Search results

Fake news on social media about COVID-19 pandemic and its associated issues (e.g. lockdown) caused public panic that lead to supply chain (SC) disruptions, which eventually affect firm performance. The purpose of this study is to understand how social media fake news effects firm performance, and how to mitigate such effects.

Grounded on dynamic capability view (DCV), this study suggests that social media fake news effects firm performance via SC disruption (SCD) and SC resilience (SCR). Moreover, the relation between SCD and SCR is contingent upon SC learning (SCL) – a moderated mediation effect. To validate this complex model, the authors suggest effectiveness of using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Using an online survey, the results support the authors’ hypotheses.

The results suggest that social media fake news does not affect firm performance directly. However, the authors’ serial mediation test confirms that SCD and SCR sequentially mediate the relationship between social media fake news and firm performance. In addition, a moderated serial mediation test confirms that a higher level of SCL strengthens the SCD–SCR relationship.

This work offers a new theoretical and managerial perspective to understand the effect of fake news on firm performance, in the context of crises, e.g. COVID-19. In addition, this study offers the advancement of PLS as more robust for real-world applications and more advantageous when models are complex.

Prior studies in the SC and marketing domain suggest different effects of social media fake news on consumer behavior (e.g. panic buying) and SCD, respectively. This current study is a unique effort that investigates the ultimate effect of fake news on firm performance with complex causal relationships via SCD, SCR and SCL.

This study focuses on Aaker's Brand Equity Model, to check the effect of brand equity determinants on booking intention (BI) for ridesharing in India. The study also explores the moderation of ecologically conscious consumer behavior (ECCB) on the multiplicative effect of brand awareness (BAw), brand association (BA) and perceived quality (PQ) in influencing the BI.

Responses from 393 Indian ridesharing users were collected using judgmental sampling and were analyzed using Hayes Process macro.

The study found a direct relationship between BAw and BI, BAw and BA, BAw and PQ, BA and PQ, PQ and BI, and BA and BI. Findings revealed mediation of BA in BAw and BI relationship and PQ in BAw and BI relationship. Results revealed that BA and PQ serially mediate BAw and BI relationship. ECCB moderates PQ and BI relationship but not BAw and BI relationship.

Serial mediation and moderated-mediation results draw various theoretical implications for determinants of Aaker's Brand Equity model and ECCB.

The research has several implications for managers in view of brand equity determinants and ECCB. The study also contributes to policy implications.

Study's novel contributions are mediation, serial mediation between brand equity determinants, and moderation of ECCB between BAw and BI for ridesharing.

Drawing from the social identity theory and social exchange theory, the purpose of this study is to examine the intervening mechanisms linking perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) and employees’ affective organizational commitment. It is proposed that organizational trust (OT) and organizational identification (OID) would serially mediate the aforementioned relationship. Furthermore, this paper attempts to understand how employees’ attitude toward the importance of CSR (ICSR), moderates the linkages under the focus of this study.

This descriptive study was conducted among a sample of 519 employees working in the manufacturing sector in India. Self-reporting standardized questionnaires were administered among the respondents, who were selected through the judgment sampling method. Measurement model analysis was done using IBM AMOS 24.0 and Hayes’ PROCESS macro 3.0 (Models 6 and 84) was used for testing the serial mediation and moderated serial mediation.

Results revealed a significant indirect effect of all dimensions of CSR on employees’ affective commitment, serially mediated through OT and OID. The conditional indirect effects varied significantly and it was identified that CSR to customers and CSR to employees had a significant conditional indirect effect on affective commitment, through attitude toward the ICSR, OID and OT. However, the conditional indirect effect of CSR to social and non-social stakeholders on affective commitment was not statistically significant.

This study is pioneering in conceptualizing and empirically testing an integrated theoretical framework that models the influences of perceived CSR, employees’ attitude toward the ICSR, OID and OT on their affective commitment toward the organization. CSR plays a vital role in strengthening the employer-employee relationship and managers should facilitate a work environment that befits the alignment of organizational and individual ethics and values.

This study examines the relationship between workplace bullying (WPB) and the turnover intentions (TIs) of nurses, both directly and indirectly, i.e. through serial mediation of psychological contract violation (PCV) and poor employee wellbeing (EWB). And that with the moderating effect of servant leadership (SL) on its final path to TIs of nurses.

A total of 285 nurses voluntarily participated in the survey through convenient sampling from 13 different district hospitals. The authors performed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the study's measurement and structural models.

Overall, results indicated 62% prevalence rate of WPB and TIs of nurses had 67% variance explained by the exogenous factors. Workplace bullying was found to have direct as well as indirect relationship with TIs of nurses. For the latter, PCV and poor EWB were found to have partially mediated, both singly and serially. The moderating effect of SL on the serial mediation pathway was negative and significant.

Drawing on a tripartite theoretical perspective, this study illuminates the mechanism underlying WPB-TIs relationship with an advanced multivariate statistical technique in the nursing work setting in a developing country.

Prior research suggests that consumers can engage in moral decoupling by separating their judgments of morality from their judgments of performance. Hence, they might rationalize the benefits of unethical behavior without condoning the behavior itself. This paper aims to study how a discrete positive emotion, such as authentic pride, can mitigate moral decoupling.

Using three experimental studies, this research investigates and tests the underlying mechanism driving authentic pride, its effects and its key moderator. The results are analyzed using ANOVAs, regression-based serial mediation and moderated mediation analyses.

The results show that authentic pride decreases consumer acceptance of unethical behavior across different contexts, including purchase intentions for unethically manufactured products (Study 1), evaluations of the corporate social responsibility activities of a tobacco company (Study 2) and acceptance of questionable consumer behavior in daily situations (Study 3).

This research explores attitudes and behavioral intentions as dependent variables. It would thus be of interest for future research to examine a behavioral measure.

Given the potential problems of moral decoupling among consumers, marketers can devise effective strategies to reduce this problem using authentic pride appeals.

This research demonstrates how authentic pride can decrease consumer acceptance of unethical behavior. More importantly, this research enriches our understanding of the underlying mechanism driving the influence of authentic pride such that it increases the belief in a just world, which in turn lowers moral decoupling (a serial mediation).

As the superiority of sports celebrities' endorsements has been questioned, the purpose of this study is to identify various types of endorsers' direct and indirect effects on consumers' purchase intentions.

Empirical data were collected from 240 useful responses to an online experiment, and research hypotheses were tested using (moderated) serial mediation analyses.

The study's findings indicate that an endorser has a positive influence on consumers' purchase intentions through their perceptions of the advertisement and the endorsed brand. A moderated serial mediation analysis finds differences in the four types of endorsers analyzed. A sports celebrity is the most effective type of endorser in increasing consumers' purchase intentions, whereas endorsements by company managers and peer consumers, while also positive, are less effective in influencing advertising outcomes. An expert's endorsement is comparable to that of a manager but not significant.

The generalizability of the study's findings is limited because of a restricted data sample, the use of fictitious endorsers and the limited number of product categories and brands analyzed.

The study systematically analyzes the behavioral influence of four types of endorsers on consumers' purchase intentions, mediated by their perceptions of the advertisements and the endorsed brand. The results of this analysis extend the current state of endorsement research, indicating that endorsements should be integrated into companies' marketing strategies and provide marketing professionals practical guidance on which type of endorser is most effective in influencing advertising outcomes.

The study aims to examine the indirect relationships via application (app) brand self-relevance emotions and self-relevance that underlie the relationships between perceived value of mobile apps and (brand) love with respect to mobile apps. The study further investigates the moderating role of user–app relationship duration in the formation process of brand love for mobile apps from a dynamic and long-term perspective.

A multiple moderated-mediation model is developed and empirically tested with a sample of 396 users of popular Chinese mobile educational apps.

The study reveals that utilitarian value exhibits positive indirect relationships with brand love for mobile apps through increased positive self-relevance emotions. All three types of perceived value of mobile apps (utilitarian, hedonic and social) affect app brand love positively via self-relevance. These three types of perceived value were found to be serially linked to brand love through self-relevance and self-relevance emotions. Furthermore, empirical evidence is found for the moderating effects of user–app relationship duration.

By testing mechanisms simultaneously in an integrative model, this study investigates the reasons for app brand love that attract a user into a lasting relationship with an app and extends knowledge of the app brand love building process in inducing strong and positive brand–self connections. Our study also makes practical contributions by offering insights into delivering the most desired benefits to mobile app users according to different contextual conditions, in order to attract and retain users in a more cost-effective manner.

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between the brand awareness of an international university operating in Indonesia and enrollment intention serially mediated by brand congruity and brand attitude and moderated by brand experience.

A moderated serial mediation model was developed and was tested using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine the proposed relationship. There were 132 prospective students involved as respondents.

(1) brand awareness may not always directly affect purchase intention; (2) brand congruity and brand attitude serially mediate the relationship between brand awareness and enrollment intention; (3) brand experience may not always moderate the relationship between brand awareness and consumer behavior.

This paper considers generalizability as its limitation with suggestions to undertake future studies in other settings and the longitudinal and broader scope. Future research could examine other variables to enhance the model.

This paper also proposes theoretical and managerial implications in higher education branding and marketing.

This study closed the gap in the unsuccessful relationship between brand awareness and behavioral intention that the mediating variables of brand congruity and brand attitude must be serially present. This study also confirmed that brand experience is not empirically suitable as a moderator.

Global digital payment transactions increase continuously. Due to the inconsistencies that occurred across the research findings, past researchers have called for further investigation to verify and empirically test the mobile payment acceptance model. The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrative model that is derived from the multiple technology acceptance models (TAM)’s a theoretical framework and past literature to understand how consumers decided to adopt mobile payment. By simultaneously testing mechanisms, namely, ease of use, usefulness and risk, the current study will be able to advance scholarly knowledge of the underlying consumer’s attitude and behavior that link social influence to intention to use.

A total of 370 valid responses were collected using self-administered questionnaires distributed via online platforms, a representative for Thai consumers. An ordinary least square regression and bootstrap analyzes were conducted through PROCESS Macro to analyze the moderated serial-multiple mediation model in the consecutive inducing of social influence, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and perceived risk toward the consumer’s intention to use mobile payment.

Within the context of consumers evaluating a mobile payment, statistics significant were found for the hypothesized direct and indirect effects of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness on an intention to use. The results showed that Thai consumers’ intention to use mobile payment was significantly affected by their attitudes in terms of usefulness and the less complication in using the applications. It is confirmed that social influence indirectly affects intention to use via the increase of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. The study also found a significant interaction between perceived risk and perceived usefulness toward intention to use.

It is recommended to service providers to continue improving the user-friendliness, navigation, integrity and furnish the system with more value-added activities within the mobile payment application. It is also essential for the company to deliver tutorials and clear and easy-to-follow instructions to customers. At the same time, the marketer should develop marketing strategies to promote the usefulness and simplicity of using the applications to the consumers. When consumers experienced the easiness and usefulness of the applications, these could overcome the resistance feeling to use due to the concern on any potential risk.

The study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on consumer usage behavior and TAM by integrating all important variables and developed a parsimony framework to explain consumers’ usage adoption on mobile payment. Moreover, the current study was the very first that proposed and tested a serial of multiple mediations of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, moderated by perceived risk, in the relationship between social influence and consumers’ intention to use mobile payment and discovered a moderating role of perceived risk toward the relationship between perceived usefulness and mobile payment usage intention.

Endorsement research has focused primarily on determining the effectiveness of single endorsers, whereas marketing practice shows that companies usually engage multiple endorsers to promote their brands and products. As academic evidence for multiple endorsers is limited and extant findings are ambiguous, the purpose of this study is to determine the influence of different multiple endorser combinations on consumers' purchase intentions for a sports-related product endorsement and to identify whether endorser-product congruence and consumers' involvement with the endorsed product moderate endorsers' influences.

Two-hundred thirty-three useful responses were collected to an online experiment, and endorsers' direct and indirect influences on consumers' purchase intentions were analyzed in serial mediation analyses. Potential moderating effects of endorser-product congruence and consumers' involvement with the endorsed product were tested in moderated regression analyses.

The study's findings show that using multiple endorsers has an overall positive influence on consumers' purchase intentions, which is mediated by their attitudes toward the advertisements and the endorsed brand. Endorser-product congruence moderates an endorsement's effectiveness, whereas a moderating effect of consumers' product involvement was not supported.

This study adds to the extant body of endorsement research by confirming the overall effectiveness of using multiple endorsers to influence consumers' intentions to purchase the endorsed product. In addition, by showing that endorser-product congruence determines endorsers' effectiveness in a multiple endorser context, the study extends the current research perspective and provides practical implications for marketing professionals on how to combine multiple endorsers.