for studying online lurking by bringing to bear listening theory and by reasoning that lurking is a needs-based activity that has purpose imbedded within it.

The authors recognise that this study is limited by its small number of participants. Nevertheless, as researchers with a strong grounding in listening theory, the authors thought it valuable to interrogate their own practices on social media and to develop a more useful understanding of what lurking might entail and, on the lurking-listening relationship. A larger study would provide stronger evidence to test the hypothesis about lurking as a very interesting form of listening with a relationship to complex behaviours and needs.

It is expected that by conceptualising the various forms of lurking based on the motivations that drive online lurking (listening), it will provide an empirical and theoretical/conceptual basis for further investigations into this pervasive mode of online attention.

Banditry and terrorism constitute serious security risks in Nigeria. This follows the fact that Nigeria is rated as one of the leading states in the world that is plagued by terrorism. Terrorists and bandits usually embark on predicate crimes such as kidnapping, smuggling, narcotics trade, and similar trades to finance their terrorist enterprises in Nigeria. The funds realized by criminals from nefarious sources such as sales of narcotics and ransom from kidnapping are usually laundered to make their criminal enterprises self-sustaining. Thus, all “dirty” money is laundered so as not to attract the attention of law enforcement agents. The funds realized through receipt of ransom from kidnapping, smuggling or funds from sponsors are laundered through channels such as bureau de change, which are difficult to monitor by the Nigerian authorities due, in part, to flaws and loopholes in the current anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist laws. This paper aims to adopt a doctrinal and qualitative desktop research methodology. In this regard, the current anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist laws are discussed to explore possible measures that could be adopted to remedy the flaws and loopholes in such laws and combat money laundering and financing of terrorism in Nigeria.

The article analyses the regulation and combating of money laundering and terrorist financing activities in Nigeria. In this regard, a doctrinal and qualitative research method is used to explore the flaws in the Nigerian anti-money laundering laws so as to recommend possible remedies in respect thereof.

It is hoped that policymakers and other relevant persons will use the recommendations provided in this article to enhance the curbing of money laundering and terrorist financing activities in Nigeria.

The article is not based on empirical research.

This study is important and vital to all policymakers, lawyers, law students and regulatory bodies in Nigeria and other countries globally.

The study seeks to curb money laundering and terrorist financing activities in Nigeria.

The study is based on original research which is focused on the regulation and combating of money laundering and terrorist financing activities in Nigeria.