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Previous research has shown that children’s ability to understand mental states is related to their consumer development, yet it is unknown how parents can aid in this process. One possible way that parents may help is using mental state communication (i.e. communication that focuses on beliefs/intention to explain behavior by others). This study aims to examine whether this kind of communication is linked to children’s purchase requests through two potential mediators – active mediation and child socio-cognitive skills (i.e. Theory of Mind).

This study used a survey of 420 American mothers with children between the ages of 3 and 7. Respondents were given 12 scenarios describing typical parent–child interactions focused on discussing mental states and were asked how they would respond. Then, respondents were asked about demographic information, parenting style, mediation style, child socio-cognitive skills and child purchase requests.

Results showed both a direct and indirect negative association between parents’ mental state communication and children’s purchase requests via active advertising mediation. Contrary to expectations, active mediation was negatively associated with mental state communication and positively linked to child purchase requests. Children’s socio-cognitive skills were not associated with either parents’ mental state communication or children’s purchase requests.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first known study that has examined mental state communication of parents as a potential predictor in shaping children’s purchase requests and found that it was negatively associated with it.

The present research is trying to construct the network of relationships between different department of an organization during the design and development of car engine. Analyzing the structure of the network, finding the patterns of collaborations, and determining the important departments are the main purposes of the present research.

Improving relationships during a project life is an effective way to enhance employee performance in project-oriented organizations. This paper examines the collaborative relationships between internal project stakeholders through social network analysis (SNA) in a project for the design and development of car engine. In the first step of the research, the network of internal stakeholders was studied based on collaboration in the common activities performed by the resources. Then, the network of correspondences between internal stakeholders was studied. Finally, the two networks were integrated into a single network.

In the integrated network, the “fuel and combustion department” had the largest degree centrality (i.e. highest collaboration with others). The “integration department” was found to have the highest closeness centrality (i.e. more rapid access to other nodes). Furthermore, the “procurement department” had the highest betweenness centrality (i.e. the most strategic department). Our results revealed the potential capabilities of SNA method for the project management in the vehicle industry.

The obtained results of the present research show us the value of applying SNA methods and concepts to analyze the inter-organizational network of the Project Stakeholders relationship.

The authors empirically examine purchasing strategy typologies based on strategic intent (i.e. competitive priorities) and practices used to achieve these priorities. The authors further investigate the implementation conditions of such strategies based on perceived uncertainty and strategic purchasing.

The authors utilize case study data from 11 international service and manufacturing firms with global supply chains. Each company was profiled based on the level of perceived environmental uncertainty, the characteristics of strategic purchasing, the use of relevant purchasing practices and its ability to create value through purchasing.

The study findings show that four purchasing strategy types exist: Purchasing Rationalization, Supply Base Optimization, Purchasing as a Service and World-Class Supply Base Management. Lower levels of perceived environmental uncertainty favor the adoption of rationalization strategies (i.e. Purchasing Rationalization and Supply Base Optimization), while increased uncertainty leads companies to switch to relationship-focused strategies (i.e. Purchasing as a Service and World-Class Supply Base Management). Further, that specific components of strategic purchasing (i.e. strategic planning, maturity, status and report level) enable the successful implementation of different strategy types.

This research contributes to the existing literature by outlining the different types of purchasing strategies and the external and internal factors that need to be considered to achieve strategic alignment and value creation in purchasing, and by classifying purchasing strategy types at the functional level based on empirical evidence.

Children’s sensory involvement refers to the degree to which children engage their senses, such as sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing, in their interactions with the environment. In the context of parents' purchase decisions, children’s sensory involvement pertains to how children's sensory involvement influences the purchasing decisions made by their parents. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of children's sensory involvement on parents’ purchase decisions considering the mediating role of the parent’s attitude.

In this study, a structured questionnaire survey was conducted with parents of children aged 7–12 in Isfahan, Iran. The sample consisted of 210 parents, aimed at elucidating the relationship between variables. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the relationship between variables.

Results showed a significant relationship between children’s sensory involvement and parents’ purchase decisions, children’s sensory involvement and parents’ attitudes and parents’ attitudes and purchase decisions. It was concluded that children’s sensory involvement could indirectly influence the parents’ purchase decisions considering the mediating role of parents' attitudes.

In today's business landscape, it is imperative for organizations to discern the multitude of factors influencing consumers' purchasing decisions. Among these, family dynamics play a substantial role, with children often exerting a strong influence on their parents' buying choices. Despite the acknowledged importance of this dynamic in existing literature, the specific impact of children's sensory involvement on parental purchasing decisions remains largely unexplored. Therefore, this paper aims to fill this gap in the literature by shedding light on the role of children's sensory involvement in shaping parental buying behaviors.

This study aims to investigate customers' personal innovativeness (PI) as an influencing factor of omni-channel customer experience throughout pre-purchase, purchase and post–purchase stages of the customer journey, and their subsequent influences on customers' reuse intention.

Data were collected from customers who had experience with omni-channel shopping in South Korea through a questionnaire made with Naver Forms, both online and offline from 15 June to 15 July 2022. Out of the received responses, only valid and consistent questionnaires were considered for statistical analysis. In total, 272 valid samples were utilised for the final analysis. Analyses included reliability, validity, path, structural equation modelling and mediation effects, using SPSS and AMOS software.

The results revealed a significant influence of personal innovativeness on the omni-channel customer experience across all purchase stages. Personal innovativeness was found to influence the customer experience in the pre- and post–purchase stages, thus affecting reuse intention. However, it did not have the same effect in the purchase stage. The omni-channel experience customer experience also played an indirect mediating role in the relationship between personal innovativeness and reuse intention.

First, personal innovativeness in the IT domain may be very prominent in studies examining innovative behaviours related to computing technology. Second, this study provides further understanding of customers' intentions to reuse omni-channel shopping. Third, the path analysis showed that personal innovativeness significantly affects customer experience at all pre-purchase, purchase and post–purchase stages of the customer journey. However, except for the purchase experience, both pre- and post–purchase experiences significantly impact customers' intention to reuse omni-channels and play a mediating role.

First, omni-channel retailers should launch new products, innovative promotional activities and explore new channels or new service modes to stimulate the need recognition of customers with high personal innovativeness. Second, omni-channel retailers should pay attention to the users' reviews of each channel because they play a key role in potential customers' purchase decisions. Third, offering customers a seamless shopping experience is essential as a marketing strategy for omni-channel retailing.

This study elucidates the causal relationship between personal characteristics and behaviour by dividing the omni-channel customer journey. In particular, personal innovativeness is identified as an important predictor of the intention to reuse omni-channels during the pre- and post–purchase stages. This suggests that omni-channel retailers need to strategically manage these stages to boost customers' reuse intention.

This study aims to analyze how startups organize their purchasing activities to improve operative excellence and become attractive customers.

The authors use a two-phase exploratory approach with semistructured interviews and a World Café. In total, 20 startup purchasers and suppliers participated. It is an international study with participants from eight countries (Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, the UK and the USA).

The authors find that startups organize the purchasing function in five ways: partial outsourcing, transactional-oriented, strategic only, outsourced purchasing and full department. Each type has advantages and disadvantages regarding operative excellence. The authors identify type-specific antecedents to operative excellence: forecasting, payment habits, ordering process, contact accessibility and quick decision-making.

The value of this paper is that it offers entrepreneurs a framework to organize startup purchasing activities, including outsourcing options. Furthermore, it provides theoretical contributions that expand the topic of purchasing and supply organization and operative excellence to the startup context.

The value of this paper is that, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first to explore purchasing organization and operative excellence in startups.

The study aims to determine the extent of COVID-19’s impact on the libraries and information centers within Benguet. It identified the key differences in the effect of the pandemic on each type of library: public, special, school and academic. It recalled and documented the challenges faced by libraries and librarians. It determined which aspects of their library were affected and how they were modified in terms of their policies, personnel, physical space, services, collection, infodemic response and marketing.

The study used the qualitative descriptive method approach, specifically narrative research design and conducted online focus group discussions in which 14 librarians with managerial or supervisory functions participated. This method was used to explore the topic holistically by using qualitative inquiry. It best suited the purpose of fully understanding the experiences of libraries during the pandemic. The recorded online focus group discussions conducted through Zoom were reviewed and analyzed to identify key themes and responses from the participants. The themes identified from the thematic analysis were further validated with the participants through correspondence, chats or e-mails.

The findings showed that libraries were faced with challenges brought on by the lack of a written policy for the pandemic response, a lack of information communication and technology skills and resources, strict requirements on physical setup for pandemic compliance, budget cuts or realignments and delayed procurement, misinformation and users’ lack of awareness of the new services offered by the library.

The study focused on the pandemic experiences of libraries and information centers in Baguio-Benguet, which was hailed as a model for local pandemic response, through the lenses of librarians with supervisory roles or functions.

Libraries could reflect on their experiences in this pandemic to plan for future strategies that would be best implemented in situations where face-to-face services are not allowed.

This study presented various best practices from different library institutions that could be emulated in the future. Many of these are still relevant regardless library services are going back to normal.

This paper aims to use the cognitive appraisal theory to investigate the effects of brand engagement and materialism on the positive emotions of joy and excitement evoked by a product at different stages of the purchase process.

Two complementary studies were conducted to achieve the research objectives. Study 1 used a longitudinal design, examining the pre-purchase stage and a moment shortly after the purchase. Study 2 adopted a cross-sectional approach, focusing on the post-purchase stage. Relationships among variables were analyzed through hierarchical regression and moderation analyses.

The findings indicate that materialism is not significantly associated with consumers’ positive product-evoked emotions (joy and excitement) before and shortly after purchase. At these two stages, brand engagement predicts positive emotions. In the post-purchase stage, where materialism is weakly related to joy and excitement, a robust positive link exists between brand engagement and positive product-evoked emotions. Moreover, higher levels of materialism reduce the experience of joy and excitement among participants with high levels of brand engagement.

Experiencing joy and excitement is crucial in consumer behavior. However, little is known about the determinants of these emotions in the consumption context, especially concerning internal consumption-related factors and different stages of the purchase process. This paper contributes to the field by shedding light on the role of brand engagement and materialism in the experience of positive product-evoked emotions. The findings provide evidence that brand engagement significantly enhances consumers’ positive product-evoked emotions, highlighting its importance in consumer behavior research.

This study aims to examine the impact of different levels of required book-tax conformity (BTC) on audit clients' demand for auditor-provided tax services (APTS). In addition, the authors also investigate the effects of the European Union (EU) Regulation (2014).

This study utilizes a sample of listed companies from 10 EU countries between 2010 and 2019. The final sample consists of 16,049 firm-year observations from 2,515 unique firms, and the authors use both probit and ordinary least square (OLS) regression models in this study.

The main finding of this paper is that companies listed in countries with a higher level of BTC are less likely to purchase tax services from incumbent auditors and pay fewer auditor-provided tax service fees. Results from further analyses confirm that firms substantially reduced their purchase of APTS after the EU Regulation (2014) was implemented, but these reduced purchases were found to be more pronounced for firms located in countries with low BTC.

This study advances the understanding of the determinants of APTS and the consequences of BTC. Specifically, the authors report that variation in a country-specific feature (i.e. BTC) also affects firms' decision to purchase APTS. Moreover, this paper provides some preliminary evidence of the new regulation and contributes to the literature on APTS regulation. The findings of this study have important policy implications for regulators and are also relevant for various capital market participants.

By adopting a cross-country analysis, this study aims to investigate how consumers' perception of book covers affects their online book purchases in terms of feelings of delight and perceived value of the book.

The authors tested the hypotheses using a structural equation model using two countries' datasets obtained from 191 Japanese and 207 French consumers.

The perceived attractiveness of a picture/photo on a book cover can positively influence feelings of delight. Such emotion enhances a book's perceived value, resulting in active online book purchases. Furthermore, when the perceived value of a book is evident, the French are more strongly motivated to purchase books compared to Japanese consumers.

By simultaneously examining emotion and perceived value as an organism, the authors advance the knowledge of the relationship between book covers and online book purchases. In addition, the authors offer evidence that cross-cultural differences (between the French and Japanese) can stimulate different responses to each affective and cognitive internal state, although similar environmental stimuli are provided.