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This study aims to investigate the mechanism of the influence of paradoxical thinking (PT), which characterizes the ability of college students to balance and integrate the conflict between hedonic and normative goals, on their campus low-carbon behaviors.

The conceptual model of “PT − Paradoxical salience (climate change concern, CCC) − Paradoxical acceptance (support for low-carbon behavioral norms, SN) − paradoxical resolution (campus low-carbon intentions and behaviors, CLCIs and CLCBs)” was developed. Then, it was tested by PLS-SEM using survey data obtained from 501 Chinese college students, and the relative importance of each factor of CLCBs was determined by the importance-performance map analysis method. Finally, a mechanistic difference analysis was conducted.

PT, CCC and SN have the potential to influence the CLCBs of college students, with each of the three factors showing approximately 40% room for improvement in their impact. There exists an influential pathway of “PT → CCC → SN → CLCIs → CLCBs.” Notably, PT exhibits a stronger direct influence on college students’ private-sphere CLCBs compared to the public-sphere CLCBs.

Colleges should integrate the development of PT into the foundational framework of the entire education for sustainable development curriculum, while emphasizing the provision of opportunities for training in PT through pedagogical methods, and PT training can be integrated across various social levels.

This study offers a paradox theoretical framework for comprehending and elucidating the decision-making process underlying personal low-carbon behaviors, and advances the quantitative research of microindividual paradox processing by effectively conceptualizing and measuring paradoxical salience and acceptance.

This study examines the contribution of urban development to Vietnam's economic progress over the period 1986–2020. The study uses an augmented Solow framework, where urbanization is included as a shift variable in addition to capital per worker and accounts for structural breaks. It examines the cointegration and the long-run and short-run effects of urban development from four different cases of cointegration (constant, restricted constant, restricted trend and trend options), with each case accounting for the effect of a significant structural break. Also, the study provides causality nexus to check the presence of urbanization-led growth hypothesis. From the results, we note a long-run positive effect of urbanization on economic growth, but no short-run effects. In all cases, a 1% increase in population results in 0.8–0.9 increase of output, hence supporting a positive and momentous effect of urbanization over the long-term. We note a significant positive effect of a single structural break period (1991), which is a period of major shift towards economic progress. We note bidirectional causality between capital and output and a unidirectional causality from output and capital to urbanization. The former suggests a mutually reinforcing effect of capital accumulation and economic growth, and the latter indicates that urban development necessitates economic growth and capital accumulation. The findings derived from this study provide further impetus for urban development and urban policies and consider urbanization as a critical source of economic growth for Vietnam.

This study investigates how actual donations towards social causes within fashion supply chains can be increased in the face of negative country-of-origin effects.

Literature reports a lack of sustained consumer support for social causes within fashion supply chains. Driven by perceived psychological distance between the manufacturer and the fashion consumer, negative country-of-origin effects have an impact on donation behaviour. Using two online experiments, this study shows that including a garment worker’s image in swing tags mitigates negative country-of-origin effects on actual donations.

Fashion consumers’ actual donations towards worker rights increased with the presence of a garment worker’s image. In the higher psychological distance condition, exposure to the image reduced negative country-of-origin effects, increasing actual donations. This increase in actual donations is driven by pleasure-seeking, thus indicating that consumer support for social causes within fashion supply chains is underlined by hedonism.

This study focuses on a visual cue-based mechanism of promoting actual donations towards social causes and the role of pleasure-seeking in this process – two previously under-explored areas in the fashion marketing literature. The use of an incentive-compatible measure that required participants to donate real money allows the demonstration of actual donation behaviour, providing robust evidence of the impact of visual cues and their potential to be applied in the real-world.

Drawing on signaling theory and social capital theory, this study aims to examine the underlying mechanisms and contingencies of the relationships between social capital (SC) and collaboration in buyer-supplier relationships (BSRs). This is achieved by evaluating the mediating effect of psychological contract fulfillment (PCF) and the moderating roles of guanxi orientation and market uncertainty.

The current study used a survey method to collect data from 271 buyers in China. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and moderated regression analysis were applied to examine the hypotheses.

The positive effect of structural and relational SC on buyers’ collaborative behaviors is partially mediated by buyers’ PCF. In contrast, the positive effect of cognitive SC on collaboration is fully mediated by buyers’ PCF. Guanxi orientation strengthens the indirect effect of buyers’ PCF on the cognitive SC-collaboration relationship and relational SC-collaboration relationship. Market uncertainty amplifies the relational SC-collaboration relationship.

Prior studies have presented mixed evidence of the effect of SC on collaboration and have paid little attention to the underlying mechanisms and conditions moderating the effect. This research proposes a theoretical model that integrates signaling theory and social capital theory to explore how three dimensions of SC can enhance buyer collaboration through buyers’ PCF under different levels of guanxi orientation and market uncertainty.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamic relationship between formal and non-formal processes of accountability in a public services context.

The paper presents a case study of the impact of the Health and Social Care Act (2012) on the practices of Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB) members. It draws upon multiple data sources, including in-depth interviews with the members, comprehensive archival data published by the HWB (2011–2019), and observations of HWB public meetings. We utilise the concept of dynamic duality (Li, 2008) to further theorise the relationship between formal and non-formal processes of accountability and how they mutually transform one another.

The case illustrates the role of formal and non-formal processes of accountability at a HWB in England. Moreover, the case study reveals the relationship and interaction between the formal and non-formal accountability processes and how they change and transform each other over time. We find that whilst non-formal accountability processes were strengthened by a historical legacy of partnership working, over time the dynamics at play led to the development of formal accountability processes through more sophisticated performance systems, which in turn transformed non-formal accountability processes.

The paper presents a more holistic conceptualisation than articulated in prior accountability literature, dynamic duality, on the relationship between formal and non-formal accountability processes. Through application of this conceptualisation to a HWB in England, the paper spotlights the inter-relationship between formal and non-formal processes of accountability, and how they have the potential to transform each over an extended time-period.

Today, the transition of retailers from multi-channel and cross-channel to omni-channel has become a necessity. Customers’ perceived shopping value is also one of the most important factors for retailers’ success. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and validate the omni-channel shopping value scale.

Based on 40 interviews (X = 18, Y = 22) and a literature review, items were generated for shopping value dimensions (utilitarian, hedonic and social) at four touchpoints. Then exploratory factor analysis was performed for scale purification (n = 562). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed (n = 528) for initial scale validation. A second CFA was conducted to validate the final scale (n = 302). To check the nomological validity of the scale, the effect of omni-channel shopping value on customer engagement (n = 455) was investigated in both generations.

According to the results of the qualitative study, 73 items were identified. Based on the results of exploratory and CFA, nine components (50 items) were extracted and confirmed: utilitarian, hedonic and social shopping values for offline touchpoint and utilitarian and hedonic shopping values for online, application and social networks touchpoints. The results of nomological validity of the scale confirmed the effect of omni-channel shopping value on customer engagement in both generations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to develop and validate an omni-channel shopping value scale based on customers’ shopping experiences with omni-channel brands. Therefore, this study provides a useful tool for researchers and marketing managers to measure omni-channel shopping value.

Esports game developers are incorporating interactive virtual shopping (IVS) experiences into their products to facilitate consumer–brand interactions. Despite the potential influence of IVS, existing research lacks an understanding of its impact on consumers’ overall affect– particularly game enjoyment, a critical factor in sustaining engagement with esports products – and on attitudinal change toward brands in the real world.

An experiment was designed to examine the impact of shopping in the virtually interactive esports marketplace on game enjoyment. Mediating effects of positive change in brand attitude, perceived realism and character attachment and the moderating effect of self-avatar gender congruity were investigated using SPSS PROCESS Macro. Additionally, the impact of brand popularity on the relationship between IVS and brand attitude was examined using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).

There was a positive impact of IVS on game enjoyment, mediated by a positive change in brand attitude, perceived realism and character attachment. Self-avatar gender congruity moderated the mediation effect of perceived realism. Notably, less popular brands exhibited a greater change in brand attitude compared to more popular brands.

The findings add to the body of literature on esports, particularly in investigating the role of IVS within the esports virtual world and advancing research on cognitive appraisal theory. This study informs practitioners in the esports industry about the value of creating interactive virtual marketplaces, as they serve to benefit sponsoring brands and enhance game enjoyment for players.

This study examines the role of online customer reviews through text mining and sentiment analysis to improve customer satisfaction across various services within the UK banking sector. Additionally, the study analyses sentiment trends over a five-year period.

Using DistilBERT and Support Vector Machine algorithms, customer sentiments were assessed through an analysis of 20,137 Trustpilot reviews of HSBC, Santander, and Tesco Bank from 2018 to 2023. Data pre-processing steps were implemented to ensure data integrity and minimize noise.

Both positive and negative sentiments provide valuable insights. The results indicate a high prevalence of negative sentiments related to customer service and communication, with HSBC and Santander receiving 90.8% and 89.7% negative feedback, respectively, compared to Tesco Bank’s 66.8%. Key areas for improvement include HSBC’s credit card services and call center efficiency, which experienced increased negative feedback during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings also demonstrate that DistilBERT excelled in categorizing reviews, while the SVM model, when combined with customer ratings, achieved 96% accuracy in sentiment analysis.

This study focuses on UK bank consumers of HSBC, Santander, and Tesco Bank. A multi-country or cross-cultural study may further enhance our understanding of the approaches and findings.

Online customer reviews become more informative when categorised by service sector. To enhance customer satisfaction, bank managers should pay attention to both positive and negative reviews, and track trends over time.

The uniqueness of this study lies in its exploration of the importance of categorisation in text-mining-based sentiment analysis, its focus on the influence of both positive and negative sentiments, and its emphasis on tracking sentiment trends over time.

This study aims to provide a comprehensive theoretical model based on stimulus-organismresponse, social impact, and signaling theory to examine the factors influencing the successful application of the celebrity endorsement strategy in social commerce (SC). Three aspects involved in the model include social experience, content quality and endorser credibility, which have yet to be comprehensively compared in previous studies. The process, therefore, involved thoroughly examining the social and quality factors associated with endorser quality, leading to brand image.

In total, 340 pieces of valid feedback from Indonesian respondents were used to validate the proposed model using structural equation modeling analysis. The model includes endorser expertise, attractiveness, brand credibility, content quality, parasocial interaction and herd behavior.

The study showed how parasocial interaction, herd behavior and content quality in SC platforms affect the credibility of endorsers, affecting brand credibility and leading to customer purchase intention.

This study explains how social experience and content quality affect endorsers’ credibility, leading to the brand’s credibility, which affects consumer purchase decisions in the SC context. It was discovered that most of the prior related studies focused on celebrity and brand credibility without adequate attention to other constructs existing in SC, such as social interaction and content quality. It also contributes to the practical aspect by proposing managerial action based on direct and indirect effect analysis, which is not comprehensively indicated in previous related studies.

The aim of this study is to understand how the dimensions of esports streaming viewers’ customer experience influence their intentions to buy brands produced by sponsors, both directly and through the mediating effect of their identification with players and teams.

Data were collected through an online survey of 396 regular esports viewers in Spain, using convenience sampling. The proposed conceptual model was evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results showed that the four dimensions of the viewer's customer experience (cognitive, affective, sensory and social) predicted his/her social identification with players/teams. In turn, social identification positively influenced purchase intentions for the sponsoring brand. The cognitive, affective and social dimensions of the experience indirectly influenced purchase intentions for the sponsoring brand, through social identification.

This study improves the understanding of esports viewers’ experiences and their impact on purchase intentions toward the sponsoring brand, and the key role of the viewer’s social identification with players/teams.