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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of employment status on service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of customer contact employees. The authors also investigate the mediating roles of internal mobility opportunity and job insecurity in the relationship between employment status and service-oriented OCB.

A survey methodology was used and data were collected from a dyad-sample of 270 employees and their supervisors of one retail and one banking companies in Taiwan. Product-of-coefficients approach and bootstrapping were used to test the multiple mediating model.

The results demonstrate that temporary employment related negatively to service-oriented OCB. Moreover, both internal mobility opportunity and job insecurity mediated the employment status – service-oriented OCB linkage.

This study has three limitations. First, this study examined only fixed-term direct-hire temporary employees. Future research should explore voluntary job behaviors of different categories of temporary employment to confirm the results of the present study. Second, this study examined internal mobility opportunity and job insecurity as two mediators. Other alternative avenues may exist by which employment status may lead to service-oriented OCB. Future research may explore additional possible mediators. Finally, the participants of this study were selected by the human resource departments of the participating companies. This option could have introduced selection bias in this study.

This study suggests that management should be aware of why temporary customer contact employees have lower levels of service-oriented OCB. As service-oriented OCB may be vital for organizational success in the service context, management must consider the benefits and costs when hiring temporary employees. Moreover, management can motivate temporary employees to display higher service-oriented OCB by shaping their expectations of internal mobility possibilities, or reducing temporary employees’ perception of job insecurity to enhance their service-oriented OCB.

This study makes two contributions. First, this study extends the effect of employment status in the OCB literature by investigating the relationship between employment status and service-oriented OCB for customer contact employees. The results of the present study lend support for the partial exclusion theory to predict that socially excluded group (i.e. temporary employees) tends to be less engaged in service-oriented OCB. Second, this study contributes to the literature by investigating two important links (i.e. internal mobility opportunity and job insecurity) to explain why temporary employment may lead to lower service-oriented OCB.

Because of the slow market growth of and intense competition among coffee shops, increasing brand preference and patronage intention is crucial in the coffee shop industry. Although place attachment theory (PAT) and social identity theory (SIT) stipulate that place attachment and social identity are key constructs of revisit intention, no studies have yet integrated the dimensions of SIT into PAT to predict place preference (PP) and repatronage intention (RI). In this study, the authors aimed to develop a theoretical model grounded in PAT and SIT to predict PP and RI.

A total of 648 coffee shop customers participated in an online survey, and their data were analyzed through structural equation modeling.

The results indicated that cognitive and affective place identity (PI) directly affected place dependence (PD) but did not directly affect PP. Cognitive PI also indirectly affected PD through affective PI. PD exerted a positive and significant effect on PP and thus affected RI.

These findings provide insights into the importance of cognitive and affective PI in shaping PD, PP and RI. From a place attachment perspective, the theoretical model enables coffee shop managers to cultivate strong PP to increase customer RI.

In this study, we drew on the theories of social exchange and social learning and hypothesized that the online social capital (SC) and offline SC of social networking affect the online self-disclosure (OSD) of individuals through social self-efficacy (SSE).

After retrieving 514 valid questionnaires, we used structural equation modeling to analyze the data.

The results indicated that the users’ SSE affected their OSD, and that both online and offline bridging and bonding SC increased their SSE. However, online bonding SC directly affected their OSD, whereas online bridging SC did not considerably affect their OSD. Given these findings, we presented both theoretical and practical implications to elucidate SSE and OSD behavior from the perspective of online and offline bridging and bonding SC.

In this study, we drew on theories of social exchange and social learning to examine the effects of online and offline bridging and bonding SC on users’ SSE and OSD on SNSs. Given the importance of SC and SSE in social relationships and the effects of OSD on SNSs, our goal was to provide SNS marketers with a thorough understanding of how to facilitate SSE and OSD from the perspective of online and offline bridging and bonding SC.

The paper focuses on social capital as the characteristic of social groups that promote coordination; moreover, social identity plays a key role in the construction of group relationships. However, few research studies have looked at how the social capital of social networking sites (SNSs) is related to the social identity of its members. Drawing on social capital and social identity theory, this study investigated the effects of SNS social capital (shared language, social trust and network density) on social identity and continuous participation. The mediating role of social identity was also investigated.

In total, 444 SNS members volunteered to participate in this study. Structural equation modeling was applied to analyze a conceptual model.

The results revealed that SNS social trust and network density directly and significantly affected the social identity and continuous participation behavior of members. SNSs using a shared language positively affected social identity, but this was not directly associated with continuous participation behavior.

Because the network externalities of SNSs exert critical effects on user benefits, attracting continuous user participation remains one of the critical challenges for SNS administrators. Both the theoretical and practical implications of this study can aid SNS administrators in developing effective continuous participation strategies.

The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-07-2021-0369

For Internet celebrities, self-disclosure (SD) is a crucial step in building relationships with their followers who perceive this communication as para-social interaction (PSI), which facilitates socialization among followers. Normative commitment (NC) is critical for creating bonds among community members that are strengthened through socialization. However, research on the predictive relationships among SD, PSI and NC has been insufficient. This paper aims to investigate the effects of two facets of Internet celebrity SDs (i.e. private life and opinion) and two facets of PSI (i.e. companionship and following) on NC. The mediating role of PSI on the effects of SD on NC was also analyzed.

People who follow at least one Internet celebrity on a social networking site were recruited to participate in this study, and 494 valid questionnaires were collected for examination. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results revealed that both private-life and opinion SDs have positive effects on companionship and following PSI, which consequently influence NC. A mediation test revealed that companionship and following PSI mediate the effects of private-life and opinion SD on NC. This study's findings also revealed that NC is influenced more by following PSI than it is by companionship PSI. Furthermore, opinion SD was determined to be the more influential factor in following PSI, whereas private-life SD was the more influential factor in companionship PSI.

This paper is useful for understanding the influence mechanism of the SD of Internet celebrities on PSI and NC.

Online group buying (OGB) websites have rapidly increased in number in recent years and have become an interesting model for online transactions. Previous studies have shown that consumers’ individual characteristics are critical in group buying participation and the perceived usefulness (PU) of an information system, whereas the role of consumer characteristics on the OGB website-quality-PU relationship remains unclear. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether consumer characteristics (i.e. gender and utilitarian orientation) moderate the OGB website-quality-PU relationship.

A total of 658 OGB website consumers participated in this study. Data were analysed by employing hierarchical moderated regression method.

The primary findings are as follows. First, the effect of system quality on consumer PU of the OGB website was stronger for male consumers than for female consumers. Second, the effect of information quality on PU was stronger for high-utility-orientated consumers than for low-utility-orientated consumers.

Because of the increasing importance of e-commerce and the growing number of shoppers purchasing from OGB websites, the finding provides enhanced understanding of OGB consumers for segmentation strategies.

This research attempts to investigate the differences of consumer perceptions on product quality, price, brand leadership and brand personality among national brands, international private labels and local private labels. It aims to use product categories as the moderator of the preceding perceptions.

Data were collected outside the entrances of the main rail station of Taipei, Taiwan. A systematic sampling was adopted and 254 questionnaires were eventually collected.

The findings revealed that on the whole national brands were perceived as significantly superior to international private labels, while international private labels were perceived as being superior to local private labels in terms of all perceptions except price perception. The findings also revealed that product categories moderated price and brand personality perceptions across the three brand types, while product categories failed to moderate the effect of the three brands types on quality and brand leadership perceptions.

This research represents one of the few pioneer works that empirically investigate the aforementioned issues.

Ready-to-drink (RTD) tea beverages are widely consumed worldwide and play a prominent role in people’s daily lives, yet few studies have investigated the motivation of RTD tea beverage consumers as well as their underlying attitudes and desires. The purpose of this paper is to explore why these attributes are motivational factors by focussing on the attributes of RTD tea beverage products that motivate consumers to purchase RTD tea.

The attribute-consequence-value model of the means-end chain approach was employed to investigate consumer motivations for purchasing RTD tea beverages. Data were collected through a qualitative face-to-face survey of 153 RTD tea beverage consumers in Taiwan.

The results indicate that consumers purchase RTD tea beverages because the taste, flavor, packaging, and ingredients (attributes) satisfy their desire to drink RTD tea and fulfill the benefits of being delicious to drink, possessing thirst-quenching properties, and possessing health-promoting properties (perceived consequences), thereby fulfilling their ideal goal of experiencing enjoyment (perceived product value).

The findings may serve as a reference for producers of RTD tea beverages regarding product development and marketing.

Although the relationships between subjective norms, personal norms, consumer social responsibility and consumer attitude have been studied, the direct or indirect relationships that potentially exist between these factors influencing consumer purchase intention remain unclear. Because attracting consumers to purchase fair trade (FT) products is fundamental to the success of the FT movement, the study introduced a theoretical framework that emphasizes the mediating role of personal norms and consumer attitude towards FT product purchases in the effects of subjective norms and consumer social responsibility on consumer purchase intention towards FT products.

Data were collected from 398 university students; structural equation modelling was applied to analyse the data. Mediation analysis was also performed to determine potential direct or indirect relationships between factors.

The results revealed that subjective norms and responsibility to support FT products affect personal norms and attitude towards purchasing such products, which in turn influenced consumer purchase intention toward purchasing these products. Personal norms partially mediate the influence of subjective norms and consumer social responsibility on attitudes towards purchasing FT products. By contrast, the consumer attitude fully mediates the effects of subjective norms, consumer social responsibility and personal norms on purchase intentions towards FT products.

Because consumer purchasing is critical to the success of the FT movement and to achieving the UN's SDGs, this study helps FT marketers to better understand the effects of subjective norms and consumer social responsibility on consumer behavioural intentions and to develop effective marketing and promotion strategies for increasing consumer purchase intention.

This study aims to investigate the impact of perceived value on customer intention to use the internet as a retailing platform and, more specifically, the impact that perceived value (comprising functional, social, emotional and epistemic values) has on Taiwanese customer intention to conduct the two distribution channel functions, i.e. information collection and order placement, through the internet.

A total of 295 usable survey responses were collected in the main commuter district of Taipei, Taiwan.

The findings indicate that both functional and epistemic values have a significant impact on information collection and order placement. Nevertheless, social value has an impact only on information collection, whereas emotional value has a significant impact only on order placement.

The aforementioned issue has rarely been researched but is essential to the development of a channel of distribution theory and is of immediate relevance to marketing practices. The paper pioneers the study of the impact of perceived value in this context work that empirically investigated such an issue.