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The unprecedented increase in brand development among one of the fastest‐growing consumer markets, the new generation of Chinese consumers, compels a greater understanding of the psychological factors that were largely stereotyped to be collective and homogeneous. Grounded in self‐congruity theory, the primary purpose of this study is to understand the joint impact of Chinese consumers' self‐ and gender consciousness on their ensuing brand perceptions. This study aims to critically explore the process that underlies the aforementioned relationships with consumers' need for uniqueness and brand consciousness.

An online survey using consumer panel data was conducted in three “tier‐one” cities in the People's Republic of China. The focus on these cities coincided with the competitive density of retail brands, and resulted in 302 respondents in the population of interest. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

Self‐ and gender consciousness do impact brand consciousness indirectly through Chinese consumers' need for uniqueness. Contrary to expectations, the study finds that self‐consciousness has a negative direct impact on brand consciousness, while gender consciousness does not have a direct impact on brand consciousness. Furthermore, brand consciousness leads to positive brand perceptions, including brand attitudes, brand loyalty, and willingness to pay a price premium.

The research provides an in‐depth understanding of self‐congruity in Chinese consumers' brand perceptions. The research findings can be used to formulate brand positioning and promotion strategies for brand managers.

The study integrates extant theories in gender schema and self‐congruity to understand brand perceptions in light of self‐ and gender consciousness. To date, no research has explored this relationship. Furthermore, the study discusses the role of consumers' need for uniqueness as a process that underlines the relationship between consumer self‐ and gender consciousness, and brand perceptions in terms of brand consciousness, brand attitude and loyalty and willingness to pay a price premium.

Today's marketing is dominated by decision-making based on artificial intelligence and machine learning. This study focuses on one semi- and unsupervised machine learning technique, generative adversarial networks (GANs). GANs are a type of deep learning architecture capable of generating new data similar to the training data that were used to train it, and thus, it is designed to learn a generative model that can produce new samples. GANs have been used in multiple marketing areas, especially in creating images and video and providing customized consumer contents. Through providing a holistic picture of GANs, including its advantage, disadvantage, ethical considerations, and its current application, the study attempts to provide business some strategical orientations, including formulating strong marketing positioning, creating consumer lifetime values, and delivering desired marketing tactics in product, promotion, pricing, and distribution channel. Through using GANs, marketers will create unique experiences for consumers, build strategic focus, and gain competitive advantages. This study is an original endeavor in discussing GANs in marketing, offering fresh insights in this research topic.

Small firms, which represent much of the Silicon Valley region, tend to experience losses due to their small scale, small customer base and lack of diversification. The authors study the impact of accounting conservatism and losses on firm value and as such this study is an appropriate addition to this growing field of financial management.

The authors use methodology developed in prior literature to examine Silicon Valley and non-Silicon Valley firms' and their behavior when facing losses and the factors, which might play a role in their valuation. The authors focus particularly on earnings and accounting conservatism. Accounting conservatism captures how fast firms record losses relative to gains. The faster losses are recognized than gains the more accounting conservatism is exhibited. The authors examine the seemingly unrelated estimation of differences in means for our independent variables of interest across the two samples of Silicon Valley and non-Silicon Valley firms, both earnings and accounting conservatism. The authors use matched sample analysis of these firms based on four digit SIC code, size and date. In robustness, the authors run a more in-depth propensity score matched sample analysis.

The authors document that market values of Silicon Valley firms with accounting losses are affected less by negative earnings than other firms with accounting losses in the United States outside of the Silicon Valley region, noting the “lose big, win bigger” sentiment of Silicon Valley. Additionally, the authors document that accounting conservatism does play a role in influencing valuations of companies with accounting losses both in Silicon Valley and the rest of the United States, marginally more for Silicon Valley firms.

This study would be of interest to fund managers who need to consider smaller firms for inclusion in their portfolios. A lot of small firms have experienced losses ever since going public, especially Silicon Valley start-up firms.

“A Candidate, canvassing his district, met a Nurse wheeling a Baby in a carriage, and, stooping, imprinted a kiss upon the Baby's clammy muzzle. Rising, he saw a Man, who laughed.

This paper aims to answer following three important but not well-answered or unanswered questions in the extant trust literatures: What is the true magnitude that trust impacts on performance? Is there any consistency among the effects of trust on performance at different levels? How does vertical distance affect the trust-performance relationship?

It captures the law between trust and performance at different levels by conducting a meta-analytic examination consisting of 238 independent empirical studies, 586 effect sizes and 110,576 independent samples.

It makes a periodic conclusion that trust significantly promotes performance. Specifically, trust not only has stronger positive correlation with team performance than individual and organizational performance inside organization, but also strongly facilitates organizational performance between organizations. Moreover, consistency exits in the effects of trust on performance at different levels. On one hand, trust has stronger positive correlation with performance of contextual type than performance of innovative type than performance of task type at different levels. On the other hand, promotion effect of trust on performance strengthens when the vertical distance between trustors and trustees diminishes. Additionally, three potential moderators including publication status, measurement tool and common method variance moderate the focused relation, but moderating effect is not thorough for regional culture. Moderating directions of the above four potential moderators are highly consistent.

This paper answers the three important but not well-answered or unanswered questions.

This study examines how leaders’ narcissistic rivalry (LNR) affects the in-role performance (IRP) and proactive customer service performance (PCSP) of employees in the hospitality industry. Specifically, this study investigates the mediating role of psychological distress and the moderating role of locus of control (LOC) in the aforementioned relationships.

This study administered a multi-wave, multi-source questionnaire survey with 323 employees working in 11 full-service hotels in China. Statistical analyses were performed using the PROCESS macro in SPSS 26 software and structural equation modeling using Mplus 8.3 software.

The authors' results suggest that LNR can negatively affect hospitality employees’ IRP and PCSP and that these relationships are mediated by psychological distress. Additionally, the impact of LNR on psychological distress can be lessened by internal LOC.

This study contributes to the literature on leader narcissism by investigating how LNR affects IRP and PCSP among hospitality employees. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study also identifies a novel mediating mechanism (psychological distress) connecting LNR to hospitality employees’ service outcomes. Furthermore, this study reveals the moderating role of LOC in the relationship between LNR and psychological distress.

LIBRARIES of late have not had the radio publicity that was agreeably frequent at an earlier time. Occasionally there are broadcasts that are useful and, we believe, effective. A good example was that given by Mr. Charles Nowell on the centenary celebrations on September 2 of the Manchester Public Libraries. He told in a familiar conversational manner of the achievements of the past and the work now being done, with what seemed to this listener to be excellent effect, his voice being, like his manner, admirable for the microphone. Another useful, well balanced broadcast was that given on October 8th on the Home Service programme by Mr. Daniel George on the National Central Library in which an outline of the part played in the library life of the country was put over with simplicity and, again, confidential familiarity. We hope the L.A. and others who can influence the matter will keep the advantages of radio still well in mind. There is also T.V. and what that may do for libraries, or reading in connection with the use of libraries.