Search results

At the moment, in terms of both research and commercial products, smart shoe technology and applications seem not to attract the same magnitude of attention compared to smart garments and other smart wearables such as wrist watches and wrist bands. The purpose of this study is to fill this knowledge gap by discussing issues regarding smart shoe sensing technologies, smart shoe sensor placements, factors that affect sensor placements and finally the areas of smart shoe applications.

Through a review of relevant literature, this study first and foremost attempts to explain what constitutes a smart shoe and subsequently discusses the current trends in smart shoe applications. Discussed in this study are relevant sensing technologies, sensor placement and areas of smart shoe applications.

This study outlined 13 important areas of smart shoe applications. It also uncovered that majority of smart shoe functionality are physical activity tracking, health rehabilitation and ambulation assistance for the blind. Also highlighted in this review are some of the bottlenecks of smart shoe development.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review paper focused on smart shoe applications, and therefore serves as an apt reference for researchers within the field of smart footwear.

The purpose of this study is to investigate characteristics of apparel-related critical incidents that motivate both Generation Z and Y consumers to share electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) via specific online channels.

The current research used an exploratory mixed-methods approach.

Qualitative findings of critical incidents revealed that the main situations that led to the spread of eWOM involved new purchases (49%), product quality (21%), pricing and promotions (19%), complaints (9%) and brand content (48%). Participants were motivated to spread information about the critical incidents by a desire to connect with friends and family (83%), help others (37%), influence others (48%) and express brand loyalty (32%). Quantitative results indicated significant relationships between critical incidents, motivations and eWOM channel choice.

This study has theoretical implications for apparel researchers attempting to gain insight into critical incidents that motivate consumers to engage in eWOM on specific channels in a positive or negative manner.

These findings are important for marketers as it appears that brand content does an efficient job at driving engagement on SM; marketers need to increase efforts to engage with consumers via feedback on websites, as this is an opportunity to counteract negative experiences and retain consumers’ loyalty.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current research is the first to extend theories of communication and motivation to connect critical incidents with situational intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for spreading eWOM via online channels for Millennial and Generation Z consumers.

Firms can benefit from designing sales promotion based on the analysis of consumers' physical exercise and purchase data. This study aims to study mobile exercise app data to explore how purchasing a promoted or nonpromoted product affects exercisers’ subsequent exercise and purchase behaviors.

Drawing from the theoretical framework of overjustification effect, this study empirically examines the effects of the purchase of promoted – monetary and nonmonetary – or nonpromoted products on relationships (1) between past and subsequent exercise behaviors and (2) between past exercise and subsequent purchase behaviors. Novel data of one million exercise activities and purchase transactions created by 7,517 mobile exercise app users were collected.

The results reveal that monetary and nonmonetary promotions have a negative effect on overall consumers’ amount of physical exercise but increase heavy exercisers’ exercise amount. In addition, nonmonetary (monetary) promotion has a positive (negative) effect on consumers’ purchase expenditure but has no moderating effect on the exercise–expenditure relationship.

This study provides a theoretical framework explaining how to mitigate the dark side of sales promotions while targeting right exercise consumer segments with the right promotion campaigns.

Children's food insecurity experiences are largely unrepresented in academic literature. Parents and caregivers cannot always accurately evaluate their children's attitudes or experiences, and even within the same family unit, children and their parents may report differing views and experiences of family food insecurity. The purpose of this narrative review is to identify studies that include children's voices and their perceptions, understanding, and experience of food insecurity in the household.

This narrative review aimed to address the following questions: (1) “What research studies of household food insecurity include children's voices?” and (2) “Across these studies, how do children perceive, understand and experience food insecurity in the household?”. A database search was conducted in October 2022. After inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, 16 articles remained for review.

The findings from this review were organised into three themes: Theme 1: Ways children coped with accessing food or money for food; Theme 2: Food-related strategies children used to avoid hunger; and Theme 3: Children attempt to mask food insecurity.

Future research should further explore the long-term consequences of social pressures and informal economic engagement on children's well-being and social development. By addressing the social determinants of food insecurity, this study can strive to create supportive environments that enable all children to access adequate nutrition and thrive.

Overall, the findings of this review demonstrate the significant social pressures that shape children's responses to food insecurity. Results suggest that children's decision-making processes are influenced by the desire to maintain social standing and avoid the negative consequences of being food insecure. As such, this review underscores the need for a comprehensive understanding of the social context in which food insecurity occurs and the impact it has on children's lives. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for developing effective interventions and policies addressing the multifaceted challenges food insecure children face.

This review has highlighted a need for interventions to incorporate trauma-informed strategies to protect children from and respond to the psychologically distressing experiences and impact of living in food insecure households.

Consumers' perceptions of product intelligence affect their willingness to accept smart offerings. This paper explores how people perceive various smart products based on their smartness profiles, composed of five distinct smartness facets. Additionally, the study investigates how these perceptions of product intelligence impact consumers' evaluation of factors that either promote or impede the adoption of smart products. These factors are examined as potential mediators in the adoption process. This paper aims to determine if the value-based adoption model can be applied to a broad range of smart service systems.

Consumers assessed one of 28 smart products in a scenario-based quantitative study. Multilevel structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the conceptual model, taking the nested data structure into account.

The findings show that product smartness essentially enhances usage intention via adoption drivers (enjoyment and usefulness) and reduces usage intention via adoption barriers (intrusiveness). In particular, the ability to interact in a humanlike manner increases the benefits consumers perceive, which in turn increases consumer acceptance. Only the smartness characteristic of awareness impairs usage intention, mediated by the perceived benefits of enjoyment and usefulness.

In contrast to previous research, which usually focuses on single smart products, this work examines a variety of different products, which allows for better transferability of the results to other smart offerings. Furthermore, prior research has mainly focused on single facets of product smartness or researched smartness on an aggregated level. By considering the consumer perception of each smartness facet, the authors gain deeper insights into the perceptual differences regarding product smartness and how this affects technology adoption via conflicting key acceptance drivers and barriers.

This study aims to investigate if engineered compression variations using moisture-responsive knitted fabric design can improve breast support in seamless knitted sports bras.

An experimental approach was used to integrate a novel moisture-responsive fabric panel into a seamless knitted bra, and the resulting compression variability in dry versus wet conditions were compared with those of a control bra. Air permeability and elongation testing of between breasts fabric panels was conducted in dry and wet conditions, followed by three-dimensional body scanning of eight human participants wearing the two bras in similar conditions. Questionnaires were used to evaluate perceived comfort and breast support of both bras in both conditions.

Air permeability test results showed that the novel panel had the highest variance between dry and wet conditions, confirming its moisture-responsive design, and increased its elongation coefficient in both wale and course directions in wet condition. There were significant main effects of bra type and body location on breast compression measurements. Breast circumferences in the novel bra were significantly larger than in the control bra condition. The significant two-way interaction between bra type and moisture condition showed that the control bra lost compressive power in wet condition, whereas the novel bra became more compressive when wet. Changes in compression were confirmed by participants’ perception of tighter straps and drier breast comfort.

These findings add to the limited scientific knowledge of moisture adaptive bra design using engineered knitted fabrics via advanced manufacturing technologies, with possible applications beyond sports bras, such as bras for breast surgery recovering patients.

All hypothesized relationships were significant. Specifically, H1 was supported as disconfirmation and surprising consumption were significantly correlated. Moreover, arousal (H2) and outrage (H4a) were functions of surprising consumption and negative affect (H3) and outrage (H4b) were functions of arousal. H4c was also supported as negative affect had a significant direct effect on consumer outrage. In addition, disconfirmation had negative direct effects on both negative affect (H5) and dissatisfaction (H6a) and dissatisfaction was a function of negative affect. Finally, both outrage (H7a) and dissatisfaction (H7b) had significant negative effects on behavioral intentions.

Respondents were recruited to participate in the data collection in a “college town” in the Southeastern United States. Respondents were provided a paper and pencil data collection instrument that include complete survey instructions and the balance of the research design. To adequately test all hypotheses, the researchers developed a unique scenario that described an extreme service failure that takes place during a hotel check-in. Each respondent was asked to read the scenario and then reflect upon it as they responded to items that assessed their feelings toward the hotel check-in experience.

The results provide additional evidence in support of the existence of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum, as well as specifically identifying the affective nature of levels of satisfaction that fall surprisingly well-below the zone of tolerance. The authors feel that the present study is a necessary step to provide a more comprehensive view of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum. Likewise, the authors posit initial evidence of the antecedents and consequences of consumer outrage. This research supports the prior assumptions of Westbrook (1987) about the vast detrimental effects of negative affective responses to service or product failures.

Future research needs to discover just how extremely deficient service has to be to elicit outrage. Is outrage a personal phenomenon with every consumer experiencing it to different degrees? As such, is outrage triggered at different points on the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum? The zone of tolerance seems to suggest this, but it would be interesting to discover if at some collective level of dissatisfaction consumers generally begin to show signs of outrage. Likewise, it would be interesting to understand how the level and pattern of outrage results in customers exiting the relationship but also results in loyal customers becoming enemies (e.g. Gregiore et al., 2009; Gregiore and Fisher, 2008).

The motivation for the current study is both pragmatic and theoretical. As alluded to above, it is evident that the level of service customers’ emotional responses to their service experiences are increasing in frequency and intensity. These negative emotions affect the efficacy of service workers and impede the financial performance of service providers. The popular mantra of “anti-woke” consumers, “Go Woke, Go Broke,” is indicative of the importance of negative emotion. Sometimes referred to as “brand activism” (Moorman, 2020; Sarkar and Kotlet, 2019), recent public stances on social and political issues have led to a boycott of Gillette razors, the burning of Nike shoes, and the canceling of Costco Memberships in what has been called “virtue signaling” (Vredenburg et al., 2020). While none of these actions are desirable, the importance of investigating the impact of strong negative emotions (i.e. outrage) is further demonstrated in reports that 65% of consumers expect companies to authentically support such issues (Barton et al., 2018; Edelman, 2018; Larcker and Tayan, 2018; Moorman, 2020).

This study aims to examine the impact of the gameful experience on behavioural outcomes. Drawing from stimulus–organism–response theory, it proposes and tests a new model that investigates the relationship between the gameful experience, brand loyalty and intention to use gamified branded applications in the sports context. In addition, it explores the mediating role of customer–brand engagement (CBE) and the moderating role of self-image congruity (SIC).

A sample of 436 active users of sport-related branded gamified applications was used to test the model. Data was collected from online sports forums, brands’ Facebook communities and during sporting events.

Results indicate that the gameful experience positively and directly impacts behavioural intentions but does not directly influence brand loyalty. This relationship becomes partially significant when mediated by CBE. In addition, results show that users with high levels of SIC are more likely to continue using the gamified application, whereas users with low levels are more likely to engage with the brand.

This study expands the gamification literature in the sports sector by revealing the importance of the gameful experience in driving loyalty, behavioural intentions and CBE. It proposes a new model that sheds light on the emotional aspect of the interaction between a user and a gamified system and the importance of exploring the effects of moderators, such as SIC, in these relationships.

The purpose of this study is shed light on the underlying forces behind entrepreneurship within a regional innovation system (RIS) in a remote rural region. The authors examine the following questions: Which are the main underlying forces behind the entrepreneurial process in a rural RIS characterized by traditionally low-tech, small-scale businesses? How can the development of a low-tech regional innovation system be conceptualized?

The design of the study is based on entrepreneurship theory. Data analysis followed practices used in phenomenography, a research approach used to analyse and identify commonalities and variations in populations' perceptions of a certain phenomenon. Data are composed using semi-structured interviews and a database composed of company information of all firms in the population.

A proactive mobilization of regional stakeholders and resources can be an important driving force behind the entrepreneurial process and generation of a rural RIS. Innovation can be generated within low-tech industries turning the rural context into an asset. An RIS in a remote rural context can be initiated and orchestrated by regional authorities, but knowledge brokering and orchestration can also be managed by networks of small-scale businesses brought together by mutual benefit and common interests.

Regional innovation systems theory is most often used to study high-tech industries. But by combining regional innovation systems with rural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship context theory is a fruitful avenue to understand the role of rural entrepreneurship in regional development, even in remote and peripheral regions. Innovation does not need to entail high-tech international environments; it can appear as the result of efforts in low-tech industries in rural and remote environments. The authors’ findings need to be scrutinized; therefore, the authors call for more research on regional innovation systems in rural environments.

It is possible for regional authorities to orchestrate a development process through the actions of a strong regional agent but also by supporting the creation of networks of small businesses that are built on trust and common interests.

This study contributes to the literature with a new perspective to the study of entrepreneurship and of regional innovation systems. Entrepreneurship research with focus on rural contexts most often highlight limits to entrepreneurship and see entrepreneurship as “just running a business”. A perspective that starts from innovation and innovative behaviour, despite the rural context and embedded resources, helps to generate new knowledge that can enrich the understanding of entrepreneurship and also be the foundation for more precise business development policies in rural settings.

This study aims to identify the irritating aspects in the mall environment that impact shoppers with disability and explore the opportunities to design inclusive mall environments.

A mixed-methods design was used in which data collected using a survey (n = 1,434 shoppers with and without disability) were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and repeated-measures two-way ANOVA. In addition, qualitative data were obtained from critical incident technique (CIT) stories (n = 521) from shoppers with and without disability.

Mall environmental irritants evoke feelings of irritation that mediate the impacts of “inconvenient ambient conditions,” “the annoying socialscape” and “overwhelming design and atmospherics” on decreased mall-visit frequency. Compared with shoppers without disability, shoppers with disability suffer more from these irritating aspects of the mall environment, as evidenced by significantly greater high-activation unpleasant emotions. The “poor access and accessibility” category of irritants mainly affects the mall experiences of shoppers with disability.

Based on the findings, this study offers spatial-, temporal-, social-, material- and virtual-oriented recommendations for the design of inclusive retail spaces. The authors suggest that people with disability have a unique “lived experience” perspective on retail environments and that solutions should be co-created based on ongoing consultations with shoppers and employees with disability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study offers the first systematic, comprehensive comparison of the impact of environmental irritants on shoppers with and without disability and extends the literature on irritating aspects of retail environments from individual stores to malls.