ln recent years, academic articles by Chinese scholars in the field of consumer research have been continuously published in leading marketing and management journals. To better depict the intemationalization process of Chinese scholars in the field of consumer research, this paper reviews academic aticles published by Chinese scholars from Chinese universities and institutions in leading marketing and management journals. A quantitative analysis is conducted on aspects such as the changes in publication volume, research collaboration networks, and funding support for Chinese scholars. Taking into account the historical development background of the marketing discipline in China, this paper divides the intemationalization proces of Chinese scholars in the domain of consumer research into three developmental stages: the enlightenment period(1998-2009), the growth period (2010-2018), and the expansion period (2019-2023). Using the methods of knowledge mapping, the paper further analyzes the evolution of research methods and research themes of Chinese scholars across these three stages. Finally, a strategic diagram of keywords is drawn to explore the current status and future development trends of the research themes focused on by Chinese scholars. Over more than twenty years of development, Chinese scholars have evolved from collaborating with overseas scholars and following western consumer research topics to independently building internal collaboration networks and consciously exploring new phenomena, especially consumer phenomena and characteristics in the Chinese context. This gradual evolution has led to the formation of their own academic community and infuence, contributing to the international academic community of consumer research.

Weather is closely related to consumer’s daily life. Are users supposed to tip more in the live streaming on sunny days or rainy days? Based on the entertainment lives treaming data on the online livestreaming service platform, this study explores the effect of different weather factors on users’ livestreaming tipping behaviors, and analyzes the moderating effects of live streamer experience and weekends on the relationship between them. The results illustrate that, (1) compared with cloudy days, rainy days have a stronger influence on users’ live tipping behaviors, while sunny days have a weaker influence; (2)the more experienced live streamers are, the stronger the positive effect of rainy weather on tip amounts; (3) on midweek working days, rainy days have a stronger positive influence on tip amounts. Moreover, this research reveals the mediating effect of emotional regulation on the relationship between weather factors and tipping willingness by conducting online experiments. This paper studies the relationship between the environmental characteristics of weather and users’ live tipping and its boundary conditions in the field of marketing. This research enriches the theory of related literature, and extends the application of emotion regulation theory. The conclusions also provide guidance for marketing practitioners and policy makers in the live streaming industry.

With the development of information technology, the presentation of brand logos is no longer limited to static images, and animated logos have begun to be used in various commercial contexts. Based on the conceptual metaphor theory, this article investigated the influence of animated logos on marketing effects through three studies. The results found that animated brand logos affect consumers’ assessment of product temporal attributes, with animated (vs. static ) brand logos contributing to consumers’ perceptions that their product's production time is more recent, leading to more favorable product attitudes. However, when internal cues to production time are displayed, the effect of animated (vs. static) brand logos on perceived product production time disappears. Moreover, when the product is expected to be produced longer ago, animated (vs. static ) brand logos lead to more negative product attitudes. This research was the first to validate the effect of animated brand logos on the perception of product temporal attributes, contributing to brand management and logo design.

Much research has been conducted in recent years on the font and shape characteristics of brand logos, but little research has been conducted on the influence of word spacing in brand logos on brand perception. Based on the perspectives of embodied cognition and spatial metaphor, this study investigates the influence of word spacing in brand logos on perceived brand status and purchase intention through four online experiments and examines the boundary conditions of this influence. The findings show that having wide (vs. narrow) word spacing in brand logos leads to higher perception of brand status and purchase intention. Then, brand familiarity moderates the effect between word spacing in brand logos and perceived brand status, and it is only when brand familiarity is low (vs. high) that consumers rely on word spacing in brand logos to infer brand status. Next, brand type moderates the effect of word spacing in brand logos on purchase intention, only when the brand type is a luxury brand (vs. a generic brand), wide (vs. narrow) word spacing in brand logos would affect purchase intention by enhancing perceived brand status. Our findings not only provide theoretical guidance for corporate brand logo design, but also enrich the existing literature on the field of brand logos research.

As pivotal players in the digital industrialization process, data service providers, often small in scale, can empower an extensive client network with customized data solutions, achieving a “small to large" effect. This paper, grounded in resource orchestration theory and co-evolution theory, takes Chongqing Ruiyun Technology Co., Ltd, a “specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative SME,” as a case study to explore how data service providers empower a client network encompassing supply, channel, and demand sides. The study finds that this process involves three stages: constructing a data network, cultivating target capabilities, and driving a value flywheel. Each stage requires joint actions from data service providers and client enterprises to break through resource constraints, coordinate disputes over rights, and solidify cooperative relationships, thus completing the transformation of data resources into capabilities and fostering spontaneous data capability interactions. The theoretical framework developed in this paper reveals how the enablers and the enabled entities achieve the empowerment effect from “small enterprises” to “large networks” through the mutual cooperation of resource actions and relationship coordination, thus advancing the resource orchestration theory and co-evolution theory in the context of digitalization.

With the deep integration of artificial intelligence and the consumer market, understanding its social responsibility paradigm has become an important issue in promoting the healthy and sustainable development of the new generation of artificial intelligence and promoting the construction of new consumer formats. However, existing research has not yet clearly characterized the connotation, scope boundaries, and content composition of artificial intelligence social responsibility in the consumer market, and the lack of scientific and reliable measurement tools has led to a lag in current empirical research. Therefore, this article first constructs five structural dimensions of artificial intelligence social responsibility in the consumer market based on semi-structured in-depth interviews and grounded theory: morality, safety, applicability, credibility, and introspection; Secondly, following the exploratory and confirmatory factor testing procedures in scale development, 18 items for measuring artificial intelligence social responsibility were ultimately determined; Finally, based on this, a questionnaire was designed to test the predictive validity of the artificial intelligence social responsibility scale. The test results showed that artificial intelligence social responsibility significantly positively predicted psychological empowerment and human-machine harmonious relationship. The research results not only enrich the connotation and structure of AI's social responsibility but also provide operable measurement tools, further advancing the theoretical research and practical application of AI's social responsibility.

The growing use of Artificial Intelligence (Al) in customer service has raised ethical concerns, particularly regarding the disclosure of Al identities, which may reduce customers’ purchase intentions and create a dilemma between ethical practices and profit maximization. While existing research has largely focused on Al's role in addressing customer needs and driving sales, the impact of Al identity disclosure during the customer acquisition phase - such as offering free product trials - remains underexplored. This study investigates the effects of Al identity disclosure during customer acquisition through a field experiment with 5,768 participants. The findings reveal that disclosing Al identities did not significantly affect customer’s willingness to accept the product. However, disclosure led to more concise communication, thereby enhancing sales efficiency. In terms of verbal behavior, disclosing the Al identity decreased customers' willingness to communicate, reduced politeness, and lowered emotional expression, with self-awareness serving as a mediator. When Al identity was not disclosed but the Al displayed high anthropomorphism, customers were more polite and communicative, although their product acceptance did not increase. These results contribute to the understanding of consumer - Al interactions and provide actionable insights for businesses aiming to optimize AI use in customer service.

After a service failure occurs, companies often use apology and compensation to make up for customer losses. However, customers may still find it difficult to calm down in this situation. Although service recovery research has a long history, previous studies lack the discussion of the comfort strategy after service recovery. Based on this, this paper explores the impact and mechanism of metaphorical ( with vs. without) comfort strategy of companies alter service recovery on customer forgiveness behavior intention. The results of four scenario simulation experiments show that metaphorical comfort strategy can better promote customer forgiveness behavior intention than comfort strategy without metaphors, and the degree of creative cognitive reappraisal and relief play a chain mediating role in it. At the same time, responsibility attribution and customer-enterprise relationship quality play a moderating role in its influence process. This paper enriches the theoretical research on the post-service recovery stage of enterprises, helps to deepen the relevant research on the sustained effect of service recovery, and provides guidance for enterprises to effectively optimize service recovery measures.

With the rapid advancement of intelligent synthetic voice technology, Al applications in the audiobook industry are injecting new vitality into the field. But does a more human-like Al voice necessarily make audiobooks more appealing to consumers? This study explores this question by analyzing audiobooks on the Himalaya platform. It extracts both low-and high-dimensional audio features from collected audio samples and employs random forest and neural network models to predict whether the audiobook narration originates from a human or Al. Building on these machine learning models, the study constructs an index to quantify the degree of anthropomorphism in audiobook voices. It thoroughly examines the underlying mechanisms of this index from technical and behavioral perspectives, shedding light on how it captures the similarities and diferences between human and Al - generated audiobook narration. Additionally, the paper investigates the relationship between the anthropomorphism index and consumer behavior. Empirical results reveal the presence of an uncanny valley elect: as the degree of anthro-pomorphism increases, audiobook ratings initially rise but subsequently decline. Interestingly, this effect is not observed in the volume of user comments. This research provides both theoretical and empirical insights into consumer acceptance of Al audiobooks, offering a fresh perspective on the evolving dynamics of human—AI interaction in the audiobook market.

Whether digital transformation can promote the brand value of time-honored brand is an important practical issue for time-honored brands to realize brand rejuvenation in the era of digital economy. This paper takes Chinese listed time-honored enterprises from 2017 to 2022 as research samples to empirically investigate the impact of digital transformation on the brand value of time-honored enterprises and the moderating effect of marketing ability and entrepreneurship. The results show that enterprise digital transformation can promote the brand value of time-honored brands, and enteprise marketing ability and entre preneurship play a positive moderating role in the positive impact of digital transformation on the brand value of time-honored brands. Further heterogeneity analysis show that the promotion effect of digital transformation on the value of time-honored brands is more obvious in the enterprise with high traditional culture level and state-owned enterprises. This paper provides some guidance and suggestions on how to achieve high-quality digital transformation and enhance brand value for time-honored enterprises.

More and more companies are building brands through storytelling. However, few studies have divided brand stories into manufacturing stories and service stories, and explored the effect of brand stories with AI and human as the protagonist of the story. Based on fit theory, this paper discusses the interaction effect of brand story type (manufacturing vs. service )and story subject ( Al vs. human) on consumers' brand attitude and its internal influence mechanism. Through three experiments to test the research hypothesis, the results show that: for the manufacturing story, consumers have a more positive brand attitude towards the brand story with Al as the protagonist, while for the service story, consumers have a more positive brand attitude towards the brand story with human as the protagonist; the interaction effect of brand story type and story protagonist on brand attitude is mediated by brand story trust. This study enriches the relevant theories of brand story, and provides practical enlightenment for brand story marketing.

As a unique attribute of green products different from traditional products, how greenness affects consumers’ willingness to recommend green products is not clear. lt is different from the existing research based on external cues such as business behavior, consumers’ moral cognition of merchants, brand authenticity and consumer characteristics, this study takes self-enhancement/self-protection as the theoretical basis, and uses scenario experiment method to explore the formation mechanism and boundary conditions of the intrinsic attributes of green products affecting consumers’ word-of-mouth recommendation intention. The findings indicate that: (1) there is a significant positive relationship between greennes and consumers' word-of-mouth intention; (2) this effects of greenness are achieved through the mediating role of moral self-image, self-enhancement motivation and self-protection motivation, and self-enhancement motivation and self-protection motivation play the opposite role; (3) consumers’ self-construal type plays a significant moderating role in the influence of moral self-image on self-enhancement motivation and self-protection motivation. Compared with independent self-constructors, the mediating effect of self-enhancement motivation in dependent self-constructors is stronger, and the mediating elfect of self-protection motivation is not significant. In addition, independent self-construal will also leads to a higher wilingness to recommend word-of-mouth recommendation intention. The conclusions of this study not only enrich and improve the relevant research on self-enhancement and self-protection theory, word-of-mouth recommendation and self-construal, but also reveal the psychological perception of consumers for green products, which is helpful for enterprises to cary out word-of-mouth marketing of green products more effectively.

With the rise of AI commercialization, companies are launching AI products and services to consumers. However, consumers’ evaluation of these AI products and services vary significantly. Unlike previous studies that focused solely on the characteristics of either AI or the user, this study explores the causes and boundary conditions of this phenomenon more comprehensively by constructing a synthesized interaction model of "human-AI technology-task". Five scenario experiments revealed that novice users ( vs. expert users) preferred AI-dominated (vs. AI-assisted) products and services. The reason is that AI-dominated products tend to inspire positive (vs. negative) machine heuristics in novices (vs. experts). This elffect is amplified in contexts with high task complexity, while experts’ negative machine heuristic is weakened in low. These findings provide new insights and directions for understanding the distinctive responses of different users to various AI products, and also offer important guidance on product and service design and outreach strategy for companies.

Based on the relevant studies of channel communication theory and institutional theory, this study explores the influence of informal communication strategies (i. e., interpersonal influence) used by manufacturers on firm performance, and examines the moderating effect of the institutional environment in which manufacturers operate. This study takes the cooperative relationship between manufacturers and distributors as the research context, empirically testing the research hypothesis by collecting first-hand survey data from manufacturers’ channel managers and secondary data. The findings indicates that manufacturers' use of interpersonal influence can enhance firm performance; In the regions with high legal effectiveness, and when the relationship quality between manufacturers and distributors is high, the effect of manufacturers using interpersonal influence to promote firm performance will be enhanced. In the regions deeply influenced by taoism thought, the effect of manufacturers using interpersonal influence to improve firm performance will be weakened. Finally, the theoretical and practical significance of the research results and the future research direction are discussed.

Appropriate presentation of adertising effects significantly enhances consumer perception, where as the temporal distance to achieve the advertising effect is a focal point of consumer attention, directly influencing their advertising attitudes and purchase decisions. Drawing on the Construal Level Theory, this paper validates the matching effects between the advertising effect presentation (before/after vs. progression advertising) and temporal distance (distant vs. proximate) through four experiments. Specifically, for products that require a longer duration to manifest effects (distant temporal distance), consumers exhibit a more favorable attitude towards before/after advertise-ments. Conversely, for products that demonstrate effects in a shorter time span (proximate temporal distance), consumers hold a more positive attitude towards progression advertising. The congruity between these factors is mediated by imagery fluency. The findings of this research extend the related research on ad-vertising effect presentation, offering new insights for enterprises to enhance the effectiveness of advertising for transformative products.

This research explores the mechanism by which sellers' use of anhropomor-phism to describe used products influences buyers’ judgments of product quality. The results of three studies show that sellers' anthropomorphic descriptions of used products can significantly improve buyers’ perceived quality of used products, and this effect is mediated by buyers’ perception that used products are better cared for by the seller. The results also show that when used products are described as emotional use, non-anthropomorphic descri-ption will reduce the quality perception than anthropomorphic description. When described as instrumental, there was no significant difference. And sellers’ anthropomorphic deseriptions of used products as a partnership rather than a servant will encourage buyers to make more favorable inferences about used poroducts and increase transaction will-ingness. This research enriches the theoretical mechanism of anthropomorphic rhetoric on improving consumer product cognition and inference, and has important practical value for improving the effectiveness of personalized marketing communications and promoting second-hand transactions.

Romantic experience is a positive emotional experience that significantly impacts people's lives and consumption behaviors. However, the extant research merely conceptualizes romantic experiences as intimate relationships between lovers, which limits the research on how romantic experiences influence consumers' choices. This study extends the concept beyond romantic love by addressing generalized romantic experiences in a broader sense. Four experiments show that romantic experiences (vs. neutral experiences)increase consumers' preference for self-improvement featured products, even in areas not related to the initial romantic stimuli(Study 1). This greater inclination for self-improvement products ismediated by a heightened sense of meaning in life(Studies 2 and 3). Happiness orientation plays a moderating role in the influence of romantic experience on the meaning in life and preference for self-improvement products(Study 4). Theoretically, this paper expands the concept of romantic experience and enriches the research on the influence of romantic experience on consumer choice and the research on the emotional antecedents of self-improvement products. In practice, this paper provides suggestions and guidance for romantic marketing and the promotion of self-improvement products.

With the popularity of short videos, “short video e-commerce” are adopted by more and more companies. Short videos are very helpful in e-commerce context because they carry more information than texts and pictures do. However, what kind of short videos can more effectively promote product sales in e-commerce context? This paper draw samples o£ short videos on the "Mogujie" platform and extracts features that may affect the marketing effects of short videos, such as visual perception, auditory perception and video content. Then we construct multiple linear regression model, classification and regression tree model and random forest model to study the relationship between short video features and their marketing effects, which are measured by the sales of the products introduced in the short video. The research results show that although the visual, auditory and content features of short videos are all related to the marketing effects, the content features have the strongest effects on the sales performance.

Price discount is one of the usual promotional strategies used by merchants. Previous scholars focused on the effectiveness of price discount in the context of making decisions for oneself, but failed to deeply study the negative effects and reverse effects of price discount in the gift-giving context of making decisions for others. Based on this, through the design of 1 pre-experiment and 4 formal experiments, the results show that: when buying gifts for others, the gift giver has lower intention to purchase gifts with (vs. without) a discount; social risk perception plays a significant mediating role. This main effect would be robust in situations with greater social distance or higher price information accessibility, but would disappear at closer social distance and would reverse when price information accessibility were low. The findings not only supplement and improve the knowledge structure of gifts and price discounts, but also inform and guide merchants’ pricing of gifts.

As an effective Internet financing mode, crowdfunding has become an important channel for entrepreneurs to finance. Entrepreneurs present product/service information through crowdfunding platforms and use text and image content to influence potential supporters’ decisions. Given the importance of image content in social media marketing, this study explores the differential effects of object-level complexity and pixel-level complexity of images displayed in crowdfunding projects on the success rate of crowdfunding. Based on deep learning method, empirical analysis has found that object-level complexity increases the success rate of crowdfunding projects; Pixel-level complexity reduces the success rate of crowdfunding projects. Moreover, entrepreneurs’ project experience and reputation weaken the positive effect of object-level complexity on crowdfunding success rate, while entrepreneur reputation strengthens the negative effect of pixel-level complexity on crowdfunding success rate. By exploring the impact of image visual complexity on real performance, this study enriches the relevant literature on visual marketing. At the same time, it also provides effective project communication for entrepreneurs and offers guidance on content and image design.

The real-time interactive experiences enabled by mobile internet allow consumers to share their purchasing experiences and product reviews across different places. Place is where consumers engage in these interactions and serves as a key touchpoint for mobile marketing technologies. However, how different places are perceived by consumers and how they affect word-of-mouth (WOM) outcomes remain unclear. Based on the theory of geographical imprinting, this study integrates the results of a survey, two scenario studies, and a field experiment. The findings suggest that consumers are more likely to share positive or neutral WOM in exchange-oriented places, while they are more inclined to share polarized WOM (positive or negative) in communal-oriented places. This effect is driven by regulatory focus: in exchange-oriented places, consumers are more likely to adopt a prevention focus, prioritizing the maintenance of their social identity, which leads them to share positive or neutral feedback. In contrast, in communal-oriented places, consumers tend to adopt a promotion focus, engaging in more authentic self-expression, which drives the sharing of polarized opinions. Furthermore, the study identifies boundary conditions for the impact of places on WOM elfects-this ellect is diminished when the product type is hedonic (vs. utilitarian). These findings provide actionable insights for businesses seeking to manage WOM more effectively.

To mitigate the widespread crisis communication of brand negative publicity on social media, many brands have applied comment management strategies (such as managing featured reviews) to moderate unfavorable reviews. Drawing from the Persuasion Knowledge Model, this paper conducts three experiments with Weibo users to examine the impact of featured review set characteristics (balance, sequence, and type) on consumers’ crisis communication. The results show that a fully positive set of featured reviews or presenting positive comments earlier in a sequence stimulates stronger inferences of ulterior motives, further trggering secondary crisis communication. Furthermore, defensive featured reviews (as opposed to advocative reviews) lead to stronger inferences of ulterior motive in the negative-positive sequence, while the effect is not significant in the positive-negative sequence. Theoretically, this research observes the counterproductive effect of featured reviews and provides new directions for social media crisis response strategies. In addition, this paper has practical insights for companies to apply comment management strategies in response to negative publicity.

The healthcare industry is in urgent need of transformation to enhance service efficiency and optimize patient experience. However, theoretical research on how to effectively implement the digital transformation of healthcare remains relatively limited. This paper analyzes the development of digital medical industry from three aspects: opportunity, requirement and direction by means of the theory and method of evolutionary game. Specifically, this paper constructs an evolutionary game model of interests among three main parties: the government, hospitals, and patients, and further conducts simulation analysis through numerical simulation. The research results show that the actions of the digital medical industry depend on whether any of the three parties takes proactive actions. If any party acts proactively, it will drive the system toward a stable point of （1，1，1）; otherwise,  if all parties adopt conservative strategies, the system may remain at the stable point of （0，0，0）. Further analysis indicates that major health events are important opportunities for the medical industry to develop and transform digitalIy. The goverment, hospitals, and patients need to timely update their medical concepts and behavioral inertia, and then accelerate the development of a patient-centered digital healthcare ecosystem across the domains of medical services, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare insurance, ultimately boosting awareness and adoption of digital healthcare services. In addition, the quality of digital medical services is an essential foundation for the transformation of the digital medical industry, and the collaborative development between official hospital platforms and third-party medical platforms is a crucial opportunity for the transformation of the digital medical industry. The collaborative integration between hospitals' official platforms and third-party digital healthcare platforms represents a key opportunity in this transition.

With the development of the internet, the number of digital products has surged, and many products now exist in both digital and physical forms simultaneously. This presents consumers with the dilemma of choosing between these two product forms when making a purchase decision. This paper explores the phenomenon of preference reversal in product forms that arises when consumers make decisions for themselves and when making decisions for others. Through five experiments , this research reveals that consumers tend to prefer the digital form of a product when deciding for themselves, while they exhibit a preference for the physical form of the same product when making decisions for others. This preference reversal is attributed to the relative feasibility and desirability characteristics of digital product forms compared to physical ones. Drawing on the construal level theory, consumers tend to emphasize feasibility (and less desirability) when deciding for themselves as opposed to deciding for others. Consequently, consumers exhibit a preference reversal when choosing between product forms for themselves and others. The establishment of this phenomenon and its underlying mechanisms have important implications for consumer decision-making and the formulation of marketing strategies for businesses.

As the representative of national brands, the development of time-honored brands has always been highly concerned. Although the research in the field has achieved certain results, the research is rather decentralized and lacking systemic integration, which is not conducive to the researchers to grasp the research portrait of the time-honored brands and the future direction of research. In view of this, this paper uses CiteSpace software to carry out bibliometric analysis and describes the knowledge map of time-honored brand's research. Based on the results of bibliometrics ,this paper divides the researches of time-honored brands into three stages: exploration stage, maturity stage, and deepening stage. Then this paper conducts in-depth analysis of the research topics in each stage. On the basis of summarizing the researches of time-honored brands and drawing on the lens of long-term brand management, this paper looks forward to the future research of time-honored brands from the following three aspects: Identify the core resources of the old brands based on its history. Explore the method to balance heritage and innovation at present. Carry out the digital transformation and marketing innovation research of time-honored brands for their future development.

The rise of the "China-chic" phenomenon is an inevitable outcome of cultural confidence and national identity in the new era. Based on cultural schema theory, this study systematically examines the influence of the typicality of Chinese cultural resources on consumers’attitudes toward China-chic brands and its underlying mechanisms. The results show that, compared with low-typical Chinese cultural resources, incorporating high-typical Chinese cultural resources into product design significantly enhances consumers’ attitudes toward China-chic brands. This effect is driven by the exhanced perception of the brand's cultural symbolism elicited by high-typicality cultural resources. Furthermore. this study reveals the moderating role of visual imagery. When abstract visual imagery is used to present Chinese cultural resources in China-chic products, the mediating effect of perceived cultural symbolism is weakened. This research not only extends the scope of studies on China-chic and cultural branding but also provides practical insights for China-chic brand managers in formulating cutural marketing strategies to leverage and design Chinese cultural resources effectively.

In recent years, the application of AI-based robot services in the hotel industry has been on the rise, attracting widespread attention. However, existing research on how robot services affect consumer satisfaction has presented conflicting conclusions, and the academic community has not yet deeply explored the relationship between robot services in dfferent scenarios and consumer satisfaction from the perspective of asymmetrical impacts. This study mined consumer review data from China's first fully automated robot service hotel from 2018 to 2022, exploring the asymmetrical impact ofhotel robot services on consumer satisfaction in different scenarios based on the three-factor theory and complexity theory. Through dummy variable regression analysis, this paper identified that robot services in the hotel's alternative service scenarios are the basic factors for consumer satisfaction, those in the enhancement service scenarios are performance factors, while those in the innovative service scenariosare motivational factors. Moreover, using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis(fsQCA), this study fur- ther revealed the configurations of robot services in different scenarios leading to high(low)levels of eonsumer satisfaction, further validating the research results of the dummy variable regresion analysis. The study's conclusions enrich the literature on service scenarios and service satisfaction in the field of robot services and provide practical guidance for the hotel industry to reasonably allocate robot services to enhance consumer satisfaction

In the present paper, we seek to explore the effect of negative reviews ( humorous vs. non - humorous) on consumers' attitudes toward e-retailers and the mechanism and boundary conditions behind the effect. Results of three laboratory experiments showed that compared with non-humorous negative reviews, humorous negative reviews significantly enhanced consumers' attitudes toward e-retailers. In the relationship between humorous negative reviews and consumers’ attitudes toward e-retailers, consumers' affective responses played the mediating role. In the relationship between non-humorous negative reviews and consumers’ attitudes toward e-retailers, consumers’ cognitive responses played the mediating role. Results of Study 1 showed that the response speed significantly moderated the effect of negative reviews on consumers' attitudes. Results of Study 2 showed that the moderating effect of whether e-retailers explained the cause of the problem (yes vs. no) in the relationship between negative reviews and consumers’ attitudes toward e-retailers was significant. Results of Study 3 showed that compensation money significantly moderated the effect of negative reviews on consumers' attitudes.

Enabled by new technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual celebrity spokesperson have gradually emerged and penetrated into many consumer areas. There are two different effects of virtual celebrity spokesperson and real celebrity spokesperson endorsement: substitution effect and complementary effect. The reason is that consumers have different expectations for spokesperson types in different advertising appeal situations. Based on the elaboration likelihood model and language expectation theory, this study reveals the matching effect, influence mechanism and boundary conditions of spokesperson type and advertisement appeal on consumers' purchase intention through four experiments. The findings are as follows: (1) There is a matching effect between the type of spokesperson and the advertising appeal, that is, for the advertising situation with rational appeal (emotional appeal), consumers have a higher purchase intention based on the recommendation of virtual celebrity spokesperson (real celebrity spokesperson); (2) Perceptual diagnosis mediates the above matching effect, that is, in the context of rational appeal (emotional appeal) advertising, recommendation based on virtual celebrity spokesperson (real celebrity spokesperson) will improve consumers' perceptual diagnosis, and thus enhance consumers' purchase intention; (3) The main effect and mediating mechanism are again verified, while alternative explanations for perceived pleasure and information processing fluency are excluded; (4) Product type moderates the above matching effect, that is, for practical products, there is a matching effect between the type of spokesperson and the advertising appeal in the context of rational appeal, while the matching effect is suppressed in the context of emotional appeal. For hedonic products, the matching effect between the type of spokesperson and the advertising appeal exists in the advertising context of emotional appeal, while the matching effect is suppressed in the rational appeal. The above conclusions not only help to enrich the theoretical research of spokesperson endorsement, but also help to provide marketing enlightenment for enterprises to effectively improve the advertising recommendation effect by using spokesperson endorsement strategy.

The implementation of product traceability is an important marketing tool for agricultural enterprises. This study categorizes the timing of its presentation into two dimensions: pre-purchase accessibility and post-purchase accessibility, and explores its impact on consumer purchase intention. Through four formal experiments, we found that: pre-purchase (vs. post-purchase) accessibility of traceability information enhances consumers’ sense of risk control, thereby increasing purchase intention; compared to certified agricultural products, pre-purchase (vs. post-purchase) accessibility of traceability information has a stronger effect on enhancing risk control when consumers are confronted with non-certified products; and for rational consumers, pre-purchase (vs. post-purchase) accessibility of traceability information has a stronger effect on enhancing risk control than for emotional consumers. This study enriches the understanding of the relationship between agricultural product traceability and consumer decision-making, The findings provide theoretical support for agricutural enterprises in selecting the appropriate timing for presenting traceability information and enhancing the value of product traceability.

The globalization of time-honored brands is an important strategy to build a global brand and enhance China's cultural soft power. The unique cultural resources of time-honored brands are conductive to establishing differentiated market positioning and enhancing brand image in the international market. Based on the perspective of intercultural communication, this paper constructs a theoretical model of the globalization of time-honored brands that is evolving in stages. Thecase study based on Tongrentang shows that:(1)In different stages ofbrand globalization, implementing corresponding intercultural communication strategies based on brand cultural positioning is an effective path to gradually realize the globalization of time-honored brands. (2)According to different stages of brand globalization, time-honored brands should adjust the brand cultural positioning, which can be achieved by combining the target customer range, needs, and available cultural resources to upgrade the brand cultural positioning from the functional, experiential to meaningful. (3)The staged strategies for time-honored brands to implement intercultural communication include:amplifying the advantages ofproducts/services to gain brand product recognition in the building stage of brand globalization; bridging national and foreign cultures to establish brand likability in the expanding stage of brand globalization; extending the brand's additional social and cultural value for global consumers to achieve global brand cultural identity in the mature stage of brand globalization. Differentiated intercultural communication strategies at different stages are the key means to promote the phased upgrade of time-honored brands.

Consider an online marketplace where two sellers (a manufacturer and an agent) in a “co-opetitive” relationship sell goods to consumers through an online platform. The manufacturer and the agent can obtain information about consumers' individual preferences from the platform and use this information to personalize prices for consmers. Consumers can take costly actions to protect their information. We study the impact of consumers’ privacy-preerv-ing behavior on the platform's information-sharing strategies, the profits of the manufacturer and the agent, consumer surplus, and social welfare. We find that: (i) The platform, the manufacturer, and the agent all prefer a full information-sharing strategy, and the manufacturer and the agent choose to receive only partial consumer information. (ii) Consumer surplus is highest under the platform sharing only with the agent when the cost of consumer privacy protection is low, and social welfare is highest under the platform sharing  information only with the manufacturer. (iii) When the cost of consumer privacy protection is high, consumer surplus and social welfare are highest under the platform that does not share information. Our findings enrich the research on information sharing and the value of information about consumers' personal privacy, and can help industry regulators and policymakers formulate consumer privacy protection policies.

Although consumers have ample opportunities to be exposed to nature in their daily lives, research on the potential impact of exposure to nature on consumers within the marketing field remains limited. From an environmental perspective, the present research focuses on shapes, which are commonly used in product design and brand logos, and investigates the influence and underlying mechanism of exposure to nature on consumers' shape preference through four experiments. Utilizing an implicit association test, Study 1 reveals that consumers tend to associate natural environments with rounded shapes and built environments with angular shapes. Studies 2 and 3 further demonstrate that exposure to nature affects consumers’ shape preferences. In contrast to exposure to built environments or the control group, exposure to natural environments significantly increases consumers’ relative preference for rounded (vs. angular) shape designs, with perceived congruence acting as a mediator. Study 4 demonstrate that the above effect would be attenuated for consumers with a salient competitive mindset. These findings enrich the literature on exposure to nature and shape preferences, and provide actionable implications.

Cause-related marketing as a form of corporate social responsibility has grown exponentially in the last 40 years. Existing research on cause-related marketing has mainly focused onits effectiveness by exploring the components and advertising factors that influence consumers participation intention, with less attention paid to the donation feedback. The development of digital technology has enabled more and more companies to conduct donation feedback to consumers. Based on social dentity theory and elaboration likelihood model, this article explored the interaction effect of cause-related marketing feedback framing and self-construal, internal mechanism and boundary conditions. With two experimental studies, we found that individual feedback(aggregate feedback)could induce independent (interdependent)consumers more positive attitude toward company. This is because the matching between feedback framing and self-construal could induce higher consumer-company dentification. However, this matching effect was only supported for high cause involvement, but not for low cause involvement. By focusing for the first time on the cause-related marketing's donation feedback, this study develops new research perspective of cause-related marketing and enriches feedback framing's research context and theoretical connotation. This research also offers practical insights to managers on how to design and execute donation feedback communication for cause-related marketing campaign.

Ecological governance requires not only the joint efforts of the government and enterprises, but also the internal recognition and active participation of the public. It has attracted the attention of researchers that the emergence of online environmental gamification applications represented by“Ant Forest”which has made positive practical exploration to improve the publie's environmental literacy and to strengthen the consciousness of integration of knowledge and action. How to guide game users to change from online environmental protection game behavior to ofline pro-environmental behavior has become an important issue that needs to be further explored. Based on the theories of norm-activation and self-regulation, we construct a structure model to demonstrate the transformation mechanism from users' online game participation to ofline pro-environmental behavior and the moderating effect of hedonic experience. The research findings show that online environmental-protection games facilitate the transition from online to offline pro-environmental behaviors by initilly enhancing users' knowledge of environment(environmental threat perception), which subsequently activates their sense of moral responsibility(personal norms). However, hedonic experience weakens the positive effect of game participation on users' environmental threat perception and on the pro-environmental behavior. The research reveals and veriffies the potential negative effects of gamification on pro-environmental behavior, which provides a new theoretical research perspective for understanding and improving digital green behavior intervention, and offers useful practical enlightenment for enterprises to improve gamification platforms.

With the development of digital technologies, the business environment is transforming into a digital ecosystem. Traditional customers, who previously only provided feedback afterwards, are gradually evolving into digital customers as they share usage information in real-time through digital devices during interactions with businesses, This real-time sharing of information enables businesses to dynamically and accurately understand customer needs. A key question for traditional companies is how to leverage digital technologies to develop new capabilities that meet the dynamic and personalized demands of customers,which has become a focal point for both academia and industry. This paper clarifies the concept of customer orientation in the context of the digital economy and identifies four dimensions of digital customer orientation based on existing research: digital customer positioning, interactive value creation, digital platform-based operations, and data-driven decision making. Based on a survey of 378 manufacturing companies, the paper empirically examines the impact of digital marketing capabilities under digital customer orientation on corporate competitive advantage. The findings reveal that: first, the four dimensions of digital customer orientation are key drivers of a company's digital marketing capabilities: second, the formaion of digital marketing capabilities helps companies reduce costs, improve market responsiveness and customization abilities, thus enhancing competitive advantage; and third, the effect of digital marketing capabilities on speed and customization advantages is moderated by market turbulence. This study provides important theoretical and practical insights into how companies can leverage new opportunities and gain competitive advantages in the digital era.

Corporate hypocrisy has become a typical corporate crisis event, but there is litle research on how enterprises should take measures to reduce the negative impact ofcorporate hypocrisy. Through three successive experimental studies, this paper answers the question of whether stealing thunder(that is, enterprises disclose crisis information themselves)can reduce the negative impact of corporate hypocrisy, and reveals the influence mechanism and possible boundary conditions. In the first study, it is found that stealing thunder can significantly reduce consumer boycotts caused by corporate hypocrisy, and the type of corporate hypocrisy plays a moderating role. Specifically, under a moral hypocrisy crisis, stealing thunder has no significant effect, while under a behavioral hypocrisy crisis, stealing thunder has a significant effect. In the second study, it is found that psychological contract violation plays a mediating role in the interactive impact process between stealing thunder and corporate hypocrisy type on consumer boycotts. In the third study, it is found that the CSR history of enterprises serves as a boundary condition for the interactive impact process between stealing thunder and corporate hypocrisy type on consumer boycotts. For enterprises with a long CSR history in a certain field, regardless of the type of corporate hypocrisy crisis they face in this field, stealing thunder has a significant effect. For enterprises with a short CSR history, stealing thunder will only play a role in a behavioral hypocrisy crisis. This paper deepens and expands research in the field of corporate hypocrisy, and enriches the scope and conditions for the application of stealing thunder. At the same time, it also provides important management enlightenment for enterprises to properly deal with a crisis of corporate hypocrisy and correctly fulfll their social responsibilities.

This research investigates the effect of social crowdingon shape preference and the underlying mechanism thereof. Across five experiments, the research demonstrates that individuals who are socially crowded prefer circular shapes to angular shapes. Such effect is driven by consumers' needs for vitality, specifically, social crowding increases the needs for vitality, which subsequently makes consumers prefer circular shapes as they are related to vitality in consumers' minds. We also examine the moderating role of composition of the crowd, namely the effect of social erowding on shape preference will attenuate for a crowd composed of in-group(vs. out-group)members. This research enriches the literature on social crowding and shape preference in consumption, and provides managerial implications forbrands and products.

The dynamic and responsive nature of feed-based media platforms grants users the freedom to filter and block information, while simultaneously allowing the platform to adjust its subsequent content delivery strategies based on user feedback. Currently, the behavior of users blocking feed advertisements is widespread; however, the findings of traditional ad avoidance research cannot be directly applied to the context of retargeting in feed ads. From the perspective of user dynamic information processing, this research explores users’ In-feed naive advertising blocking and redirection strategies in different information processing states. Through mining and analysis of a large amount of observation data combined with laboratory experiments, the results show that for users who are in the fast processing mode to block In-feed native advertising, the subsequent promotion of advertisements for different types of products can bring more positive advertising attitudes; For users who are in the slow processing mode to block In-feed native advertising, the subsequent push, and blocking of similar products can bring a more positive advertising attitude. The research conclusions have management implications for the practice of In-feed native advertising.

When companies promote new products on the social media, the name is the first clue for consumers, so these companies attempt to capitalize on the product name to enhance consumer engagement on social media and increase product exposure. Based on the Information Gap Theory, this study examines the inverted U-shaped impact of new product names’ suggestiveness on consumer social media engagement through three lab experiments. The results indicate that, compared to completely descriptive names with high suggestiveness and freestanding arbitrary names with low suggestiveness, the suggestive names with a medium level of suggestiveness are more effective in increasing consumer engagement on social media. Epistemic curiosity explains the internal mechanisms for this effect. Furthermore, consumer expertise plays a moderating role on the core effects, such that these effects hold for consumers with a relatively low level of expertise. We contribute to the literature by exploring the understudied role of product names in the social media marketing area, and provide practitioners with important suggestions for new product naming strategies.