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Downward line extension is a valuable growth strategy that enables multiple products and services to meet diverse customer needs. However, downward extended products launched by high-status brands may be challenged by horizontal extended products launched by relatively low-status brands when these two types of products target similar consumers. This study aims to examine the impact of product type (horizontal extended versus downward extended) on consumers’ purchase intentions, the underlying mechanism and the moderating role of power distance belief.

Four scenario-based experiments were conducted to probe the research questions.

Consumers develop lower purchase intentions for downward (versus horizontal) extended products due to the reduction of perceived fit and self-congruity (Study 1). Beyond that, power distance belief moderates the impact of product type on consumers’ purchase intentions, as a low power distance belief reduces the negative effect of downward line extension (Studies 2a, 2b and 2c). Perceived fit and self-congruity mediate the interaction effect between product type and power distance belief on consumers’ purchase intentions (Study 2c).

This study provides marketing practitioners with guidance on implementing the strategy of downward line extension.

This study serves as a preliminary effort to compare consumers’ responses between downward and horizontal extended products, which deepens the understanding of downward line extension. It also contributes to the body of knowledge about line extension and power distance belief by demonstrating the moderating role of power distance belief in a line extension context.

To use a behavioral measure of legitimacy to study how differences in negotiating style and status affect the legitimacy of persons in high-power network positions. Predictions include (1) that powerful network actors who negotiate using a pro-group style will maintain legitimacy better than will those who negotiate selfishly and (2) those higher in status will be granted more legitimacy both before and after exchange than powerful actors lower in status.

An experimental study in which participants were connected in networks to powerful partners who were portrayed as consistently high or low on several status characteristics. Both before and after exchange, participants evaluated partners on a number of dimensions and made decisions on whether to vote to join a coalition to take the partner's power away, a direct behavioral indicator of legitimacy.

High-power partners lost legitimacy over the course of exchange irrespective of whether they negotiated in pro-group or selfish ways, and irrespective of whether they were high or low in status. This effect was pronounced for partners who negotiated selfishly. Although partner status predicted legitimacy prior to exchange, legitimacy evaluations after exchange appeared entirely driven by the partner's negotiating style (how the power was used) and not by status.

The project introduces a new behavioral measure of legitimacy that correlated highly with self-report items and should be of value in future research. The study also indicates promising directions for future research that might disentangle effects of power and status on legitimacy, along with adjudicating among explanations for why this study did not find status effects on legitimacy.

Advocates of structured stakeholder management (SM) processes have emphasized the use of the appropriate strategies as the most important process in SM. Yet, research effort in this regard in developing countries has been inadequate. The purpose of the study was to examine the SM strategies used on building projects procured by private corporate organisations in south-western Nigeria to enhance project performance.

The study used a census survey to select 30 projects managers who indicated (from 106 who responded to a first stage questionnaire) that they have participated in structured SM in the study area between 2008 and 2017. A second-stage questionnaire was designed to elicit information from the respondents. Data analysis was done with the use of frequency, percentile and mean score (MS) and analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Stakeholders with high power and high interest were managed with the use of “collaborate/partner” strategy (MS = 3.86), stakeholders with high power and low interest were “kept satisfied” (MS = 4.09), stakeholders with low power and high interest were managed by using “keep them informed regularly” strategy (MS = 4.10) and stakeholders with low power and low interest were managed using “monitor and respond when necessary” strategy (M = 3.94). Further results show that static stakeholders with high power were managed by using the “monitor constantly” strategy (MS = 4.11), stakeholders with high power, high legitimacy and high urgency were managed by adopting the “keep satisfied” strategy (MS = 4.26), to manage non-supportive stakeholders, project managers adopted the “keep satisfied” strategy (MS = 4.18) and supportive stakeholders were managed by using “involved” strategy (MS = 4.02). More results showed that there is no significant difference in the opinion of project managers on SM strategies employed irrespective of procurement method.

The study provided a guide to project managers on the appropriate SM strategies to use for future projects.

The study was an attempt to appraise the SM strategies in relation to the procurement methods and their relationship with project performance.

This research seeks to investigate consumer experiences of social power during service consumption. Specifically, this research examines the causes and consequences (cognition, expectations, emotions, and emotion expression) of consumer experiences of high and low power; and, given the key role of emotions in the experience and outcome of services, examines how emotions and emotion expression impacted satisfaction for high and low power consumers.

A sample of 195 adult consumers of a range of services responded to a self‐administered survey with a mix of qualitative and quantitative measures.

The data show that most experiences of power occurred in high contact services, underlining the social nature of consumer power. While high power experiences occurred due to consumer knowledge, service failure accounted for low power experiences. High power consumers have greater self‐oriented action thoughts while low power consumers have greater ruminative thoughts. There was no statistical difference in the provider‐oriented cognition for high and low power consumers. High power consumers expect providers to focus on the core service while low power consumers have expectations regarding the interpersonal component of service delivery. High power consumers feel more positive emotions, less negative emotions and greater satisfaction than low power consumers, but there was no difference in the expressivity of emotions. Emotion expression mediated the relationship between emotions and satisfaction for high power consumers but not for low power consumers.

This is assumed to be the first investigation of consumer experiences of power, an important construct in understanding of consumer‐service provider interactions during service consumption.

This research aims to investigate how consumers’ authentic pride versus hubristic pride affects different construal levels of mind-sets and subsequent product evaluation by activating local versus global cognitive appraisal tendencies. Furthermore, this research also examines how lay theories impact the effects of pride on construal levels and how power moderates the effect of hubristic versus authentic pride on product preferences varying in construal levels.

Drawing on cognitive appraisal and construal level theories, this research conducts eight experimental studies to test the hypotheses with an ANOVA, bootstrap analysis and binary logistic regression analysis. The details of the experiments are presented in the paper.

The results show that people feeling authentic (hubristic) pride dominantly adopt a lower (higher) level of construal, and consequently put more weight on feasibility over desirability (desirability over feasibility) attributes. Authentic pride’s inclination to appeal behavior-specific appraisals triggers local appraisal tendencies and bestows lower construal levels, whereas hubristic pride’s inclination to connect the entire self triggers global appraisal tendencies and confers higher construal levels. Incremental (vs entity) theorists are likely to attribute the pride experience to their efforts (traits), and thus feel authentic (hubristic) pride. Furthermore, the product preferences of people experiencing authentic vs hubristic pride depend on their power state.

Notwithstanding the importance of this research, it is worthwhile to note some of its limitations to encourage future research. First, eight studies in the lab were conducted, but no real behavior study was conducted. Although there is a high correlation between the results of lab studies and those of real behavior studies, the authors encourage future researches to elicit the consumers’ pride in the actual consumption situation using a real behavior study. Furthermore, this research mainly focuses on pride, and does not examine other positive emotions, e.g. happiness. Therefore, the authors encourage future research to examine other positive emotions.

The findings suggest that it is appropriate to use construal levels to match consumers’ pride types. In fact, marketers can induce hubristic pride or authentic pride in ads by simply using words or sentences (“feeling proud because of your hard work” or “feeling proud, you are so superior and remarkably unique”), and present either higher- or lower-level construal of desired behaviors to improve advertising effects.

The research contributes to literature by documenting how hubristic/authentic pride can affect distinct construal levels via activating global/local appraisal tendencies. And this research thoroughly illustrates the mechanism by which hubristic/authentic pride activates global versus local appraisal tendencies. More importantly, this research finds how lay theories affect construal level given a pride experience and it also corroborates the moderating effects of power in the proposed relationship, which establish the boundary conditions of the effects of prides on construal levels.

This paper aims to examine experiences of low customer power in service interactions and the impact of those experiences on customers’ engagement and disengagement towards a firm. It subsequently identifies how such experiences may affect customers’ wellbeing.

The authors conducted visual elicitation interviews with 30 customers of a range of services. Data were analysed thematically using abductive reasoning.

Low customer power is influenced by several factors perceived by customers as associated with the firm and/or the context of the customer–firm relationship. Results show that low power drives negative customer engagement and may result in behavioural disengagement. Low customer power, negative engagement and disengagement can have negative implications for customers’ eudaimonic (physical and financial) and hedonic wellbeing.

Future studies might explore specific service contexts and power dynamics across service ecosystems and should further analyse the implications of these relationships on firms’ strategic organisational responses.

Firms should monitor customer power and explore means of enhancing the wellbeing of their customers through strategies designed to increase customer power, thus, reducing negative customer engagement and avoiding detrimental impact on customer wellbeing.

This study reframes discussions on low customer power in relation to firms and its impact on firms and customers. It identifies low customer power as a key variable in the study of customer engagement, disengagement and wellbeing.

This paper aims to enrich the literature on negotiation by theorizing and empirically validating that power is an important moderator of the relationship between negotiator emotion and behavior.

Data were collected from 322 students of an MBA program and executive education programs. The students participated in a two‐stage, mixed‐motive negotiation simulation during which they reported pre‐negotiation emotion, as well as their negotiation behavior.

The empirical analyzes showed that the relationship between negotiator emotion and behavior was stronger for high‐power negotiators than for their low‐power counterparts. Interestingly, high‐ and low‐power negotiators' emotions were more predictive of their dominating and yielding behavior, respectively. Perhaps, because of their dependence, low‐power negotiators were more sensitive and responsive to the emotions of their high‐power counterparts than vice versa. The results also showed that low‐power negotiators' gratitude substantially reduces their distributive outcome.

The analysis revealed that the strength and the nature of the relationship between emotions and negotiator behavior depend on the power of the negotiator. The paper highlights the need for further theoretical specification with regard to boundary conditions for understanding the role of emotional states in the negotiation context.

Circumstances such as pandemics can cause individuals to fall into a state of need, so they turn to donation services for assistance. However, donation services can be designed based on supply-side considerations, e.g. efficiency or inventory control, which restrict consumer choice without necessarily considering how consumer vulnerabilities like low financial or interpersonal power might cause them to react to such restrictions. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine service designs that limit the choices consumers are given in terms of either the allowable quantity or assortment variety and examine effects on consumer perceptions of justice and satisfaction.

Three experiments are reported, including one manipulating the service design of an actual food pantry.

When consumers have low financial or interpersonal power, meaning their initial state of control is low, and they encounter a donation service that provides limited (vs. expanded) choice that drops control even lower, they perceive the situation as unjust and report lower satisfaction.

Donation service providers should strive to design services that allow for expanded consumer choice and use interpersonal processes that empower beneficiaries so they perceive the service experience as just and satisfying. Collecting feedback from beneficiaries is also recommended.

While researchers have started to look at the service experiences of vulnerable populations, they have focused primarily on financial service designs. The authors look at donation service designs and identify problems with supply-side limits to choice quantity and assortment.

The literature regarding the effect of power on negotiation strategies remains scattered and inconsistent. This study aims to propose that the effect of power on negotiation strategies is contingent on contextual variables but also on individual differences among negotiators. Specifically, the authors hypothesize that creativity moderates the effect of power such that low-power, as compared to high-power negotiators, use more collaborative and less competitive strategies and further report lower fixed-pie perception (i.e. perception of a counterpart’s goals and interests as diametrically opposite to one’s own goals and interests) when they can be creative. Moreover, the authors hypothesize that negotiators’ age buffers the moderated effect of power.

The authors conducted two experiments and a cross-sectional field study. Participants in Studies 1 and 2 played a negotiation game in dyads. Study 1 manipulated power as status (manager vs employee), whereas Study 2 manipulated power as Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (i.e. power to exit the negotiation without a deal). Accordingly, participants in Study 2 had strong vs weak Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. In both studies, power was manipulated within dyads. Moreover, in both studies, the authors manipulated creativity (high vs low) between dyads. The chronological age of negotiators was measured in both studies and served as an additional moderator. Study 3 (preregistered) aimed to replicate the experiment results in the field.

Study 1 provided partial support for the hypothesis about collaborative strategies. Study 2 fully supported the hypothesis about the role of power and creativity on FPP and on collaboration (but not on competition). Study 3 did not support the power by creativity hypothesis. Interestingly, Studies 1 and 2 supported the power × creativity × age interaction hypothesis when predicting collaboration, while Study 3 supported the three-way interaction when predicting competition. Furthermore, Study 2 provided full support for the three-way interaction hypothesis when predicting FPP, while Study 3 provided partial support for this hypothesis. Altogether, the three studies largely replicated and complemented each other and revealed the robustness of the examined effects.

The findings of this research extend the literature on power on the one hand and negotiation and conflict management on the other and shed light on the inconsistent results regarding the role of power in collaboration and competition (De Dreu, 1995; De Dreu and Van Kleef, 2004; Overbeck and Park, 2001; Overbeck et al., 2006). Additionally, this research reconciles the inconsistent literature on creativity, conflict management and prosocial behavior (Gino and Ariely, 2012; Gino and Wiltermuth, 2014; Wilson and Thompson, 2014). Finally, the findings touch upon the aging literature as well and shed light on the role of age on conflict management (for a review, see Beitler et al., 2018) and on the interconnection between age, power and creativity.

The findings are relevant to organizations characterized by power asymmetries (e.g. employee/manager) and inform practitioners about the main determinants of collaboration-based negotiations at work.

The findings extend the literature on power on the one hand and negotiation and conflict management on the other and shed light on the inconsistent results regarding the role of power in collaboration and competition.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study investigating the moderating role of creativity in the relationship between negotiation power and negotiation strategies. Moreover, the moderating role of participant age in such relationships has been, to date, largely uninvestigated.

The purpose of this study is to examine two opposing approaches to the effects of power on negotiation: a “collaborative approach” of power and a “competitive approach” of power. Accordingly, the authors state oppositional hypotheses based on each approach. This study further investigates the mediating role of the perceived threat of the negotiation and the moderating role of negotiation topic (i.e. topics that touch on one’s power position versus topics that are related to the tasks one needs to perform) in this relationship. Finally, the authors state a moderated mediation hypothesis where they expected that the negotiation topic would moderate the indirect effect of power on negotiation strategies.

A vignette study (N = 279) and a negotiation game (N = 138) were conducted where the power within dyads was manipulated.

Study 1 showed that powerholders prefer collaborative strategies, whereas powerless negotiators prefer competitive strategies. Perceived threat of the negotiation mediated this effect. Furthermore, both Studies 1 and 2 showed that the negotiation topic moderates the effect of power on negotiation strategies providing further support for the collaborative approach of power. Finally, Study 1 provided partial support for the moderated mediation hypothesis.

Both Studies 1 and 2 are experimental studies. A field study should try to replicate these results in the future.

This study illuminates the effects of power on negotiation and addresses inconsistent findings in the negotiation literature. The results might be of great importance to large organizations where power asymmetries constitute an integral part of the employee/manager interactions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to show the moderating role of negotiation topic in the relationship between power and negotiation.