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This study aims to identify the groups of value cocreators in the context of social media in the retail banking industry and resources that predict customer membership among different groups of value cocreators.

This study reviewed the literature and developed measurement instruments for the constructs of interest. Data were collected from 406 customers in an emerging market in 2019 and analyzed using latent profile analysis.

This study identified three profiles of value cocreators on social media based on the actual practices of resource integration that enliven value cocreation. Second, this study explains the differences in the performance of resource integration practices to cocreate by the types of resources that customers integrate into social media. Third, this study fills the need for knowledge of value cocreation in different contexts and industries (e.g. banks).

This study analytically relates a set of resources to the variety and intensity of the value cocreation practices adopted by bank customers in interactive environments. The emphasis on how value cocreation practices in online environments combined with customer resources (e.g., a person-centered approach) allows to identify unique profiles of value cocreators on social media. The findings inform managers of the profiles of cocreators, which customers are more attractive as value cocreators on social media, and which resources managers should help customers develop to increase cocreation on social media.

Emerging economies are dominated by an unorganized retail landscape, with complex sociocultural norms dictating the behavior of retailers and customers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of consumer embarrassment in an emerging marketing, India.

This research adopts a grounded theory approach and undertakes 31 in-depth interviews with consumers in India. The data is analyzed inductively and iteratively simultaneously with data collection.

The study uncovers that sociocultural normative influences, the retail environment’s structural constraints, interaction-based buying processes and customers’ perceptions play a role in eliciting embarrassment in traditional stores. The traditional format retailers play a significant role in evoking embarrassment and, surprisingly, also in facilitating coping. Contrary to the extant findings, purchasing embarrassing products online may not ensure anonymity and elicit embarrassment. The findings contribute to understanding the phenomenon of embarrassment in emerging markets.

There is a dearth of research examining consumer embarrassment in emerging markets, with extant studies investigating the phenomenon in the modern retail setup of developed economies. The retail landscape of India is predominantly unorganized, with distinct transactional processes and physical characteristics that are starkly different from modern retail stores. Moreover, sociocultural normative forces have distinct influences on the informal setup of unorganized retail.

In keeping with recent body image social trends, consumer demand for the adoption of plus-size models is increasing, although the use of thin models remains prevalent. The current study explores how consumers process information about fashion products displayed on different sizes of models in advertisements, focusing on model and consumer body sizes and both genders. As an underlying mechanism explaining how the relationship between model and consumer body sizes shapes consumer purchase intention, this study explores the role of guilt, shame and mental imagery.

The current study uses a text analytics technique to identify female consumers' general opinions of thin models in advertising. Employing a 3 (consumer body size: normal, overweight, obese) × 2 (model body size: thin, plus-size) × 2 (gender: male, female) between-subjects online experiment (n = 718), the main study comparatively analyzes the influences of plus-size and thin models on consumer responses.

The results reveal that, despite body positivity movements, thin models still generate negative emotions among female consumers. For obese female consumers, advertisements featuring plus-size models produce fewer negative emotions but not more mental imagery than advertisements featuring thin models. Conversely, for obese male consumers, advertisements featuring plus-size models generate more mental imagery but not more negative emotions than advertisements featuring thin models. The results also reveal that the relationship between consumer body size and guilt is moderated by perceived model size, which is also moderated by gender in generating mental imagery. While guilt plays a mediating role in enhancing mental imagery, resulting in purchase intention, shame does not take on this role.

This study is the first to present an integrated model that elucidates how consumers with varying body sizes respond to different sizes of models in advertising and how these responses impact purchase intentions.

Our findings only apply to contexts where consumers purchase fashion clothing in response to advertisements featuring thin versus plus-size models.

Exposing normal-size consumers to plus-size models generates less mental imagery, and thus, practitioners should seek to match the body sizes of the models featured in advertising to the body sizes of their target audience or ad campaigns that include both plus-size and thin models may help improve message persuasiveness in fashion advertising. Moreover, guilt-appeal advertising campaigns using thin models would appeal more to thin consumers of both genders than shame-appeal advertising.

Early childhood and early elementary are key times when children develop internal and external antifat attitudes; thus, it is necessary to better understand the available children’s literature around fatness.This paper aims to examine children's picture books with fat protagonists to better understand the current landscape of children's literature. Drawing on relevant literature around fat characters and the fat studies movement, this critical content analysis considers five children’s books featuring fat protagonists.

This study uses critical content analysis to analyze texts featuring fat protagonists, including two rounds of initial reading and analysis. Using lenses of critical literacy and critical multicultural analysis, the author looks for common themes, silences and absences in the texts, images and peritext.

This paper identifies themes of characters initially internalizing antifatness, then pushing back against antifat bias toward existing with joy and without stigma. Several of these texts even draw on the history of fat activism, highlighting societal critique and a potential activist component of children’s literature with fat protagonists.

The study has a small number of books, due to the limited number of texts that fit the study parameters.

The paper concludes with examples of scaffolding for teachers and parents to have conversations with young children about antifat bias while also acknowledging notable absences, particularly boy protagonists.

These themes illustrate the power of young children to push back against antifat bias and critique oppressive social structures.

There have been very few studies looking at antifatness in children’s picture books. With more books with fat protagonists coming out in the 2020s, this study offers an understanding of the themes present, while also emphasizing the need for an intersectional approach to literature with fat protagonists.

This study aimed to identify and describe how mentoring influences the mentor, by operationalising and specifying learning outcomes involved in mentoring.

This study used an action research approach, by uniting theory and practice to explore new ways of learning and evolve the field of practice in education. Thematic analysis was used to identify and organise patterns or themes that emerged from the data.

The results showed that mentoring changed the mentors' perspectives towards improved understanding, more flexibility and approval of other cultures. It seems that mentoring expanded the mentors' search for values, wishes and resources, including an awareness that our values, wishes and needs are more similar than different. Mentoring also seems to have improved the ability to reformulate, be flexible, strive to optimise user engagement and engage with people as they are, based on their own prerequisites.

The low number of participants means the results cannot be generalised, and voluntary participation may have led to more motivated involvement and positive results.

This study shows that mentoring has had an impact on students' development of intercultural competence and cultural sensitivity through regular meetings with individuals from a different cultural background. Mentoring seems to have revealed insights into underlying prejudices and changed perspectives towards better understanding, thus increased acceptance of other cultures.

Search for similar studies shows a lack of research that operationalises and specifies the learning outcomes that mentors gain from being a mentor.

This paper aims to extend the scope of previous studies on education-occupation mismatch to explicitly focus on the role high school track choices have on the risk of being mismatched in the labor market.

The paper uses the most exhaustive available database regarding the early-career paths of university graduates in Romania. Using a novel matching technique, entropy balancing (EB), our study relies on multinomial logit models and logit regressions to estimate the effect of the completed high school track on the likelihood of being mismatched in the labor market. The empirical analysis focuses on two types of education-occupation mismatches: horizontal and vertical mismatches.

We show that studying a different field in college compared to the completed high school track increases the risk of being skill mismatched in the first job after graduation. Five years after college graduation, the influence of the high school track fades, while being skill mismatched in the first employment plays a more important role. In contrast, we find no evidence that pursuing a college major unrelated to the completed high school track increases the probability of being overeducated. However, being overeducated in the first job increases the risk of being overeducated five years later.

The study brings new reliable evidence on the extent to which high school track choices may contribute to the risk of being mismatched in the labor market.

This study delves into how corporations make decisions about influencer marketing. Specifically, it examines the differences between human influencers, who carry the risk of scandals, and virtual influencers, a new and unpredictable realm, regarding their integration with social media platforms.

Using game theory and empirical data, the study explores crucial factors in influencer marketing, including influencer quality, reputation repair costs and the probability of R&D failures.

This study suggests that companies favor human influencers when the risk of scandal is low. However, competing companies switch to virtual influencers at different intervals as this risk increases. The costs, likelihood of scandals and competition intensity all play a role in a company's decision-making regarding technology management. Additionally, a higher chance of R&D failure can motivate a company to invest more in R&D to gain a competitive advantage over rivals that may suffer failures.

This study provides insights into how corporations manage social media influencer marketing in the digital age. It contributes to marketing theory and technology management decisions by offering a fresh perspective on the relationship between corporate reputation and influencer marketing strategy.

This study offers valuable perspectives into a relatively uncharted area of marketing strategy. It employs game theory and empirical analysis to introduce a fresh method of comprehending the dynamics of influencer marketing, its impact on corporate reputation management and its interaction with social media.

In the knowledge management (KM) literature, there are umpteen discussions on knowledge sharing; however, the scholarly community still faces a dearth of literature on knowledge hiding behavior (KHB) and its determinants. The current study aims to examine the direct effect of dark triad (DT) personality dimensions (machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy) on KHB dimensions (rationalized hiding, evasive hiding and playing dumb). Drawing on social control theory, this study also explores the moderating effect of workplace spirituality (WS) on the direct relationship between DT and KHB.

Using purposive sampling, 281 matched-pair datasets from faculty members working with higher education institutions (HEI) in India have been obtained. The direct relationship has been tested through regression analysis and moderation analysis has been performed using the PROCESS macro for SPSS.

The study has successfully mapped DT dimensions with KHB dimensions, and it is observed that machiavellians mostly use evasive hiding, narcissists believe in rationalized hiding and paying dumb is mostly used by psychopaths. Workplace spirituality (WS) weakens the direct relationship between DT and KHB.

HEIs are advised to foster a climate conducive to WS by getting faculty to realize that their job is something larger than themselves through developing a sense of community among faculty members.

This empirical study extends the KM literature and expands the scope of bridging the gaps on KHB. It is one of the few studies to examine the impact of DT on KHB with WS as a moderator in HEIs.

This study aims to investigate the role of interpersonal influence on consumer purchase decisions regarding foreign products, specifically by exploring consumers’ social reaction styles (acquisitive and protective) when confronted with normative pressures and their subsequent impact on consumers’ purchase behavior in the context of situational animosity.

Three studies were conducted in China to empirically examine the proposed research model. The US–China Chip War of 2022 was used as the research context for situational animosity, while the Japan–China relationship representing a stable animosity condition was used for contrast.

This study establishes the mediating role of perceived normative pressure in linking animosity attitudes to purchase avoidance in situational animosity. It also validates that consumers’ social reaction styles (acquisitive and protective) help predict distinct behavioral outcomes, holding significant implications for advancing research in the field of product and brand consumption.

This research provides a novel perspective by exploring consumers’ social reaction styles when dealing with normative pressure in situational animosity. The distinction between acquisitive and protective reaction styles adds depth and originality to the study. Moreover, this study examines consumer behavior in two distinct consumption contexts: switching intentions to local products and purchase intentions for products from offending countries in hidden consumption situations. This dual perspective offers a comprehensive exploration of consumers’ purchase behavior under normative pressure, contributing to the novelty of this research.

Teams across a wide range of contexts must look beyond task performance to consider the affective, cognitive and behavioral health of their members. Despite much interest in team health in practice, consideration of team health has remained scant from a research perspective. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues by advancing a definition and model of team health.

The authors review relevant literature on team stress, processes and emergent states to propose a definition and model of team health.

The authors advance a definition of team health, or the holistic, dynamic compilation of states that emerge and interact as a team resource to buffer stress. Further, the authors argue that team health improves outcomes at both the individual and team level by improving team members’ well-being and enhancing team effectiveness, respectively. In addition, the authors propose a framework integrating the job demands-resources model with the input-mediator-output-input model of teamwork to illustrate the behavioral drivers that promote team health, which buffers teams stress to maintain members’ well-being and team effectiveness.

This work answers calls from multidisciplinary industries for work that considers team health, providing implications for future research in this area.