This study aimed to identify the key factors influencing the U.S. millennial consumers’ willingness to recycle their denim apparel to brands or retailers. Consumer perceived value model provides the theoretical framework and guides data analysis. Five main values identified are the perceived social, financial, emotional, convenience and ecological values.

Courses on the motion and operation of remotely operated vehicles (ROV) tend to feature abstract theoretical concepts, numerous formulas, combinations of mathematical and physical concepts and teaching that is disconnected from practice. As with the development of computer technology, the dynamic connection between the combination of the highly-realistic visual effects of simulation and theoretical classroom teaching has the aesthetic characteristics of a physical science. In this study, a virtual teaching platform for ROVs was developed on the basis of current virtual simulation technologies, as well as the needs of courses focused on ROV motion and operation. Based on detailed analyses of the functional and performance requirements of a virtual teaching platform for ROVs, the system was subdivided into six subsystems: remote-control simulation, dynamic and kinematic mathematical modeling, underwater operation tools simulation, visual scene display, teacher control and network administration, using an object-oriented design method featuring modularization and standardization. The subsystems facilitate modular development, integration and function extension, and support the openness, inheritance and reusability of the system. The platform is used to intuitively acquaint students with ROVs’ kinetic characteristics and operating methods by means of intuitive 3D models, precise motion calculation, and real operating scenes. Based on teaching practice in colleges and universities, a typical work-task-oriented practical teaching system was developed, along with the application of course design and scenario design for the ROV virtual teaching platform. Through interactive operation, students can dynamically and intuitively observe the motion of ROVs during navigation, helping them to learn about hydrodynamic performance. With simulated ROV operation, students learn about the principles of dynamic mechanical tools as well as the relationships between the interaction forces of ROVs. This contributes to disciplinary progress in naval architecture and ocean engineering, as well as the development of students’ practical engineering competence.

Tenebrio molitor beetles have been widely used in traditional and folklore medicines to treat various human diseases worldwide. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder and the most prevalent form of dementia in developed and developing countries. The human β-amyloid cleaving enzyme (BACE-1) is a target for AD treatments. This study was performed to determine BACE-1 inhibitory activity of 12 compounds that were extracted from T. molitor adults and their 65 related compounds using a fluorescence resonance energy transfer-based enzyme assay. The results were compared with those of two positive controls for BACE-1, the cell-permeable isophthalamide BACE-1 inhibitor IV and the natural BACE-1 inhibitor, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). Based on IC50 values, linoleic acid, ergosterol, palmitoleic acid, and tryptopol (28.41‒46.16 μM) were the most potent BACE-1 inhibitors and the anti-BACE-1 activity of these compounds was lower than either inhibitor IV (13.13 μM) or EGCG (1.12 μM). Multiple regression analysis of the anti-BACE-1 activities of compounds was examined using their IC50 values and the values of the physical parameters (molecular weight (MW), log P, and molecular refraction (MR)) for the 41 fatty acids (R2 = 0.674 (P = 0.044)) and 29 flavonoids (R2 = 0.587 (P = 0.063)). Correlation coefficient (r) analysis showed that MW, log P, and MR may be positively correlated with IC50 of the fatty acids (MW, r = 0.658; log P, r = 0.471; and MR, r = 0.713) and IC50 of the flavonoids (MW, r = 0.547; log P, r = 0.644; and MR, r = 0.591). Further studies will warrant possible applications of T. molitor adults as therapeutic BACE-1 blocker.

최근 기업의 지배구조와 기업의 사회적 책임은 기업의 생존 및 성장과 관련된 주요 이슈로 부상 하였다. 많은 연구들이 기업의 지배구조와 기업의 사회적 성과 간의 관계를 분석하였으나, 대부분의 연구는 서구 국가 기업들을 대상으로 진행되었다. 이에 본 연구는 중국 기업의 기업 지배구조가 기업의 사회적 성과에 미치는 영향을 분석하여 기존 연구의 한계를 극복하고자 하였다. 구체적으로는 기업 지배구조의 국제화(이사회 임원진의 해외경험, 외국인 투자자의 소유지분)가 기업의 사회적 성과에 미치는 영향을 분석하였으며, 기업 지배구조의 국제화와 기업의 사회적 성과 간 관계를 조절하는 기업의 여유자원의 효과를 검증하였다.

Theming has become a powerful strategy in hospitality industry to enhance customer engagement and to serve as a competitive advantage in a saturated market. Based on the resource-based theory (RBT) of sustained competitive advantage (SCA), this qualitative study is an exploratory attempt to investigate 10 hotels in Mainland China and Taiwan that have adopted the theming strategy. Introduction As hospitality industry is facing the increasingly intense competition and saturated markets, theming is continuously gaining importance of hotels strategy to survival and growth. In addition, strategy planning determines the future of firms and discover the method to achieve success (Yong & Oh, 2004). Holjevac (2003) predicted that at the beginning of the 21st century, hotels with themed strategy which characterized by a synthesis of esthetics, quality and functionality would become the future trend. Theming has created the differentiation in hospitality market, using the creation of experience-centric service. Pine & Gilmore (1999) once pointed out that the shaping of experience stems from simple and powerful thematic transmission. Moreover, experience marketing can bring preference to the product and service of the enterprise, which in turn leads to a positive value experience (Milman, 2013). The results of theming strategy will positively influence the satisfaction and return rate (Wu, M. Li, & T. Li, 2018). Theming strategy with the advantage of pursuing innovation and uniqueness was extensively used to firms in the competitive hospitality market, like hotels in Las Vegas and Macao. However, some scholars concerned about the sustainability for the strategy due to the high-capitalized cost and the customers sensitive taste (Wassler, Li, & Hung, 2015). Although hotels with themed strategy has flourished in Chinese market more than decade, market research has lagged behind to support the industry’s growth. Researchers still adopted a rather normative paradigm by either identifying the superficial issue focused on experiential market concept or pointing out problems without providing more sustainability related solutions (Zou & Peng, 2008; Xiao, Zhang, & Huang, 2013). Barney (2007) indicated that internal resources could lead to the competitive. Therefore, this study aims at understanding the factors that lead theming strategy to be sustainable in hotels, based on the resource-based theory of sustained competitive advantage. The article has the following structure. The first section establishes a theoretical foundation through a review of strategy literature on theming. The second section proposes a conceptualization of theming strategy’s sustained competitive advantage (SCA) consisting of firms intrinsic resources based on resource-based theory (RBT), also, describe the assessment of key sustainable factors of theming strategy through interview the superior manager of 10 hotels in Mainland China and Taiwan that have adopted the theming strategy. The final section discusses the study’s findings, implication, and suggests directions for future research. As this research is one of the first studies in the hospitality field that identifies the resources and capabilities of the hotels’ theming strategy from the inside viewpoint, the contribution of this study will, and can conceptualize and discover the key factors to sustain the competitive advantage of themed hotel managing strategy Literature review Theming strategy for hotels Theming is a complete and ubiquitous way of impressing consumers and improving brand awareness (Olson, 2004). From theme parks, casinos, department stores, aviation, restaurants to hotels, thematic construction has the dominant influence on most customer engagement (Muñoz, Wood, & Solomon, 2006). Hotel theming strategy, based on the theme of cultural material (history, city story, etc.) either from surrounding area or develop within hotel, display the core value of theme from physical resources, as buildings and facilities, to invisible resources, as atmosphere and service, which would, in the end, create a valuable and unforgettable customer stay experience(Zins, 1998). Xiao, Zhang, & Huang (2013) noted that the distinctive consumer experience at the theme hotel can impress customers, and, ultimately enhances brand recognition, customer engagement and repurchase intention. On the other hand, Wassler, Li, and Hung (2015) has indicated the pros and cons for the China themed hotels, which are the uniqueness to create competitive advantages that are difficult to imitate. On the contrary, the gaining of customers’ sense of demand can lead to the difficulties to fulfill customers’ taste and the ingrained capital with the narrow development is hard to recapitalize once invested. Importance of sustainability for theming strategy. Due to the strong specific image of the themed hotels, some cases developed as a passing fad in the hospitality field. Although prior study has indicated the importance of theme selection for themed hotels (Xiao et al., 2013), seldom literature focus on the overall implementation and application within hotels’ ins and outs, also the SCA issue of hotels management. Xiao & O'Neill (2010) pointed out that the analysis of internal resource is enable manger to realize and build sources of competitive advantage, which is emanated from the resource-based view of strategy. In Resource Based Theory (RBT), scholars thought that resources and capabilities from firms could bring lasting competitive advantage to the organization, and companies that have SCA (Wernerfelt, 1984). Organization have SCAs can reach outstanding performance by constantly creating and delivering the core value through price, trust, aesthetics and functionality to its target markets (Barney, 1991). Thus, in order to observe the SCAs for themed hotels management, this research will employ on internal resource view based on RBT to explore the SCAs from the internal aspect of themed hotels. Methodology We illustrate the key factors and analyze the importance of internal resources for the SCA of hotels’ theming strategy by means of a qualitative study in which 10 hotels applied theming strategy in Mainland China and Taiwan were surveyed using semistructured interviews. For the research question, a qualitative approach offers the advantage to allow an adequate, in depth analysis of the complex relations between internal recourses and SCA of theming strategy. These 10 hotels adapted theming strategy are chosen by non-probability snowball sampling method, below Fig.1 is the hotels list for 10 interviews in Taiwan and Mainland China. In addition, because China with a vast territory is limited to cover all area, the research focuses on Zhejiang province and Shanghai city, which have well-developed economy and rich tourist resources. All interviewees of the hotels will be the superior manager who decides the core value and leads the hotel’s future. The interview will be three part to proceed. First, in warm-up period, interviewer will frame an informal and trust environment, first step is to confirm interviewees’ background. The second part will be identify period; there will be a questionnaire, which adopted Chuang (2000), whose survey to prioritize the 5 dimension of internal resources that essential to hotel theming strategy management. Finally, we will confirm the competency, competitive advantage, and the strategy to achieve the sustainability for hotels theming strategy. We present conclusions for research and practice, as well as deriving practical recommendations for hotels’ theming strategy in Chinese market based on our findings. Preliminary findings The preliminary findings of the research will base on the key themes that emerge from in-depth interview to understand perceptions of hotel managers regarding theming. The result will be presented and discussed in three period. First, based on the questionnaire result from the interviewees, we will recognize that what the priority degree about the five dimension of internal resources is regarding perception of theming in hotel strategy. Second, 10 interviews will transcribe from voice recordings to pages of text, then the text will go through the coding technique, in which the raw and efforts data will be identified as the themes and subthemes. All the analyzed process will be carried by expert triangulation. Finally, through the experts examining on the links of themes and quotations, we will create a view of framework that would explore the relationships between theming strategy and SCA, the result will find the formula for hotels adapted theming strategy to possess competitive advantage of being sustainable. Although space limitations of the conference preclude the detailed explanation of this research work, the authors believe this study will broaden the theoretical domains used in understanding internal resources and competency of hotels’ theming strategy and practical information can be observed from the findings.

Inconsistent findings about role stress and performance motivates this study. Data from 240 customer service representatives (CSRs) and 27 supervisors showed that role conflicts (involving supervisors and consumers) negatively relate to performance, while CSRs’ adaptive behavior mediates the relationship. CSRs’ feedback seeking moderates effects of role conflicts on adaptive behaviors.

Introduction Frontline employees (FLEs) play a very important role in service delivery due to the interactive nature of the service encounter. They span the boundary between the firm and its customers and service firms rely on their FLEs to deliver their promise and create a favorable company image to customers (e.g., Bitner et al., 1990). Considerable previous research addresses how effective management practices and supportive work environments will induce positive attitudinal and behavioral responses of FLEs, which will, in turn, contribute to the positive customer perceptions of the service providers (e.g., Hartline and Ferrell 1996). In other words, the relationship quality or the exchange quality of the employee-organization interface will have a spillover effect on that of the customer-organization interface. But the question examined here is: can this spillover effect occur in an opposite way? In other words, will firms’ treatment of customers shape the employees’ relationship with their firms? With a few exceptions, limited research has paid attention to this inverse relationship. The purpose of our research is threefold: (1) to investigate whether employee perception of customer injustice can influence employees’ psychological contract violation with the firm, (2) to examine whether role conflict mediates the relationship between customer injustice and psychological contract violation, and (3) to explore the moderating impacts of customer identification on the mediation effect of role conflict. Method We conducted an experiment using a 2 (customer injustice: high vs. low) x 2 (customer identification: high vs. low) between-subjects factorial design. Two hundred participants were recruited from Amazon Mturk. Twelve responses were deemed unusable and excluded from the study, resulting in a final sample size of 188 (53.7 % female; age ranging from 18 to 65). Each participant was randomly assigned to one of the four experimental scenarios that corresponded to a combination of the two manipulated factors at either high or low level. All manipulations worked as intended. To analyze the moderating effect of customer identification via role conflict, we used the procedure of Hayes (2013) to estimate a conditional process model. We also controlled for the effects of empathy, income, and ethnicity. To test whether the indirect effect of injustice on contract violation is moderated by customer identification, an index of moderated mediation proposed by Hayes (2014) was calculated. To test whether this index is statistically significantly from zero, a 95% confidence interval was calculated for this index by bootstrapping 5,000 samples. The confidence interval of this index is .0162 to 1.1105, indicating the indirect effect is significantly moderated by identification. The results showed that the indirect effect of customer injustice via role conflict on contract violation is only significant (p< .05) when customer identification is high. In other words, when customer identification is low, the effect of injustice on contract violation is not mediated through role conflict. Research implications Our research provides empirical evidence that FLEs are sensitive to the treatment of customers by the firm. The traditional wisdom in the sales literature is that “if you treat your employees well, they will treat your customers well.” Our study complements this “trickle-down effect” in the extant literature and demonstrates a “bottom-up effect” that the firm’s unfair treatment of customers will adversely influence employees’ relationship with their firm. Our research also offers important insights into why customer injustice may lead to FLEs’ perceived psychological contract violation with the firm. Previous sales research suggests that role conflict can be influenced by an organization’s structure and culture as well as salespeople’s job characteristics (Singh 1998; Barnes et al. 2006). Our study complements these findings and identifies perceived customer injustice as a new role stressor of FLEs. In addition, our research reveals that the mediating effect of role conflict is moderated by customer identification. Customer identification increases the likelihood that customer injustice would manifest in a psychological contract violation via increased role conflict. The findings of this research also have several managerial implications. First, service and sales managers should be aware of the negative consequence of unfair customer treatment by the firm and how it may eventually jeopardize employees’ relationship with the firm. Second, managers should consult with their FLEs when implementing any new customerfacing policies to understand how these policies would impact FLEs’ other duties of serving customers. Finally, FLEs may form strong identification with their customers, which may amplify the negative consequence of customer injustice on psychological contract violation. Managers should try to counteract FLEs’ over-identification with customers by increasing organizational identification.

This study proposed an alternative model specification to increase accuracy of conceptualization of the definition of customer engagement and provided theoretical justification for the model in specific social media contexts. The proposed model is a formative construct based on theoretical contexts and observational data. The construct comprises six formative first-order dimensions, namely “influencing behaviors,” “participation in activities,” “customer knowledge sharing,” “feedbacks,” “helping other customers,” and “customer-to-customer interaction.” The study findings offer a basis for identifying indicators of distinct dimensions in the proposed construct. Three models with different conceptualization specifications were estimated and subsequently compared using survey data.

Although the majority of prior literature has suggested the key reasons for consumer complaining in service failures are to vent negative emotions (e.g. anger, dissatisfaction) and to seek redress (Blodgett, Hill, & Tax 1997; Nyer 1997), some research has also pointed out that customers will give constructive suggestions to firms through complaining (Groth, 2005; Liu & Mattila, 2015). In this regard, consumer complaining can be classified into two types, namely, positive complaint (i.e., with constructive suggestion) and negative complaint (i.e., without constructive suggestion). Understanding what situations would dissatisfied consumers choose to give constructive suggestions in service failures would be of utmost important to firms. We suggest that a firm’s brand image may affect consumers’ intention to choose what types of complaint in service failures. In general, consumers may perceive a brand as having a competence image (e.g., professional and efficient) or having a warmth image (e.g., friendly and approachable) (Kervyn, Fiske and Malone, 2012). Comparatively speaking, a warmth image is associated with friendship and caring, whereas a competence image is associated with expertise. Therefore, it is possible that consumers would have a higher empathy and intention to help a firm with a warmth (vs. competent) image, and be more likely to choose positive complaint when a failure happens to this firm. An experimental study confirmed this prediction. In addition, we found that although a firm’s competence (vs. warmth) image does not affect the likelihood to give constructive suggestions in service failures, it leads to a higher level of return intention. Implications and future research directions will be discussed.

Introduction In order to solve the information asymmetry and make full use of resources (unused goods, spare capacity and so on), the sharing economy, which based on the application of mobile internet technology and focused on the consumption of the right to use, is developing rapidly. Lack of trust is considered to be one of the important problems hindering the development of sharing economy. Möhlmann (2015) said that trust is a fundamental determinant of sharing economy development and ensuring shared satisfaction. At present, sharing economy enterprises have established product evaluation system and docked a third party credit rating system (i.e. Zhima Credit) to promote consumers’ trust. However, with most enterprises are becoming more and more consistent in evaluation and credit rating system, there is a new problem emerged: how to further deepen consumers’ trust in order to promote consumers’ intention to participate continuously (Zucker, 1986; Lewis & Weigert, 1985). Granovetter (1985) mentioned that trust is the product of social relationships. Botsman and Rogers (2011) made it clear that social networks play an important role in building trust in sharing economy. And people are always more willing to accept the opinions of people who have social relations with them (Lu, Zhao, & Wang, 2010). Hence, with the feature of participant of everyone in sharing economy, it is necessary to further strengthen consumers’ trust through the social interaction among consumers and between consumers and sharing platforms. Theoretical Development Sharing economy is based on LBS and other new technologies to realize the matching of supply and demand information across time and space. And to a certain extent, it solves the problem of information asymmetry in the era of e-commerce. Yet consumer have new requirements for product information. For example, consumers are more concerned about whether the utility of products and services can meet their needs (i.e. some consumers are more concerned about when to reach their destination than the performance of the car). But it is difficult for company to understand each everyone of consumers’ utility preference and publish product utility information based on these preferences (Xie & Gerstner, 2007). Because this kind of utility preference has the characteristic of timeliness and personalization. Therefore, consumers’ perceived uncertainty about the utility of the product will also affect the consumers’ trust. In summary, we then address these research questions:(1) can the promotion of trust between consumers and sharing platforms be achieved through the socializing of sharing platforms and then affect consumers’ intention to participate continuously; (2) if so, which type of privacy protection method and social information can promote consumer trust; and (3) does the impact of sharing platform socialization on consumer trust vary according to consumers’ concerns about the perceived utility uncertainty of the product. Research Design We then address these issues using experiment data. The first experiment was a 2 (social media: have, not have) x 2 (individual trust propensity: trust, not trust) between-subject design on the intention to trust sharing platform and participant continuously. Perceived utility uncertainty was added to this design as a moderator. Moreover, the second experiment was a 2 (social information type: hedonic, utilitarian) x 2 (degree of privacy protection: week, strong) between-subject design on the intention to trust sharing platform. Our scales come from existing scales and optimize it according to the characteristics of sharing economy (Schneider, 1999; Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000; McKnight, Choudhury, & Kacmar, 2002). Results and Conclusion The results of the first experiment show that whether or not the social platform has no significant impact on the consumer trust if the individual tends to trust others. And for individuals who tends to do not trust others, they are more likely to trust socialized sharing platforms. The higher the consumer perceived utility uncertainty is, the higher (lower) trust of the consumer platform in the socialized (not socialized) sharing platform. For the second experiment results, in the context of sharing economy, the utilitarian information has a greater positive impact on the consumer trust than the hedonic information. In addition, the stronger the privacy protection of sharing platforms, the higher the trust of consumes. This study makes several academic contributions. First, we extend the topic of socialization to sharing economy context. Second, we add the perceived utility uncertainty as a moderator, and supplement the role of perceived uncertainty. This research also provides several practical implications. First, sharing platform can promote their consumers’ trust by establishing their own social platform. This platform can be used as a differentiated competitive strategy for sharing platform. Second, sharing platform should guide consumers to share utilitarian information (i.e. weather for specific place or real time traffic) to improve consumer satisfaction. Third, sharing platform can access consumer preference information through this social platform for further product development and classification.

Introduction In the modern society, online shopping has been expanding and become part of people's lives. With the development of online shopping, people's online shopping awareness have increased. In the purchase process, people focus on the information, especially online evaluation. Online shopping population is becoming more aware of the negative online evaluation, businesses are more and more attention to the negative comments, but sellers lack strategies and methods to deal with negative evaluation, and the reply function offered by site are rarely used. Compared with traditional Mouth Marketing, Internet Word of Mouth Marketing(eWOM) has such characteristics as anonymity, non confrontation, wide spread and fast spread. However, it is difficult to imagine the impact of all the internet word-of-mouth information on the consumer's willingness to buy. They need to criticize and screen the information before they are used because of the large amount of information that consumers have come into contact with. Online product evaluation (abbreviated evaluation) is a kind of internet word-of-mouth. As a new means and platform for network communication, it has its own unique characteristics. With the rapid development of electronic commerce in China, the content of evaluation has become an important basis for the purchase decision of Internet consumers. In the field of marketing, Gao Xiang finds that consumers usually think that negative information is more judgmental value than positive information, so they will rely more on the negative information when buying decisions. Therefore, it is of great significance to the research of negative online evaluation. In the field of marketing, Gao Xiang found that consumers generally think that negative information is more judgmental than positive information, so they rely more on negative information for decision making in purchasing. Therefore, the research of negative online evaluation is significance. Whether the business can deal with negative evaluation effectively becomes the key to success in sales volume. Burnkrant and Consineau believes that the herd effect is the process of psychological change that people consciously and unconsciously take the opinions of the majority as the criterion to make judgments and make impressions. Group characteristics, such as scale, and the proportion of others' opinions, will affect the herd effect. The current research shows that the more people hold the same view, more people will agree with this view. In other words, the individual will be affected by the majority of the group's opinions. Businesses reply with negative evaluations in various ways as a result of the negative impact of negative reviews. It takes the C2C's largest platform, Taobao, as an example. Some seller cooperate with illegal companies to harass buyers who do not modify the review, and coerce buyers to modify the evaluation. This kind of problem has been a hot issue in society for some time. At the same time, the C2C network platform provides a function that the seller can respond to the buyer's evaluation. But few seller use it. Theoretical Development Businesses reply with negative evaluations in various ways as a result of the negative impact of negative reviews. It takes the C2C's largest platform, Taobao, as an example. Some seller cooperate with illegal companies to harass buyers who do not modify the review, and coerce buyers to modify the evaluation. This kind of problem has been a hot issue in society for some time. At the same time, the C2C network platform provides a function that the seller can respond to the buyer's evaluation. But few seller use it. This study further deepens the related research on the negative evaluation of the network. More attention has been paid to the negative evaluation itself and the analysis of its content, publisher characteristics and evaluation results. There are few studies on how to respond to negative evaluations and to use the business response function of a website. This paper studies the relationship between the response of the merchant to the negative online reviews and the customer's purchase intention and the internal influence mechanism, and deepens the previous research. At the same time, it provides some inspiration for the follow-up internet word-of-mouth research. This study also enriches the related research on consumer perceived risk. Previous studies have shown that consumers' purchase behavior and willingness to purchase will be affected by perceived risk. And communication with the seller can reduce perceived risk to a certain extent. Research Design Based on the above background, this paper make a study about the sellers’ reply of negative evaluation and potential purchasing intention. Based on the online reviews of consumer perception of risk, the basis of relevant literature consumer consumption and purchase willingness, combined with consumer behavior theory, service recovery theory, empathy theory and attribution theory, build research model in this paper. On this basis, this paper collected and analyzed the data through literature research, experimental scenarios, questionnaires and statistical analysis, and verify hypothesis based on data analysis. Results and Conclusion Through data analysis, the main conclusions are as follows: The reply to the negative comments can affect consumers' perceived risk and purchasing intention; consumers' perceived risk plays an intermediate role between the reply to the negative and purchasing intention. Product type plays a regulating role between the way of reply and consumers' perceived risk. For Search goods, external and internal attribution explanatory reply made no significant difference in affecting consumer consumers' perceived risk. Perceived risk under external attribution is lower than under the internal attribution. On the basis of research, this paper put forward online communication strategies for C2C business and help sellers do business better.

INTRODUCTION Online marketing has grown rapidly over the past years and has become a key component when making marketing mix decisions. Over 2014, internet advertising revenues in the U.S. increased 16% from the previous year to a total of $49.5 billion (IAB 2015). In addition, according to Online Publisher Association, video advertisements have reached the majority of the Internet users (66%), and have resulted in an action from almost half of the users. The significant business opportunities provided by the online environment are reflected as the increasing amount of attention for online advertising in academic research (Mei et al. 2008). It is yet to be researched how online videos and the accompanied online video advertisements interact and how advertisement customization can play a role to possibly optimize user experience and therefore the effectiveness of online video advertisements. Particularly, congruity forms a key opportunity for customization in embedded online video advertising. Congruity is defined as consistency between the ad and video or the advertised product and video (Moore et al. 2005). Evidences in extent literature have shown the positive effects of congruity on, for example, the processing fluency of the ad, the consumer attitudes towards the ad and the persuasiveness of the ad (Moore et al. 2005). However, in the context of online video advertising, limited research has been conducted on this topic. The main goal of this research is to explore the effect of online video advertising congruity on consumer attitudes towards the online video, advertisement and advertised product. Therefore, this research attempts to examine the information processing of a consumer and how congruity acts in this process to affect consumer's preferences. Due to the nature of this research question, an online experiment is used to test the hypothesized relationships of the conceptual model. The collected data in this study were examined using partial least squares (PLS). CONGRUITY AND PROCESSING FLUENCY Congruity can be defined in terms of similarity. The perceived similarity between two given stimuli of equal importance, determines their congruity (Rokeach & Rothman, 1965). Extensive research has been conducted on the effects of congruity in advertising. For example, studies have focused on congruity between involvement types of ads and TV programs (Sharma, 2000), viewer's mood-ad content congruity (Kamins, Marks, & Skinner, 1991), and program context- advertised product congruity (De Pelsmacker, Geuens, & Anckaert, 2002). Previous research from (Moore, Stammerjohan, & Coulter, 2005) has shown that congruity has a positive effect on consumer attitudes. Research on online banner advertisements on websites has indicated that advertisements should be consistent with the website brand (Newman, Stem Jr, & Sprott, 2004). Appeal congruity can then be achieved when the appeal of the online video and the appeal of the embedded ad are similar: an emotional (affective) video paired with an emotional ad can be deemed congruent. Similarly, an informational ad will be more effective when embedded in an informational video. In this study, Ad-and-Video congruity represents such type of congruity. Based on extent research on processing fluency, it can be assumed that online video advertising congruity, either in terms of appeal or content, will result in more processing ease of the ad as the information provided by the video and ad is similar. The following hypotheses are formulated: Hypothesis 1: Congruity between the appeal of the online video and the appeal of the advertisement has a positive effect on processing fluency. Hypothesis 2: Congruity between content of the online video and the advertised product has a positive effect on processing fluency. We further propose that the above process is influenced by ad/video appeal or execution format (emotional vs. informational). An informational ad format is defined as an ad execution designed to appeal to the rationality of the receiver by using objective information describing a brand’s attributes or benefits, while an emotional ad format as an ad execution designed to appeal to the receiver’s emotions by using drama, mood, music and other emotion-eliciting strategies (Yoo & MacInnis, 2005). When an individual is watching an emotional ad or video, the possible effect of Ad-video or Product-video congruity on a consumer's processing fluency will be attenuated. The following hypotheses are formulated: Hypothesis 3a: Congruity between the appeal of online video and the appeal of embedded advertisement has a stronger effect on processing fluency for informational appeals than for emotional appeals. Hypothesis 3b: Congruity between content of the online video and the advertised product has a stronger effect on processing fluency for informational contents than for emotional contents. Involvement and processing fluency With regards to online advertising, research has shown that the degree to which a consumer is involved with the topic of a website also affects the processing of online advertising. It can be argued that when an individual is not involved in watching an online video, its effect on a consumer's processing fluency will be absent. On the other hand, when a consumer is highly involved in watching an online video, it is more likely that the viewer experiences processing fluency. As a result, in this situation, involvement may actually affect processing fluency of the viewer. Based on these findings, the following hypothesis is formulated: Hypothesis 4: Involvement has a positive effect on the processing fluency of consumers. Post-viewing attitudes Research has also indicated the mediating role of an individual’s affective response from processing fluency to its evaluation (Winkielman & Cacioppo, 2001). A viewer of an online video is shown an ad that has the same appeal as the video, making it rather easy to process. The viewer appreciates this as it takes less effort to view the ad and to relate to advertised product to the content of the video and the viewer's interests. As a result the viewer is more likely to generate a positive attitude towards the ad, the advertised product and the video. The insights lead to the formulation of the following three hypotheses: Hypothesis 5: Processing fluency has a positive effect on the attitude towards the online video. Hypothesis 6: Processing fluency has a positive effect on the attitude towards the advertisement. Hypothesis 7: Processing fluency has a positive effect on the attitude towards the advertised product. Figure 1 shows the conceptual model, which summarises the hypothesized relationships. <Insert Figure 1 about here> METHODOLOGY We conducted an experiment in the form of a 2 (type of appeal: informational vs. emotional) × 2 (Ad-Video congruity: congruent vs. incongruent) × 2 (Product-Video congruity: congruent vs. incongruent) full-factorial between-subject design. Video and advertisement appeal are each measured by the three items derived from the study by Moore et al. (1995) on the individual difference in response to advertising appeal. Processing fluency is measured by two items of the study by Lee and Aker (2004). Three items of the study from Zaichowsky (1985) are used to measure the involvement of the participants. The three items related to the attitude towards the video, advertisement and product are derived from the respective studies from Russell et al. (2004) and Kozup, Creyer and Burton (2003). Returned questionnaires numbered 276 responses with 24 incomplete data, resulting in 252 valid responses for data analysis. The collected data in this study were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS). Measurement model A measurement model was used to evaluate reliability, convergent validity, and discriminate validity. A structural model was used to determine the significance and association of each hypothesized path, and the explained variance. Reliability was examined by composite reliability values above the 0.70 benchmark (Fornell and Larcker 1981). Results show all values above 0.70, indicating satisfactory reliability. Convergent validity was examined by all indicator loadings that were significant and exceeding 0.7 and average variance extracted (AVE) by each construct exceeding 0.50 (Fornell and Larcker 1981). Results shows all indicator loadings above 0.70 and all AVEs exceeding 0.50, indicating satisfactory convergent validity. Discriminant validity is demonstrated by the square root of the AVE for each construct exceeding the correlations between the constructs (Chin 1998). These results indicate that the proposed models have good reliability and validity. Structure model Figure 2 shows the standardized path coefficient, the significance of each hypothesized path and the variance explained (R²). H1 and H2 investigate the effect of Ad-Video congruity and Product-Video congruity on processing fluency. Results show that Product-Video congruity is positively related to processing fluency (β=0.115, t-value=2.131, p<0.05), supporting H2. However, the effect of Ad-Video congruity on processing fluency is not significant ((β=0.022, t-value=0.377, p>0.05). Thus, H1 is not supported. H3a and H3b examine the moderating effect of the type of appeal. The hypothesis testing of H3a and H3b is discussed under the multi-group analysis (PLS-MGA). H4 proposes that involvement has a positive effect on the processing fluency of consumers, which is supported by the results (β=0.399, tvalue= 6.778, p<0.05). H5, H6, and H7 investigate the effects of processing fluency on post-viewing attitudes. Processing fluency is positively related to attitude towards the video (β=0.192, t-value=2.838, p<0.05), advertisement (β=0.426, t-value=7.607, p<0.05) and the focal product (β=0.422, t-value=7.171, p<0.05). These results support H5, H6 and H7. <Insert Figure 2 about here> We hypothesize that the type of appeal (informational or emotional) moderates the effects of Ad-Video congruity and Product-Video congruity on processing fluency in H3a and H3b. Specifically, the effects on under informational appeal condition are stronger. To test for group differences, we applied a multi-group analysis (PLS-MGA) approach. The PLS-MGA results for both informational and emotional groups, show that that the positive effect of Ad-Video congruity on processing fluency is only significant for informational appeals (β=.150, t-value=1.99, p<.05) but not emotional appeal (β=-.010, t-value=.15, p>.05), supporting H3a. Similarly, results show that that the positive effects of Product-Video congruity on processing fluency is only significant for informational appeals (β=.170, t-value=2.27, p<.05) but not emotional appeal (β=.050, t-value=.57, p>.05), supporting H3b. CONCLUSION Results show that congruity is related to the improvement of processing fluency only for informational ads/videos. This finding provides some support to the processing fluency theory which holds that less discrepant information should result in a higher processing fluency and extends the existing literature by investigating the appeal/execution format as a boundary condition. Involvement itself has been found to be positively related to processing fluency. Thus, when a consumer is initially more involved in watching a video, the processing fluency increases. This is in line with previous research that proved that involvement positively affects the attention that is given to advertisements and ultimately also the attitude of consumers.