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Although visual prototypicality in fashion is an observed phenomenon, empirical examinations of the link between fashion products' design prototypicality and consumer evaluations still need to be included. The present study analyzes the influence of the visual prototypicality of fashion products on consumer-perceived product values and brand preference.

An online survey adopting the fashion product images with significantly differing levels of visual prototypicality was used to collect data from 456 US consumers. The hypothesized relationships among visual prototypicality, product values and brand preference were analyzed through multi-group analysis.

Perceived visual typicality of fashion product designs significantly increased the hedonic and utilitarian value of the product and only indirectly increase brand preference. The hypothesized positive relationship between visual prototypicality and the product’s social value was found to be significant only in the low-price levels but became insignificant in the high-price levels.

The findings of this study contribute to the extant literature by first providing an initial analysis of the mechanism of visual prototypicality in the fashion product design field. The results confirm that visual prototypicality indirectly influences consumers' brand evaluations by the product’s perceived value. This relationship was previously assumed but not empirically proven only in non-fashion product categories. The study also presents additional new points, further enriching the understanding of visual typicality. Additionally, the results show the complex relationship between the visual prototypicality of fashion product designs and the perceived social value of the product, which varies depending on the price range.

How does business model design play a role in enabling manufacturing firms’ services? This study aims to investigate the impact of two distinct types of business model design, namely, efficiency-centered business model design (EBMD) and novelty-centered business model design (NBMD), and their effects in balanced and imbalanced configurations, on two types of services: product- and customer-oriented services.

Using matched survey data of 390 top managers and objective performance data of 195 Chinese manufacturing firms, this study uses hierarchical regression, polynomial regression and response surface analysis to test the hypotheses.

The results show that while EBMD positively affects product-oriented services, NBMD positively affects customer-oriented services. Both types of services exert a significant influence on firm performance. Furthermore, the degree of product- and customer-oriented services increases with an increasing effort level with a balance between EBMD and NBMD. Asymmetrical, imbalanced configuration effects reveal that the degree of product-oriented services is higher when the EBMD effort exceeds the NBMD effort, and the degree of customer-oriented services is higher when the NBMD effort exceeds the EBMD effort.

This study enriches the understanding of designing business models to facilitate service growth in manufacturing firms, ultimately benefiting firm performance. In addition, exploring balanced and imbalanced configurations of EBMD and NBMD offers new insights into business model dual design research.

Food quality and safety issues have always been imperative topics discussed by people. The anti-tampering of blockchain technology and the transparency of information make it possible to improve food traceability and safety quality. How to effectively apply blockchain traceability technology to food safety has great research significance for improving food safety and consumer quality trust.

The paper aims to analyze the differences in product quality levels and market participants’ profits before and after the use of blockchain-driven traceability technology in the food agricultural product supply chain (SC) in the dynamic game frameworks of supplier-led and retailer-led modes, respectively, and explores the willingness, social welfare and consumer surplus of each member of the agricultural product SC to participate in the blockchain. Besides, We investigate the SC performance improvement with the mechanism of central centralized decision-making and revenue-sharing contract, compared to the SC performance in dynamic games.

The results are obtained as follow: The adoption of blockchain traceability technology can help improve the quality of food agricultural products, consumer surplus and social welfare, but the application and popularization of technology is hindered by traceability technology installment costs. Compared with the supplier leadership model, retailer-led food quality level, customer surplus and social welfare are higher.

How to effectively apply blockchain traceability technology to food safety has great research significance for improving food safety and consumer quality trust.

Food quality and safety issues have always been hot topics discussed by people. The anti-tampering of blockchain technology and the transparency of information make it possible to improve food traceability and safety quality.

The research results enrich the theories related to food safety and quality, and provide a valuable reference for food enterprises involved in the decision-making exploration of blockchain technology.

Based on the characteristics of blockchain technology, the demand function is adjusted and the product loss risk of channel members is transferred through a Stackelberg game SC composed of agricultural products suppliers and retailers.

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  We introduce two features of blockchain: quality trust and product information tracking.

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  The willingness of each member of the supply chain to use blockchain for product traceability was explored.

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  The overall traceability effect of the retailer-led blockchain is better than that of the manufacturer-led blockchain.

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  The cost of blockchain technology is a barrier to its adoption.

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  Blockchain brings higher consumer surplus and social welfare.

We introduce two features of blockchain: quality trust and product information tracking.

The willingness of each member of the supply chain to use blockchain for product traceability was explored.

The overall traceability effect of the retailer-led blockchain is better than that of the manufacturer-led blockchain.

The cost of blockchain technology is a barrier to its adoption.

Blockchain brings higher consumer surplus and social welfare.

This research is aimed to examine how environmental pollution affects consumers' preference for self-improvement products.

Through a series of three experimental studies, this research substantiates our hypotheses by employing various manipulations of environmental pollution and examining different types of self-improvement products.

The research demonstrates that environmental pollution enhances consumers' preference for self-improvement products via the mediation of perceived environmental responsibility. And the effect is negatively moderated by social equity sensitivity.

The recurrent incidence of environmental pollution has elicited significant concern among the general public and academic scholars. An overwhelming majority of research examining the impact of pollution on consumer behavior has concentrated on its influence on environmentally friendly and healthy consumption patterns. Nevertheless, the current research proposes that pollution fosters a preference for products associated with self-improvement, mediated by perceived environmental responsibility, with the effects being moderated by social equity sensitivity.

This study explores the viability of incorporating more expensive organic wheat flour into speciality bakery products, which are of superior quality, thus justifying the higher cost. As consumers may be reluctant to purchase organic speciality baked goods due to unfavorable taste associations with organic foods, particularly those consumed as a treat or for pleasure, this study investigates the impact of providing taste assurances and origin information on consumer acceptance and WTP for organic speciality bakery products.

Using data from an online survey of US consumers, random parameter logit models were estimated and willingness-to-pay (WTP) values were calculated.

Study results show that the use of more expensive organic flour is justified for speciality bakery products when favorable taste assurances are provided or for consumers who value organic foods. Freshness indictors were only important in the case of speciality breads, but not for other products. Finally, improving consumer awareness of organic labeling standards does not significantly impact their organic product preferences or taste perceptions.

This analysis aims to identify the product information likely to increase the consumption of organic speciality bakery/pastry products and thus support the incorporation of organic wheat flour into these higher-value products.

While previous choice experiment studies have extensively examined consumer preferences for organic products, few have evaluated the impact of providing taste and freshness indicators, particularly in the context of vice goods. This study examines the impact of providing taste and freshness indicators on consumer acceptance and WTP for various organic speciality bakery/pastry products in stated choice experiments, where consumers to not have the option to taste the product. Specifically, we examine if taste and freshness assurances reduce potential negative organic product taste biases.

Drawing upon extended-self theory, this research aims to understand how different access modes of consumption and product type influence consumers' perceptions of self-product connection and sense of individual and collective ownership.

Two experiments assessed the impact of access modes (temporary vs permanent) and product types (tangible vs intangible) on individual and collective psychological ownership (IPO and CPO) as well as the mediating role of self-product connection in these relationships.

Temporary access reduces IPO compared to permanent access. Moreover, self-product connection mediates the relationship between access modes and both IPO and CPO. Product type significantly moderates the degree of psychological ownership, with intangible products having a notable influence on the impacts of access modes on IPO and CPO.

Understanding the nuances of access-based consumption and its effects on psychological ownership can inform marketers and businesses in designing more effective strategies for product offerings and access modes. Highlighting self-product connection can aid in cultivating stronger consumer relationships and loyalty in access-based consumption contexts.

This study contributes to the existing literature on consumer access-based consumption by shedding light on the changing dynamics of material possessions and the psychological mechanisms underlying ownership perceptions in access-based models.

Given the growing emphasis on environmental consciousness and sustainability as core principles within most companies, product-service systems are recognized as strategic approaches to achieving sustainability objectives. Consequently, understanding consumer acceptance of these systems is of paramount importance. This study seeks to explore users' perspectives on the barriers that impede the adoption of product-service systems, intending to prioritize these obstacles.

This study utilizes a social media-based approach, specifically analyzing tweets related to Zipcar, an American car rental company that exemplifies a usage-oriented product-service system. The analysis identifies the factors influencing the acceptance of this system. The study utilizes topic modeling and sentiment analysis techniques to analyze the tweets. The opportunity value of each topic is determined, aiding in the identification of topics that require improvement. Furthermore, the interrelation between topics is explored, followed by correlation analysis to assess their significance.

Eight topics strongly related to the keywords are identified. Among them, “responsiveness”, “responsibility”, and “trust” hold the highest opportunity values. The findings emphasize the importance of service providers proactively addressing the obstacles that impede consumers' willingness to adopt product-service systems. Prioritization should be given to topics with higher opportunity values.

This research uncovers the primary obstacles to adopting the product-service system by directly considering consumer opinions and providing a prioritized list of these obstacles.

Compared to traditional (domestic) e-commerce consumers, cross-border electronic commerce (CBEC) consumers may face greater information asymmetry in the CBEC purchase process. Given this background, however, the literature has paid limited attention to the informational antecedents that influence consumers' perceptions of transaction costs and their CBEC purchase intentions. To fill this gap, this study integrates the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and transaction cost theory (TCT) to develop a model for exploring how product (website informativeness, product diagnosticity and website interactivity as the central route) and external (country brand, website policy and vendor reputation as the peripheral route) informational antecedents affect consumers’ evaluations of transaction costs in terms of uncertainty and asset specificity and their CBEC purchase intentions.

This study employs a survey approach to validate the model with 766 Generation Z CBEC consumers based on judgment sampling. The partial least squares (PLS) technique is adopted for data analysis.

The results show that all the proposed central and peripheral informational antecedents reduce consumers’ perceptions of uncertainty and asset specificity, which in turn negatively influences their CBEC purchase intentions.

Through this investigation, this study increases our understanding of how product and external informational antecedents affect consumers’ evaluations of transaction costs, which subsequently determine their CBEC purchase decisions. This study offers theoretical contributions to existing CBEC research and has practical implications for CBEC organizations and managers.

This paper aims to explore the use of digital technologies in enabling circular ecosystems. We apply supply network (SN) configuration theory and a novel resource pooling lens, more typically used in financial systems, to identify inventory pools, information repositories and financial exchange models among network actors.

Five in-depth circular SN case studies are examined where digital technologies are extensively deployed to support circularity, each case representing alternative SN configurations. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews to map SN and resource pooling configurations across each circular ecosystem, with cross-case analysis used to identify distinct pooling and digital strategies.

Results suggest three digitally enabled circular ecosystem archetypes and their related governance modalities: consortia-based information pooling for resource recovery, intermediary-enabled material and financial pooling for remanufacturing and platform-driven information, material and financial pooling for resource optimisation.

Drawing on SN configuration and resource pooling literature, we recognise distinct configurational, stakeholder and resource pooling dimensions characterising circular ecosystems. While this research is exploratory and the identified archetypes not exhaustive, the combination of resource pooling and configuration lenses offers new insights on circular ecosystem configurations and the critical role of resource pools and enabling digital technologies.

We demonstrate the utility of the resource pooling and configuration approach in the design of digitally enabled circular ecosystems. These archetypes provide practitioners and policymakers with alternative design frameworks when considering circular SN transformations.

This paper introduces a resource netting and pooling configuration lens to circular ecosystems, analogous to financial systems, where cyclical flows and stock are critical and enabled through digital technologies.

Due to advances in both software and hardware, obsolescence risk refers to the fear that a product will soon become obsolete, which can be very high for technological products such as smartwatches or smartphones. Drawing on the perceived risk theory and innovation resistance, this study examines the effects of different obsolescence risks on consumer resistance to smartwatches.

A sequential explanatory approach using a mixed method was adopted in this study. In Study 1, we conducted semi-structured and in-depth face-to-face interviews with 16 individuals to identify the most important obsolescence risks affecting consumers’ resistance to smartwatches. This qualitative study develops a novel theoretical model based on interpretive results, including technological, economic, functional, and aesthetic obsolescence risks. In Study 2, we tested our theoretical model by applying partial least-squares structural equation modeling to a sample of 298 smartwatch users.

The results show that consumer resistance to smartwatches is affected by technological, economic, functional, and aesthetic obsolescence risks.

Although most extant studies have focused on the factors influencing the adoption and use of consumer electronics, little is known about the role of obsolescence risk in consumers’ resistance to these products.