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This study aims to examine whether customer trust is influenced by the congruence and incongruence between customers' perceptions of two types of omnichannel integration—perceived transactional integration (PTI) and perceived relational integration (PRI). The authors further considered the perceived effectiveness of e-commerce institutional mechanisms (PEEIM) as the boundary condition of omnichannel integration's effect.

Drawing upon the stereotype content model, this study hypothesizes the influences of PTI and PRI on customer trust wherein PEEIM moderates the relationships. The research model was empirically examined based on the responses surface analysis of survey data collected from 311 omnichannel customers.

Results showed that when PTI and PRI are congruent, customers are inclined to trust brands that have high levels of PTI and PRI rather than low levels of PTI and PRI. Moreover, the incongruence between PTI and PRI is positively related to customer trust. PEEIM was found to weaken the congruence effect while strengthening the incongruence effect. The authors also examined customer distrust as another relational outcome to provide a robust check.

This study uncovers customer cognition of omnichannel integration and examines the influences on customer trust, therefore contributing to our understanding of omnichannel integration's effect from the customer perspective. Findings from this research provide insights for brand managers on deploying channel integration strategies and institutional mechanisms to manage customer trust.

This study disentangles the impact of consumers’ adoption of mini-program channels on social media on their purchase behavior in e-marketplaces from a multichannel retailer’s perspective and examines the moderating roles of two types of brand messages (informational and transformational messages).

Based on 2,204 transaction records from a Chinese multichannel retailer, this study used a Poisson regression model with fixed effects for empirical testing. The case of the WeChat mini-program in China was employed.

Adopting mini-program channels on social media reduces consumers’ purchase frequency but increases their purchase breadth in e-marketplaces. Moreover, informational messages worsen the negative effect of mini-program channel use on purchase frequency. In contrast, transformational messages reduce the negative effect of mini-program channel use on purchase frequency and amplify its positive effect on purchase breadth.

Managers can effectively leverage mini-programs to widen the range of consumers’ product purchases in e-marketplaces and the intensity of transformation messages posted within mini-programs to alleviate their negative impact on purchase frequency in e-marketplaces.

Previous studies only focus on the intrachannel impact of mini-program channels; however, this study highlights their cross-channel impact. Its findings underscore the dual role of mini-program channel use in e-marketplaces. Additionally, the nuanced moderating effects of informational and transformational messages enrich our understanding of mini-program channels on social media. Moreover, a substitution framework is utilized to understand the cross-channel effects generated by mini-program channels, demonstrating the applicability and generalizability of the framework in a new context.

Despite the popularity of leveraging cause-related marketing (CRM) to make societal contributions and bolster business profits, sellers face a profound dilemma when conducting CRM due to consumers’ ambivalent understanding of sellers’ motivation for the initiative. Therefore, it is imperative to unravel consumers’ ambivalent understanding of CRM and determine how sellers can effectively employ CRM to elicit positive evaluations from consumers.

This study gathered survey data from 217 participants and applied a polynomial regression model and response surface analysis for disentangling ambivalent perception of CRM by investigating the influence of (in)congruence between perceived egoistic and altruistic motivation.

The incongruence between perceived egoistic and altruistic motivation can positively influence consumers’ evaluations of sellers. Moreover, when perceived egoistic and altruistic motivations are congruent, increasing their absolute level also enhances consumers’ evaluation of sellers. Moreover, sellers’ platform function usage behavior can amplify the positive effect of incongruence but has no salient moderating role on the congruence effect.

Differing from prior literature that predominantly focused on either the positive or negative interpretation of CRM, this study reveals the coexistence of both positive and negative viewpoints and disentangles the congruence and incongruence effect between the two motivational understandings.

This paper aims to investigate that how to mitigate the weaker party's risk perception in imbalanced supply chain relationships by framing contracts according to complexity and recurrence. The level of information technology (IT) integration is considered as the moderator influencing the effectuation of contract framing.

The authors conducted a questionnaire survey with 229 firms involved in imbalanced supply chains. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

The authors found contractual complexity positively influenced performance and relational risk, while contractual recurrence negatively impacted performance and relational risk. This study further reveals the positive moderating effect of IT integration in influencing contractual complexity on relational risk and performance risk and the negative impact of IT integration in influencing contractual recurrence on relational risk and performance risk.

Overall, this study posits the coordinating role of contracts in reducing the weaker party's risk perception in imbalanced supply chain relationships.

The authors concluded by illustrating how to customize contracts based on the level of IT integration to maximize their role in reducing risk perception.

This study is embedded in imbalanced supply chain relationship, aiming to solve the problem of high-risk perception held by the weaker party, which is a salient threat to the sustainability of collaboration. Contract framing is proposed as an effective approach for mitigating risk perception, which should be carefully designed based on the level of IT integration of the relationship. The authors found that contractual complexity has a positive influence on performance and relational risk, but contractual recurrence has a negative impact on performance and relational risk. This study further reveals the moderating effect of IT integration on the effectuation of contractual framing.

Motivated by the need for research on the relationship between health app usage and health-related outcomes in the form of health status and life satisfaction, this study builds on self-regulation theory to construct a research model for elucidating how health app quality affects health information literacy, health app usage and physical activity.

To empirically validate the proposed research model, a large-scale questionnaire survey on health app usage was administered on a sample of 6,948 respondents recruited from a university in China. Structural equation modeling was employed for data analysis.

Empirical findings demonstrate that health app quality positively affects self-regulation with respect to health app usage, health information literacy and physical activity. Taken together, these self-regulated behaviors drive health-related outcomes for health status and life satisfaction.

This study advances extant literature on health app usage through the application of self-regulation theory to investigate the effects of technological interventions in healthcare. Findings offer practical implications for how health apps can be leveraged to realize positive health-related outcomes.

The National People’s Congress (NPC) of People’s Republic of China, the highest organ of state power, is popularly seen as a rubber-stamp entity. However, it has been substantially evolving its roles to accommodate the governance discourses within China’s political system over the decades. This study aims to explore the changes of governance discourse of the NPC within China’s political system through which to offer a thorough understanding of the NPC’s evolving substantial role in current China.

This study deploys a historical approach to explore the changes of governance discourse of the NPC that has seen a growing importance in China’s political agenda, as argued by this study.

The authors find that the NPC has been substantially evolving its role within China’s political system in which the Chinese Communist Party has created different governance discourses. Besides, the NPC and its Standing Committee have asserted its authority as a substantial actor within China’s political system. The NPC is no longer functioned as a rubber-stamp institution, though it is still popularized as a rubber stamp by many scholars.

This study is a historical elaboration on the development of NPC under three governance discourses. It might be, to some extent, relatively descriptive in nature.

This study, therefore, sheds some light on a revisit on the governance discourses in current China.

Contractual services are characterized by features such as termination fees, long-term commitment, and complex terms. When customers find better deals from other providers, they may want to switch, but contractual obligations prevent them from doing so. Thus, this study aims to draw upon the stimulus-organism-response paradigm and theories of emotion regulation to examine how punitive switching costs (PSCs) can evoke negative emotions (NEs) from customers and, consequently, lead to negative behavioral responses in contractual service settings.

This study collected data from 395 customers of telecommunications companies, fitness centers, tutoring firms/centers, and house leasing companies in Taiwan. We tested the hypotheses using partial least squares structural equation modeling via SmartPLS 3.0.

The results show that NEs partially mediate the relationship between PSC and customers’ switching intention and negative word-of-mouth. This study also finds alternative attractiveness (AA) and service recovery (SR) do not moderate the PSCs–NEs relationship, but AA does directly influence NEs.

First, this study contributes to the literature on switching costs by exploring how PSC exerts a detrimental impact on behavioral responses. Second, this study adds to the literature on service failures by identifying the mediating role of NEs in such a relationship.

This study aims to examine the control of corporate governance towards firm risks for a sample of Indonesian firms in agriculture, mining and property industries. This study highlights the impact of four indicators of internal mechanism of corporate governance, i.e. board size, board independence, board gender and board ownership, on three measurements of firm risks, i.e. total risk, asset return risk and idiosyncratic risk.

Panel data analysis is conducted using a sample of 62 companies of agriculture, mining and property industries listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2017. Pooled ordinary least square with hetero-corrected is the statistical approach conducted to test the hypotheses.

The result indicates that board size and board gender insignificantly influence firm risks. While board independence gives varied impacts towards firm risks, it gives positive influence towards total asset return risk, insignificant towards idiosyncratic risk and negative towards total risk. Other interesting results are found in board ownership that has insignificant influence on asset return risk and negative influence on idiosyncratic and total risk.

Firms should incorporate corporate governance, especially the impactful roles of board independence and board ownership as they serve as tools in reducing firm risk. Moreover, investors may have a better understanding of corporate governance and factors that are influencing firm risks. Therefore, this study can assist them to make the right investment decision.

This study is notably the first to use comprehensively three measurements of firm risks in Indonesia. Risks can come from internal and external, thus the company should understand the various types of risks facing the company. Total risk measures both the internal and external risks, while asset return risk gives another perspective using overall market perception about the equity and assets of the company. Finally, this study also measures internal risk, which is the only risk that can be controlled and minimised by the board of the company.

As information technology advances, the prevalence of AI chatbot products is on the rise. Despite optimistic market projections, consumer skepticism towards these agents persists. This paper aims to expand the scope of the technology acceptance model by integrating the aspect of appearance. It examines the influence of different attributes of AI chatbot, such as usefulness, ease of use and appearance, individually and in combination, on consumers' intentions to share and purchase.

Using an exploratory study of Web Texts, a 2 (usefulness: high vs low) × 2 (ease of use: high vs low) mixed design and a 2 (usefulness: high vs low) × 2 (ease of use: high vs low) × 2 (anthropomorphism appearance: humanoid vs cartoon) for between-subjects designs and the price level (high vs low) for within-subjects designs. The hypotheses were tested by Octoparse and SPSS 22.0.

The research highlights the significant role of usefulness, ease of use and anthropomorphic appearance in shaping consumer attitudes towards AI chatbots, thus influencing their intentions to share information and make purchases. Grouped regression analysis reveals that lower prices exert a more pronounced positive influence on consumers' inclinations to both share and purchase, compared to higher prices. Moreover, novelty-seeking behavior moderates the effect of perceived usefulness or ease of use on attitude. Specifically, heightened novelty-seeking tendencies mitigate the impact of low perceived usefulness or ease of use, leading to sustained positive attitudes towards AI chatbots among consumers.

This study innovatively incorporates product appearance into the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), considering both the functional attributes and appearance of AI chatbot and their impact on consumers. It offers valuable insights for marketing strategies, extends the scope of TAM application and holds significant practical implications for enhancing enterprise product planning.

随着信息技术的进步, AI聊天机器人产品的普及正在增长。尽管市场对这些代理人持乐观态度, 但消费者对这些代理人的怀疑仍然存在。本文旨在通过整合外观方面来扩展技术接受模型的范围。它考察了AI聊天机器人的不同属性（如有用性、易用性和外观）对消费者分享和购买意图的影响, 单独以及组合。

使用Web文本的探索性研究, 一个2（有用性：高vs低）× 2（易用性：高vs低）的混合设计和一个2（有用性：高vs低）× 2（易用性：高vs低）× 2（人格化外观：类人形vs卡通）用于受试者间设计和价格水平（高vs低）用于受试者内设计。通过 Octoparse 和 SPSS 22.0 测试假设。

研究突出了有用性、易用性和拟人化外观在塑造消费者对AI聊天机器人态度方面的重要作用, 从而影响了他们分享信息和购买的意图。分组回归分析显示, 相对于高价格, 低价格对消费者分享和购买的倾向产生了更为显著的正面影响。此外, 新奇寻求行为调节了感知有用性或易用性对态度的影响。具体来说, 增强的新奇寻求倾向减轻了对低感知有用性或易用性的影响, 导致消费者对AI 聊天机器人持续保持积极态度。

本研究将产品外观创新地纳入技术接受模型（TAM）中, 考虑了AI 聊天机器人的功能属性和外观以及它们对消费者的影响。它为营销策略提供了有价值的见解, 拓展了TAM的应用范围, 并对增强企业产品规划产生了重要的实际影响。

The paper intends to examine mobile taxi (m-taxi) adoption, so as to close the gap in the current literature and clarify the behaviour of users by synthesising technological factors that are related to the characteristics of m-taxi applications with non-technological factors that are associated with the psychological characteristics of customers. The moderating effects of gender were also tested.

A self-administered questionnaire was adopted for data collection with 415 useable responses. The theoretical lens was tested via partial least squares-structural equation modelling. Additionally, state-of-the-art techniques such as permutation and multigroup analysis were applied.

Results indicate that social pressure, technology anxiety, effort expectancy, performance expectancy, and service and system quality are not significantly related to behavioural intention. Also, findings show no significant differences among gender in this study, which suggests that the model is invariant across gender groups.

This study provides a novel insight by taking a broader perspective of ride-hailing terminology by considering both taxis and private vehicles.