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This study aims to distinguish two regret conditions, other-blame regret (O-regret) and self-blame regret (S-regret), and investigate the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions of the relationship between regret and negative word of mouth (NWOM).

Four experiments and one survey study test hypotheses regarding how O-regret and S-regret influence NWOM through mediating mechanism of anger and sadness and how the impact of regret on NWOM is moderated by boundary conditions.

The results show that consumers who experience O-regret transmit more NWOM than those who experience S-regret. Anger is a dominant emotion when consumers experience O-regret and mediates the impact of regret on NWOM, and sadness is a dominant emotion when consumers experience S-regret and mediates the impact of regret on NWOM. In addition, purchased price (full vs discount price), regret context (private vs public context) and return policy (strict vs lenient policy) are found to moderate the effect of regret on NWOM.

This study was conducted in China, which has a unique business environment that may differ from other countries. Therefore, this research opens a new avenue to further examine such a phenomenon in countries where a more lenient return policy is a standard business practice. Cross-nation studies comparing how different return policies and other business environment conditions are warranted in future research.

The study provides several insights for marketers considering the management of NWOM by understanding consumer O-regret and S-regret in either online or offline retailing situations.

This paper contributes to the extant literature by distinguishing different outcome regrets. The theoretical conceptualization and empirical findings shed further lights on the relationship between regret and other negative emotions and how O-regret and S-regret lead to different impacts on NWOM through different paths of mediation mechanism.

This study aims to develop a Stackelberg Game Model for seeking the optimal subsidy plans with varying levels of government financial capability (GFC). Furthermore, the scenario-based analysis is conducted and will enable governments to identify a comprehensive subsidy plan as follows: improve project performance and optimise social welfare.

A Stackelberg Game Model is developed to optimise the effectiveness of subsidies on the performance of public-private partnerships (PPPs).

According to the scenarios that are generated from the model, governments that are confronting with limited public budgets could reduce the intensity of performance incentives and increase the participation-oriented subsidy. Whilst a participation-oriented subsidy can stimulate private organisations’ willingness to participate in infrastructure PPPs, a performance-oriented subsidy is capable of facilitating the projects’ performances. Intuitively, the performance-oriented subsidy enables the private entities of PPPs to improve their efforts on the projects to realise higher profits. However, the participation-oriented subsidy is unable to affect the level of their effort spent on the projects. To satisfy both parties’ expectations in a PPP, the performance-oriented subsidy needs to be prioritised for a purpose of enabling higher quality outputs.

The game model developed in this study contributes to the literature by offering new insight into the underlying mechanism of governments and private entities, in terms of their decision-making for subsidy planning and contributions (i.e. resource allocation and spending) during the life-cycle of PPPs. This research enriches the government subsidy model by revealing the effects of the GFC and clarifies the impacts of two different schemes of subsidy on the performance of PPPs.

The government has been conventionally viewed as being omnipotent to provide PPPs with a wide range of subsidies. However, the subsidies are not unlimited, due to GFC. In addressing this void, this study has modelled the impacts of government subsidy plans with a consideration of GFC-related constraints. The combined effects of the participation- and performance-oriented subsidies on the project performance of PPPs have been examined.

The purpose of this study is to capture the strength of consumer’s perceived brand sacredness. The authors developed and validated a measurement scale composed of three related dimensions: supremacy, mesmerization and communitas.

Six empirical studies were conducted to identify the brand sacredness construct domains, develop and validate the measurement and test the nomological network between brand sacredness and it antecedent and outcome variables.

Results from a series of studies provided robust supports for the scale structure and demarcated the construct domains from other consumer–brand relationship measures. Testing of nomological validity of the scale further showed that brand sacredness is influenced by brand love, emotional brand attachment and brand loyalty and, meanwhile, provides explanatory power to predict theoretically related outcome variables, including transcendent consumer experience, defense of brand, incorporation brand in extended-self, brand ritualism and brand evangelism.

This study is based on cross-sectional survey data obtained from respondents belonging to well-established brand communities. A longitudinal study involving recent and emerging brand communities could provide an enhanced understanding of the evolution of brand sacredness with time, including brand sacralizaton process as well as possible de-sacralization process.

The study provides significant insights for brand managers to create an enduring brand and ascertain that consumers find their affiliations with the brand and make it the sacred core of their lives by fandom management through brand evangelism.

This study adds to the theory on consumer–brand relationship realm by delineating the domains of brand sacredness with its defining feature of extraordinary experience transcending an ordinary brand. It contributes to the existing body of branding and customer-based brand equity literature by incorporating the spiritual aspects of faith, passion and devotion into measuring the value of a brand.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of calcium sulfate whiskers (CSWs) on the thermodynamic properties and shape memory properties of epoxy/cyanate ester shape memory composites.

To improve the mechanical properties of shape memory cyanate ester (CE)/epoxy polymer (EP) resin, high performance CSWs were used to reinforce the thermo-induced shape memory CE/EP composites and the shape memory CSW/CE/EP composites were prepared by molding. The effect of CSW on the mechanical properties and shape memory behavior of shape memory CE/EP composites was investigated.

After CSW filled the shape memory CE/EP composites, the bending strength of the composites is greatly improved. When the content of CSW is 5 Wt.%, the bending strength of the composite is 107 MPa and the bending strength is increased by 29 per cent compared with bulk CE/EP resin. The glass transition temperature and storage modulus of the composites were improved in CE/EP resin curing system. However, when the content of CSW is more than 10 Wt.%, clusters are easily formed between whiskers and the voids between whiskers and matrix increase, which will lead to the decrease of mechanical properties of composites. The results of shape memory test show that the shape memory recovery time of the composites decreases with the decrease of CSW content at the same temperature. In addition, the shape recovery ratio of the composites decreased slightly with the increase of the number of thermo-induced shape memory cycles.

A simple way for fabricating thermo-activated SMP composites has been developed by using CSW.

The outcome of this study will help to fabricate the SMP composites with high mechanical properties and the shape memory CSW/CE/EP composites are expected to be used in space deployable structures.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of incorporating Chinese elements in global brands on consumer purchase likelihood.

Six global brand products from three categories that utilized Chinese elements are used to test hypotheses. The Total Effect Moderation Model is used to analyze by combining moderation and mediation under a general analytical framework.

The results show that cultural compatibility has direct positive effect, in addition to an indirect effect (through local iconness) on purchase likelihood. Meanwhile, consumer cultural identity is found to moderate the impact of brand local iconness on purchase likelihood.

Evaluation and improvement of cultural compatibility in a global brand that incorporates Chinese elements is recommended for multinational marketers entering Chinese consumer markets. Meanwhile, marketers should pay attention to consumer cultural identity in the market segmentation process.

This paper takes a unique perspective to investigate whether and how global brands can succeed when adding local cultural elements to the product design, packaging and promotion in emerging markets like China.

This paper aims to provide an integrative review on nation branding literature and to identify new avenues for future research on embedding nation equity into commercial brands.

Integrative review and analysis with conceptual development and future research directions.

The authors firstly identify conceptualizations and measurements of nation brand as national identity and as national image. Consistently, three theoretical perspectives investigating nation branding were given: first, the macro view focusing on nation brand broadly as political and cultural identity; second, the micro view focusing on nation brand as a country image; and finally, the integrative view using the emerging construct of nation equity. Inspired by the last theoretical view, the authors discuss four research foci that examine nation equity in commercial brands for future research.

The paper provides an integrative understanding of nation branding and identifies novel research opportunities to study this research field – building the connection between nations and commercial brands through nation equity.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the measurement error of a three-dimensional coordinate measurement system based on dual-position-sensitive detector (PSD) under different background light.

The mind evolutionary algorithm (MEA)-back propagation (BP) neural network is used to predict the three-dimensional coordinates of the points, and the influence of the background light on the measurement accuracy of the three-dimensional coordinates based on PSD is obtained.

The influence of the background light on the measurement accuracy of the system is quantitatively calculated. The background light has a significant influence on the prediction accuracy of the three-dimensional coordinate measurement system. The optical method, electrical method and photoelectric compensation method are proposed to improve the measurement accuracy.

BP neural network based on MEA is applied to the coordinate prediction of the three-dimensional coordinate measurement system based on dual-PSD, and the influence of background light on the measurement accuracy is quantitatively analyzed.

In an online brand community (OBC), consumers as a group occupy a dominant position, and their horizontal interactions are pivotal for the consumer–brand relationship. However, little is known about the effect of group characteristics on brands. To partially fill this gap, this study examines how group characteristics influence brand loyalty from the perspective of social identity theory. Specifically, by collecting data from an online survey, this paper investigates the effects of group similarity, group receptivity and group involvement on brand loyalty, the mediating role of community identification and the moderating effect of tenure in a community.

Data from 482 brand community members were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results show that group similarity, group receptivity and group involvement increase brand loyalty; furthermore, the effect is mediated by community identification. Moreover, group receptivity is more effective in fostering community identification of short-tenure members, whereas group similarity plays a more important role for long-tenure members.

This paper enriches the brand community literature from a group perspective and provides implications for how brand communities develop customer loyalty strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of recent systematic and comprehensive advancement in electrospun polymer fiber and their composites with shape memory property.

The nanofiber manufacture technique is initially reviewed. Then, the influence of electrospinning parameters and actuation method has been discussed. Finally, the study concludes with a brief review of recent development in potential applications.

Shape memory polymer (SMP) nanofibers are a type of smart materials which can change shape under external stimuli (e.g. temperature, electricity, magnetism, solvent). In general, such SMP nanofibers could be easily fabricated by mature electrospinning technique. The nanofiber morphology is mainly affected by the electrospinning parameters, including applied voltage, tip-to-collector distance, viscosity of solution, humidity and molecular weight. For actuation method, most SMP nanofibers and their composites can change their shapes in response to heat, magnetic field or solvent, while few can be driven by electricity. Compared with the block SMPs, electrospun SMP nanofibers’ mat with porosity and low mechanical property have a wide potential application field including tissue engineering, drug delivery, filtration, catalysis.

This paper provides a detailed review of shape memory nanofibers: fabrication, actuation and potential application, in the near future.