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Valence and volume of online reviews are generally considered to influence sales positively. However, existing findings regarding the relative influence of these two components have been inconclusive. This paper aims to explain some of these inconsistencies by examining the moderating role of regulatory focus (both as a chronic disposition and as a situational focus induced by the product category) in the relationship between online review volume/valence and consumers purchase decisions.

Two studies were conducted. Study 1 used a 2 (Volume: high/ low) * 3 (Valence: high/medium/low) within-subject experimental design. Study 2 analyzed real-world data from Amazon.com. Logistic and panel regression analyses were used to test the research hypotheses.

The studies confirmed the hypothesized effect of regulatory focus on online review valence and volume effects. Specifically, Study 1 showed that online review valence was more impactful for consumers with a promotion focus than for consumers with a prevention focus. The opposite was true for online review volume effects, where consumers with a prevention focus were influenced more by volume in their decision-making compared to consumers with a promotion focus. Study 2 showed that the pattern of results we found in Study 1 also applied to situational regulatory focus induced by the product category. The effect of review volume on sales rank was stronger for prevention-oriented products, whereas the effect of valence was stronger for promotion-oriented products.

In Study 1, one product category was involved in the study (Digital camera). Involving more different product categories will add reliability to the results of current research. Also, it can offer external validity to current research results. In Study 2, there was no exact measurement for sales, as Amazon.com does not share that kind of information. Instead, Sales Rank was used as a proxy variable. Future research could look into the websites that offer access to the exact sales information.

The current research findings suggest the need for companies to adapt their consumer review management strategy to the regulatory orientation of their target market and products. When a promotion-focused mindset is targeted, strategies for increasing the favorability of product reviews should be used, in contrast, tactics for increasing the quantity of reviews may be more suitable when a prevention-focused mindset is involved.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this research is the first to investigate the interaction between regulatory focus of consumers and products and online review components.

This paper aims to investigate the potential relationship between depression, diabetes knowledge and self-care management with quality of life in diabetic patients.

This analytical cross-sectional study was conducted on 309 diabetic patients in Tabriz, Iran in 2015-2017. Quality of life was assessed by a validated questionnaire. The Persian version of the Beck Aeron questionnaire was used to assess the depression status. Knowledge and self-care management was evaluated by the health belief model questionnaire. Simple and multiple regression models were used to determine the relationship between the mentioned factors and the quality of life in diabetic patients.

Thirty-six per cent of the patients suffered from depression. The mean score of the total quality of life was 33.75 ± 8.72. The scores of the three domains of the quality of life were less than the normal range (“complication of diabetes” domain: 9.93 ± 3.16, “diagnosis, therapy and follow-up” domain: 10.91 ± 3.31, “psycho-social effect of diabetes” domain: 12.93 ± 4.41). The score of “complication of diabetes” score in males was significantly higher than females (p = 0.001). There was a significant relationship between depression (p < 0.001), self-care management (p = 0.019) and two parameters of knowledge (diet: p = 0.006 and diabetes: p = 0.004) with quality of life of diabetic patients.

The obtained results presented an unfavorable status of knowledge, physical and mental health in diabetic patients and a strong relationship between health-related factors with quality of life. Therefore, it is suggested to hold community-based health-promoting programs to enhance the overall life satisfaction in people with diabetes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted numerous businesses and upended the lives and shopping habits of most consumers. This study aims to examine the price sensitivity and the efficacy of online reviews during a pandemic crisis.

This study borrowed from the regulatory focus theory and heuristic-systematic model and used a unique longitudinal sample of 320,000 product/day observations from the jeans category, collected before and during the pandemic, to investigate how consumers’ online shopping behavior changed during the pandemic.

The results of several hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed that during the pandemic consumers were less price-sensitive and more willing to pay price premiums for jeans. Furthermore, consumers were more (less) likely to be influenced by online review volume than valence. Finally, the results of a post-hoc study highlighted the potential role of regulatory focus as the underlying psychological mechanism explaining the effect of the pandemic.

This research contributes to the digital marketing and regulatory-focus literatures by showing that the COVID-19 pandemic may have triggered a prevention-focus state of mind and prompted consumers to place a greater value on online review volume than valence when shopping online (for jeans). Furthermore, this paper contributes to the pricing literature by offering further evidence that the pandemic may have inclined consumers to be less price-sensitive.

Studies investigating the association between dietary inflammatory index (DII) and body mass index (BMI) have led to inconsistent findings. Therefore, to decisively conclude, this paper aims to clarify the relationship between DII and obesity by performing meta-analysis.

PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar were searched up to July 2017 using key words selected from Medical Subject Headings and other related keywords to identify all relevant articles. In total, 22 articles were entered into the meta-analysis; 22 studies compared the mean of BMI among subjects with highest versus the lowest DII and 4 studies had data on the hazard risk (HR) or odds ratio (OR) for obesity.

A meta-analysis on included studies indicated a significant association on either mean differences (MD) in BMI (MD = 0.811; 95 per cent CI: 0.365-1.256; p: 0.0001) or obesity OR (OR: 1.310; 95 per cent CI: 1.144-1.500; p = 0.000) by comparing the highest and lowest DII categories. Between-study heterogeneity was high (Cochrane Q test, p < 0.001, I² = 98.1 per cent, df = 21, τ² = 0.9273), and only dietary assessment methods could explain the source of heterogeneity in which 24-h dietary recalls were homogeny (I² = 8.4 per cent, df = 2, p = 0.335).

The results of the present meta-analysis suggest that adherence to high DII score increased BMI and obesity. More prospective studies in different populations are needed to better clarify this relation.

Social media has transformed communication possibilities for immigrant consumers with their home country in their acculturation efforts. However, the acculturative outcomes of consumer interactions with the home country through social media are largely overlooked in previous research. This study aims to investigate the acculturative processes and outcomes resulting from interacting with the home country through social media.

A netnographic approach is used to collect data from a social media platform that provides an interactive social context in which Iranian immigrants in Australia share their experiences of immigration with non-immigrants who are considering and planning to migrate to Australia.

Findings show how both immigrants and non-immigrant users via social media reflexively contribute to the formation of two competing collective narratives, namely, the dominant, romanticizing narrative and counter, pragmatic narratives. Findings highlight how notions of the home and host countries, and the idea of migrating from home to host, are constructed as the result of the circulation of the dominant and counter narratives. Further findings include how these two collective narratives come into play in the formation of three acculturative outcomes, namely, self-validating, ordinary experts and wellbeing. These insights extend consumer acculturation theory through highlighting the acculturative processes and outcomes of interactions with the home country via a social media platform. This includes, for example, how interacting with the home culture can take on assimilationist properties through the construction of a romanticized representation of the hosting society (i.e. Australia) in the dominant collective narrative.

Implications for ethnic marketing practice, policymakers and non-governmental organisations are advanced, especially regarding using social media as a channel to communicate with current and potential immigrant consumers. Notably, policymakers can use social media to engage with immigrants before and after migration to reduce the potential for cognitive dissonance in recent arrivals. Managerially, brands can advertise on Web-based forums, independent websites and social media platforms to target potential immigrants to sell relevant products immigrants needs after migrating to the host country.

Findings broaden the understanding of the potential acculturative outcomes on social media by moving away from the traditional outcomes, which are restricted to the dichotomy between the home and host cultures.

Scholarly attention is deficient on the role of direct interaction with the home country in immigrant consumer acculturation, especially through social media, which is the focus of this study.

The present study aimed to explore the socio-psychological linkages between perceived job insecurity, loneliness, social support, depression, and interpersonal misconduct among hotel workers during a global crisis. The primary motivation behind this research was the significant problem of increased occupational stress resulting from the negative consequences of the pandemic on all hotel employees, including frontline workers and management personnel. This study aimed to investigate the impact of the pandemic on occupational stress within the hotel sector.

This research obtained 269 original survey data from employees in the Indian hotel industry by distributing a questionnaire and employing a convenience sampling method. Subsequently, the data were examined using (SEM).

The research findings suggest that there is a positive correlation between interpersonal deviance and depression. Additionally, this study demonstrated that social support can alleviate loneliness but has no significant association with depression.

This study can help hotel managers create guidelines that address the perceived insecurity and psychological issues faced by employees.

By understanding the psychological position of their employees, hoteliers can implement strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic on their workforces.

Diabetes is one of the health problems of increasing importance owing to the increase in its incidence and the problems it causes, and it is closely related to nutrition. This study aims to determine the relationship between the dietary inflammatory index (DII) scores of individuals with type 2 diabetes, depression, anxiety and quality of life.

In this cross-sectional study, 158 individuals with type 2 diabetes who applied to a nutrition and diet outpatient clinic of a private hospital in Istanbul were included. Their depression status was evaluated using the Beck Depression Inventory; their anxiety status was evaluated using the Beck Anxiety Inventory; and their quality of life was evaluated using the Short Form 36 Quality of Life scale. One-way ANOVA test was used to define the difference between groups. All test results were evaluated at a significance level of 0.05.

There was no significant relationship between DII scores, depression (p = 0.814) and anxiety (p = 0.817). However, a significant decrease was observed in the scores of the quality of life criterion in the groups with high depression and anxiety scores (p < 0.05). In addition, participants with high anxiety states had higher HbA1c levels (p = 0.043).

Individuals in this sample with no known psychiatric diagnosis or treatment history demonstrated a significant relationship between depression and anxiety scores and quality of life.

A healthcare unit's effectiveness largely depends on how well its interprofessional teams work together. Unfortunately, the strategies used to improve these teams often lack substance. This study analyzed these strategies and found a performance gap.

This study took a unique mixed-method approach, systematically reviewing both qualitative and quantitative studies that identified strategies to enhance interprofessional teams in healthcare units. To gauge the effectiveness of these strategies, the researcher utilized an Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) in four specialized clinical training centers in Hamadan province, Iran. The analysis of the IPA involved 35 experts from these centers as the statistical population.

Based on a systematic review, there are seven categories: contextual, strategic, communication, organizational, individual, Human Resources Management (HRM), and environmental for promoting interprofessional teams with a total of 36 sub-indicator. Based on the IPA, the HRM aspect shows the most extensive performance gap. The individual and organizational aspects fall under resource wastage, and the environmental aspect is within the indifferent zone. Also, some critical sub-indicators, such as incentives/rewards, roles and responsibilities, financial resources, team-initiated innovation, the culture of respect, partner resources, humility, data availability, set expectations, and team availability, are in the weak areas.

This research has identified critical areas for improvement in promoting teamwork in clinical training centers through a comprehensive gap analysis. It also presents practical policy solutions to address these weak points, providing a clear roadmap for enhancing interprofessional teams in healthcare units.

Improving teamwork in healthcare can be challenging, but it is possible with proper strategies and tools. One of the highlights of the recent study was the combination of systematic review studies with IPA to identify areas for improving interprofessional teamwork in clinical training centers.

Mobile crowd sensing (MCS) is a new paradigm enabled by Internet of Things (IoT) in which sensor-rich ubiquitous devices collect and share the data over a large geography. Human behaviour attributes (perception, comprehension and projection) play a key role in the decision-making process for sharing and processing the data. This study aims to understand how situation awareness plays an important role in MCS in an IoT ecosystem.

A systematic literature review was conducted by following a rigorous search protocol that identified a total of 470 peer-reviewed research papers. These papers were further filtered and finally 31 relevant papers were selected.

The major issues and concerns arising due to human participation in the MCS system were identified. Further, probable strategies were explored to deal with the challenges resulting due to certain human behaviour attributes.

This study provides the recommendations to address the major challenges related to the MCS system, which in turn may enhance the adoption of emerging smart technology-driven services.

The study is original and is based on the existing literature and its interpretation.