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During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, ubiquitous social media has become a primary channel for information dissemination, social interactions and recreational activities. However, it remains unclear how social media usage influences nonpharmaceutical preventive behavior of individuals in response to the pandemic. This paper aims to explore the impacts of social media on COVID-19 preventive behaviors based on the theoretical lens of empowerment.

In this paper, survey data has been collected from 739 social media users in China to conduct structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis.

The results indicate that social media empowers individuals in terms of knowledge seeking, knowledge sharing, socializing and entertainment to promote preventive behaviors at the individual level by increasing each person's perception of collective efficacy and social cohesion. Meanwhile, social cohesion negatively impacts the relationship between collective efficacy and individual preventive behavior.

This study provides insights regarding the role of social media in crisis response and examines the role of collective beliefs in the influencing mechanism of social media. The results presented herein can be used to guide government agencies seeking to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the established relationship between the public's trust in government and their adoption of preventive behaviour, lesser is known about the underlying mechanism that explains trust in government—preventive behaviour nexus. This study adopted the health belief model to propose five types of health perceptions as a mediator between trust in government and the public's voluntary adoption of recommended preventions for COVID-19.

To collect primary quantitative data, a web survey was conducted using snowball sampling from Malaysia (N = 343) and Pakistan (N = 321). Measures were adopted from the existing studies. Structural equation modelling-partial least square through SmartPLS was used to analyse the proposed framework and hypotheses testing.

Results revealed that trust is a significant predictor of perceived barriers, benefits and self-efficacy in both countries. Mediation analysis indicated that perceived benefits and self-efficacy to be mediators in both samples. In the Pakistani sample, perceived barriers were also a mediator. Importance-performance analysis showed that the Malaysian public has a greater trust in their government to tackle the pandemic issue, while the trust was a relatively more important predictor of voluntary precautionary behaviour in Pakistan. A full mediation model depicted that coping health belief are an imperative link between trust and prevention.

Although developing the public's trust is related to good governance and public opinion, during a health crisis, authorities can effectively utilize the communication media and design interventions to influence health appraisals leading to higher adoption of prevention.

This study aims to examine the role of leader-member exchange social comparison (LMXSC) perceptions in triggering the instigation of uncivil behavior in the workplace. This study also explores the intervening role of envy and the buffering role of aggression-preventive supervisor behavior within the proposed relationship.

Data were collected in two phases separated by an interval of four weeks. The final sample consisted of 224 full-time white-collar employees working in five large pharmaceutical manufacturing organizations in India.

The findings indicate that employees’ subjective perceptions of being involved in poorer-quality LMX relationships than their workgroup members generate envy, which, in turn, evokes them to instigate uncivil behaviors onto those higher-LMX counterparts. The indirect effect of LMX social comparison on instigated workplace incivility through envy gets attenuated when supervisors engage in aggression-preventive behavior.

To protect organizations from the financial and productivity losses associated with incivility, supervisors are encouraged to exhibit aggression-preventive behavior if they form differentiated exchange relationships with the subordinates in their teams. Supervisors are further advised to avoid the altogether neglect of lower-LMX subordinates as doing so may give rise to negative emotions (envy) and behavior (incivility) among them.

This study expands the limited body of knowledge on the antecedents of uncivil employee behavior in the workplace. Specifically, it unveils that incivility toward coworkers may be stemming from unfavorable LMX social comparisons and ensuing negative emotions such as envy. It also offers insights on reducing uncivil behavior by highlighting that the impact of LMXSC and envy on incivility instigation gets buffered in the presence of aggression-preventive supervisor behavior.

This research attempts to understand how individuals prevent themselves from exposure to COVID-19 when dining out at a restaurant and what situational factors shaping their COVID-19 preventive behavior (CPB) are. It collects 303 questionnaires responded by restaurant patrons in the United Arab Emirates. The resultant data reveals the ranks of the relative importance among the five CPBs proposed by this study that wearing a mask is considered the most critical CPB. In contrast, wearing gloves is the least desirable CPB. Concerning five health-risk factors under investigation, there is no difference in CPB between the vaccinated and non-vaccinated. People suffering from issues with their immune system show a significant inclination to stress social distancing compared to those without any immune issues. Those having an inflected family member are apt to wear gloves. Further, individuals bearing risk factors concerning chronic illness, an immune problem, and an infected family member are inclined to wash their hands and wear gloves. Lastly, this research finds six situational factors affecting an individual's CPB.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of masculine identity in generating value destruction and diminished well-being in a preventative health service.

This research used five focus groups with 39 Australian men aged between 50 and 74 years. Men’s participation in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program informed the sample frame. In total, 12 Jungian male archetypes were used to identify different masculine identities.

Thematic analysis of the data revealed three themes of masculinity that explain why men destroy value by avoiding the use of a preventative health services including: rejection of the service reduces consumer disempowerment and emasculation, active rejection of resources creates positive agency and suppressing negative self-conscious emotions protects the self.

Limitations include the single context of bowel cancer screening. Future research could investigate value destruction in other preventative health contexts such as testicular cancer screening, sexual health screening and drug abuse.

Practical implications include fostering consumer empowerment when accessing services, developing consumer resources to create positive agency and boosting positive self-conscious emotions by promoting positive social norms.

This research is the first known study to explore how value is destroyed in men’s preventative health using the perspective of gender identity. This research also is the first to explore value destruction as an emotion regulation strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that drive or impede the intention of Indonesian consumers to perform regular medical checkup (MCU).

This study begins with an ethnographic study to ascertain the determinant factors that motivate or hinder an individual from performing regular MCU. The study involved stakeholders in various health services providers, including patients and medical professionals. The quantitative part of this study focuses on “preventive” segment of consumers. A survey was conducted covering 303 respondents, consisting of two sub-segments of people labelled “healthy lifestyle” and “unhealthy lifestyle”.

Consumer behaviour with regards to needs for MCU must be categorised not based on demographics, but their health status – preventive or curative. The “preventive” group was found to have differences in triggers and barriers between the healthy vs unhealthy lifestyle subgroups. For the “healthy lifestyle” subgroup, the determining factors for a regular MCU are the perceived benefit of action, social deviance, and cost perception. For the “unhealthy lifestyle” subgroup, the determining factors for a regular MCU are the social deviance, disease heritage, belief in traditional medicine, no urgency and cost perception.

The qualitative study part indicated the differences between two segments: preventive vs curative. The quantitative study part is only conducted in the preventive segment and not covering the curative segment. It would be interesting to see the differences between these two segments.

Implication of study: to create contextual marketing communication in each stakeholders/segments – to reach the marketing objectives. Different segment has different issues to handle and need a different marketing communication programme.

Previous studies have focused on analysing the differences in groups based on their demographics, which does not illustrate a homogenous need for an MCU. This study contributes by addressing that researchers must differentiate between “preventive” and “curative” groups. Additionally, the study of triggers and barriers has interestingly found that the determinant factors for healthy and unhealthy lifestyle are not the same.

As the emotional/experiential aspect is still marginalized in the literature, this paper aims to explore the role of negative emotions associated with past experiences (PEs) in explaining the preventive health behavior (PHB) of the consumers with a chronic disease.

From the perspective of experiential marketing, a multi-method exploratory study was conducted among consumers with type 2 diabetes. The investigation process applied phenomenological interviews, visual projections and consumer diaries to adequately capture the emotional responses related to consumer experience of healthy diet behavior.

The results of a methodological triangulation show that the generation of negative emotions associated with PE with the PHB stimulates adopting healthy eating behavior rather than restraining it.

The multi-method protocol chosen for this experiential study is a response to the methodological requirements for a broader conception of consumer experience in the context of chronic diseases. This protocol can be used for further empirical investigation of emotional reactions experienced in consumer behavior in the broad sense.

Managerial implications are provided for health-care professionals on how to implement marketing strategies and practices based on the identified consumer profiles.

This study highlights the significant role of experienced emotional responses in explaining the adoption of the PHB and underlines that not all decisions are rational. It also contributes to the literature by specifying a mixed-method approach of data collection for deeper investigation of the consumer’s emotional responses to the health behavior experience.

Aggressive behaviors are common among students. Given the importance of education in reducing aggressive behavior, this study aims to examine the influence of a theory of planned behavior (TPB)-based educational intervention on aggression-preventive behaviors in fifth-grade male students in Fasa city, Iran.

A total of 120 male students were randomly picked from several public schools in Fasa city, Iran, between 2018 and 2019. Assessments were completed before and three months after the intervention. Intervention consisted of eight 55–60-min training sessions based on the TPB’s processes and constructs.

Prior to the educational intervention, there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, intention to stop aggressiveness or to engage in aggression-preventive activities. However, three months following the intervention, the experimental group demonstrated a considerable rise in the aforementioned constructs (p > 0.001 in all cases).

The study’s findings demonstrated the efficacy of a TPB-based educational intervention on constructs of the TPB theory. Results suggest application of a TPB-based educational intervention can have a pro-social impact on the attitudes and behavior of elementary age boys.

Even though social media (SM) has been explored in-depth, its role remains unclear regarding short- and long-term preventive attitudes in global health emergencies. To fill this gap, the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework aims to clarify the social media exposure mission in acknowledging risk perception and triggering preventive attitudes and behaviors toward COVID-19 and general vaccination.

The authors conducted an explanatory-predictive study on 480 Romanian students, using partial least squares structural equation modeling, and performed model evaluation, multi-group, model selection, and importance-performance map analyses.

The study provides insights in understanding significant relationships and drivers explaining and predicting attitudes towards vaccines. The main relationships are between fear and risk perception; risk and preventive attitudes and behaviors; and vaccination degree and attitudes to vaccines. The most important factor is the vaccination degree and media exposure is the most performant.

Developing and applying regulations and communication strategies for quality mass information may positively increase attitudes toward vaccines by indirectly enforcing the main drivers.

Organizations, authorities, and opinion leaders must have a coherent supportive presence in media.

This study filled the literature gap by building a generic theoretical and empirical proven framework that investigates the mediated effect towards vaccines of all media types by COVID-19 experience and vaccination degree.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-11-2021-0621

The health belief model (HBM) is the behavioral change theory most widely used in health behavior studies. Several studies have identified the limitations of this model, one of which concerns the validity in predicting behavioral changes. The purpose of this paper, scoping review, is to map the validity of HBM variables in predicting behavioral changes based on available synthesized evidences.

A scoping review was conducted using the Arksey and O’Malley’s framework. PubMed, Health Evidence, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar were searched using a combination of keywords: health belief model, review, systematic review and meta-analysis between February 15 and March 18, 2016.

Of the 1,457 articles, 4 met the inclusion criteria. All results showed that HBM variables were consistently related to behaviors and the strength of the correlation were varied. Perceived barriers and perceived benefits were the strongest predictor, while perceived severity was the weakest. The association between HBM variables and behaviors was moderated by some aspects of behavioral outcomes, the study design and the time interval between measurement of the HBM variables and behavior.

Although the four main variables of HBM have been shown to be related to behavior, the overall outcomes are varied and have not demonstrated conclusive evidence during the last ten years. The results of this scoping review imply the need for a systematic review and meta-analysis of the results of recent studies. In addition, more longitudinal studies are needed to ensure the validity of HBM variables by considering any possible moderators.