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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.

Personal finance influences everything we buy and is a key driver of all economies. It has attracted significant research attention, mostly grounded in rational economics. However, it has not received adequate research attention in the consumer behavior literature. This study aims to address this gap by looking at some of the consumer-centric antecedents of short- and long-term personal financial planning, i.e. self-other orientation, cognitive style and time orientation.

A self-administered survey was used to collect data from full time employees. Hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analyses.

Both short- and long-term financial planning are positively associated with non-impulsive and analytical decision-making styles; whereas self and other orientation are only associated with short-term financial planning. Intuitive decision-making is not associated to either short- or long-term financial planning.

While analytical and long-term orientation are still important for personal finance, in the short run, consumers are also driven by self and other orientation.

The results are relevant for both products and services that have long-term and short-term financial implications for consumers.

This study explores financial planning decision-making from a consumer behavior perspective, and addresses a gap in consumer behavior literature.

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.

Hoping to increase the productivity of their employees, firms provide and expect their employees to use approved mobile apps. However, despite an intuitive appeal, the relationship between information technology usage and productivity is still seen as paradoxical. This study examines the relationship between employees' experience and engagement with business mobile apps provided by employers and its effects on employee work productivity.

Data from respondents who use employer-provided business apps were used to test the hypotheses. Measurement-corrected latent scores extracted from the PLS measurement evaluation were used in regression-centric assessment using PROCESS.

Results indicate that employee-users’ experience-based attributions of the business app, i.e. customization, performance quality and compatibility, have positive effects on productivity mediated by participation intensity. Further, work type (retail vs non-retail) and the depth of the employee user’s experience moderate experience-based attributions' indirect effects on productivity.

Unlike previous studies delving into this topic, this study focuses solely on the mediation and moderation effects for hypothesis testing. Specifically, this study investigates effects conditional on work type (retail vs non-retail), which the authors believe has significant implications for retailing. These findings have interesting implications for both future research and managers.

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.

User-generated content (UGC), e.g. YouTube videos on social media, is all around us. These UGCs are primarily demonstrational and/or informational in their execution format. However, viewers could easily misclassify the UGCs and that may be detrimental to the focal product in the UGC. This study aims to investigate this phenomenon.

The study uses an online survey (N = 459). The respondents were randomly exposed to one of the two UGCs – informational or demonstrational – and then responded to questions measuring their attribution and their purchase intention towards the focal product in the UGC.

Results indicate that about 20% of the respondents misclassified the type of UGC. Further, UGC characteristics such as vicarious experience, transparency and connectedness significantly enhance purchase intention, especially for demonstrational videos; demonstrational UGC, when correctly perceived yield the most favorable results; and misclassification does suppress these relationships.

This study contributes to the theory and practice by linking the viewer evaluation of UGC on various evaluative dimensions (i.e. vicarious experience, connectedness, transparency and perceived risk), purchase intention towards the focal product in the UGC and correct or incorrect classification of the UGC format (demonstrational or informational). This study adds to the knowledge base about UGC by highlighting some of the pitfalls when viewers misclassify the UGC format and emphasizes the importance of a match between the content of the UGC and the perceptions and expectations associated with the medium on which it is uploaded. Like any other research, this study too has its limitations. It has only looked at a few possible variables that would predict the purchase intention in the context of the complex and rich phenomenon of UGC. Future studies should look at other sources of misclassification.

Given the ubiquitous nature of social media and their role in consumer decision-making, the findings of this study have serious practical implications. The results of the study highlight steps to be taken by both creators and marketers to improve effectiveness of UGCs.

While this study does not focus on the social aspects of UGCs, it is not difficult to imagine the phenomenon of UGC misclassification, either as a mistake or deliberately induced and its social implications. Fake news seems to be not uncommon.

Even though the impact of consumer-to-consumer information exchange and UGC on consumers’ brand attitude and purchase intention is well recognized, there is limited research on this topic. Further, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explicitly examine the concept of misclassification and corresponding issues in the context of UGCs.

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.

While language is vital for a successful service exchange, it can also become a source of vulnerability if one party is a non-native speaker in an inter-culture service encounter (ICSE). Hence, the purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between language-related stigma that non-native customers perceive in an ICSE and the associated psychological and behavioral responses.

A survey-based research method and an experimental study was used to collect data from non-native speakers in the USA with English as their second language. Structural equation modeling procedure was used to test the hypothesized relationships.

The findings suggest that the customers who perceive language-related stigmatization in an ICSE context experience intergroup anxiety and lack of social belonging. In turn, intergroup anxiety influences their interaction comfort with the service provider. In the end, these experiences shape their future buying behavior, i.e. they tend to avoid direct interactions with the servers and prefer smart services.

Future research is needed to explore the focal phenomenon in other service contexts and cultures to enrich knowledge on language vulnerabilities.

The study highlights the importance of technology, not just from a convenience perspective, but also as an accommodation mechanism for linguistically vulnerable customers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to empirically examine the language-related stigmatization and associated psychological and behavioral responses from the non-native customers’ perspective in a services exchange setting.

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.