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Currently, consumers can easily access social media to share information and experiences. How a relationship between these consumers influences their decisions has not been clearly investigated. When consumers participate in information sharing activities, they usually communicate with each other and can perceive their social distance from others. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore the direct and indirect effects of perceived social distance on eWOM sharing intentions.

Specifically, a moderated mediation model was validated, in which the indirect effect of perceived social distance on eWOM sharing intentions through reciprocity expectations was moderated by trust.

Perceived social distance had a positive indirect effect on eWOM sharing intentions through reciprocity expectations, which was found to be negatively moderated by trust.

This study integrates the concept of perceived social distance into the eWOM research area. Moreover, this result adds to the s-commerce literature by specifying the conditions of the indirect effect of perceived social distance through reciprocity expectations on eWOM sharing intention.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of craftsmanship content and social distance embedded in the craftsmanship content on luxury brand experiences, perceived luxury and brand purchase intentions using a social media video.

The authors conducted a single factor (close social distance vs great social distance vs control group) using a between-subjects experimental design. The social distance was manipulated by the presence (i.e. a close social distance) or absence (i.e. a great social distance) of a consumer scene in a craftsmanship video shown on social media. The control group watched a video with non-craftsmanship content. Then, brand experience, perceived luxury and purchase intentions were measured.

The results showed that the control group perceived less luxury and had lower brand experiences and purchase intentions than the group that watched the video without a consumer scene. In addition, participants who watched the craftsmanship video that included a consumer scene (i.e. a close social distance) had stronger brand experiences than those who watched the video without the scene (i.e. a great social distance). The brand experience increased perceived luxury and purchase intentions.

By manipulating social distance and providing better brand experiences in social media, experiential marketing allows luxury brands to reconcile two apparently incompatible goals: maintaining an exclusive image while increasing purchase intentions.

Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has become one of the most influential information sources for consumers' purchase decision-making. Based on construal-level theory and from the perspective of cognitive effort, this study investigated the effects of eWOM social media types and conflicting eWOM on consumers' purchase intentions and validated the mediation role of social psychological distance, perceived value, and perceived cognitive effort.

Two scenario-based experiments were conducted to validate the research model. Specifically, a 2 (eWOM social media type: strong-tie vs weak-tie) × 2 (conflicting eWOM: with vs without) between-subjects design was used. ANOVA, multiple regression analysis with PROCESS, and partial least squares (PLS) were employed to test the hypotheses.

The results showed that eWOM social media types had significant effects on both social psychological distance and perceived value. The significant chain mediating effects of social psychological distance and perceived value between eWOM social media types and consumers' purchase intentions were found. In addition, conflicting eWOM had significant effects on both perceived value and perceived cognitive effort. Indirect effects of conflicting eWOM on purchase intention through perceived cognitive effort were discovered.

These results contribute to the eWOM literature by investigating the influences of eWOM social media types and conflicting eWOM on consumers' purchase intentions. They also contribute to construal-level theory by extending its applicability to the field of eWOM.

Extant research addressing how consumers respond to electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) remains limited. Even less attention has been devoted to examining the trustworthiness of consumer reviewers with different ethnic backgrounds. The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of reviewer ethnicity, review valence and social distance (to three different ethnic groups) on perceived reviewer trustworthiness, brand attitude and purchase intention toward a product evaluated by reviewers of three ethnic backgrounds.

The study adopted a 2 (review valence)×3 (reviewer ethnicity) design; 398 participants were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions. A mock product-review web page for each study condition was created to manipulate review valence and reviewer ethnicity.

Results show that while review valence, reviewer ethnicity and social distance each had a significant effect on perceived reviewer trustworthiness, only review valence had an influence on brand attitude and purchase intention. The interaction between reviewer ethnicity and review valence also had a significant effect on perceived reviewer trustworthiness, brand attitude and purchase intention.

The current study is the first to apply social distance theory to explain cross-cultural perception of trust, as it extends and updates the original social distance scale to broaden its empirical relevance to contemporary society via an eWOM marketing context. As social distance is a fluid and timely concept to study the diverse ethnic cultural environment, the current findings carry strong implications to future research in a wide variety of digital communication and marketing contexts, among others.

The COVID-19 outbreak reached a critical stage when it became imperative for public health systems to act decisively and design potential behavioral operational strategies aimed at containing the pandemic. Isolation through social distancing played a key role in achieving this objective. This research study examines the factors affecting the intention of individuals toward social distancing in India.

A correlation study was conducted on residents from across Indian states (N = 499). Online questionnaires were floated, consisting of health belief model and theory of planned behavior model, with respect to social distancing behavior initially. Finally, structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that perceived susceptibility (PS), facilitating conditions (FC) and subjective norms are the major predictors of attitude toward social distancing, with the effect size of 0.277, 0.132 and 0.551, respectively. The result also confirms that the attitude toward social distancing, perceived usefulness of social distancing and subjective norms significantly predict the Intention of individuals to use social distancing with the effect size of 0.355, 0.197 and 0.385, respectively. The nonsignificant association of PS with social distancing intention (IN) (H1b) is rendering the fact that attitude (AT) mediates the relationship between PS and IN; similarly, the nonsignificant association of FC with IN (H5) renders the fact that AT mediates the relationship between FC and IN.

The results of the study are helpful to policymakers to handle operations management of nudges like social distancing.

The research is one of its kind that explores the behavioral aspects of handling social nudges through FC.

Grounded in the job demands–resources (JD-R) theory, this study investigates how the difficulty in social distancing at work, resulting from the COVID-19 crisis, may lead to intention to quit and career regret and how and when these effects may be attenuated.

Three-wave survey data were collected from 223 frontline service workers in a large restaurant company during the COVID-19 crisis.

The results show that difficulty in social distancing reduced employees' work engagement, and consequently, increased their turnover intention and career regret. These relationships were moderated by external employability, such that the influence of difficulty in social distancing weakened as external employability increased.

Social distancing measures have been applied across the globe to minimize transmission of COVID-19. However, such measures create a new job demand for service workers who find it difficult to practice social distancing due to the high contact intensity of service delivery. This study identified personal resources that help service workers cope with the demand triggered by COVID-19.

This study aims to make a distinction between two types of authenticity (indexical vs iconic), the influence of both of which on the consumer’s inference of companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) motivation is determined. Meanwhile, the consumer inference of CSR activities can be affected by the situational context within which the CSR activities are contained. Therefore, the effect of the interaction between the authenticity type and the given social distance (based on the construal level theory) was also examined.

The study conducted a 2 × 2 between-subjects design experiment to examine the effects of authenticity type (indexical/iconic) and social distance (close/distant) on the perceived motive of the CSR information in a scenario.

The findings showed significant main effect of authenticity type but no significant main effect of social distance on persuasion knowledge. Participants in the indexical authenticity condition perceived a higher degree of persuasion knowledge than the participants in the iconic authenticity condition. Social distance moderated the effect of authenticity type such that for indexical authenticity, there was a significant difference on persuasion knowledge when the social distance was large. However, for iconic authenticity, the perception of persuasion knowledge was not significantly different between a large distance and a close distance.

The study identified the type of authenticity that is mainly perceived as a result of CSR activities and also determined its relation to the social distance dimension to infer a firm’s CSR motives.

In responding to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, drastic public health measures such as social distancing and lockdowns have been implemented across the globe to slow the spread of the virus. In the USA, the public's reaction to social distancing has been mixed, evident in a high number of people flocking to beaches, bars and shops as coronavirus cases soar. Public health officials have issued strong warnings about the danger people face but the problem persists. To fill this gap, informed by the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this research explores why many people refuse to practice social distancing.

Two studies were conducted during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the first study, a sample of 750 respondents was recruited from a US online consumer panel to complete a structured survey questionnaire. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. In the second study, an open-ended questionnaire was administered to 50 US online participants to further uncover people's in-depth perceptions and perspectives toward the pandemic and social distancing. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.

The results from the first study show that risk-taking attitude, authoritarianism and subjective norm are significant predictors of social distancing intention and behavior, through perceived severity of COVID-19. Four themes emerged from the second study, which are consistent with the proposed conceptual framework in the first study.

Theoretically, the authors’ findings first contribute to the emerging marketing literature that focuses on creating sustained positive changes and improving the well-being of consumers, communities and societies. Secondly, their findings corroborate with previous findings documented in the social influence literature by showing that during the times of uncertainty and confusion such as COVID-19, social norms (not forced by laws and regulations) play the most critical role in influencing a voluntary, socially beneficial behavior (such as social distancing). Third, this study extends the application of the TPB into the realm of social distancing behavior. The three main components of the TPB, namely attitude, behavioral control and subjective norm, are shown to predict social distancing behavior. Practically, the results of this research have important implications for public health policies on how to encourage positive public health behavior amid pandemics such as COVID-19.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between cultural distance and psychological adjustment of expatriates in Nigeria and perceived social supports moderating the relationship.

The study used a cross-sectional survey research design. Data were collected through 236 validly filled questionnaires by expatriates working in different industries in Nigeria. The research variables were measured using appropriate validated scales developed by different experts. Data collected were analyzed using frequency, percentages, mean and standard deviation. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to establish the relationships among the variables.

The study found that the distance between expatriates’ home and Nigeria on each of the dimensions of cultural values: power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance cultural value, long-term orientation and indulgence negatively influence the psychological adjustment of the expatriates in Nigeria. The study demonstrated that the larger the distance between expatriates’ home and Nigeria's cultural values, the larger the difficulties in the psychological adjustment of expatriates in the country.

This study provides useful insights and a better understanding to both present and future global human resource practitioners, multinational organizations, international institutions and local organizations operating in Nigeria with a global mindset on the cultural profiles of expatriates that are critical to adjust to working, social interactions and living environments in Nigeria.

It provides practical guidance to global human resource practitioners and employers on dimensions of cultural values distance between Nigeria and the home countries of expatriates that should be considered when deciding on, searching for, selecting, recruiting and relocating expatriates to work and live in Nigeria.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of matching social distance and the concrete/abstract visual presentation of the threats of distracted driving in campaign design.

This study conducts a series of 2 (social distance frame: close vs distant) × 2 (visual rhetoric style: literal vs metaphorical) online experiments on the perspective of the construal level theory.

This study identified that a fit between social distance and visual rhetoric style of the threat enhances the effect of a social marketing campaign targeting young adults. A message framed in terms of socially proximal entities shows a favorable impact on young drivers’ threat perception and behavioral intention when the visual rhetoric depicts the threats of texting while driving more concrete. On the other hand, more distant social entities in the message show a better impact when the threats are visualized in metaphor.

This paper enhances the understanding of a threat appeal message design by adding empirical evidence of matching visual rhetoric style and social distance. The findings provide theoretical and practical implications for social marketing campaigns, regarding the strategic tailoring of messages, particularly in public service announcements that discourage texting while driving on young adults.