Search results

This study aims to explore consumers' perceptions of stealing thunder and to investigate significant factors for maximizing its effect.

This study used a mixed-methods approach. First, qualitative responses from 286 Korean participants were collected and analyzed (Study 1). Second, the experiment employed a randomized 2 (crisis communication timing: stealing thunder vs thunder) × 2 (transparent vs nontransparent communication) × 2 (follow-up actions: good vs poor) between-subjects experimental design with 426 Korean participants to investigate and confirm the results of Study 1.

Qualitative data showed that the participants' evaluation of corporations' stealing thunder strategy is complicated. Some do not perceive corporate use of stealing thunder at face value, but rather view it as yet another hopeless, selfish and irresponsible crisis communication strategy, distrusting it based on strong cynicism toward all corporations. An experiment confirmed that stealing thunder was significantly more effective in eliciting consumers' ethical judgment (EJ) and word-of-mouth (WOM) on corporations than the thunder strategy. Significant two-way interaction effects between crisis timing and follow-up actions showed that the stealing thunder strategy should be accompanied by follow-up actions to increase consumers' credibility and WOM intentions.

This study investigated how consumers evaluate stealing thunder by adopting both a qualitative and quantitative approach to explore how they make meaning out of this phenomenon.

This study conceptualizes participatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a consumer empowerment strategy and examines the effect of participatory CSR on consumer responses in a social media setting.

This study uses a 2 (type of CSR campaign) × 4 (tone of consumer comments) between-subjects experimental design. The sample comprises college students and nonstudent participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Data indicate that the participatory CSR program leads to higher levels of perceived self-efficacy and social worth, which subsequently results in stronger intentions to spread positive word of mouth about the company’s CSR efforts. The findings suggest that participatory CSR has the power to boost a company’s reputation as an “admired” company through consumer empowerment.

This study advances the scholarship of CSR by explicating participatory CSR communication as a consumer empowerment strategy and providing empirical evidence for the effect of participatory CSR on public responses. The overall findings support the notion that CSR communication as an important function of public relations can generate public engagement with the organization and further co-create meaning with publics for mutual benefit.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Fortune 100 companies are using Facebook (FB) in terms of employing corporate ability (CA), corporate social responsibility (CSR), and hybrid communication strategies, meeting different stakeholders’ expectations, and incorporating interactivity components into social media.

A quantitative content analysis was used to examine a total of 1,486 corporate FB postings.

–Fortune 100 companies predominantly employed a CA strategy over a CSR strategy or a hybrid strategy. They prioritize customers’ needs over other stakeholders’ (e.g. stockholders and community members) on FB. FB fans are more likely to post “like” when companies personalize their FB messages. Seeking specific action-oriented participation on FB increased the frequencies of “like” and “comment,” whereas using the generic terms like “try” or “learn” decreased such frequencies. Finally, the frequencies of fans posting “like” and “comment” are affected by how often companies responded to fans’ postings and not influenced by how often companies feed new FB updates to fans.

This study provides a benchmark case of how corporations are using a mainstream social media outlet to engage different stakeholders. It helps to assess the current status of public relations communication strategies on the mainstream social networking site. Companies can increase public engagement and response on social media through more personalized messages and techniques to encourage active participation and dialogue.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of corporate ability (CA) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) on perceptions of CSR motives, attitudes, and behavioral intentions toward a company.

These effects were tested using a 2 (CA: good vs poor)×2 (CSR: continuous vs one-time) between-subjects experiment. The company with good CA was depicted as a top 20 Fortune 500 company, but in the poor CA condition, it faced disappointing financial outcomes due to the failure of its new product. To manipulate the different levels of CSR, the company’s charitable giving and community involvement was described as a continuous commitment or one-time donation.

Continuous CSR commitment significantly increased consumers’ positive attitudes, purchase intention, and willingness to support an organization. These positive effects become particularly more powerful for a company with poor business performance. Participants attributed more sincere and less image-promotion motives of CSR to a company with poor CA than to that with good CA. For the company with poor CA, both types of CSR motives mediated the relationship between CSR and the outcomes, while only sincere motives served as a mediator for the company with good CA.

The findings suggest the possibility that CSR initiatives pursued by unprofitable companies may be more recognized and appreciated than those by business giants. Thus, a company should maintain its CSR activities as a long-term strategy, especially when the company is not an industry leader.

This research suggests that the mediating role of perceived CSR motives can be contingent upon CA.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of accessibility, quality perception, and price perception on consumer satisfaction with imported fruit, specifically imported Asian pears. The moderating role of the country image was also assessed.

A total of 413 Americans aged over 19 years who had purchased imported Asian pears were surveyed through an online questionnaire. Structural equation modeling and multiple group analysis were conducted to test the hypotheses.

Accessibility, quality perception, and price perception exhibited a significant impact on consumer satisfaction with imported Asian pears and influenced behavioral intention through satisfaction. Multiple group analysis results revealed a moderating effect of the country image on these relationships. Accessibility had a significant impact on consumer satisfaction of consumers with a high country image of Korea, whereas prices had no significant impact on them. In contrast, price was determined as a key satisfaction factor for consumers with a low country image of Korea, whereas accessibility did not have a significant impact.

This study contributes to the literature on imported fruits and provides practical implications for promoting the consumption of imported Asian pears in the US.

This study aims to integrate reviewers’ and readers’ discrepant perspectives on extremely negative reviews. Specifically, this study examines the relationship between negative emotion intensity levels and reviews helpfulness on two platforms: integrated websites and social networking sites (SNS) to emphasize the role of platform types on customers’ purchase decisions.

This research adopts a mixed-method approach of business intelligence approach and quasi-experimental design. Study 1 performed text mining and Welch’s t-test to compare reviewers’ negative emotion intensity levels on two platforms. Study 2 adopted a 2*2 factorial quasi-experimental design to examine how intense negative emotions impact the perceived reviews helpfulness on two platforms. A 3*2 factorial design in Study 3 also tested social tie strength’s moderating effect between the intensity of negative emotions and review helpfulness.

The current study reveals that integrated website reviewers tend to express more extreme negative emotions than SNS reviewers. SNS and integrated website readers deem reviews that embed severe negative emotions as less helpful. The moderating role of social tie strength between extremely negative emotions on review helpfulness was insignificant in the study.

This study enriches the online review literature by comparing writers’ and readers’ perspectives on online reviews with extremely negative emotions across two online platform types: integrated websites and SNS. From the writers’ perspective, this study highlights anonymity and the presence of an audience as essential factors that reviewers consider in selecting an online review platform to express themselves. This research also sheds light on how readers’ perspectives on extremely negative reviews conflict with the presumptions of writers of extremely negative reviews on integrated websites by demonstrating that content embedding extremely negative emotions is less helpful regardless of platform type.

This research provides online negative review management strategies to platform and hotel managers. The findings suggest hotel and review platform managers should consider adopting review alignment or monitoring systems based on negative emotions intensity levels since readers on both platforms perceive reviews embedding extremely negative emotions as less helpful. Additionally, hotel managers can progress promotions to guests who share online reviews on SNS since SNS reviewers are more likely to attenuate their extremely negative emotions when writing reviews.

This research innovatively provides a comprehensive overview of negative reviews’ production and consumption process from reviewers’ and readers’ perspectives. This research also provides practitioners insight into the nature of two different platform types and the management of negative reviews on these platforms.

Based on 1,798 firm-year observations from 2009 to 2013, using publicly available disclosure data for Korean listed firms, this study aims to examine whether statutory internal auditors influence firm-level stock price crash risk.

Based on the bad news hoarding theory of crash risk, the authors investigate the association between the quality of statutory internal auditors and one-year-ahead stock price crash risk. The quality of statutory internal auditors is measured as the compensation of statutory internal auditors and the financial expertise of statutory internal auditors. Stock price crash risk is measured as an indicator variable whether a firm experiences one or more crash weeks during the fiscal year period.

The authors find that higher quality of statutory internal auditors – measured through greater compensation and greater financial expertise – is associated with lower possibilities of future stock price crash risk. These results indicate that high-quality statutory internal auditors mitigate bad news hoarding of managers because of their greater capability and stronger incentive to lower litigation risk and preserve their reputation. The results are mostly robust to different measures for stock price crash risk and the quality of statutory internal auditors.

The findings of this study regarding stock price crash risk are important for investors because such risk can significantly affect investor welfare. The results indicate that statutory internal auditors play an important role in controlling future stock price crash risk and maintaining stability in the equity market.

This study adds to the extant literature on the determinants of stock price crash risk and is the first to examine the impact of internal auditors on stock price crash risk. Moreover, this study also contributes to the existing literature on internal auditor quality by showing that high-quality statutory internal auditors reduce risks in financial markets.

This study aims to explore the role of restaurant experienscape in affecting diners' emotions and satisfaction with solo dining, considering the moderating role of solo dining willingness and public self-consciousness (PSC).

In total, 403 Korean customers who had dined alone at restaurants in the past three months participated in this study. Structural equation modeling, including multiple group analysis, was conducted to examine the hypotheses.

The dining atmosphere influenced solo diners' positive emotions but not their negative emotions. Responses from other guests and the interactional fairness of employees affected solo diners' negative emotions but not their positive emotions. Food sensory influences both positive and negative emotions. This study found that PSC significantly moderated the effect of the dining atmosphere on positive emotions, and solo dining willingness significantly moderated the impact of food sensory on positive emotions.

This study suggests that restaurant managers should pay close attention to providing fair service to all customers by training and educating employees because the unfair treatment that solo diners receive from employees affects focal customers' negative emotions.

The experienscape model was applied to the solo dining context based on Mehrabian and Russell's (1974) stimulus–organism–response paradigm and Pizam and Tasci's (2019) experienscape concept, which reflects the growing trend in solo dining.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Business success today depends to a considerable extent on creating positive relationships with customers and the wider public. Consumers are more informed and knowledgeable than ever before. Long gone are the days where they meekly accepted the passive role in their associations with firms. Belief in organizational omniscience has consequently become something of a rarity too. The Internet bears much responsibility for this shift in the balance of power. And the advent of social media (SM) and other Web 2.0 technologies has served to accelerate the trend further. To certain organizations, such developments will be seen as a challenge to their traditional dominance. But prudent operators invariably think more in terms of opportunity rather than threat when change occurs.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This paper aims to discuss the successful fabrication of customized tubular scaffolds for tracheal tissue engineering with a novel route using solvent-based extrusion 3D printing.

The manufacturing approach involved extrusion of polymeric ink over a rotating predefined pattern to construct customized tubular structure of polycaprolactone (PCL) and polyurethane (PU). Dimensional deviation in thickness of scaffolds were calculated for various layer thicknesses of 3D printing. Physical and chemical properties of scaffolds were investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM), contact angle measurement, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Mechanical characterizations were performed, and the results were compared to the reported properties of human native trachea from previous reports. Additionally, in vitro cytotoxicity of the fabricated scaffolds was studied in terms of cell proliferation, cell adhesion and hemagglutination assay.

The developed fabrication route was flexible and accurate by printing customized tubular scaffolds of various scales. Physiochemical results showed good miscibility of PCL/PU blend, and decrease in crystalline nature of blend with the addition of PU. Preliminary mechanical assessments illustrated comparable mechanical properties with the native human trachea. Longitudinal compression test reported outstanding strength and flexibility to maintain an unobstructed lumen, necessary for the patency. Furthermore, the scaffolds were found to be biocompatible to promote cell adhesion and proliferation from the in vitro cytotoxicity results.

The attempt can potentially meet the demand for flexible tubular scaffolds that ease the concerns such as availability of suitable organ donors.

3D printing over accurate predefined templates to fabricate customized grafts gives novelty to the present method. Various customized scaffolds were compared with conventional cylindrical scaffold in terms of flexibility.