Emotional contagion triggered by online consumer reviews: Evidence from a neuroscience study

People tend to align with the emotional state of the person that is talking to them (the observed). Similarly, while processing information consumers can also experience this emotional contagion. Emotional contagion can activate in those who process information (the observer) similar responses in the autonomic nervous system and the neural responses as in those who create such information (the observed), triggering a certain level of arousal. Neuroscience enables researchers to study emotional contagion by monitoring the activation of neural structures and physiological responses. This study draws on the theory of arousal to investigate how different combinations of online consumer review (OCR) valence can trigger different emotions and customer experiences in the observer (the one who reads the OCRs). This study conducts a consumer neuroscience experiment to monitor emotional arousal. The physiological analyses (through skin conductance response) confirm that the emotional arousal of the observer aligns with that of the observed. The neural analyses (through electroencephalography) show the valence of the arousal, which indicates that negative OCRs activate arousal and pleasure in the observer, while positive OCRs are associated with arousal deactivation and displeasure.     

Cross-cultural adjustment of expatriates: The role of emotional intelligence and gender

The study examines the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in cross-cultural adjustment (CCA) of expatriates on international assignments. Based on a sample of 269 French expatriates operating in 133 countries, our analysis finds a significant and positive relationship between EI and expatriates’ general living, interactional and work-related CCA. Additionally, it shows that cultural similarity only facilitates general living adjustment and not interactional or work adjustments. Finally, our analysis reveals an interesting interaction effect between gender and the ability to appraise and express emotions: the influence of the latter on all three dimensions of CCA tends to be slightly stronger for male than female expatriates. The study offers important practical implications for organizations concerning the identification and development of successful expatriates.     

Emotion and advertising effectiveness: A novel facial expression analysis approach

Neuroscience has revealed the importance of emotion in the human cognitive process. For the first time, a GfK-EMO Scan, a facial expression recognition software developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIs, is used to investigate the long-term effect of advertising on individual attitudes toward driving. The effects of high emotional and low emotional advertising were measured using the GfK-EMO software on 60 participants with a 50/50 male to female ratio. Each participant was subjected to either a high emotional or low emotional safe driving video advertisement. While watching the advertisement, the GfK-EMO facial recognition software recorded the unconscious emotions of participants who were also requested to fill a modified version of the National Survey of Speeding Attitudes and Behavior. A driving attitude score was then computed using this survey directly after the participant had viewed the advertisement and again two weeks later. Noticeable differences in the attitude score were recorded between participants having watched the high emotional advertisement against participants having watched the low emotional advertisement. The high emotional advertisement generated a higher and more durable safe driving attitude score in comparison to the low emotional advertisement.     

Global leadership success through emotional and cultural intelligences

Culturally attuned and emotionally sensitive global leaders need to be developed: leaders who can respond to the particular foreign environments of different countries and different interpersonal work situations. Two emerging constructs are especially relevant to the development of successful global leaders: cultural and emotional intelligences. When considered under the traditional view of intelligence as measured by IQ, cultural, and emotional intelligences provide a framework for better understanding cross-cultural leadership and help clarify possible adaptations that need to be implemented in leadership development programs of multinational firms. This article posits that emotional intelligence (EQ), analytical intelligence (IQ), and leadership behaviors are moderated by cultural intelligence (CQ) in the formation of global leadership success.     

A shift in perspective? The role of emotional branding in shaping born globals’ performance

Branding strategies have been at the core of marketing and strategy literatures for decades. Global brands are known for their positive influence in increasing customer trust and confidence, thus reducing the risks associated with foreign operations from the firms’ standpoint. These positive effects of global brands have led to research exploring brand image while emphasizing its relevance in positioning, gaining competitive advantage, and facilitating firms’ international business. Born-global firms (BGs) can mostly benefit from harnessing brand image, mainly by reducing market-related uncertainties while establishing a brand-based reputation and thus enhance their international expansion. However, very few attempts have been made to investigate the role of branding in advancing BG performance. Through a survey-based study including 147 Israeli BGs, complemented by 11 in-depth interviews with BG managers, we investigated the distinct role of functional and emotional brand-image aspects. The findings demonstrate that emotional branding bears a significant impact on BG performance. This impact reaches beyond the influence of innovativeness and marketing intelligence on BG performance. Surprisingly, while functional branding was enhanced by firms’ innovativeness, it showed no significant impact on international performance.     

Customer response toward employees’ emotional labor in service industry settings

In the current study, we develop and test a moderated mediation model that explores the mechanisms that underlie the influence of employees' emotional labor on customer loyalty by considering affective reactions and cognitive appraisals simultaneously and illustrating moderating factors that alter their effectiveness. A sample of 259 individuals from across the United States over 20 years old were recruited on Amazon's Mechanical Turk to participate in the survey. Our emotions as social information based model clarifies the distinct roles of customers' detection of employees' deep acting and surface acting in influencing customers' affective reactions and cognitive appraisals. The current research also reveals that impact of customers' detection of employees' emotional labor on customer outcomes varies as a function of the employees' nonverbal communication.     

合同治理、信任与经销商角色外利他行为：渠道关系柔性与团结性规范的调节作用

根据复合治理理论,文章分别探讨关系型治理中的柔性规范和团结性规范作为调节因素在合同治理和信任对企业角色外利他行为影响中的调节作用以及角色外利他行为对企业自身绩效的影响。文章通过调查获得了158份来自经销商的有效问卷,应用SPSS17.0和AMOS18.0对数据进行分析并对假设进行了检验。结果表明：合同治理促进经销商角色外利他行为,柔性规范对其有正向调节作用;信任对经销商角色外利他行为有正向影响,团结性规范对其有正向调节作用;经销商的角色外利他行为对企业自身的绩效有显著促进作用。文章最后为企业的渠道管理提出了相关建议,并指出未来可能的研究方向。     

Understanding fashion communication between Korean middle‐aged mothers and daughters

Daughters can be considered important social role models for middle‐aged mothers in fashion communication such as the clothing purchase or conformity. This study explores antecedents (trust in daughters as fashion informants and internalized social pressure for appearance management) and outcomes (solidarity between mother and daughter, psychological well‐being of mother) of fashion communication (mother–daughter shopping, clothing conformity) between middle‐aged mothers and daughters. The data were collected using a self‐administered online survey of 307 middle‐aged Korean women between ages of 45 and 65. The result shows that mothers’ trust in daughters as fashion informants and internalized social pressure for appearance positively influence mother–daughter shopping and mothers’ clothing conformity to daughters. Next, mother–daughter shopping and mothers’ clothing conformity have a positive influence on the solidarity of mothers and daughters. When solidarity becomes stronger, the degree of the mothers’ psychological well‐being increases.     

银行柜员情绪表现规则对情绪劳动影响的实证研究

银行柜员情绪表现规则和情绪劳动的实证表明:表达积极情绪的表现规则对浅层行为、深层行为具有正向影响;抑制消极情绪的表现规则对浅层行为具有正向影响,对深层行为具有负向影响,深层行为和表达积极情绪的表现规则相关性较高,浅层行为和抑制消极情绪的表现规则相关性较高。     

Risk and the cosmopolitanization of solidarities

Abstract

For classical sociologists, national solidarity was a response to the risks and uncertainties of modernity. National solidarity was said to provide the foundations for social order and justice (Durkheim), serve as the basis for political legitimacy (Weber), and address issues of (in)equality (Marx). Throughout the twentieth century, national solidarity seemed to perform these functions adequately, if often at the expense of those not belonging to the national community. However, with the demise of progress as a cultural prophylaxis to contain the future, it is often said that newly emergent world risks spell the end of solidarity. On this view, risk, individualization, and the cosmopolitanization of life worlds are contributing to the fragmentation of societies and pushing solidarity toward expiration. Yet, this jeremiad is based on an anachronistic notion of solidarity, which does not account for the recent adaptations of nationhood. In contrast, I argue that new global risks are not detrimental to the notion of solidarity but rather serve as a precondition for the emergence of cosmopolitanized solidarities. Global culture and political norms from human rights to environmentalism have catalyzed a reimagining of nationhood itself. In order to grasp new forms of solidarity which buttress this reimagined nationhood, I draw on Ulrich Beck’s distinction between three historically specific iterations of the concept of risk, as something that: can be calculated; is malign and incalculable; has the potential to generate goods.