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Pregnant employees experience considerable interpersonal discrimination. This study explores the range of possible reactions of observers to pregnancy self-disclosure, interpersonal discrimination and various allyship interventions, and the attentional processes that lead to those reactions. Consequently, it uncovers socio-cognitive processes underlying support for and backlash toward pregnancy in the workplace.

This study used a thought-listing technique to explore observers’ spontaneous thoughts related to pregnancy. Working adults were randomly assigned to read through one of the six scenarios depicting pregnancy self-disclosure, interpersonal discrimination and male allyship interventions (i.e. stating the organization’s anti-discrimination policy, confronting the transgressor by calling out sexism, pivoting the conversation to highlight the strengths of the pregnant employee and a hybrid intervention combining highlighting strengths and confrontation) after which participants listed the top three thoughts that came to their mind (1,668 responses). Responses were thematically analyzed to explore spontaneous reactions toward the pregnant employee, transgressor and ally in the scenario.

Surprisingly, across all scenarios, the most sexist thoughts emerged during pregnancy self-disclosure, even in the absence of any transgression. After a transgression occurred, any allyship intervention was better than none in eliciting lesser sexist backlash against the pregnant employee. Stating the organization’s anti-discrimination policy was most beneficial for the pregnant employee in eliciting the least sexist backlash but at the cost of generating unfavorable impressions of the ally. Calling out the transgressor’s bias elicited the most sexist backlash toward the pregnant employee, yet it created favorable impressions of the ally. In contrast, highlighting the strengths of the pregnant employee created the most favorable impression of the ally while eliciting a few sexist thoughts about the pregnant employee. Overall, the hybrid intervention was the most effective at balancing the competing goals of generating support for the pregnant employee, creating favorable impressions of the ally, as well as holding the transgressor accountable.

This study demonstrates that the type of allyship intervention critically redirects the attentional focus of observers to certain aspects of a discrimination episode and relevant schemas which can generate support or backlash toward targets, transgressors and allies, thereby advancing or obstructing equity and inclusion in organizations.

In China, online intermediaries have become increasingly influential in the last few years, notably in the business‐to‐business (B2B) domain. However, little research has considered the impact of these intermediaries on either the tacit knowledge or the guanxi that are so central to Chinese business processes. In this paper, authors investigate this impact, as well as the consequent shifts that are taking place on B2B platforms, focusing on the case of Alibaba, China's largest online business intermediary.

An exploratory case‐study approach is employed in this paper. The authors have comprehensive investigated Alibaba's trading platforms and associated technologies. They have also engaged 15 Alibaba users (buyers and sellers) from seven different countries/territories in semi‐structured interviews and use the interview data to supplement the own findings.

Alibaba is effectively functioning as a substitute for traditional, offline social networks. In the process, it is leveraging and disseminating explicit knowledge critical to all aspects of the purchasing/procurement process, as well as changing the role of guanxi throughout the business purchasing/procurement process. Alibaba is thus engineering radical changes in the way business can be conducted in China.

Experienced researchers of Chinese management have traditionally been wary of ignoring cultural norms, which, in this case, would highlight the importance of both guanxi and tacit knowledge. The shift from tacit to explicit knowledge representation, coupled with a modified role for guanxi, is thus rather unexpected and should lead researchers to query previous assumptions, as well as test new ones, specifically in the area of online B2B transactions, but potentially in other domains where online communications are involved.

Chinese business people are all too aware of the importance of tacit knowledge and guanxi. The potential for this tacit knowledge to be represented explicitly online, coupled with the shifting role that guanxi may play, should be of great interest to those who wish to explore the online marketspace. It may be particularly attractive to newcomers (notably non‐Chinese) to the Chinese market since their own tacit knowledge and guanxi may be less well developed and they may be in a better position to leverage the online platforms.

There is little prior work on Chinese B2B e‐commerce from a guanxi‐based or knowledge management (KM) perspective that builds on the experiences of online buyers and sellers. They chart this area and seek to integrate the two disparate streams of research on guanxi and KM in the context of B2B e‐commerce.

The purpose is: first to review the marketing segmentation literature and its antecedents; second, to evaluate the organizational practice of marketing segmentation in a specific commercial context noted for its dynamism and complexity, fashion retailing; third, to assess theoretical and practical implications; and finally to identify an agenda for future research.

Through the analysis of an instrumental case study examining practice in fashion retailing this paper makes a contribution to current market segmentation debates. Sensemaking properties are used as a disciplined structure in which to report the case and make sense of segmentation.

This research demonstrates that the definition and scope of market segmentation is broader than the current marketing literature suggests. In practice, based on evidence from this research, contemporary segmentation solutions include implicit assumptions, judgement and compressed experience, which are latent within the modelling processes.

Further research needs to be extended to different organizational settings in order to develop further our understanding of the tacit and intuitive aspects of segmentation decisions.

Intuitive decision‐making processes and tacit knowledge employed in them are difficult to replicate and make explicit. However, a better understanding of these intuitive processes would offer practitioners an opportunity to systematically improve the quality of decision‐making.

This research broadens normative theoretical perspectives on market segmentation by highlighting intuitive and tacit dimensions. Combining sensemaking within the case study analysis has helped structure thought trials to provide a rare qualitative insight into the managerial construction of segmentation.

This paper aims to introduce the concept of consumer impatience, empirically explore how it relates to time-based logistics performance (delivery speed and delivery timeliness) and discuss its impact on consumer satisfaction. This research argues that gaining insights related to delivery performance from a consumer’s perspective can help the development of more effective time-based logistics strategies for e-commerce home deliveries.

Hypotheses in this study are developed using attribution theory and tested with empirical data collected through an online behavioral consumer experiment. Middle-range theorizing is used to develop an understanding of the mechanisms that impact the relationship between time-based logistics performance and consumer satisfaction.

Findings indicate that consumer impatience with delivery speed and delivery timeliness play an essential role in the relationship between time-based delivery performance and consumer satisfaction. Issues with delivery timeliness are shown to have a more negative impact on consumer satisfaction than issues with delivery speed, while delivery communication is demonstrated to have a positive relationship with consumer satisfaction.

This empirical study adds to existing time-based competition literature by taking a consumer-centric perspective and bringing a largely overlooked but critical concept – consumer impatience – into the logistics and supply chain management setting. Middle-range theorizing allows for a conceptualized understanding of consumers’ delivery experiences that can help companies develop proactive actions in their time-based competition initiatives.

This paper explores the role of financial services brand values and compares the importance of process and outcome factors in terms of their impact on customer perceptions, behaviour and experience.

Building on exploratory managerial and consumer research, 50 in‐depth interviews were conducted with a quota sample of Irish consumers representing the desired range of demographic and product‐related characteristics, including income and financial experience.

Contrary to the literature, functional values are deemed by consumers to be significantly more important than emotional values. In addition, process factors, facilitated through positive interactions with staff, play a comparatively more salient role than outcome factors in building positive brand experience.

Further in‐depth qualitative and/or quantitative studies need to be conducted with larger sample sizes to address issues in terms of making inferences and generalisations from the research. As this study was conducted in an Irish context, further comparative research should be conducted with other similar financial markets to investigate any underlying cultural bias.

It is recommended that financial services providers design brand appeals and advertising messages that are targeted at consumers' functional financial needs. Furthermore, financial service providers can maximise superior brand experience through a successful integrated strategy of meeting customer functional brand needs in an outcome‐driven approach and exceeding customer expectations within a process‐driven service experience.

This paper broadens understanding and insight into the complex and evolving area of brand management within retail financial services and has far‐reaching theoretical and practical implications.

Keeping both employees and customers highly engaged has become a critical issue for service firms, especially for high-contact and highly customized services. Therefore, it is essential to engage employees and customers during service interactions for better service outcomes. However, past research on employee and customer engagement has primarily focused on brands and organizations. Little research has concentrated on service interactions as the objects of engagement. To fill this research gap, this study aims to clarify and define service engagement behaviors (SEBs), identify various employee and customer SEBs and develop a model to investigate the relationships between these behaviors.

A theoretical framework was developed based on social contagion theory and service-dominant (S-D) logic to explore the effects of employee SEBs on customer SEBs through customer perceptions of relational energy and interaction cohesion. Dyadic survey data collected from 293 customer-employee pairs in various high-contact and highly customized service industries were examined through structural equation modeling.

Results show that employee SEBs (service role involvement, customer orientation behavior and customer empowerment behavior) positively influence relational energy and interaction cohesion, which in turn affect customer SEBs (service exploration behavior and service coordination behavior).

This study represents pioneering research to conceptualize SEBs. Different from the extant literature on engagement, SEBs capture the proactive and collaborative engagement behaviors of employees and customers in service interactions. Various employee and customer SEBs were identified and an empirical model was proposed and tested to investigate the effect of employee SEBs on customer SEBs through relational energy and interaction cohesion.