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Unique product design is a highlight of sustainable branding. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether product design affects customers’ psychological responses (i.e. cognitive and affective responses) to smartphones, and, in turn, affects their brand loyalty (i.e. attitudinal and behavioral brand loyalty), further advancing the knowledge of product design and brand management.

This work used survey data from 456 Taiwanese with experience using smartphone. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the proposed model and hypotheses.

The results indicate that the product design significantly affects both cognitive response and affective response, which, in turn, significantly affect both attitudinal brand loyalty and behavioral brand loyalty. The findings also suggest that the moderating effect of product involvement on the relationship between product design and affective response is statistically significant, although it does not positively and significantly moderate the link between product design and cognitive response.

This study has two main limitations. First, this study was conducted in the context of smartphones, thus potentially constraining the generalization of the results to other industries. Second, the data in this study were obtained from a cross-sectional design.

These findings can permit companies to generate more brand loyalty in their customers and guide their management of assets and marketing activities.

This paper presents new insights into the nature and importance of product design in brand value.

Inaction inertia is the phenomenon in which people are less likely to accept an opportunity after having previously missed a relatively superior one. This research explores how framing quantity promotions as either a freebie (e.g. “buy 1, get 1 free”) or a price bundle (e.g. “buy 2, get 50% off”) influences inaction inertia. Relevant mediators are also identified.

Three experiments, two using imaginary scenarios and one using an incentive-compatible design, test the hypotheses.

Consumers who miss a freebie quantity promotion express higher inaction inertia than consumers who miss a price bundle promotion. The cause of this difference is higher perceived regret and greater devaluation that result from missing a superior freebie (vs price bundle) promotion.

Future research should examine how factors influencing perceived regret and devaluation moderate the quantity promotional frame effect on inaction inertia.

The findings provide insights into which quantity promotional frames practitioners should use to reduce inaction inertia.

This study's comprehensive theoretical framework predicts quantity promotional frame effects on inaction inertia and identifies relevant internal mechanisms. The findings are evidence that inaction inertia is caused by both perceived regret and devaluation in certain contexts. Furthermore, this study identifies the conditions in which a price bundle promotional frame is more beneficial than a freebie promotional frame.

Taking a mental accounting theory perspective, this study explores how pricing strategy (all-inclusive vs partitioned) influences consumers' perceived residual value of a product and their subsequent intentions to upgrade to a newer model.

A pilot study and two formal experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses.

A partitioned (vs all-inclusive) price causes consumers to later recall a lower total cost and perceive lower residual value for the existing product, thereby increasing upgrade intentions. This finding holds for both utilitarian and hedonic products. Perceived residual value mediates the impact of the pricing strategy on upgrade intentions. The pricing strategy effect is stronger for state-oriented individuals than for action-oriented individuals.

This study extends understanding of the impact of pricing strategies from consumers' short-term immediate demand to long-term upgrade intentions. It also identifies a previously uninvestigated moderator (action-state orientation), clarifying the boundary conditions of pricing strategy effects. The study's conceptual framework links pricing strategy, sunk costs, perceived residual value and upgrade intentions, providing rich insights and potential research paths. These findings further enhance understanding of upgrade intentions.

Based on mental accounting theory, this study explored whether the comparability of missed and subsequent promotional formats/frames affects inaction inertia.

Four experiments with imaginary and incentive-compatible designs were conducted to test the hypotheses.

Consumers are more likely to express inaction inertia after having missed a comparable promotion than after having missed a noncomparable promotion. Devaluation of the promoted target mediates the impact of comparability on inaction inertia, while referent others' actions do not moderate the comparability effect. Finally, when consumers accept a subsequent inferior promotion, they prefer using a different payment format because it reduces comparability of the two promotions.

Companies should use different promotional formats/frames to reduce comparability and inaction inertia when a new promotion is relatively inferior to a recent previous one. Companies should offer different payment options to help customers actively avoid comparing a current promotion with a missed promotion.

This study provides a more comprehensive conceptual structure for understanding the relationship between psychological comparability and inaction inertia. It provides insights into what actions companies should take to reduce inaction inertia. Furthermore, this study empirically tests the influence of multiple comparison referents, which provides a reference point for future studies on the factors affecting inaction inertia. A new method to examine whether consumers actively avoid comparisons is used, which clarifies the internal mechanism of inaction inertia.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question of how brand-specific transformational leadership (TFL) and transactional leadership (TRL) enhance employee-based brand equity (EBBE) by influencing employees’ perceived brand value congruence (EPBVC).

This study employed hierarchical linear modeling and chose moderating variables that are primarily related to the working environment: person–job fit (PJF) and person–group fit (PGF). The sample included managers and employees of the largest domestic bank in Taiwan.

Questionnaires were distributed to banking staff in the service industry. The results imply that both brand-specific TFL and brand-specific TRL require the mediation of PJF and PGF to influence EBBE, which then influences brand equity. Without these mediators, brand-specific TFL and brand-specific TRL have no effects on EBBE.

Compared to the results from other studies, these results imply a unique discovery that both brand-specific TFL and brand-specific TRL require the mediation of PJF and PGF to influence EPBVC, which in turn influences EBBE. Without these mediators, brand-specific TFL and brand-specific TRL do not have any effects.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of brand strategies and spokesperson expertise on consumer responses to hypermarket private-label products by combining concepts from consumer attitude change, resistance to persuasion and construal level theory (CLT).

Two experiments were conducted to test the propositions.

Consumers perceived the low-price (low-quality) characteristic of private-label products as a high-level (low-level) construal consideration when forming purchase decisions. Product relevance negatively affected consumers’ perceived product distance. Compared with store brands, separate brands enhanced consumer product attitudes and purchase intentions. Brand strategies and product distance affected consumer message-processing mindset (i.e. resistant to persuasion or open to persuasion) when processing advertisements, ultimately moderating the effect of spokesperson expertise.

The findings are useful for hypermarkets seeking to implement brand strategies and select spokespersons for private-label products. Additionally, the findings show that advertisers should design advertising elements to match consumers’ construal approaches to product-related information.

This study contrasts two common hypermarket brand strategies, identifies the construal levels corresponding to the dual roles of private-label products and expands CLT dimensions. Additionally, the results bridge two research approaches (persuasion and resistance to persuasion) and demonstrate the pivotal influence of brand strategies. The findings also advance understanding of the effects of spokesperson expertise and contribute to resistance theory by showing how to effectively reduce attitude certainty after resistance to persuasion.

Considering that users’ information privacy concerns may affect the development of e-commerce, the purpose of this paper is to explore what drives internet users’ willingness to provide personal information; further, the paper examines how extrinsic rewards moderate the relationship between users’ information privacy concerns and willingness to provide personal information.

Data collected from 345 valid internet users in the context of electronic commerce were analyzed using the partial least squares approach.

The result showed that agreeableness, risk-taking propensity and experience of privacy invasion were three main antecedents of information privacy concerns among the seven individual factors. Additionally, information privacy concerns did not significantly affect users’ willingness to provide personal information in the privacy calculation mechanism; however, extrinsic rewards directly affected users’ disclosure intention. The authors found that extrinsic rewards had not moderated the relationship between users’ information privacy concerns and their willingness to provide personal information.

This study is an exploratory effort to develop and validate a model for explaining why internet users were willing to provide personal information. The results of this study are helpful to researchers in developing theories of information privacy concerns and to practitioners in promoting internet users’ willingness to provide personal information in an e-commerce context.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a proportional-integral-derivative-based fuzzy neural network (PIDFNN) with elitist bacterial foraging optimization (EBFO)-based optimal membership functions (PIDFNN-EBFO) position controller to control the voice coil motor (VCM) for tracking reference trajectory accurately.

Because the control characteristics of the VCM are highly nonlinear and time varying, a PIDFNN, which integrates adaptive PID control with fuzzy rules, is proposed to control the mover position of the VCM. Moreover, an EBFO algorithm is further proposed to find the initial optimal fuzzy membership functions for the PIDFNN controller.

Due to the gradient descent method used in back propagation (BP) to derive the on-line learning algorithm for the PIDFNN, it may reach the local optimal solution due to the inappropriate initial values. Hence, a hybrid learning method, which includes BP and EBFO algorithms, is proposed to improve the learning performance of the PIDFNN controller.

Future work will consider reducing the computational burden of bacterial foraging optimization algorithm for on-line parameters optimization.

The real-time control system is implemented on a 32-bit floating-point digital signal processor (DSP). The experimental results demonstrate the favorable effectiveness of the proposed PIDFNN-EBFO controlled VCM system.

A new PIDFNN-EBFO control scheme is proposed and implemented via DSP for real-time VCM position control. The experimental results show the superior control performance of the proposed PIDFNN-EBFO compared with the other control systems.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a decision support tool to use with design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) and design for supply chain (DfSC) such that the Supply Chain (SC) configuration for a personalized product can be optimized under various demand uncertainties.

A simulation-based methodology is proposed in this industry-university cooperative research. Through identifying the company requirements with interview, an application programming interface (API) and simulation model were developed to solve the DfAM and DfSC problems of case company. Based on customer preference, the SC configuration is analyzed and suggestions are developed according to simulation results at the product design.

Results show the supplementary capacity of the additive manufacturing (AM) process improves the SC performance in terms of lead time and total cost. This work identifies the research gap between AM and SC, and gives a comprehensive investigation of different performance indicators, such as order fulfill rate and waste rate.

Metal AM technology was not in the mass production stage at the time of this study. Thus, this research mainly emphasizes a nonmetal AM process.

AM technology can improve SC performance through its supplementary capacity and help the SC to be more flexible, robust and resilient in terms of lead time and total cost. This research implements an API to assist decision making. The findings of this research provide case company a valuable reference while branching its business.

This is the first study that considers both DfAM and DfSC with the integration of an API. It also addresses the demand fluctuation level and stochastic demand of a personalized product in a unique approach.