Social interactions have been established as a means to help promotions and sales for manufacturers and retailers. Word-of-mouth (WOM), in particular, is proven to increase awareness and drive purchases. Given that small offline retailers have limited resources in marketing, online WOM can play a key role for their offline business performance. In this paper, we focus on two types of online WOM, public discussion and social referral, and study their generation processes by taking into account the multichannel context of both online purchases and offline consumption. To this end, we combine data from three sources: product (or deal)-level sales from a major deal site in South Korea, social interaction records collected by web crawling, and retail revenues at a district level from Korea National Statistical Office. We use a multivariate poison lognormal model to estimate three equations in the same structure with correlated errors, which only differs by the following dependent variables: number of product discussion, number of social referral, and the number of social coupons sold. Our empirical analyses suggest the following. First, the two types of WOM respond in opposite directions for the influencers in the multichannel sales context: the greater number of co-located online deals decreases public discussion but increases social referral. Next, the larger offline retail size increases public discussion, but has no significant effect on social referral. Finally, the results provide practical insights that small offline retailers can improve sales in the multichannel context by effectively managing the generation of different types of online WOM.

This paper aims to expand our understanding on the success factors of small businesses, which comprise of more than 90 percent of all businesses in U.S. in 2016. One of the most critical issues behind small business success is the competition, which becomes increasingly intense. Not only small businesses fiercely compete with larger competitors (e.g. Emergence of mega-retailers such as Wal-Mart has intensified the competition in the grocery industry, and, as a result, many mom and pop stores have gone out of business.), but also the competition against each other (i.e. competition between small businesses) becomes increasingly aggressive. Yet, the current literature in marketing have less investigated the issue of competition between small businesses, while issues on competition between small and large businesses have been somewhat explored. Another phenomenon in small business that has not received much attention is the competition between generalist and specialist firms. This phenomenon of specialist versus generalist competition is in fact frequently observed in many industries. Therefore, we study competition between small businesses, focusing on the competition between generalist and specialist small businesses. We examine how competitive intensity, as well as market environmental factors, affect the performance of small businesses. Specifically, we decompose the competitive intensity into two types, one between generalists and the other between specialists, in order to identify the differential effects of competition between generalist and specialist, and examine their impacts on the generalist and specialist performance. Given the research questions above, we develop the following hypotheses based on the past research in marketing. First, we expect competition has a positive effect on generalist performance, while we expect the opposite effect on specialist performance. We also expect that the effect of competition becomes weaker, as the competition becomes more intense. That is, the positive (negative) impact of competition on generalist (specialist) performance becomes less significant as there are more competitors in the market. We further expect that competition between the same type of businesses (e.g. between generalists) has a positive effect on their performance, while competition between the difference types (e.g. between generalist and specialist) has a negative effect on their performance. Moreover, we expect that market environmental factors have differential effects on the performance of generalist and specialist. To test the aforementioned hypotheses on the small business competition between generalist and specialist, we collected data from the health care industry on private physician practices (offices) in Korea. Out data contain, for each practice, monthly sales, number of doctors, number of nurses, type of practice, number of beds and zip code it is located in. We also have data on average consumer spending, average medical spending, percentage of patients over sixty years old for each zip code. Moreover, we have data on competition between the same type of offices (e.g. between generalists and between specialists) and competition between different types (e.g. between generalist and specialist). Note that our data collected from the Korean health care industry fit our research questions well. First, the majority of medical service providers in Korea are small private practices with an average number of two doctors, and the share of generalist and specialist practices are about half-and-half. Second, unlike the U.S. health care industry, generalist physicians in Korea usually practice a number of different fields, while specialist physicians focus on their own specialties. Third, patients in Korea do not usually distinguish between generalist and specialist offices, and they do not usually have a primary care physician. As a result, patients can easily switch between physicians, and in fact the switching is highly likely, as all medical information is centralized by government. Our main findings are as follows. First, we find that competition has a positive effect on generalist performance, while it has a negative effect on specialist performance. Specifically, we find that generalist benefits from competition with both generalist and specialist, while specialist suffers from the competition with both specialist and generalist. As competition becomes intense, meaning the number of physician offices increases, it would attract more patients to visit the area where physician offices are clustered (clustering effect), while it becomes easier for patients to switch from one to the other nearby offices. In particular, as generalist usually treats multiple fields (specialties), generalist tends to benefit from the patients who switch from specialist. In other words, generalists benefit from competition, as they free ride on clustering of physicians including specialists, while specialists would suffer from competition. Second, our findings show that as the competition becomes more intense, its effect on business performance becomes weaker. That is, a high level of competition weakens the benefits and damages imposed on the performance of generalist and specialist, respectively. When there are more physician offices to switch, the effect of free riding becomes weaker, as patients have more options to choose from. Thus, the benefit of generalist from free riding becomes weaker, as well as the negative effect on specialist performance. Moreover, our findings suggest that market environmental factors do influence the business performance. Specifically, the performance of both generalist and specialist improves as the number of doctors increases. However, an increase in the number of nurses has a different effect on generalist and specialist. Employing a larger group of nurses has a negative effect on generalist because it might cause the operation of the office to be less efficient. However, since specialist’s practice usually involves a more technical and sophisticated processes, a larger group of nurses could make the office more efficient having a positive impact on the sales performance. Similarly, we find the effects of other environmental factors have differential impacts on the performance of specialist versus generalist.

본 연구는 기업의 이사회 구조 및 이사의 특성이 연구개발투자에 미치는 영향을 파악하는데 목적을 두고 있다. 95개 한국 상장기업을 대상으로 실증 분석한 결과, 이사의 인구통계학적 특성이 기업의 연구개발투자에 유의미한 영향을 주는 것으로 나타나, 이사회 내 이사의 평균연령이 낮고 과학⋅공학 전공자와 해외학위 소지자가 많은 경우 기업의 연구 개발투자가 활발히 발생함을 알 수 있었다. 특히 이러한 영향은 사외이사 보다는 사내이사에 서 더욱 크게 발생하여 사내이사를 중심으로 이루어지는 한국의 이사회 운영을 짐작하게 하였다. 또한 이사회 힘의 강화는 전체 이사의 인구통계학적 특성이 연구개발투자에 미치는 영향력을 전반적으로 강화해주기 보다는, 사내이사의 인구통계학적 특성이 미치는 영향을 약화 시키는 것으로 나타났다.

The aims: This study aims to elucidate workers’ compensatory accident insurance purchasing behavior, as well as proposing a model to explain the behavioral intentions of front-line workers to purchase compensatory accident insurance. The scope: The workers of the container terminal in the Kaohsiung port were used as the sample in this study. Methodology: A questionnaire survey was administered to collect workers’ perceptions of accident insurance. The analysis methods of EFA, CFA and SEM were employed for further analysis. Conclusions: According to a primary component factor analysis, three dimensions of insurance perception were found: perceived risk; perceived need for accident insurance; and perceived usefulness of accident insurance. The findings indicate that perceived risk, perceived need, and perceived usefulness of accident insurance positively affect the intention to purchase accident insurance. It is also found that perceived need constitutes the major factor affecting the intention of front-line workers to purchase accident insurance. However, perceived need is determined to play both a mediating and modulating role in the insurance behavior evaluation process model.

온라인 상거래가 일상의 한 행위로 자리 잡은 요즈음 오프라인 채널과 온라인 채널 간의 간극이 점점 좁혀지고 있다. 즉, 종전에는 오프라인 상에서의 소비자 구매행위와 온라인상에서의 소비자 구매행위가 판이하게 달랐으나 온라인상에 서의 다양한 상거래가 보편화되면서 이제는 온라인상에서의 구매행위에 대한 연구가 활발하게 이뤄지고 있다. 그러나, 아직도 오프라인상에서의 신뢰가 온라인 구매행위에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구가 피상적인 수준에 머물러왔다. 이에 본 연구에서는 기존 연구의 한계를 극복하기 위하여 개인이 느끼는 뉴로티시즘 성향이 온라인상에서 사용자가 느끼는 불확실성, 거래비용, 그리고 만족 및 지속구매의도에 미치는 조절효과를 체계적으로 분석하고자 한다. 406부의 유효한 설문지를 토대로 분석한 결과, 사용자가 느끼는 거래비용은 온라인쇼핑 지속구매의도에 부의 효과를 미치고 있지만, 만족에는 통계적으로 유의한 영향을 미치지 않는 것으로 나타났다. 또한, 사용자가 가지고 있는 뉴로티시즘 성향은 온라인쇼핑 지속구매의도와 그 영향 요인들 간의 모든 관계에서 유의한 조절효과를 보이고 있는 것으로 나타났다.

예이츠의 희곡 캐스린 니 훌리한이 사람들을 거리로 내몰아 총을 맞 게 했든 아니든, 이런 주장을 하거나 자신들의 작품의 영향력에 대해 같은 주장을 하 는 사람들의 수에 주목할 만하다. 본고는 동일한 주제로 쓰여 진 일련의 당대 작품의 맥락에서 1916년 부활절봉기에 관한 예이츠의 주요작품들을 검토하여 아일랜드의 혁 명기에 글과 칼 사이의 관계를 연구한다. 지금까지 평론에서 소외되었던 작품들은 새 로운 맥락을 형성하는데, 이것으로써 부활절봉기 대한 예이츠의 논란이 많은 글들을 재점검한다. 다양한 스타일과 기교로 된 이 글들은, 예이츠 자신의 글에 대한 생각을 엿볼 수 있는, 역사의 물줄기를 바꾼 시의 힘을 보여준 일련의 글의 무리를 형성한다.

Worldwide, more than 1/3 of all e-commerce transactions in business-to-consumer industries are nowadays executed via mobile devices (Criteo, 2015). Despite its increasing importance, it can be noted that mobile commerce does not seem to “take-off” equally across diverse goods and services contexts. We observe, for instance, that mobile commerce is quite common in service industries for purchasing tickets (e.g., for flights, public transportation, and sport events), while it is less common for services such as financial products. Balasubramanian et al. (2002) addressed this issue and proposed that contexts of m-commerce differ from each other with regard to several characteristics. For example, they propose that location sensitivity (among other characteristics) differs for various m-commerce applications, and that this characteristic may impact acceptance of m-commerce across industries. It may be that acceptance of m-commerce is higher in some industries since use of location sensitive data is appreciated by customers, while it is not valued in other purchasing contexts. Against this background, we propose that examining (1) risk perception related to mobile commerce and (2) different types of mobile commerce applications are essential for gaining a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of differing relevance of m-commerce across industries. In particular, our study acknowledges the differential roles of the financial, performance, and security facets of risk. In addition, we assume that the role of value and risk dimensions differs subject to three mobile commerce application characteristics which are location sensitivity, time criticality, and extent of control. Based on a dataset of 800 respondents, results of our models demonstrate that especially security risk can act as a critical inhibitor of acceptance. The extent to which performance risk and financial risk impact perceived usefulness was found to be moderated by the three contextual characteristics. From a managerial perspective, results show which factors should deliberately be considered in the development of m-commerce applications, and in which different application contexts they matter.

Women aged between 36 and 55 are the main players in the cosmetics market in Taiwan in recent years. Particularly, the sector of anti-ageing cosmetics has grown continually with the support of women at the ages, who have stronger purchasing power than others. Furthermore, the changes of the channel structure in Taiwan have an impact on cosmetics consumption. Department stores have been the leaders of the high-end cosmetics market for a long time. Nevertheless, Taiwanese middle-aged women no longer only purchase cosmetics products in the department stores, but also shop around the pharmacy chain stores, like Cosmed, Poya and Watsons, which expand rapidly in Taiwan recently, buying OTC (Over-the-counter) cosmetics brands and products. It is convenient for women to attach with cosmetics products since the widespread shops available for consumers to pop in and consume a wide range of cosmetics products with more affordable prices (Kantar Worldpanel, 2013). The current research examines the cosmetics shopping and consumption of middle-aged women in the Taiwanese cultural context. The phenomenological interviews were conducted with a purposive sampling with 6 Taiwanese middle-aged women ranging in age from 40 to 60, who used cosmetics on a daily basis, varied in duration, between 1 to 2 hours. The sample size is kept deliberately small as phenomenological interviews are designed to elaborate the richness (Baker et al., 1992) of individuals’ lived experiences, feelings and perceptions of cosmetics consumption. Each interview was conducted online using the social media, Skype, through a webcam. The purpose of the interview was described to the informants as an exploration of women’s cosmetics consumption and how it affected their experiences in their daily lives. They were encouraged to share their own experiences freely. The unstructured interviews started with a question, “What comes to your mind when speaking of cosmetics?” enabling participants to start the dialogue with their most familiar topics and be free to define the meanings of cosmetics in their own words (Liu et al., 2012). In the process of data analysis, 6 principal themes emerged to give more explanations in detail of how middle-aged women in Taiwan strategically manipulate cosmetic shopping to construct, maintain, change, and give meanings to the sense of self in transformational levels during their lifetime course. In addition, due to the widespread of pharmacy stores in recent days, it is found that the middle-aged women’s had changed their shopping behaviours in accordance with the change of retail stores. For example, Karen likes to shop around the pharmacy stores looking for open counter brands which are made in Japan and buying products with the signs showing that are ranked number 1, instead of shopping at the department stores, where she used to go. Moreover, Amy also likes to go to the pharmacy stores which are close to where she lives. There are many new-opened stores, such as Cosmed, Watsons, and Poya rapidly expanded in the rural area that make it more convenient for residents to shop in. She also prefers to buy facial cleansing products which are made in Japan and ranked number 1. As the structure of channel and lifestyle have changed with time, consumers’ cosmetics consumption is changing as well. The research finds that wearing cosmetics has become habits for the Taiwanese women aged between 40 and 60 since they have been using cosmetics for more than 20 years. The meaning behind their “used-to habits” with cosmetics is that consumer’s possessions - cosmetics, have become their extended self and being strategically manipulated to accompany them experiencing through every path of their lives, including pursuing their ideal, hoped-for possible selves, escaping from their negative, feared possible selves, managing their relationship with the social self, and developing their past-present-future self within the historical context.

Luxury brand marketers have recently turned their attention to luxury brand consumers and their social brand communities devoted to the brands. Luxury brands appeal to customers by enhancing their images regarding heritage, quality, and artistic value. Luxury fashion brands also establish social media communities to communicate their images more effectively. This study uses the key concepts of integration and interactivity to provide theoretical foundations to investigate luxury brand communities (LBCs) in the social media context. A survey was given to 252 members of Facebook fan pages for luxury brands from South Korea. This study examines effects of interaction as a process on perceived interactivity of LBCs in social media, and consequences, attitude, purchase intentions, and brand loyalties, hence offering implications for luxury brand management academics and practitioners

Introduction The term “coping”refers to the actions or thoughts that people use to deal with stressful encounters (Folkman, Lazarus, Gruen, & DeLongis, 1986). Coping strategies are adopted to change the stressed person-environment relationship by either confronting and/or by regulating the emotions (Lazarus & Folkman, 1987). Research focusing on coping mechanisms has been a prolific area of study, emerged from a wide range of disciplines including psychology, sociology, and anthropology. However, for marketing researchers, questions still remain about the issue of how coping strategies are manifested in everyday consumption contexts. This represents an important area of research in that consumer coping behavior can determine critical post-purchase outcomes such as re-patronage intention, repurchase intention, and word of mouth (Raghunathan & Pham, 1999). When a service failure occurs, consumers frequently experience negative emotions and make decisions under emotionally taxing conditions (Yi & Baumgartner, 2004). Numerous scholars have made attempts to understand various consumption-related emotions and subsequent conditions corresponding to them (e.g., Raghunathan & Pham, 1999; Richins, 1997; Sujan et al., 1999). However, despite the large volume of studies focusing on consumer emotions, very few studies have examined the relationships between negative emotions with consumer coping strategies (Yi & Baumgartner, 2004). With that in mind, the primary aim of this conceptual paper was to propose a model that delineates consumer coping mechanisms derived from negatives emotions in a service failure and recovery context. Conceptual Model Coping strategies are closely linked with an individual’s attempt to manage a given stressful environment (Lazarus, 1991). Lazarus and Folkman (1984) defined coping as “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person”(p. 141). Menaghan (1983, p. 159) defined coping efforts as “specific actions (covert or overt) taken in specific situations that are intended to reduce a given problem or stress.”Duhachek (2005) defined coping construct as “the set of cognitive and behavioral processes initiated by consumers in response to emotionally arousing, stress inducing interactions with the environment aimed at bringing forth more desirable emotional states and reduced levels of stress.”Thus, the key aspects of coping includes a consequence of emotion, a dynamic process, and behavior and emotional domains of consumer responses (Duhachek, 2005). Implicit in this conceptualization is the idea that links the emotions aroused from a particular circumstance, coping strategies, and subsequent behaviors. As shown in Figure 1, our conceptual model classifies a wide range of negative emotions generated by a service failure that are linked to a set of consumer coping strategies. This will in turn influence subsequent consumer post-purchase behaviors. The behaviors will be either retaliatory (vindictive WOM, brand switching, complaining) or conciliatory (positive WOM, re-patronage intention, repurchase intention) responses. Related Literature When an individual encounters a stressful event, different negative emotions are triggered according to one’s distinct appraisals of the situation (Lazarus, 1991). These appraisals, in turn, affect how the consumer responds to the situation emotionally and behaviorally. These emotions remain powerful until the emotion eliciting problems are resolved. Proposition 1. Cognitive appraisal of the service failure situation evokes negative emotions. While some studies use combined negative emotions to explain resultant consumer behavior, others suggest separate emotion inventories (Lerner & Keltner, 2001) as different emotions trigger huge variation in cognition. Consumer negative emotions that are associated with a service failure condition can be categorized into several subsets (Watson & Clark, 1992). Many studies have utilized a limited number of negative emotions to explain consumer behavior in a service failure context (Nguyen & McColl-Kennedy, 2003). Bonifield and Cole (2006) used an appraisal-tendency framework to predict the underlying mechanism of anger and regret, associated with consumers’appraisals about service failure and their effects on post-purchase behaviors. Yi and Baumgartner (2004) focused on four negative emotions of anger, disappointment, regret, and worry in a purchase context to investigate their linkages to consumer coping strategies. Further, Tronvoll (2011) identified a set of negative emotions experienced in unfavorable service experiences leading to consumer complaint such as shame, sadness, fear, anger, and frustration. Although some marketing theorists consider the emotion of frustration to be an overlap with anger, they can be distinct emotions, especially in the context of service failure, because blaming someone else is different from blaming no particular others (Roseman, 1991). Therefore, the subsequent behavior and adapting coping strategy may differ. Thus, this study distinguished frustration separated from anger. Building on the aforementioned research, this study identified five different categories of negative emotions that are frequently found in a purchase-related situation: anger, frustration, disappointment, regret, and anxiety. Anger associates with feeling of attacking someone or yelling, resulting from an individual to be blamed on of the situation (Lazarus, 1991). Frustration tends to occur when people attribute a goal incongruent event to situational factors (Roseman, 1991). Disappointment refers to the feeling occurred due to the outcome insufficient to meet the expectation (Ortony et al., 1988). Regret is evoked when alternative option seems to be better than the selected one (Zeelenberg et al., 1994). Anxiety is linked to uncontrollable circumstances that are not directly under the purview of the provider or the customer (Ruth, Brunel, & Otnes, 2002). Proposition 1-1. Consumer negative emotions associated with a service failure situation are categorized into anger, frustration, disappointment, regret, and anxiety. Appraisal theorists contend that people use different coping strategies to reduce negative emotions accordingly (Lazarus 1991). In this study, consumer coping strategies were categorized into engagement (problem-focused, emotion-focused) and disengagement categories. Coping strategies in the engagement category involves individuals actively trying to manage, control, or change both problem- and emotion-focused aspects of the stressful person and/or environment transaction (Tobin et al., 1989). Problem-focused coping occurs when an individual tries to manage the source of the stress. Emotion-focused coping refers to where the individual changes the meaning of the event or regulates the expressing emotions (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). In the disengagement category, mental disengagement strategy involves doing other things to take one’s mind off the problem, denial (refusing to believe that something has happened), distancing (refusing to think about the problem), and escape/avoidance (wishing problem would go away or somehow be over with). On the other hand, behavioral disengagement strategy involves consumers deciding to give up further action as nothing can be done about the situation. They acknowledge that a goal cannot be reached and that further efforts are futile. As the mechanism behind each type of coping strategy differs, the negative emotions generated from varying conditions are linked accordingly. Since anger arises from appraisals of other-responsibility, angry consumers often manifest in confrontive coping, aggressive action towards the blameworthy organization (Smith & Bolton, 2002). With respect to frustration, one is more likely to foster support-seeking coping as this does not imply blame attribution to a particular person or organization (Roseman, 1991), Further, previous work has suggested that person-related disappointment tends to result in confrontive coping behaviors such as direct complaining (Zeelenberg & Pieters, 2004) and behavioral disengagement (Yi & Baumgartner, 2004). On ther other hand, complaining about it or telling others is unlikely take place for regret as this may highlight he or she mistake (Zeelenberg & Pieters, 2004). Lastly, anxiety tends to be associated with escape behaviors (Roseman, Antoniou, & Jose, 1996). Thus, anxiety consumers often are linked with emotion-focused coping such as mental disengagement. In addition, more proactive, problem-focused coping is likely to take place as stated in some other studies (Yi & Baumgatner, 2004). Proposition 2. Negative emotions have differential impacts on consumer coping strategies. Service failure literature indicates that negative emotions influence diverse retaliatory responses. Romani Grappi and Dalli (2012) contended that negative emotions of anger, discontent, dislike, embarrassment, sadness, and worry are associated with behaviors such as switching, complaining, and negative word of mouth. Maute & Dubé(1999) also indicated that customer anger is liked to exit and negative WOM. Likewise, Blodgett et al. (1999) similarly suggested that consumers are prone to spread negative word of mouth when they perceive service failure. However, even if a particular coping strategy is activated, depending on the strategy applied, the subsequent behavior can be changed. Many researchers indicated that when a service failure is not recovered, it is more likely to lead to negative WOM and complaining behavior (Anderson, 1998). Especially, WOM behavior is more emotion-driven responses (Sundaram, Mitra, and Webster, 1998). Therefore, vindictive WOM behavior is more likely to occur when the emotions are not handled properly. In addition, Kau and Loh (2006) stated that dissatisfied customers who do not directly complain to the firm about their negative experiences may not only engage in vindictive word of mouth behavior, but also switch to another brand. Sabharwal, Soch and Kaur (2010) also suggested that dissatisfied non complaints are likely to exit the service provider more easily resulting in brand switching. Bonifield and Cole (2007) identified conciliatory behaviors to include positive WOM, willingness to return to a service provider, and feeling sympathy for the service provider. Blodgett et al. (1993) suggested that when service failure is recovered, positive word of mouth will take place. Voight (2007) revealed that when certain platform is provided for customers to express their feeling regarding their purchase, customer loyalty increases. Proposition 3. Coping strategies lead to either retaliatory responses or conciliatory responses. Proposition 3-1. Disengaging coping strategies are associated with vindictive WOM, brand switching, complaining behavior more than engaging coping strategies. Proposition 3-2. Engaging coping strategies are associated with positive WOM, re-patronage intention, re-purchase intention. Additionally, our model proposes two individual characteristics as moderators: self-efficacy and self-band connection. Especially, those with high self-brand connection are assumed to counter-argue negative brand information in a service failure situation as this concept captures a strong “self”relevant emotive tie between the brand and the consumer (Escalas, 2004). We contend that these consumers would use prior brand knowledge to neglect their negative emotions and make more brand favoring attributions following service failure. Therefore, depending on the the previous connection with the brand performing the service failure, corresponding coping strategy may change. As self-efficacy relates to the belief that an adequate coping response is available, both factors should relate to the strategies consumers use to cope (Sujan et al., 1999). Proposition 4. Individual characteristics such as self-efficacy and self-brand connection moderates the relationships between negative emotions and coping strategies. Conclusions This paper integrates a broad range of literature into a conceptual framework that delineates consumer coping strategies in a service failure and recovery context. In so doing, the model establishes clear categories for classifying negative emotions consumers experience in a service failure situation into testable elements, and it is argued that although the concept of coping is not a simple one, it should be central to any examination of the service failure and recovery phenomenon. Also, the proposed model considers where marketers’recovery efforts should be directed by describing the ways in which consumers cope with a service failure. How a firm responds to its customers when a service failure occurs can say more about that firm than any other customer interaction. If handled well, it can cultivate emotionally intense relational outcomes. However, if the firm handles the situation badly, it may cause highly negative reactions with customers taking their feedback to online reviews and social media conversations in a way that can seriously damage the firm’s reputation. Future research is needed to empirically test and extend the proposed model. Further empirical research in a particular service setting would advance marketing research as well as be of great managerial significance.

This study examines the influence of culture on consumers’ behavioral responses after an exposure to negative information, including their intention to search information and to spread the negative word-of-mouth. The study finds that the degree of collectivism and uncertainty avoidance had a significant and positive relationship towards the intention to search and intention to spread negative word-of-moth. Results show a significant and negative relationship between power distance and information search under the high severity scenario but a positive relationship between power distance and negative word-of-mouth under the low severity scenario.

Academic researchers have conceptualised and studied consumer-brand relationship and individual-place relationship in parallel in branding literature and environmental psychology research. As a construct that describes the strength of the bond connecting an individual with an entity, attachment receives great attention, due to its potential in affecting behaviours that may assist in marketing and promoting this entity (not limited to repeat purchase) (Park, MacInnis, Priester, Eisingerich, & Iacobucci, 2010). For example, research in branding literature finds that the strong attachment to a brand indicates a private relationship between consumers and brands and further leads to developmental commitment (Fournier, 1998), energetic word-of-mouth behaviour (Sommerfeld & Paulssen, 2008), and apparently loyalty (Thomson, MacInnis, & Park, 2005); in internal marketing studies, brand commitment is found influencing employees’ brand citizenship behaviour intentions (e.g. Morhart, Herzog, & Tomczak, 2009); research on brand ambassadors explores how they would influence other potential consumers in a general consumer-to-consumer (C2C) communication context, (e.g. Keaveney, 1995; Lovelock, 1983); in resident studies, Chen, Dwyer, & Firth (2014a) find that attachment may motivate word-of-mouth (WOM) to promote a place as a tourism destination. On one hand, the similar concepts of brand attachment and place attachment are respectively developed and discussed from different paths, but on the other, researchers from brand studies and place studies have long invoked to apply findings from one to the other. For instance, Kavaratzis (2005) attempts to transfer marketing and branding knowledge to places; while some other researchers devote themselves in adopting the framework of place attachment in the study of the consumer-brand relationship to take advantage of its multi-dimensionality development (Chen, 2012). Regardless, the multi-dimension nature of this concept is explored in branding literature. For instance, Mittal (2006) suggests that consumers associate a brand to themselves because the personality of these brands also represents who they are (i.e., an identity basis); Fournier (1998) finds an emotional component that is highly relevant to both marketing academics and practitioners; etc. Nevertheless, little research on brand attachment develops a multi-dimensionality as complex as those in place studies (e.g. Kyle, Graefe, & Manning, 2005). The questions are: Is the multi-dimension nature of consumer-brand relationship the same as that of individual-place relationship? If not, to how much extent may researchers apply findings from these two research streams to the other? To fill in these research gaps, this study aims to test the dimensionality of place attachment on studying consumer-brand relationship, and to examine how dimensions of brand attachments affect consumers’ brand citizenship behaviours.A variety of disciplines have shown an interest in understanding the attachments that people form with places. The concept of place attachment is defined as “a positive connection or bond between a person and a particular place” (Williams & Vaske, 2003, p. 831). In environmental psychology, a number of researchers have attempted to conceptualise, understand, and measure attachment to interpret the individual–individual, individual–community, and individual–place bonding (e.g., Kyle, Graefe, & Manning, 2005). Research on place attachment can be divided into two streams: (1) The first stream of research (research in environmental psychology) considers place attachment as an outcome of an individual’s evaluation and attitude towards a place based on knowledge and experience with this place; (2) The second stream of research (research in interaction) ascribes the bond formed by an individual to a place to the meaning given to this object through interactional processes (Chen, Dwyer, & Firth, 2014b). In branding literature, Fournier and Alvarez (2012) suggest that the relationship between consumer and brand is highly alike to how one builds relationships between each other, which provides the ground of evidence to apply attachment (originated from studies on the child-mother relationship) in understanding consumer-brand relationship. Brand attachment can be defined as “a dynamic bond that illustrates the connection between consumers and brands” (Chen, 2012). Following Chen, Dwyer, and Firth’s (2014b) conceptualisation on place attachment, this study adopts the six-dimension framework of attachment and applies it in studying the consumer-brand relationship via brand identity; brand dependence, affective attachment, social bonding, brand memory, and brand expectation. In internal marketing literature, Morhart, Herzog, and Tomczak (2009) classify brand building/citizenship behaviours into three categories: retention, in-role citizenship behaviour, and extra-role citizenship behaviour. This framework of behaviours is applied in this research to explore consumers’ brand citizenship behaviours including retention, as well as WOM and proactive participation (equivalent to the extra-role citizenship behaviour). The relationships between dimensions of attachment and brand citizenship behaviours are established based on similar propositions in research in different disciplines. Many researches support this bond-behaviour relationship in different disciplines and research scopes. For instance, in tourism research, Choo, Park, and Patrick (2011) study and discuss residents’ voluntary behaviours to assist in promoting their resident place as a tourism destination, suggesting that residents would like to show hospitable attitudes and behaviours if they feel a sense of belonging and identify themselves with their places. A survey approach was employed to test the relationships between included constructs. Data was collected from different cities in China from November 2014 through March 2015. This study used a sample of 362 consumers who have used or are using Nike product. 62.4% of the respondents are male (consistent with the distribution of sports product consumers). Average age of the sample is 26.5, and the average length of brand usage is 8.87 years. Data was analysed using IBM® SPSS® Statistics 22 and IBM® SPSS® Amos 22 software. CFA was used to test the reliability and validity of the measurement, and SEM was applied to identify relationships among the constructs. The measurement of brand attachment in this study is adapted from Chen, Dwyer, and Firth’s (2014b) place attachment dimensionality and scales. Three three-item scales on one-to-one WOM, retention, and participation were replicated from Morhart, Herzog, and Tomczak (2009). One-to-many and many-to-many WOM measurements were respectively adopted from Hsu, Ju, Yen, and Chang (2007) and Lu, Lin, Hsiao, and Cheng (2010). CFA with maximum likelihood (ML) estimation was conducted to test the validity of the dimensionality of brand attachment. Due to the high correlations between several constructs, this measurement failed discriminant validity test. To enable further analysis, brand identity, affective attachment, and social bonding are combined as one single dimension (as Individual Attachment). Thereafter, a standard two-step SEM was run to identify relationships among the constructs in the hypotheses. A measurement model was first tested on the data to verify demonstrate convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of brand attachment (revised) and the other constructs (Byrne, 2001). Goodness-of-fit indices of both measurement and structural models reached an acceptance level. From data analysis, the frameworks on brand citizenship behaviours are supported by the statistics. However, the number of attachment dimensions is compromised in testing the consumer-brand relationship due to the high correlations between several dimensions. This implies that consumer-brand relationship is less complex than individual-place relationship and can be captured by a simplified dimensionality framework. In other words, the finding indicates a high complexity on the dimensionality of place attachment compared to brand attachment. The results suggest that simple replications of brand concepts in studying places may be problematic and biased, since aspects that are not significantly distinguished in brand attachment but important in place context may be overlooked. On this basis, branding researchers need to be cautious in studying phenomena in place and destination issues when applying classical branding and marketing theories. Similar evidence can also be found in several previous studies (e.g. Chen, Dwyer, & Firth, 2014b; Lee, Kyle, & Scott, 2012). As to the constructs included in this study, the factor loadings (all larger than 0.76) were satisfactory after combining brand identity, affective attachment, and social bonding as one construct, indicating a satisfactory degree of reliability. An alternative model (considering brand attachment as a second-order construct) is tested to explore the general indication from brand attachment to WOM, retention, and participation. This result also provides a theoretical and empirical basis for practitioners to finds means to motivate loyal and attached consumers on different behaviours which may benefit their brands. Specifically, Individual Attachment and Brand Memory are found to be significantly affecting different types of WOM behaviours. This is consistent with Chen, Dwyer, and Firth’s (2014) findings on the impact of place attachment on WOM behaviour in studying Shanghai residents. The results imply that for Chinese consumers, the stronger an individual identify a brand will influence the more he/she would “talk up” the brands. For branding managers, it is clear that an emphasis should be taken on enhancing the identify fit between their brands and consumers, as well as promoting a brand personality which is perceived popular and adoptable by consumers. Similarly, helping consumers to build brand community to interact and socialise with other consumer and stimulating consumers’ emotional arousal can help brands motivate consumers to “pass on the right word”, likewise creating unforgettable consumer experiences. Secondly, BAS and brand expectation are found to be influencing brand participation. This is consistent with the study on Chinese students’ attitude toward participation in tourism activities in Sydney by Chen, Dwyer,and Firth (2015). For brand managers, assisting in consumers’ identification process with the brand, creating socialising opportunities and receiving positive emotional responses from consumers via brand activity designs, as well as enhancing consumer’s confidence on the brand may attract consumers to be more actively involved in the branding process. Lastly, brand dependence and brand expectation are found to affect retention behaviour in this study, suggesting brands still need to emphasise on maintaining and constantly improving the quality of the product and the brand to take a better place in the competitive market. This remains the key to reduce consumer defections. Future research may be taken to (1) propose a refined dimensionality of brand attachment based on place attachment; and (2) compare consumers and brands in different cultures on what role attachment may play in motivating different brand citizenship behaviours.

Recent studies have shown that during the playing of violent online games, it is not increased aggression but rather alleviation in aggression that is critical in determining whether playing gaming has positive outcomes on the venting of aggression. Drawing from the aggression catharsis perspective and gaming research, we extend this line of investigation by exploring whether gaming results in a decrease in aggression, across a wide variety of games. Using data from a survey of 771 online game users in Korea, we examined the associations among Therapeutic Catharsis Seeking, Game Self-Efficacy, Big Five Personality Traits, Game genre (violent or nonviolent), Daily online gaming time, and Demographic variables. Results showed that therapeutic catharsis seeking and game self-efficacy decreased user aggression. Neuroticism negatively affected aggression while agreeableness enhanced the degree of aggression regardless of game genre. These findings have important implications for the use of gaming as a mood management tool.

The development of the law of self-determination has been stagnant in terms of scope and content in its application in the postcolonial context. It requires a new paradigm to persuade the United Nations, its specialized agencies and affiliated organizations to address current phenomenon regarding normative, institutional and community awareness. This research has revealed that the essential meaning of self-determination is a remedial means for an oppressed person both in colonial and postcolonial context. While the colonial context has ended, postcolonial self-determination remains focussed on both repairing the historical wrongs of the colonial context, responding to the breakdown of a state, and recovering from persistent violations against anyone in the State. Accordingly, this paper will contribute to the development of guidelines for these applications: which primarily refer to some degree of internal self-determination (autonomy); and when this proves unsuccessful, external self-determination (independent) can be proposed as the last resort.

Laufer, Elder, Hill, and Congdon (2004) proposed the vocabulary strength framework reflecting the process of vocabulary knowledge development with a hierarchical order of four strength modalities: passive recognition, active recognition, passive recall, and active recall. Employing this framework, the present study aims to empirically examine its generalizability to EFL contexts and further explore its availability to validating the TEPS vocabulary section. Three sets of web-based tests for three proficiency groups (beginner (n=37), intermediate (n=31), and advanced (n=30)) are developed with words from three frequency bands (3000, 5000, and 7000). The test includes four sections representing four strength modes and an optional TEPS section for the two upper groups. A one-parameter Rasch model analysis reveals that item difficulties agree to the hierarchical sequence of difficulty order in the framework. Different vocabulary growth rates were found across modes and word bands. The TEPS item difficulties that are closer to recall than recognition may give a theoretical account of the measuring construct that the TEPS items tap upon.