Search results

The purpose of this paper is to validate the Higgins regulatory focus/goal orientation questionnaire (RFQ) in the Indian context on a sample of urbanized young Indians: one of the most important consumer segments in India.

Items were validated using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, through both parametric and non parametric approaches to estimation.

Scale validity and reliability was established in the Indian context.

A sample of 152 final year students enrolled in professional courses, conforming to the characteristics of urbanized young Indians, was used. Consumers' goal orientation may now be successfully measured in the Indian context.

Marketers may use the questionnaire to measure consumers' goal orientation and design products and advertisements catering specifically to promotion and prevention oriented customers. According to Cesario, Grant, and Hissing and Avnet and Higgins, this is important as message persuasiveness and product evaluation is dependent on consumer's goal orientation.

Given the aspirational and goal directed nature of the dominant consumer segment of young Indians in India, it is essential that regulatory focus is measured well. This study establishes the validity of the scale for young Indians whose chronic regulatory focus can now be measured effectively.

The purpose of this paper is to test whether the simple exposure to different types of products can trigger different motivational orientation on consumers (prevention vs promotion), which in turn would match message frame and increase persuasion.

Three experiments test whether exposure to product categories can trigger consumer’s regulatory focus orientation. Participants in the pilot study are students, while participants in the two other studies are consumers.

A first pilot study randomly exposed participants to a product that could trigger promotion orientation (e.g. orange juice) versus a product that could trigger prevention orientation (e.g. sunscreen). Participants exposed to promotion (prevention) product suggest more promotion (prevention) strategies to reach a particular goal (preparing for their final exam). Study 2 shows that gain (vs loss)-framed messages using health appeals have better evaluations when featuring promotion (vs prevention) products. Study 3 generalizes these results using another sample and different product categories.

The paper uses some product categories and including other categories would increase external validity.

The practical implication is to help marketers to choose the right health argument to match the product category they are trying to sell.

Theoretically, the results from three studies show that exposure to products can temporarily trigger a consumer’s regulatory focus and that messages using health arguments that are consistent with this regulatory focus are more persuasive than those that are not. Managerially, these results help managers to adapt the right message in function of the product category.

When a product fails out of negligence on the seller’s part, consumers can either retaliate against the seller, more so if a third party encourages them to do so, or forgive the seller should the seller express remorse. This paper aims to examine how the fit between the consumer’s promotion/prevention regulatory orientation and the promotion/prevention frame of a message of contrition (retaliation), such as an apology from a chief executive officer (CEO) (a class action suit threat by a lawyer), affects such forgiveness (retaliation) intentions in the form of product repurchase decisions.

In two laboratory experiments, this paper temporally induces a promotion or prevention orientation in the study participants and thereafter ask them to imagine experiencing a product failure and listening to (1) the CEO apologize for the harm (eliciting sympathy/encouraging repurchase); or (2) a lawyer inviting them to seek damages for the harm (eliciting anger/discouraging repurchase). This paper frames the messages from the CEO/lawyer such that they fit either with a promotion mindset or with a prevention mindset.

This paper finds that, following a message of apology, a frame-focus fit (compared to a frame-focus misfit) elicits sympathy and encourages repurchase universally across promotion and prevention-oriented consumers. However, following a message encouraging retaliation, the same fit elicits anger and discourages repurchase more among prevention-oriented than promotion-oriented consumers.

Although past research has investigated how regulatory fit affects forgiveness intentions, this paper fills three research gaps therein by (a) addressing both forgiveness and retaliation intentions, (b) deconstructing the fit-induced “just right feelings” by exploring their underlying emotions of sympathy and anger, and (c) showing that fit effects are not universal across promotion and prevention-oriented consumers. For practice, the results suggest that managers can lessen the fallout from product failures by putting consumers in a promotion mindset that strengthens the effect of a promotion-framed apology and inoculates them against all types of retaliatory messages.

The purpose of this paper is to further the understanding of how the regulatory foci of the multinational enterprises (MNE) headquarters and the subsidiary lead to internal legitimacy crises. This paper discusses how pragmatic and moral legitimacy crises affect relational social capital.

The paper is conceptual.

This paper highlights the importance of internal legitimacy as well as the motivational orientations of headquarters and subsidiaries for the functioning of MNEs. Internal legitimacy management is crucial for building relational social capital. This study proposes that legitimacy crises are particularly likely to occur in cases of goal incongruence between headquarters and subsidiaries. This study postulates that organizations with a promotion-oriented institutional logic are concerned by the absence of pragmatic legitimacy processes. In contrast, given their aim of protecting the status quo, prevention-oriented institutional logic MNEs are concerned about the absence of moral legitimacy.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to explore the relationship between regulatory focus, internal legitimacy and relational social capital.

This research aims to investigate the relationship between consumer regulatory focus and brand value.

Three studies were conducted using both student subject pools and a broader sample from the US population. The relative chronic promotion or prevention orientation of each participant was measured, as was response to brand and pricing stimuli.

Promotion‐oriented individuals are more sensitive to differences in established brands than prevention‐oriented individuals (studies 1 and 2), and promotion‐oriented individuals have a greater preference for new brands than prevention‐oriented individuals (study 2). Also, an individual's degree of chronic promotion orientation is an important driver of this relationship (study 3).

Brand quality is considered as a general concept rather than a multidimensional construct. Although brand is a largely affective and emotional product attribute, brand trust is a dimension of quality that helps to satisfy prevention goals. A deeper investigation of the relationship between brand trust and prevention goals is recommended for future research.

Firms should consider the status of their brand within their product category. A firm with a relatively high quality brand can aggressively enter new categories early in the category lifecycle. Lower quality brands may benefit more from reinforcing their position in existing categories, or creating new brands for new categories.

This research has important implications regarding the timing and pricing of product upgrades.

Regulatory focus theory has been studied in an in-store retailing context. Although an in-store retailing differs from an e-tailing in terms of the factors such as absence of products, physical human interactions and store atmospherics, the application of regulatory factors in an e-tailing context is limited. This study aims to examine the moderating role of regulatory focus orientations in consumer e-tailing activities.

A laboratory experiment with 297 participants was conducted to test the theoretical propositions. Statistical techniques such as t-test were used to analyse the data.

Results show that a consumer online purchase intentions, product review and spreading positive word of mouth vary from promotion-focused individuals to prevention-focused individuals. Results also show that there is no difference in spreading negative word of mouth between promotion-focused and prevention-focused individuals after encountering an unpleasant shopping experience. Finally, results show both the regulatory focus-oriented shoppers are encouraged by sales promotions.

Arguably, this is the first study to examine how consumers’ regulatory orientations moderate their e-tailing activities. The results of this study have implications for both academicians and managers.

The purpose of this paper is to present a dispositional model using self‐regulation as a foundation for the strategic leadership of organizational change.

This paper reviews the self‐regulation literature and regulatory‐focus theory in particular, and integrates this literature within the strategic leadership and organizational change literatures to present a dispositional model with propositions about the relationships between these literatures.

Strategic leadership of organizational change should allow for co‐existent states of both continuity and change. Leadership teams should include a mix of individuals with promotion and prevention foci of self‐regulation and should provide for a regulatory fit that cascades throughout the organization.

Leaders should increase their self‐awareness of promotion and prevention styles of self‐regulation and rely on a mix of individuals that increase the chances of valuing and enhancing both continuity and change in their organizations.

This paper integrates the self‐regulation literature and concepts into discussion and theoretical development in the area of leadership and organizational change.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumer responses to company communication of offshoring strategies and tries to discover which psychological mechanisms govern these responses. To do these, the authors examine offshoring strategy communication from the point of view of Regulatory Focus Theory.

The authors tested the hypotheses in two different studies. Study 1 examines the associations between company offshoring motives and consumer’s prevention or promotion inferences about the company’s practices. Study 2 tests if and how the interaction effect between respondents’ self-regulatory focus and the company offshoring motive affects respondents’ attitude toward the offshoring company.

The study demonstrated that each of three offshoring motives activates unique self-regulatory orientations (promotion or prevention focus) in consumers, and regulatory fit positively affects consumer attitudes toward the offshoring company.

Results suggest how to communicate company offshoring decisions to consumers. By trying to instill a particular regulatory focus in the public with their communication tools, companies can create a better match in the public eye, gaining more positive consumer evaluations.

This research shows the mechanisms through which consumers respond differently to specific offshoring motives communicated by a company. By building on psychology theory, the study gains insights into the consumer reactions to company offshoring and, to the knowledge, no research to date has examined these mechanisms.

The purpose of this study is to examine tacit knowledge sharing within information systems development (ISD) projects by exploring the combination of social interdependence theory and regulatory focus theory (RFT).

A survey was conducted on 198 ISD professionals to investigate the effect of social interdependence on tacit knowledge sharing. The survey data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), and the results were discussed.

This study reveals that team members tend to share tacit knowledge in a way characterized by cooperative interdependence, and different patterns of social interdependence have an impact on tacit knowledge sharing. The RFT explains the disparities in attitude toward tacit knowledge sharing. Specifically, individuals with a prevention-focused orientation positively moderate the impact of competitive interdependence on tacit knowledge sharing, while those with a promotion-focused orientation have a negative moderating effect on the effect of competitive interdependence on tacit knowledge sharing. Moreover, promotion-focused individuals negatively moderate the effect of cooperative interdependence on tacit knowledge sharing.

The study identifies important aspects of social interdependence in ISD projects that affect the management of tacit knowledge. Furthermore, the study shows that the influence of cooperative and competitive interdependence on tacit knowledge sharing is moderated by the regulatory focus of an individual, providing new insights into ISD knowledge management.

Although being fired up about changes such as firm expansion, chief executive officers (CEOs) have a hard time with changes that involve divesting businesses or downsizing operations. This study aims to examine how a particular psychological process – regulatory focus – serves as a managerial exit barrier in the context of store closings in the US retail industry. This study also examines how a particular corporate governance mechanism, the board of directors, moderates the relationship between CEO regulatory focus and divestment activity.

This study content-analyzed letters to shareholders to measure the regulatory focus of retail CEOs and used negative binomial regression to test the effect of the CEO’s regulatory focus and board independence on store closure activity.

The two motivation orientations – promotion and prevention – focuses have distinct effects on store closure decisions. As predicted, promotion-focused CEOs, who value attainment and growth, resist “pulling the plug.” Conversely, prevention-focused CEOs, who are more sensitive to losses, are more inclined to close stores. Independent boards decrease the CEOs’ resistance to “pull the plug” only when necessary, which is the case when CEOs have less vigilant tendencies.

This study contributes to the strategy and marketing literature. It examines an individual-level antecedent of store closure decisions and responds to the call for research on the effect of regulatory focus on divestment decisions.

Leaders themselves can be a source of resistance to change. The findings suggest the importance of boards hiring CEOs psychologically aligned with the firms’ strategic priorities. Promotion-focused CEOs may be a better fit for companies engaged in growth and acquisition. By contrast, prevention-focused CEOs may be a better fit for firms involved in retrenchment and restructuring. Independent boards still have the power to influence CEO decisions in the case of a misfit, as the findings suggest.

This study examines divestment decisions during the “retail apocalypse” and provides empirical evidence for the existence of managerial exit barriers, first introduced by Michael Porter.