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Brand hate as a distinct phenomenon of consumer negativity has attracted considerable research attention in recent years. However, scant attention has been paid to explain the underlying mechanism of brand hate. Therefore, the present study aims to unveil how brand hate stirs in embarrassing situations and what repercussions it ignites that deteriorate the consumer–brand relationship.

The present study follows a mixed-method research design by conducting in-depth interviews with 16 consumers and then collecting three waves of time-lagged data from 217 respondents of two different countries. The reliability and validity have been established through confirmatory factor analysis, and hypotheses were analyzed using structural equation modeling and moderated-mediated models.

The results of both qualitative and quantitative investigations reveal that brand embarrassment instigates brand hate, and brand hate leads to brand detachment. Brand hate also mediates the relationship between brand embarrassment and brand detachment. Consumer vanity enhances the strength of brand embarrassment's effects on brand hate. This relationship further depicts the moderated mediation pattern as consumers with high vanity traits express extreme emotions of hate and detachment from the embarrassing brands. In addition, the findings demonstrate that the moderating role of consumer vanity is more pronounced among young consumers.

The study marks an initial attempt to explain the whole process of brand hate by incorporating brand embarrassment, brand detachment, consumer vanity and age in an integrated moderated mediation model. The study enhances brand managers' understanding of the severity of the consequences of embarrassing situations and devising preventive strategies.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine how psychological power explains dual conflicting emotions, influences and jeopardises knowledge sharing and eventually affects job performance. Specifically, this study argues that psychological power can induce feelings of pride and anxiety, which have opposite downstream effects on employees’ knowledge sharing and tasks, proactive and affiliative (TPA) performances.

This study tested the model using three waves of multi-source data from 46 teams and 357 respondents in the information technology and software industry in China. This study used multilevel structural equation modelling with Mplus 7.4 to examine the within-level team variance and thereby estimated the confidence intervals for the direct and indirect paths.

The results indicate that increased psychological power can cause contradictory emotions (i.e. pride and anxiety). Pride positively mediates the indirect influence of psychological power on knowledge sharing and TPA performance, while anxiety negatively mediates the above-mentioned indirect relationships.

This study provides a novel perspective on how psychological forces shape people’s emotional experiences and subsequently their motivation to share knowledge and job performance. By integrating the existing power literature rooted in the approach/inhibition theory of power and cognitive appraisal theory of emotion, we identify two discrete emotions as underlying mechanisms between increased psychological power and motivation to share knowledge and job performance.

This research provides insights for managers regarding the ways in which psychological power can stimulate individuals to engage in negative behaviour towards others. Managers, in turn, must consider self-regulation to control this negative impact.

This study is among the earliest to examine the role of discrete positive and negative emotions caused by increased psychological power, which subsequently affect knowledge sharing and TPA performance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of enterprise social media (ESM) use on two trust dimensions – affect-based trust (ABT) and cognition-based trust (CBT) – as mediators in the relationship between ESM use and knowledge sharing. In the first stage of the proposed model, the authors also consider transparent communication (TC) and personal blogging with colleagues (PBC) during work and non-work hours as moderators that reshape trust levels and subsequently promote knowledge sharing within the organisation.

The authors collected the data in three waves from employees in China, the world’s largest market for social media. Five companies, including three information technology companies and two software companies, were targeted for data collection. Initially, a total of 403 ESM users were recruited, but the final sample in the final round was reduced to N = 292. The authors used Mplus (v8.5) to calculate direct path coefficients and indirect moderated-mediation effects.

The use of ESM promotes ABT and CBT, thereby improving knowledge sharing. ABT and CBT both fully mediate the effect of ESM use on knowledge sharing. However, the research reveals paradoxical findings regarding moderation. For example, on the one hand, TC negatively moderates the association between ESM use and ABT, thereby reducing knowledge sharing in the workplace. On the other hand, TC strengthens the relationship between the use of ESM and CBT, thereby increasing knowledge sharing. These contradictory findings indicate that TC functions as a double-edged sword; thus, the effective use of ESM in the workplace requires managers’ intervention. Finally, the analysis reveals that the moderating role of PBC strengthens the association between ESM use and both ABT and CBT, thereby increasing knowledge sharing.

While stakeholders have expressed concern regarding the adverse impacts of workplace ESM adoption on employee performance, the authors provide a broad, novel perspective on the potential of ESM use to enhance knowledge sharing via trust (i.e. ABT and CBT). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to offer a comparative view of trust dimensions, such as ABT and CBT, and to discuss how, why and when TC and PBC interactions moderate the relationship of ESM to ABT and CBT and thereby lead to knowledge sharing. These interesting findings guide further research into the role of ESM in the workplace, especially research based on rational choice theory and communication visibility theory, by illuminating the ways in which employees can use ESM to reshape social communication in the workplace and thereby enhance knowledge sharing.

This study aims to determine the current state of implementation and effectiveness of education for sustainable development (ESD) in Pakistani higher education institutions (HEIs) using students’ and teachers’ perceptions of sustainability.

A survey on teachers and students was conducted in public and private universities in Punjab, Pakistan. Data from 1,915 students and 120 teachers were collected through semi-structured questionnaires implemented during face-to-face interviews. Students were asked to rank social, environmental and economic indicators of sustainability consciousness (SC) on a five-point Likert scale. Structural equation model and regression model are used to analyze the data. The perceptions of students and teachers were assessed from their knowledge of sustainability.

The occurrence of ESD in Pakistani HEIs is low and teachers have inadequate knowledge of sustainability. The holistic approach to ESD has a more pronounced effect on students’ SC as compared to the pluralistic approach to ESD. Also, there is a correlation between the students’ grades/class and the effectiveness of ESD. There is a need to pay more attention to implement ESD for undergraduate students in Pakistani HEIs.

The study stands out for using cross-sectional data from public and private universities of Pakistan. Furthermore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in Pakistan which attempts to investigate the effectiveness of ESD in terms of students’ SC.

Technology has emerged as a leading tool to address concerns regarding climate change in the recent era. As a result, the green mobile application – Ant Forest – was developed, and it has considerable potential to reduce negative environmental impacts by encouraging its users to become involved in eco-friendly activities. Ant Forest is a novel unexplored green mobile gaming phenomenon. To address this gap, this study explores the influence of user experience (cognitive experience and affective experience), personal attributes (affection and altruism) and motivational factors in game play (reward for activities and self-promotion) on the continuation intention toward Ant Forest.

The authors assessed the data using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for understanding users' continuation intention toward Ant Forest.

Through a survey of 337 Ant Forest users, the results reveal that cognitive and affective experiences substantially affect Ant Forest continuation intention. Personal attributes and motivational factors also stimulate users to continue using Ant Forest.

The authors build and confirm a conceptual framework to understand users' continuation intention toward a novel unexplored Ant Forest phenomenon.

This study investigates the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on organizational performance, especially competitive performance (CP) along with moderating role of the organizational culture (OC) from the banking sector of China. Drawing on the stakeholder theory, the first goal is to examine the relationships between CSR and organizational CP. Second, the purpose is to evaluate the moderation of OC between the relationship of CSR and CP, respectively.

SEM using SmartPLS was majorly engaged to ascertain the relationship and to inquire the assumed hypotheses. The convenience sampling was engaged to collect the data from the Chinese banking market with the help of students, colleagues and personal visits.

The findings exhibited that CSR both external and internal CSR has significant correlations on organizational CP within banking sector of China. Second, the findings revealed a positive moderation influence of OC between the relationships of CSR and organizational CP. The comprehensive analysis of each factor of CSR on organizational CP was autonomously inspected to understand the insights which ensure that how the incorporation of CSR and OC activities may improve organizational CP.

This study faces numerous limitations related to sample and geographic locations that assure new work possibilities for researchers across the world.

This study equips insightful information for management on how organizations can obtain CP by consolidating CSR and OC activities as their more productive strategic tools. This article endows with potential theoretical and managerial implications with empirical addition to concerned literature of OC, CSR and organizational CP.

Understanding OC and CSR activities can provide interesting and helpful insights for the personnel to perform well within the banking institutes.

The topic of CSR and culture has been known as the evolving concept that is getting strong concern for the researchers. The additional work particularly empirical is yet required to explore the insights on CSR and OC themes worldwide, especially in developing nations.

Sustainability failures have increased the pressure for manufacturing firms to come up with innovative solutions to resolve the sustainable matters. Drawing on the resource-based theory, the purpose of this study is to examine how supply chain visibility moderates the effects of sustainable practices on sustainable performance.

The data employed in the current work were collected from 355 small and medium manufacturing firms in Pakistan using a structured questionnaire. The structural equation modelling was applied to the collected data with AMOSS-23 and SPSS-25 package

The results show that sustainable practices (for manufacturing, procurement and distribution) significantly influence the firm's sustainability performance, and this relationship is moderated by supply chain visibility.

Sustainable practices are necessary for small and medium enterprises to achieve sustainable performance, but the previously under-explored moderating effect of supply chain visibility generally indicates that sharing information for learning, sensing and co-ordinating activities plays an intensifying effect.

This study investigates the integration of information technology (IT) competencies with organizational inclusion initiatives and its impact on firm performance. It examines the role of organizational inclusion in promoting knowledge management capability (KMC) and the moderating effect of approach and avoidance motivation on the relationship between KMC and operational performance.

The study is grounded in the resource orchestration theory (ROT), which conceptualizes the integration of IT competencies and organizational inclusion. It employs hierarchical regression analysis on data collected from 204 firms and 374 managerial respondents to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results indicate that IT competencies enhance the relationship between organizational inclusion and KMC. Additionally, the relationship between KMC and operational performance is weaker when employees exhibit higher levels of avoidance motivation.

This study offers theoretical and managerial insights for integrating IT competencies into organizational inclusion initiatives, providing guidance for organizations seeking to enhance their performance, with a specific focus on the relevance of China as the research context.

This study enriches the scholarly discourse by examining the underexplored integration of IT competencies with organizational inclusion, notably in the context of China. It illuminates the moderating role of motivation in the KMC-operational performance relationship, benefiting both academia and practitioners. Furthermore, this work extends the literature by demonstrating how combining organizational inclusion and IT competencies can enhance workplace KMC, connecting it to internal knowledge resources. Theoretical implications extend beyond organizational inclusion and IT to show the broader application potential of ROT in management and information systems.

The uncertainties, ambiguities and unknown issues that characterize the beginning of a new product development project have led practitioners and scholars to coin the term “fuzzy front end” to refer to this seminal stage. The causes of many product failures can be traced back to this fuzzy front end. Despite a growing realization of its importance, the meaning of the term “front-end fuzziness” itself remains vague. A theory-based framework is not available to guide thinking and research on this important topic. The purpose of this paper is to create a conceptual framework for fuzzy front end.

This paper applies Daft and Lengel’s (1986) theory of organizational information processing to create a framework for research on the fuzzy front end of product innovation. This framework is used to clarify the concept of front-end fuzziness and identify three sources of fuzziness in the project team’s task environment.

Contrary to the current literature, the authors argue that equivocality rather than uncertainty is the dominant cause of front-end fuzziness. This new conceptualization: appropriately broadens the concept of front-end fuzziness; identifies new problem areas; highlights the need for new solutions; and suggests the need to focus on team vision as a front-end deliverable.

The previous literature used a single uncertainty reduction rationale for integrative mechanisms. Thus, it did not consider that the implementation might change from front end to downstream. The dual theoretical rationale suggests that integrative mechanisms can be implemented differently to focus either on uncertainty or equivocality reduction. In the front end, equivocality is the dominant issue and mechanisms should be implemented in ways that create a rich channel to identify issues and share perspectives. In downstream activities where the dominant issue is uncertainty reduction, mechanisms might be implemented in ways that provide greater quantities of information on known issues.

This new conceptualization of front-end fuzziness provides a better theoretical rationale for how integrative mechanisms enable a project team to work through the fuzziness it faces, creating a clear team vision that guides its downstream efforts.

In the presence of government procurement, one important driving force behind a poor farmer entering into sales format agreements is to improve profits. In this study, the authors examine two widely used sales formats, namely resale format and agent format, to investigate how parameters influence the optimal sales format selection and decision equilibriums of supply chain members under the scenarios with or without the buyer's poverty alleviation efforts.

This paper adopts the Stackelberg game-theoretical approach to examine the interactions between the farmer from poor/rural areas and the buyer.

The authors find that under certain conditions, the optimal sales format of the poor farmer and buyer can be consistent, which eliminates conflicts in the sales format selection. In addition, with the buyer's poverty alleviation effort, the poor farmer and buyer can achieve the Pareto improvement, which is a win–win outcome for them. The authors also find that the market price in government procurement is independent of competition, which is consistent with practical observations.

It is the first study to investigate the optimal sales format selection given government procurement as a poverty alleviation effort which is in competition with a firm's regular channel.