Despite the growing prevalence of voluntary simplicity as a consumption value embraced by brands in recent years, limited research has empirically explored the antecedents of voluntary simplicity. This study addresses this research gap by investigating the impact of death-related information on voluntary simplicity. Through five studies, we demonstrate that exposure to death-related information increases voluntary simplicity (Studies 1, 2). This increase occurs because consumers exposed to death-related information are motivated to pursue their authentic selves (Studies 3, 4). However, we further reveal that this effect disappears when the message appeal of death-related information is emotional (Study 5). Our findings suggest that brands can implement communication strategies highlighting voluntary simplicity when consumers are exposed to death-related information.
{"title":"Consuming for the authentic-self: How exposure to death-related information facilitates voluntary simplicity?","authors":"Hongyan Liu, Yanxia Chen, Wumei Liu","doi":"10.1002/mar.21939","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21939","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the growing prevalence of voluntary simplicity as a consumption value embraced by brands in recent years, limited research has empirically explored the antecedents of voluntary simplicity. This study addresses this research gap by investigating the impact of death-related information on voluntary simplicity. Through five studies, we demonstrate that exposure to death-related information increases voluntary simplicity (Studies 1, 2). This increase occurs because consumers exposed to death-related information are motivated to pursue their authentic selves (Studies 3, 4). However, we further reveal that this effect disappears when the message appeal of death-related information is emotional (Study 5). Our findings suggest that brands can implement communication strategies highlighting voluntary simplicity when consumers are exposed to death-related information.","PeriodicalId":501349,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Marketing","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pedro Cuesta-Valiño, Pablo Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Blanca García-Henche, Estela Núñez-Barriopedro
Consumers have demonstrated new ways of engaging with fashion retailers and experiencing their brand values. This research aims to understand better how fashion consumers form their purchase intentions, by exploring how their expectations about corporate social responsibility influence consumer brand engagement and purchase intention. The research comprises two studies, using different methodologies. The first study is quantitative; it involved 1296 individuals and the results were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The second study is qualitative and utilizes expert opinions from the fashion industry; it seeks to derive managerial and practical implications from the findings of the first study. The results show that corporate social responsibility influences the purchase intention of fashion consumers, but mainly through brand engagement. Consequently, fashion companies should focus on building consumer trust in the sustainability initiatives of brands, including by utilizing local suppliers.
{"title":"The impact of corporate social responsibility on consumer brand engagement and purchase intention at fashion retailers","authors":"Pedro Cuesta-Valiño, Pablo Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Blanca García-Henche, Estela Núñez-Barriopedro","doi":"10.1002/mar.21940","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21940","url":null,"abstract":"Consumers have demonstrated new ways of engaging with fashion retailers and experiencing their brand values. This research aims to understand better how fashion consumers form their purchase intentions, by exploring how their expectations about corporate social responsibility influence consumer brand engagement and purchase intention. The research comprises two studies, using different methodologies. The first study is quantitative; it involved 1296 individuals and the results were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The second study is qualitative and utilizes expert opinions from the fashion industry; it seeks to derive managerial and practical implications from the findings of the first study. The results show that corporate social responsibility influences the purchase intention of fashion consumers, but mainly through brand engagement. Consequently, fashion companies should focus on building consumer trust in the sustainability initiatives of brands, including by utilizing local suppliers.","PeriodicalId":501349,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Marketing","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Companies often rely on customer feedback to build and improve their business. Customers, in turn, are expected to (i) fill in customer feedback surveys (participation) and (ii) provide accurate responses (performance). To encourage active participation and ensure accurate responses, companies traditionally offer either self-benefiting incentives, like lottery prizes, or prosocial incentives, like charity donations. More recently, some companies have started offering prosocial incentives on top of self-benefiting incentives in the hope to “sweeten the deal,” that is, to improve participation and performance even further. With this research, we challenge whether the on-top prosocial incentives are effective. The evidence from two field experiments and one incentive-aligned online experiment does not confirm any such advantage. In contrast, performance can decrease when a low-amount on-top prosocial incentive is offered relative to a pure self-benefiting setting. This trend is only reversed once the on-top incentive amount increases. Furthermore, for participation, we find that on-top prosocial incentives are ineffective and, at higher amounts, even detrimental. Therefore, our empirical insights rather suggest that on-top prosocial incentives “poison the well.”
{"title":"Offering prosocial incentives on-top: Do they sweeten the deal or poison the well?","authors":"Sven Beisecker, Christian Schlereth","doi":"10.1002/mar.21941","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21941","url":null,"abstract":"Companies often rely on customer feedback to build and improve their business. Customers, in turn, are expected to (i) fill in customer feedback surveys (participation) and (ii) provide accurate responses (performance). To encourage active participation and ensure accurate responses, companies traditionally offer either self-benefiting incentives, like lottery prizes, or prosocial incentives, like charity donations. More recently, some companies have started offering prosocial incentives on top of self-benefiting incentives in the hope to “sweeten the deal,” that is, to improve participation and performance even further. With this research, we challenge whether the on-top prosocial incentives are effective. The evidence from two field experiments and one incentive-aligned online experiment does not confirm any such advantage. In contrast, performance can decrease when a low-amount on-top prosocial incentive is offered relative to a pure self-benefiting setting. This trend is only reversed once the on-top incentive amount increases. Furthermore, for participation, we find that on-top prosocial incentives are ineffective and, at higher amounts, even detrimental. Therefore, our empirical insights rather suggest that on-top prosocial incentives “poison the well.”","PeriodicalId":501349,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Marketing","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Susana Santos, Helena Martins Gonçalves, Rita Mendes, Vítor Gonçalves
The study investigates how value-in-use generated on branded mobile apps from supermarkets affects brand satisfaction and loyalty through two models. The first model assesses how value-in-use dimensions (i.e., personalization, experience, and relationship) affect the outcomes, and the mediation of satisfaction and the moderation of age on those relations. The second model decomposes experience and relationship into subdimensions. The Structural equation modeling results show that personalization, experience, and relationship influence satisfaction, although experience has a negative effect. Age moderates the relations, where younger individuals value personalization and older individuals value experience and relationship. Regarding the individual subdimensions, only behavioral experience, and app trust and commitment are relevant for satisfaction, whereas behavioral experience has a negative effect. In both models, satisfaction significantly influences loyalty and mostly acts as a full mediator. Two FGDs were conducted to understand the negative effect of experience on brand satisfaction. The results show that experience is mostly utilitarian with grocery apps and apps that require increased effort yield less satisfaction. The study enriches the literature on Service-Dominant Logic and value-in-use. The findings can provide managers with insights on using branded grocery apps to enhance the value co-created between the consumer and firm.
{"title":"Deriving value from branded mobile apps: Exploring the role of brand satisfaction, age, and value-in-use subdimensions","authors":"Susana Santos, Helena Martins Gonçalves, Rita Mendes, Vítor Gonçalves","doi":"10.1002/mar.21942","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21942","url":null,"abstract":"The study investigates how value-in-use generated on branded mobile apps from supermarkets affects brand satisfaction and loyalty through two models. The first model assesses how value-in-use dimensions (i.e., personalization, experience, and relationship) affect the outcomes, and the mediation of satisfaction and the moderation of age on those relations. The second model decomposes experience and relationship into subdimensions. The Structural equation modeling results show that personalization, experience, and relationship influence satisfaction, although experience has a negative effect. Age moderates the relations, where younger individuals value personalization and older individuals value experience and relationship. Regarding the individual subdimensions, only behavioral experience, and app trust and commitment are relevant for satisfaction, whereas behavioral experience has a negative effect. In both models, satisfaction significantly influences loyalty and mostly acts as a full mediator. Two FGDs were conducted to understand the negative effect of experience on brand satisfaction. The results show that experience is mostly utilitarian with grocery apps and apps that require increased effort yield less satisfaction. The study enriches the literature on Service-Dominant Logic and value-in-use. The findings can provide managers with insights on using branded grocery apps to enhance the value co-created between the consumer and firm.","PeriodicalId":501349,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Marketing","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
As e-customization services have grown in popularity, companies widely use virtual agents in such services to improve consumers' online shopping experience. However, extant research has not thoroughly clarified the best way to leverage the use of virtual agents and involve consumers in the e-customization process. Drawing on self-enhancement and self-verification theories, this research investigates the effects of an instrumental social influence tactic employed by virtual agents—specifically, flattering feedback—and the pivotal roles of consumers' self-esteem and customization target when evaluating and using e-customization services. Through four experiments that simulate e-customization experiences using different products, we find that the effect of virtual agents' flattering feedback on customization outcomes (i.e., word-of-mouth, product interest, and actual purchase) is contingent on consumers' self-esteem. Among consumers with high self-esteem, flattering (vs. generic) feedback from virtual agents in the e-customization process elicits more positive customization outcomes. In contrast, the opposite is true among those with low self-esteem. Moreover, consumers' process involvement mediates the interaction effects, and the interaction effects are attenuated when consumers customizing the product for others (vs. oneself). Our work contributes to online customization research by unveiling the mechanism and boundary conditions of the potentially double-edged effect of virtual agents' flattery.
{"title":"Virtual agents that flatter you: Moderating effects of self-esteem and customization target in e-customization services","authors":"Xueni (Shirley) Li, Wei Si, Kimmy Wa Chan","doi":"10.1002/mar.21943","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21943","url":null,"abstract":"As e-customization services have grown in popularity, companies widely use virtual agents in such services to improve consumers' online shopping experience. However, extant research has not thoroughly clarified the best way to leverage the use of virtual agents and involve consumers in the e-customization process. Drawing on self-enhancement and self-verification theories, this research investigates the effects of an instrumental social influence tactic employed by virtual agents—specifically, flattering feedback—and the pivotal roles of consumers' self-esteem and customization target when evaluating and using e-customization services. Through four experiments that simulate e-customization experiences using different products, we find that the effect of virtual agents' flattering feedback on customization outcomes (i.e., word-of-mouth, product interest, and actual purchase) is contingent on consumers' self-esteem. Among consumers with high self-esteem, flattering (vs. generic) feedback from virtual agents in the e-customization process elicits more positive customization outcomes. In contrast, the opposite is true among those with low self-esteem. Moreover, consumers' process involvement mediates the interaction effects, and the interaction effects are attenuated when consumers customizing the product for others (vs. oneself). Our work contributes to online customization research by unveiling the mechanism and boundary conditions of the potentially double-edged effect of virtual agents' flattery.","PeriodicalId":501349,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Marketing","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522751","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Literature reviews are crucial for attaining a full understanding of the key topics and latest trends in research and instrumental in identifying important research gaps. Unfortunately, conducting literature reviews can be time-consuming, and the outcomes are frequently subjective. Hence, to address such limitations, we detail an alternative, recent approach to conducting literature reviews. In this research, we outline the steps involved in conducting a literature review via natural language processing. Specifically, we illustrate how to (1) select relevant papers using term frequency-inverse document frequency and (2) perform topic modeling analysis through latent Dirichlet allocation to identify key research topics. This study and the associated ready-to-use Python code provide researchers, including those in consumer behavior, with detailed guidance on how to use natural language processing in their literature reviews.
{"title":"How to conduct efficient and objective literature reviews using natural language processing: A step-by-step guide for marketing researchers","authors":"Serena Pugliese, Verdiana Giannetti, Sourindra Banerjee","doi":"10.1002/mar.21931","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21931","url":null,"abstract":"Literature reviews are crucial for attaining a full understanding of the key topics and latest trends in research and instrumental in identifying important research gaps. Unfortunately, conducting literature reviews can be time-consuming, and the outcomes are frequently subjective. Hence, to address such limitations, we detail an alternative, recent approach to conducting literature reviews. In this research, we outline the steps involved in conducting a literature review via natural language processing. Specifically, we illustrate how to (1) select relevant papers using term frequency-inverse document frequency and (2) perform topic modeling analysis through latent Dirichlet allocation to identify key research topics. This study and the associated ready-to-use Python code provide researchers, including those in consumer behavior, with detailed guidance on how to use natural language processing in their literature reviews.","PeriodicalId":501349,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Marketing","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138522749","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}