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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the credibility assessment and adoption of electronic word-of-mouth on online social-networking sites, social word-of-mouth (sWOM), where the author writes product reviews on Facebook and hopes their Facebook friends will buy these products. The readers of the sWOM message are aware of the author’s commercial intentions. sWOM messages on search goods and experience goods are considered separately.

Author of sWOM messages invites their closed circle of Facebook friends to participate in a survey. The respondents are randomly assigned to read a product review of a search good (i.e. a laptop computer) or an experience good (i.e. a moisturizer cream (beauty product)). The partial least squares method is used to analyze the data from 339 returns (166 for the search good and 173 for the experience good).

The sWOM readers’ assessments of the messages’ credibility remain free from commercial influence. While the traditional factors of credibility and author-reader tie strength continue to influence the adoption of sWOM message, readers’ perceptions of the sWOM author’s marketing skills is also a factor. The relationships between the constructs depend on whether the products are search or experience goods.

Few studies investigate the type of sWOM considered here. Commercially influenced sWOM messages are effective since the author’s marketing skills, and other often-cited factors, affect the credibility and adoption of sWOM. Thus, the equality-matching (friendship) relationship and the market-pricing (sales) relationship can work hand-in-hand in the sWOM context.

Literature has paid limited attention to narcissism’s influence on tourism. The pre-trip planning stage involves temporal psychological distance, where decision-making regarding the trip stretches over a period of time and occurs anytime during that period. Using narcissism theory and with temporal distance (6 months and 1 week before the trip) as the moderator, this study examines how tourists’ self-sacrificing self-enhancement and grandiose fantasy – grandiose narcissism facets – and travel motivations affect attraction visit intentions.

Partial least squares (PLS) analysis was applied on survey information obtained from 374 individuals (200 and 174 were six-months and one-week scenarios, respectively).

Grandiose narcissism facets affect motivations and visit intentions to various attractions at different temporal distances. The consequences of grandiose fantasy and self-sacrificing self-enhancement on motivation become evident as temporal distance decreases. At large temporal distances, grandiose fantasy positively influences social recognition motivation. At short temporal distances, it positively influences social recognition and ego and negatively influences scenery and relaxation motivations. Self-sacrificing self-enhancement positively influences socialization, exploration, scenery, relaxation and escape motivations at large temporal distances. At short temporal distances, self-sacrificing self-enhancement positively influences historical attraction visit intentions.

Grandiose narcissism facets’ influence on tourism is rarely examined. This study extends the temporal distance concept to the narcissism theory. It integrates the effects of grandiose narcissism and temporal distance on tourists’ motivations and different attraction type visit intentions and shows that motivation is temporally distance-specific.

While regular price discount (RPD) promotions remain popular, marketers have also introduced gambled price discounts (GPDs) in recent years. There is a need to understand the performance and limitation of the relatively novel GPD, because the importance of pricing and the surprise element inherent in GPD could cause the promotions to backfire when inappropriately applied. This study compared the performance of GPD and RPD via consumers' perception of their attractiveness through quality cues of product types (experience and search goods) and word-of-mouth (WOM) content (affective and cognitive).

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied on a 2 (product type: experience goods [hotel rooms] vs. search goods [printers]) × 2 (word-of-mouth type: affective vs. cognitive) × 2 (price promotion type: GPD vs. RPD) between-subjects scenario experimental design (resulting in eight conditions).

Analysis of the 600 returns revealed that RPD does well for both search and experience goods, but GPD is more attractive for the marketing of experience goods. GPD works better with cognitive than with affective WOM.

GPD is a relatively new domain in marketing research. This study contributes to GPD literature and behavioral pricing literature. The study also adds to a better understanding of the dynamics, usefulness and limitations of GPD by considering the roles played by surprise element inherent in GPD and comparing it with RPD.

The purpose of this paper is to consider issues related to gamification through the non-game aquarium context and explore how the intention of aquarium visitors to play a game that imparts knowledge about marine animals and promotes the conservation of these animals is influenced by visitors’ attitudes toward marine animals, motivations to visit the aquarium and perceptions of the game’s benefits.

This study surveyed individuals who have visited Taiwan’s National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium at least once in the past three years and who use smartphones. They were shown a description of a hypothetical game scenario that they were asked to imagine to be available while at the aquarium. The partial least squares method was used to analyze the data from 225 returns.

The study shows that gamification can satisfy a visitor’s desire to learn and enjoy the aquarium simultaneously. Gamification is limited by the visit motivation and the attitudes toward marine animals that visitors bring with them. The usefulness of gamification is limited when visitors desire relaxation during the visit.

This study considers the application of gamification in the context of aquariums and the tourism field and the non-technology-related antecedents to the use of gamification. Gamification is not silver bullet for every situation, and a good understanding of potential users is important for its success and targeting of players. The importance of intrinsic benefits over extrinsic benefits is confirmed. Thus, this study addresses several gaps in the gamification literature.

To alleviate the effects of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the economy, Taiwan introduced a stimulus package in the form of triple stimulus vouchers. Despite intense promotion to opt for the vouchers in digital form, Taiwanese public overwhelmingly chose the paper form. This study considers the reasons that influenced their decision comfort in choosing paper rather than digital vouchers based on two categories: rational (promotion depth and ease of use) and behavioral economics factors (analysis paralysis, mental accounting related to ease of tracking expenses, social influence and payment habits).

Partial least squares (PLS) method was utilized to analyze survey information obtained from 183 individuals who chose paper vouchers.

Individuals consider rational and behavioral economic factors in their perception of decision comfort while choosing paper over digital vouchers. Decision comfort is driven more by behavioral economics than rational factors such as ease of use. Interestingly, analysis paralysis related to paper vouchers has the greatest impact, but it positively influences decision comfort, indicating that Taiwanese people view paper vouchers as a safe haven in the midst of uncertainties and information overload. Therefore, when designing public policies or promotional campaigns, possible behavior outcomes should be considered from both rational and behavioral economic perspectives.

This study provides insights into the dynamics of how individuals arrive at their decision of opting paper vouchers over digital ones and offers theoretical contributions related to system adoption and behavioral economics.

Coronavirus disease 2019-related fake news consistently appears on social media. This study uses appraisal theory to analyze the impact of such rumors on individuals' emotions, motivations, and intentions to share fake news. Furthermore, the concept of psychological distance and construal level theory are used in combination with appraisal theory to compare toilet paper shortages and celebrity scandal rumors.

Data collected from 299 Taiwanese respondents to 150 toilet paper shortage-related and 149 celebrity gossip-related questionnaires were processed using partial least squares regression and multigroup analysis.

In both cases, surprise is felt most intensely. However, unlike in the celebrity fake news scenario, worry plays a prominent role in driving the altruistic sharing motivation related to the toilet paper shortage rumor. Furthermore, while emotional attributes (basic or self-conscious, concrete, or abstract) serve as a guide for how emotions change with psychological distance, the degree to which an emotion is relevant to the fake news context is key to its manifestation.

This study examines the impact of individuals' emotions on their motivations and intention to share fake news, applying the appraisal theory and the psychological distance concept in a single study to fake news sharing intention. It evaluates the relationship between psychological distance and emotions, revealing that it is not absolute and need not necessarily shift according to psychological distance change; rather, the relationship is context-sensitive.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the complex relationships between permeability, work-family conflict, moral disengagement, behavioral disengagement, job strain and job engagement. In addition, this study aims to determine whether moral disengagement acts as a moderator and mediator in the relationship between work-family conflict and behavioral disengagement.

The authors apply partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses, using a sample of 176 valid responses.

The results indicate that permeability is likely to promote work-family conflict, which in turn may trigger moral disengagement. Moral disengagement may lead to behavioral disengagement, which in turn may increase job strain and decrease job engagement. The findings also show that work-family conflict does not have a significant effect on behavioral disengagement, suggesting that moral disengagement fully mediates the influence of work-family conflict on behavioral disengagement. In addition, the moderating effect of moral disengagement is not significant.

Applying the transactional model of stress and coping theory and the moral disengagement theory, this study contributes to a better understanding of employees' experience of job strain caused by work-family conflict (induced by permeability of IM usage), as well as the employee's coping response.

The impact of smartphone use at tourist destinations on the relationship of travel companions and trip satisfaction remains unclear. This study considers differences in relational outcomes arising from smartphone use to kill time and reduce boredom during leisure travel with different companions, either family or friends, and uses the Riva's emotion regulation model to examine whether such smartphone use provides immediate relief from ostracism.

Partial least square (PLS) method and PLS multigroup analysis were used to analyze the data collected from 205 Taiwanese tourists (104 respondents vacationing with friends and 101 respondents with family).

This study found no negative effect of smartphone use to kill time and reduce boredom on relationship satisfaction and overall trip satisfaction. Smartphone use is rather limited as a contributor to trip satisfaction, and the effect of smartphone use depends on who the tourists are traveling with. The results reflect the effect of the established position of smartphones in everyday life, extending to tourism. The use of smartphones to kill time and avoid boredom is not a sufficiently “active” activity to serve as an effective immediate response to ostracism.

This study contributes to the continuing debate on the impact of new technologies on social relations. Although past studies have examined the relational outcomes of smartphone use, few have investigated this subject in the context of different travel companions. Using Riva's emotion regulation model, this study considers smartphone use as a possible response to ostracism.

The point of sale (POS) e‐micropayment program is undergoing a revival in Taiwan. Local banks are co‐operating with organizations which have existing captive markets to issue e‐wallet smart cards. Such co‐operation reflects the restriction imposed by Taiwan's Banking Act and the very high density of convenience stores in Taiwan. The paper aims to help researchers and the program's operators to understand the dynamics influencing such a revival.

An extended Post‐acceptance Model of IS Continuance incorporating network externality is used and the roles of factors such as perceived usefulness and network externality are determined through hypothesis testing.

The study shows that these programs have good potential to succeed even though consumers' choice on whether transport‐related or convenience store‐related card has highest potential to succeed differs in different parts of Taiwan. Network externality cannot be ignored and contributes to Taiwan consumers' choice on the program which has the highest potential to succeed.

The paper's findings clearly advise the program's operators that their priority is to get more outlets to participate in these programs.

The paper shows how external factors such as regulatory restriction, retail structure affect the program's development and how the roles of network externality are subsequently affected.

The purpose of this paper is to use a familiarity and psychological distance framework to investigate the effects of psychological distance (responsibility distance and temporal distance) and destination familiarity on electronic-word-of-mouth (eWOM) consumption in the tourism context. The performance of eWOM is compared with that of traditional-word-of-mouth (tWOM) and the web site of the destination marketing organisation (DMO).

An experiment approach was used to collect the relevant data. For each of the eight scenarios generated by varying psychological distance dimensions and destination familiarity levels, 200 participants rated the extent that they would use eWOM, tWOM and the DMO web site to search for attraction and local transport information. The data were analysed using 2×2×2 within-subject ANOVA and t-test.

The analysis highlighted the versatility of eWOM in different psychological distances and familiarity levels. By and large, eWOM performs better than the DMO web site but is on par with tWOM. The advantages of eWOM over tWOM are meaningful under certain circumstances. Despite sharing a common psychological basis, psychological distance dimensions affect information search differently, and the effects are shaped by the types of tourism products being searched. When psychological distance, destination familiarity, tourism products and information sources are considered in totality, a complex picture of their relationship with intensity of information search is shown.

This study bridged the research gap by increasing our understanding of the performance of eWOM under different psychological distances and familiarity levels. The study also provides some suggestions for DMOs to leverage on eWOM and to improve the standing of DMO web site as a tourism information source.