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In social media context, service failures become public domain, making them visible to vast audiences of customers who are virtually present. Thus, this study aims to discuss the roles of service failure type and management response on observers’ perceived helpfulness.

The authors conducted econometric analyses on a dataset incorporating 107,984 reviews and 34,641 management responses to negative reviews.

The results reveal that, for process failures, specifying a form of action (initiatives for solving the problem) is associated with more perceived helpfulness of reviews than accounts (explanation) or acknowledgments (recognition and acceptance), while responding to an outcome failure by providing an account is associated with increased perceived helpfulness of reviews.

For process failures, managers should make every effort to convince observers through specific actions that similar failures are less likely to occur in the future. For outcome failures, managers should strive to provide clear and fast explanations of the failure causes to restore observers’ evaluation of the firm’s capabilities.

The authors’ work extends sparse insights on observers and sheds new light on the effect of service failure type and response strategy on observers’ actual behaviors. The interplay between service failure type and response strategy provides guidance on how to use management responses to influence potential customers.

This study aims to examine the public discourse on sustainable food packaging, evaluating the main characteristics of that discourse and how risk and analytical message content influence consumer engagement.

The authors use two studies with databases built from messages posted on Twitter (now X). Study 1 explores the discourse of sustainable food packaging by conducting a content/sentiment analysis. Study 2 examines more than four million messages posted by or mentioning the world’s most relevant food companies. Hypotheses are tested through censored regression analyses.

The results show that plastic is the term that can better classify how we talk about sustainable food packaging. The authors also show that food packaging messages related to sustainability, compared to those not related to sustainability, are composed using more analytical language, contributing to generating greater engagement. Moreover, social network users remain skeptical about food companies, as the latter messages on packaging sustainability generate less engagement (likes + retweets) than when other users post these messages.

This study addresses important points in the public discourse on social networks about the sustainability of food packaging and its language features. First, the data are representative of the food market with posts from leading worldwide food companies. Second, identifying the hot topics of the discussion on sustainability packaging on social media provides a new perspective on how companies and society view sustainable food packaging. Third, the authors show how the source of the message moderates the impact of sustainability on engagement.

Users contribute to online communities by posting and responding to discussion threads. Nonetheless, only a small fraction of threads gain popularity and shape community discourse. Prior studies have identified several factors driving thread popularity; however, despite their prevalence, the role of emotional expressions within discussion threads remains understudied. This study addresses this gap by investigating the impact of thread starters’ valence and embedded discrete emotions of anger, anxiety and sadness on thread popularity, drawing on the negativity bias and the emotion-as-social-information theories.

Using two samples from Reddit, this study employs negative binomial regression analysis to examine the hypothesized relationships.

The results demonstrate that negativity in thread starters significantly influences thread popularity; however, the expression of discrete emotions impacts popularity variously. In some contexts, such as COVID-19 vaccination subreddits, embedded anger in thread starters decreases thread popularity, whereas anxiety and sad expressions enhance it. In other contexts, such as professional discussions (e.g. r/Medicine subreddit), anger and anxiety expressions increase thread popularity, while sad expressions have no significant influence.

The study is limited by its focus on specific emotions and contexts. Future research could examine a broader range of emotions, post-content modalities and the impact of cultural and linguistic differences.

This study contributes to theory by offering a new definition of thread popularity and enhancing our understanding of the impact of emotions in online discussions. It also provides practical implications for online community members and moderators seeking to promote discussion posts that help achieve community goals.

This study aims to introduce a conceptual framework that links gender microaggressive experiences at the workplace to women’s propensity to quiet quit.

Using conservation of resources theory and social exchange theory this study develops a conceptual framework to explain women employees’ quiet quitting (QQ) behaviour when they experience gender microaggressions (GM) in workplaces.

The conceptual framework provides a comprehensive understating of antecedents to QQ behaviour of women employees. Affective commitment is identified to mediate and supervisory support to moderate the relationship between QQ and GM.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the QQ process through a gendered lens.

This study aims to propose an extended model of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in the fashion industry. This model helps to identify key enablers for consumers, which will facilitate the adoption of a circular economy (CE). These enablers were identified through extensive literature review.

An online survey was conducted with 362 respondents to test the model in the fashion industry. Convenience sampling was used and the survey was distributed via social media and email. Data analysis was performed using partial least squares and structural equation modeling was used to explore the relationships among the variables.

The findings indicate a positive and significant relationship between consumers’ environmental knowledge and their attitudes toward adopting the CE model. In addition, the results demonstrate that providing consumers with a channel to return used clothing positively influences their attitude. The availability of such a channel significantly impacts consumer attitudes toward CE.

This study contributes three novel elements to the TPB framework: availability, environmental knowledge and monetary benefits. This finding posits that consumers’ attitudes toward CE are significantly influenced by their environmental knowledge. This study also highlighted that attitude acts as a mediator in the relationship between environmental knowledge and intention, as well as between availability and intention.

This study aims to investigate the impact of conspicuous consumption on the subjective well-being (SWB) of Indian bottom of the pyramid (BOP) consumers.

This study followed a qualitative phenomenological approach. Focus group discussions were conducted with 72 Indian BOP consumers. Thematic analysis resulted in 21 categories and 9 themes.

This study revealed three distinct categories of consequences related to the effects of conspicuous consumption on SWB at the BOP. Conspicuous consumption can either enhance or diminish the BOP consumers’ SWB and sometimes even simultaneously have constructive and adverse effects (a double-edged sword). This study presents a conceptual model examining the consequences of conspicuous consumption at the BOP through the lenses of social comparison and compensatory consumption theories.

The literature has classified the consequences of conspicuous consumption at the BOP as constructive or adverse effects. This study reveals that conspicuous consumption at the BOP can be a double-edged sword. This study indicates that social comparison drives compensatory consumption at the BOP, which impacts the SWB of BOP consumers. Such an amalgamation of the theories of conspicuous consumption, social comparison and compensatory consumption is the unique contribution of this research. The implications for practice and policy are discussed.

This study investigates whether the underrepresentation of women in executive-level roles within the supply chain management (SCM) field is justified or the result of gender injustices. The analysis examines if there is a gender compensation gap within executive-level SCM roles and whether performance differences or other observable factors explain disparities.

Publicly reported executive compensation and financial data are merged to empirically test if gender differences exist and investigate whether the underrepresentation of women in executive-level SCM roles is unjust.

Women occupy only 6.29% of the positions in the sample of 447 SCM executives. Unlike prior studies, we find that women executives receive higher compensation. The analysis does not identify observable factors explaining the limited inclusion of women in top-level roles, suggesting that gender injustices are prevalent in SCM.

This study only considers observable factors and cannot conclusively determine if discrimination is occurring. The low level of inclusion of women in executive roles suggests that gender injustice is intrinsic within the SCM profession. These findings will hopefully motivate firms to undertake transformative actions that result in outcomes that advance gender equity, ultimately leading to social justice for female SCM executives.

The use of social justice and feminist theories, a focus on SCM roles, and an empirical methodology utilizing objective measures represents a novel approach to investigating gender discrimination in SCM organizations, complementing prior survey-based studies.

In light of increasing public concern over social media privacy breaches, this study aims to unveil the context-dependent and individual-specific nature of social media disclosure decisions. In particular, this paper aims to examine the disclosure choices of maximizers and satisficers in the presence of privacy setting defaults on social networking sites (SNSs).

Data are collected through an online scenario-based experiment with 200 Mechanical Turk participants. The study uses a 2 (Privacy setting default: No Sharing [“Only Me”] vs. Public Sharing [“Everyone”]) × 2 (Decision mindset: maximizing vs. satisficing) between-subject design.

Analyzing responses using ordered logistic regression models, this paper found a general tendency toward default settings, with maximizers exhibiting a stronger default preference than satisficers. For instance, maximizers were eight times more likely, and satisficers were only three times more likely to choose “Everyone” in the presence of the “Everyone” (vs. “Only Me”) default when deciding who can post on their private page. The perceived level of privacy risk further shaped satisficers and maximizers’ preferences.

This study explores the impact of decision mindset on SNS privacy settings. It demonstrates that decision mindset moderates default preferences, revealing that maximizers show a higher default preference than satisficers. The research also highlights the interplay between default preferences and the compromise effect, contributing to the understanding of cognitive biases in privacy decisions. This paper offers insights for better privacy management and education strategies.

Drawing on protection motivation theory (PMT), this study aims to explore the factors that enhance cybersecurity awareness among online banking users in Malaysia. More specifically, it investigates the influences of perceived vulnerability, perceived severity, technical knowledge, privacy intrusions and privacy awareness on perceived threats and then examines the effects of perceived threats, along with response efficacy and self-efficacy, on cybersecurity awareness, considering the moderating role of fear of cyberattacks.

A survey-based research approach was applied, and the hypotheses were tested using a sample of 324 respondents, employing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results show that perceived vulnerability, perceived severity, privacy intrusions and privacy awareness significantly influence perceived threats, while technical knowledge does not influence perceived threats. Furthermore, it was found that response efficacy and self-efficacy both enhance cybersecurity awareness, while perceived threats have no influence on it. Finally, our research confirmed the moderating role of fear of cyberattacks in the relationship between self-efficacy and cybersecurity awareness.

For individuals, the study highlights the significance of fear, privacy awareness and response efficacy in shaping cybersecurity perceptions, paving the way for enhanced and tailored awareness programs. Moreover, the understanding of relationships between perceived threats, response efficacy and self-efficacy empowers individuals to craft personalized risk mitigation strategies, fostering confidence in navigating the digital landscape. Businesses can leverage the insights for informed design of employee training programs and data-driven decision-making in cybersecurity investments. Government entities, recognizing the nuanced relationship between perceived threats and cybersecurity awareness, are encouraged to formulate context-specific policies and foster cross-sector collaboration for comprehensive cybersecurity initiatives.

This research extends PMT by incorporating additional antecedent variables – namely, technical knowledge, privacy intrusions and privacy awareness within the online banking context that have been overlooked thus far. Furthermore, it delves into the unique role of fear of cyberattack as a moderating variable, thereby enhancing our understanding of PMT.

To explore the influence factors and pathways of users’ willingness to participate in the misinformation purification process on the Weibo platform. The findings of this study are expected to provide valuable insights that can enhance the self-purification mechanisms for misinformation on Weibo, thereby contributing to the effective misinformation control.

The theoretical framework of the quantitative study is a conceptual model integrated with the theory of planned behavior (TPB), social exchange theory (SET) and co-dependency theory. This model was developed to elucidate the influence factors of users’ willingness to participate in the purification of misinformation on the Weibo platform, the conceptual model was tested and refined through questionnaire surveys, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to assess its validity and reliability.

The findings reveal that the attitude toward misinformation purification on the Weibo platform exerts the most significant positive influence on the willingness to engage in such activities. Within the context of this research, community involvement and reciprocity are identified as the factors that have the most substantial positive impact on users’ attitude toward misinformation purification. Conversely, risk perception does not demonstrate a significant influence on users’ attitude toward misinformation purification.

Taking the Weibo platform as an example, this is a pioneering study on the investigation and mechanism of social media self-purification on misinformation and proposes a new perspective to improve the effectiveness of the social media self-purification mechanism from the perspective of focusing on user intention and motivation.