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This paper explores the implications of using Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs as a “paradigm case” of transformational leadership by comparing the practical metadiscourse of remembrances published at the time of his passing to the theoretical metadiscourse of transformational leadership. The authors report the frequency of transformational leadership characteristics that appeared in characterizations of Jobs in the months after his passing in October 2011. Results show that people do remember Jobs as a leader, and as one who possessed three key personal characteristics of a transformational leader: creative, passionate, and visionary. People also remembered Jobs as an innovator, which is not typically associated with transformational leadership but which does reflect the discourse of the consumer electronics industries upon which he had an impact. However, the results also show that two important interpersonal characteristics of a transformational leader were absent in the remembrance discourse: empowering and interactive. The authors discuss the implications of the two missing terms for pedagogy and theorizing, including how problematizing Jobs as a paradigm case might lead to fruitful discussions about the importance of a transformational leader’s engagement with followers.

A major factor hampering the continuing and explosive rise of e-commerce, particularly for experience goods, is the lack of tactile information that could help to reduce uncertainty in consumer purchase decision making online. The purpose of this paper is to identify the specific touch-related properties worthwhile to enable in online retailing and the type of customer value that can be provided, as well as the drivers and barriers for consumer acceptance toward touch-enabling technologies for online shopping.

By means of consumer focus groups, the authors address the research questions regarding touch-related properties, their value to consumers, and the drivers and barriers for consumer acceptance by taking into consideration two specific touch-enabling technologies.

The study reveals that touch-enabling technologies can provide utilitarian and hedonic value to consumers, mainly at the pre-purchase stages in the path-to-purchase. Valuable applications conceived by consumers primarily pertain to offering information on material and geometric product properties. A hurdle for consumer adoption seems to be the necessity of a dedicated output device, such as a glove.

Due to the early development stage of the new technologies under investigation, this study is exploratory in nature. The findings should be validated in the future, once these technologies actually get introduced for online marketing purposes.

This study aims to raise awareness among online retailers about marketing opportunities comprised of touch-enabling technology.

The authors provide a first outlook with regard to future consumer acceptance of touch-enabling technologies in online shopping and how and when such technologies can provide consumer value.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether internet experience, process quality, outcome quality, customer satisfaction, and post‐use expectations affect the consistent use of health information online by Chinese internet users and how these factors are related to one another.

Data were collected from 219 Chinese university students who are currently using, or have used, the health information services available on the internet. Tertiary students were selected because they are active internet users who frequently use the internet to search for information.

Internet experience affects process quality, but it has no direct relation to outcome quality or customer satisfaction. Process quality determines customer satisfaction toward health information available on the internet and influences the outcome quality; however, the outcome quality is not related to customer satisfaction. The decision to reuse health information found on the internet is influenced by both customer satisfaction and post‐use expectations. The customers' post‐use expectations are primarily influenced by customer satisfaction.

For a successful internet business, internet marketers should recognise that service quality includes both process quality and outcome quality and plan new campaigns that take this factor into consideration. Tracking post‐use expectations can help predict, with reasonable accuracy, the relationship between customer satisfaction and retention of health information found on the internet.

This study provides a better understanding about the users of health information found on the internet in China by taking into account the above‐mentioned factors: internet experience, post‐use expectation, process quality, and outcome quality.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how consumers’ value evaluation and personality factors influence consumers’ intention to adopt mobile coupon (M-coupon) applications in China. The moderating effect of gender on the relationships between personality factors and consumers’ adoption intention is also tested.

This study conducted a survey to collect data from M-coupon application users. In total, 271 valid responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) technology.

The results indicate that perceived value, personal innovativeness, and coupon proneness positively affect consumers’ acceptance of M-coupon applications. Personal innovativeness has more positive impact on behavioral intention for males than for females. However, the differential effects of coupon proneness on behavioral intention are not significant between males and females. In addition, the findings show that perceived convenience, perceived enjoyment, and perceived money savings positively influence perceived value, whereas perceived fees and perceived privacy risk negatively influence it.

This study helps M-coupon application providers to identify who is positive toward their services and how to improve consumers’ perceived value of the services, eventually expanding their user base.

Prior studies mainly focussed on the usage behavior of M-coupons and overlooked the important role of M-coupon applications in promoting M-coupon use. This research fills this gap. The research findings offer insights into the factors influencing consumers’ behavioral intention to adopt M-coupon applications. Besides, the results of gender’s moderating effect advance the understanding of the differences in males’ coupon usage intentions between the contexts of M-coupon applications and paper-based coupon services, which enrich couponing research.

Poor planning practice is one of the reasons for the inferior results of some e‐commerce ventures. In this paper, it is suggested that a strategy‐based e‐commerce planning model containing seven specific dimensions, with strategy at its core, should be considered when entering into a new e‐commerce venture. Implications for managerial practice upon the adoption of such a planning model are also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of localizing online communities (OCs) and examines how OC members form impressions of organizations that use OCs in their communication activities. A conceptual framework and measurement scale are developed that consist of complex latent constructs.

A sequential multi-method approach is adopted with both qualitative and quantitative investigations. Using Structural equation modeling, the research refines and validates the measurement scales of impression formation in OCs.

Findings reveal that comprehensive messages have a direct effect on the impressions that an OC member forms. In particular, social context cues are an important predictor of online community corporate impression (OCCIP). Source credibility, affiliation, characteristics and interpersonal communication are all critical to OCCIP, which in turn, influence members’ attitudes toward the company and the intention to use it again. Surprisingly, relevance, timeliness, accuracy and perceived similarity did not have any significant effect on the corporate impression.

Three contributions are offered: First, the study provides reliable scales for measuring OCCIP. Second, support is given to the conceptual model that links OCCIP to a set of consequences, namely, attitudes toward the company, intention to use the company, and word-of-mouth. Finally, the study is conducted across two different and unique types of OC contexts, stipulating further insights into the localization of OCs.

The purpose of this article is to synthesize the topics, conceptualizations and measurements of value-based management (VBM) and to suggest a research agenda covering its next evolution as sustainable governance.

The authors conducted a systematic literature review of 80 seminal studies published between 1979 and 2022. The authors synthesized the studies by their conceptualizations of VBM in an inductively developed framework.

The authors find that scholars explore diverse topics related to VBM with a prevailing focus on shareholder primacy. There is a paucity of studies that focus on the integration of shareholder maximization and stakeholder management practices. The authors explain which studies will form a promising foundation for advanced research on sustainable governance that will reach beyond current VBM research.

The authors' research agenda addresses new future topics on conflicting goals within and between shareholder groups, offers specific suggestions for using new research methods and untapped data sources for VBM and paves the way to substantially extend the boundaries of the firm in VBM research to include stakeholders, strategic alignment and new sustainability measures.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors affecting the adoption of product virtualization technology (PVT) for online shopping small consumer electronics by applying a modified electronic technology acceptance model (e‐TAM) and tested model invariance male/female shoppers in the overall adoption process.

Online surveys are completed by a US national panel of online shoppers. The data are analyzed using single‐ and multiple‐group structural equation modelling.

The results provide empirical support for e‐TAM in the context of PVT acceptance for online small consumer electronics shopping. In addition, two external constructs – technology anxiety (TA) and innovativeness (INN) – show significant influences on the beliefs (perceived usefulness, ease‐of‐use and entertainment value). There is no significant gender difference in the overall adoption process of PVT.

More specific consumer characteristics such as time‐consciousness, opinion leadership or age differences under different categories may be useful to investigate.

PVT may provide a valuable tool that online retailers can use to enhance their consumers' purchase behaviour, either by reducing the perceived risk through better online product evaluation or by enhancing consumers' enjoyment of the shopping process on their web site by increasing the number of unique and repeat traffic visitors to the site and ultimately establish an online competitive advantage.

Inclusion of TA and INN in e‐TAM for PVT acceptance and the equivalence test of the hypothesized model across gender make the research unique, adding to the explanatory and predictive power of the e‐TAM.