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Different cultures believe that some numbers are “lucky” and other numbers are “unlucky”. The purpose of this paper is to determine to what extent hotels follow numerological superstitions in their floor and room numbering, if more accidents or complaints occur on unlucky hotel floors compared to other floors and if more accidents or complaints occur in unlucky hotel rooms compared to other rooms.

For the first research objective, an audit of hotels in a particular destination, Hong Kong, is taken capturing the number of floors and rooms on each floor and determining if “unlucky” numbers are used. For the second and third objectives, the accident and complaint database of one upscale hotel in Hong Kong across a five-year period is investigated.

The authors find that hotels do follow superstitious numbering, with “unlucky” numbers not being included in floor or room numbering. Chinese superstition is more likely to be followed than Western superstition. The non-inclusion of “unlucky” numbers is more likely for hotel floors than for hotel rooms. In the case study hotel, they found no significant differences in the number of accidents and complaints between unlucky and other rooms and floors across the five years of analysis.

Superstitions surrounding numbers can affect decisions made by individuals and businesses and can have significant economic consequences. There is little academic research into how the hotel sector is impacted by numerology superstitions.

An emerging line of research examining the role of numerological superstition in the capital market shows that it has significant impact on investor behavior (Bhattacharya, Kuo, Lin, & Zhao, 2018; Hirshleifer, Jian, & Zhang 2018). However, to the authors’ best knowledge, there is a dearth of evidence on whether numerological superstition affects corporate behavior. This study fills this void by examining the association between investors’ numerological superstition and earnings management using Chinese data.

Chinese culture views 6 and 8 as lucky numbers. Using Chinese publicly traded firms, the authors examine the relation between investors’ numerological superstition and corporate financial reporting behavior.

The results suggest that firms reporting lucky earnings-per-share (EPS) numbers ending with 6 or 8 are more likely to engage in earnings management. These firms also raise more capital through seasoned equity offerings in the following year; however, they do not have more capital investments. Instead, their controlling shareholders siphon a significant amount of capital through related party transactions. Overall, the findings suggest that managers collude with controlling shareholders to manage earnings by exploiting the superstitious beliefs of minority shareholders.

To the authors’ best knowledge, there is a dearth of evidence on whether numerological superstition affects corporate behavior. This study fills this void by examining the association between investors’ numerological superstition and earnings management using Chinese data.

The present study is a “first look” at sales superstitions with the purpose of establishing its prevalence among professional salespeople and examining the subsequent effects on sales person expected confidence, motivation, sales call behavioral intentions, and anticipated performance outcomes.

Data was collected from 234 industrial (business to business) salespeople. SmartPLS path modeling was used to test a model consisting of three antecedents and three outcomes of salesperson superstitious behavior intensity.

The findings reveal that salespeople are more likely to behave superstitiously when they believe in personal good luck and experience higher levels of role ambiguity. For these salespeople, outcomes such as expected increase in confidence and motivation, positive sales behavioral intentions, and performance outcomes were anticipated as a result of their superstitions.

Social cognitive theory is used as an organizing framework to guide this review as well as to develop a model that describes the conditions that give rise to sales superstitions and its potential impact on expected sales confidence, motivation, call behavioral intentions, and anticipated performance outcomes.

Given the paucity of reports on sales superstitions, the present study extrapolates from other allied literatures to identify antecedents and consequences associated with engaging in superstitious behavior.

Numerical superstition is well-known in Asian countries and can influence decision-making in many markets, from financial investment to purchasing a house. This study aims to determine the house price effects of superstition and understand if these have changed over time.

Using sales transactions of freestanding houses in Auckland, New Zealand, the authors use hedonic price analysis to investigate whether superstitious beliefs associated with lucky and unlucky house numbers affect property values.

The analysis reveals ethnic Chinese buyers in Auckland displayed superstitious home buying behaviour in the period 2003-2006 by attributing value to homes with street addresses starting or ending with the lucky number eight. However, this willing to pay higher prices for lucky numbers was not reflected in the analysis of 2011-2015 sales transactions. The disappearance of superstition price effects may indicate that ethnic Chinese in the Auckland housing market have, over time, assimilated New Zealand’s Western culture and have become less superstitious.

Unlike previous studies, the authors parse buyers into two populations of homebuyers, ethnic Chinese and non-Chinese purchasers, and model the two groups’ housing transactions independently to more accurately establish if numerical superstition influences house prices.

The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of antecedents and consequences of superstitious beliefs.

From survey data drawn from 206 South Korean and 218 US respondents, structural equation modeling is used to test the posited hypotheses.

To extrinsic superstitious beliefs, both the South Korean and US models support the subjective happiness through self-esteem path and the anthropomorphism path; from these beliefs, both models support the horoscope importance path and the behavioral superstitious beliefs path. Only the US model supports the path from self-esteem to extrinsic superstitious beliefs, and only the South Korean model supports the path from intrinsic religiosity to extrinsic superstitious beliefs.

South Korean and US student data may limit generalizability. As effect sizes in this context are established, researchers have a benchmark for future quantitative superstition research.

By further understanding antecedents and consequences of superstitious beliefs, marketers are in a better position to appeal to targeted customers. Anthropomorphism and intrinsic religiosity, not fully studied by marketing scholars, show promise as segmentation variables related to consumers’ attitudes and behaviors.

To avoid unethical practice, marketers must limit themselves to innocuous superstition cues.

Leaning on experiential consumption theory and the “magical thinking” literature, this study augments the superstition literature by exploring carefully selected yet under-researched determinants and consequences of superstitious beliefs across eastern and western consumer groups.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of various superstitious beliefs in consumers' information processing and evaluation of brand logos.

When consumers encounter a brand logo without actually experiencing the company's offerings, superstition may be deployed to fill the void of the unknown to evaluate the brand logo and judge the benefits from the offerings represented by the brand. Multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the relationship between consumers' brand logo sensitivity and a number of antecedental superstition beliefs.

The results indicate that consumers' belief in fate has a negative effect on brand logo sensitivity, and consumers' belief in fortune‐tellers, belief in magic and fictional figures, belief in lucky charms, and belief in superstitious rituals have positive effects on brand logo sensitivity, respectively.

From a consumer perspective, the authors' findings reveal that the more positive attitude consumers have towards a company's visual identity system, the more favorable brand image consumers have toward the company and its offerings.

Marketers should study and understand consumer superstition when attempting to build consumer‐friendly, culturally‐robust, and trouble‐free brands in the marketplace. Managerial implications and corporate branding strategies are suggested to avoid branding pitfalls and maximize brand equity in the consumer market.

The study offers a non‐traditional approach to explaining consumer‐based brand image and brand equity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether gambler’s cognitive errors affect gambling involvement and addiction. As the popularity of gambling has grown, questions are being raised about its excessive use and factors related to addictive behaviours.

An online survey on 508 gamblers was conducted. Structural equation modelling was used to investigate the relationships among gambling beliefs, gambling involvement and problem gambling.

Among the three sets of erroneous beliefs investigated, luck and superstition were significant predictors of both gambling involvement and the severity of gambling problems (according to the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI)), while the illusion of control showed a negative relationship with the PGSI. Moreover, gambling involvement positively affected the potential risk of disease and mediates the relationship between luck and superstition and PGSI.

Because not all cognitive dimensions apparently influence gambling behaviour, future research should extend the analysis to include other variables that may moderate or mediate the causal relationship.

The results are useful to marketers in developing social marketing campaigns wishing to discourage gambling. Moreover, factors that influence gambling involvement and addiction may be used as diagnostic tools to correct gamblers behaviour.

The paper proposes a deeper exploration of the relationships among beliefs, gambling involvement and dysfunctional gambling and an appropriate scale to capture the entire spectrum of gambler’s beliefs in relation to every form of gambling activity.

Examines the debate over “Higher superstition” (Gross and Levitt, 1994). Puts forward the arguments in the book and the response to the book from members of the US science and technology studies community. Asserts that increases in technical control have been at the expense of social and individual control. Mentions “diversionary reframing” – changing the subject, possibly by diverting attention away from the subject matter to the person doing the criticizing. Explores public attitudes towards science and technology, quoting a number of layman approaches to the bafflement of science. Identifies the irony in Gross and Levitt’s arguments, particularly in developing the interface between science and technology. Recommends paying more attention to the social construction of beliefs.

This paper aims to uncover various types of jaycustomer behaviors, causes of the behaviors and employees’ handling approaches in casinos, which is an underresearched sector in the literature.

Using critical incident technique (CIT), the researchers prompted 52 casino employees in Macao to recall critical incidents about jaycustomer behavior that they had encountered. The informants, then, described the circumstances that led up to the situation, the responses of customers and how they and their colleagues handled the situation. Content analysis was used to develop the categories.

The findings of this study report 9 categories of jaycustomer behaviors, 9 causes of the behaviors and 12 handling approaches. Different from previous findings, breaking a promise and instigation are identified for the first time. Such causes as a losing experience and superstition are specific to the casino industry. Strict handling approaches are rarely adopted to handle jaycustomers, especially the premium customers.

Casino operators are recommended to ensure that employees are well-trained and provide clear guidelines on handling jaycustomers. Conniving approaches should be re-evaluated. Seeking support from other personnel has to be tactical. Moreover, customers should be educated to reduce their misunderstanding of gaming and transaction procedures.

There has been increasing scholarly focus on jaycustomer behaviors. However, very less is known regarding such behaviors, their causes and employees’ handling approaches in casino, a sector which is different from other hospitality sectors. The current study unveiled jaycustomer behaviors which have not been found in previous studies and causes which are specific to the casino sector.

Religious and peculiar beliefs are two of the factors affecting consumer behavior and may differentially affect individuals and societies. Therefore, this study aims to investigate them from the study of Iranian customers’ behavior.

These beliefs are sensitive issues, hence, to investigate them, the grounded theory method through 15 in-depth interviews was applied.

The results indicated that evil-eye effect, as a peculiar belief, affected the behavior of luxury cars’ consumers in the Iranian society while religion had no such effect on the consumers’ behavior, in spite of religious notions about luxury. Furthermore, the findings revealed that consumers may legitimize their inconsistent behaviors through a variety of tactics such as different interpretations of religious notions or dissembling their superstitious beliefs.

The present study will contribute to the literature on religion and customer behavior through taking advantage of the application of a qualitative research design. Besides, the originality of the study might be in the application of various tactics by the customers to legitimize their behaviors inconsistent with religion.