Store environment,emotions and approach behaviour: applying environmental aesthetics to retailing

This exploratory study examines the influence of store environment on emotions and behaviour tendencies. The study brings insights from research on external environments to the study of store environment. We combined the idea of three distinct dimensions of emotions (pleasantness, arousal and dominance) and the role of mediating approach-avoidance behaviours with two variables taken from the field of environmental aesthetics – complexity and order. Twenty-four colour photographs of four sections of two grocery stores were rated by a sample of 43 subjects on their degree of complexity and order. A second sample of 87 subjects rated the same photographs on emotions and approach-avoidance tendencies. The relationship between complexity and order and reported pleasantness and arousal was consistent with findings regarding external environments. The three emotional dimensions mediated an inverted ‘U’ relationship between complexity and approach behaviour tendencies, as expected. Order had a positive correlation with approach behaviour tendencies. The study suggests the importance of examining general variables (such as complexity and order) in the context of retail environments and provides ideas for extensive research.     

Oh my gosh,I got to get out of this place! A qualitative study of vicarious embarrassment in service encounters

Vicarious embarrassment is a negative emotion, which is experienced by an individual when others misbehave. People can feel vicariously embarrassed when observing other people's pratfalls or awkward appearance. For instance, vicarious embarrassment is elicited when watching reality TV or in service encounters where many other customers are present. However, the relevance of vicarious embarrassment in physical service environments has not yet been thoroughly analyzed in the context of service encounters. The objective of the present study is to close this research gap and to introduce the phenomenon of vicarious embarrassment to service research. The findings of 25 in‐depth interviews indicate that vicariously embarrassing incidents mostly occur in service encounters and that these incidents are triggered by the violation of social norms in both customer‐to‐customer and customer‐to‐employee interactions. The authors of the present paper identified closeness of relationship, the service context, and parties involved as important situational variables influencing vicarious embarrassment and further emotional, cognitive, and behavioral consequences for the observing person. From a managerial point of view, the relevance of vicarious embarrassment in physical service environments is caused by negative spillover effects of the service experience, which lead to decreasing customer satisfaction, negative word‐of‐mouth and purchase intentions, and a negative impact on the overall image of the service provider.     

Personal and Historical Nostalgia—A Comparison of Common Emotions

ABSTRACT

This research uses an experimental research design to examine differences in the emotional responses of 806 respondents experiencing specifically personal or historical nostalgic reactions to advertising appeals. Changes in intensity of five emotions common to both reactions are examined. Upbeat/elation, loss/regret, and warm/tender emotions are significantly heightened under the personal compared with the historical nostalgic response. Negative/irritation and serenity/calm emotions are not significantly different. These results highlight the need to examine nostalgia as two separate reactions and provide insights useful to practitioners regarding emotional reactions to each form. It also suggests the need for future research into personal and historical nostalgia's comparable influences on other responses.     

Does a Common Currency Promote Countries’ Growth via Trade and Tourism?

The main aim of this study is to contribute to the debate on the effects of a common currency. In particular, the impact of a common currency on growth via trade and tourism is explored for a panel dataset which includes 179 countries as destination and 30 OECD countries as origin over the period 1995–2006. This research contributes to previous work in three ways: (i) tourism is included as an additional channel for a common currency to promote growth; (ii) the heterogeneity of countries is addressed by dividing the sample into three groups of countries by income; and (iii) up‐to‐date data including the case of the euro are considered. The results obtained suggest that a common currency strengthens economic growth by promoting not only international trade but also tourism.     

Displayed emotions to patronage intention: consumer response to contact personnel performance

The impact of service on consumers' brand attitudes and patronage intentions serves to stress its importance to service marketers. This study further investigates previous research by proposing an integrative model that examines the hierarchical influence underlying emotions displayed by service personnel and the subsequent effect on consumer behavioural intention in the retail service context. Results indicate that service personnel-displayed emotion hierarchically influences consumers' emotions, satisfaction with service personnel, brand attitude, and patronage intention. Findings also reveal that brand attitude plays a critical mediating role. This work discusses implications for retail service firms and marketing executives, in addition to providing direction for future research.     

Pride in my past: Influencing sustainable choices through behavioral recall

Emotional appraisal research has demonstrated that recalling a past behavior and its associated emotions can influence future behavior. However, how such recalled emotions shape sustainable consumer choice has not been examined. This study examines the role of recalled pride and guilt in shaping sustainable purchase intentions and the mediating role of anticipated pride and guilt. A conceptual model is proposed for motivating sustainable purchase intentions through the emotions associated with the behavioral recall. The model is applied in two experiments with online consumers examining purchase intentions of low carbon cars. Recalling feelings of pride associated with a past sustainability‐related behavior increases sustainable purchase intention, as compared with a neutral recall. This effect occurs through the mediation of both anticipated pride at the prospect of a sustainable behavior choice and anticipated guilt if the future choice is not sustainable. Similar hypotheses relating to recalled guilt at past unsustainable behavior were not supported. The study contributes to research on sustainable consumption, revealing an emotional route by which past behavior can influence future behavior. It also adds to emotional appraisal research by showing the role of specific self‐conscious emotions in forming this route, as prior research has focused more broadly on emotional valence.     

Why consumer animosity reduces product quality perceptions: The role of extreme emotions in international crises

International crises often influence consumers to reject offerings associated with a hostile country. While research has shown that negative emotions mediate the influence of animosity beliefs on consumer behavior, scholars do not examine the specific influence of different discrete emotions. This study extends prior research by demonstrating that extreme negative emotions of contempt and disgust play a key role in explaining the effects of animosity beliefs on behavior. The strength of these emotions results in a degraded image of the target country that is associated with social exclusion and intergroup hatred. In such circumstances, animosity also reduces product quality perceptions and is extremely difficult to manage. The best strategy is to eliminate any connection between the country of origin and the relevant offering. The findings of this study suggest that rather than assessing negative emotions in general, managers should consider the specific emotional reactions elicited by the country under examination.     

The role of emotions in decision-making on employer brands: insights from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Branding is a key concept in marketing for which extensive research has provided valuable insights into how to attract and retain customers. However, far less is known about how to use branding to attract and retain employees. The work presented here aims to narrow this research gap by drawing on dual-process theories from research on decision-making. First, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we show that decision-making for employer first-choice brands (as compared to less attractive employer brands) is associated with increased activation in brain areas linked to emotions and with decreased activation in areas linked to working memory and reasoning. Second, our region-of-interest (ROI) analyses reveal that neural processing of employer brands differs from the processing of consumer brands. Results support our theorizing on dual-processing regarding the role of emotions in decision-making on employer brands and, further, they indicate that decision processes differ between employer and consumer brands.     

Sales associate's appearance: Links to consumers’ emotions, store image, and purchases

Within the context of S–O–R framework, we examined whether consumers linked aspects of sales associate's appearance to their emotions, to the store's image, and to their purchases. Data was collected from undergraduates (n=65). Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire immediately after completing a shopping trip for apparel, shoes, or accessories in a specialty or department store. Participants noted being influenced by associate's appearance as reflected in their appearance-oriented comments and their evaluative comments. Associate appearance cues referenced by participants varied depending on whether participants were asked about their emotions, store image, or their purchases.     

Review of emotions research in marketing, 2002–2013

Study of emotions has been an important area of research for past several decades. Since emotions play an important role in purchase decisions, this area has particular importance for marketing scholars. In this study, we review the emotions research conducted within the marketing field between 2002 and 2013. Within the broad domain of emotions, this study focuses on social/personality issues, cognitive factors, the development of emotions and their interactions with other consumption factors. We found a total of 340 emotion-related articles, published in 19 marketing journals. There was a gradual increase in number of articles published every year with the trend peaking in 2009, 2010, and 2011. The review of extant literature offers interesting insights into emotion-related research, and helps in identifying clear directions for future studies.     

Leveraging employee emotional intelligence in casino profitability

Drawing on the link between service quality and casino profitability, this paper describes the roles of frontline employees in delivering casino service quality and analyses how management can nurture employee emotional intelligence's (EEI) contribution to casino revenue growth. This study is conceptual in nature. The analysis builds from identifying the emotional contents embracing service encounter involving casino frontline employees and customers. The identification area approaches from emotional work performed by employees, referred to as emotional labor, the emotional service delivered by casinos, customer attributed emotions and emotional contagion. The study comprehensively analyses how EEI can manage and regulate emotionally charged service encounters which subsequently affect customers’ perception of employee behaviours and service performance over service encounters. These encounter performance forms customers’ perception of casino service quality which leads to customer loyalty and ultimately casino profitability. This theory-focused study presents an additional venue with great potential for casinos to enhance business performance and financial growth, as well as providing new insights into the role of EEI in organizations for researchers in the relevant field.     

Exploring Postconsumption Guilt and Pride in the Context of Sustainability

This research explores the feelings of guilt and pride experienced by consumers after a purchase decision that involves issues of environmental and social sustainability. Through a multi‐method design, the authors examine key dimensions that influence the process of emotional appraisal, illustrate the characteristics of appraisals of guilt/pride and investigate the consequences that emotions have on future choices. In this exploratory research, when a purchase decision includes an ethical dilemma, consumers were found to express guilt or pride even when the purchase is not intentional, i.e. forced by circumstances. Moreover, the study explores how emotions experienced after decisions may have a positive influence on the future purchase of sustainable alternatives. Finally, the paper proposes a new model that describes the process of emotional appraisal and reports on a number of dimensions that were found to lead to guilt and pride. The insights presented extend knowledge of two key consumer emotions and present important implications for practitioners promoting ethical products.     

Human–machine trans roles conflict in the organization: How sensitive are customers to intelligent robots replacing the human workforce?

In organizations facing digital transformation, intelligent technologies are starting to replace the human workforce. At present, managers delegate tasks to an artificial agent and rarely consider the customer reception of such decisions. This arouses tensions between the main stakeholders of the organization. This paper shows that the rash adaptation of the digital workforce may be perceived as an irresponsible innovation that brings negative consequences for companies. If a task is regarded by customers as dedicated to humans, and managers delegate it to machines, a new type of conflict – human-machine trans roles conflict (HMTRC), appears. This paper intends to show that customers are sensitive to HMTRC. This research uses quantitative methods and consists of three stages. First, people were asked to indicate which tasks in an organization should be performed by (a) humans and (b) machines. According to these results, two leaflets for customers were designed (low vs. high HMTRC). In the second stage, standard procedures were used to construct a scale measuring customer reactions to HMTRC on three dimensions: cognitive, emotional and behavioural. Ultimately, the scale and two leaflets were used to check how customers react to different intensities of HMTRC. The research results show that customers are aware when HMTRC occurs and perceive it negatively (cognitive response). Moreover, it evokes negative emotions (emotional response) and prompts customers to take action against the company in which this conflict takes place (behavioural response). The practical contribution of this research is the three-dimensional scale. It may predict customers' reactions to task delegation with different intensities of HMTRC and help build a technologically sustainable organization.     

The international transfer of organizational technologies

The international transfer of organizational structures and processes—that is, of organizational technologies—is assuming increasing importance both in business and in public policy arenas. This study assessed the applicability to organizational technologies of some of the insights into international technology transfer processes developed through the analysis of the transfer of physical technologies and draws on organization theory to suggest some additional areas for investigation. The article draws extensively on the historical experience of Japan, a society that has been noted for its experience in transferring and adapting foreign organizational technologies, to address these issues.     

Retailing research: Past,present, and future

The field of retailing has experienced significant changes in recent years. In this article, we review articles published in Journal of Retailing over the 2002–2007 time span, classified into ten broad topic categories: price, promotion, brand/product, service, loyalty, consumer behavior, channel, organizational, Internet, and other. Some areas have received a reasonable amount of attention; others would be worthy of additional work. We summarize a key insight from each article in the Appendix. Finally, we highlight some key insights for each area and some avenues for further research, in the hope that this review spurs additional research into these and other areas of importance to both academicians and retail practitioners.     

Emotions and consumer behaviour: A review and research agenda

Consumers' emotions play a salient role in consumers' buying process, their consumption behaviours, and their engagement with product/service offerings, owing to which, it has gained much attention in recent years as an area of inquiry. However, literature in this field/subject is theoretically fragmented. Therefore, to enhance the conceptual understanding, this study synthesizes extant literature, using a hybrid review approach. Herein, we attempt to integrate bibliometric analysis, along with the theories, contexts, characteristics, and methodology framework, while consolidating and classifying the domain knowledge, trends, and progress/citation analysis using the bibliometric approach. In the process, we reviewed 384 conceptual and empirical articles, published during the period 1967–2021. The idea was to identify key theories, constructs, research contexts, and methods, based on which, we propose a few potential research areas. Based on our thorough analysis, these areas include (1) consumer co-creation, (2) consumer engagement, (3) service employee interactions, (4) consumer decision making, and (5) consumption experience.     

Sadness bright as glass: the acceptance of emotionally sensitive radical innovation

Abstract

The existing literature acknowledges the importance of emotions in consumer decision-making and the challenges of radical innovation adoption; however, the literature seldom combines these two streams. The purpose of this study was to analyse potential adopters’ considerations concerning an innovation that is targeted at intense negative emotions. Choosing a case-study strategy enabled us to focus on extremely negative emotions (related to death) and the acceptance of a radical innovation (a memorial stone made of glass). In this study, we applied a longitudinal mixed-methods approach. Data were collected via interviews with consumers (357 respondents), the entrepreneur and her employee. Findings show that an emotionally sensitive radical innovation evokes more intense emotions and emotional ambivalence among consumers. Its acceptance also seems to depend on the age and gender of the customers and requires cultural change. A lengthy adoption process seems to be characteristic of emotionally intensive innovation. This study has implications for managers facing the challenge of creating new markets for a radical innovation that involves extreme emotions on the part of consumers. Theoretically, the study contributes to both innovation adoption and consumer decision-making literature.     

The “Euro Illusion”: Illusion or Fact?

The changeover to the euro elicited an upsurge of research on the effects of the new currency on consumers’ conversion strategies, price estimates, price evaluations, choices, and purchases. This research includes longitudinal surveys, interviews, and controlled experiments, both natural and in the laboratory. The present article starts with an overview of this research after which it more specifically focuses on research showing an influence of the nominal value, as expressed in different currencies, on price evaluations and consumer choice. For most countries, the transition to the euro led to a lower nominal value currency. A bias known as the “euro illusion” has been documented such that the subjective value of money is influenced in the direction of the nominal value (i.e., in most countries prices and salaries seem smaller when expressed in euros than in the old domestic currency). Although the term was coined in connection with the euro changeover, the nominal representation of a currency has been shown to influence the subjective value of money in unfamiliar currencies other than the euro. Thus, tourists travelling abroad may frequently be subject to such an illusion. Different mechanisms have been proposed to account for the euro illusion. One is the numerosity heuristic and another the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic in conjunction with biased conversion strategies. The size of the euro illusion is influenced by trade-offs between accuracy and effort. Consistent with this hypothesis, task importance, time constraints, familiarity with the conversion strategy, complexity of the conversion strategy, mood, and attitude towards the country or the currency all influence the size of the euro illusion.