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This paper introduces the concept of dysfunctional customer behavior toward a brand and argues that when customers perceive that a brand has failed to fulfill its promises, a psychological brand contract breach occurs, which in turn leads to a psychological brand contract violation, which evokes dysfunctional customer behavior toward the brand. In addition, this study investigates whether the impact of a breach of this contract is dependent on brand relationship quality, brand apology and restitution.

Study 1 conducted the online survey and 224 respondents were used for data analysis and the moderating role of brand relationship quality was examined. Study 2 conducted an experiment with 201 participants to test the moderating role of brand apology and restitution.

This study found the moderating role of brand relationship quality, brand apology and brand restitution on the relationship between a psychological brand contract breach and dysfunctional customer behavior toward a brand (i.e. brand-negative word-of-mouth, brand retaliation and brand boycott), which is mediated by psychological brand contract violation.

This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of dysfunctional customer behavior toward a brand by integrating the literature on brand management with the organizational literature on psychological contracts between organizations and their employees. Furthermore, this study sheds light on the effectiveness of reparative actions by the firm after occurrence of the psychological brand contract breach.

Live streaming platforms have become an essential marketing medium. This study constructed a model based on a combination of psychological contract theory and trust transfer theory.

A survey was administered to viewers who watched live streaming sales videos belonging to the top three most popular categories on Facebook and purchased a featured product in the past 6 months.

All but one hypothesis were supported. Although psychological contracts significantly increased trust in live streamers and trust in products, trust in products was increased more through trust in live streamers than directly.

The authors identified prerequisites for psychological contract establishment and developed an integrated empirical model.

Despite the growing popularity of ride-sharing in China, our understanding regarding users' trust and behavioral intention toward this new type of hailing service is still limited. This study aims to examine the joint influences of institution-based, process-based and characteristic-based antecedents on customers' trust and continuance intention toward ride-sharing. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate if the relative influences of institution-based and process-based antecedents on trust are contingent upon customers' prior experience.

Drawing upon trust-building literature and the elaboration-likelihood model, we developed a research model and conducted an online survey to users of Didi, the largest ride-sharing platform in China. We used the structural equation modeling technique to analyze the collected data and examine the proposed research model.

Ther major research findings of the study suggest that structural assurance, government support, platform reputation and disposition to trust exhibit significant and different degrees of influences on customers' trust beliefs and continuance intention toward ride-sharing. A multi-group analysis further suggests that customers with less use experience focus more on government support and platform reputation, while customers with more use experience are more likely influenced by structural assurance.

The study contributes to the extant literature by identifying the joint influences of institutional-based, process-based and characteristic-based antecedents on users' continuance intention of ride-sharing service and uncovers the mediation mechanism of trust and perceived risk. Moreover, the study refines the boundary condition of the proposed research model by revealing the moderating effect of use experience.

This paper aims to study the citations made in service failure literature and assesses the knowledge construction of this region of exploration to date.

The bibliometric investigation assesses 416 service failure articles in business associated research. Multidimensional scaling is used to uncover the scope of the scholarly impacts that have helped understand the nature of the service failure literature. The establishment of knowledge in the service failure literature is revealed by analysing co-citation data to identify significant topical impacts.

The theoretical model combines five areas with significant propositions for the future improvement of service failure as an area of investigation. The most important research themes in service failure literature are service failure, service failure communication, recovery process, recovery offer and intention.

Potential research concentrating on the service failure literature could use search terms improved from the literature review, or use a comparable approach whereby a board of well-informed scholars approved the key words used.

This paper is beneficial for any reader who is interested in understanding the components of the perception of justice and recovery and how it improves repurchase intention.

The study seeks to influence resource and recovery-based concepts and utilises the five supporting knowledge groups to suggest a plan for future research that fills existing gaps and offers the possibility of expanding and enhancing the service failure literature.

Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) are a supplemental educational tool that offers great benefits to students and teachers. The systems are designed to focus on an individual’s characteristics, needs and preferences in an effort to improve student outcomes. Despite the potential benefits of such systems, little work has been done to investigate the impact of ITS on users. To provide a more nuanced understanding of the effectiveness of ITS, the purpose of this paper is to explore the role of several ITS parameters (i.e. knowledge, system, service quality and task–technology fit (TTF)) in motivating, satisfying and helping students to improve their learning performance.

Data were obtained from students who used ITS, and a structural equation modeling was deployed to analyze the data.

Data analysis revealed that the quality of knowledge, system and service directly impacted satisfaction and improved TTF for ITS. It was found that TTF and student satisfaction with ITS did not generate higher learning performance. However, student satisfaction with ITS did improve learning motivation and resulted in superior learning performance. Data suggest this is due to students receiving constant and constructive feedback while simultaneously collaborating with their peers and teachers.

This study verifies that there was a need to assess the benefits of ITS. Based on the study’s findings, theoretical and practical implications are proposed.

The purpose of this study is to understand the psychological mechanism that affects consumer trust by focusing on the formation and influence process of psychological contracts, and taking this opportunity, explore the influence paths of food quality, food safety and service quality on consumer trust in the online food market, and provide theoretical suggestions for building trust in food businesses' consumers.

This study is based on an empirical investigation and uses partial least square structural equation modeling for analysis. Survey data were collected online from 359 APP users of online food transaction platforms in China.

Food quality, food safety and service quality influence consumer trust through the mediating effects of relational and transactional psychological contracts. However, the differences between these influencing paths are obvious and shift with changes in the marketing channels.

This study contributes to the body of consumer trust research by exploring online food transactions as an emerging trend in China. Some optimization strategies for food quality, food safety and service quality are provided for enterprises involved in online food transactions.

This is a pioneering study revealing psychological contracts as a missing but significant mediator between consumer trust and its antecedents.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the psychological safety, organisation support and emotion in the workplace during the transition from office to home working during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Past studies on emotion in the workplace mostly focus on types of discreet emotion, in relation to positive and negative emotions (e.g. Connelly and Torrence, 2018; Rubino et al., 2013). Other studies reported that emotions are derived from social comparison processes (Matta and Dyne, 2020). During a crisis, the emotional responses of the workers and organisational support to the different group of employees differ due to the social exchange relationship. Hence, this study contributes to the field of organisational support by examining the organisational support as the investment of both physical and psychological resources, and the emotional responses of employees to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis during transition from office to work-from-home setting. Through thick descriptions of the workers' emotion responses to this transition, the research examined how organisational support potentially impacts the worker's experience of psychological safety.

The study was conducted in the Singapore context. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Singapore Government imposed regulatory restrictions, the “Circuit Breaker” from April 7 2020 to curb the spread of the virus infections. Most workplaces from the public service agencies to the private enterprises implemented work from home arrangements for most of the employees. The data were generated from an online survey that included self-reported text-based narratives in response to open-ended questions. Open-ended questions effectively allowed respondents to define the real-world situation in their perspectives. Salaried workers from both the public and private organisations were invited to take part in this research. Respondents comprise full-time, part-time and contracted employees from the diverse sectors. The final sample size of 131 respondents was used. A qualitative data analysis was employed to gain deeper insight into the workers' emotional reactions, including their personal experiences of organisational support and psychological safety, during the transition from office to work from home setting.

The qualitative examination, through thematic coding, reveals the phenomenon of emotion triggered by social comparison emotion and critical socio-emotional resources (i.e. task, flexibility, communication, health and safety and social support) during a health crisis. Specifically, the employees' emotional reactions were elicited from the perceived organisational support, in how organisation cares for their well-being and work contributions and, in turn, influence the psychological safety. For example, the approach of the online communication (as a form of organisation support) practised by the managers has implications on the different levels of psychological safety experienced by the employee. In addition, emotional resources can be interpreted as organisation support. The findings revealed that emotions such as anxiety, stress, unfairness, inferiority and vulnerability are triggered by perceived inequity and comparison with the decisions or resources of the referent others of higher level such as the management (upward social comparison emotion). On the other hand, the emotions of pride, empathy, shared goals and support are generated by the care, collective interest and comparison of the referent others of lower level such as the subordinate (downward social comparison emotion). This study adds theoretical depth to the phenomenon of socio-emotional resources and the implications of psychological safety and organisational support of different work groups in the organisation.

The practical implications contribute to human resource management practices to understanding the socio-emotional resources of the core and periphery groups. It is imperative for organisation to exercise equity in the allocation of resources and treatment between different groups (core and periphery). The implications of this study show the phenomenon of emotional responses arise from comparison within groups linking with perceived fairness. The managerial decisions and supervisor management style are key factors in promoting healthy emotion and psychological safety. Management style such as micromanagement and control were not favourable among employees, and autonomy, trust and empathy resonate with employees. During a crisis and major workplace changes, demonstrating employee care through feedback, timely and specific information sharing and participatory form of communication contribute to the positive perception of procedural and interactional fairness. In the initial phase of workplace change amid crisis, some element of control is inevitable. Supervisor support may come in the form of open communication in conveying the rationale for the need to exercise control in one process and flexibility may be accorded in another task. The empowerment of workplace decisions, open communication in shared goals and assurance and trust are critical in enhancing a high psychological safety.

This study examines the roles of emotion, psychological safety and organisational support among different groups of workers (full-time, part-time and contracted employees) in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. There has been scant study in examining the core and periphery groups relating to these research topics. The findings in this study reveal the phenomenon of emotions triggered by social comparison during the workplace changes and the display of different socio-emotional resources within groups. This qualitative research supported the past studies that autonomy in decision-making, supervisor support, employee care and trust affect psychological safety.

As live streaming becomes a widely used online sales mode, previously content-centred anchors are attempting to switch to e-commerce live streaming. The purpose of this research was to explore the mechanisms that prompt consumers to stay or leave after content anchors transfer to live e-commerce broadcasts. In addition, we explored the factors affecting consumption from the perspectives of anchors, consumers and the external environment.

We distributed questionnaires to a group of fans who had experienced the transition of content anchors to live streaming and received back 375 valid questionnaires. Using psychological contract theory, we constructed a theoretical model for the scenario in which content anchors transition to live e-commerce broadcasting and analysed the data using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The results show that circle culture, mainstream culture, initial trust and live streaming content all positively influenced consumers’ attitudes, whilst consumers’ past shopping experiences negatively influenced consumers’ attitudes. The personal charm of the content anchors did not have a significant effect on consumers’ attitudes. Additionally, we found that only anchors with a significant circle culture and good trust levels amongst fans were able to transition to live e-commerce streaming successfully.

This study extends the application of psychological contract theory to the field of e-commerce and describes the transformation of different types of psychological contracts. The paper’s conclusions provide a reference for decision-making and the implementation of transformation by content-based anchors to live streaming, helping them to coordinate their relationships with fans more effectively.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how temporary agency workers’ job attitudes are influenced by the fulfilment of the psychological contract; a set of employees’ expectations, formed with the temporary work agency and its client: the host organisation.

The paper estimated moderated regressions with data collected through an online survey of 352 temporary agency workers employed by a large temporary work agency in Switzerland.

Results suggest that temporary agency workers’ job satisfaction, commitment towards the host organisation, and intentions to stay with the temporary work agency relate positively to the fulfilment of the psychological contract by both organisations. Additionally, reported spill-over-effects imply that the fulfilment of the psychological contract by one organisation moderates job attitudes towards the other organisations.

Results of the explorative study reveal that future research should consider the interrelated nature of psychological contracts in working arrangements when multiple employers are involved. However, for more generalisable results, a greater international sample, including different temporary work agencies, would be favourable.

Findings will help temporary work agencies to better understand how they rely on host organisations to fulfil the temporary agency workers’ psychological contract to attract and retain temporary agency workers.

This paper contributes to the literature in the understudied field of non-traditional work arrangements as one of the few to examine these spill-over-effects both empirically and theoretically.

The study aims to investigate hotel employees’ intentions to stay in industry with the mediating role of psychological contract fulfilment (PCF) and moderating role of positive emotions and position held (frontline employees vs managers) in post-lockdown era.

The study has followed quantitative approach following the cross-sectional design. 414 respondents of hotel industry were contacted via online and offline method. The data was analysed using partial least square method using SmartPLS 3.0.

The findings suggest that perceived organizational support and supervisor trust had a good impact on psychological contract fulfilment and contributed positively to psychological empowerment. Additionally, psychological empowerment positively impacted psychological well-being and psychological well-being positively impacted intention to stay in hotel industry. PCF positively mediated the relationship between organizational support, trust in supervisor and psychological empowerment. Positive emotions positively moderated the relationship between PCF and psychological empowerment. Multi-group analysis revealed that the managers and frontline employees perceived the PCF and psychological well-being differently.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the few to explore the intention to stay in hotel industry by integrating social exchange theory, organization support theory and broaden-and-build theory post lockdown circumstances.

本研究旨在探讨后封锁时代心理契约履行的中介作用与积极情绪和职位(一线员工vs管理者)的调节作用影响下酒店员工留任意向。

采用定量方法的横断面设计。通过线上和线下的方式联系了414位酒店行业的受访者。使用Smartpls 3.0软件对数据进行偏最小二乘法分析。

组织支持感和上级信任感对心理契约履行有显著影响, 对心理赋能有正向影响。此外, 心理赋能正向影响心理幸福感, 心理幸福感正向影响酒店业留任意愿。心理契约履行正向中介组织支持、主管信任与心理赋能之间的关系。积极情绪正向调节心理契约履行与心理赋能的关系。多群体分析显示, 管理者和一线员工对心理契约履行和心理幸福感的感知存在差异。

本文结合社会交换理论、组织支持理论和扩宽构建理论, 是为数不多探讨后封锁环境下酒店业留任意愿的研究。

El estudio tiene como objetivo investigar la intención de los empleados de hotel de permanecer en la industria con el papel mediador del cumplimiento del contrato psicológico y el papel moderador de las emociones positivas y la posición ocupada (empleados de primera línea v/s directivos) en la era post-cierre patronal.

El estudio ha seguido un enfoque cuantitativo con un diseño transversal. Se contactó con 414 encuestados del sector hotelero a través de métodos online y offline. Los datos se analizaron mediante el método de mínimos cuadrados parciales con Smartpls 3.0.

Los resultados sugieren que el apoyo organizativo percibido y la confianza del supervisor tuvieron un buen impacto en el cumplimiento del contrato psicológico y contribuyeron positivamente a la capacitación psicológica. Además, el empoderamiento psicológico influyó positivamente en el bienestar psicológico y el bienestar psicológico influyó positivamente en la intención de permanecer en la industria hotelera. El cumplimiento del contrato psicológico medió positivamente en la relación entre el apoyo organizativo, la confianza en el supervisor y el empoderamiento psicológico. Las emociones positivas moderaron positivamente la relación entre el cumplimiento del contrato psicológico y la capacitación psicológica. El análisis multigrupo reveló que los directivos y los empleados de primera línea percibían de forma diferente el cumplimiento del contrato psicológico y el bienestar psicológico.

El estudio es uno de los pocos que exploran la intención de permanecer en la industria hotelera integrando la teoría del intercambio social, la teoría del apoyo organizativo y la teoría de ampliar y construir en circunstancias posteriores al cierre.