Retailer use of a professional social media network: Insights from franchising

The adoption and use of a professional social media network by franchise chains is the focus of this paper. We draw on resource-based theory, institutional economic theories of incentives and externalities and multidisciplinary literatures on franchising, innovation adoption and interorganizational communication to link (i) franchisor characteristics and partnering strategies to the adoption and use of a professional social media network and (ii) the extent of use of this network by a franchisor to the number of followers of its network page. Hypotheses are empirically assessed using data on 500 US franchise chains from Entrepreneur’s Annual Franchise 500 for 2011, content analysis of LinkedIn pages for 317 franchise chains in 2011 and number of followers in 2015. One key finding is that franchisor adoption of LinkedIn is positively influenced by franchise chain size, franchising fees and franchisor marketing communications and negatively affected by franchise concept complexity. A second important finding is that, among franchisors who adopt LinkedIn, the extent of use of LinkedIn is positively impacted by franchise chain size, franchising fees and negatively affected by franchise chain age. A third notable finding is that the number of followers of a franchisor’s LinkedIn page in the short term is positively impacted by the extent of information about franchise chain and recruitment. A fourth key finding is that the number of followers in the longer term (2015) is positively impacted by whether the franchisor had a presence on LinkedIn in 2011 and, for these franchisors, by the number of followers in 2011.     

Business performance and social media: Love or hate?

The social media space has become a common place for communication, networking, and content sharing. Many companies seek marketing and business opportunities via these platforms. However, the link between resources generated from these sites and business performance remains largely unexploited. Both managers and financial advisors can profit from the lessons learned in this study. We conceptualize four channels by which social media impacts financial, operational, and corporate social performance: social capital, customers’ revealed preferences, social marketing, and social corporate networking. An empirical test of our framework shows that ‘followers’ and ‘likes’ positively influence a firm's share value, but only after a critical mass of followers is attained. Our estimates suggest that Twitter is a more powerful tool to enhance business performance than Facebook.     

Influencer marketing: Social media influencers as human brands attaching to followers and yielding positive marketing results by fulfilling needs

While the literature related to this topic has predominantly focused on investigating the influence mechanism that social media influencers (SMIs) impose over their followers, less is known about their attachment mechanism. Given that social media platforms were originally designed to facilitate personal bonding and not product or brand recommendations, we posited that social media followers' emotional attachment to SMIs is an important precedent that affects the followers' behavioral inclination to accept the SMIs' endorsements. We thus drew new attention to the relationship between SMIs and their followers by focusing on their attachment development mechanism and its casual factors and effects. In doing so, Study 1 inductively analyzed the key causal factors, both with respect to SMI persona- and content-driven attributes, that make followers feel attached to SMIs. By integrating the findings of Study 1 with the human brand theory, Study 2 provided empirical evidence after analyzing 325 U.S. consumers' responses about how SMIs' personas (i.e., inspiration, enjoyability, and similarity) and content curation abilities (i.e., informativeness) affected followers to perceive the SMIs as human brands who fulfill their needs for ideality, relatedness, and competence—all of which resulted in an intense attachment to SMIs. It was this positive emotion shaped with SMIs that transferred to SMIs’ endorsements and positively influenced the followers to acquire the products/brands that the SMIs recommended.     

Social media influencers: The formation and effects of affective factors during online interactions

Social media influencers emerged as powerful sources in affecting and guiding consumers' purchase decisions through self-generated content and online interactions with their followers. A large number of studies have so far focused on cognitive aspects such as perceived credibility, trustworthiness, and expertise of these influencers. This study aims to further advance the existing literature on social media influencer marketing from an affective perspective, with a focus on the emotional bonds generated by online interactions between the influencer and their followers. Based on the interpersonal process model of intimacy and theories in celebrity endorsement and social media influencer marketing, it examines the impact of self-disclosure and perceived responsiveness on familiarity and intimacy, which, in turn, affect purchase decision. An online survey was conducted with 304 social media users in Mainland China who have followed social media influencers. The results highlight the formation of two affective factors, namely, familiarity and intimacy, via self-disclosure and perceived responsiveness. Theoretically, this study provides a fresh perspective to better understand the endorser effect outside the regular set of cognitive factors. Marketing practitioners and companies can follow the suggestions of this study to select more effective social media influencers for their marketing campaign, and to build closer relationships with their target customers.     

First come, first served: How market and non-market actions influence pioneer market share

This study examines the relationship between the erosion of first-mover advantages and the competitive behavior of pioneer and follower firms in a service industry—in this case, the European mobile telecommunications industry. The research analyzes the role of market actions related to innovation, pricing and promotion, and non-market actions related to judicial issues. The study finds that first movers enjoy a sustainable market share advantage in this service industry, but that this advantage depends on the type of actions taken by pioneers and followers. Specifically, followers that take more market actions than the pioneer are not able to erode the first-mover's advantage. However, followers taking more non-market actions - such as litigation and complaints - are successful at taking market share from the pioneer.     

The impact of influencers' multi-SNS use on followers’ behavioral intentions: An integration of cue consistency theory and social identity theory

The considerable marketing potential brought by the rapid growth of social media has been extensively examined in the literature, particularly in terms of the impact of influencers' recommendations on their followers' decisions. However, little attention has been given to how the individual influencers' use of multiple social networking sites affects their followers' behavioral intentions. Hence, this academic gap warrants further exploration. Drawing on cue consistency theory, social identity theory, and stimulus-organism-response framework, this research proposes three research questions and constructs an integrated research model to explore how the influencers' cue consistency affects the social identification of their followers, subsequently influencing their behavioral intentions. A structural equation modeling technique is performed to analyze the data of 510 valid respondents. The findings show that influencers' consistent cues (i.e., information and image consistency) across social media have positive impacts on followers' cognitive and affective identification toward the influencers. Furthermore, the determinants for followers' purchase intention and electronic word-of-mouth intention are affirmed to serve as both cognitive and affective identification. Especially, the results indicate that the relationships between followers’ social identifications and behavioral intentions are moderated by the type of influencer (i.e., lifestyle vs. review). Accordingly, the results indicate how the use of multiple social networking sites by influencers impacts the behavioral intentions of their followers. The findings offer new insights into influencer marketing and provide important lessons for marketers.     

Promotional Strategies of Brand Leaders,Challengers, and Followers

Sales promotion tools are assuming increasingly im- portant roles in brand marketing strategies. A conceptual promotion model is proposed to capture the similarities and differences in the price and display based promotional practices and their effects on market shares for brand leaders. challengers and followers. Using a two stage econometric analysis, we observe a clear gradation in the effects of promotions on the market shares of these three categories of brands, respectively. The way in which price-promotion and dis- play decisions are coordinated is also found to be different for these three brand categories.     

Following Celebrities’ Tweets About Brands: The Impact of Twitter-Based Electronic Word-of-Mouth on Consumers’ Source Credibility Perception,Buying Intention,and Social Identification With Celebrities

Two experiments examined the impact of Twitter followers, electronic word-of-mouth (eWoM) valence, and celebrity type (prosocial versus antisocial) on consumer behavior in Twitter-based marketing communication, applying social capital theory, social identity theory, source credibility, and extant literature on eWoM. Experiment 1 demonstrated the main effect of number of followers on source credibility, and the interaction effect between eWoM valence and number of followers on product involvement, buying intention, and intention to pass along eWoM. Experiment 2 revealed the interaction effect of celebrity type and number of followers on social identification with the celebrity as well as the mediating effect of social identification.     

Talent management and career development: What it takes to get promoted

Based on the talent management literature, this paper investigates managerial skills that are essential for managers’ job promotion. Using arguments from the human and social capital literature and following tournament logic, we claim that a manager's own experience, expertise, and network size positively affect promotion odds, while strong colleagues decrease promotion odds. Studying 7003 promotions to middle management and 3147 promotions to senior management, we find broad support for our hypotheses, but find also that network size no longer predicts promotion to senior management. Our findings have implications for individual career development and talent management programs.     

Engagement with Social Media and Social Media Advertising: The Differentiating Role of Platform Type

This study examines how consumers’ engagement with social media platforms drives engagement with advertising embedded in these platforms and, subsequently, evaluations of this advertising. Our survey (N = 1,346, aged 13 and older) maps social media users’ engagement experiences with Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat and their experiences with and evaluations of advertising on these platforms. Our findings show that engagement is highly context specific; it comprises various types of experiences on each social media platform such that each is experienced in a unique way. Moreover, on each platform, a different set of experiences is related to advertising evaluations. It is further shown that engagement with social media advertising itself is key in explaining how social media engagement is related to advertising evaluations. The general conclusion is that there is no such thing as “social media.”     

Feelings and functionality in social networking communities: A regulatory focus perspective

A sense of community is vital to the sustainability of both face‐to‐face and virtual communities. In this study, we use a mixed methods design to study the motivations that lead to satisfaction in a social media network. In Study 1, we semantically analyze the qualitative comments from a survey regarding the reasons for using social networks (n = 237). Consistent with the literature, the results identify two categories of underlying motivations—hedonic (feelings) and utilitarian (functionality). With these results, we apply regulatory focus theory in Study 2 to propose a structural equation model ( n = 622). This model differentiates between the experiences of promotion‐ and prevention‐focused individuals with social networking based on the core elements of feelings versus functionality . Our findings indicate that a sense of belonging and emotional connection are key hedonic elements and are more relevant for promotion‐focused individuals. For prevention‐focused individuals, the utilitarian and functional aspects of interactivity (influence) and innovativeness (risk) are more important in influencing satisfaction with a social network. Overall, positive and innovative user experience with a social media network requires the creation of an emotional connection, the existence of interactivity between members, and the cultivation of a sense of belonging.     

Interactive Mining of Strong Friends from Social Networks and Its Applications in E-Commerce

Social networks are generally made of individuals who are linked by some types of interdependencies such as friendship. Most individuals in social networks have many linkages in terms of friends, connections, and/or followers. Among these linkages, some of them are stronger than others. For instance, some friends may be acquaintances of an individual, whereas others may be friends who care about him or her (e.g., who frequently post on his or her wall). In this study, we integrate data mining with social computing to form a social network mining algorithm, which helps the individual distinguish these strong friends from a large number of friends in a specific portion of the social networks in which he or she is interested. Moreover, our mining algorithm allows the individual to interactively change his or her mining parameters. Furthermore, we discuss applications of our social mining algorithm to organizational computing and e-commerce     

Does a Virtual Like Cause Actual Liking? How Following a Brand's Facebook Updates Enhances Brand Evaluations and Purchase Intention

Studies have shown positive associations between liking a Facebook brand page and brand evaluations, but causal evidence is lacking. This online pre–post-measure experiment compared brand evaluations of ‘current followers’ of a target brand's Facebook page, with ‘new followers’ instructed to ‘like’ the page, and ‘non-followers’ over one month. Results showed a significant positive increase for new followers on brand evaluations, whereas non-followers showed no change. Current followers were most positive in evaluations overall, but showed no change over time. This provides evidence that following a brand's Facebook updates can cause positive changes in brand evaluations. The effects were explained by perceived conversational human voice, indicating the importance of brand interactivity. Implications for brands' social media presence are discussed.     

Ethics Matter: Moderating Leaders’ Power Use and Followers’ Citizenship Behaviors

Followers’ perceptions of their leaders’ ethics have the potential to impact the way they react to the influence of these leaders. The present study of 365 U.S. Air Force Academy Cadets examined how followers’ perceptions of their leaders’ ethics moderated the relationships found between the leaders’ use of power, as conceptualized by French and Raven (Studies in social power, 1959), and the followers’ contextual performance. Our results indicated that leaders’ use of expert, referent, and reward power was associated with higher levels of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) among their followers when the followers perceived these leaders to be more ethical. Moreover, when followers perceived their leaders to be less ethical, these followers reported lower levels of OCBs when their leaders’ utilized referent power. Practical implications, limitations, and future research are also discussed.     

Retweet if you please! Do news factors explain engagement?

Stakeholders’ engagement with corporate messages is crucial for companies that want to increase their social media coverage. However, our understanding of the content-related factors that drive stakeholders’ engagement is still poor. Drawing from the literature on news selection and distribution, this paper explores whether the relevant news values that are already found in corporate messages could also explain greater engagement in social media. In particular, six news factors were examined in a sample of 2331 tweets that were posted by the Euro Stoxx 50 companies. The results show that four news factors (in particular, Prominence, Entertainment, Immediacy, and to a lesser extent Human interest) play a role in the drive of content sharing through retweets and favorites. Additionally, the inclusion of hashtags and media content helps increase retweets and favorites. Finally, we observe differences among industries. In particular, firms operating in business-to-business industries obtain less reach through sharing. The implications of these results are relevant for social media strategists as they suggest avenues to increase followers’ engagement with company-produced content.     

The Relationship Between Leaders’ Group-Oriented Values and Follower Identification with and Endorsement of Leaders: The Moderating Role of Leaders’ Group Membership

In this article, we hypothesize that leaders who display group-oriented values (i.e., values that focus on the welfare of the group rather than on the self-interest of the leader) will be evaluated more positively by their followers than leaders who do not display group-oriented values. Importantly, we expected these effects to be more pronounced for leaders who are ingroup members (i.e., stemming from the same social group as their followers) than for leaders who are outgroup members (i.e., leaders stemming from a different social group than their followers). We tested our hypotheses in two studies. Results of a field study (N = 95) showed the expected relationship between leaders’ group-oriented values and followers’ identification with their leaders. A scenario study (N = 137) replicated the results and extended it to followers’ endorsement of their leaders. Overall, these findings suggest that displaying group-oriented values pays off more for ingroup than for outgroup leaders.     

辱虐管理对下属工作绩效和离职意愿的影响: 领导认同和权力距离的作用

与以往基于社会交换、社会心理和社会比较视角的研究不同,本文基于社会认定视角,考察了下属对领导的认同在辱虐管理与下属工作绩效和离职意愿关系中的中介作用,以及下属权力距离导向在这一过程中的调节作用。以296名下属及其直接上司为研究对象,结果发现：(1) 辱虐管理会降低下属对领导的认同,并通过领导认同的中介作用对工作绩效和离职意愿产生影响;(2) 下属权力距离导向会调节辱虐管理与领导认同的关系,表现为对低权力距离导向的下属来说,辱虐管理对领导认同的负向影响相对更强。本文从新的理论视角解释了辱虐管理的作用,揭示了辱虐管理影响下属工作绩效和离职意愿的内在机制和作用条件。     

First-mover and incumbency advantages in mobile telecommunications

The present study analyzes data of 191 mobile network operators from 49 countries in order to identify the extent of first-mover and incumbency advantages. A large number of new market entry opportunities and involvement of many previous state-owned monopolists have characterized the mobile telecommunication services industry over the last 20 years. The results of this study show that both, first-movers and incumbents in the mobile telecommunication services industry are more successful regarding market share and operational financial results than later entrants. A pioneer position and incumbency are only loosely connected, with success originating both from first-mover and incumbency advantages. Moreover, the timing effect is stronger and more sustainable for market share compared to operating margin, indicating that followers successfully compensate part of their market share disadvantages with strategies like SIM-only tariffs, outsourcing and alternative distribution approaches. In addition, the typical rank-based measurement of timing position reveals somewhat stronger associations than a variable that is using the time elapsed between commercial launches of pioneers and followers.     

Followers' engagement with instagram influencers: The role of influencers’ content and engagement strategy

Influencer marketing has emerged as an effective approach for brands to connect with customers through social media influencers. Although influencer marketing has attracted increased interest from marketing researchers in recent years, relatively little is known about influencers' content and engagement strategy and its links to followers' engagement behavior. The present study addresses this gap by examining how measures of influencers' content and engagement strategy (i.e., follower count, followee count, content volume, and domains of interest) are associated with followers' engagement behavior on Instagram both independently and interactively. The study leverages a unique dataset of Instagram influencers compiled by scraping an online influencer database to test its hypotheses. The findings indicate that follower count and content volume are negatively associated with follower engagement, while followee count is positively associated with follower engagement. However, these main effects are modified by influencers' domains of interest. The findings contribute to the literature by illuminating how elements of influencers' content and engagement strategy contribute to followers’ engagement behavior on Instagram.     

Building influencers' credibility on Instagram: Effects on followers’ attitudes and behavioral responses toward the influencer

Collaborations between influencers and brands have become increasingly popular in recent years. Previous research has mainly focused on influencer marketing as a commercial action designed to enhance followers' perceptions and reactions toward promoted brands, ignoring the consequences of these promotional actions on influencers' credibility and their relationships with their followers. This research sheds light on the topic by exploring how influencers' promotional actions affect their credibility, and followers' attitudes and behavioral responses toward the influencer (i.e., to continue following, imitate, and recommend them to other users). A study addressed to the followers of a popular influencer was carried out to test the research model. The results showed that perceived influencer-product congruence positively affects followers' perceptions of the credibility of, and attitude toward, influencers, and negatively affects perceptions of paid communication. Followers' perceptions that influencers have been paid to take part in promotional activities harms their credibility; however, credibility is essential for generating positive attitudes toward the influencer. Finally, both perceived credibility and attitude foster positive behavioral responses toward the influencer; influencers must enhance these factors to retain their influencing capacity. This research provides managerial implications for influencers and brands that can help enhance followers’ experiences when exposed to promotions on social media.