This research addresses an important, yet under-researched, issue concerning the management of loyalty programs (LPs) in the era of globalization: how to effectively motivate LP members from different cultures to continue the reward pursuit process. Drawing on cross-cultural research and regulatory fit theory, we identify feedback framing as a low-cost, easy-to-implement strategy for building program loyalty across cultures. Two cross-cultural studies confirm all the hypotheses about the effects of feedback framing. Overall, this research advances theoretical understanding of reward pursuit behavior across cultures and offers practical advice for managing LPs in different cultural contexts.

This study examines the extent to which Fair Trade reputation and fit between this reputation and the communicated Fair Trade message influences consumer skepticism and positive electronic word-of-mouth. The results of two experiments show that previous Fair Trade reputation has a direct and indirect effect, via consumer brand identification, on consumer skepticism. Moreover, the fit between a reputation and the communicated message only seems to affect skepticism when the communicated message is perceived as realistic. In industries with bad Fair Trade reputations (Study 1) fit does not seem to have an effect on skepticism, while fit does influence skepticism in industries with a certain reputation history on Fair Trade (Study 2). Skepticism and consumer brand identification play an important mediating role in the relationship between reputation, fit and consumers’ electronic word-of-mouth intentions. We therefore conclude that communicating Fair Trade initiatives can be a rewarding effort but also seems to be a delicate matter.

Introduction The Fourth Industrial Revolution brings a great change in the retail market through combining new digital technologies, such as data clouding, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality(VR) technology. The Alibaba group, which is in charge of 90% market share in China, announced a new Virtual Reality (VR) shopping mall, Buyplus, and Alibaba expected that VR will improve shoppers’ engagement and will experience the joy of shopping mall at home. The potential power of VR shopping mall in Korea is recently acknowledged by the Korean government and Korean government developed the full scale VR shopping mall for the first time in Korea. The VR shopping mall is expected to be a new paradigm of distribution channel industry by incorporating some advanced digital technologies. Conceptual Background In previous study, Pelet et al. (2017) investigated the optimal flow experience enhanced by the telepresence in social media. The overall flow provides a unique immersion experience for social media users, also the frequency of use and time distortion were affected during the use of the system. Choi and Choi (2016) conducted a study and they showed that telepresence was one of the important factors in the new technology-based marketing environment. Limioid Theory is explaining a psychological process when user enters into a new situation. Users have to decide how to expand and act on their own in a new situation, so users quickly fall into new situation and want to transit successfully (Huang & Liao, 2017). Virtual Reality shopping with new technology will bring a new marketing paradigm in the future. The purpose of this study is to analyze users’ telepresence and other underlying factors of behavioral intention of VR shopping. To achieve this primary goal, first, we investigated the factors of VR shopping psychology—such as telepresence, challenge, body ownership, and control for VR shopping. We also tried to investigate the factors of perceived value VR shopping - such as playfulness and usefulness by applying the Flow Theory and Virtual Liminoid Theory. Second, we analyzed the relationships between the factors of perceived value and the behavior intention VR shopping by applying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This study suggests the moderating effects of technology readiness and time distortion between telepresence and playfulness. Model Testing and Conclusion In this study, we developed the virtual reality supermarket which is operated by headmounted VR glasses and body sensors with the help of VR technology start-up company. Total 120 university students participated and experienced the VR shopping. By using the structural equation model, research hypotheses were tested and most research hypotheses were statistically significant and accepted. The final research model also showed the statistical significance with the goodness-of-fit indices. We tried to analyze the moderating effects of time distortion and technology readiness between telepresence and playfulness. We also found that there is a moderating effect of time distortion between body control and playfulness. As a result of model testing, we found that playfulness and usefulness are the major mediators between the underlying factors of VR shopping and behavioral intention of VR shopping. The results of this study about VR shopping explain how retail and marketing managers can operate VR shopping store in the technology-based future retail environment. The managerial implications of the study results for the corporate marketing managers and the limitations of the study were also discussed.

This paper develops a conceptual model of international social media marketing strategy that describes how culture shapes consumers’ use of social media around the world. Drawing from cultural psychology, marketing, and computer information systems, we use Kietzmann et al.’s (2011) functional building blocks of social media to organize social media functions, then explicate how various dimensions of culture affect the way such social media functions are used across cultures. By delineating these complex relationships, our model and the propositions that stem from it offer directions for future research and advance understanding of cross-cultural differences with implications for businesses that provide social media or capitalize on social media for global reach in the international marketplace.

Chinese L2 learners of Japanese are identified as showing difficulties in the production of Japanese geminates. The idea of being difficult-to-listen is embodied in the concept Comprehensibility (Derwing & Munro 2015). This study first reviews the native pronunciation of Japanese singleton vs. geminate contrast. Then, we report findings based on the pronunciation by 20 Chinese learners of Japanese and discuss the issue of comprehensibility in geminate production. While the contrast in the closure duration between singleton and geminate consonants shows a similar pattern to reported Japanese speech, the learners show large differences in the vowel duration preceding and following consonants. We report findings from a linear mixed model that was run with speaker as a random effect. The results show that participants do not make differences in vowel duration, or the difference in vowel duration is reversed from L1 Japanese speakers. Identifying the locus of the source of an L2 accent should be accompanied with intelligibility and comprehensibility. Such identification is important in increasing comprehensibility in speech that is already intelligible.

Pollution of chloride ion-reinforced concrete can trigger active corrosion processes that reduce the useful life of structures. Multifunctional materials used as a counter-electrode by electrochemical techniques have been used to rehabilitate contaminated concrete. Cement-based pastes added to carbonaceous material, fibers or dust, have been used as an anode in the non-destructive Electrochemical Chloride Extraction (ECE) technique. We studied the performance of the addition of Carbon Fiber (CF) in a cement-graphite powder base paste used as an anode in ECE of concretes contaminated with chlorides from the preparation of the mixture. The experimental parameters were: 2.3% of free chlorides, 21 days of ECE application, a Carbon Fiber Volume Fraction (CFVF) of 0.1, 0.3, 0.6, 0.9%, a lithium borate alkaline electrolyte, a current density of 4.0 A / m2 and a cement/graphite ratio of 1.0 for the paste. The efficiency of the ECE in the traditional technique using metal mesh as an anode was 77.6% and for CFVF of 0.9% it was 90.4%, with a tendency to increase to higher percentages of the CFVF in the conductive cement-graphite paste, keeping the pH stable and achieving a homogeneous ECE in the mass of the concrete contaminated with chlorides.