Blockchain is an immutable ledger that records transactions and tracks assets using a common communication protocol. It stores a copy of the blockchain and implements a consensus function to verify transactions. Blockchain is applied to industries beyond finance, such as retail, to maintain security and transparency. Consumers with knowledge of blockchain technology are likely to be affected when evaluating products with blockchain embedded, impacting their product evaluation. The study investigates the impact of blockchain technology on consumers' product evaluation and how knowledge of blockchain and product quality moderate its effects.

This study aims to empirically investigate how corporate strategy mitigates consumer boycotts caused by animosity toward economic sanction. First, the study focuses on the cross-culture emotions (i.e., animosity and affinity) and explores the direct and indirect effect of animosity toward economic sanction on boycott attitude (via consumer affinity). Additionally, it focuses on the moderating effect of brand strength and corporate social contribution on boycott attitude. We conduct a longitudinal analysis of boycotts by South Koreans on the Japanese products, which started in South Korea in 2019; and additionally, we employ PROCESS macro to test the moderated mediation hypothesis, using the data collected from South Korea in 2020 and 2021. Our findings reveal that the data collected in 2020 and in 2021 have the same implications. The main findings are as follows. First, while animosity toward economic sanction directly increases boycott attitude, it also indirectly increases boycott attitude via consumer affinity. Second, the assumption that both brand strength and corporate social contribution weaken the positive and direct effects of animosity toward economic sanction on boycott attitude was not supported. Third, we find that corporate social contribution weakens the positive and indirect effect of animosity toward economic sanction on boycott attitude. However, unlike our prediction, brand strength strengthens the positive and indirect effects of animosity to economic sanction on boycott attitude. The three key theoretical implications are as follows. First, while many studies have examined the role of animosity as a cause of boycott, only a few studies have simultaneously addressed the conflicting emotions of affinity (Kim, Yan, Kim, Terasaki, & Furukawa, 2022). This study extends boycott research by exploring the relationship between animosity and boycott attitudes by considering the mediating effect of affinity. Second, to our best knowledge, only a few boycott studies have explored corporate strategies that adequately respond unanticipated country boycotts where the companies are not directly associated with the causes or motives of such boycotts (Kim & Kinoshita, 2023). This study extends boycott research by investigating brand strength and corporate social contribution as corporate strategies in the context of consumer boycotts. Third, although it is known that consumer boycotts change with time, only a few boycott studies are based on longitudinal analyses (Ettenson & Klein, 2005); hence, this study examines consumer boycotts longitudinally to improve the generalization of our findings. Our findings also present some managerial implications for global companies facing unexpected country boycotts by local consumers. When boycotts are caused by economic sanctions between countries, brand strength exerts a two-sided effect. Regarding consumer sentiment, the higher the brand strength, the higher the affinity for the country represented by the brand, and vice versa; however, consumers may also choose to boycott a brand with high strength. Consumers may feel angry and engage in boycotts when they feel betrayed by a brand with strong brand strength. However, corporate social contribution reinforces a sense of closeness in the country it presents and contributes toward mitigating the boycott attitude; this is because consumers consider their corporate social contribution as a beneficial activity for their country. Therefore, global companies that expand overseas should not only use their brand strength, but also engage in activities that are beneficial to the country and enhance the familiarity of the consumers of the country to develop a sense of cultural affinity. In addition, this study also has implications for policymakers. Economic sanctions against a specific country not only lower consumers’ affinity, but also leave a negative impact on the global companies with high brand strength. Therefore, policymakers must proceed with caution when they make an economic sanction for a certain country.

Emotion has been discussed as a key element in the purchase decision process across several products and services by several researchers (Bagozzi, Gopinath, & Nyer, 1999; Kang, Jin, & Gavin, 2010; Lee & Park, 2013). Although a variety of products and services have been utilized to address the relationship between emotions and the purchase decision process, books, especially an online-book purchase environment, have been neglected in existing research of the relationship between emotions and the purchase decision process. Thus, the purposes of this study are 1) to investigate how book covers influence consumers’ purchase decisions in an online setting, 2) to examine the influence of two different criteria of book covers (the color of the book cover and the picture or photo on it) on consumers’ emotions of delight, and 3) to explore the cross-cultural differences (i.e., Japan vs. France) in the online book purchase decision process. Emotion is referred to “an affective, subjective, experimental, temporary, multidimensional phenomenon and a source of motivation caused by exogenous factors to the individual that interact with the process of treatment of the collected information for the purpose of experience of consumption” (Graillot, 1998, p. 12). In marketing, emotion is considered to be the beginning of the choice made by consumers (Derbaix & Pham, 1989), and many researchers have tried to find dimensions of emotion which better explain the consumer’s purchase decision process, such as circumstances (e.g., hope, relief, and joy), external cues (e.g., like, dislike, and anger), or self-created cues (e.g., regret, shame, and guilt) (Roseman, Antoniou, & Jose, 1996). In order to fill in gaps from previous research, in this study we present the following research hypotheses: H1: There will be a positive relationship between the color of the book cover and the consumer’s emotion of delight when purchasing a book from an online bookstore. H2: There will be a positive relationship between the picture or photo on the book cover and the consumer’s emotion of delight when purchasing a book from an online bookstore.H3: There will be a positive relationship between the consumer’s emotion of delight and a book’s perceived usefulness when purchasing a book from an online bookstore. H4: There will be a positive relationship between a book’s perceived usefulness and the purchase of the book. H5: The impact of the book cover on the purchase decision process will vary by country. Japan and France were chosen as the countries for the study as they are significantly similar in terms of the size of the book market on the global stage (Oricon, 2015), however the two countries are very dissimilar in terms of culture. In addition, there is no existing research that compares consumers in these two countries in an online book purchase setting. A total of 398 usable date sets were collected in Japan (n = 191) and France (n = 207) using a questionnaire survey. Two sets of questionnaires were developed in Japanese and French for the respondents and the respondents were randomly chosen for this study. All measurement items of each construct (i.e., the importance of the color of the book cover, the importance of the picture on the book cover, the emotions of delight, the perceived usefulness of the book, and the book purchase) were adopted from previous studies and measured using a 5-point Likert scale. To test the proposed research framework, in this study we developed a structural equation modeling method. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test construct validity, which showed satisfactory evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. Based on Table 1, there is no significant relationship between the color of the book cover and the emotion of delight, therefore Hypothesis 1 was rejected. On the other hand, Hypotheses 2 (the relationship between the picture on the cover and the emotion of delight), Hypotheses 3 (the relationship between the emotion of delight and a book’s perceived usefulness), and Hypotheses 4 (the relationship between a book’s perceived usefulness and the book purchase) were found to be statistically significant. Finally, Hypothesis 5, indicating that the impact of the book cover on the purchase decision process varies across countries, was supported. In other words, the χ² difference test between the two countries revealed that an unconstrained model indicated a significantly better model fit than a fully constrained model (Δχ²(7) = 117.58, p < .001), indicating the evidence of differences in the path relationships between the two countries (Laukkanen et al., 2013). Since Hypothesis 5 was indicated to be significant, a further analysis of each path from Hypothesis 1 to Hypothesis 4 was conducted. This revealed that only the relationship between a book’s perceived usefulness and the book purchase was significantly different by country (Δχ²(1) = 3.91, p < .05). The study provides meaningful academic implications. This study examines the influence of the book cover on consumers’ emotions, which lead to the actual purchase of the book in an online setting and accurately explains the role of consumers’ emotions in the relationship. Furthermore, this study proved that the relationship between the book’s perceived usefulness and the purchase of the book was different by country. Given this, marketers should develop tailored marketing strategies for the two countries. For French consumers, practitioners should focus more on the usefulness of the book itself, such as the meaning of the book to readers, the impact of the book on readers, the potential for improving reader’s knowledge andhappiness, etc. In other words, marketers should emphasize and promote the concept of the usefulness of the book itself rather than the design components, such as the color of the book cover. Additionally, consumers’ emotions of delight have a significant role on the online book purchase decision, therefore promoting and arousing consumers’ positive emotions, for example, with music, easy transactions, easy access, etc., may be critical while shopping for books online.