The purpose of this study was to explore what kinds of science communication are ongoing in formal and informal settings for learning about nuclear energy, which is very important issue domestically and internationally. The researchers collected and analyzed data from science textbooks at elementary and middle school levels, from exhibitions in Y informal hall that belongs to one nuclear power plant, and from 40 bestselling books about nuclear energy in order to explore the kind of science communication. The same process was used to explore Japanese case so that we could compare the results with Korean cases and draw implications for enhancing science communication about nuclear energy. The science communication of nuclear energy in Korea included implicit and indirect content espoused in science textbooks; two opposite views displayed in bestselling books, and positive aspects mainly displayed in exhibition of information hall in nuclear power plant. It is suggested that both direct and explicit science communication along with the neutral viewpoints including positive and negative ones be provided for the public to form a good understanding of nuclear energy

첨단 정보통신기술을 활용한 해양사고 감소를 위하여 국내외적으로 e-Navigation 관련 기술과 서비스에 대한 연구개발이 다양하게 진행 중이다. 이러한 기술과 서비스가 실제로 해상에서 사고예방에 기여하기 위해서는 선박에 관련 장비가 설치되어야 하며 법제적으로도 운영 조직과 시스템이 확충되어야 한다. 특히, 한국형 e-Navigation 사업으로 개발 될 초고속해상무선통신망(LTE-M망) 및 VDES, Digital-MF/HF 등 디지털 통신기술이 실행될 수 있도록 선박에는 관련 통신장비와 기술표준이 조속히 마련되어야 한다. 기존연구는 이러한 LTE-M에 대한 정책방안을 제시하지 못하는 문제점이 남아 있다. 본 연구에서는 한국형 e-Navigation의 효율적인 시행에 필요한 제도와 정책방안을 단기, 중기 및 장기로 나누어 식별하고, e-Navigation 핵심서비스, e-Navigation 통신망 및 운영시스템, e-Navigation 국제표준선도 기술 및 e-Navigation 서비스 활성화 분야에서 구체적인 방안을 제시하였다. 이를 위하여 해양수산부 주도로 추진 중인 한국형 e-Navigation 구축사업의 진도점검 자료에 기초하여 조사와 연구를 수행하였으며 관련분야 실무자 및 전문가들의 자문을 통하여 연구결론을 도출하였다. 본 연구의 결과로 제안된 정책들은 해양사고 저감과 해사산업 진흥 및 국민 안전을 위한 정부의 추가적인 정책 개발에 도움이 될 것으로 기대한다.

The main objective of this research was to probe the DLM-based teaching method for Korean students’ English communication skills. For this study, the corpus was made of Korean reading materials with 307 frequently used sentence patterns extracted. The present research employing a quasi-experimental design and a comparative analysis of Korean and English corpora revealed the followings: first, the difference between the DLM (experimental group) and the CTR (control group) was examined in terms of the pretest score in order to identify the students’ level of English productive skills. After the pretest, meaningful translation focused DLM was employed in the instruction of the experimental group but not in the instruction of the control group. After one semester of teaching, on the posttest, the students in the DLM group outperformed the students in the CTR group. In conclusion, it can be inferred that the DLM teaching method is effective for English productive skills and can be a good solution to our English education environments in which both teachers and students use Korean as a medium of teaching English.

가정에서 가족의 식생활을 책임지고 있는 주부들은 식품안전과 관련된 정보에 매우 민감하여 주부들에게 어떤 정보를 제공했을 때 안심하고 식품을 구매하는지를 알아보는 것은 매우 중요하다. 이 연구는 건강신념모형에서 건강행동을 촉진한다고 알려진 지각된 위협, 행동평가, 자기효능감 같은 요인들이 주부들의 실제 식품안전 인식과 행동에 얼마나 영향을 미치는지를 알아보기 위해 이루어졌 다. 본 연구는 191명의 가정주부를 대상으로 이루어졌으며, 건강신념모형의 주요변수인 지각된 이익과 지각된 장애, 자기효능감, 지각된 심각성과 지각된 개연성 그리고 식품안전 행동에 영향을 미친다고 알려진 건강지향성과 지식수준을 측정하기 위한 설문지가 사용되었다. 일반적 특성을 분석한 결과를 보면 교육수준이 높을수록 그리고 대도시에 살수록 식품안전에 대한 위협을 더 많이 느끼고 안전한 식품을 구매하려는 경향이 더 높았다. 또한 연구 변수간의 상관관계를 분석한 결과를 보면 안전한 식품에 대한 지식이 더 많을수록 그리고 건강에 대한 관심이 높을수록 상대적 이익이나 자기효능감도 높으며 그에 따라 안전한 식품을 구매하려는 경향이 높은 경향을 보였다. 한편 건강신념모형에 근거한 식품안전 행동에 대한 개념모형을 구조방정식분석으로 검증한 결과 적합한 모형 적합도를 보였으며 구매행동에 지각된 위협보다 지식수준과 상대적 이익이 큰 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 결과를 볼 때 주부가 안전한 식품을 구매하도록 돕기 위해서는 방송이나 신문 같은 공적 경로를 적극 활용하는 식품안전에 대한 정보의 지속적인 제공으로 지식수준을 높여주고 위해성 정보보다는 예방이 가능한 정보 제공으로 안전한 식품을 구매하려는 노력이 실제로 가정의 건강을 지키는데 도움이 된다는 점을 홍보해야 한다는 것을 시사한다.

Introduction The fashion business is known as one of the major industries that is suffering from rising concerns about the consumption of its product, which led to a reorganization of the fashion supply chain to become more sustainable three decades ago. The interest in the concept of sustainability and demand for sustainable marketing activities is gradually growing in the fashion industry due to the negative image and press it receives. Within the luxury fashion segment, the three main themes that are recognized to contribute to sustainability are exclusivity, craftmanship and limited production. However, luxury brands are increasingly shifting their attention and commitment towards environmental and social issues to be incorporated in the concept of sustainability. Yet, the majority of consumers has little understanding or misunderstands the concept of sustainable fashion and marketing, which leads to a gap between attitudes towards sustainability and actual behavior. As a result, fashion brands are trying to leverage their brand by making sustainability a key marketing strategy to raise awareness about social, environmental, economic and cultural issues. Extant research has not explored this recent trend to understand how consumers evaluate fashion brands with a sustainable marketing communication, especially in the context of luxury brands. This study investigates how luxury and mass fashion brands can utilize sustainable marketing contents in social media communication to reach their target group and enhance their equity with sustainability associations. Theoretical Development Associative network models of memory have served as a fundamental framework for a wide range of studies related to the formation and transfer of associations. According to associative network theory, brand knowledge is represented in form of an associative network of memory nodes connected to each other. Nodes are activated when cues, such as advertising, are presented. Mere exposure to cues was shown to be sufficient to active associations and facilitate association transfer. While brands are continuously attempting to make use of associative power to leverage brand equity, extant research has provided compelling reasons to accept that association transfer can also result in brand dilution when a retrieval of conflicting or negative associations occurs. Especially in the context of luxury brands consisting of very unique associations and being different from mass brands in many regards, managing the brand’s associative network is a crucial task in order to send the right signals to consumers and maintain exclusivity. This study investigates how social media communication of different sustainability dimensions affects brand attitude and how it ultimately impacts behavioral outcomes in an attempt to build brand equity for mass and luxury fashion brands. Method and Data The hypotheses are tested with 273 respondents who participated in an online experiment. They were first asked to state their involvement with the category fashion. Subsequently, subjects were presented with a brand post either for the mass or luxury brand including claims related to one of the four sustainability dimensions or no claims for the control group respectively. The experiment consisted of a 2 (brand: mass or luxury) x 5 (sustainability dimensions: none, cultural, economic, environmental, social) factorial design. The measures that followed included attitudinal as well as behavioral constructs related to the brand, sustainability as well as social media use. Analysis of covariance is applied to test for main effects and interaction effects. Summary of Findings This study provides evidence that social media communication of a sustainable brand affects the purchase intention of consumers. The findings indicate a significant difference between the mass and the luxury brand used for this study. The mass brand exhibits the potential to leverage associations with cultural, economic, and environmental sustainability. However, the results only reveal a marginally significant higher purchase intention when cultural sustainability is communicated compared to when the brand does not provide any sustainable associations. In contrast, the luxury brand suffers from significant brand dilution across all four sustainability dimensions resulting in a decline in purchase intention. Key Contributions The findings reveal that sustainability communication exerts a diverging influence depending on the type of brand that is involved. This study suggests that mass brands are able to benefit from sustainability communication in an attempt to leverage brand equity. However, for a luxury brand this type of associations rather presents a liability that might dilute the brand. The findings of this study provide important insights for brand managers. Since mass brands are currently increasing efforts into sustainable communication in the fashion industry, the results suggest that this might be a promising investment. However, luxury brands are advised to carefully manage the communication of salient content related to sustainability as it might harm the invaluable and unique associations inherent in a luxury brand.

Online reviews enable brands to promote their products by means of word-of-mouth communication. In an e-commerce environment, user-generated customer feedback, as a form of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), is a crucial source of information in the prepurchase stage as many customers base their purchase decision on feedback from other customers. eWOM is perceived as a reliable source of information and has become especially important in an online environment (Chevalier & Mayzlin, 2006; Li & Zhan, 2011). Existing research has shown that customer feedback positively influences sales (Chevalier & Mayzlin, 2006; Forman, Ghose, & Wiesenfeld, 2008; Ha, Bae, & Son, 2015). Yet, only very limited research on how to communicate customer feedback to maximize a company’s top-line growth has been conducted (Packard & Berger, 2017). In this study, we aim to fill this gap by investigating how numerical customer feedback metrics should be communicated to attract new customers. Using an experiment, we empirically investigate which of the two widely established numerical customer feedback metrics, a customer recommendation rate or a customer satisfaction rate, is better suited to attract new customers and hence stimulate company growth. The impact of the stimulus on the purchase process is measured by means of three different dependent variables to imitate the hierarchy of a purchase decision: consumers’ interest towards the ad, their attitude towards the product shown in the ad as well as their purchase intention. Furthermore, we include several moderating factors, which have proven to be relevant when looking at online reviews, namely product type as well as consumers’ motivation and ability to process persuasive communication (Gupta & Harris, 2010; Klein, 1998; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).

The paper presents the longitude study of Internet technologies introduction into business model. Rapid spread of Internet technologies has a significant impact on the business models transformation. Today, information technology has become an integral part of communication with customers. In 2017 the penetration rate of the Internet in Russia reached 73%. Thus, almost 3/4 of the population is currently Internet users and be reached online. On the one hand, Internet communication speeds up and simplifies the processes; on the other hand, the key competitive advantage of direct selling business model is blurred. For ages business model was based on direct interpersonal contacts between the distributor and the customer. In this business model relationship creates more value than the product itself [Luk, Fullgrabe, Yi, 1996] and face-to-face meeting is the key descriptor [Sanan, 1997]. Direct selling is cultivated through relationships and provides customer-centric marketing opportunities [Harrison, Hair, 2017]. The question of this study is whether introduction of innovative Internet technologies into communication with customers is beneficial for traditional direct selling business model. Empirical research is based on comparative analysis of data from three survey waves (6380 respondents in 2011, 5638 respondents in 2014 and 6800 respondents in 2017). Effectiveness of Internet usage the for communicate with customers was analized in dynamics over the three waves of 2011, 2014, 2017. Using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) method 15 (fifteen) hypotheses were checked. Nine (9) out of 15 (fifteen) hypotheses were confirmed. Research revealed that personalization determines the effectiveness of communication with customers via internet-based tools (e-mail, web site, social networks, professional social networks, video channels, blogs, microblogs, videoconferences and webinars, messaging applications and files). Nevertheless, face-to-face communication remains significant communication channel for success in direct-selling

Introduction Recently, the popularization of mobile devices has been changing the pattern of customers’ life. In the online market, the distribution market has been also expanding from PC-based online to mobile shopping using smart phones. As the shopping market using mobile has grown rapidly in the developing smart age, the interest of home shopping is moving toward mobile media. Through the home shopping company's web site and mobile application, live broadcasting, real-time communication service, and other customers’ review are performed at the same time. Home shopping customers who have questions or inquiries about products are meeting salespeople through home shopping mobile application and real-time communication service. The significance of this study is to present effective strategies for connecting live home shopping and real-time communication of mobile application, thereby enabling customers to make smart consumption. Through this service, home shopping company can perceive customers’ needs as well as form cocreation value with customers. In addition, home shopping company aims to provide a more useful and effective method in the process of providing real-time communication service by checking the form of customers participating in real-time communication service. Theoretical Development Although there are many prior researches on adaptive selling on salespeople in offline, research on effective sales strategies of live home shopping and real-time communication using application has not yet been conducted. Nowadays, many customers' purchasing methods are moving from offline to online. Therefore, by referring to similarities between virtual world and actual society in Internet space studied in many previous studies, we would like to find out whether the offline advantage of "adaptive selling tactics" in the sales field can be applied to on-line. Adaptive selling means changing sales behavior throughout the interaction or interaction with the customer based on perceived information about the sales situation. Salespeople need to change their sales behavior in order to meet each sales situation or individual customer's desires. Adaptive selling can be said to modify the communication style and content according to the customer's desire (Weitz, Sujan & Sujan, 1986; Spiro & Weitz, 1990). The main reason for the co-creation value activities of companies and customers is that the marketing paradigm is shifting from good-dominant logic to service-dominant logic (Lusch & Vargo, 2006). This means that new value creation areas of new product development are expanding as customers participate in various decision-making related to the companies (Payne, Storbacka & Frow, 2008). To realize the value proposition, a firm must co-create value with its customers by means of direct interaction (Grönroos & Voima, 2013). Research Design The contents of this study are as follows. First, we divide the adaptive selling strategies of salespeople in real life into live home shopping and mobile application roles, and then examine whether live home shopping and mobile application affect customer trust. In previous study, Frazier and Summers (1984) proposed six tactics – information exchange, recommendation, request, threats, promises, and legalistic pleas, and Richard et al. (2006) proposed another six tactics. Anderson and Weitz (1989) define trust as one party’s belief that its needs will be fulfilled in the future by actions undertaken by the other party. Second, we investigate the effect of customer trust on home shopping commitment relationship. Ganesan (1994) defined relationship commitment as the desire to develop stability of relationship, the belief that the relationship is sustainable, and the willingness to make short-term sacrifices to maintain the relationship. Through this process, we are able to confirm the possibility of replacing actual meeting with tool called online real - time communication. Third, we want to find out the effect of home shopping commitment relationship on brand commitment relationship. Even if the same brand product, we can know the effect of commitment relationship depending on home shopping company. Finally, we are going to find out how to create co-creation values with customers by real-time communication service to solve the questions and problems of customers immediately. The creation of co-creation values between customers and companies can increase the success rate of new product development that reflects the core needs of customers and reduce resources such as corporate marketing and R & D, which can ultimately serve as a driving force for creating sustainable competitive advantage (Vernette & Hamdi-kidar, 2013).

The essence of any successful personal selling interaction is effective communication. Evidence from research on personal selling has provided extensive support for the effectiveness of nonverbal communication. Nevertheless, an individuals’ nonverbal communication style is difficult to measure during a sales conversation, as it is “encoded and decoded unconsciously” (Stewart, Hecker, & Graham, 1987, p. 305). This research introduces wearable sensor technology as a novel and objective approach for measuring nonverbal behaviors (i.e., kinesics, paralanguage, and proxemics) in a sales context using sociometric badges (Kim, McFee, Olguin, Waber, & Pentland, 2012). Findings reveal that salespeople can improve their appeal by making use of a more dynamic communication style (i.e., enhanced posture activity and variation in speech and volume), as opposed to a rather static, adhesive, and monotone communication. We contribute to the sales literature by relating a salesperson’s nonverbal communication behaviors to customer responses. In addition, we reveal various implications for sales executives and offer guidance on how to improve their sales effectiveness and performance.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication is generally regarded as good and necessary to inform stakeholders of a company’s CSR deeds. However, research has recently uncovered the practice of “greenhushing” within the context of the hospitality industry (Coles, Warren, Borden, & Dinan, 2017; Font, Elgammal, & Lamond, 2017). Greenhushing means that companies de-emphasize green credentials and CSR activities. Going on holidays is an indulgent act that might result from people feeling they have earned some luxury, including behaving lavishly in terms of resource consumption and responsible behavior. Thus, curtailing this indulgent, irresponsible guest behavior without compromising a guest’s holiday experience is a key challenge for hotels. This paper explores whether the assumption that customers do not want to hear about CSR communication while on holiday is true from the customers’ side and what type of communication achieves to curtail unethical behavioral intentions. Based on 594 usable responses from an online survey, we undertake a moderation analysis with a multi-categorical antecedent variable (different communication stimuli), pro-environmental identity as a moderator and behavioral intentions for “unethical” behavior as a dependent variable using PROCESS 3.0 for SPSS (Hayes, 2018). The results provide partial support for our theoretical predictions.

Why are CEOs not active on social media? It is increasingly critical for CEOs to not only be physically present at work but also be virtually present in the digital sphere. However, many CEOs are still reluctant to adapt social media or struggle to find the efficient approach to incorporate the tools into their communication strategy. The study explores how CEOs orient themselves in the digital world and make sense of social media. In particular, based on the view of impression management and institutional work, the research examines how CEOs translate their understanding into communication and selfpresentation strategies and activities. The results from 31 in-depth interviews with Chinese and Dutch CEOs suggest that leadership communication on social media is still going through the process of legitimisation in both institutions. Despite the growing popularity of personal branding, most CEOs do not interpret social media as the outlet for their personal and private use or independent from the organisational identities. While most CEOs champion the necessity of digital transformation for their organisations, they do not see clearly how their personal digital habits could potentially influence the process, despite their leadership roles. They typically identify social media as the functional platforms for information circulation and network connection. Multiple narratives and orientations do, however, coexist and they dictate social media decisions simultaneously depending on the context. There is also a prominent difference between the narratives of social media in the Netherlands and in China. Most Dutch CEOs wish active engagement from the organisations but practice passive roles themselves, while most Chinese CEOs are active for both personal and organisational use pressured by the intuitional norms. The research highlights the significance of cultural context regarding leadership communication even on social media. Given most platforms are designed, and arranged to have an international audience, CEOs and companies should be aware of distinctive norms and beliefs they are operated in the different societal institutions.

Introduction In the last decade, the concepts of responsible or sustainable luxury (Vigneron & Johnson 2004; Bendell & Kleanthous, 2007; Kapferer, 2010; Janssen, Vanhamme, Lindgreen & Lefebvre, 2014) and digital or online luxury (Kim & Ko, 2010; 2012; Okonkwo, 2005; 2009; 2010; Mosca, Civera & Casalegno, 2018) have started receiving considerable attention, as separate areas of study. Scholarship shows that communicating CSR is more and more of a strategic decision (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001) that needs to balance promises and performances of social instances (de Ven, 2008; Pomering & Donilcar, 2009; Hur, Kim & Woo, 2014;) and to impact on the audience positively through content, placement and motives of CSR messages (Jahdi & Acikdilli, 2009; Du, Bhattacharya, & Sen, 2010). Furthermore, with the explosion of digital contents and use, communicating CSR is even more challenging and firms increase their exposure to judgments of their real conduct (Christodoulides, Jevons & Blackshaw, 2011). Luxury players make an interesting case of investigation for the digital CSR communication, as they are peculiar both in the use of the online and in the implementation and communication of CSR (Vigneron & Johnson 2004; Bendell & Kleanthous, 2007; Kapferer and Bastien, 2009; Janssen et al., 2014). Despite some exploratory researches underline that luxury consumers are not so likely to see consistency between luxury and CSR (Davies et al., 2012) and yet, the communication of those activities can turn their perception negatively (Torelli et al., 2012), latest findings from empirical studies on luxury consumers show a growing interest in the communication of sustainability on the online (Janssen et al., 2014). However, few studies consider how consumers react and modify their perception in regard to CSR messages spread online, within luxury markets. This research has twofold aims. Firstly, it investigates the state of the art of leading international luxury players‟ CSR digital communication through the application of a theoretical framework developed by the authors for qualitative analysis of digital CSR communication contents, placement and purpose. Secondly, it explores luxury consumers‟ perception over specific digital CSR communications in order to verify whether and if there is consistency between CSR digital communication and consumers‟ reactions within luxury markets as well as underline emerging peculiarities in the way CSR is – and is expected to be – communicated online by luxury players. Theoretical development Creating experiences on the online became the imperative for luxury players (Okonkwo, 2010). This need is strengthened by luxury consumers, who are more willing to take part in the process of sharing brands‟ values through the online platforms, in a challenging multi-channel logic (Rifkin, 2000; Mosca et al., 2013). Luxury players seem to strive more than others to modify and integrate their products offer and communication on the online, because they have to adapt to a “pop” culture without losing their unique character and exclusivity (Aiello & Donvito, 2005) that can be, as some scholars suggest, identified with certain characteristics of sustainability and social responsibility (Janssen et al., 2014). The main contribution of this study is to allow a convergence between “responsible luxury” and “online luxury” by advancing the theoretical understanding of digital CSR communication within luxury markets, in terms of peculiarities, customers‟ perceptions and effectiveness. Research Design The study makes use of a theoretical framework for qualitative evaluation of web CSR communication previously developed by the authors, that is, in the context of the present research, enriched to include a qualitative investigation of all digital CSR messages (including web and social media). Firstly, the study applies the framework to 100 International luxury brands (representative of the principal luxury fashion-related personal products categories) selected from luxury reports by Deloitte, Reputation Institute and Interbrand in order to qualitative evaluate contents, placement and purposes of digital CSR messages. The qualitative evaluation is developed by the authors through the identification of KPIs reflecting the themes emerged in the framework, analysis of their frequency and Chi square test. Secondly, the study involves 400 luxury consumers within mature markets, who are tested around their perception of digital CSR communication of luxury players. The investigation over their reactions and perception of digital CSR messages is conducted through an online questionnaire and several focus groups. Statistical regression model, t-stat and comparison among the responses provided by consumers through the survey are conducted to analyse responses and match the data. Results and Conclusion Results show the that majority of the investigated players are extensively considering CSR as a core digital strategy, pointing out the growing communication of luxury goods that increased sustainability and social responsibility throughout the whole supply chain. The investigation on customers‟ perception outlines some discrepancies between players‟ communication and customers‟ reactions, showing several cases of misjudgements. On the one hand, some players fails in achieving customers‟ expectations and the actual raking of their digital CSR communication does not match the level of given perception. On the other hand, some digital CSR communications succeeds in creating positive overreactions, despite having previously evaluated as the minimum requirement as for CSR implementation and communication. Accordingly, some suggestions to managers are developed, not just around the three considered attributes of digital CSR communication (content, placement and purposes) but also around the context of buying behaviours linked to the core business and the brand values, which can be, somehow, strongly associated with sustainability and social responsibility. In particular, it emerges that luxury digital CSR communication is expected to be an integrated strategy between online and offline channels, focused upon facts, numbers, performances and results of CSR that should show high coherency with the luxury core business.

Previous research has suggested that if WOM (word-of-mouth) receivers are exposed to a video message in which a person tell that he/she had great effort to earn money and purchase a desirable product, they feel benignly envious and increase WTP (willingness-to-pay) for the recommended product; if they are exposed to another message in which a person tell that he had no effort to earn money and purchase the product, they feel maliciously envious and increase WTP for a related, but different, product. However, it may not be true in the context of e-WOM (electronic word-of-mouth) through SNS (social networking sites). This research conducted three laboratory experiments in the context of e-WOM, unlike the context of face-to-face WOM. The results showed that: (1) receivers were less likely to feel maliciously envious to friends and increase WTP for the products; (2) receivers were less likely to feel maliciously envious if they are exposed to the message as a tool for marketing; and (3) receivers were less likely to avoid the recommended product even though they feel maliciously envious if they have any other measures of retaliation. With these findings, this research contributes to a progress in the field of e-WOM through SNS.

This study aims to assess the effectiveness of backstage storytelling in luxury brands’ social media communication and examine a psychological mechanism that elucidates how luxury brands’ backstage storytelling influences consumers’ attitudinal and relational outcomes. The theory of narrative transportation (Escalas, 2004) was employed as a theoretical lens. Focusing on the effects of visual storytelling in a social media platform, this study proposed that photos of a luxury brand’s backstage images offer a greater level of narrativity than staged images of products and models. Additionally, this study proposed VIP emotions and perceived intimacy as mediators between transportation to photo narrative and attitudes toward the brand, brand evaluation and self-brand connection. In addition, the effectiveness of social media for luxury brands’ visual storytelling was tested by testing the role of telepresence in viewers’ information processing. This study selects Instagram, a visual-oriented social media platform, as the study context; Chanel, a luxury fashion brand, was selected to develop the study stimuli. Two Instagram accounts for Chanel were created as study stimuli through a pre-test: one account with frontstage brand photos and one account with backstage brand photos. Students from two universities in the Southeast and Midwest were recruited and randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions, frontstage (n=118) or backstage (n=134) Chanel Instagram account. Manipulation checks confirmed that respondents perceived the experimental conditions as intended. Our results revealed that viewers in the backstage condition experienced higher levels of transportation than those in the frontstage condition; VIP emotions and perceived intimacy mediate the relationship between transportation and attitudes towards a brand’s Instagram, brand evaluations, and self-brand connection. Additionally, ANCOVA results confirmed the interaction effects of telepresence on transportation is significant only in the backstage condition. Findings from this study shed light on the effectiveness of luxury fashion brands’ visual storytelling in social media communication.

Introduction Social media communication has become a popular way for firms to engage with customers. Research shows that firms/brands engagement with fans or customers on social media is effective to improve brand equity (Kim & Ko, 2012), drive sales (eMarketer, 2015), and enhance both transactional and relational customer behaviour (Kumar, Bezawada, Rishika, Janakiraman, & Kannan, 2016). Given the influences of social media communication, how brands effectively engage with fans or followers on social media is an important question for marketers. Most research on this topic is from the applied psychology and consumer behaviour literature, whose theories and content are dominantly tested in laboratory setting. Very few research (e.g., Lee, Hosanagar, & Nair, 2017) applied real behaviour data of field settings to study this issue. Additionally, existent research primarily focuses on social media like Facebook and Twitter in developed counties. To our knowledge, no research examines global brands social media communications in developing country, like China. Due to the policy constraints, people in mainland China have no access to foreign social media platforms. There is a local social media platform in China, named Weibo. Weibo is a NASDAQ-listed company and has nearly 100 million active users monthly. Many brands, both global and local ones, have created Weibo accounts and keep engaging with their fans. For example, there are 1,452 luxury brands and 3,707 beverage brands or firms on Weibo (Weibo Data Centre, 2017). This paper focuses on global brands’ communication practices on Weibo. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how brand posts that global brands put on their social media page are correlated with fan engagement. By using real data form Weibo, we answer the following questions: (1) what attributes of brand posts on Weibo do affect fan engagement with global brands? (2) how do these attributes affect fans engagement behaviour (i.e. liking, sharing, and commenting) differently? Conceptual Framework We decompose the attributes of global brand social media posts into five aspects, which are proposed to affect fans engagement. The first two aspects, interactivity and vividness, are derived from computer-mediated-communication research (Frotin & Dholakia, 2005; Hoffman & Novak, 1996). The next two, informative and emotional attributes, are developed from the literature of advertising (Hong, Muderrisoglu, & Zinkhan, 1987; Geuens, Pelsmacker, & Faseur, 2011). The last one is localization-related attributes, which is from global marketing communication literature (Kanso & Nelson, 2002) to capture the special characteristics of global brand posts on a local social media platform. We argue that all these five aspects of global brand posts affect fans engagement on brand page. Fans engagement is conceptualized as fans behavioural response to brand posts, which will influence attitude and behaviour of other fans. There are three kinds of fans responses on brands social media page, i.e., liking, sharing and commenting. We do control the time and date of post issued, the text length of post, whether having celebrity in post, whether related to a remarkable event, the number of followers of brand on Weibo, and product category. Interactivity Interactivity is defined as “the degree to which two or more communication parties can act on each other, on the communication medium, and on the messages and the degree to which such influences are synchronized” (Liu & Shrum 2002, p.54). Interactivity requires two-way interaction between not only customers and companies, but customers themselves (Hoffman & Novak, 1996). Brand posts on Weibo differ in the degree of interactivity. Some posts only have text, picture, or video to deliver messages of brands, which has no possibility to interact with fans. Some posts include a link that fans can click to get more information, which enhances the interactivity of communication. Other posts have questions, which stimulate interaction with fans and followers. There are posts inviting people to indicate their like or comment on social media, which are considered as high interactivity as well. Advertising research has found the positive correlation between interactivity of ads and consumers’ attitude (Coyle & Thorson, 2001). De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang (2012) found interactivity of brand post on brand fan pages partially positively related to brand popularity (measured by number of likes and comments). Empirical research (Lee et al., 2017) using Facebook data showed that having links negatively associated with customer engagement, and having questions increased comments but reduced likings. For the inconsistent findings in the literature, we re-examine this relationship by focusing on global brands on a not well-examined Chinese social media, Weibo. Vividness Vividness refers to the format richness of the message (Daft & Lengel, 1986; Fortin & Dholakia, 2005). As for brand posts, vividness is reflected by the number of sensory dimensions and senses presented (text, colours, pictures, and videos, etc.). The degree of vividness influences what and how multiple senses are stimulated (Coyle & Thorson, 2001). For example, a picture post will activate more senses than a text post because the former has colour that stimulates sight more vividly than the later. Vividness is related to but differs from interactivity. Interactivity focuses on the characteristic of two-way interaction of the communication, while vividness stands for the multiple senses stimulated by the communication. Some advertising research found that a vivid web advertisement results in higher attention and more clicks (Lohtia, Donthu, & Hershberger, 2003). As a result, we differentiate vividness of each post and predict that more vivid post associated with higher customer engagement. A vivid post attracts more likes, shares and comments. Localization-related attributes Localization-related attributes are symbols that posts have reflecting the characteristics of local culture and people. The debate of globalization (standardization) versus localization has lasted several decades. Even though a global standardized marketing strategy saves money and gains scale economy, the localization approach (Keegan, 1969) is supported by the reality that each market has unique tastes. In the international advertising literature, some scholars found that many multinational firms “plan globally and act locally” (Blackwell, Ajami, & Stephan, 1991). “Global-local dilemma” exists when global luxury brands internationalize into the Chinese market (Liu et al., 2016). The marketing communication research found that it is not advised for global brands to use the same appeals and symbols in advertising across different countries (Kanso & Nelson, 2002). In other words, the combination of global advertising theme and local communication expertise can result in enhanced effectiveness. We propose, on Weibo, people are more actively engaged to like, share, or comment global brand posts when Chinese elements, such as Chinse handwriting, Chinese festivals, and Chinese celebrity spokespeople, are present. Informative attributes Besides interactivity and vividness, which capture the format characteristics of global brand posts, content-related attributes are associated with customer engagement as well. Informative content is an important side of content attributes. One important function of brand posts is to deliver messages to customers. Research shows that on social networks people tend to have positive attitudes towards informative ads (Taylor, Lewin, & Strutton, 2011). Global brand posts with specific information should result in higher customer engagement than less informative posts. Additionally, global brand posts on social media may have different types of marketing information, such as product, price, promotion and placerelated ones respectively. The posts with varying degree of informative content may change customer engagement as well. Emotional attributes Emotional attributes are another side of the content characteristics of brand posts besides informative ones. Advertising research shows that using emotion appeal in ads is an effective way to gain people attention and generate actions (Holbrook & Batra, 1987). Emotional connections between customers and brands are considered more stable than cognitive association (Heath, Brandt, & Nairn, 2006). Some scholars find that emotional appeal on banner advertising result in positive effects on click-through rates in both B2B and B2C contexts (Lohtia et al., 2003). Empirical research (Lee et al., 2017) on Facebook shows that perceived emotion in brand posts strongly boost users’ likes and comments. Similarly, we propose that emotional attributes of global brand posts on Weibo are correlated with fans engagement. We conceptualize emotional attributes with three elements, emotional tone, emotional icon and emotional core. Emotional core reflects the type of emotions, such as humour, happiness, and love, etc. Emotional tone stands for the strength of emotion, i.e. the emotion is weak or strong. Emotional icon refers to whether the content of posts has emotional symbols, which can take form of icons or net slangs. Research Design Operationalization Dependent variables Customer engagement is operationalized as three variables, the number of likes, the number of shares, and the number of comments of each global brand post. Independent variables Vividness. Vividness is operationalized as four categories standing for different vividness degree, text only, (text and) static picture, (text, static and) animated picture, (text, picture and) video. Interactivity. Interactivity is operationalized as five 0-1 variables, having link, having question, having invitation/incentive to like, having invitation/incentive to share, having invitation/incentive to comment. Localization-related attributes. This part is operationalized as four 0-1 variables, having Chinese culture image, having Chinese culture colour, having Chinese festival, and having Chinese celebrity spokespeople (we include celebrity as a control variable). Informative attributes. This part is operationalized as seven 0-1 variables, whether a post having information of (1) brand name, (2) promotion/trial, (3) price, (4) segmentation, (5) product lunch time, (6) purchase distribution, and (7) public relation event. Emotional attributes. This part is operationalized as three variables, (1) emotional icon, a 0- 1 variable, having emotional symbols or not, (2) emotional core, a categorical variable, different type of emotions identified by surveyed respondents, and (3) emotion tone, a scalerating variable from 1 to 3, standing for none, weak and strong emotion. Control Variables. There are five control variables, (1) time of posts, including date and hour; (2) length of posts, i.e., the number of Chinese characters; (3) celebrity, whether there is a celebrity in a post; (4) event, whether a post is related to a remarkable event; (5) the number of fans of brand, and (6) product category (3 dummy variables to differentiate four categories). Data We chose 6 global brands across five product categories, specifically, beverage (Coca-cola and Starbucks), cosmetics (Olay and L’Oréal), and sports (Nike and Adidas). All these global brands created Weibo account before 2012 and have cumulated a large number of followers. We select the posts from Sept. 1, 2016 to Feb. 28, 2017, within 6 months. This time duration is long enough to get analytical data. This period covers main Chinese traditional festivals, such as Mid-Autumn Festival, National Day, and Chinse New Year, which results in more variances in localization-related variables. Data were collected through two stages. The first stage was to download raw data from Weibo’s brand pages with Internet worm program directly. Each brand has its page which contains all posts it issued and the number of people’s likes, shares, and comments for each post. The second stage is to code content and get the final dataset. Most of 0-1 variables, such as interactivity, localization-related attributes, and informative attributes were coded by two research assistants. Variables of vividness were also coded by them. Variables of emotional attributes were coded by a survey to ask 500 Weibo users. This survey-based coded method is well applied in published research (e.g., Kumar et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2017). Model The three dependent variables, the numbers of likes (y1), shares (y2), and comments (y3), are count data with a Poisson distribution. As a result, the basic model is as following: 𝑦ij = 𝛼 + 𝑒𝑥𝑝(Σ3p=1 𝛽1p 𝑣𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑑pj + Σ5q=1 𝛽2q 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟qj + Σ4r=1 𝛽lr 𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑙rj + Σ7s=1 𝛽4s 𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑜sj + Σ3p=1 𝛽5t 𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑡tj + 𝛽6 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒j + 𝛽7 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟j + 𝛽8 𝑙𝑒𝑛j + 𝛽9 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑒j + 𝛽10 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡j + 𝛽11 #𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤j + Σ4u=1 𝛽12u 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑡uj) + 𝜀ij (1) Expected Results This research is among the first initiative to examine social media communication in China. We are still working on the data analysis so far. We intend to identify the influence of global posts on fans engagement, which are from not only the content of posts (informative and emotional attributes), but also the design of posts (vividness and interactivity), and especially the localization considerations. We expect to find that the content foci differ fans engagement. Posts of sales promotion should be more effective to enhance fans engagement than those of product demonstration. We can identify what form of posts stimulates fans participation more effectively. We will know whether a video post is more effective than a picture post. Most interestingly, we will know how the posts combined with Chinese cultural elements on social media are responded. For example, we could compare the difference between posts having foreign and local celebrity people. We will know how different customer engagement behaviour influence by the same characteristic of posts. We can identify the most influential factors to each of three customer responses (liking, sharing, and commenting). Comparing with the research using data from Facebook or other social media outlets, we can obtain implications guiding global brands to implement social media strategy across countries.

Using the framework of social support, we aim to examine factors influencing social Word-of-Mouth (WOM) adoption. The proposed research model will be tested among customers who are active in the existing active social media platforms and have had experience in engaging with the activities of luxury brand communications. Introduction Today the most promising communication environment for reaching and interacting with stakeholders is the social media ecosystem (Hanna, Rohm and Crittenden, 2011). The social media has grown so rapidly in the past years that now impact the business processes and models (Henning-Thurau, Hofacker and Bloching, 2103). Many Brands begin to take advantage of the fluidity between social media and WOM for creating brand experiences that merge real and digital conversations, cutting through in incredibly powerful ways. However, the recent research (Godey, Manthiou, Pederzopli, Rokka, Aiello, Donvito and Sigh, 2016) suggest that luxury brands performing well in social media engagement. However, they are often lagged behind in WOM performance. Despite growing interest in examining the influence of social media marketing on consumer’s responses through brand equity creation (Godey et al., 2016; Jim and Ko, 2012), studies about social media in luxury brand communications remain to be scarce. An investigation of customer’s motivation behind participation in social media is timely and relevant which can help luxury brands unleash its potential. Moreover, development of an effective social WOM adoption model can help to provide a better picture of consumer interactions in online luxury brands communities, thus strengthen customerfirm relationship in longer term. Specifically, this research intends to answer the following two questions: 1) What are the major determinants of social WOM adoption in luxury brands communications? 2) Whether social support affects a. perceived source credibility; b. perceived information quality; c. user experience? Literature review Social media interactivity The concepts of social exchange (Blau, 1964) and the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960) have long been used by Marketing researchers to describe the motivational basis behind customer behaviours and the formation of positive relational attitudes (e.g., Wulf; Gaby; Iacobucci, Dawn, 2001; Rafiq; Fulford and Lu 2013). More recently these concepts have been used to explain why customers enjoy interacting with each other in social media (Liang, Ho, Li and Turban 2012; Godey et al., 2016). Social media interactivity is social interaction of people in social networking sites by Web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook, Instagram (Hajli, 2016). For instance, Facebook has more than two billion monthly active users which is a great example of a platform. In fact, people love to interact with each other. When they favourite and like each other’s posts that would reinforce the closeness. Online social support Recent research has found that social interaction can bring social value to their users and that the social media is a powerful vehicle for an individual to build close relationships with others and to enhance the individual’s well-being (Liang et al., 2012; Eastin and LaRose, 2005; Obst and Stafurik, 2010; Shaw and Grant, 2002; Xie, 2008). Social support has been found to be a major social value that social media users can obtain from an online interactions (Eastin and LaRose, 2005; Obst and Stafurik, 2010; Huang, Nambisan and Uzuner, 2010). Social support is a multidimensional construct which refers to an individual’s experience of being cared for, being responded to, and being helped by people in that individuals’ social network (Cobb, 1976). Schaefer, Liang et al.(2012) claim that , online social support consists both tangible (e.g. instrumental and appraisal support) and intangible elements (e.g. informational and emotional support). Given the specific context, this study mainly focuses on the latter. Informational support refers to providing messages, in the form of recommendations, advice, or knowledge that could be helpful for solving problems. By contrast, emotional support refers to providing messages that involve emotional concerns such as caring, understanding or empathy. These two types of messages are the major support mechanisms for social interactions (Hajli, 2016). Antecedents of social WOM adoption Information adoption can be defined as the process of engaging purposefully in consuming information (Cheng and Thadani, 2012). Informational support provided through social interaction of individuals in social media can be in the form of ratings, review, recommendations or referrals. Therefore, when consumers search for information provided by other users to make a better decision for their purchasing, they are adopting information. From a marketer’s perspective, this process also helps to build long-term advocacy. This research argues that social media provides more opportunities to the individual to adopt WOM. The existing literature has identified several antecedents of social WOM adoption and most of these studies focused on travelling websites (Filieri; Alguezaui and McLeay,2015; Hajli, 2016). Beldad, De Jong, Steehouder (2010) have categorized the major antecedents of social WOM adoption in the literature into three categories namely customer-based antecedents (e.g. user’s experience during the social interactions); website based antecedents (e.g. perceived information quality) and company based antecedents(e.g. perceived source of credibility). Source of credibility is considered as fundamental predictors of consumers’ acceptance of a message in traditional WOM adoption (McGinnies and Ward, 1980). To facilitate the evaluation of credibility of a source, more and more social platforms require contributors to create a web profile upon their registration. Customers need to provide personal information (e.g. profile picture, personal preference). Furthermore, many social media website utilise reviewer reputation systems to enable customers to assess the credibility of reviewers. Zhang and Watt (2008) argue that the higher source credibility of message perceived in online social media, the higher level of information adoption would be. Moreover, the quality of information in online reviews is perceived as a very important cue for consumers to assess the website (Filierri, et al., 2015). Krishnan; Biswas and Netemeyer (2006) point out that concrete information provided by the website such as detailed features of the product/service is likely to be perceived as more credible than those from abstract information like peripheral description of the product/service. Finally, in marketing literature user experience is strongly related with trust (Yoon, 2002). In an online context customers’ negative experience is likely to affect their trust about the company. As a consequence, they are likely to engage in negative WOM. Research shows that user experience has a strong impact on the social WOM adoption (Liang et al., 2012). Method Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) will be employed for examining the research objectives of this research. The questionnaire for this study will be created through a professional online-based survey tool. As this research focuses on the factors influencing social WOM adoption in relation with luxury brands communications, the proposed research model will be tested among customers who is active in the existing active social media platforms and has had experience in engaging with the activities of luxury brand communications such as posting review or comment other’s post). Result and conclusion This research has adopted the electronic WOM theory and the social media support theory along with a social media perspective to investigate how customer’s interaction in social media affects their behaviour in relation to luxury brands consumption. The results show that social WOM facilitates the evaluation by customers about the luxury products using social media. Moreover, WOM has emerged with broad accessibility and the capability to be evaluated and measured easily by other consumers. This study gives practical implications on how to use social media to develop online communities for luxury brands. In conclusion, when going online, luxury brand should consider the importance of converting the online brand strategy into an interactive and engaging experience for their users and online communities.

Drawing from signaling theory (Rynes, 1991) and social identity theory (Ashforth & Mael, 1989), this investigation examines how a company´s CSR communication, especially the liking of the company’s CSR advertisements, their message credibility, as well as their cause-company-fit, influences employees´ evaluation of the perceived organizational CSR engagement, and how the evaluation of the perceived organizational CSR engagement relates to employees´ job satisfaction, organizational pride, and word-of-mouth. An experimental study was carried out with the employees (n = 432) of a large European energy provider in order to test the model assumptions. To illustrate comprehensively the CSR engagement of the company four collages were developed including either customer-oriented CSR appeals, employee-oriented CSR appeals, environmental-oriented CSR appeals or philanthropic-oriented CSR appeals. Empirical findings suggest that the developed model is largely confirmed. Interestingly, results show that the liking of the CSR advertisements is not found to be a significant determinant of employees´ CSR evaluation. Instead, findings reveal that message credibility and perceived cause-company-fit are significant determinants of employees´ CSR evaluation. In addition, results indicate that the more employees perceive their organization as socially responsible, the more likely they feel satisfied to work for their company, the more likely they feel proud of being a member of this company and the more likely is their willingness to praise their company. This study contributes to the advancement of CSR research in several ways: First, the conceptualized model can be used to explain how CSR communication influences employees´ evaluation of the perceived organizational CSR engagement and how this relates to employees´ attitudes and behavior at the workplace. Second, by drawing on signaling theory (Rynes, 1991) and social identity theory (Ashforth & Mael, 1989) in order to explain CSR communication effects, this investigation adds theoretical foundation to CSR communication research. Third, the investigation demonstrates that CSR communication effects may go well beyond traditional effects such as fostering customers´ purchase. A company´s CSR communication is also able to influence favorable employees´ outcomes.

In the current digital word, social media represent a relevant tool for marketing and communications strategies, which create new opportunities for firms to engage with their customers (Leeflang, Verhoef, Dahlström, & Freundt, 2013; Lemon & Verhoef, 2016; Libai et al., 2010). Among the sectors that leverage on social media in their communications, the luxury industry represents a main one. As previous research has mainly analyzed the consumer-side (Godey et al., 2016; Jin, 2012; Kim & Ko, 2012) overlooking the firm-side, the aim of this study is to investigate the cross-cultural issues faced by foreign luxury brands in implementing their social media strategies in China by carrying out a qualitative inquiry. China is the setting of analysis as it represents an increasingly relevant luxury market, characterized by the role of digital media as main communications and sales channel. Data collected consist of semistructured interviews with managers from foreign luxury brands operating in China in order to understand the issues faced and the strategies implemented. Moreover, an analysis of their social media presence on Chinese platforms such as WeChat and Weibo is conducted by considering the type of response activated among users. As pointed out by Belk (2017), qualitative advertising research can provide a better understanding of consumer response to advertising also in the rapidly growing field of social media, which have been mainly unexplored by qualitative approaches (Hadija, Barnes, & Hair, 2012). Moreover, an analysis on the firm-side will fill a gap in the existing literature and provide relevant managerial implications for international firms that operate in China.