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This paper aims to draw on values theory, associative network theory and schema congruity theory to examine how consumers attribute human-like values to product categories and products, and how these attributions affect product evaluations.

Study 1 randomly assigned 925 respondents to one of three product categories (cars, mobile phones and vacations). They were asked about their values and to attribute values to an assigned product category. Study 2 randomly assigned 919 respondents to one of the four value-expressive car conditions. They were asked to attribute values to the car, and then about their attitudes and purchase intentions.

Respondents attributed human-like values to product categories and products that were distinct and reflected the motivational compatibilities and conflicts inherent in the circular structure of human values. Moreover, multifaceted value congruity effects were found to positively influence attitudes and intentions to purchase a car, including congruity with product category values-schema, consumers’ personal values-schema and the structure of human values.

The authors demonstrate how a cognitive memory-based view can be used to better understand the complexities of the attribution of human-like values to products and product categories. Moving beyond the attribution of brand personality, this study shows the importance of not only understanding the attributions of values to a product but also considering how these attributions interact with the more abstract product category values to influence evaluations.

This study aims to understand the influence of negative publicity on brand image, brand attitude and brand purchase intention. Specifically, the study examines the role of attribution (or brand blame) and information characteristics in Chinese consumers’ responses to negative publicity.

The study used a quasi-experimental approach involving two negative publicity scenarios (mild and high severity) and a sample of 203 young and educated Chinese consumers. Partial least squares was used to test the hypotheses.

A common assumption is that negative brand information has a negative influence on all aspects of a brand. However, this study finds that brand blame and information severity have differential effects on consumer evaluations of the affected brand. Specifically, brand blame negatively impacted attitudes and purchase intentions, but not brand image. In contrast, information severity negatively impacted brand image, but not attitudes or intentions. Further, the relations between brand image and brand attitudes and intentions depended on the level of information severity. In the mild-severity condition, brand image positively influenced attitudes and intentions, but not in the high-severity condition.

Future research should examine consumer responses to negative publicity across different media and product categories. Cross-cultural studies should also be explored in the future.

When a brand encounters negative publicity, its marketer or brand manager should assess to what extent various brand equity components are influenced by negative publicity before adopting any cognitive-based or imagery-based communication strategies.

This paper contributes to the limited and fragmented literature on consumer response to negative publicity by examining the impact of consumer’s attributions of blame to the brand under conditions of mild and severe negative information on a range of important brand-related outcomes. Specifically, the authors find that negative publicity has a different impact on brand image, brand attitudes and intentions to purchase. The authors suggest that brand managers use this information to guide their marketing communications.

This study aims to develop and validate a best‐worst scaling (BWS) measure of preferred conflict‐handling styles, named the Conflict‐handling BWS (CHBWS).

The authors conducted three studies. Study 1 consisted of a sample of psychology students (n=136) from a Canadian university and was designed to assess the convergent validity of the CHBWS by comparing it with the ROCI‐II and DUTCH instruments. Study 2 consisted of a sample of psychology students (n=154) from a US university and was designed to assess the predictive validity of the CHBWS by relating conflict‐handling styles to consumer complaint behavior. Study 3 consisted of a random sample of adults registered with an online survey company in Australia (n=204) and Germany (n=214). This study was designed to assess the antecedent relationship of Schwartz's personal values to conflict‐handling styles.

The study shows that best‐worst scaling is a valid and advantageous way of measuring conflict‐handling styles. The CHBWS demonstrated both convergent and predictive validity, and was able to reproduce the structure of the dual‐concerns model. The study also showed that preferred conflict‐handling style influences the choice of complaint behavior in a retail service failure situation. Furthermore, the study demonstrated that Schwartz's personal values can influence the preferred conflict‐handling style in two individualistic cultures.

This is the first study to measure conflict‐handling style preferences using a BWS approach. Furthermore, it is the first study to relate consumer complaint behavior to preferred conflict‐handling style.

Despite the increase in empirical studies of social enterprise in management and organization research, the lack of a cohesive knowledge base in this area is concerning. In this chapter, we propose that the underdevelopment of the attendant research infrastructure is an important, but oft-overlooked, barrier to the development of this body of empirical research.

We explore this proposition through a review of 55 empirical studies of social enterprises published in the last fifteen years, in which we examine the mix and trajectory of research methods used and the research infrastructure on which these studies depend.

We find that empirical research has used social enterprise largely as a context for theory development, rather than deductively testing, and thus building upon, existing theories. The latter pattern is due largely to the absence of two key dimensions of infrastructure: well-defined samples, and consistent, operational measures of social enterprise success. Finally, we identify present trends along both dimensions that contribute to changing the research infrastructure for empirical social enterprise research.

Our analysis highlights the critical need for research infrastructure to advance empirical research on social enterprise. From this perspective, research infrastructure-building provides an important opportunity for researchers interested in social enterprise and others interested in enabling high-quality empirical research in this setting.

Time banking is a form of alternative consumer market where members trade services, non-reciprocally creating a local marketplace for services. Time Banks facilitate dyadic exchanges, meeting members’ practical needs and building diverse skills. The purpose of this research was to determine the broad capabilities developed in the Time Bank economy, and to demonstrate how these capabilities were mobilised following a series of earthquakes, contributing to the larger community’s resiliency.

Taking an ethnographic approach, data were collected using a variety of methods including interviews, focus groups, participant observation and secondary research.

Over time, this alternative consumer market developed a significant communication and social network that members activated to solve diverse practical problems facing the community. Similar to other exchange communities, the Time Bank also fostered a strong sense of community based on reciprocity and egalitarian values. Although the Time Bank was created as a marketplace to exchange local services, during a series of devastating earthquakes, it galvanised adaptive capacities, increasing the resiliency of the local community during disaster relief and reconstruction.

The data were drawn from one alternative exchange system in New Zealand.

The study shows how grassroots alternative consumer markets like Time Banks build community capacities alongside the formal economy. During normal times, this system meets consumer needs, but in extraordinary times, this system provides community shock absorbers, thereby enhancing community resiliency.

The Time Bank was particularly adept at leveraging local knowledge to provide social support to those residents who were most vulnerable.

Data were collected before, during, and after the earthquakes, providing a rare opportunity to explore the process of community resiliency in action. This research extends existing theories of community resiliency explaining the development and activation of capacities by a local alternative consumer market.

We consider how the commercialization of social ventures may result from their founders’ personal experiences of commercial organizing. Building on theories of individual imprinting, we theorize that the commercialization of social ventures is influenced by two types of commercial experience: parental imprinting from the commercial work experience of a founder’s parents, and work imprinting from a founder’s professional experience within for-profit organizations. We find support for our theory based on analysis of a novel dataset of over 2,000 nascent social ventures and their founders. We further find that the marginal effects of additional work imprinting from a founder’s commercial experience decline with the longevity of this experience. We discuss implications of our findings for literatures on social ventures, imprinting, and hybrid organizations.

To examine how people from countries that vary in uncertainty avoidance (UA) use information about product uncertainty when evaluating products.

Two studies were conducted that vary in methodology, sampling and analysis. First, an experiment was designed to manipulate product uncertainty through the use of country of origin (COO) quality‐stereotypes. It was administered to university students from a diverse range of countries, all studying in the USA. Next, data from a large‐scale survey of consumers from ten countries was submitted to hierarchical binary regression analyses to include variables at the country and individual level.

The studies support an interaction between product uncertainty (PU) and cultural UA on quality perceptions and behavioural intentions. Consumers from high UA countries evaluated high PU offerings less positively and held weaker behavioural intentions than those from low UA countries, but for low PU offerings, no difference was found. The effect of UA was reduced for people with more experience and those who were younger.

Although we isolated the effects of UA from other cultural and individual level variables, it would be useful to directly cross individualism with UA in an experimental design, as these two variables are highly correlated.

This study suggests products with higher levels of PU will have more opportunity to prove themselves in low uncertainty cultures.

This study should be valuable for marketing managers devising rollout strategies for products with higher levels of PU or weaker quality stereotypes.

The authors provide a general framework of behavior under asymmetric information and develop indices of diligence, objectivity and quality by an analyst and analyst firm about a studied firm, and relate them to the accuracy of its forecasts. The authors test the associations of these indices with time.

The test of Public Information versus Non-Public Information Models provides the index of diligence, which equals one minus the p-value of the Hausman Specification Test of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) versus Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS). The test of Objectivity versus Non-Objectivity Models provides the index of objectivity, which equals the p-value of the Wald Test of zero coefficients versus non-zero coefficients in 2SLS regression of the earnings forecast residual. The exponent of the negative of the standard deviation of the residuals of the analyst forecast regression equation provides the index of analytical quality. Each index asymptotically equals the Bayesian ex post probability, by the analyst and analyst firm about the studied firm, of the relevant behavior.

The authors find that ex post accuracy is a statistically and economically significant increasing function of the product of the indices of diligence, objectivity and quality by the analyst and analyst firm about the studied firm, which asymptotically equals the Bayesian ex post joint probability of diligence, objectivity and quality. The authors find that diligence, objectivity, quality and accuracy did not improve with time.

There has been no previous work done on the systematic and objective characterization and joint analysis of diligence, objectivity and quality of analyst forecasts by an analyst and analyst firm for a studied firm, and their relation with accuracy. This paper puts together the frontiers of various disciplines.

The purpose of this study is to propose an alternative basis for calculating cultural distance scores using Schwartz's cultural values.

Cultural distance scores were calculated for 23 countries, based on the two most common measures of cultural difference (four cultural dimensions and Schwartz's 1994 culture level values), following Kogut and Singh's formula. Correlation analysis was used to assess the congruency between these two bases of cultural distance. In addition, their relationship with international trade figures was assessed, to understand how well each framework predicts the amount of trade between countries.

Inter‐country distances between 23 countries suggest that the two bases of cultural distance were not congruent. While the correlation between both cultural distance measures and international trade suggested a negative relationship, as expected, only cultural distance based on Schwartz's values was significantly related to international trade (p<0.05). It would appear that, at least in a trade context, Schwartz's values may play a more significant role than do Hofstede's dimensions.

To date, most cultural distance scores have been based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions. This paper provides the first analysis of cultural distance based on Schwartz's country level values. The paper shows that the two measures are not congruent and that, at least in the context of trade, cultural distance measures based on Schwartz's may be superior. Thus, researchers should carefully consider which cultural base is most appropriate for use in their study.