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Masstige (mass-produced and affordable luxury) goods are receiving increasing literature-based attention. However, despite existing advances, insight into how different cultural backgrounds shape consumer perceptions, attitudes and behaviors toward masstige goods remains tenuous. Correspondingly, this study aims to examine the association of masstige luxury with customers’ love for and brand engagement with masstige products across cultures.

This study used a sample comprising 342 Indian and 354 Canadian masstige customers. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The results corroborate brand prestige and identification as key antecedents to customers’ love for masstige brands, which in turn impact their brand engagement. Surprisingly, the authors find that the effects of brand prestige and brand identification on brand love and customer brand engagement do not significantly differ between Indian and Canadian customers. However, the positive effect of brand identification and brand love on customer brand engagement is stronger for Indian customers than for Canadian customers.

This study addresses an important literature-based gap in understanding how cultural backgrounds shape consumer perceptions of masstige brands. It offers key theoretical and practical implications for masstige marketing.

Identifying differential effects among Indian and Canadian customers provides a foundation for tailoring marketing approaches in the masstige sector.

This study addresses a critical literature-based gap in understanding how cultural backgrounds shape consumer perceptions of masstige brands, offering key theoretical and practical implications for masstige marketing.

This paper intends to contribute to the evolving understanding of Indian adolescents as consumers by examining their unique relationships with food brands, focusing specifically on brand love. It further investigates the key drivers that cultivate brand love among adolescents and explores the resulting outcomes of brand love.

About 37 in-depth interviews, including three exercises, were conducted with adolescents aged 11–16. The first and second exercises used projective techniques to explore respondents’ culture-bound love relationships with their favorite brands. Using the laddering technique, the third exercise investigated the critical drivers of respondents’ brand love.

The study reveals that adolescents derive value through attribute-benefit-value linkages from the consumption experience, leading to brand love. The customer value–brand love dynamics result in adolescents’ customer engagement behavior. Additionally, Indian adolescent customers seek brand consumption as a medium to instate their social identity and achieve hedonic pleasure from the experience. The study highlights the role of socialization and attitudinal autonomy in shaping adolescent–brand interactions.

The study could be relevant for both academicians and practitioners as they unveil the consumer psychology of contemporary adolescents in emerging countries like India and how similar or different they are from adult consumers. Also, there are very few adolescent–brand relationship studies in the past that have been deliberated in the context of food brands. Brand managers may design their product development and communication appeals around higher levels of abstraction in the attribute-benefit-value linkages discovered by this study.

The purpose of this study is to provide information that reflects the true state of affairs and to develop a conceptual model that examines the moderating effect of uncertainty on relative brand trust–love.

Extant empirical studies, conceptual literature and related theories were identified and integrated to develop the conceptual model.

Findings of the study suggest that relative brand trust–love arises because of different components of uncertainty. Relative brand trust–love exhibited by the customer is moderated by uncertainty at the individual level, brand level and technology level. These uncertainties represent the situation that considers if relative brand trust–love can be enhanced. A few propositions have been suggested for such situations to enhance relative brand trust–love.

This paper proposes a conceptual model and also makes research propositions that need to be validated and confirmed empirically. It adds value to theoretical advancements in strengthening the customer–brand relationship. Furthermore, results suggest that relative brand trust–love can be improved over time if these components can be supported by increasing information at different levels. The conclusions will be informative to practitioners and brand managers in strengthening a brand into the market more effectively. Moreover, it can transform the brand into a global brand and help build sustainable long-term relationships. Findings can be useful and interesting information for the researchers who are interested in finding strategic ways for effective decision-making related to brand trust and brand love.

The conceptual model, and the propositions related to different levels of uncertainty, and its effect on relative brand trust–love, is a new approach in enhancing relative brand trust–love and hence helpful in strengthening the quality of customer–brand relationships.

The study analyzes brand love in local eco-hijab fashion (LEHF) by discussing the value of collectivism, fashion consciousness, environmental value, religiosity and brand advocacy. LEHF becomes the trend pursued by consumers, so this can create market opportunities to optimize marketing strategies. The focus on LEHF in a sustainable fashion would allow local businesses to develop local values-based companies. This study uses the value attitude-behavior model to analyze data.

This research uses a quantitative survey to obtain data. The questionnaire is spread to 300 respondents with a purposive sampling approach, especially respondents who have worn LEHF.

This study shows that collectivism values, fashion consciousness, environmental values and religiosity influence brand love, while brand love influences brand advocacy related to LEHF. On the other hand, consumers are the target market with a fashion consciousness to follow the trend of hijab clothes. This also shows they wear clothes to fulfill religious values while prioritizing the latest styles.

Since this study focuses on LEHF, this product is only relevant to hijab fashion. This takes into account the potential of Muslim-dominated Indonesian society. The fashion category can be enlarged to include more local products in future studies. A large selection of goods may promote greater use of regional interests.

For business actors, particularly micro and medium firms that are just starting to grow to support the local hijab fashion industry company, this research has managerial implications. This presents a chance for business actors to improve the local economy and opens doors for establishing more employment possibilities. The growth of the regional hijab fashion market offers an opportunity to satisfy the demands of customers who favor regional goods. Brand love in LEHF may foster business revenue growth and help local firms compete favorably with international brands. Marketers for LEHF are anticipated to intensify their efforts to advance socialism, the environment and fashion sensibility. Additionally, LEHF marketers emphasize the importance of religiosity when promoting their products to the target population. Marketers are also aware that the study’s environment is Indonesia, which has 90% Muslim population. Marketers have an excellent opportunity to maximize this scenario.

This study also had social implications. The goal of producing locally made eco-hijabs is to benefit nearby communities and the environment. This aligns with the more general objectives of ethical and sustainable fashion. Sustainable methods are used in production, such as using eco-friendly colors, water conservation and waste reduction. Sustainable manufacturing methods are designed to reduce their adverse effects on the environment and encourage ethical production. Empowerment and community engagement may be involved in the manufacturing of locally-made eco-hijabs. This can entail educating and hiring regional craftspeople or incorporating neighborhood residents in manufacturing.

The study focuses on religiosity and environmental value to further analyze its influence on LEHF. The context of the products analyzed in this study is LEHF, which prioritized local production and strengthened local wisdom through pro-environment. The study used the VAB (value, attitude, behavior) model to analyze the concept.

This study aims to investigate the different effects of physical and social servicescapes on brand love for internet-famous restaurants, focusing on their pathways and strengths of influence.

Structural equation modeling was applied to analyze data from 387 online questionnaires in China.

Results indicate that social servicescape directly influences brand love for internet-famous restaurants, while physical servicescape does not. The effect of physical servicescape on brand love for internet-famous restaurants is mediated by perceived coolness and perceived enjoyment, whereas social servicescape’s influence is mediated solely by perceived enjoyment. Overall, physical servicescape has a stronger impact on brand love for internet-famous restaurants compared to social servicescape.

The findings help internet-famous restaurants create effective physical and social servicescapes to enhance brand love, underscoring that physical servicescape is more crucial than social servicescape for cultivating this love.

This study contributes to the literature by analyzing the heterogeneous pathways and strengths of physical and social servicescapes influencing brand love for internet-famous restaurants, while highlighting the mediating role of perceived coolness and expanding the application scope of cognitive appraisal theory.

Public scepticism is becoming more prevalent surrounding organizations' corporate social responsibility (CSR) implementation and communication. Management research has tended to over-fixate on the strategic paybacks of CSR, and less attention has been devoted to examining why CSR is under siege due to the pervasive issue of scepticism coming from a plethora of stakeholders. This study provides a scoping review to appraise the status quo of CSR vis-à-vis scepticism scholarship and examine how the two concepts have been contextualized in relation to one another in the extant literature in question. The findings illustrate that the process nature of CSR scepticism is complex, given that CSR can yield both a buffering and boomerang effect on CSR practitioners. The qualitative content analysis performed on 58 studies, published from 2007 to 2022, elaborates on CSR scepticism as a multidimensional construct with three distinctive typologies of research approaches identified, explicating how the CSR and scepticism topicalities have been cross-examined in relation to one another: “Typology 1: Dispositional Scepticism and the Buffering Effect of CSR on Scepticism”; “Typology 2: Situational Scepticism and the Boomerang Effect of CSR on Scepticism”; “Typology 3: Centrality of CSR Scepticism and CSR Scepticism Mitigation.” This study offers a conceptual insight into the prevalent issue of scepticism in the CSR context, while also informing marketing, communication, and public relations professionals about the necessity of mitigating CSR scepticism, which poses a barrier to effective CSR implementation and communication processes.

This paper investigates the influence of e-service quality (process and user experience) and price fairness on customer satisfaction, which, as a consequence, affects brand love toward Food Delivery App (FDA) services. More importantly, it examines the moderating roles of generation (Gen Y vs Gen Z) and usage frequency (low vs high) in affecting user behaviors.

Data were collected from 354 food delivery app users (Gen Y and Z) in Bangladesh through structured questionnaire and analyzed with PLS-SEM.

The findings show that, apart from reliability, all the dimensions of service quality influence app users’ satisfaction, which, in turn, enhances their brand love. Furthermore, the outcome reveals that the impact of customer satisfaction on brand love is stronger among Gen Y compared to Gen Z. Finally, the outcomes suggest that as users use the FDA services more frequently, the relationship between customer satisfaction and brand love weakens.

The study outcomes facilitate the FDA service providers and restaurant operators to focus on the quality and price of services to ensure the satisfaction and brand love of Gen Y and Gen Z. Separate policies must be taken for Gen Y and Gen Z to manage their brand love towards FDA services.

Grounded on the S-O-R paradigm and the Generational Cohort theory, this study expands the knowledge horizon of FDA services by focusing the behavior of Gen Y and Gen Z. More specifically, investigating how the impact of user satisfaction on brand love towards FDA services changes across generations and usage frequency are the novel contributions of this study.

Following the job demands-resources theory, this study investigates the role of female managers in enhancing employee well-being in terms of psychological health via workplace resources.

To accomplish this objective, we conducted a comprehensive literature review to identify key IPS. Subsequently, a fuzzy-based algorithm was employed to prioritize these skills. Following this, we developed an algorithm based on Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) to predict the quality of workers’ IC. The efficacy of the XGBoost model was assessed by applying it to three real-life construction projects.

Upon application of the model to the case studies, we made the following conclusions: (1) “Leadership Style,” “Listening,” “Team Building” and “Clarifying Expectations” emerged as significant skills and (2) the model accurately predicted workers’ IC quality in over 78% of the cases. This algorithm has the potential to preempt interpersonal conflicts, enhancing job-site productivity, team development and human resources management. Furthermore, it can guide construction managers in designing IPS training programs.

This study contributes to the existing knowledge by addressing the crucial connection between IPS and IC quality in construction projects. Additionally, our novel approach, integrating fuzzy logic and XGBoost, provides a valuable tool for IC prediction. By identifying significant IPS and offering predictive insights, this research facilitates improved communication and collaboration in the construction industry, ultimately enhancing project outcomes.

This study seeks to examine the effects of perceived brand localness and foreignness on brand love via perceived brand coolness by incorporating the moderating impacts of local and global consumer identities on brand love while controlling the confounding effects of brand familiarity in the context of local and foreign digital retail banks.

This study collected 1,960 online responses (on local and foreign banks) from 980 consumers who often used local and foreign digital retail banking services. The analysis was performed on 1,766 responses through co-variance-based structural equation modeling.

This study discovered that perceived brand localness and foreignness were essential factors for driving brand love and perceived brand coolness toward local and foreign digital retail banks. However, perceived brand foreignness was a more effective driver than perceived brand localness. Importantly, perceived brand coolness emerged as a key mediator for shaping brand perceptions and love. Additionally, local and global consumer identities were effective moderators and brand familiarity was significant in enhancing brand love for local and foreign digital retail banks.

This study gives managers essential knowledge about crafting positioning, relationships and segmentation strategies to boost brand love and perceived coolness for local and foreign digital retail banks.

This novel study contributes new insights to the stimulus-organism-response and cultural identity theories by examining consumers’ brand perceptions and their impacts on consumer behavior in digital retail banking.

This study, drawing on the attribution, attachment, and regret theories, examined the predictors of brand love. It also aimed to assess the mediating role of brand authenticity dimensions, i.e. brand continuity, brand credibility and brand naturalness, on the relationship between customer perception of hotel corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and brand love. The moderating role of alternative attractiveness was also evaluated in relation to customer perception of hotel CSR initiatives and brand authenticity dimensions.

The authors surveyed customers from hotels in different cities in Pakistan. To test the theoretical framework, partial least square-based structural equation modeling was used.

The results confirm customer perception of hotel CSR initiatives as a predictor of brand love. The partial mediating role of brand naturalness and brand credibility was found between customer perception of hotel CSR initiatives and brand love, and no mediation of brand continuity was found. Alternative attractiveness negatively moderated the link between customer perception of hotel CSR initiatives, brand credibility and brand naturalness. However, alternative attractiveness did not moderate the relationship between customer perception of hotel CSR initiatives and brand continuity.

Hospitality practitioners can enhance brand love by strategically communicating CSR initiatives to customers, prioritizing brand credibility and brand naturalness and considering the role of attractive alternatives. This knowledge empowers practitioners to make informed decisions that can significantly impact their brand’s success.

This is the first study to explore the moderating role of alternative attractiveness on the relationship between customer perception of hotel CSR initiatives and brand authenticity dimensions. Equally, it is the first to investigate the mediating role of brand authenticity dimensions on the relationship between customer perception of hotel CSR initiatives and brand love.