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Downward line extension is a valuable growth strategy that enables multiple products and services to meet diverse customer needs. However, downward extended products launched by high-status brands may be challenged by horizontal extended products launched by relatively low-status brands when these two types of products target similar consumers. This study aims to examine the impact of product type (horizontal extended versus downward extended) on consumers’ purchase intentions, the underlying mechanism and the moderating role of power distance belief.

Four scenario-based experiments were conducted to probe the research questions.

Consumers develop lower purchase intentions for downward (versus horizontal) extended products due to the reduction of perceived fit and self-congruity (Study 1). Beyond that, power distance belief moderates the impact of product type on consumers’ purchase intentions, as a low power distance belief reduces the negative effect of downward line extension (Studies 2a, 2b and 2c). Perceived fit and self-congruity mediate the interaction effect between product type and power distance belief on consumers’ purchase intentions (Study 2c).

This study provides marketing practitioners with guidance on implementing the strategy of downward line extension.

This study serves as a preliminary effort to compare consumers’ responses between downward and horizontal extended products, which deepens the understanding of downward line extension. It also contributes to the body of knowledge about line extension and power distance belief by demonstrating the moderating role of power distance belief in a line extension context.

This study investigates the impact of open branding on consumer brand attitudes, as mediated by brand warmth and brand competence, and moderated by power distance belief.

This study employs two one-factor (brand strategy: open branding vs closed branding) between-subject experimental designs and a 2 × 2, namely (open branding vs closed branding) × (power distance belief: high vs low) between-subject experimental design to test the hypotheses.

The study indicates that open branding can enhance consumer brand attitudes, and that brand warmth and brand competence mediate the impact of open branding on consumer brand attitudes. Furthermore, power distance beliefs (PDB) moderated these relationships. Specifically, the impact of open branding on consumers brand attitudes is stronger for consumers with low PDB than for those with high PDB.

Brand managers should consider adopting an open branding strategy to enhance consumers brand attitudes when encountering consumers’ unauthorized use of brand-related intellectual property. Additionally, when implementing an open-branding strategy, brand managers should use appropriate language to enhance consumers’ perceptions of brand warmth and brand competence.

This study contributes to the interactive marketing literature by empirically examining the impact of open branding on consumer brand attitudes. Furthermore, it investigates the underlying mechanism of how and the boundary conditions when open branding increases consumer brand attitudes, enriching the current knowledge.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate how managers react to their own abusive supervision. Accordingly, this research identified a mechanism that managers may use to make amends for their abusive supervisory behaviors.

Two studies were designed. Study 1 was an online experimental study involving 99 full-time managers in the hotel industry that examined how managers’ internal factors moderated the relationship between enacted abusive supervision and embarrassment. By applying a critical incident technique to survey 235 full-time managers in the hospitality industry in Study 2, the moderating role of power distance belief as a context-related factor was tested. Furthermore, the mediating role of embarrassment between managers’ abusive supervision and their impression management was examined.

Managers who enact abusive supervision may experience embarrassment and thus be more likely to use impression management tactics, such as apology. Moreover, this study revealed the boundary conditions that influence managers’ reaction toward their own abusive supervision.

Hospitality industry practitioners can use the findings of this study as a basis for the development of policies and training programs to promote positive organizational culture and minimize unethical workplace behaviors.

Previous studies in this area have focused on subordinate-centric perspectives; this study is one of the few that has examined abusive supervision from an actor-centric perspective.

Scholarly research provides few insights into how integrating the western values of individualism and low power distance with the eastern values of collectivism and high power distance may influence cross-cultural conflict management. Following the framework of the theory of cooperation and competition, the purpose of this paper is to directly examine the impacts of organization-level collectivism and individualism, as well as high and low power distance, to determine the interactive effects of these four factors on cross-cultural conflict management.

This is a 2×2 experiment study. Data were collected from a US laboratory experiment with 80 participants.

American managers working in a company embracing western low power distance and eastern collectivism values were able to manage conflict cooperatively with their Chinese workers. Moreover, American managers working in a company valuing collectivism developed more trust with Chinese workers, and those in a company culture with high power distance were more interested in their workers’ viewpoints and more able to reach integrated solutions.

This study is an interdisciplinary research applying the social psychology field’s theory of cooperation and competition to the research on employee-manager, cross-cultural conflict management (which are industrial relations and organizational behavior topics, respectively), with an eye to the role of cultural adaptation. Furthermore, this study included an experiment to directly investigate the interactions between American managers and Chinese workers discussing work distribution conflict in four different organizational cultures.

The purpose of the present study is to examine and validate a research model encompassing power distance belief, need for uniqueness, self-monitoring, self-construal, social adjustive attitude, and value-expressive attitude as the causal antecedents for conspicuous luxury consumption.

Survey data was collected from a large consumer panel. The study applied a combinatory partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) approach in examining the research hypotheses and proposition.

The results indicated the effects of power distance belief, need for uniqueness, self-monitoring, and self-construal on social adjustive attitude and value-expressive attitude, which in turn determine conspicuous luxury consumption. In addition, the fsQCA findings revealed three configurations that articulate the complex interactions of the causal antecedents.

This study enriches the literature by providing a comprehensive understanding of the psychological motivation factors that drive conspicuous luxury consumption and assists luxury retailers in developing targeted strategies to appeal to consumers.

This study aims to integrate the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory into a meta-analytic framework to synthesize green consumption literature.

By integrating the findings from 173 studies, a meta-analysis was performed adopting several analytical methods: bivariate analysis, moderation analysis and path analysis.

VBN- and TPB-based psychological factors (adverse consequences, ascribed responsibility, personal norms, subjective norms, attitude and perceived behavioral control) mediate the effects of altruistic, biospheric and egoistic values on green purchase intention. Further, inconsistencies in the proposed relationships are due to cultural factors (i.e. individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity–femininity, short- vs long-term orientation and indulgence-restraint) and countries’ human development status.

The authors selected papers published in English; hence, other relevant papers in this domain published in other languages might have been missed.

The findings are useful to marketers of green offerings in designing strategies, i.e. specific messages, targeting different customers based on countries’ cultural score and human development index, to harvest positive customer responses.

This study is the pioneering attempt to synthesize the TPB- and VBN-based quantitative literature on green consumer behavior to resolve the reported inconsistent findings.

Using social exchange and power-dependence theories, this study advances the emergent debate on the dark side of leadership by examining the impact of despotic leadership style on employees’ supervisor-rated job performance, job satisfaction and turnover intention with individual-level power distance orientation as a moderator.

We collected multisource and time-lagged survey data in two waves from 65 leaders and 300 subordinates as paired responses working in different banks, telecom and IT companies.

It was found that employees’ exposure to despotic leadership harms their job performance and job satisfaction and has a positive effect on their turnover intention. In line with our prediction, low power distance orientation employees react more strongly to despotic leadership while high power distance orientation mitigates its effects on employee job outcomes.

Despotic behavioral tendencies must be taken into consideration while selecting and appointing leaders. Organizational leaders should also refrain from opportunistic and exploitative use of their followers' efforts.

This study adds to the emerging literature on the dark side of leadership by examining the relationship of despotic leadership style with employee job outcomes. The unique contribution of this study is the examination of individual-level power distance orientation as the boundary condition of these relationships.

Prior research has suggested that abusive supervision has negative impacts on various work outcomes. However, little attention has been paid to the relationship between abusive supervision and employees’ safety behaviour. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to address these limitations by developing and testing a theoretically based conceptual model that explicitly considers the underlying mechanism and boundary condition of the relationship between abusive supervision and safety behaviour of underground coal miners in China.

At Time 1, the authors conducted a survey of 630 employees to assess their supervisors’ abusive leadership behaviours, their own power distance beliefs and their self-reflection. At Time 2, the authros sent questionnaires to the leaders and invited them to evaluate employees’ safety behaviour in the workplace. After cleaning the survey data, the authors tested our model using a multi-level analysis on a sample (n = 458) of underground miners across 96 coal mining sites in China.

The authors propose that abusive supervision decreases employees’ safety compliance/participation by reducing reflection but strengthening rumination. The authors further find that the linkage from abusive supervision to reflection/rumination to safety compliance/participation is affected by power distance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, This is one of the first empirical studies to investigate the mediating effects of a deep cognitive processing variable – namely, self-reflection – and the moderating effects of power distance on the relationship between abusive supervision and safety behaviour.

This paper aims to explore the negative effect of power distance belief (PDB) on do-it-yourself (DIY) preference. It extends previous studies by delving into the underlying mechanism and identifying three theoretically driven moderators that could mitigate this negative effect.

The paper uses secondary data at the country level and conducts three experiments involving participants from the USA and Germany.

The results suggest that the adverse impact of PDB on DIY preference exists through the underlying mechanism of attitude toward customer power. This negative effect can be mitigated when individuals with high PDB focus on status, find themselves in a position of low power or engage in activities within a private consumption setting.

For DIY companies, this study offers crucial insights into the impact of cultural values on consumers’ DIY preferences. By customizing their marketing communications, companies can resonate with high PDB customers more effectively.

This research enhances DIY literature by introducing novel moderators within a theoretical framework, explaining why DIY preference might be low among individuals with high PDB and suggests ways to attenuate this effect.

This study aims to investigate the impact of managerial power distance on the corporate sustainability performance of Chinese firms and to explore the regulatory role of corporate digitalization in the Chinese capital market.

The study collects data from 2,632 A-share Chinese non-financial firms listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges during the period from 2010 to 2020. The authors apply different panel data regression techniques (fixed effects, GMM-System) to investigate the impact of managerial power distance on corporate sustainability performance and to explore the regulatory role of corporate digitalization in the Chinese capital market.

The results of the study show a positive relationship between high managerial power distance and the sustainability performance of Chinese non-financial firms. This positive relationship is particularly pronounced in Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The results also show that corporate digitalization increases the sustainability performance of Chinese firms. Further, corporate digitalization weakens the positive relationship between high-power distance and the sustainability performance of Chinese firms. These results are robust to alternate sustainability performance measures and various regression techniques.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the regulating impact of corporate digitalization on the relationship between managerial power distance and corporate sustainability performance in China.