How do relational bonds affect user engagement in e-commerce livestreaming? The mediating role of trust

E-commerce livestreaming depends heavily on user engagement. However, the effect of relational bonds (i.e., financial bonds, social bonds, and structural bonds) on user engagement in e-commerce livestreaming has not been well understood. Our study develops a conceptual model to investigate the impacts of relational bonds on user engagement and addresses the mediating role of trust. We collected data from users of the DianTao App. The results show that social bonds and structural bonds positively affect user engagement, while financial bonds have no direct impact on user engagement. Financial bonds, social bonds, and structural bonds are positively related to trust in the broadcaster. Similarly, financial bonds, social bonds, and structural bonds are also positively associated with trust in the platform. Furthermore, trust in the broadcaster and trust in the platform directly affects user engagement, fully mediating the impact of financial bonds on user engagement, while partially mediating the impacts of social bonds and structural bonds on user engagement. In addition, we find that experience moderates the mediating effects of trust between relational bonds and user engagement. The findings of this study provide useful insights for operators who should invest in building relational bonds and user trust to improve user engagement in e-commerce livestreaming.     

How do electronic word of mouth practices contribute to mobile banking adoption?

Mobile banking (m-banking) is the fastest growing and most cost-effective channel for delivering banking services. Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) plays a crucial role in the success of e-commerce. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate a comprehensive moderated mediated mechanism for enhancing m-banking adoption behavior through positive eWOM triggers using the elaboration likelihood model (ELM). Argument Quality, valence, consistency and volume were considered eWOM triggers, and the conceptual model also included initial trust in m-banking as a mediator and consumer involvement in m-banking as a moderator. A total of 1153 useable surveys completed by the Indian users of social networking websites were used for analysis. The findings showed that of the triggers, argument quality, valence, and consistency enhance intention to adopt m-banking. These effects were mediated by initial trust in m-banking. The mediation effects of initial trust between valence – Intention varied between high and low consumer involvement in m-banking. These findings make several contributions to the literature on marketing communication, particularly to eWOM research and ELM theory. Practically, this study provides several recommendations to banks about how to use positive eWOM for motivating consumers to adopt m-banking.     

How do controversial foreign country images affect consumers?

Research shows that controversial political–economic, social, and environmental country images affect consumer responses to foreign products. This study adds to the existing evidence by examining the contingent role of subjective country knowledge and (domestic vs. foreign) country image congruence in the relationships between foreign country image and two major determinants of country-driven (anti-)consumption: foreign product judgements and consumer animosity. The findings draw on survey data (N = 400) on Spanish consumers' views of China and Chinese apparel products. The results indicate that higher subjective knowledge about social and environmental issues (negatively) affecting the foreign country can lead to attenuated (positive) relationships between such country images and foreign product judgements. Further, more negative foreign product judgements can result from incongruent country images—that is, when consumers are more critical of the foreign than of their home country in political–economic, social, and environmental areas. Instead, there is limited support for the hypotheses involving consumer animosity as an outcome. Implications for theory, policy, and practice are discussed.     

Tipped out: How do gratuities affect restaurant operations?

Tipping is a well-established social norm in North American restaurants. Researchers have given considerable attention to the interaction between consumers and servers, but less so to the relationships within a restaurant and even less so to restaurant managers’ perspectives. Our study, the first of its kind, used interviews and a survey to explore the perspectives of both restaurant managers and servers in identifying operational issues arising from tipping. Inequity and unfairness, loss of control of service quality, and difficulties in succession planning and promotion were identified. There is clearly a need to investigate strategies to mitigate some of these impacts.     

How do firms evolve? The patterns of technological evolution of semiconductor subsidiaries

This study draws on concepts from international strategy and evolutionary economics to investigate the development of innovative ability within multinational subsidiaries. The paper develops hypotheses regarding the evolution of subsidiary innovative abilities, and the changes across time of their knowledge sourcing and sharing patterns with other parts of the multinational enterprise and host country firms.The paper analyzes patent data pertaining to foreign subsidiaries of US semiconductor firms and finds support for subsidiary technological development—there are positive changes in the scale and scope of innovative activity across time. The results also suggest that subsidiaries are increasingly embedded in host country knowledge networks—as they mature, subsidiaries increasingly learn and share knowledge locally. Evidence of increasing integration with other firms within the multinational enterprise is weaker.     

How do personality interactions affect service quality? the perspective of processing efficiency theory

Conscientiousness and emotional stability are important independent predictors of service outcomes. However, previous studies have not investigated the effects of their interaction on service outcomes. Thus, this study adopted processing efficiency theory to investigate how the interaction between conscientiousness and emotional stability affects service quality. This study adopted a cross-sectional design, used questionnaires to collect data. The results indicate that the interaction of conscientiousness and emotional stability influences service quality. Additionally, the study found that the conscientiousness of emotionally stable service personnel was positively related to service quality.     

How do bankruptcy laws affect entrepreneurship development around the world?

How do bankruptcy laws as formal institutions affect entrepreneurship development around the world? Do entrepreneur-friendly bankruptcy laws encourage more entrepreneurship development at a societal level? We posit that if bankrupt entrepreneurs are excessively punished for failure, they may give up potentially high-return but inherently high-risk opportunities to start new businesses. Amassing a cross-country database from 29 countries spanning 19 years (1990-2008), we find that lenient, entrepreneur-friendly bankruptcy laws are significantly correlated with the level of entrepreneurship development as measured by the rate of new firm entry.     

Marketing capabilities and innovation. How do they affect the financial results of hotels?

From the point of view of firms’ managers, the knowledge of the factors which explain their firms’ financial results is considered of great usefulness to propose the most appropriate and profitable marketing strategies and actions. This research sets out from this central idea and proposes a model of relationships that considers the marketing results, the marketing capabilities, and the innovation capability as key factors for achieving good financial results. This model is verified via an empirical investigation carried out among 200 directors of hotel establishments in Andalusia, a region in the south of Spain which is one of the country's main tourist destinations. The results indicate that innovation capability is strongly conditioned by marketing capabilities and resources and that this innovation capability affects the financial results of the firms analyzed. Likewise, it is deduced that a market-oriented management philosophy contributes to the development of these marketing capabilities. The implications for management are considered very relevant as they must lead these firms to invest in the development of marketing resources and capabilities, and apply a market-oriented management philosophy if they wish to improve their financial results.     

Collective action clauses: How do they affect sovereign bond yields?

We study the effects of the adoption of collective action clauses (CACs) on government bond yields by exploiting secondary market data on sovereign bonds quoted in international markets from March 2007 to April 2011. CACs are assessed security by security. Using a panel data approach, we find a U-shaped effect of CACs on yields according to the credit rating of the issuer. While the impact is negligible for the highest ratings, a significant yield discount emerges for mid-range ratings, which is smaller for bad ratings and possibly insignificant for the worst ratings. This relationship appears fairly robust across a number of checks. This evidence may reflect the fact that CACs are valuable because they help with orderly restructuring unless the perceived probability of default is too small. Nevertheless, at low ratings, this effect can be weakened by an increasing risk of moral hazard.     

The pauper wears prada? How debt stress promotes luxury consumption

Being in debt prevails in the modern society, but little is known about the behavioral consequences of being under debt stress. Based on compensatory consumption theory, this paper examined how debt stress affects people's consumption behavior. Through a survey and three lab experiments, we found that: (1) debt stress increases consumers' luxury consumption intentions; (2) perceived status demotion mediates this relationship, such that debt stress leads to perceived status demotion, which in turn enhances consumers' luxury consumption intentions; (3) lay rationalism moderates this relationship, such that the positive relationship between debt stress and luxury consumption is stronger among less rational consumers. We concluded by discussing the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings.     

How does social trust affect corporate financial performance? The mediating role of corporate social responsibility

Prior studies assert that social trust may positively influence the economic performance of countries and firms (within those countries). This paper proposes a more nuanced mechanism whereby corporate social responsibility (CSR) mediates the relationship between country-level social trust and firm-level financial performance. Anchored in neo-institutional theory, we theorize that social trust instills norms of trustworthiness and willingness to trust others guiding individual and corporate behaviors. In order to comply with such norms and gain legitimacy, firms in high-trust society are more likely to commit to CSR activities that serve the interests of stakeholders. CSR activities, in turn, can positively influence financial performance by enabling firms to access stakeholders' resources and capabilities and to decrease transactions costs in the stakeholder relationships. We tested our theory by analyzing 9818 firm-year observations across 34 countries, during the 2006 to 2015 period. Our analysis shows the expected CSR mediation in the relationship between social trust and firm-level financial performance. Our findings are robust across different models addressing the concerns of endogeneity, alternative measures, and potential moderators.     

How do threshold firms sustain corporate entrepreneurship? The role of boards and absorptive capacity

As companies move from one stage of their cycle to the next, they often have to revamp their skills and build innovative capabilities to survive, achieve profitability, and stimulate growth. Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) activities give these firms a foundation for building and exploiting these capabilities. In turn, stimulating and sustaining CE requires the infusion of resources and new knowledge into the firm's operations, using multiple external sources. In this paper, we highlight the importance of boards of directors and absorptive capacity for gaining access to varied and current knowledge that enriches CE. We suggest that boards and absorptive capacity complement each other in fueling CE activities. Further, boards can sometimes substitute for poor absorptive capacity and vice versa, influencing the intensity of CE activities. Managing these complementarities (or substitutions) is crucial for sustaining CE initiatives and creating value from them.     

When do loyalty programs work? The moderating role of design,retailer-strategy,and country characteristics

Many grocery retailers carry a loyalty program (LP). However, little is known under what conditions these programs are more or less effective. We provide a contingency framework that considers various design, retailer, and country characteristics that can moderate an LP's impact on a retailer's sales productivity. We test the framework across a large sample of 358 grocery banners from a broad cross-section of 27 western and eastern European countries. We find a positive effect of the more basic LP variant that offers direct and immediate rewards. This positive effect, however, disappears when retailers operate a more complex progressive-reward system and when they are part of a multivendor program. An LP's impact also differs between retailers and countries: it is lower when operated by discounters, and higher in countries that are more individualistic and long-term oriented, and where fewer competitors also carry a loyalty program.     

How do accounting standards and insiders' incentives affect earnings management? Evidence from China

Chinese listed companies recently experienced two important institutional changes: split share structure reform (SSSR) and the mandatory adoption of IFRS-convergent new accounting standards (NAS). We find that the introduction of NAS significantly increased earnings management. Although we do not find evidence that SSSR directly decreased earnings management of the average firm, the increase in earnings management surrounding the introduction of NAS is negatively related to the reduction in non-tradable shares. These results suggest that accounting standards are the more important factor associated with the level of earnings management. Insiders' incentives affect earnings management given a specific set of accounting standards.     

How do social media influencers inspire consumers' purchase decisions? The mediating role of parasocial relationships

In recent years, social media influencers (SMIs) have become part of the strategic communication of firms because the traditional form of mass media communication is losing its effectiveness. Thus, it is imperative to study the effects of communication through SMIs on marketing outcomes, such as purchase intentions. Based on the fairness dimensions, that is, information, distributive, interpersonal, and procedural, and dimensions of source credibility, that is, attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness, and similarity, this research investigated how technology-oriented SMIs (T-SMIs) foster parasocial relationships (PSRs) with followers. Purposive sampling was employed to collect data from 506 active social media users. Data were analysed through IBM AMOS and SPSS 26. The results of the study suggested that attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness, similarity, interpersonal, procedural, and information fairness are positively related to fostering PSR with followers. In contrast, distributive fairness does not strengthen PSR with followers; furthermore, the study findings suggested an indirect positive influence of attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness, similarity, interpersonal, procedural, and information fairness on the purchase intentions of consumers via PSR. This study is useful for academia and industry since it fills important gaps in the literature and provides recommendations to brand managers of technology companies about selecting appropriate SMIs for the endorsement of their brands.     

How do managers decide on internationalization processes? The role of organizational slack and performance feedback

This study draws on the behavioral theory of the firm to the postulate relationships between organizational slack and performance aspirations, and internationalization processes. Based on longitudinal data (2000–2008) from 772 publicly listed firms in Taiwan, the findings indicate that organizational slack significantly influences the internationalization processes. Specifically, firms with high organizational slack that have performance that falls below aspirations managers are more likely to exhibit (1) a rapid pace, (2) a wider scope, and (3) an irregular rhythm in their internationalization processes. In addition, we observed an interaction effect between performance feedback and different levels of slack on the internationalization processes.     

How do ownership control position and national culture influence conflict resolution strategies in international joint ventures?

In this study, we investigate the relationship between ownership control position, national culture, and selection of conflict resolution strategies (CRS) of multinational corporations (MNCs) in their attempts to solve conflicts with local partners in international joint ventures (IJVs). The empirical evidence is based on a survey of 89 Nordic MNCs. The results show that MNCs select their CRS depending on their national culture and their ownership control position in IJVs. In addition, interesting results were found related to the interaction effects on the choice of CRS of national culture and ownership control position as well as of the trust between partners and national culture.     

How does working capital management affect the profitability of Spanish SMEs?

This paper analyzes the relation between working capital management and profitability for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by controlling for unobservable heterogeneity and possible endogeneity. Unlike previous studies, we examine a non-linear relation between these two variables. Our results show that there is a non-monotonic (concave) relationship between working capital level and firm profitability, which indicates that SMEs have an optimal working capital level that maximizes their profitability. In addition, a robustness check of our results confirms that firms?? profitability decreases as they move away from their optimal level.