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This study aims to investigate the impact of brand engagement on consumer responses to brand extensions, particularly in terms of value perception, attitude and purchase intention in a masstige context. The study examines low-fit/high-functionality and high-fit/low-functionality products. It also explores the crucial role of self-congruence in enhancing brand engagement, which leads to positive consumer responses towards brand extensions.

After establishing the theoretical foundations, pre-tests identified the product types and their fit level. In this quantitative study, 464 questionnaires were administered. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling validated the model and tested the hypotheses for low-fit/high-functionality and high-fit/low-functionality products of a masstige brand.

Data analysis shows that brand engagement positively affects value perception, attitude and purchase intention. However, consumers’ responses to brand extension differed for low-fit versus high-fit products. Moreover, social self-congruence and actual and ideal self-congruence positively impact consumers’ active engagement with masstige brands.

This research shows that low-fit extensions of masstige brands can succeed with high functionality, while high-fit extensions mitigate the negative effects of low functionality, a key attribute of masstige brands. The study adds to the limited literature on self-congruence and engagement by identifying actual and ideal self-congruence as determinants of brand engagement. It is also among the first to demonstrate that social self-congruence drives brand engagement for masstige brands.

While studies have highlighted the benefits of athlete endorsement as a means of strategic marketing communication and public relations, there are risk factors associated with the practice, especially when a celebrity endorser is involved in immoral incidents or social activism. This study examined the impacts of athlete endorsers’ controversial behavior on sponsors. It scrutinized the change in publicly traded corporations’ shareholder value when their athlete endorsers were implicated in either immoral conduct or social activism.

Using the event study analysis, this study investigated the sponsored corporations’ abnormal returns around athlete endorsers’ involvement in immoral incidents and social activism. Total 34 cases (18 immoral scandals and 16 social activism) were collected from 2009 to 2019.

The data analysis revealed a significant difference in abnormal returns between the two different types of incidents for the four different windows (2, 4, 8 and 15 days) after the date of the focal event. While scandals of immoral conduct did not cause significant loss in shareholder value, cases of social activism showed negative abnormal returns for sponsoring corporations.

This study presented the first comparative analysis of how endorsers’ immoral behavior and social activism impacted on the shareholders’ value of sponsoring firms. Using stock performance data, the findings provided the empirical evidence in stock markets’ different reactions regarding scandals and social activism. The study contributes to the relevant body of literature by comparing the different contexts in celebrity endorsement.

This paper investigates the integration of middle mile drones (MMD) into logistics operations, addressing two key questions: (1) What are the drivers, financial implications and upcoming innovations associated with integrating drones into MM logistics? and (2) What challenges need to be overcome for successful implementation of drones in MM logistics?

The study combines expertise from an industry professional with over ten years of experience in drone operations and logistics applications, along with insights gained from discussions with 33 industry executives.

The research identifies several unique advantages of integrating drones into MM logistics, including their potential to improve operational efficiency in challenging environments. However, significant challenges related to scalability, evolving airframe designs and operational constraints remain. Early-stage use cases demonstrate the viability of MMD technologies in lower-risk logistics environments, but broader implementation requires overcoming the identified challenges.

As MMD logistics is a nascent field, the study is exploratory and based on early-stage use cases and expert discussions. The limited scope of practical implementations may restrict the generalizability of the findings. Future research should focus on larger-scale operations and empirical studies of MMD integration in diverse logistics contexts.

The findings offer valuable insights for practitioners related to the costs, benefits and challenges of integrating drones into logistics operations and for policymakers related to societal implications, workforce development, privacy and safety concerns, and environmental impact.

This paper contributes to the evolving understanding of drone applications in MM logistics by presenting early use cases and identifying both challenges and opportunities for MMD technology and offers a foundation for future research and practice in this emerging domain.

The purpose of this study is to determine if regional proximity and fan club involvement could be used to predict success for brands that jointly sponsor a team and their key rival.

A brand with regional proximity to the rival teams it sponsored was identified. Fan club members of a major college sports team served as respondents. Structural equation modeling was used to test a model that predicted antecedents to purchase intentions and positive word-of-mouth based on individual fan characteristics.

Results suggest that the intrinsic and social components of fanship as well as regional proximity facilitate the success of brands jointly sponsoring rivals. The intrinsic dimension of fandom foreshadowed approval of the joint sponsorship investigated but did not directly enhance the sponsor’s brand equity. Instead, it was demonstrated that fans must first approve of the joint sponsorship arrangement before conferring elevated brand equity onto the sponsor. Increased social interaction with the fan club resulted in higher levels of purchase intentions and positive word-of-mouth of the joint sponsor.

This study differs from prior studies investigating joint sponsors in four ways. First, the intrinsic and social dimensions of fanship were measured within the context of a fan community. Second, the context of the study included a sponsor with regional proximity to both rival teams. Third, it was determined that the proclivity for social interaction within a fan community enhances the positive outcomes for joint sponsors. Fourth, unlike previous research studying joint sponsors, this study demonstrates a path to success for these brands.

This paper identifies how the operations of labour market intermediaries (LMIs) transform dyadic employment relationships into triadic ones. It reveals the change dynamics that LMIs engage in to bring about this transformation and that contribute to the projectification of work.

Drawing on an institutional-work lens and using interview data from both TempX, a German-based staffing service provider, and its client organizations, the analytical framework details the dynamics by which LMIs appropriate various HR tasks and different labour-market-organizing roles and thus create these triadic employment relationships.

TempX assumes a powerful position between its client organizations and workers by increasingly taking over HR tasks from its client organizations, alternating between profiting from market transactions and engaging as a buyer and seller of labour. This powerful position, gradually created through four distinct, sequential, institutional work dynamics, allows it to transform dyadic employment relationships into triadic ones and to promote project-based work.

By showing how LMIs capitalize on the multiple services they offer, and how they use these services to establish a powerful position in both the labour market and in their relations with client organizations, this paper contributes to research on how LMIs change their institutional environment. Second, by showing that LMIs switch between different labour-market organizing roles and HR tasks, this paper reveals how essential this switching is for LMIs to establish triadic employment relationships and to drive the projectification of work, and thus it also contributes to research on LMIs’ role in the projectification of work.

Organizational Bases of Power and Personal Bases of Power refer to distinct types of power that when applied can influence perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, and performance, changing organizational culture, outcomes, and overall effectiveness. Perceptions of Organizational Bases of Power and Personal Bases of Power were assessed by online survey of 52 higher education faculty and administrators from institutions in more than 16 countries using the Human Synergistics International Organizational Effectiveness Inventory® (OEI^®). Results revealed that total mean scores were less desirable than established Constructive benchmarks (derived from corporations with constructive cultures) for both measures and were below the 50th percentile (historical average from normative data) for Personal Bases of Power. Interestingly, subgroup analysis revealed that perceptions of Organizational Bases of Power were more favorable than the Constructive Benchmark among females (vs males), faculty (vs administrators), and public not-for-profits. Perceptions of Personal Bases of Power were better than the 50th percentile among females (vs males), administrators (vs faculty), and for-profit institutions. Observed trends for perceptual discrepancies between genders, professional roles, and business models are analyzed in the context of worldviews and values. Recommendations are presented for modifying the use of personal expert, referent, and exchange powers and organizational legitimate (position), reward, and coercive powers in alignment with the ideal values of higher education institutions seeking to improve their outcomes by moving their organizational cultures toward constructive styles.

Outside of Europe and the United States, the knowledge on skills dynamics is scarce due to a lack of data. We therefore assess whether online data on vacancies and applications to a job board can help fill this gap. We propose a taxonomy with three broad categories – cognitive, socioemotional, and manual skills – and 14 commonly observed subcategories, which we define based on unique skills identified through keywords and expressions. The taxonomy is comprehensive but succinct, suitable for developing and emerging economies, and adapted for online data. We then develop a text-mining approach to implement the taxonomy. Based on Uruguayan data from the job board BuscoJobs, we find that our model is able to assign skills to 64% of applicants' employment spells and 94% of vacancies. While online data are usually skewed toward highly qualified work, we show that our data include meaningful numbers of vacancies and applicants of intermediate and even lower qualification levels. Our approach relies on data that are currently available in many countries, thereby allowing for country-specific analysis that does not assume that occupational skills are constant across countries. This is key as we find considerable differences between our findings and those using US O-NET data. Finally, we end with an illustration of how our approach can inform the analysis of skills dynamics. To our knowledge, we are the first to explore this approach in the context of emerging economies.

Organizational pursuit of sustainability in multi-tier supply chain systems operating in unpredictable environments is often associated with the emergence of paradoxical tensions. This study aims to summarize and synthesize existing literature on managing various paradoxical tensions in supply chains (i.e. sourcing, making, delivering and reverse logistics) as organizations pursue sustainability transformation. It also strives to motivate new academic research inquiry into developing responses to sustainability paradoxes.

The study draws on a systematic literature review of 73 papers from the Web of Science database selected at the intersection of paradox, sustainability and logistics/ supply chain management (SCM). Applying paradox theory as a guiding lens, we investigate organizational strategies, practices and capabilities described in the literature to navigate sustainability paradoxes in supply chains.

The results assert that the success of sustainability transformation will depend on an organizational ability to recognize, accept and navigate paradoxical tensions in one's supply chain. This requires developing the dynamic capabilities of paradoxical leadership, strategic agility, innovativeness, collaboration with contextualization and governance. Successful sustainability transformation is not reliant on finding an optimal, final design but rather the continuous balancing of tensions inherent within or across the organizations that make up one's supply chain.

The research offers an integrative conceptual framework to guide organizations in navigating sustainability paradoxes in supply chains, embracing strategic, practice and capability levels. It also outlines opportunities for future research inquiries connected to this framework that are needed to build additional insight for addressing paradoxical tensions related to the pursuit of sustainable supply chain management.

This study takes a dynamic capabilities approach to navigating paradoxical tensions in pursuit of sustainable supply chain management.