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This paper aims to provide insights into the environment needed for advancing a digitally enabled circular plastic economy in Africa. It explores important technical and social paradigms for the transition.

This study adopted an interpretivist paradigm, drawing on thematic analysis on qualitative data from an inter-sectoral engagement with 69 circular economy stakeholders across the continent.

The results shows that, while substantial progress has been made with regard to the development and deployment of niche innovations in Africa, the overall progress of circular plastic economy is slowed due to relatively minimal changes at the regime levels as well as pressures from the exogenous landscape. The study highlights that regime changes are crucial for disrupting the entrenched linear plastic economy in developing countries, which is supported by significant sunk investment and corporate state capture.

The main limitation of this study is with the sample as it uses data collected from five countries. Therefore, while it offers a panoramic view of multi-level synergy of actors and sectors across African countries, it is limited in its scope and ability to illuminate country-specific nuances and peculiarities.

The study underlines the importance of policy innovations and regulatory changes in order for technologies to have a meaningful contribution to the transition to a circular plastic economy.

The study makes an important theoretical contribution by using empirical evidence from various African regions to articulate the critical importance of the regime dimension in accelerating the circular economy transition in general, and the circular plastic economy in particular, in Africa.

Loneliness and isolation are on the rise, globally threatening the well-being across age groups; global social distancing measures during the COVID-19 crisis have intensified this so-called “loneliness virus”. The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrative framework and research agenda on the role of companion robots in mitigating feelings of loneliness.

A netnographic analysis of 595 online visual and textual descriptions offer empirical insights about the role of the companion robot Vector during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The contributions of this study are twofold. First, it postulates that companion robots have the potential of mitigating feelings of loneliness (i.e. indicator of well-being). Second, this study contributes to transformative service by developing an integrative framework introducing the roles (personal assistant, relational peer and intimate buddy) that companion robots can fulfill to mitigate feelings of loneliness through building different types of supportive relationships.

The proposed research agenda encourages future service scholars to investigate 1) the role of robots in addressing loneliness, 2) design features that drive adoption of robots, 3) social support for different groups, 4) the operationalization and the measurement of loneliness and 5) an impact analysis of companion robots.

Service providers and policy makers can leverage the insights about how companion robots can help reduce a sense of loneliness.

The integrative framework on loneliness reduction, based on 595 unprompted online contributions issued during the COVID-19 pandemic, offers initial evidence for the impact of companion robots in reducing people's feelings of loneliness.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) use and work performance during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Specifically, it aims to understand what the role of task–technology fit is, and what effect this has on feelings of loneliness of individuals and their subsequent work performance. As a large proportion of workers are required to work from home during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, understanding what aspects contribute to higher performance and reduced negative psychological outcomes is of increased practical and research interest.

To explore these questions, a quantitative approach that employed a sample population of 357 individuals who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic was used. Using a convenience, purposive and snowball sampling approach the authors collected data through a custom-built online questionnaire, and analyzed the data using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results highlight the effect that high task–technology fit has in both directly and indirectly influencing work performance of individuals. The authors find that by designing ICTs based on task–technology fit principles, individuals are less likely to experience feelings of loneliness while working from home and are more prone to perform better in their work-related tasks.

This study offers a new perspective on the role fit of tasks with technology have on influencing psychological states, and indirectly influencing work-related outcomes. The authors, therefore, expand the understanding about why task–technology fit is sought after by explaining part of the psychological mechanisms through which it has an effect on work performance.

Research has begun to explore how individuals perceive and respond to institutional complexity differently. The authors extend such efforts and theorize how the complexity of individuals’ cognitive representations of the institutional logics (based on their perceived differentiation and integration of the external environment) and of their role identities (based on the pluralism and unity of their self-representations) can predict such variation. The authors argue that the former explains whether individuals are capable of enacting norms and beliefs from different logics and of envisioning possibilities to reconcile their contradictory demands, whereas the latter explains whether they are motivated to implement a given response.

This study examines the role of social media adoption (SMA), opportunity recognition (OR) and opportunity exploitation (OE) in mediating the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and the performance of newly established small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies, with a particular emphasis on Ghana.

This study adopts a post-positivist philosophical stance and uses a quantitative approach and a survey design. A purposive sampling technique was used to select 336 SME owners and managers from Ghana’s manufacturing, trading and service sectors. Questionnaires were administered to source the empirical data for this study. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the proposed hypotheses.

The results reveal that EO positively and significantly influences the performance of new-born SMEs. SMA, OR and OE partially mediated this relationship.

This study is a wakeup call to policymakers, practitioners, managers and owners of recently established businesses. Policymakers should provide support and resources for newly established SMEs to adopt effective social media marketing strategies, bolstering their online presence and customer engagement. Simultaneously, they should invest in entrepreneurship education and create an environment conducive to innovation to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset among fresh SMEs. Business owners and managers should proactively monitor market trends and consumer preferences, adapting their strategies to identifying and seizing emerging opportunities.

This study introduces a significant novelty to previous literature and one of the first to employ the dynamic capability theory to examine the interplay between EO, SMA, OR and OE in influencing the performance of new SMEs in the context of emerging markets. Furthermore, it extends the scope of understanding of the mechanisms through which SMEs can prosper in these dynamic environments. This unique combination of theoretical framework, comprehensive variables and contextual focus sets this study apart from existing research, enriching the literature on SME performance in emerging markets.

This paper aims to present historical examples of collaborations between brand strategists and artists; provide an extensive, structured overview of existing published research on such collaborations and their effects; present seven papers comprising this special issue; and discuss ideas for further research into brand–art collaboration.

This is an editorial based mainly on an extensive and broad literature review.

First, this editorial underpins the relevance of brand–art collaboration in the past and present by reference to real examples. Second, it structures the diverse literature into four key aspects of the topic: inspiration, insights, identity and image. Third, it provides a glimpse of the seven papers selected for this special issue. Fourth and finally, it identifies a total of 16 avenues for further research, on four levels (artist, brand owner, consumer and cooperation process).

This editorial and the entire special issue together represent the first anthology on the topic of the interface between brand management and arts. The collection and classification of the existing literature, the formulation of ideas for future research and the content of the seven papers are collectively excellent starting springboards for new and fresh brand research projects.

Reports show that 6.77m people published blogs on blogging websites and more than 12m people write blogs using their social network. However, few studies have explored consumer attitudes toward bloggers and their advertising. Therefore, an effort to discover how paid blog advertisements influence consumer attitudes toward bloggers and the products they advertise will help marketers gain an understanding of how to use bloggers as paid sponsors to influence consumer purchase intent. Using online survey approach, a study recruited participants (n=210) through an online survey platform (MTurk). The results indicated that the similarity between the consumer and the ad creator is an important psychological reason why consumers are more likely to perceive advertisements as more authentic, more affective, less deceptive and more credible, and they are thus more likely to trust the blogger. On the other hand, the importance of ad attribute (authenticity) does not significantly influence consumers’ intention to purchase products advertised by a blogger. As consumers are becoming more skeptical of advertisements, blogs need to be entertaining and a pleasure to view. Not only does the content need to be interesting, the design, flow and clarity of the blogs must also be considered important factors. In addition, advertising needs to be believable, credible and honest. In the online world, trust and credibility are still paramount in attracting consumers’ engagement; hence, promoting companies’ products and services through blogs can be an effective strategy to lower consumer skepticism barriers. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Participants answered questions about their attitudes toward bloggers and their advertising when purchasing products in an online retail environment. Furthermore, participants also answered questions about their perceived trust in the bloggers themselves as well as the authenticity and credibility of the brand-related communication received from bloggers. Moreover, they reported on their attitudes toward how deceptive they considered bloggers and their advertising to be. Finally, participants reported how paid blog advertisements influence their purchase intent.

Similarity toward the ad creator is an important psychological reason behind consumers’ attitude toward blogs. Consumers who follow a blog often have the same interests and are thus more likely to support bloggers. This idea can be used as a segmentation strategy to reach particular consumers. Consumers who perceive similarity with the ad creator are more likely to recognize the ads as more authentic, affective, credible and trustworthy as well as less deceptive, regarding the blogger. Blogs need to be entertaining and a pleasure to view. Not only does the content need to be interesting but the design, flow and clarity of the blog are also important factors. Blog advertising needs to be believable, credible and honest. In the online world, trust and credibility are still paramount in attracting consumers’ engagement with the website, bloggers or social media.

Trust in the blogger did not influence consumers’ purchase intent; however, it did influence their attitude toward how similar they are with the blogger. In an online shopping environment, the human touch and personal contact between consumers and retailers has been lost. Consumers often leave the online transaction due to a lack of trust. Therefore, bloggers can be replacements for the missing “salesperson” in online interactions. Companies can use bloggers as the mediating person to reach their intended audiences, bridging the gap between the company and consumers.

The purpose of this study is to develop a comprehensive model of retailer–customer relationship.

Data were collected using questionnaires administered at organized grocery retail outlets in India. A total of 612 customers were surveyed.

Empirical evidence suggests that perception of merchandise quality depends upon perception of quality of services. It is also found that apart from store-level attributes, customer-level attributes also play an important role in retailer–customer long-term relationships.

Retailers would be benefited by an in-depth knowledge of factors that determine long-term relationships with customers. The finding of the study implies that efforts of retailers to retain customers should be directed toward the right set of customers. In the present study, details about customer-level attributes will benefit retailers to target the right set of customers. Academicians would be benefitted by developing in-depth understanding about different store- and customer-level attributes that determine retailer–customer long-term relationship.

The model developed in this study depicts the impact of retailer’s effort as perceived by customers and customer’s values, on commitment. There are very few studies in this area in the context of grocery retail which has taken customer-level attributes that motivates them to develop long-term relationships. Coming to the Indian context, very little work is being done.