Ethical Consumerism in Emerging Markets: Opportunities and Challenges

Despite the economic, social, and environmental importance of emerging countries, most existing research into ethical consumerism has focused on developed market contexts.We introduce this Special Issue (SI) and provide a comprehensive thematic literature review considering three broad categories or aspects of ethical consumerism research, (1) contexts of ethical consumption, (2) forms of ethical consumerism, and (3) approaches to explaining ethical consumer behavior. We summarize the articles of this SI as part of the thematic literature review to provide an understanding of how these articles and this SI’s overall contribute to ethical consumerism research. Each article in this SI offers new insights into a specific field of ethical consumerism while focusing on emerging market contexts. Overall, this SI expands knowledge related to the dynamics and challenges of ethical consumerism and offers future research directions in this area

Building better employer brands through employee social media competence and online social capital

Despite the significant and increasing influence of social media on employees' work lives, there is limited focus on employees' social media competencies from an employer branding or internal marketing perspective. Building on social identity and social exchange theories, this paper links employees' social media competence to an increase in online brand citizenship behaviour and reduction in feelings of psychological contract violation towards their employer's brand. We also examine the distinct mediatory effects of two forms of online social capital—bonding mediates the influence of employee social media competence on online brand citizenship and feelings of psychological contract violation, whilst Bridging only mediates the effect of social media competence on feelings of psychological contract violation. In doing so, we contribute to extant literature in two ways: (1) Address the need for research on social media in relation to employer branding; and (2) highlight the importance of building employee‐to‐employee and employee‐to‐employer relationships by virtual means in the context of employer branding. Therefore, this paper responds to calls for research that advances more responsible approaches to employer branding and internal marketing; that is, approaches that take into account employee competencies (emphasise need for skill development) as well as wellbeing (emphasise need for support)

Corporate reputation past and future: a review and integration of existing literature and a framework for future research

The concept of corporate reputation is steadily growing in interest among management researchers and practitioners. In this article, we trace key milestones in the development of reputation literature over the past six decades to suggest important research gaps as well as to provide contextual background for a subsequent integration of approaches and future outlook. In particular we explore the need for better categorised outcomes; a wider range of causes; and a deeper understanding of contingencies and moderators to advance the field beyond its current state while also taking account of developments in the macro business environment. The article concludes by presenting a novel reputation framework that integrates insights from reputation theory and studies, outlines gaps in knowledge and offers directions for future research

Flying to Quality: Cultural Influences on Online Reviews

Customers increasingly consult opinions expressed online before making their final decisions. However, inherent factors such as culture may moderate the criteria and the weights individuals use to form their expectations and evaluations. Therefore, not all opinions expressed online match customers’ personal preferences, neither can firms use this information to deduce general conclusions. Our study explores this issue in the context of airline services using Hofstede’s framework as a theoretical anchor. We gauge the effect of each dimension as well as that of cultural distance between the passenger and the airline on the overall satisfaction with the flight as well as specific service factors. Using topic modeling, we also capture the effect of culture on review text and identify factors that are not captured by conventional rating scales. Our results provide significant insights for airline managers about service factors that affect more passengers from specific cultures leading to higher satisfaction/dissatisfaction

Attribute framing in CSR communication: Doing good and spreading the word – But how?

In two experiments, we investigated the effects of positive and negative attribute framing in corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication on consumer attitudes toward the firm and purchase intentions. Study 1 shows a positive main effect of positively framed CSR communication with consumer perceived corporate hypocrisy and CSR associations as mediators. This effect tends to be stronger for products that consumers can evaluate more (as compared to less) easily. Study 2 replicates the positive main effect of Study 1 and finds the effect to be stronger for CSR communication with concrete (as compared to vague) arguments. In combination, the findings provide new insights into how attribute framing in CSR communication affects consumer reactions, additionally demonstrating product type and message specificity as boundary conditions

Should all firms adapt websites to international audiences?: .

International audienc

Doing E-Business in France: Drivers of Online Trust in Business-to-Consumer Websites: .

International audienc

Comparabilité et équivalence des mesures dans les études cross-culturelles : Des enjeux pour la recherche en logistique: .

National audienc