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The present study aims to examine the moderation of the employee's age on the manifestation of “experience of hurt” to “commitment to future conflict” among the three intra-cohort segments of millennials. The study also examines the mediation of “perception of duplicitous organization” between hurt and “commitment to future conflict.”

Cross-sectional data was collected using survey method and analyzed by structural equation modelling on SPSS AMOS 25 software.

The results are based on single-source cross-sectional data. The result indicates that “perception of duplicitous organization” is positively impacted by the experience of hurt at the workplace. It also acts as a mediator between hurt and “commitment to future conflict”. There is significant moderation of age for all the relationships in the model. For instance, age moderates both the paths of hurt resulting in “perception of duplicitous organization” and aggressiveness, where the group of young employees have significantly higher path coefficients.

The managers need to be more considerate and interact frequently with the younger employees as they are more prone to develop aggression and are impressionable to form a “perception of duplicitous organization” after an experience of hurt. The manager needs to establish a high-quality relationship and a positive image of the organization with subordinates to prevent the manifestation of hurt to a “commitment to future conflict”.

To the best of the knowledge of the authors, this study is the first of its kind to study the moderation of age within the larger cohort of millennials.

This paper aims to explore franchisor–franchisee relationships in the context of plural forms. Plural forms implies the co-existence of franchised and non-franchised outlets of a given company. More specifically, the paper examines the impact of franchisors’ leadership styles on franchisees’ relationship commitment when the company franchised outlets co-exist with independent non-franchised outlets. Specifically, this study operationalize the plural forms phenomenon in franchising, using multi-channel complexity as a moderator. The mediating role of relational capital is also examined.

Data were collected from 254 franchisees. The hypothesized model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results indicate that all three – participative, supportive and directive leadership styles of franchisors increase relationship commitment. In a high channel complexity context, a supportive leadership style is the most effective, whereas, in a low channel complexity context, a participative style is the most effective. Relational capital also partially mediated the relationships between leadership styles and relationship commitment.

Franchisors should follow a participative leadership style when channel complexity is low. However, as they add new channels and the channel complexity increases, franchisors should shift toward a supportive leadership style to maintain existing franchisees’ commitment. In current environments, managers should avoid using directive leadership in favor of the other two leadership styles.

The present study is the first to examine the influence of channel leadership style on relationship commitment in an environment of multiple channel complexity.

This study aims to examine the role of leader-member exchange social comparison (LMXSC) perceptions in triggering the instigation of uncivil behavior in the workplace. This study also explores the intervening role of envy and the buffering role of aggression-preventive supervisor behavior within the proposed relationship.

Data were collected in two phases separated by an interval of four weeks. The final sample consisted of 224 full-time white-collar employees working in five large pharmaceutical manufacturing organizations in India.

The findings indicate that employees’ subjective perceptions of being involved in poorer-quality LMX relationships than their workgroup members generate envy, which, in turn, evokes them to instigate uncivil behaviors onto those higher-LMX counterparts. The indirect effect of LMX social comparison on instigated workplace incivility through envy gets attenuated when supervisors engage in aggression-preventive behavior.

To protect organizations from the financial and productivity losses associated with incivility, supervisors are encouraged to exhibit aggression-preventive behavior if they form differentiated exchange relationships with the subordinates in their teams. Supervisors are further advised to avoid the altogether neglect of lower-LMX subordinates as doing so may give rise to negative emotions (envy) and behavior (incivility) among them.

This study expands the limited body of knowledge on the antecedents of uncivil employee behavior in the workplace. Specifically, it unveils that incivility toward coworkers may be stemming from unfavorable LMX social comparisons and ensuing negative emotions such as envy. It also offers insights on reducing uncivil behavior by highlighting that the impact of LMXSC and envy on incivility instigation gets buffered in the presence of aggression-preventive supervisor behavior.

This study aims to examine the moderating role of two product-related variables – product type and product involvement on the relationship between shelf-based scarcity (SBS) and purchase intention.

The authors used four 2 × 2 between-subject experiments to test the proposed moderation.

Results from the four experimental studies provide the following insights. SBS enhances customers’ purchase intentions for utilitarian products and decreases purchase intentions for hedonic products. The positive influence of SBS cues on purchase intentions is more pronounced for low-involvement products than for high-involvement products. Perceived popularity and perceived quality mediate the relationship between SBS and perceived consumption risk for utilitarian products but not hedonic products.

This study builds on prior research on scarcity by investigating the impact of product-related factors on the SBS-purchase intention relationship through the elaboration likelihood model.

The results suggest that retailers benefit from using SBS cues for utilitarian and low-involvement products to increase purchase intention. Retailers can avoid SBS cues for hedonic products to prevent them from seeming commonplace. Furthermore, retailers can boost purchase intentions by highlighting the popularity and quality of utilitarian and low-involvement products.

To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first study to examine the interaction between SBS and product-related attributes, along with the serial mediation of perceived popularity, quality and consumption risk.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the sunk-time fallacy in the context of simultaneous variations of time and money when financial expenditures are recoverable. The study compares a recoverable monetary scenario with conditions where money is either not spent or spent, but purchase and payment are decoupled.

A sample of 184 participants was utilised in three experiments. A randomised design was used, and experimental manipulations were achieved using the vignette method.

The results indicate that consumers are susceptible to sunk-time fallacy. Specifically, results suggest that there is no significant difference in sunk cost fallacy when a consumer spends only time vs when a consumer spends money and time both but money can be recovered. The sunk-time fallacy did not occur in credit card purchases. The sunk-time fallacy did not happen in temporal investments of less than a week but appeared in the temporal investments of two weeks.

The study indicates that sunk-time fallacy occurs after a minimum threshold of time is spent on a particular activity.

Online retailers may vary the delivery period of ordered merchandise to reduce product returns. Online retailers may not deliver the merchandise too early to take advantage of the sunk-time fallacy. Bestseller products should be quickly delivered as there are lesser chances of product return. On the other hand, new products or products with mixed consumer reviews should be provided preferably with a time lag beyond a week. Managers should incentivise payments through debit card/net banking and cash-on-delivery to reduce returns by using sunk-time fallacy.

The study is perhaps the first one to study the sunk-time fallacy in a simultaneous variation of time and money where monetary costs can be recovered fully.

This study aims to answer two significant questions: What are the relative consumer and firm-level effects of marketing through metaverse compared to conventional marketing endeavours? What are the current trends in utilizing the metaverse as reported in the recent literature?

This study uses a systematic literature review methodology, using a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses flowchart to synthesize existing research. A total of 35 articles written in English were selected and analysed from two databases, Web of Science and EBSCO Host.

The findings indicate that consumer-level effects of the metaverse include consumer loyalty and brand attachment. The firm-level benefits are decentralization and cost reductions. The paper proposes a framework indicating variables that could attenuate or enhance the association between immersive components of the metaverse and their resultant effects.

This study contributes to understanding the role of metaverse in marketing practices related to the marketing mix components. The study conceptualizes a novel framework for the metaverse and its resultant effects.

The present research aims to identify critical antecedents of willingness to pay (WTP) for traditional bundles (those comprising only goods or services) in an emerging market context. Further, it differentiates the relative importance of the determinants of customers' WTP according to the bundle type.

Data were collected from Indian customers. The paper uses conjoint analysis with an orthogonal design. The experimental conditions were manipulated using vignettes.

The results indicated that purchase autonomy was considered the most important driver for customer's WTP in the case of traditional bundles. Quality variability, overall bundle quality and complementarity followed autonomy in the order of importance. Moreover, the interaction effects of autonomy and complementarity with bundle type significantly influenced the customer's WTP. Customers had a higher WTP for services bundle in high autonomy and goods bundle in high complementarity situations.

Retailers should allow customers to buy either the entire bundle or its components separately, irrespective of the type of traditional bundle. They should try to make bundles whose perceived quality varies significantly in the target customers. Retailers should try to keep complementary components in the goods-only bundle.

The present study extends the relationship of the WTP with its antecedents to traditional bundles. Earlier studies have only studied these relationships for hybrid (combination of goods and services) bundles. With the current study results, retailers can bundle traditional bundles (goods only and services only).

The purpose of this paper is to understand the effect of antecedents like environmental consciousness and cosmopolitanism (COS) on organic food purchase intention (OFPI) with the possible mediation of opinion seeking (OS) and opinion leadership (OL).

A model drawn largely from environmental value–attitude–system model (Dembkowski and Hanmer-Lloyd, 1994) has been proposed and tested. Primary data from four cities across India were collected using a survey.

COS was the primary factor determining purchase intention. A full mediation of OS behaviour was observed between environmental consciousness and OFPI. No effect of OL on OFPI could be established.

Because COS is positively affecting the organic food patronage and cosmopolitans are more likely to be socially responsible consumers, the organic food (OF) manufacturers should target brick and mortar stores in more cosmopolitan cities like Bangalore, Delhi, etc. The mediating role of OS has wider implications for marketers and advertisers both. In line with both theoretical underpinning (theory of planned behaviour), empirical studies (Chakrabarti and Baisya, 2009) and ours, it seems that the customer seeks credible information before purchasing organic food. The word-of-mouth and social media are recommended channels for similar reasons. The websites are a must for OF manufacturers because retailers may not provide adequate promotion/information of the products to the consumers.

This study enables marketers in the field of OF domain to target the customers better. It also guides them to have a good integrated marketing communication to cater to the opinion-seeking phenomenon of consumers.

The paper investigates the OFPI model better suited to urban cities in India. COS construct usage is a novelty of the paper as well as the mediation of opinion-seeking behaviour. Findings have value both for researchers and practitioners in the OF domain.

The study aims to examine the moderating role of variety-seeking behaviour between customer engagement and its antecedents (customer satisfaction and customer value). Further, this study also tests the existence of the value-satisfaction-engagement behaviour chain.

The perception of 262 respondents was used to examine the hypothesis using the structural equation modelling approach.

The moderation effect of variety-seeking behaviour between customer satisfaction and customer engagement was found to be significant. Also, customer satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between perceived value and customer engagement, hence, empirically validating the value-satisfaction-engagement model in the retailing context.

The findings draw managers' attention towards the segment of consumers who are more likely to be engaged, thus helping managers develop a more efficient and focussed strategy to achieve customer engagement. The result also suggests that variety-seeking buyers may not get engaged even after satisfaction.

This paper is among the first to empirically test the moderating role of variety-seeking behaviour to achieve customer engagement.

Cosmopolitanism is on the rise in India and traditionally shoppers have been known to patronize local stores. There is a need therefore to see the effect of cosmopolitanism and culture in context of loyalty towards local stores. Grocery items constitute major portion of purchase from local stores, therefore, pricing was also considered as a variable affecting store loyalty. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The paper used conclusive approach using a structured questionnaire for survey. The sample consisted of 710 respondents. There was almost an equal representation of both genders and also of metropolitan and non-metropolitan consumers.

Culture and price affected local store loyalty directly. Cosmopolitanism was not found to have direct effect on loyalty. Within cultural dimensions, masculinity emerged as the most dominating trait. Minor modifications in cultural scale and major modifications in local store loyalty and cosmopolitanism are also suggested.

The study focuses only on three factors: price, culture, and cosmopolitanism. It does not examine influence of variables like personal values, lifestyle, and personality on local store loyalty behaviour. The research did not examine relationship between nature and type of product purchase decisions and its impact on store choice.

Local stores need not be unduly worried with the incoming of organized players. The organized players should try to be cheaper and learn some tactics of local stores like customization, etc. There is a case for allowing FDI in multi-brand retail.

Cosmopolitanism not affecting the local store loyalty directly is the original contribution of the paper. The finding casts doubts on the growth strategy of organized retailers who are opening new stores with the thinking that cosmopolitan consumer will shop from them instead of local retailers.