央行货币政策报告文本信息、宏观经济与股票市场

本文利用金融情感词典和文本分析技术,分析中国人民银行货币政策执行报告的文本情绪、文本相似度和文本可读性等多维文本信息,刻画央行货币政策执行报告的文本特征,探究货币政策报告的文本信息与宏观经济和股票市场的关系。实证研究发现,货币政策报告的文本情绪的改善会引起显著为正的股票市场价格反应,报告文本相似度的增加会引起股票市场波动性的显著降低,报告可读性对公布后股票市场的波动性影响不显著。货币政策报告文本情绪还与诸多宏观经济指标显著相关。进一步研究发现,引起股票市场显著反应的是报告文本情绪中反映货币政策指引的部分,而反映宏观经济历史状态的部分对股票市场的影响不显著。本文从文本大数据分析角度证明了我国央行沟通的有效性,对国内央行沟通相关研究形成了有益补充。     

Assessing the reversal of investor sentiment

Assessing the reversal of sentiment in stock markets is needed because, according to the social mood cycle, the change of social mood over time is an antecedent of price movements. The purpose of this study is to empirically assess reversal of investor sentiment, to show the phases of social mood cycle from increasing mood to decreasing mood, and to explain the dynamic change in market inefficiency from increasing to decreasing. Growth modeling, developed particularly for dealing with the change over time, is used in this study for assessing the reversal of investor sentiment. The autocovariance structure of errors and the variances/covariances of the random coefficients are all taken into account in the model. The results have indicated that the change in investor sentiment over time is inverted U-shaped for the entire market. Moreover, arbitrage constraint and stock characteristics exert a joint moderating effect on sentiment reversal. Less arbitrage constraint can strengthen sentiment reversal only when the market for individual stocks is dominated by noise traders. Based on the results obtained, we discuss asset pricing, liquidity management, and market intervention.     

MNE-NGO partnerships for sustainability and social responsibility in the global fast-fashion industry: A loose-coupling perspective

Stakeholders are increasingly aware of the environmental and human rights issues related to highly conspicuous fashion merchandising. To mitigate the negative responses from environmentally conscious consumer groups, fashion merchandisers have sought to partner with non-governmental organizations (NGOs). While there is a growing body of literature on sustainability and social responsibility (SSR), the increasingly popular practice of fast-fashion industry partnering with NGOs has been neglected, and so far, remained under the radar. Such partnerships may be of success, but at the same time while promising on the surface, they can actually go awry, resulting in adverse outcomes for both parties. We build upon the loose-coupling theory to explain the relationships between fast-fashion multinational enterprises (MNEs) and NGOs. We discuss three causes (casual indeterminacy; fragmented external environment; discrete internal environment) and four key benefits (adaptability to environmental changes, flexibility, innovation, and firewalls for separate identity) for loosely-coupled partnerships. We then explore the dark side of such partnerships, identifying three challenges (power imbalance, mistrust and opportunism, and misaligning goals). Finally, we offer a set of propositions as a way of advancing our knowledge of partnerships in fashion merchandising industry.     

Does parasocial interaction with weight loss vloggers affect compliance? The role of vlogger characteristics,consumer readiness,and health consciousness

Drawing on the notion of parasocial interaction (PSI) and the social comparison theory, this experimental research examines how nutritionist video bloggers (vloggers) influence consumer compliance intentions toward healthy, weight-loss diets. Drawing on two samples (Mexican Americans and White Caucasians) and using structural equation modeling and mediation analysis, this research highlights vloggers’ credibility and physical attractiveness, but not homophily, as salient source characteristics that influence PSI, which in turn reinforces compliance intention. Moreover, consumer readiness, consisting of role clarity, ability, and motivation, serves as a partial mediator of the PSI–compliance intention relationship. Lastly, consumer health consciousness emerged as a significant moderator of the PSI–compliance intention relationship among White Caucasians, but not among Mexican Americans. The findings and their implications are discussed.     

The role of involvement: Investigating the effect of brand's social media pages on consumer purchase intention

This study examined the influence of consumer's brand familiarity and the information quality of social media content on their involvement with a brand on the brand's social media pages. Also studied were the influence of involvement on consumer's attitude towards the brand's social media page and the effect of their attitude on future purchase intention from the brand. The results indicated that both brand familiarity and information quality had significant effects on a consumer's involvement with a brand on its social media page, yet the brand's social media content had a greater influence on a consumer's involvement with the social media page. Further, involvement with a brand's social media led to a positive attitude towards the brand's social media page, which in turn influences future purchase intention from the brand. However, the involvement did not directly influence future purchase intention from the brand. The results suggest the significant importance of quality of social media content.     

Instagram and YouTube bloggers promote it,why should I buy? How credibility and parasocial interaction influence purchase intentions

Nowadays social network influencers play an important role in marketing by introducing products to their audience. In this article, we investigate the persuasion cues related to beauty and fashion influencers present on YouTube and Instagram. More precisely, we investigate how the para-social interaction (PSI) the audience creates with the online influencer, along with their perceived credibility, are related to the purchase intention and how they are, in turn, related to the social and physical attractiveness and attitude homophily. We base our research on four beauty influencers popular in France and control our results by the age of the participants and by the influencer. We find that attitude homophily is positively related to PSI but, surprisingly, the physical attractiveness shows negative relationship or no evidence of relationship. Both credibility of the influencers and PSI exhibit significant and positive relationships to purchase intention.     

Investigating the antecedents of customer brand engagement and consumer-based brand equity in social media

The current research is concerned with identifying and testing the role of three main predictors: consumer involvement, consumer participation, and self-expressive brand on the customer brand engagement (CBE). The customer brand engagement is treated in the current study as multidimensional constructs comprising three main aspects: cognitive processing (CP), affection (AF), and activation (AC). It was also proposed a direct influence for these three aspects of CBE on consumer-based brand equity (CBBE). Using online surveys, we gathered data from fans/followers of mobile phone service providers, via Facebook fan pages in Jordan. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Based on structural equation modelling analyses (SEM), it was supported that CBE aspects were largely predicted by the role of consumer involvement (INV), consumer participation (COP), and self-expressive brand (SEB). However, we find that activation impact one dimension of the CBBE dimensions, namely, brand loyalty. Further, we find that brand awareness/associations affect perceived quality but not brand loyalty. To validate the CBE scale, future studies could investigate the impact of the scale using other social media platforms for different brands. The limited amount of empirical research on CBE was the motivation behind this research. In particular, there is no study that has investigated the main predictors of CBE and its consequences over developing context by proposing and testing the association between the antecedents of CBE with the dimensions of CBE, which in turn affect the dimensions of CBBE.     

Understanding the drivers of organic foods purchasing of millennials: Evidence from Brazil and Spain

This paper examines the antecedents of millennials' organic food purchasing. A conceptual framework, based on product characteristics, and consumers' concerns and consciousness, is proposed. Data collection was conducted through a survey in two culturally and socioeconomically distinct countries (Brazil vs. Spain) to increase the robustness and generalizability of the results. The results show that product characteristics and consumer concerns improve millennials’ health consciousness and increase their social consciousness, which, in turn, increase their willingness to pay a price premium and their purchase frequency of organic foods. The findings show that the proposed model has high validity, with only one significant difference between the two countries. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.     

The effects of possession- and social inclusion-defined materialism on consumer behavior toward economical versus luxury product categories,goods versus services product types,and individual versus group marketplace scenarios

The paper builds on and extends the current understanding of materialism by investigating the effects of two forms of materialism (i.e., possession- and social inclusion-defined) on consumer behavior (i.e., purchase and patronage) toward products of different categories (i.e., economical versus luxury) and types (i.e., goods versus services) in different marketplace scenarios (i.e., individual versus group). Using data partitioning on a random sample of 323 consumers to generate usable cases for three interrelated studies, the paper reports that the effects of possession- and social inclusion-defined materialism are consistently accentuated in the purchase of luxury goods rather than economical goods, whereby consumers with high levels of possession- and social inclusion-defined materialism are more likely to purchase luxury goods than consumers with low levels of possession- and social inclusion-defined materialism. However, the paper finds that possession- and social inclusion-defined materialism have no significant effects on the individual and group patronage of economical and luxury services. The paper concludes with the implications of these findings for theory, practice, and future research.     

Editorial introduction: Advances in theory and practice of digital marketing

This special issue of the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services aims to bring together a variety of disciplines and a scholarly community for the advancement of knowledge regarding practice and research related to digital and social media marketing. Accordingly, the special issue includes papers using a variety of theories, research methods, contexts, and conceptualizations to enrich our understanding of digital and social media marketing from consumer and practitioner perspectives. The thirteen articles accepted for inclusion in this special issue are summarised in this editorial introduction.