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Vaping has become a prominent public health problem that has impacted young adults. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the effects of different intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on young adults’ realization of excessive vaping and their intention to quit vaping.

A survey was used to collect data from 232 young vapers (primarily Generation Z and Millennials) to test the hypothesized relationships using a covariance-based structural equation model.

The findings of this study suggest that “realization of excessive vaping” is negatively associated with “sensation seeking” and positively associated with “deal proneness,” “environmental cues” and “negative repercussion.” The “intention to quit vaping” is negatively associated with “marketing cues” and positively associated with “alternative to smoking” and “environmental cues.” Finally, the “realization of excessive vaping” is positively associated with “intention to quit vaping.”

This study takes a two-dimensional approach to understand the complex motivations behind a relatively new addictive behavior – vaping. It contributes to the literature of addictive behavior, social cognitive theory and theory of planned behavior. Further, it has important implications for public policy and the marketing of addictive products to youths.

Diversity, equity and inclusion ideology is the latest appeal of individual compassion, institutional legitimacy and enlightened society. Specific to higher education, diversity, equity and inclusion is an honorable ideology, value and mission. This paper aims to (1) empirically recognize the differences in the level of importance between the university’s and faculty’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, (2) identify the diversity, equity and inclusion outcomes, such as university brand image and student intention to engage postgraduation, (3) uncover the moderating role of university brand preference attainment and (4) validate the mediating role of student identification in diversity, equity and inclusion literature.

A survey of 1,027 usable responses was employed to perform two moderations, four mediations and two confidence interval analyses.

The university’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are significantly more rewarding than the faculty’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for the university brand image and students’ intention to engage postgraduation. Findings uncover the mediating role of student identification and the moderating role of brand preference attainment.

Focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion at the institutional level is more impactful than at the faculty level. In industries where frontline employees have significant autonomy, such as higher education, the positive brand performance outcomes are related to the faculty’s diversity, equity and inclusion awareness, not the faculty’s diversity, equity and inclusion advocacy. Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives should align with the student’s shared values.

The study relies on institutional theory to underscore the asymmetric importance of the university’s and faculty’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in achieving perceived brand image and engagement.

Although multiple forms of governance mechanisms have been studied to address the opportunistic behavior in franchising, research has not shed light on franchise systems operating in emerging markets despite exponential growth in these markets. To address this gap, this study aims to test the direct effects of different governance mechanisms on franchisee’s opportunism and moderating effects of franchisee’s relationship satisfaction on the relationship between different governance mechanisms and franchisee’s opportunism.

Survey data from 151 franchise owners were used to test the conceptual model and research hypotheses. The confirmatory factor model and structural equation model were tested by using AMOS.

Findings suggest that formalization and solidarity in franchising relationships negatively affect franchise opportunism. By contrast, franchisees, who are otherwise satisfied with their franchisor, find centralization and formalization oppressive and, therefore, engage in opportunistic activities.

The study makes important contributions related to franchising in emerging markets. It addresses opportunistic behavior by franchisees in emerging markets and the role played by different governance mechanisms in curbing such behavior. The study has some limitations related to its cross-sectional design and its focus on a single emerging country, among others.

This study is among the first to examine the role of governance mechanisms to address franchisee’s opportunism in an emerging market context. The study’s findings have important theoretical and practical implications for governance design in business-to-business relationships in emerging markets.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how consumers’ luxury purchase behavior has been affected by COVID-19. A theoretical framework is proposed to determine how isolation leads to intention to purchase luxury brands through bandwagon luxury consumption behavior. Additionally, the moderating effects of COVID-19 anxiety and social capital on the relationship between bandwagon luxury consumption behavior and subjective well-being and intention to purchase luxury brands are tested.

Survey responses from a national sample of 261 luxury consumers in the USA were collected. The data were analyzed using a covariance-based structural equation modeling technique.

The results confirm that the feeling of isolation leads to a higher intention to purchase luxury brands. Both COVID-19 anxiety and social capital moderate the relationship between bandwagon luxury consumption behavior and intention to purchase luxury brands/subjective well-being related to the luxury brand purchase.

Luxury marketers should focus on highlighting bandwagon elements of their brands, such as their popularity and how they enhance social connectedness when tailoring their brand communication to isolated consumers. The data is limited to luxury consumers in the USA; thus, the findings are specific to the US market.

Given the paucity of research on luxury consumption for isolated consumers, this study adds to the literature on luxury brands by examining how the feeling of isolation affects the intention to purchase luxury brands.

A framework for evaluating public opinion towards franchising is proposed and empirically tested in an emerging market, India. Franchising in an emerging market was selected as the context because – (1) future growth is likely to come from newly emerging markets, (2) franchising is primarily seen as a foreign concept in emerging markets and has attracted its fair share of attention, both positive and negative. The results indicate that people evaluate franchising using four key factors – well being of small businesses, socio‐economic, socio‐cultural well being, and employment opportunity. This study further investigates the relationship between these factors and patronage behaviour. Some of these factors were associated with patronage behaviour and the associated residual feeling. Clearly, in order to succeed in emerging and developing markets, the franchising industry must pay heed to public opinion.

This study aims to investigate how narcissistic consumers perceive and respond to variations in price and store image in retail settings.

The data for this study were collected from a sample of 248 respondents who participated in an experiment with a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design.

The findings show that while narcissists and non-narcissists do not differ in their perceptions of product quality, they show completely different behavioral intentions. For instance, narcissistic consumers ascribe more importance to store image than to product price, whereas price is more critical in non-narcissists’ decision-making.

Using a young sample and only one product category (i.e. clothing) may affect the generalization of the findings. The inherent drawback of experiments (i.e. gaining internal validity at the cost of external validity) is another limitation of this work.

The construct of narcissism plays a critical role in the way people evaluate products’ symbolic value and ultimately decide to purchase goods from a store which has a certain type of image, including the expected price of the merchandise. Therefore, the findings of this study have significant managerial implications for critical areas of retail business such as segmentation using narcissism, store image management and merchandise pricing.

Despite a long history in social and clinical psychology, few empirical studies have examined narcissism and its impact on consumer behavior. The present study is an attempt to address this gap in retail settings and provides insights into the joint effects of product price and store image on narcissists’ purchase behavior.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the manner in which market orientation types facilitate the development of brand management processes (strategic brand management and internal branding), and brand performance.

The research model is assessed using data collected from brand executives. Existing scales are used to measure all the focal constructs. Partial least squares-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using the Smart-PLS 3.0 software is used to check for the psychometric properties of the scales and to test the hypotheses.

The results of this study indicate that proactive and reactive market orientation influence the internal branding and strategic brand management. The mediating role of strategic brand management in the relationship between proactive market orientation (PMO) and brand performance is significant. Similarly, internal branding mediates the relationship between PMO and brand performance. Also, strategic brand management and internal branding mediate the relationship between responsive market orientation (RMO) and brand performance. Results also indicate that market turbulence negatively moderates the relationship between strategic brand management and brand performance.

Building on literature from brand management, organizational capabilities and market orientation, this study explicates the role of PMO and RMO in influencing different strategic brand management and internal branding, and subsequently, brand performance. The perspective used in this study provides an insight into how organizations can develop and manage brands from a process perspective.

To develop the brand management capability, organizations may benefit from cultivating processes that seek to meet the latent customer needs through explorative and proactive information seeking, and at the same time, pursing processes that focus on capturing the existing customer and competitor trends in the market.

This study hopefully helps marketers realize that brand management function needs to move toward being more dynamic in nature.

This study borrows from the existing research on market orientation, branding and brand management to argue that organizations are required to not only maximize the brand returns in the existing market but also to adapt to the changes in the future.

The fundamental question asked in this study is – should all firms engage in innovation and branding activities to the same extent to achieve their goals? The purpose of this paper is to answer this question, a strategic typology that integrates branding and innovation (BI) from an organizational ambidexterity perspective is proposed.

This paper builds theory by proposing a typology. Integrating the literature on BI, organizational ambidexterity and resource/knowledge-based view of firms, this study posits that to create a value proposition, a firm could choose to engage in innovation and branding activities in a variety of ways depending on their dominant strategic orientation along two dimensions of ambidexterity.

The four proposed typical branding-innovation orientations are low innovation × low branding; low innovation × high branding; high innovation × low branding; and high innovation × high branding.

A firm should choose its dominant strategic orientation depending on conditions such as market, consumers, needs and demand and resources.

By framing the innovation-branding paradox within an organizational ambidexterity framework, the proposed typology helps integrate two complementary and yet conflicting organizational functions by shifting the focus from an operational to a strategic level.

Social media influencers (SMIs) are becoming a powerful force within the marketing and branding landscape, with several leading brands opting to use SMI endorsements for their products and brands. Extant SMI literature has primarily focused on the influence mechanism exerted by SMIs on their followers. Less is known about how followers view their favorite SMIs. This study aims to explore the SMI–follower relationship from the follower’s perspective and examine the underlying attachment mechanism.

First, a qualitative study was conducted to explore the attributes that individuals consider following an SMI and ensure that it is consistent with the literature review. This was followed by a survey-based quantitative study where a structural equation modeling technique was used to test the hypotheses using 508 SMI followers.

Followers find the SMI as a source to fulfill their intrinsic needs, that is, need to escape or self- improvement. The findings of this study suggest that followers attribute glamor, fun and connectedness to the SMIs driven by their need for self-improvement and fun with their need to escape. Finally, these attributions influence the overall perceived image of the SMI in followers' minds.

This study uses qualitative and quantitative approaches to picture SMIs as human brands from a follower's need fulfillment perspective.

This paper aims to outline different signals that franchisors can use to communicate their value proposition to prospective franchisees. It also tests whether these signals can enable franchisors to charge a premium from their franchisees.

This paper uses a mixed-methods approach to arrive at the findings. It uses a combination of open-ended survey and archival data to arrive at the findings.

Franchisees consider franchisor’s characteristics such as its “capability,” “support offered” and “franchisee membership criteria” significant while buying into their franchises. The results suggest that franchisors can leverage some of their capability signals to obtain a higher franchise fee if they use the right signals as desired by franchisees.

Signals identified in this study are specific to this study. The relationship between the signals and franchise fee is applicable for high-performing franchises operating in the American context only. Future research can address this limitation by collecting more data, testing additional signals and using alternative methods to verify the findings.

Franchisors can take cues from the evaluative criteria used by franchisees to design their signaling strategies. Franchisors can leverage some of their capabilities to extract higher fees from their franchisees. Prospective franchisees should engage in due diligence before purchasing a franchise unit and avoid franchises with higher support fees and loose franchisee recruitment criteria.

This study contributes to research on the evaluative criteria used by franchisees. It contributes to the signaling theory by offering insights into the performance outcomes of signals in the franchising context. It also contributes to our understanding of franchising by adopting a mixed-methods approach that includes information about franchisors and franchisees.