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Social media influencers have become constant companions of a large audience of young consumers, but a crucial yet underexplored area of examination relates to the implications of exposure to influencers for an individual’s self-concept. This study aims to examine if and how individuals experience self-discrepancies when exposed to influencers and the impact of such discrepancies on their affect, cognition and behaviors toward the influencers and the brands they endorse.

The authors thematically analyze 17 semistructured interviews, develop a conceptual model and present a set of hypotheses. The hypotheses are tested by analyzing survey data from 503 respondents using structural equation modeling.

Individuals actively engage in comparisons with influencers’ virtual self-presentation and treat them as emblematic of an ideal self. The associated self-discrepancy can lead to both negative and positive affect, but while the latter has a positive impact on e-word of mouth (WOM) and purchase intent, the former has a negative impact. Perceived homophily dampens the impact of exposure to influencer content on discrepancy and strengthens the link between discrepancy and positive affect. Self-acceptance and mindfulness positively moderate the impact of discrepancy on positive affect and negatively on negative affect. Perceived authenticity strengthens the impact of positive affect on e-WOM and dampens the impact of negative affect on purchase intention.

The authors contribute to the literature on self-discrepancies by identifying a consumer context where, in addition to the theoretically predicted negative affect, an individual may experience more positive emotions like feeling motivated or inspired because of the perceived attainability of an influencer as an ideal self. The authors contribute to the influencer marketing literature by examining the influencer–follower relationship and its implications for an individual’s self-concept, including the role played by perceived homophily and authenticity. The authors also contribute to the literature on consumer well-being and identify the role of self-acceptance and mindfulness in shaping consumer experiences.

The authors provide a nuanced analysis of the impact of influencer marketing on consumer behavior with a focus on its impact on an individual’s self-concept. The authors argue for the role of perceived homophily and authenticity in shaping favorable consumer behavior outcomes and offer evidence for more inclusive approaches to marketing.

The authors identify the influencer–follower relationship as a unique social exchange where the source of self-discrepancy is also a homophilic solution provider for achieving one’s ideal self and report both positive and negative effects as outcomes of experiencing a self-discrepancy induced by a target perceived as more attainable. The authors situate understandings of perceived homophily and authenticity along these relationships and identify self-acceptance and mindfulness as mechanisms used by individuals to deal with discrepancies.

Existing research has predominantly concentrated on examining the factors that impact consumer decisions through the lens of potential consumer motivations, neglecting the sentiment mechanisms that propel guest behavioral intentions. This study endeavors to systematically analyze the underlying mechanisms governing how negative reviews exert an influence on potential consumer decisions.

This paper constructs an “Aspect-based sentiment accumulation” index, a negative or positive affect load, reflecting the degree of consumer sentiment based on affect infusion model and aspect-based sentiment analysis. Initially, it verifies the causal relationship between aspect-based negative load and consumer decisions using ordinary least squares regression. Then, it analyzes the threshold effects of negative affect load on positive affect load and the threshold effects of positive affect load on negative affect load using a panel threshold regression model.

Aspect-based negative reviews significantly impact consumers’ decisions. Negative affect load and positive affect load exhibit threshold effects on each other, with threshold values varying according to the overall volume of reviews. As the total number of reviews increases, the impact of negative affect load diminishes. The threshold effects for positive affect load showed a predominantly U-shaped course of change. Hosts respond promptly and enthusiastically with detailed, lengthy text, which can aid in mitigating the impact of negative reviews.

The study extends the application of the affect infusion model and enriches the conditions for its theoretical scope. It addresses the research gap by focusing on the threshold effects of negative or positive review sentiment on decision-making in sharing accommodations.

The purpose of this study is to build on previous literature in this area thus, the views of professionals working with those who report institutional abuse was sought using a Delphi method.

Professionals working with those who report institutional abuse, such as psychologists, social workers and personal injury lawyers, were invited to engage in the Delphi study. Sixteen professionals completed the final round (with four rounds in total). This method was used to gain professional consensus on the considered impacts of institutional child abuse and what factors influence impacts.

Eight superordinate themes were developed, as follows: institutional abuse has lasting negative effects on well-being, functioning and behaviour; loss of trust in others and the system is a potential outcome of institutional abuse; negative impacts on future life chances; negative impacts of institutional abuse are exacerbated by numerous factors; protective factors reduced negative impacts; psychological intervention is useful for survivors; positive and negative impacts of disclosure – the response of others as important; and keep impacts individualised.

The need for an individualised approach when working with those reporting institutional abuse was a salient finding.

Institutional abuse is known to result in several negative impacts, although research into this area is limited with a need to better understand what may protect or exacerbate impacts.

This study aims to investigate the impact of destination accessibility on pro-tourism behaviour directly and indirectly through environmental impacts and/or affective destination image from residents’ point of view. It also investigates the moderated mediation effect of residency length in the indirect relationships between destination accessibility and pro-tourism behaviour through the negative environmental impacts or affective destination image.

A quantitative method was applied. More specifically, the survey approach was found to be the most effective method of data collection for this research. In total, 351 questionnaires were collected through an online survey from people who currently live in Alexandria. The questionnaire was translated into Arabic while adhering to back-translation guidelines. SPSS and AMOS software were used to analyse the collected data.

The results showed that residents’ destination accessibility affects both destination image and destination environment but does not affect the pro-tourism behaviour. It indirectly affects the pro-tourism behaviour through only affective destination image. Residency length plays a moderation role in this indirect relationship.

The current study can help policymakers, governments and tourism institutions to make decisions. Policymakers can use these results to adopt a comprehensive policy that encompasses different interested parties in tourism, in order to ensure that tourism development efforts will succeed. The government can also join hands with tourism institutions to mitigate the negative impacts of tourism in order to balance the negative and positive impacts of tourism.

The study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the importance of destination accessibility to support tourism behaviours in domestic tourism.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between COVID-19 impacts and auxiliary police officers’ mental health as well as the moderating role of supervisor procedural justice.

Based on the role theory and a police officer survey from China, this quantitative study investigates the relationship between COVID-19 impacts and mental health status among auxiliary police, a rarely examined police type. We also examine the moderating role of supervisor procedural justice.

Auxiliary police officers reported both negative and positive impacts from COVID-19, while the negative impacts were mainly in the work domain, but the positive impacts were primarily in the life area. OLS regression results indicate that negative impacts, especially work-related negative impacts, are significantly related to depression and anxiety, and supervisor procedural justice moderates the relationship between positive impacts and depression and anxiety.

Firstly, we adopted the role theory to examine how public health emergencies affect police officers in their work and life domains. Secondly, we advance the organizational justice literature by assessing whether supervisor procedural justice can moderate the relationship between COVID-19 impacts and their mental health. Thirdly, this research extends the literature on depression and anxiety of auxiliary police officers in China, who attracted less attention in current literature and policies.

This paper investigates the dynamics between state affect and trusting cognitive beliefs on post-adoptive information technology (IT) use behaviors in the form of intention to explore and deep structure usage. That state affect can influence behaviors is recognized in practice. In fact, some studies examine the impact of affective constructs, but the way state affect impacts how individuals use IT remains largely unexplored. The authors theorize that state affect, in the form of positive and negative affect, will influence trusting cognitive beliefs regarding an IT artifact (in terms of perceived helpfulness, capability and reliability) and, more importantly, directly influence intention to explore and deep structure usage.

The authors test the model using a sample of 357 IT users. Survey items were derived from established measures, and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results of this study suggest that positive affect and negative affect impact trusting cognitive beliefs. Trusting cognitive beliefs positively impact intention to explore with an IT and deep structure usage of an IT. Even in the presence of trusting beliefs, though, positive affect directly impacts intention to explore. Positive affect and negative affect both also have various indirect, mediated effects on intention to explore and deep structure usage.

In order to maximize value from workplace IT, the results suggest managers foster an authentic, positive work environment in order to harness or redirect employees' emotional energies.

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of abusive supervision on employees' emotional and work-related outcomes, using a theoretical framework that integrates affective events theory (AET) and self-determination theory (SDT). The research sought to explore the effects of abusive supervision on subordinates' positive and negative affect, and the subsequent impact on customer orientation and life satisfaction.

The data for this study were collected cross-sectionally through a structured questionnaire completed by employees who have experienced abusive supervision in their current or previous jobs. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data.

The results indicated that when subordinates experienced abusive supervision, they reported lower levels of positive affect and higher levels of negative affect. These emotions, in turn, impacted their customer orientation and life satisfaction. Positive affect was found to positively influence both customer orientation and life satisfaction, while negative affect had a negative effect on life satisfaction. Surprisingly, customer orientation was positively impacted by negative affect.

Therefore, the findings of this study suggest that positive and negative affects mediate the relationship between abusive supervision and life satisfaction, but not with customer orientation. This study advances prior research by linking the impact of an abusive supervisor to employees' customer behavior and life satisfaction, using positive and negative affects as mediators, and building upon the theories of AET and SDT.

Gamification has emerged as a dynamic force in education, with increasing interest in its impact on college students' learning. Most previous research regards gamification as a single element and only focuses on the cognitive level of gamification elements, lacking an overall exploration of the impact mechanism of gamification elements. Against the backdrop of virtual learning communities, we apply the cognition-affection-conation theory to examine the influence of various gamification elements on college students' online learning behaviors, examining both cognitive and affective pathways.

Data were collected through a predefined questionnaire from 11 Chinese virtual learning communities, with 587 respondents participating in the study. SmartPLS was employed to conduct a Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis of the research model and test the hypotheses.

Our findings reveal that immersion and achievement-oriented gamification elements positively impact learning behavior. Conversely, the social gamification element exhibits a negative influence due to social burnout within virtual learning communities. This study pioneers a model to understand the intricate influence mechanisms of gamification elements on college students' online learning behaviors. The model contributes to the enriched exploration and practical application of college students' learning behaviors in virtual learning communities.

Unlike previous studies that often treat gamification as a single element and focus solely on cognitive aspects, this research explores both cognitive and affective pathways using cognition-affection-conation theory. By examining the influence of various gamification elements on college students' online learning behaviors in virtual learning communities, this study provides nuanced insights. In particular, immersion and achievement-oriented gamification elements positively impact learning behavior, while social gamification elements have a negative influence due to social burnout. This comprehensive approach deepens our understanding of how gamification affects students' learning experiences, enriches knowledge, and provides practical insights for educators and instructional designers.

Although service researchers have long suggested that customer mistreatment adversely impacts service employees' outcomes, statistical integration of current empirical findings has been lacking. This meta-analysis aims to review and statistically synthesize the state of research on the relationship between customer mistreatment and service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.

The authors included 221 effect sizes of 135 independent samples from 119 primary studies (N = 47,964). The authors used a meta-analytic approach to quantitatively review the relationship between customer mistreatment and service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Meta-analysis structural equation modeling was used to explore the mediation mechanism of service employees' affective outcomes on the relationships between customer mistreatment and employees' attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Meta-regression was applied to explore the impact of contextual-level moderators (i.e. service provider type and service delivery mode) on these relationships. Furthermore, we compared the effects of customer mistreatment with the effects of other organizational-related factors on some commonly measured employee outcomes.

The results show that customer mistreatment has a significant negative impact on service employees' affective outcomes (i.e. negative emotions), attitudinal outcomes (i.e. job satisfaction, organizational commitment, work engagement and turnover intention) and behavioral outcomes (i.e. job performance, surface acting and emotional labor). Additionally, service employees' negative emotions mediate the association between customer mistreatment and employees' job satisfaction, turnover intention, surface acting and emotional labor. Furthermore, the relationships between customer mistreatment and service employees' negative emotions and job performance are influenced by a contextual-level moderator (i.e. service delivery mode).

The authors contribute to the literature by providing robust meta-analytic estimates of the effects of customer mistreatment on a variety of service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, as well as the different magnitudes of the effect sizes between customer mistreatment and other job-related and personality-related factors by quantifying the true variability of the effect sizes. The authors draw on current theories underpinning customer mistreatment to test a theoretical model of the mediation mechanism of service employees' affective outcomes (i.e. service employees' negative emotions) on the relationships between customer mistreatment and employees' attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. The authors explore the effects of two contextual-level factors (i.e. service provider types and service delivery mode) related to the service delivery context that may account for the variability of effect sizes across empirical studies.

This study aims to explore how coping strategies (CS) mediate the relationship between job insecurity (JI) and subjective well-being (SWB) leading to presenteeism among millennials. This study has been tested based on the conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 2001) and the transactional theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). In India, employees in the information technology (IT) and business process management sectors have been facing increased job insecurity over the last couple of years. The advent of technology has increased job insecurity among millennials, specifically in the IT sector. The Indian IT and information technology–enabled service (ITES) sector witnessed mass retrenchments by companies in 2016–2017. Instead of reskilling, the companies decided to lay off their employees. During the pandemic, the IT and ITES industries witnessed a massive culture shift in terms of technology and work engagement. Postpandemic, the recession is looming large on these industries. In 2022, tech layoffs have witnessed 135,000 employees impacted globally and many may lose their job in the coming year. This study chose Indian millennials because they form a large part of the Indian workforce, especially in the IT and ITES sector.

In this study, cross-sectional design is used where different individuals are part of the study at the same point in time. A sequential mixed method of research is adopted for this study, owing to the kind of research questions and the requirement to include critical realism. A qualitative study was carried out post the quantitative study, to corroborate the results from the quantitative study. Quantitative methodologies address questions about causality, generalizability or magnitude of outcome, whereas qualitative research methodologies explore why or how a phenomenon occurs, describe the nature of an individual’s experience during the study relevant to the context and/or develop a theory (Fetters et al., 2013). Because the study is about the millennial workforce in IT and the ITES sectors, the sample population comprised employees in Delhi and the national capital region (NCR) of Delhi in northern India. Out of a total of 374 ITES companies listed in the national association of software and service companies (2018), 103 are based out of Delhi/NCR; hence, companies from Delhi/NCR were chosen for the study. The other reason for opting for companies based in Delhi/NCR was that many millennials from second- and third-tier cities also are employed in these companies bringing in varied cultural perspectives. This study included 588 employees working in ITES organizations based in the National Capital Region of India. Mediation analysis for statistical verification was carried out with regression-based analysis in SPSS macro process (version 4).

The impact of job insecurity on the positive and negative affects of the subjective well-being of millennials was found to be substantial. Coping strategies moderated the relationship and it was seen that both engaged and disengaged strategies of coping had an impact on the positive affect of subjective well-being but did not have any impact on the negative affect of subjective well-being. The positive affect of subjective well-being was negatively related to presenteeism, and the negative affect of subjective well-being was positively related to presenteeism.

This study is carried out only in the ITES industry and on millennials. With the advent of technology, other industries are going through challenges concerning layoffs even though the severity of the same might be less. In times to come, for strategizing employee engagement, it is necessary to understand how the workforce copes with various work-related stress factors. The positive affects and negative affects of well-being and responses have been studied from an employee perspective only. Further research should be conducted to explore responses from both employers and employees to establish presenteeism and the antecedents of presenteeism in conjunction with positive and negative affects of well-being. There is further scope to study the impact of job insecurity on adaptive presenteeism in older generations and various industries given the current job scenario and talent-reskilling issues.

This study brings forth original insights into the impact of constant job threats on millennials employed in the IT and/or IT service sectors. The key findings contribute to literature knowledge and help managers recognize the unfavorable consequences of continuous job threats on the well-being of employees. There is an immediate need for managers to recognize the problem and devise various policies and communication strategies to enable millennial employees to cope with the constant changes in the organization, owing to various technological, political and environmental factors. Organizations should be mindful of this impact, which can subsequently have serious consequences on the productivity of the employees, resulting in decreased overall performance and health of the organization.

This study of job insecurity as a job stressor, triggering coping strategies in Indian millennials working in the ITES and IT industry, presents original insights. This study explores and presents how the impact of job insecurity may increase presenteeism as a result of coping. This study brings value to practitioners and this study may help organizations improve the overall well-being of their employees, thus improving productivity. On the contrary, it also opens opportunities for exploring the impact of job insecurity as a challenge stressor.