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The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the determinants and consequences of psychological reactance in the online shopping context. Leveraging the psychological reactance and self-congruity theories, functional and symbolic discrepancies enhance the psychological reactance toward online shopping. In addition, trustworthiness moderates the impact of online customers attitude ambivalence on their psychological reactance.

The authors conduct an empirical study on online customer cognitive factors. In this research paper, the postpositivism research view is used. The Smart PLS-SEM is used to analyze the data.

The current study findings reveal that self-concept and operational incongruence (i.e. symbolic and functional) are the main factors that lead to psychological reactance and resulting in online shopping hate. Poor website quality and other matters are so significant they create functional incongruence. Moreover, low trustworthiness strengthens psychological reactance in the online shopping hate context.

This study extends the psychological reactance and self-congruence theories to online shopping. Previously, literature has extensively studied the social commerce intention.

This study explores the underlying mechanism of psychological reactance that leads to online shopping hate in social commerce. Based on self-congruity and psychological reactance theory, this study examines the antecedents (symbolic, functional and emotional incongruence) and consequences (online shopping hate) of psychological reactance among online users toward online shopping. Moreover, this study takes trustworthiness as a moderator in the relationship between attitude ambivalence and psychological reactance.

Data were collected from online users.

The results show that symbolic-incongruence and functional-incongruence are responsible for attitude ambivalence, resulting in high psychological reactance. In addition, the study’s findings reveal that psychological reactance is positively linked with online shopping hate. This study extends and contributes to the self-congruence theory and empirically examines the influence of emotional incongruence. The moderating results reveal that trustworthiness moderated the relationship between attitude ambivalence and psychological reactance. The study findings are helpful for marketing managers to develop social commerce strategies.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

The study findings are helpful for marketing managers to develop social commerce strategies.

This study explains the underlying mechanism of brand hate through psychological reactance.

Unsustainable spending patterns of consumers directly contribute to 30–40% of environmental degradation, mainly in waste. Packaging is a vital part of responding to the main challenges of sustainable food consumption on the global stage. This study aims to investigate how environmental concern and trust in sustainable producers impact the sustainable consumption behaviors of consumers via the mediation of consumer xenocentrism and the moderation of eco-label and country of origin (COO) of buying sustainable packaged foreign food brands.

This study employed a quantitative method. The authors used Smart PLS 3.0 structural equation modeling (SEM) technique for data analysis. Data from the participants were collected through the convenience sampling technique. A total of 343 valid responses were received.

The results indicate that xenocentrism is an emerging behavior among Pakistani consumers. The authors found that a high degree of environmental concern and trust in sustainable producers are the antecedents of consumer xenocentrism, which leads to sustainable consumption behavior.

This research highlights the importance of customers’ xenocentric attitudes that lead to sustainable consumption behavior. The research findings provide vital information for researchers, policymakers, academics, practitioners, industry professionals, brand managers and top management, especially in designing the environmental sustainability framework. Although the findings support theory of planned behavior (TPB), future studies can contrast different theories’ contributions to sustainable consumption behavior improvement. Also future researchers may analyze the impact of culture on the association between sustainable consumption and consumer attitudes toward environmental concerns and trust in sustainable producers.

This research contributes to practice and theory, as consumer xenocentrism is a relatively unexplored area of research in developing countries. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to examine consumers’ xenocentric attitudes to sustainable consumption empirically.

This study aims to examine the roles of face consciousness, materialism and emotions play in sustainable luxury brand consumption (SLBC) among Millennials in a Collective society.

Three experimental design studies using scenario-based methodologies along with the survey method were conducted in China to test the proposed research model.

Study 1 shows that face consciousness negatively and significantly affects SLBC, and this effect is mediated by materialism. Study 2 reveals that when Millennials experienced great authentic pride, there is a positive association between face consciousness and SLBC. Furthermore, Study 3 reveals that when Millennials are exposed to a high risk of embarrassment, materialists’ willingness to engage in SLBC increases.

The current research has significant theoretical implications for studying SLBC, especially among young consumers. This study contributes to a better understanding of the relationships among face consciousness, materialism, pride, risk of embarrassment and SLBC in a Collective culture context, where luxury consumption is valued.

Sustainable luxury consumption is a new and under-examined research area. This research extends the SLBC literature in the context of a collective society and provides empirical evidence for sustainable consumption and luxury consumption in general. The research also contributes to the literature by examining the moderating role of self-conscious emotion in the relationship between face consciousness and SLBC.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the overview of factors responsible for materialism and compulsive buying among adolescents and young adults. In today’s world, materialism is a crucial phenomenon of the modern age. According to social comparison theory, comparisons are a significant factor affecting the behavioral intentions of adolescents and young adults. Thus, this study develops a framework based on the stimulus–organism–response model and uses the framework to examine the impact of interpersonal communication and marketing factors on social comparison, materialism and compulsive buying, with social media acting as a moderator.

Using a survey method, data were collected in Study 1 from adolescents (n = 298) and in Study 2 from young adults (n = 345). Structural equation modeling analysis using partial least squares technique was used to analyze the data.

The results show that social comparison plays a significant role in developing materialistic values and compulsive buying among adolescents and young adults. Through these two studies, it was found that young adults are more socially comparative, materialistic and compulsive in buying as compared to adolescents. Moreover, social media use moderated the relationship between social comparison with peers and media celebrities, which means that rapid increase of social media use leads adolescents and young adults to create high social comparison and materialistic values.

This research is based on the cross-sectional method, which limits the research findings.

This research helps corporate managers understand the interpersonal communication role in creating social comparison among individuals. The study found that peer communication plays a more important role in enhancing the social comparative values among young adults than among adolescents, which provides clear implications for the practitioner.

This study makes a significant contribution to extant literature by discussing the above issue and presenting quantitative data. The study extends the literature by examining and validating a theoretical model of how interpersonal communication among socializing agents affects social comparison among young adults and adolescents. This research examines outcomes of the social comparison with parents, peers and social media, based on the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) model.

Enhancing green innovation for corporate sustainability is one of the recent issues globally. Knowledge management has been determined as a core factor that hamstrings green innovation. The existing literature was limited to expose the importance of the knowledge management process for corporate sustainable performance. Thus, this paper aims to examine the role of the knowledge management process for corporate sustainable performance with the integration of green innovation and organizational agility following the resource-based view theory.

Cross-sectional design was used in this study. Data were gathered through convenience sampling from 475 respondents of multinational manufacturing corporations of Pakistan, analyzed by using structural equation modeling.

This study revealed that the knowledge management process and its all constructs (acquisition, dissemination and application) lead toward green innovation; further, green innovation influences corporate sustainable performance and its all constructs (environment, economic and social). Green innovation partially mediates the association between the knowledge management process and corporate sustainable performance. Besides, organizational agility has a positive effect on green innovation and corporate sustainable performance but was not found moderating these relations. The study educates that organizations investing in innovative technologies and adopting greener strategies are not only adequate for achieving sustainable performance, soft issues such as knowledge management and organizational agility but also important factors in the current knowledge base economy.

This study is an attempt to examine the previously undiscovered multi-dimensional relationships among the knowledge management process, green innovation, organizational agility and corporate sustainable performance. The presence of a positive correlation among these constructs was observed, proving the conceptual framework for this study.

The purpose of this paper is to test the impact of symbolic and functional incongruity on brand hate. According to self-congruity theory, symbolic and functional congruence are a critical phenomenon in consumer buying decisions. Therefore, the present study develops a theoretical framework based on self-congruity theory to examine the key determinants of brand hate.

Data were collected only in fast-food chain franchises in the capital city territory of Pakistan. Therefore, it is hard to generalize the findings of this research for customers from different cultural backgrounds.

The results of the study reveal that symbolic and functional incongruence are the primary factors responsible for brand hate among Pakistani fast-food customers. Customers carefully consider both self-image and product attributes when purchasing products.

The research uses the cross-sectional method, which limits the findings’ usefulness in other sectors.

The current research helps policymakers understand the key determinants of brand hate, showing that symbolic incongruence is the primary antecedent. Therefore, policymakers and corporate leaders should consider that Pakistan is an Islamic country where consumer choices of food are not only derived from food quality, food hygiene and service quality, but also the symbolic image (i.e. halal food) is a vital determinant of consumption.

This study contributes to the literature by discussing the above issue and presenting quantitative data. This research extends the literature by testing and validating a conceptual model that includes two types of congruence (symbolic and functional) to study brand hate. The proposed conceptual model provides a novel, theoretical, self-congruity point of view on brand hate.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of social commerce constructs (SCCs), social support and relationship quality on social commerce intentions, which lead to use behaviour of social networking sites for social commerce.

Data were collected from 343 users of social networking sites in Pakistan. The data analysis was conducted using PLS-SEM.

The results show that SCCs have empowered consumers through the existence of virtual groups, ratings and reviews and recommendations and referrals, thereby having a significant impact on social commerce intentions. The relationship quality with social networking sites, measured through commitment, satisfaction and trust, also proved to be a leading forecaster of social commerce intentions. The impact of social support could not positively influence the relationship quality with the social networking site. However, social support influences the social commerce intentions significantly.

Future research should enrich model with some moderating variables and data may be collected from actual online shoppers only.

This study provides valuable insights to retailers to formulate their social commerce strategies as per decision factors results to have maximum engagement of consumers in social commerce.

The study proposes the unique model for finding the social commerce intentions and use behaviour using social support theory, relationship marketing theory and information systems literature.

The present study unveils the service encounter barriers – interactional and instructional – faced by foreign consumers at food and beverage restaurants in China. It builds a conceptual framework and examines (1) how service encounter barriers create situational abnormality, (2) how situational abnormality engenders foreign consumers' felt discomfort that influences their revisit intentions and (3) how expectations disconfirmation moderates situational abnormality.

Convenience sampling using the survey method was employed to collect data from 517 foreign consumers – who stay in Beijing (China) – at food and beverage restaurants. The study used IBM SPSS 25.0 and Amos Graphics 24.0 to analyze the data and interpret results.

Findings reveal that interactional and instructional barriers positively create situational abnormality, which ultimately leads to foreign consumers' felt discomfort and their negative revisit intentions. Expectations disconfirmation significantly aggravates situational abnormality as a moderator.

This study investigates foreign consumers' behavior at food and beverage restaurants in China and cautions its generalizability. It suggests corroborating the foreign consumers' behavioral intentions in the context of other countries to generalize the findings and unleash other factors additive to comprehend their behavior in the wake of restaurant industry.

The extant literature has not examined the service encounter barriers faced by foreign consumers at food and beverage restaurants in China. The present study, responding to the previous calls, incorporated the service encounter barriers and their downstream effects on foreign consumers' behavioral responses. By doing so, it adds value to the domestic food and beverage restaurants and service firms in China, in particular, and paves the way to understand the interactional and instructional barriers in the global context, in general, by engaging the foreign consumers.

Knowledge sharing (KS) has been consistently acknowledged as a critical factor in the organizational development and the betterment of employees. The purpose of this paper is to extend previous empirical research on KS by testing psychological ownership as an underlying mechanism between the relationship of organizational justice (OJ) and KS behavior in developing country context. The authors also examine the moderating role of perceived organizational support (POS) between psychological ownership and KS behavior.

Using a survey questionnaire, data from 348 employees of multinational corporations in Pakistan were used to test the research hypotheses.

The results of this research reveal that dimensions of OJ (procedural, distributive and interactional justice) positively influence psychological ownership. In addition, psychological ownership is found as an underlying psychological mechanism between the relationship of OJ and KS behavior. The results also indicate that a higher level of POS strengthens the relationship between psychological ownership and KS behavior.

Organizations can enhance employees’ sense of psychological ownership by providing them fairness in procedures and resources. Moreover, management can create a perception of equality among the employees which subsequently helps employees engage in sharing their valuable knowledge with their team members and other workers in the organization.

This research suggests that psychological ownership and POS are important factors which influence the relationship between OJ and KS behavior and it empirically tests this model in a developing country context.