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Article
Publication date: 18 March 2024

Rajat Roy, Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Diana Awad and Vishal Mehrotra

This study aims to investigate the fit of a promotion (prevention) focus with malicious (benign) envy and how this fit influences positive and negative behaviours, depending on…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the fit of a promotion (prevention) focus with malicious (benign) envy and how this fit influences positive and negative behaviours, depending on the context.

Design/methodology/approach

Four empirical studies (two laboratory and two online experiments) were used to test key hypotheses. Study 1 manipulated regulatory focus and envy in a job application setting with university students. Study 2 engaged similar manipulations in a social media setting. Studies 3 and 4 extended the regulatory focus and envy manipulations to the general population in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) and pay-it-forward (PIF) restaurant contexts.

Findings

The findings showed that a promotion (prevention) focus fits with the emotion of malicious (benign) envy. In the social media context, promotion and prevention foci demonstrated negative behaviour, including unfollowing the envied person, when combined with malicious and benign envy. In the PWYW and PIF contexts, combining envy with a specific type of regulatory focus encouraged both positive and negative behaviours through influencing payments.

Research limitations/implications

Future research could validate and extend this study’s findings with different product/service categories, cross-cultural samples and research methods such as field experiments.

Practical implications

The four studies’ findings will assist managers in formulating marketing strategies to enhance their positioning of target products/services, possibly leading to higher prices for PWYW and PIF businesses.

Originality/value

The conceptual model is novel as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no prior research has proposed and tested the fit between envy type and regulatory foci.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 July 2023

Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Rajat Roy, Sanjit K. Roy and Rana Sobh

Digital self-expression, recently one of the most important research themes, is currently under-researched. In this context, this study aims to propose a parsimonious research…

Abstract

Purpose

Digital self-expression, recently one of the most important research themes, is currently under-researched. In this context, this study aims to propose a parsimonious research model of self-extension tendency, its drivers and its outcomes. The model is tested in the context of social media engagement intentions (liking, sharing and commenting) with focal brands and across individualist versus collectivist cultures.

Design/methodology/approach

The model is tested in two individualist cultures (N = 230 and 232) and two collectivist cultures (N = 232 and 237) by conducting surveys in four countries (Australia, USA, Qatar and India). Nike and Ray-Ban are the focal brands studied, with Facebook serving as the targeted social networking site (SNS) platform.

Findings

Self-monitoring and self-esteem are found to drive the self-extension tendency across cultures, with stronger effects in the individualist culture than in the collectivist culture. The self-extension tendency has a relatively stronger positive influence on social media engagement intentions in the individualist culture than in the collectivist culture. This tendency is also found to mediate the link between self-monitoring, self-extension and social media engagement intentions across both cultures, albeit in different ways. In collectivist culture, self-monitoring’s influence on the self-extension tendency is moderated by public self-consciousness. The study’s findings have important theoretical and practical implications. In individualist culture, self-monitoring’s influence on the self-extension tendency is moderated by public self-consciousness.

Research limitations/implications

The present findings confirm that the tendency to incorporate the brand into one’s self-concept and to further extend the self is indeed contingent on one’s cultural background. The role of public self-consciousness may vary between individualist and collectivist cultures, something recommended by past research for empirical testing.

Practical implications

Managers can leverage this research model to entice pro-brand social media engagement by nurturing consumers’ digital selves in terms of maneuvering their self-extension tendency and its drivers, namely, self-monitoring and self-esteem. Second, promoting the self-extension tendency and its drivers varies across cultures, with this finding offering practical cultural nuances supporting marketing managers’ decisions.

Originality/value

This is one of the pioneering studies that tests a cross-cultural parsimonious model based on theories of self-extension, self-monitoring and self-esteem, especially within the context of brand engagement intentions on an SNS platform.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 57 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 January 2022

Fayrene Chieng, Piyush Sharma, Russel PJ Kingshott and Rajat Roy

This paper aims to examine the differences in the process by which three types of self-congruity (actual, ideal and social) interact with the need for uniqueness (NFU) to…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the differences in the process by which three types of self-congruity (actual, ideal and social) interact with the need for uniqueness (NFU) to influence brand loyalty via brand experience and brand attachment.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey with 428 members of an Australian consumer panel. The data are analyzed using the structural equation modeling (SEM).

Findings

The results show that social self-congruity (SSC) has a direct effect on the brand attachment, but actual and ideal self-congruity (ASC and ISC) influence it only indirectly through brand experience. Moreover, the NFU strengthens the positive effect of ISC but weakens the effect of SSC on brand attachment.

Research limitations/implications

This study uses publicly consumed brands and the NFU as the moderator. Future research may study privately consumer brands and use other moderators, such as regulatory focus (promotion vs prevention).

Originality/value

This study extends current research on brand attachment by highlighting the positive influence of SSC on brand attachment. It also establishes the mediating role of brand experience and the moderating role of the NFU. These are new insights about the underlying process and the boundary conditions for the well-established relationship between self-congruity and brand attachment.

Details

Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 31 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1061-0421

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 July 2017

Rajat Roy and Vik Naidoo

This paper aims to investigate the direct and interactive effects of regulatory focus (promotion versus prevention), attribute type (search versus experience) and word of mouth…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the direct and interactive effects of regulatory focus (promotion versus prevention), attribute type (search versus experience) and word of mouth valence (positive versus negative) on consumption decision for a service and a product.

Design/methodology/approach

Three empirical studies (two laboratories and a field experiment) using “university” and “mobile phone” as the research setting were used to test the key hypotheses.

Findings

Promotion (prevention)-focused subjects preferred experience (search) attributes over their counterparts while making consumption decision. This preference was further reinforced for both promotion and prevention-focused people under positive word of mouth. Under negative word of mouth, in comparison to their counterparts, promotion-focused people still retained their preference for experience attributes, whereas prevention-focused subjects reversed their preference and maintained status quo.

Research limitations/implications

Future research may validate and extend authors’ findings by looking into the underlying process or studying additional word of mouth variables that may moderate the current findings.

Practical implications

The findings will help managers devise a range of marketing strategies in the areas of advertising and product positioning, especially for products/services that are showcased in terms of experience and search attributes.

Originality/value

The current research is novel as no prior research has proposed and tested the two-way interaction between regulatory focus and search/experience attributes, or its further moderation by word of mouth valence.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 51 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 May 2017

Rajat Roy

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of regulatory focus (promotion vs prevention) and mixed valence attributes (positive imagery and negative analytical vs…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of regulatory focus (promotion vs prevention) and mixed valence attributes (positive imagery and negative analytical vs negative imagery and positive analytical) on consumers’ evaluation and purchase intention for a product.

Design/methodology/approach

A pre-test followed by a single between subject’s experiment was conducted to test the major hypotheses in the study.

Findings

Results show that promotion (prevention) focus prefers the product when it is described in terms of positive imagery but negative analytical (positive analytical but negative imagery) attributes in terms of both evaluation and purchase intention.

Research limitations/implications

Future research may validate and extend the current findings with other product or service categories, and study the underlying processes that guide decision making.

Practical implications

Findings from this study will help managers devise a range of marketing strategies in the areas of advertising, segmentation and product positioning.

Originality/value

The current research is novel as it addresses lack of research that engages imagery and analytical attributes with different valences, and fills in a gap as to how regulatory focus will rely on imagery (analytical) attributes with different valences while making product decisions.

Details

Marketing Intelligence & Planning, vol. 35 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-4503

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 December 2019

Rajat Roy, Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Himadri Roy Chaudhuri and Preetha Menon

This paper aims to examine how social comparison (SC) and belief in karma (KA) encourage materialism (MAT) and promote consumers’ life satisfaction (LS).

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine how social comparison (SC) and belief in karma (KA) encourage materialism (MAT) and promote consumers’ life satisfaction (LS).

Design/methodology/approach

Two studies were conducted with Indian middle class consumers to test the basic premises of the current research. The first one used a survey (N = 247), while the second one used an experimental design (N = 206).

Findings

The survey results showed that SC and belief in KA promoted MAT amongst Indian consumers and further enhanced their LS. Findings from the experiment revealed a novel two-way interaction, in that the KA–MAT relationship was moderated by the underlying motivation for MAT.

Research limitations/implications

Future research may validate and extend our findings using different samples to increase external validity.

Practical implications

By explaining the interactive effects of MAT, its underlying motivation and belief in KA, managers will gain a better understanding of why consumers in an emerging market like India purchase conspicuous products.

Originality/value

This is the first paper to study how the KA–MAT relationship influences LS amongst consumers in the world’s fastest-rising economy. Furthermore, no prior research has reported a boundary condition for the KA–MAT relationship studied here. The findings contribute to an extremely limited body of literature on KA and consumption.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 54 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 May 2016

Rajat Roy, Fazlul K. Rabbanee and Piyush Sharma

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct and indirect effects of social visibility (private vs public), purchase motivation (intrinsic vs extrinsic vs altruistic…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct and indirect effects of social visibility (private vs public), purchase motivation (intrinsic vs extrinsic vs altruistic) and external reference price (ERP) (absent vs present) on consumers’ pricing decisions in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) context.

Design/methodology/approach

Two empirical studies with a fitness gym as the research setting were used to test all the hypotheses; first, a lab experiment with undergraduate student participants and, the second, an online experiment with a consumer panel.

Findings

Both studies show that consumers allocate a higher share (RATIO) of their internal reference prices (IRPs) to the prices to be paid (PTP) in PWYW context, in private under intrinsic purchase motivation and in public under extrinsic or altruistic motivation and this effect is more pronounced in the absence of ERP.

Research limitations/implications

Future research may validate and extend the findings of this paper with other product or service categories, different manipulations for the key variables, other research methods such as field experiments and expand our model by including other relevant variables.

Practical implications

The findings of this paper will help managers understand how individual customers’ purchase motivation and the social visibility in the PWYW setting affect their pricing decisions and how providing external pricing cues may moderate these effects.

Originality/value

Prior research on PWYW shows mixed findings about the direct effects of many variables on consumers’ pricing decisions, but it ignores the differences in consumers’ purchase motivations and offers mixed evidence about the influence of social visibility and ERPs on payment decisions. The authors address all these gaps in this paper.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 50 no. 5/6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 September 2019

Nebojsa S. Davcik, Piyush Sharma, Ricky Chan and Rajat Roy

The purpose of this paper is to present the contemporary thinking on deliberate lookalikes and to provide a better understanding of its key forms (counterfeits, copycats and…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present the contemporary thinking on deliberate lookalikes and to provide a better understanding of its key forms (counterfeits, copycats and no-name imitations) and markets (deceptive and non-deceptive).

Design/methodology/approach

This editorial contains a review of current and past literature on deliberate lookalikes along with summaries of all the articles accepted for publication in the special issue on deliberate lookalikes. The guest editors used academic databases such as Web of Science to find the most representative scholarly work on deliberate lookalikes literature.

Findings

This editorial identifies pertinent research gaps in the literature on deliberate lookalikes. The five selected articles address some of these research gaps and provide useful insights on the purchase and usage of deliberate lookalikes along with directions for future research and ways to apply different research methods that could have important implications for scholars and managers.

Originality/value

The editorial and special issue extends the knowledge about the deliberate lookalikes and their effects on firms, brands and consumers. This work opens new avenues for the research about different forms and markets in the context of lookalikes.

Details

Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 28 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1061-0421

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 May 2020

Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Rajat Roy and Mark T. Spence

This paper aims to examine a chain of relationships running from self-congruity with a brand – that can stem from the actual, ideal or social self – to brand attachment and from…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine a chain of relationships running from self-congruity with a brand – that can stem from the actual, ideal or social self – to brand attachment and from there to consumer engagement on social networking sites (SNS), specifically liking, sharing and commenting. It further advances self-extension tendency (SET) as a moderator affecting the self-congruity -> brand attachment link.

Design/methodology/approach

Two studies were conducted to test four hypotheses. Study 1 (n = 282) engaged a self-administered survey with students at a large Australian university. Study 2 (n = 342) was conducted amongst the members of an Australian online panel and thus, enhances generalizability.

Findings

Activated self-congruity orientations are brand-specific. Both studies reveal that two of the three self-congruity orientations affect brand attachment, which, in turn, influences consumers’ proclivity to like, share and comment on Facebook. Moreover, the self-congruity -> brand attachment relationship is moderated by SET. When SET is high, it strengthens the relationship between a self-congruity orientation and brand attachment.

Research limitations/implications

Accepted methodological approaches were used to improve the veracity of the findings. Nevertheless, further research should consider a wider area of focal brands (e.g. store brands, mundane brands, luxury brands) and other SNS.

Practical implications

SNS are widely acknowledged as a key marketing channel affecting both pre- and post-purchasing behaviours. Discussed here are means to trigger pro-brand advocacy behaviours.

Originality/value

These findings extend existing theory in three ways as follows: they show social self-congruity affects brand attachment in online contexts, brand attachment is a mediating variable affecting pro-brand social networking behaviours and SET moderates the self-congruity -> brand attachment relationship. SNS are widely acknowledged as a key marketing channel affecting both pre- and post-purchase behaviours; hence, these insights have theoretical and practical relevance.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 54 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 June 2021

Gizem Atav, Subimal Chatterjee and Rajat Roy

When a product fails out of negligence on the seller’s part, consumers can either retaliate against the seller, more so if a third party encourages them to do so, or forgive the…

Abstract

Purpose

When a product fails out of negligence on the seller’s part, consumers can either retaliate against the seller, more so if a third party encourages them to do so, or forgive the seller should the seller express remorse. This paper aims to examine how the fit between the consumer’s promotion/prevention regulatory orientation and the promotion/prevention frame of a message of contrition (retaliation), such as an apology from a chief executive officer (CEO) (a class action suit threat by a lawyer), affects such forgiveness (retaliation) intentions in the form of product repurchase decisions.

Design/methodology/approach

In two laboratory experiments, this paper temporally induces a promotion or prevention orientation in the study participants and thereafter ask them to imagine experiencing a product failure and listening to (1) the CEO apologize for the harm (eliciting sympathy/encouraging repurchase); or (2) a lawyer inviting them to seek damages for the harm (eliciting anger/discouraging repurchase). This paper frames the messages from the CEO/lawyer such that they fit either with a promotion mindset or with a prevention mindset.

Findings

This paper finds that, following a message of apology, a frame-focus fit (compared to a frame-focus misfit) elicits sympathy and encourages repurchase universally across promotion and prevention-oriented consumers. However, following a message encouraging retaliation, the same fit elicits anger and discourages repurchase more among prevention-oriented than promotion-oriented consumers.

Originality/value

Although past research has investigated how regulatory fit affects forgiveness intentions, this paper fills three research gaps therein by (a) addressing both forgiveness and retaliation intentions, (b) deconstructing the fit-induced “just right feelings” by exploring their underlying emotions of sympathy and anger, and (c) showing that fit effects are not universal across promotion and prevention-oriented consumers. For practice, the results suggest that managers can lessen the fallout from product failures by putting consumers in a promotion mindset that strengthens the effect of a promotion-framed apology and inoculates them against all types of retaliatory messages.

Details

Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 38 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0736-3761

Keywords

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