Search results

The rising number of food recalls has raised concerns about complexity, globalization and weak governance in the food supply chain. This paper aims to investigate the recall of plant-based products with data from the US Food and Drug Administration.

Introducing the structural topic modeling method allowed us to test theories on recall in the context of sustainable food consumption, enhancing the understanding of food recall processes. This approach helps identify latent topics of product recalls and their interwoven relationships with various stakeholders.

The results answer a standing research call for empirical investigation in a nascent food industry to identify stakeholders’ engagements for food safety crisis management for corporate social responsibility practices. This finding provides novel insights on managing threats to food safety at an industry level to extend existing antecedents and consequences of product recall at a micro level.

For practitioners, this empirical finding may provide insights into stakeholder management and develop evidence-based strategies to prevent threats to food safety. For public policymakers, this analysis may help identify patterns of recalls and assist guidelines and alarm systems (e.g. EU’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) on threats in the food supply chain.

Two detected clusters, such as opportunisms of market actors in the plant-based food system and food culture, from the analysis help understand corporate social responsibility and food safety in the plant-based food industry.

This study explores whether the unique organizational form of family firms helps to mitigate the negative effects caused by the announcement of product recalls.

The authors use an event study, for a sample of 2,576 product recalls in the United States (US) automobile industry, between January 2010 and June 2021.

The authors found that stock market's reaction to a product recall announcement is less negative for family firms. This superior performance is partially driven by the family firms' long-term investment horizons and higher strategic emphasis on product quality. However, the relationship between family ownership and cumulative abnormal returns around product recall announcements is nonlinear as the impact of family ownership starts by being positive but becomes negative for higher levels of family ownership. The authors also find that family firm's chief executive officer (CEO) and managerial ownership influence positively the stock market reaction to product recall announcements.

This work has several implications for family firms' management as well as for investors and financial analysts. First, as higher managerial ownership is associated with a greater emphasis on product quality, decreasing stock market losses when a product recall occurs, family firms should consider increasing equity-based compensation. Second, as there seems to exist an optimal proportion of family ownership, family firms should consider the risks of increasing too much their ownership share. Third, investors and financial analysts can use the results in the study to help them in their investment and trading decisions in the stock market.

The authors extend the knowledge of product recalls by studying the under-researched role of the flexible, internally focused culture of family businesses on the stock market reaction to product recalls.

Although situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) is centered on rationality and cognitive information processing, it ignores that people are also driven by irrationality and non-cognitive information processing. The purpose of this study aims to fill this gap by examining how gender stereotypes, based on perceived spokesperson sex influence the public’s perceptions of crisis response messages.

A 2 (industry type: automotive vs daycare industry) × 2 (spokesperson’s sex: male vs female) × 2 (crisis response appeal: rational vs emotional) between-subject online experiment was conducted to examine the effect of gender stereotype in crisis communication.

Results showed that either matching spokesperson sex with sex differed industry or matching sex differed industry with appropriate crisis response appeal can generate a more positive evaluation of the spokesperson and the organization. The results also revealed under which circumstances, the attractiveness of different sex of the spokesperson can either promote or mitigate people’s perceptions of the organization. Furthermore, when people are aware of a spokesperson’s sex, in a female-associated industry, a mismatching effect of a positive violation of a male-related stereotype overrides a matching effect of a female-related stereotype in crisis communication.

This study is among the first to identify how the gender of a spokesperson and industry type affect publics’ crisis response.

This study aims to examine how consumers perceive the persuasion intent and sincerity of brand messages differently and to what extent the advertised brand sounds opportunistic within the context of a crisis, depending on what the message offers.

In Study 1 (N = 163), the brand messages were manipulated in terms of control (an empathetic claim only), monetary reward (with a discount offer) and cause-related marketing (CRM) conditions. In Study 2 (N = 150), the message effects were replicated using a different product category. In Study 3 (N = 216), the three brand messages were examined under high vs low involvement conditions.

The results revealed a linear decrease in negativity in consumer responses when the brand message offers CRM activity, followed by one that offers a discount. It was also found that the monetary reward message was perceived to have greater persuasion intent and be more opportunistic than other message types under low involvement, whereas such effects disappeared under high involvement. Conversely, the CRM message was perceived to have greater persuasion intent and be more opportunistic under high involvement (vs low).

Amidst the global economic impact and corporate landscape changes, there is limited understanding of consumer responses to crisis-related brand messages. Rooted in the attribution theory and the persuasion knowledge model, this study fills the gap by examining how consumers assess the underlying motives of different message types and perceive brands as taking advantage of the crisis situation.

This study aims to explore the spillover effects of data breaches from a consumer perspective in the e-commerce context. Specifically, we investigate how an online retailer’s data breach affects consumers’ privacy risk perceptions of competing firms, and further how it affects shopping intention for the competitors. We also examine how the privacy risk contagion effect varies depending on the characteristics of competitors and their competitive responses.

We conducted two scenario-based experiments with surveys. To assess the spillover effects and the moderating effects, we employed an analysis of covariance. We also performed bootstrapping-based mediation analyses using the PROCESS macro.

We find evidence for the privacy risk contagion effect and demonstrate that it negatively influences consumers’ shopping intention for a competing firm. We also find that a competitor’s cybersecurity message is effective in avoiding the privacy risk contagion effect and the competitor even benefits from it.

While previous studies have examined the impacts of data breaches on customer perceptions of the breached firm, our study focuses on customer perceptions of the non-breached firms. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to provide empirical evidence for the negative spillover effects of a data breach from a consumer perspective. More importantly, this study empirically demonstrates that the non-breached competitor’s competitive response is effective in preventing unintended negative spillover in the context of the data breach.

This paper studies the impact of different chief executive officer (CEO) succession strategies on consumer evaluation of family firms. CEO succession is critical for family firms as improper succession planning has been shown to be the primary reason for high mortality rates of such firms. Furthermore, the choice of CEO (internal vs external) by family firms can send different signals to stakeholders and thereby impact their appraisal of such firms.

In this paper, the authors use an experiment-based approach to test how the type of CEO succession (internal vs external) influences the consumer's evaluation of family firms.

The authors find that appointing an internal CEO leads to higher perception of firm capability, trust towards the firm and more favorable consumer attitudes. All these factors, in turn, lead to higher purchase intentions. External CEOs in family firms do not seem to have any de facto advantage regarding perceptions of higher capability.

Thus, the authors contribute to the literature of family firms by showing how family firm's strategic decisions during succession can affect consumer behavior.

With the upgrade of natural language interaction technology, the simulation extension of intelligent voice assistants (IVAs) and the uncertainty of products and services have received more and more attention. However, most of the existing research focuses on investigating the application of theories to explain consumer behavior related to intention to use and adopt IVAs, while ignoring the impact of its privacy issues on consumer resistance. This article especially examines the negative impact of artificial intelligence-based IVAs’ privacy concerns on consumer resistance, and studies the mediating effect of perceived creepiness in the context of privacy cynicism and privacy paradox and the moderating effect of anthropomorphized roles of IVAs and perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) of IVAs’ companies. The demographic variables are also included.

Based on the theory of human–computer interaction (HCI), this study addresses the consumer privacy concerns of IVAs, builds a model of the influence mechanism on consumer resistance, and then verifies the mediating effect of perceived creepiness and the moderating effect of anthropomorphized roles of IVAs and perceived CSR of IVAs companies. This research explores underlying mechanism with three experiments.

It turns out that consumers’ privacy concerns are related to their resistance to IVAs through perceived creepiness. The servant (vs. partner) anthropomorphized role of IVAs is likely to induce more privacy concerns and in turn higher resistance. At the same time, when the company’s CSR is perceived high, the impact of the concerns of IVAs’ privacy issues on consumer resistance will be weakened, and the intermediary mechanism of perceiving creepiness in HCI and anthropomorphism of new technology are further explained and verified. The differences between different age and gender are also revealed in the study.

The research conclusions have strategic reference significance for enterprises to build the design framework of IVAs and formulate the response strategy of IVAs’ privacy concerns. And it offers implications for researchers and closes the research gap of IVAs from the perspective of innovation resistance.

This study examines the interplay between media-induced emotional crisis framing (anger vs sadness) and message sidedness of crisis response on publics’ attribution of crisis responsibility as well as subsequent company evaluation and supportive behavioral intention.

A 2 (emotion: anger vs sadness) x 2 (crisis response: one-sided vs two-sided) online experiment was conducted among 161 participants in the USA.

Results showed that anger-inducing media framing of the crisis elicited higher levels of crisis responsibility attribution and more negative company evaluation, compared with sadness-inducing media framing. One-sided message response was more effective than two-sided message response in lowering attribution of crisis responsibility when sadness was induced, but no difference was found under the anger-induced condition. Attribution of crisis responsibility fully mediated the effects of emotional crisis framing on company evaluation and supportive behavioral intention toward the company.

This study is among the first to examine the interaction effect between emotional media framing and response message sidedness in an ambiguous crisis. Drawing on the interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks, this study integrates the situational crisis communication theory, appraisal-tendency framework and message sidedness in persuasion literature. As such, it contributes to theoretical development in crisis communication and offers communication managers guidance on how to effectively address emotionally framed crises.

Once a corporate crisis is entangled with a social issue, how consumers make sense of the crisis can be impacted by issue-based opinion polarization. This study investigates the underlying mechanisms as consumers go through this process. This study also examines whether corporate social advocacy (CSA) can be an effective crisis-response strategy for mitigating reputational loss.

Theoretical inquiries were empirically tested using an online experiment (N = 792). The experiment set the context in China, in a working-overtime-issue-related crisis. It had a 2 (online exposure: anti-issue opinion vs. pro-issue opinion) × 2 (CSA: absence vs. presence) between-subject design with a continuous variable (pre-existing issue attitudes) measured before the manipulation.

This study found that pre-existing issue attitudes can be directly and indirectly associated with corporate reputation, for the issue attitudes influence how consumers attribute crisis blame. Such a direct effect of pre-existing issue attitudes varies depending on which polarized opinion consumers were exposed to on social media. This study also found CSA to be a robust crisis response strategy, through multiple mechanisms, in protecting the corporate reputation.

Scholars are scarcely aware of the threats that issue-based opinion polarization poses to corporate reputation. This study serves as an early attempt to provide theoretical explanations. In addition to this, this study extends the current conceptual understandings of CSA during corporate crises that involve social issues while adding fresh insights into the established typology of crisis-response strategies.

This research aims to examine the role of consumers' brand trust and attachment on advocacy intention before and after the occurrence of brand misconduct in retail banking. In addition, the influence of brand attachment on consumers' willingness to switch, advocate for and forgive brands is examined in a post-misconduct scenario.

Data were collected through a self-administered online survey questionnaire. A total of 304 valid and usable responses from Australian participants were analysed using IBM SPSS 27.0.

The findings reveal that brand attachment mediates the positive relationship between trust and advocacy intention. Furthermore, brand attachment (1) dilutes consumers' switching intention and (2) strengthens their willingness to forgive the bank after misconduct.

Results suggest that retail banks should create strong brand attachments with their consumers. In addition to brand trust, brand attachment will generate greater advocacy intention among consumers. Moreover, practitioners in retail banking can leverage brand attachment to mitigate the negative impact of brand misconduct.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to examine the impact of brand attachment on the consumer–bank relationship within the context of brand misconduct. The study is also unique in its analysis of the mediating role of brand attachment between brand trust and advocacy. This research further adds to the current literature by suggesting that strong and positive customer connections to the brand facilitate communication and marketing efforts after brand misconduct and that these are effective in maintaining consumer-bank relationship.