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Drawing on the resource-based view and contingency theory, this study aims to investigate the effects of organizational capabilities – technology capability and marketing capability – on small- and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs’) export performance and the moderating roles of contingent factors in this relationship in the context of a highly competitive export-oriented economy.

The research framework was tested using a three-way stepwise hierarchical multiple regression analysis with data gathered from 531 Korean international SMEs.

In addition to the direct effects of two types of organizational capabilities on export performance, the results show that both capabilities were critical when the export market was competitive, and marketing capability was more important when exporting with a brand name and targeting a developing country.

This study further extends the literature on SMEs’ internationalization in the context of highly competitive export-driven markets and highlights the importance of strategically allocating SMEs’ capabilities to reap optimal export performance by considering dynamic contingencies.

This paper aims to examine the relationships between anthropomorphic cues (i.e. degrees of the humanized profile picture and naming) in artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and business types (utilitarian-centered business vs hedonic-centered business) on consumers’ attitudes toward the AI chatbot and intentions to use the AI chatbot app and to accept the AI chatbot’s recommendation.

An online experiment with a 2 (humanized profile pictures: low [semihumanoid] vs high [full-humanoid]) × 2 (naming: Mary vs virtual assistant) × 2 (business types: utilitarian-centered business [bank] vs hedonic-centered business [café]) between-subjects design (N = 520 Mturk samples) was used.

The results of this study show significant main effects of anthropomorphic cues (i.e. degrees of profile picture and naming) in AI chatbots and three-way interactions among humanized profile pictures, naming and business types (utilitarian-centered business vs hedonic-centered business) on consumers’ attitudes toward the AI chatbot, intentions to use the AI chatbot app and intentions to accept the AI chatbot’s recommendation. This indicates that the high level of anthropomorphism generates more positive attitudes toward the AI chatbot and intentions to use the AI chatbot app and to accept the AI chatbot’s recommendation in the hedonic-centered business condition. Moreover, the mediated role of parasocial interaction occurs in this relationship.

This study is the original endeavor to examine the moderating role of business types influencing the effect of anthropomorphism on consumers’ responses, while existing literature overweighted the value of anthropomorphism in AI chatbots without considering the variation of businesses.

Considering the growth of the at-home smart technology industry and the increasing power of social media influencers, this study aims to examine how influencer endorsements affect individuals’ attitudes and trial intentions toward smart technology products.

An online experiment was conducted to investigate the impact of follower number and expertise domain of influencers and the trust propensity of individuals on their attitudinal and behavioral responses to influencer endorsements of smart technology products. The moderated mediation effect of perceived credibility was further examined.

The results demonstrated that individuals with lower trust propensity responded more positively to a microinfluencer with fewer followers and a specific area of expertise, which led to favorable attitudes and increased intention to try a smart technology product. However, the expertise domain was not a significant factor for the megainfluencer condition with a more extensive follower base. Interestingly, the interaction effects were not observed for individuals with higher trust propensity.

The results of this research provide practical implications for marketers who look for effective strategies for influencer marketing by demonstrating the significant impact of source-related cues, including follower number and expertise domain.

Based on the modality, agency, interactivity and navigability; source credibility; and persuasion knowledge models, this research explains how source-related cues of influencers affect credibility judgment, attitude formation and trial intentions for new technology products and how trust propensity as a personal dispositional factor varies the relationship.

While consumer preferences for sporting goods have been widely researched within sport management, literature is lacking on aspects of social and environmental sustainability. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the role of social and environmental sustainability for purchase decisions of sportswear and compares them to the role of price and functionality.

Based on a conjoint analysis among 1,012 Europeans, the authors conducted a two-step cluster analysis. First, the authors investigated the number of segments via Ward’s method. Second, the authors ran a k-means analysis based on part-worth utilities from the conjoint analysis.

The authors identified four segments which differ in terms of preferred product attributes, willingness to pay, and sociodemographic, behavioral, and psychographic characteristics: undecided, sustainable, price-focused and function-oriented consumers. Based on this segmentation, the authors found that the importance of social and environmental sustainability is growing, but not among all consumers.

The generalizability of the study is limited since it is not built on a sample representative for the included European countries, it focuses on a single product, and participants are potentially subject to a social desirability bias.

The consumer analysis comprises the uptake of attributes related to social and environmental sustainability. The authors thereby address a literature gap as previous research (thematizing sporting goods) in the sport management field has often neglected sustainability elements despite their rapidly growing importance within the sport sector.

The purpose of this paper is using a model-free reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm to optimize manipulability which can overcome difficulties of dilemmas of matrix inversion, complicated formula transformation and expensive calculation time.

Manipulability optimization is an effective way to solve the singularity problem arising in manipulator control. Some control schemes are proposed to optimize the manipulability during trajectory tracking, but they involve the dilemmas of matrix inversion, complicated formula transformation and expensive calculation time.

The redundant manipulator trained by RL can adjust its configuration in real-time to optimize the manipulability in an inverse-free manner while tracking the desired trajectory. Computer simulations and physics experiments demonstrate that compared with the existing methods, the average manipulability is increased by 58.9%, and the calculation time is reduced to 17.9%. Therefore, the proposed method effectively optimizes the manipulability, and the calculation time is significantly shortened.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first method to optimize manipulability using RL during trajectory tracking. The authors compare their approach to existing singularity avoidance and manipulability maximization techniques, and prove that their method has better optimization effects and less computing time.

The purpose of this study is to examine how “homefluencers” sponsored posts on millennial consumers' purchase intention in the international marketing sphere can be impacted in the new normal by drawing on source credibility, parasocial interaction (PSI) and persuasion knowledge model (PKM) theory.

This research applies structural equation modeling (SEM) and mediation analysis as the data analysis method using non-probability purposive sampling of a total of 217 local millennial Instagram and Facebook users, who have followed homefluencers sponsored posts in fashion-beauty, yoga-fitness and food sectors.

Based on hypothesis testing, advertising recognition strongly mediates purchase intention with the indirect effects of expertise and trustworthiness than attractiveness.

This research extends the international marketing literature on source credibility, PSI, PKM and purchase intention theory in the new normal by proposing “Homefluencer's Endorsement Model for Purchase Intention” (HEMPI). Specifically, the mediating role of ad recognition of homefluencers sponsorship disclosure (#paidad, #sponsored), positively affects “change-of-persuasion meaning” on Instagram and Facebook, where research is rare.

This research provides valuable suggestions for global brand owners, consumers and authorities of Instagram and Facebook to consider post-COVID consumer behavior highlighting homefluencers sponsored collaboration.

The authors have contributed to the use of the source credibility model and PSI to identify the antecedents in determining how the homefluencer's effective sponsorship disclosure can positively activate ad recognition on millennial consumers' purchase intention in a crisis period from an international standpoint with the practical implications in post-COVID.

The objective of this paper is to synthesise the published literature on consumer awareness and acceptance of Sustainable Fashion (SF) and highlight that sustainability decisions taken across procurement, designing, manufacturing and retailing must include the consumer perspective of SF.

Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on sustainable fashion combined with consumer behavior was conducted. The study approach involved descriptive analysis, content analysis and theoretical analysis in the first section. The later sections focus on sustainability practices across the apparel supply chain that can foster acceptance of sustainable fashion.

In this review paper, five solutions that are typically used for leveraging consumer awareness and acceptance towards sustainable fashion are identified from the latest research papers: (1) attention to micro-sensitive factors (2) shared responsibilities (3) repositioning sustainable fashion for larger audience (4) positioning conscious fashion and (5) unified approach. These solutions are proposed as most important for achieving success in sustainable production and sustainable consumption (SPSC) for the fashion industry. Further, suggestions for how to embed sustainability related business decisions across sourcing, designing, manufacturing, distribution and recollection and retailing are also provided.

Through this research, a clear view emerges of the progression of publication and where future research should be directed to popularise sustainable fashion among consumers. Research findings and proposed solutions will be valuable inputs for brand managers, marketers and retailers as they conceive new plans and make decisions about addressing sustainability challenges in textile and apparel manufacturing firms.

This is a first of its kind of study on sustainable fashion that highlights the importance of understanding consumer behaviour in influencing sustainability decisions required across sourcing, designing, manufacturing and retailing to achieve substantial economic advantages in the fashion industry. End-to-end supply chain processes (i.e. procurement, design, manufacturing, marketing and retailing) are considered to identify several factors that influence consumer behavior in favor of sustainable fashion throughout the supply chain.

Tourism via virtual reality (VR) technology has become an interesting option for consumers to “travel.” The best approaches to optimizing the VR tourism environment, improving the interactive experience of tourists and encouraging tourists to adopt VR are not yet fully understood. This study explores the willingness of tourists to adopt VR tourism from the dual aspects, richness and dynamics, of virtual social cues.

To examine the effects of richness (multiple vs. few cues) and dynamic (changeable vs. static cues) on consumers' willingness to adopt VR tourism, three virtual tourism scenes were designed and presented by head-mounted displays. The data were collected for participants in the VR laboratory and tested by ANOVA and partial least squares–structural equation modeling.

Virtual social cues can generate mental imagery through interactivity, vividness and parasocial interactions, thus increasing the consumer's likelihood of adopting VR tourism. It was also found that imagination moderates mental imagery and adoption intention. When the consumer's imagination is stronger, their mental imagery stimulates a stronger willingness to adopt VR tourism.

The authors innovatively utilize concepts of parasocial interaction and mental imagery and discuss the various influences and mediation mechanisms of social cue characteristics on consumers' adoption of VR tourism. The conclusions may provide new insights for VR tourism managers and tourism scholars.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the negative impact of social media influencers (SMIs) (human vs virtual) on customer well-being. Additionally, it aims to explore how the fear of missing out (FOMO) mediates and regulatory focus moderates this relationship from the social comparison theory lens.

In the first study, text mining and machine learning were employed to measure the level of followers' well-being in response to 40 SMIs (human vs virtual) posts on Instagram. In the second study, a randomized between-subjects experiment was conducted with three groups (human vs virtual vs control) and a sample size of 412 participants to confirm the results of the first study and investigate how FOMO mediates and regulatory focus moderates the relationship between SMI beauty product endorsement and consumer well-being.

The findings from text mining indicate that SMIs have a greater impact on consumers well-being, which is higher for virtual than human influencer. Additionally, the result of the experimental study shows the mediating role of FOMO in their relationship between SMIs and well-being. The moderator analysis reveals that there is a moderating effect of regulatory focus in the model.

The findings inform marketing managers about the differences between virtual than human influencer in their impact on customer well-being in endorsing beauty product, especially among the younger generation.

This paper is among the first research studies that examine the dark side of SMIs, which diminishes their follower's well-being through social comparison theory lenses.

This research paper aims to investigate the critical factors influencing the live commerce industry and their implications for Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) and brands.

The study comprehensively reviews previous research, develops relevant hypotheses and utilizes personal information from 66 anchors, along with data from 23,000 product links obtained from the backends of live commerce platforms.

The study emphasizes that KOLs with higher traffic significantly influence Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV). Intriguingly, KOLs with lower traffic levels exhibit a more pronounced effect on Return on Investment (ROI), highlighting their significance in driving profitability. Furthermore, the study explores the correlation between KOL hashtags and GMV/ROI and the intricate relationship between product types and KOL hashtags.

The findings significantly enhance the understanding of live shopping behavior and provide valuable insights for business management strategies. Practitioners can leverage this empirical evidence to make informed decisions, utilizing extensive data samples of KOLs and brands.

This research contributes unique insights into the live-streaming commerce industry using backend data from Live Streaming E-commerce platforms. The findings are more accurate based on market data than previous studies that relied on platform reviews or questionnaires. Additionally, this paper investigates the impact of KOLs on the performance of live e-commerce from three perspectives: GMV, ROI and hot-selling products.