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Governmental regulations aiming to protect environmental goals often require firms to increase sales prices with negative consequences on price fairness perception. Companies might therefore either justify the price increase by highlighting the good cause (environmental framing) or they could blame the government for the regulation (governmental framing). Firms might also communicate their investments in the relationship to motivate customers to stay. This paper aims to examine the impact of such communication content on price increase fairness perception and switching intention in a contractual service setting.

This paper first examines the content of 119 price increase letters from electricity suppliers in a qualitative pilot study. The main study then tests our research framework with 552 respondents using a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects experimental scenario design (manipulating framing, effort and regret communication).

Customers perceive governmental framing as fairer than environmental framing. Effort and regret communication by firms weaken or reverse this effect. They reduce customers’ fairness perception for the governmental framing, while regret communication increases it for the environmental framing. However, regret communication also increases switching intention in both framings through a strong direct effect.

Cost-induced price increases are perceived on a “locus continuum” on which reason-framing and relationship investments can shift the consumer perception. Future studies may apply our framework in different industries and contexts.

The results provide guidelines for communicating price increases. Firms should prefer a governmental framing and they should also hesitate to communicate relationship investments, which signal internal locus of the firm, such as effort or regret.

Our results question the naive assumption of general positive effects of environmental framings and relationship investments on customer responses. Based on a new view on attributions of cost-caused price increases, we suggest and find several counterintuitive results. We argue that the framing and relationship investments shift the cause perception of an external cost increase on the attributional locus continuum.

Firms employ various forms of disclosure to demonstrate commitment to and involvement in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices. This research provides guidance to firms employing framing strategies when communicating their SSCM with external stakeholders like consumers as part of their supply chain transparency efforts.

The authors employed a middle-range theorizing approach to understand the context of SSCM practices and mechanisms of variously framed communication methods to disclose sustainability information to consumers. The authors conducted two experiments in an e-waste recycling context, studying how sustainable information disclosed to consumers using attribute framing and goal framing can affect consumers' attitudes. The authors also examined the moderating role of consumers' environmental involvement.

Results suggest that when attribute framing is used, firms should avoid framing the attribute from a negative valence. When goal framing is used, messages with consequences stated as “avoid loss” yield the most substantial effect. Additionally, framing effects are more significant for consumers with higher-than-average environmental involvement.

The authors’ results contribute to the ongoing theorization of SSCM by providing contextual understanding of how to communicate sustainability information. Corroborating evidence from marketing, framing effects are found to be context specific, thereby elucidating the framing literature more fully to the SSCM context. The authors extend this literature by studying attribute framing and comparing the effectiveness of all possible goal framing combinations of valence and gain/loss perspective in the SSCM communication context.

Although the evidence exists for the effect of promotional frame on repurchase intention, it is unclear whether the timing of repurchase can moderate the effect. In this paper, three experiments were conducted to answer this question.

In Experiment 1, a 2 (framing: bundle vs. gift) × 2 (repurchase target: focal vs. supplementary) × 2 (timing: short vs. long) between-subjects design was used. In Experiment 2, an identical design was used except that repurchase target being the within-subjects factor. In Experiment 3, the design was based on that of Experiment 2 and brand was added a between-subjects factor.

Experiment 1 showed that, with a short interval, repurchase intention under gift frame was higher than that under bundle frame. With a long interval, there was no significant difference between the gift and bundle frames. Experiment 2, however, indicated no effects for expensive products. Experiment 3 showed that brand (private versus national brand) moderate the interaction between framing, repurchase target and timing. Particularly, for private brand, no significant comparisons were found; for national brand, repurchase intention for the focal product was significantly higher than for the supplementary product, but only under the conditions of long interval and gift frame (rather than bundle frame).

Taken together, findings from the current study contributes to the literature by showing for the first time that repurchase timing can moderate the promotional frame effect (i.e. higher repurchase intention under gift framing relative to bundle framing occurs in the short interval but not long interval) and that brand type can moderate the joint effects of framing, timing and repurchase target (i.e. national brand, rather than private brand, paired with long interval and gift frame results in higher repurchase intention for the focal product). The findings provide marketers with important knowledge in terms of how to adjust a promotional frame depending on when consumers repurchase a product and whether the product has a private or national brand.

The current study has three main purposes: (1) replicate results from prior framing effects studies on social media. To do so, the study examines the influence of news frames (free speech vs. public order) on participants' attitudes toward an alt-right rally (2) expand prior research by examining the emotional reaction of participants to these frames and (3) probe the moderating effects of face-to-face heterogenous talk and heterogenous social media feeds.

Drawing from theoretical concepts such as competitive framing, emotions and heterogeneity, the study uses a randomized online experiment. The study examines a conversation in a Twitter thread that includes both free speech and public order frames in the comments to the thread. The total number of participants was 275.

The results show that free speech versus public order frame did not impact attitudes of the participants toward the alt-right rally. Findings also show the significant main effects of free speech and public order frames and the interaction of exposure to heterogeneity on emotional reactions of outrage and anger toward the alt-right rally. These findings suggest that framing research needs to take social media features into consideration for a complete picture of framing effects on social media.

Using a classic framing effects experiment, the study includes variables relevant to social media discussions on Twitter and examined the moderating effects of heterogeneity on emotional reactions. In addition, one of the important methodological contributions of the current study are the framing manipulations for an externally valid experimental design.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of price bundling and message framing on attitudes, intentions, and beliefs about attributes of teeth whitening products. Although each of these variables, message framing and price bundling, has been explored individually, few attempts have been made to investigate them jointly. This study is based on a full factorial design that allows for testing of interaction effects. Second, the market for whitening products is maturing, resulting in a target market that is gaining knowledge about these products. Thus, we use knowledge as a covariate in the above investigation to determine if the communication strategy should be changed as the product moves from introduction to maturity.

The study is based on a 2 × 2 factorial design with price bundling (bundle price – individual price) and framing (positive – negative). The setting for the study is a hypothetical brand name of teeth whitening products.

The results reveal a mixed picture with respect to effectiveness of pricing and framing on attitudes and intentions. The effect of price bundling is not significant on attitudes; it is significant on intentions. Framing has a greater impact on intentions than on attitudes. Nevertheless, the interaction effects are significant on both attitudes as well as intentions. Finally, the impact of knowledge as a covariate is significant.

Caution is advised in extrapolating the results beyond the issues investigated in the study.

The findings help marketers in formulating effective marketing strategy using both price bundling and message framing strategies.

Although price bundling and message framing have been explored in marketing studies, the research is lacking on the combined effects of these two important variables. The findings show a significant interaction effect of pricing and framing on changing attitudes and intentions. Prior research recommends using negative framing. The present research shows that for bundle products, a positive framing approach is desirable.

This paperaims to investigate a novel expectation by examining how framing a company as its constituent members (members frame) versus an organization (organization frame) can influence consumer evaluations of a product or service from this company.

Four studies were conducted examining the effectiveness of an organization (vs members) frame in a between-subjects experimental design (a pilot study, Studies 1a, 1b and 2). Study 2 also tested the moderating role of donation strategies (amount-focused vs frequency-focused).

Results show a members (vs organization) frame leads to a higher purchase likelihood of a product from a company engaging in corporate donations. Further, this framing effect is mediated by increased levels of consumers’ perceptions about how committed the company is to the cause and the emotion of moral elevation in response to the company’s corporate donations. Moreover, this effect is moderated when the company uses a frequency-based (vs amount-based) donation strategy.

This research contributes to the literature on message framing by demonstrating how the same information about a company may lead to differential effects on consumer evaluations, depending on whether the company is framed as its constituent members versus an organization.

This paper presents significant managerial implications for small companies, in which the owner is the company, about how they can effectively communicate corporate donations to the consumers.

This research provides a novel perspective on how the same information about a company may lead to differential effects on consumer evaluations, particularly in the context of corporate donations.

Cites the existence of information framing effects as an interesting phenomenon in the area of human judgements and decision‐making. Uses three distinct types of framing effect and the hypothesis identified by Leven et al (1998). Studies the reliability of these effects across samples of subjects in the USA and Australia. Shows that, for two of the three types, attribute framing and risky choice framing, the effects were strong and almost identical in the two samples. Highlights a significant effect for the US sample, but not the Australian sample, for the third type, goal framing. Discusses results in terms of the reliability of the effects and their potential for revealing cross‐cultural differences in values.

Despite its significance, research on how attribute framing affects ordering decisions in dual sourcing remains insufficient. Hence, this study investigated the effects of attribute framing in a sourcing task involving certain and uncertain qualities of two suppliers and analysed the role of attention with respect to suppliers' information in framing effects.

The impacts of attribute framing on sourcing decisions were demonstrated in two online between-subject (2 × 2 factorial) experimental studies involving professional samples. Study 2 was an eye-tracking experiment.

In Study 1 (N = 251), participants presented with a “high-quality” rather than a “low-quality” frame made different sourcing decisions, opting for larger percentage of order(s) from a supplier under the “high-quality” frame. This pattern holds true for suppliers who differ in risk. This finding was replicated in Study 2 (N = 129). Attention asymmetry related to the information on supplier quality contributes to this effect. Attention directed towards information regarding the supplier's quality under a positive frame mediated the relationship between attribute framing and sourcing decisions.

Highlighting the positive attributes of a risky supplier is essential when ordering from the risky supplier is an optimal decision. It is advantageous for suppliers to highlight positive rather than negative attributes when describing the quality of their components against others.

This is the first study to examine the effect of attention on the relationship between attribute framing and dual sourcing. This presents a new behavioural perspective wherein managers' attention to information plays a vital role.

This study aims to test negotiation outcomes when bilinguals negotiate in a foreign rather than their native language. Decision research on the foreign language effect indicates that bilingual individuals may be less susceptible to framing bias when using a foreign language because they make less emotional and biased choices. With increasing international business activity, there is a pressing need to examine the effect of language on bilingual negotiators.

The authors tested the hypotheses using a two (task frame: gain vs loss) × 2 (language: foreign vs native) factorial design recruiting 246 Korean–English bilinguals. A negotiation simulation with three issues was used, and participants exchanged offers with a preprogrammed computer they believed to be a real counterpart.

There was no significant interaction effect between framing and language on the offers made, but the framing effect was mitigated and nonsignificant for negotiators who used their foreign language. The interaction between framing and language conditions significantly affected negotiators’ positive emotions and satisfaction with the negotiation.

The uniqueness of this paper is related to its effort to investigate the effect of negotiation language on a negotiator’s decision-making. Considering globalization and the increasing prevalence of international negotiations, this paper has implications for researchers and practitioners.

Subjects (n = 200) received a detailed description of a product and were asked to rate their attitudes about this product. Presentation order, source credibility and message framing were manipulated in a 2× 2× 2 completely crossed factorial design. Subjects who received a positively framed message rated product attitudes significantly greater than those subjects who received a negatively framed message. Also, significant differences in message framing effects were found for those subjects who received the framed message first in the nonexpert condition (credibility) and those subjects who received the framed message last in the expert condition. Findings are then discussed.