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The purpose of this article is to persuade ethnographers to consider using composites for studies in which protecting participants from identification is especially important. It situates the argument in the context of the transparency and data sharing movements' uneven influence across disciplines.

The paper reviews problems in maintaining confidentiality of research participants using pseudonyms and masking. It analyzes existing literature on composites, conditions of composite use and identifies composite actors as a form useful to place-based ethnography. Methodological aspects of composite actor construction are discussed along with potential opportunities composites offer.

Construction of composite actors is best accomplished by aggregating thematically during deskwork. Composites provide enhanced confidentiality by creating plausible doubt in the reader's mind, in part, through the presentation of aggregate rather than individual-level data.

This discussion advances the methodology of constructing composites, particularly composite actors, providing guidance to increase trustworthiness of ethnographic narratives that employ composites.

This study assesses the impacts of the social institutions of a transitional economy on its market by examining how China’s political, economic and cultural institutions influence consumers’ sentiment and their purchase planning behaviors. We propose and empirically validate a four‐factor model of consumer sentiment that captures the impacts of these powerful social institutions. The validity of the model was supported with data from a multi‐level stratified survey that involved 9 cities and 3,960 consumers across a number of product categories. Our findings confirm the salience of social institutions in affecting consumers’ sentiment as well as their consumption behaviors in China.

In keeping with recent body image social trends, consumer demand for the adoption of plus-size models is increasing, although the use of thin models remains prevalent. The current study explores how consumers process information about fashion products displayed on different sizes of models in advertisements, focusing on model and consumer body sizes and both genders. As an underlying mechanism explaining how the relationship between model and consumer body sizes shapes consumer purchase intention, this study explores the role of guilt, shame and mental imagery.

The current study uses a text analytics technique to identify female consumers' general opinions of thin models in advertising. Employing a 3 (consumer body size: normal, overweight, obese) × 2 (model body size: thin, plus-size) × 2 (gender: male, female) between-subjects online experiment (n = 718), the main study comparatively analyzes the influences of plus-size and thin models on consumer responses.

The results reveal that, despite body positivity movements, thin models still generate negative emotions among female consumers. For obese female consumers, advertisements featuring plus-size models produce fewer negative emotions but not more mental imagery than advertisements featuring thin models. Conversely, for obese male consumers, advertisements featuring plus-size models generate more mental imagery but not more negative emotions than advertisements featuring thin models. The results also reveal that the relationship between consumer body size and guilt is moderated by perceived model size, which is also moderated by gender in generating mental imagery. While guilt plays a mediating role in enhancing mental imagery, resulting in purchase intention, shame does not take on this role.

This study is the first to present an integrated model that elucidates how consumers with varying body sizes respond to different sizes of models in advertising and how these responses impact purchase intentions.

Our findings only apply to contexts where consumers purchase fashion clothing in response to advertisements featuring thin versus plus-size models.

Exposing normal-size consumers to plus-size models generates less mental imagery, and thus, practitioners should seek to match the body sizes of the models featured in advertising to the body sizes of their target audience or ad campaigns that include both plus-size and thin models may help improve message persuasiveness in fashion advertising. Moreover, guilt-appeal advertising campaigns using thin models would appeal more to thin consumers of both genders than shame-appeal advertising.

This paper synthesises peer-reviewed published journal articles on augmented reality in retail settings to ascertain the current foci of academic research in this nascent area and develop a conceptual framework to form the basis for a future research agenda.

Thematic analysis was conducted on a sample of 76 papers published between 1997 and 2020 identified through a systematic search of high quality peer-reviewed papers.

Three major research avenues and theoretical bases emerged: AR adoption-based factors with technology acceptance models, AR user experience design and features that influence consumer behaviour, and AR shopping experience and value theory. The resultant S-O-R-based conceptual framework highlights the functional and experiential elements needed for an effective consumer AR experience, which could be implemented by retailers seeking to engage consumers with an augmented shopping experience and make AR applications financially viable.

This is the first systematic literature review on AR in retail settings to include multiple disciplinary perspectives (HCI and marketing/management) and research methodologies.

This study aims to investigate the impact of customer perceptions of Augmented Reality (AR) attributes such as augmentation, interactivity and vividness on attitudes towards AR mobile apps, virtual product and behavioural intentions. Also, the mediation role of customer engagement in the effect of perceptions of AR attributes on attitudes and behavioural intentions is examined using the Theory of Interactive Media Effects.

The study used a cross-sectional design. A total of 456 valid data were collected from the Millennials and Generation Z cohorts using purposive sampling. The conceptual framework was assessed using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) and Partial Least Squares-Multi Group Analysis (PLS-MGA).

The research revealed that customer perceptions of AR features such as augmentation, interactivity and vividness significantly influenced customer engagement, leading to favourable attitudes towards both the AR mobile app and the Virtual product as well as behavioural intentions. Furthermore, the study substantiates the role of customer engagement as a mediator in the relationship between customer perceptions of AR attributes and both attitudinal and behavioural outcomes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to investigate the significance of perceived augmentation as an antecedent to customer engagement and the mediating role of customer engagement on the influence of perceptions of AR attributes on attitudinal and behavioural intention.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the effects of interactivity and vividness on perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment and their consequent impacts on consumer behavioral responses in a retail furniture VR store context. Considering the lack of VR empirical research, the indirect effect of interactivity and vividness on perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment through telepresence and the moderating effect of consumer previous experience with VR are also included.

A commercial IKEA VR store was chosen for the study. Head-mounted display (HMD) VR headsets were employed for the VR shopping experience. The study was conducted at a laboratory at a large university in the southeastern United States. A total of 146 college students participated in the study.

Vividness had significant positive effects on perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment, which in turn influenced attitude towards VR and behavioral intentions. Interactivity did not have positive impacts on perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment. However, it indirectly affected perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment through telepresence. The findings also proved the moderating effect of consumer previous VR experience between interactivity and perceived usefulness and between interactivity and perceived enjoyment. The relationship between attitude and behavioral intentions was also positive.

Notwithstanding the benefits of VR in relation to its utilitarian, hedonic, and behavioral values, little is known about consumers' responses towards the usage of VR as a shopping tool. The present study can be considered as a starting point in understanding the usefulness of VR from consumer and managerial perspectives. The findings of VR indicated in the study will help practitioners understand the urgency of adopting VR in a retail setting.

This study investigates the role of an augmented reality (AR)-based tool in customers' shopping processes.

Using the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) and consumer decision-making models, this study builds a comprehensive theoretical model that investigates the mechanism sequentially connected AR-enabled shopping tool and customer responses. Décor Matters was chosen as the AR-enabled mobile application for this study. Qualtrics, which conducted the survey, collected 150 responses in the USA. The authors used structural equation model to test the hypotheses.

This study enriches the retail-related AR theory by offering a holistic and structural view of the factors that connect customers' cognitive and affective internal processes with customers' shopping task. However, having used only one type of AR-enabled app in the study, the findings remain limited.

This research advances the understanding of AR's role in the customer shopping process by validating the positive effect of immersion on purchase intention, as well as revealing the mediating effect of decision-making quality and the moderating effect of privacy concerns. However, as only one type of AR-enabled app was used in the study, the findings are still limited.

The findings can help retailers to understand why and how firms can benefit from investing in AR-enabled apps (i.e. by focussing on customer perceived immersion and decision-making quality with AR).

This study's originality lies in the SOR model's extension, which integrates the customer decision-making model, allowing for connecting customers' cognitive and affective internal experiences with their shopping task. The findings can help retail managers to understand more clearly and in-depth why and how AR works in customers' shopping process.

This study aims to empirically test and explain shoppers’ purchase behavior in a retail store by applying the strength model of self-control.

A pretest was used to identify shoppers’ purchase change behavior based on 500 average shoppers, followed by a main study based on another set of 166 average shoppers, to test the proposed hypotheses.

As shoppers stay shorter in a grocery store, they tend to change their purchase decisions more frequently. In addition, this study results reveal that three behavioral variables, namely, shoppers’ changed purchase decisions, shopping duration and walking distance, significantly predict their overall spending.

The findings from the current study are limited to a designated superstore conducted for this study only. From a managerial viewpoint, the author suggests that giving shoppers more choice options and encouraging them to spend more time and walk further in a grocery store, depleting their self-control resources, can be an effective strategy in increasing sales. Yet, excessive efforts for these ideas can also cause shoppers’ massive returns once they return to the normal state with sufficient self-control resources.

The current study empirically confirms the applicability of the strength model of self-control through field studies designed to increase the external validity of the findings. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this research is the first to apply and empirically test the strength model of self-control in the field to explain shopper behavior and highlight the importance of understanding shoppers’ changed purchase decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the generalizability of the customer relationship management (CRM) scale originally developed by Sin et al. as well as to investigate the strength of linkages between CRM implementation components and business performance in Jordan's financial service organizations (FSOs).

Using a quantitative methodology, data were collected through a survey that included FSOs that are operating in the Jordanian market. The original adopted CRM scale was administered to 12 banks and 18 insurance companies that were found to be implementing CRM. An overall number of 320 questionnaires were sent to these banks and insurance companies' top management members who were directly involved in CRM implementation and performance assessments. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the generalizability of the CRM scale developed by Sin et al. Structural path model analysis was also used to test the research hypotheses concerning the relationship between CRM implementation and business performance.

The results suggest that the CRM implementation scale originally developed by Sin et al. does generalize to a Jordanian FSOs context. The findings indicate that there is a positive and significant relationship between CRM implementation components and FSOs' business performance comprised of financial and marketing performances. CRM organization and technology‐based CRM are the strongest predictors of variations in FSOs' business performance.

This paper is the first systematic research project in Jordan that isdevoted to investigating the scale and components of CRM implementation in Jordan and in the Middle East.

This study aims to examine how culture influences consumer attitudes toward the brands of products they own during a product-harm crisis. To this end, average consumers from two countries - the USA, representing a highly individualistic society and China, a less individualistic (i.e. collectivist) society – are compared.

The study conducts an invariance test of the measurement model for a more rigorous comparison of the two countries. Structural equation modeling is performed to identify how average consumers respond to a product-harm crisis (e.g. iPhone explosion) based on survey results of 188 American and 197 Chinese consumers.

These results reveal that in both countries, an individual’s susceptibility to a normative interpersonal influence determines their brand consciousness, which, in turn, enhances consumer attachment to well-known brands, resulting in favorable brand attitudes. During a brand crisis, an owned brand’s buffering effect is observed among consumers high in brand consciousness in collectivistic but not in individualistic societies. The moderating role of feelings of betrayal on the brand attachment-consumer attitude relationship is also reported.

Culture shapes consumer behavioral patterns. In today’s global market, a company’s decisions are no longer limited by borders and many companies experience product failures. Thus, findings that show consumers’ distinguishable psychological experiences between different cultures contribute to crisis management literature.