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The purpose of this paper is to examine the consumer response to brands offering gendered product differentiation (i.e. products “for her” or “for him”).

Across three experiments, the effect of gendered (vs gender-unrelated) product differentiation on perceived brand sexism and word-of-mouth intention was tested. The moderating effects of feminist identity (Studies 1 and 2), endorsement of sexist beliefs (Study 2) and basis (stereotypical vs biological) for product differentiation (Study 3) were also tested.

Consumers perceive brands that offer gendered product differentiation as sexist, which in turn leads to negative word-of-mouth intention. Moreover, consumers with a strong feminist identity are more likely to perceive brands that offer gendered product differentiation as sexist, whereas consumers who endorse sexist beliefs are less likely to do so. Finally, consumers respond negatively when the gendered product differentiation is based on a gender stereotype, but much less so when it seems based on a biological difference between sexes.

Although multiple brands offering gendered products have been denounced by consumers as sexist, no research has examined this phenomenon. This paper pioneers in examining the consumer response to brands offering gendered product differentiation and in demonstrating that consumers perceive such brands as sexist.

Cultivating loyal customers is a pressing concern for streamers. The present study investigates how to build interpersonal relationships with streamers and whether different interpersonal relationship factors lead to repurchase intention and WOM intention in live streaming commerce. The moderating effect of gender is also examined.

A self-administered questionnaire was completed by 429 live streaming commerce users in mainland China. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses.

The results indicate that all four streamer attributes (expertise, authenticity, attractiveness, and homophily) have a positive influence on swift guanxi, and swift guanxi is effective in predicting both calculative commitment and affective commitment. In addition, all interpersonal relationship factors (swift guanxi, calculative commitment, and affective commitment) significantly affect repurchase intentions, with only affective commitment being linked to WOM intention. Also, the moderating role of gender was confirmed in expertise – swift guanxi, attractiveness – swift guanxi, cognitive commitment – repurchase intention and affective commitment – repurchase intention linkages.

This paper contributes to the live streaming commerce literature by integrating swift guanxi, calculative commitment, and affective commitment to understand the repurchase intention and WOM intention from the relationship-building process perspective. In addition, this paper enriches the source credibility and source attractiveness models by identifying gender boundaries on the effectiveness of these models in predicting swift guanxi.

As perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become one of the long-term sustainable development strategies for many companies, this paper investigates the interrelationships between sustainable values (SVs), perceived CSR and customer behaviour in the restaurant industry.

To gather data needed to meet the study aims, we conducted an online survey of restaurant patrons in China, and used partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to analyse the proposed models and test the hypotheses.

The obtained findings confirm that the three studied SV dimensions (equality, respect for nature and shared responsibility) have positive effects on perceived CSR, which in turn significantly affects word of mouth (WOM). Moreover, perceived CSR mediates the relationship between the three SVs and WOM but has no impact on the relationship between SVs and revisit intention.

The results of this study have practical implications for managers in the restaurant industry. Restaurant managers can prioritize their CSR efforts based on the relative importance of SV dimensions, which is useful in generating positive WOM.

Even though the importance of CSR is widely recognised, it is insufficiently studied from the perspective of restaurant customers. This research not only addresses this gap, but also expands the current understanding of SVs and their impact on CSR.

This study aims to examine how the theory of planned behaviour and technology acceptance theory can be used to understand the adoption of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). The relationships between attitudes, behavioural intentions towards using NPIs, actual use of NPIs and word-of-mouth (WOM) were examined and compared between early and late adopters.

A survey was conducted to test the hypotheses with partial least squares structural equation modelling (n = 278).

The results indicate that relationships between attitudes, intentions and behavioural intentions were positive and significant in the whole data set – and that there were differences between the early and late adopters. WOM had no substantial relationship with actual usage and early adopters’ behavioural intentions.

This research gives a better sense of how WOM impacts attitudes, behavioural intentions and actual usage among early and late adopters of NPIs and highlights the effectiveness of WOM, especially among late adopters of NPIs. Furthermore, using the TAM allows us to make specific recommendations regarding encouraging the use of NPIs. A new three-stage communications model is introduced that uses early adopters as influencers to reduce the NPI adoption time by late adopters.

This study aims to understand the effect of cultural dimension (individualism/ collectivism) on promotional rewards (social or economic) resulting in incentivizing consumers to engage in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), further impacting their repurchase intentions.

In Study 1, a 2 (culture: individualism vs collectivism) × 2 (promotional rewards: social vs economic) between-subjects design was used. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses. In Study 2, culture was measured instead of just being manipulated. The authors used regression analysis in this study.

Owing to the characteristics of collectivistic individuals, consumers in collectivistic cultures were more likely to respond to social rewards as an incentive to engage in eWOM. However, consumers in individualistic cultures were more motivated to engage in eWOM when economic rewards were offered.

Despite the global nature of eWOM, little research has explored the effects of cultural traits on consumer response to amplified eWOM strategy. Additionally, though many organizations now offer various promotional incentives to reviewers, little research has explored the effects of promotional offers on a reviewer’s subsequent behavior, and no research has explored the relationship between cultural dimensions and current and future response to promotional eWOM rewards.

Consumer-perceived review attitude determines consumer overall information adoption and is a core part of consumer’s online-shopping. This study aims to focus on factors that could influence consumer review attitude and can be used by marketers to shape individual information perception.

The study used the questionnaire method to collect data from online shoppers and the modelling of structural equations as an empirical approach to analyse the data.

The findings demonstrate that both systematic and heuristic cues impact the reviewer’s credibility and perceived website attitude differently, which, in turn, influence review attitude. Review characteristics, such as factuality, consistency and relevancy, have a positive relationship with reviewer credibility, while only review consistency and relevancy appears to have a relationship with review attitude. Website characteristics such as reputation, familiarity and social interactivity positively influence the website attitude, which positively influences review attitude. Apart from this, review skepticism has a significant negative relationship with review attitude.

This study could help to foster a positive attitude towards online reviews. Digital marketers need to motivate trusted reviewers to post consistent, fact-based reviews. Further improving the overall website reputation and interactivity could bring a positive attitude towards the reviews. Also, digital marketers must filter and avoid contradictory reviews or reviews that have a bipolar message and reviews expressing numerous emotions to enhance review relevance and consistency.

The current study addresses the need to understand the formation of consumer review attitude through both review and website characteristics using heuristic – systematic model. The paper captures the complex process undergone by the consumer to decipher review attitude and thereby extend the understanding of consumer information processing.

This study aims to examine the role of different forms of corporate social advocacy (CSA) in shaping individuals’ attitudinal and behavioral intentions towards companies taking their public stand on controversial socio-political issues. With an online experiment as the research method, this study tests whether depicting nonpolitical or political behaviors in CSA messages increases individuals’ positive behavioral intentions.

This study uses a single factor between subject online experiment. A total of 135 US young adults were recruited through a Qualtrics online panel. Three social media mockups were created to manipulate three levels of actions in CSA messages (no action, nonpolitical action and political action). Participants viewed one of those social media posts depicting presented actions to counter anti-LGBTQ + legislation in the USA and answered questions about values-driven motives behind CSA, brand preference and positive word-of-mouth (WOM) intention.

Participants displayed higher levels of brand preference when they viewed CSA messages depicting the company’s political action intended to repel anti-LGBTQ + legislation. Participants showed more positive WOM intentions towards the company when they perceived its political actions as more values-driven.

The findings of this study offer practical insights to companies when designing CSA messages and strategies. The results of this study indicate that the presence of political actions in CSA communication increases individuals’ positive behaviors towards companies. The results also suggest that depicting altruistic motives behind CSA leads individuals to talk about companies more in positive ways.

This study is one of the early studies investigating the impact of various forms of CSA on individuals’ attitudinal and behavioral intentions to companies practicing CSA. This study provides practical implications on how to effectively appeal individuals’ favorable attitudes and behaviors towards CSA. In particular, this research presents the importance of action aspects in individuals’ attitudes toward corporations’ CSA messages.

The objectives of this study are threefold: to delineate the phenomenon of “You Share, We Donate” (YSWD) campaigns and what distinguishes them from sales-based cause-related marketing; to contrast the effectiveness of YSWD and sales-based cause-related marketing campaigns and provide an explanation for the differences in the effectiveness; to explore boundary conditions of the proposed differences.

Three experiments were conducted to empirically test the differential effect of campaign formats (i.e. YSWD vs sales-based cause-related marketing), the underlying mechanism and structural as well as contextual features moderating the differential effect.

The findings suggest that YSWD messages elicit consumers’ message-sharing intentions more than traditional cause-related marketing messages. The effect is explained by consumers’ sense of empowerment and can be enhanced through donation cap non-specification. The findings further indicate that YSWD campaigns are especially fruitful in low power distance cultures.

This study contributes toward corporate donation campaign literature by focusing on the usage of social media.

From a managerial perspective, this research provides marketers with guidelines on how to choose between the two cause-related marketing campaign formats and how to enhance the effectiveness of YSWD campaigns.

This paper extends cause-related marketing literature by not only introducing the phenomenon of YSWD campaigns to the literature but also exploring strategies to enhance the effectiveness of such campaigns and shedding light on an outcome beyond the sales impact of cause-related marketing campaigns, i.e. an increase of visibility in social media. From a managerial perspective, this research provides marketers with guidelines on how to choose between the two cause-related marketing campaign formats and how to enhance the effectiveness of YSWD campaigns.

This study aims to understand consumers' reactions to hospitality corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns under different resource scarcity reminders, an important but overlooked contextual factor, and examine how such scarcity reminders interact with message framing, a widely used technique in CSR communication.

Three experimental studies were conducted. Studies 1 and 2 examined the main effect of resource scarcity reminders (environmental vs personal) on consumer engagement via self-other orientation. Study 3 further investigated the interactive effect between resource scarcity reminders (environmental vs personal) and message framing (gain vs loss) with hope as a key mediator.

Studies 1 and 2 show that environmental (vs personal) scarcity activates a more salient other orientation, subsequently increasing consumers' donation and word-of-mouth intentions. Study 3 reveals that environmental (vs personal) scarcity makes people more hopeful with gain-framed messages. Moreover, the elevated hope enhances perceived efficacy (attitude toward the company), leading to higher donation (word-of-mouth) intention.

Hospitality marketers could remind consumers of the harsh environment to elicit other orientation and encourage CSR participation. Using gain-framed messages or other hope-inducing appeals would be particularly advantageous in engaging consumers in CSR campaigns during heightened environmental scarcity.

Focusing on consumer responses to CSR campaigns, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to reveal reminders of resource scarcity as a novel antecedent factor and further uncover how such reminders interact with message framing to affect CSR engagement.

Given the critical role of user-generated content (UGC) in e-commerce, exploring various aspects of UGC can aid in understanding user purchase intention and commodity recommendation. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of UGC on purchase decisions and proposes new recommendation models based on sentiment analysis, which are verified in Douban, one of the most popular UGC websites in China.

After verifying the relationship between various factors and product sales, this study proposes two models, collaborative filtering recommendation model based on sentiment (SCF) and hidden factors topics recommendation model based on sentiment (SHFT), by combining traditional collaborative filtering model (CF) and hidden factors topics model (HFT) with sentiment analysis.

The results indicate that sentiment significantly influences purchase intention. Furthermore, the proposed sentiment-based recommendation models outperform traditional CF and HFT in terms of mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE). Moreover, the two models yield different outcomes for various product categories, providing actionable insights for organizers to implement more precise recommendation strategies.

The findings of this study advocate the incorporation of UGC sentimental factors into websites to heighten recommendation accuracy. Additionally, different recommendation strategies can be employed for different products types.

This study introduces a novel perspective to the recommendation algorithm field. It not only validates the impact of UGC sentiment on purchase intention but also evaluates the proposed models with real-world data. The study provides valuable insights for managerial decision-making aimed at enhancing recommendation systems.