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Based on Landowski’s sociosemiotics theory, this paper aims to propose an alternative outlining of online brand communities’ social dynamics, not for their collective behaviors but for their discursive interactions.

Data were collected during a three-year netnographic immersion into a Disney-related Facebook group and authors’ trips to Walt Disney World.

The findings point to four styles of discursive interactions that shape an online brand community’s social dynamic. On the one hand, utterances based on the guiding and following styles of discursive interactions inform desired behaviors, which subsequently become tacitly routinized. On the other hand, utterances based on the adapting and venturing styles of discursive interactions mark random and unusual communicational situations.

This work expands current theoretical discussions on online brand communities by unveiling an unexplored linguistic dimension of them.

Storytelling has long been a popular strategy in marketing. Despite its ubiquity, the influence of storytelling in the sport marketing literature has not been investigated, especially on consumers' perspective. Thus, the purpose of this study is to (a) examine the effect of storytelling on sport consumers, and (b) explore the moderation effect of product involvement on the relationship between storytelling and purchase intention of a signature sneaker.

Two experiments using 3 (storytelling: bullet-point type vs. athlete-based story vs. product-based story) × 2 (product involvement: low vs. high) between-subjects experimental design were conducted.

The main finding illustrates that both the athlete-based story and the product-based story had a stronger influence on a consumer's purchase intention than the information that was given in a bullet-point condition. This study provides a theoretical implication of storytelling strategy for sport marketing literature. From a managerial perspective, the authors heavily recommend the use of storytelling in sport product advertisements.

Previous literature has highlighted the effect of storytelling in sports organization such as professional sports team or utilization in social media. However, limited studies could be found in the sports product industry and consumer behavior sector. Thus, the current study has a significant value of understanding the storytelling strategy in the perspective of sports consumers as well as brand marketers.

Today, individuals use social media to express their opinions and feelings, which offers a living laboratory to researchers in various fields, such as management, innovation, technology development, environment and marketing. It is therefore necessary to understand how the language used in user-generated content and the emotions conveyed by the content affect responses from other social media users.

In this study, almost 700,000 posts from Twitter (as well as Facebook, Instagram and forums in the appendix) are used to test a conceptual model grounded in signaling theory to explain how the language of user-generated content on social media influences how other users respond to that communication.

Extending developments in linguistics, this study shows that users react negatively to content that uses self-inclusive language. This study also shows how emotional content characteristics moderate this relationship. The additional information provided indicates that while most of the findings are replicated, some results differ across social media platforms, which deserves users' attention.

This article extends research on Internet behavior and social media use by providing insights into how the relationship between self-inclusive language and emotions affects user responses to user-generated content. Furthermore, this study provides actionable guidance for researchers interested in capturing phenomena through the social media landscape.

The efficient functioning of the labour market is an important factor that affects long-term economic growth. The interaction of supply and demand on the labour market is influenced by institutions which change the motivations and behaviour of economic actors and, ultimately, the flexibility of the labour market. There is no consensus in the literature on the effect these institutions have on labour market outcomes. This chapter focuses on a set of selective labour market institutions (employment protection legislation, minimum wages, unemployment benefits, labour taxation, trade unions and active labour market policies), compares their relevance to other European Union (EU) countries and through the lens of the Beveridge curve it tries to evaluate their impact on effectiveness of the Czech labour market. The international comparison shows that most of the considered institutions/regulations do not reach such importance (except employment protection legislation) and that they have a significant negative effect on labour market outcomes. Even the model of the Beveridge curve does not indicate that the Czech labour market is characterised by rigidities that would impair the effectiveness of a matching process at the aggregate level.

This performance autoethnography may or may not be interpreted as a continuation of a conversation regarding the experiences of those with devalued statuses in academic settings. The authors rely on “strange accounting” to consider their experiences in the academy from various standpoints: before and after promotion, before and after leaving academia. While reflecting on our past experiences, we introduce the concept of “everyday precariousness” as a way of explaining the normalization of instability, insecurity, and negative affect that is part of everyday life for those with devalued statuses in academic settings and beyond. Everyday precariousness is an embodied experience for those in vulnerable positions. Normalized exposure to risks, such as discrimination, harassment, bullying, or structural instability, produces an undercurrent of threat that permeates academic culture. Our stories of everyday precariousness span race, ethnicity, class, academic roles, and gender boundaries (among many others). Analyzing these experiences furthers previous work on the uses of strange accounting as well as the dynamics of status silencing. In the final analysis, unresisted and unabated, everyday precariousness and status silencing can lead to institutional failure and resonance disasters.

The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) calls for far-reaching changes to the way economic activity will occur in EU digital markets. Before its remedies are imposed, it is critical to assess their impacts on individual markets, the digital sector, and the overall European economy. The European Commission (EC) released an Impact Assessment in support of the DMA that purports to evaluate it using cost/benefit analysis.

An economic evaluation of the DMA should consider its full impacts on dynamic competition. The Impact Assessment neither assesses the DMA's impact on dynamic competition in the digital economy nor evaluates the impacts of specific DMA prohibitions and obligations. Instead, it considers benefits in general and largely ignores costs. We study its benefit assessments and find they are based on highly inappropriate methodologies and assumptions. A cost/benefit study using inappropriate methodologies and largely ignoring costs cannot provide a sound policy assessment.

Instead of promoting dynamic competition between platforms, the DMA will likely reinforce existing market structures, ossify market boundaries, and stunt European innovation. The DMA is likely to chill R&D by encouraging free riding on the investments of others, which discourages making those investments. Avoiding harm to innovation is critical because innovation delivers large, positive spillover benefits, driving increases in productivity, employment, wages, and prosperity.

The DMA prioritizes static over dynamic competition, with the potential to harm the European economy. Given this, the Impact Assessment does not demonstrate that the DMA will be beneficial overall, and its implementation must be carefully tailored to alleviate or lessen its potential to harm Europe’s economic performance.

Enabled by pronounced advancement in technology, branded apps have dramatically changed how consumers communicate with brands. However, despite the proliferation of mobile apps, brands are struggling to engage users. Without engagement, a mobile app is unable to attract continued usage and brands are unable to establish relationships with consumers. Grounded in construal level theory, this study aims to adopt a fresh perspective to examine the determinants of psychological distance, which plays a key role in branded app engagement.

An online survey with valid data from 396 app users of UberEats, Foodpanda, 7-11 and FamilyMart in Taiwan was conducted.

Perceived synchronicity, localization, homophily, ease of use and design aesthetics are the key determinants that drive branded app engagement, which, in turn, facilitates continuous app usage intention, a positive brand attitude and brand loyalty.

This study contributes to the literature by revealing the five determinants of psychological distance that exert impacts on the establishment of branded app engagement. This research provides valuable findings that practitioners can emphasize to drive branded app engagement.

Brand stories are often created around the company’s humble beginnings as an underdog. The authors explore the effects of who is telling the underdog story and thus draw attention to the nature of the brand source by differentiating between family and non-family firms. The authors expect that who is telling the underdog story impacts consumers’ attitude toward the brand in terms of brand authenticity and trustworthiness perceptions.

The authors conducted an online experiment with a 2 × 2 between-subject design and an overall sample size of 314 respondents.

Most importantly, the authors find that the family-firm nature of the brand storyteller significantly impacts the underdog effect. The positive effects of underdog biographies on brand attitude in terms of authenticity and trustworthiness loom significantly larger for family firms compared with non-family firms.

The authors find that the underdog effect is significantly stronger for family firms that tell the underdog story. Managers of family firms with underdog roots should take advantage of this finding by integrating underdog stories into their marketing concepts. The findings of this study show that the communication of a company’s roots can serve as a valuable tool to build and maintain a positive brand image and help to increase purchase intentions, which is particularly true for firms capitalizing on their family nature when telling the underdog story.

The authors combine research on brand stories using the underdog effect with research on the consumer’s perception of family firms, further exploring the role of the brand storyteller in underdog narratives, resulting in important theoretical as well as practical implications.