Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology Subjects: Management Science >> Enterprise Management submitted time 2024-02-02
Abstract： Brand names serve as crucial touchpoints for establishing brand-consumer relationships and are integral components of brand assets. Linguistic studies on branding have established that the phonetic features of brand names can influence consumers’ cognition, emotions, and behavior. However, research on the impact and mechanisms of phonetic features on consumers’ ethical responses is limited. Based on the mind perception theory, this study explores the asymmetric paths through which the use of repeated two-syllable brand names influences consumers’ moral reactions in two different situations. Based on seven experiments, we determined that in the context of brands as moral agents, compared to non-repeated two-syllable brand names, repeated ones can alleviate consumers’ negative moral reactions (anger, disgust, blame, punishment intention) toward the brand by reducing the think dimension of brand mind perception (rather than the feel dimension). However, in the context of brands as moral patients, repeated two-syllable brand names enhance consumers’ positive moral reactions (sympathy, compassion, regret, and purchase intention) toward the brand by increasing the feel dimension of brand mind perception (rather than the think dimension).
Experiment 1a was designed to derive experimental evidence on the relationship between repeated two-syllable brand name and consumers’ negative moral reactions in the context of moral agent. Experiment 1a (N=200) was a single factor (repeated two-syllable: yes vs. no) between-subjects design in which participants were randomly assigned to different groups to read a news report regarding an incident of vulgar advertising with repeated or non-repeated two-syllable brand names. Participants then reported their level of anger, disgust, and blame toward the brand. Experiment 1b (N=200), which had a similar between-subjects design as Experiment 1a, verified the relationship between repeated two-syllable brand name and consumers’ positive moral reactions in the context of moral patient. The participants were randomly assigned to two groups to read a news report regarding an incident of corporate data breach. They then reported their level of sympathy, compassion, and pity for the brand. Experiment 2a (N=196) was designed to confirm the mediating role of the think dimension of the brand in the relationship between repeated two-syllable brand name and consumers’ negative moral reactions in the context of moral agent. The experimental design was the same as that of Experiment 1a. Participants were randomly assigned to two groups to read a news report regarding an incident of drug companies raising drug prices despite patients. Participants then reported their level of anger, blame, feel dimension, think dimension, brand warmth, and brand competence toward the brand. Experiment 2b (N=196) verified the mediating role in the relationship between repeated two-syllable brand name and consumers’ positive moral reactions in the context of moral patient. The experimental design and procedure were identical to that in Experiment 1b. After reading a news report regarding the incident of corporate data breach, participants reported their level of sympathy, support, feel dimension, think dimension, brand warmth, and brand competence toward the brand. Experiment 3a sought to confirm the influence of repeated two-syllable brand name on downstream behavioral intention in the context of moral agent. Experiment 3a (N=296) was a single factor (repeated two-syllable: yes vs. no vs. “little”) between-subjects design; participants were randomly assigned to three groups to read the same news report as in Experiment 2a. They then reported their level of anger, disgust, blame, feel dimension, think dimension, and punishment intention toward the brand. Experiment 3b (N=292) verified the influence of repeated two-syllable brand name on downstream behavioral intention in the context of moral patient and was a similar between-subjects design to Experiment 3a. The participants were randomly assigned to three groups and asked to read a news report on an incident of one company being coerced by another. They then reported their level of sympathy, compassion, regret, feeling, thinking, and purchase intention for the brand. Experiment 4 (N=363) used a 2 (repeated two-syllable: yes vs. no) ´ 2 (moral agent vs. moral patient) between-subjects design to more rigorously demonstrate the effect of repeated two-syllable names in the same moral situation. Participants were randomly assigned to four groups and asked to read a news report on an incident of commercial bullying. In the moral agent group, the brand was a game production company that bullies other firms, and in the moral patient group, the brand was a game operation company that is bullied by other firms. The participants reported their level of unethical judgment on the incident and the level of feel and think dimensions toward the brand.
A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) in Experiments 1a and 1b suggested that repeated two-syllable brand name could decrease consumers’ negative moral reactions toward the brand when it was a moral agent, whereas such brand name could increase consumers’ positive moral reactions when the brand was a moral patient. The ANOVA results of Experiment 2a and an examination of parallel mediation revealed that the think dimension of brand mind perception mediated the influence of repeated two-syllable brand name on consumers’ negative moral reactions. Based on the ANOVA and parallel medication analysis, the results of Experiment 2b revealed that feel dimension of brand mind perception mediated the influence of repeated two-syllable brand name on consumers’ positive moral reactions. At the same time, Experiment 2a ruled out alternative explanations for the stereotype content model. On the other hand, Experiment 2b established that after controlling for the indirect effect of the stereotype content model, a significant mediating effect of the mind perception theory remained. Meanwhile, the results of the serial mediation mechanism analysis in Experiments 3a and 3b revealed that in the moral agent context, repeated two-syllable brand names ultimately influence consumers’ intentions to punish by influencing the think dimension and negative moral reactions. However, in the moral patient context, repeated two-syllable brand names ultimately influence consumers’ purchase intention by influencing the feel dimension and positive moral reactions. In addition, the ANOVA and multi-category mediation mechanism analyses of Experiments 3a and 3b documented that repeated two-syllable brand name and “little” could produce similar effects in the moral agent and moral patient context. Finally, the results of the two-way ANOVA for Experiment 4 indicated significant interactions between repeated two-syllable names and moral roles in the immoral judgment of the incident and the feel and think dimensions of the brand. In the moral agent condition, participants in the repeated two-syllable group made fewer unethical judgments about the incident and perceived a lower level of the think dimension of the brand than participants in the non-repeated two-syllable group, but no significant difference was observed in the perceived level of feel dimension. In the moral patient condition, participants in the repeated two-syllable group made more unethical judgments about the incident and perceived a higher level of the feel dimension of the brand than those in the non-repeated two-syllable group, but no significant difference was observed in the perceived level of the think dimension.
This study provides an innovative theoretical exploration of the causal relationship between sound symbolism and consumers’ reactions to business ethical crisis. Meanwhile, we reveal the mechanism by which the two dimensions (think and feel) of brand mind perception exist as asymmetric mediators. In addition, we employ the theory of mind perception to discover how people anthropomorphize non-human things, which deepens the exploration of the mechanisms of anthropomorphism-generating processes in the brand anthropomorphism literature. In a practical sense, our research not only provides reference for the design of brand names and nicknames but also directly assists in crafting public relations content for handling ethical crises and creating content for public service announcements.
Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology Subjects: Management Science >> Enterprise Management submitted time 2024-01-28
Abstract： The source of design effect is defined as the manner in which the source information of a firm’s product design affects consumer product preferences and corporate attitudes. Currently, there are three major sources: professional designers, users, and AI, each exerts either positive or negative influences on consumer preferences through different psychological mechanisms. The source of professional design influences consumer preferences through the perceived competence of expert designers, whereas the source of user design influences consumer preferences through the perceived capabilities of users, empowerment and the psychological distance between users and brands. Furthermore, the source of AI design influences consumer preferences by virtue of the value and information offered by products designed using AI. It is noteworthy that, the source of design effect is moderated by consumer individual differences, product characteristics and the openness of a firm’s design policy. Future research should delve deeper into consumer reactions to mixed design sources as well as the psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions of the source of design effect.
Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology Subjects: Management Science >> Enterprise Management submitted time 2024-01-24
Abstract： The virtual team work mode has become an inevitable trend for the organization work, resulting in a significant characteristic, “boundarylessness”, with a high overlap between the work and family domains. Such boundaryless trend changes the premise of previous research and practice that work and family can be distinguished. Responding to this problem, some scholars suggested to follow this boundaryless trend and promote work-family integration. However, the managerial practice based on this principle resulted in a series of negative effects. This raises an important research question needed to be resolved under the trend of virtual team work mode: is the traditional work-family differentiation principle or the current work-family integration principle more suitable to enhance work-family balance? Do we need other new perspective to resolve this problem? In order to resolve this important research question, this study relies on social identity theory to assist the insufficient explanatory logic of conservation of resources theory, discussing the mechanism of team virtuality on employees’ work-family integration behavior, as well as the managerial intervention principle to achieve work-family harmony. This study helps to build a new theoretical framework for the study of work-family balance to promote the theory development in the intelligent digital era, and suggests a new management perspective to achieve work-family harmony.
Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology Subjects: Psychology >> Industrial Psychology Subjects: Management Science >> Enterprise Management submitted time 2023-03-16
Abstract：
[Objective] Consumers often share their shopping experiences with others. The strength of different social relationships can impact a consumer's word-of-mouth behavior, especially when an unpleasant purchase occurs. While some studies have explored that interpersonal closeness plays an important role in a social context, little has been known about how this diverse range of relationships affects consumers' word-of-mouth behavior in the case of?consumption failures. Previous research has shown that consumers are more likely to spread negative information to individuals with whom they have high (vs. low) levels of interpersonal closeness. However, these studies have only taken a binary approach to classifying interpersonal closeness, ignoring the what would happen when the closeness was on the middle level. Literally, the impact of the diversity of relationships needs further investigation.
[Methods]In this study, the impact of interpersonal closeness on consumers' word-of-mouth intention after a consumption failure was explored through six experiments, both online (Experiments 1, 2, and supplementary Experiment 1) and offline (Experiments 3, 4, and supplementary Experiment 2), in common social settings. Based on the literature on the attitudinal ambivalence literature, this research uses the SIM model to determine the level of motivation conflict and examines the U-shaped impact of interpersonal closeness on word-of-mouth intention
in the event of a consumption failure. Experiment 1 (N=143) is a between-subject design with a single factor of three levels of interpersonal closeness (low vs. medium vs. high). Participants were randomly assigned to different groups and asked to imagine a negative hotel service experience. They then had the opportunity to share the experience with others and answer related questions. The reading materials for the different experimental groups varied only in terms of the manipulation statement for interpersonal closeness. Experiment 2 (N=155) was designed to verify the mediating role of motivation conflict. The manipulation method for interpersonal closeness was changed and the stimulus material was changed to a poorly performing cell phone purchase. Participants answered related questions after reading the materials. Experiment 3 (N=126) was conducted in an offline airport waiting room to simulate a more natural face-to-face communication setting. The
social background of the experiment was transferred from WeChat to the waiting room. The U-shaped relationship between interpersonal closeness and word-of-mouth intention was verified and the mediating effect of motivation conflict was determined. Experiment 4 (N=298) is a 3
(interpersonal closeness: low vs. medium vs. high) × 2 (merchant responsibility: low vs. high) between-subject design to validate the moderating effect of merchant liability. The stimulus material describes a negative private custom tour experience, and interpersonal closeness and merchant
responsibility were manipulated. In the low merchant responsibility condition, the merchant only provided relevant reference options and the consumer chose the travel route. In the high merchant responsibility condition, the consumers chose the strongly recommended travel route provided by the merchant. The domestic samples were recruited from a professional survey website (Credamo) 3 and completed online questionnaires, while the foreign samples were recruited from another professional survey website (Prolific). Samples can be considered representative of the mainstream consumer group.
[Results]The main findings of this study are as follows: (1) Consumers are least likely to discuss their negative consumer experiences in front of objects with medium interpersonal closeness, compared to low and high interpersonal closeness, therefore there is a U-shaped relationship
between interpersonal closeness and word-of-mouth intention. (2) The cause of this difference lies in the conflict between the motivation to protect others' interests and the motivation to protect self-image: when faced with individuals of medium interpersonal closeness, consumers are most concerned with protecting their self-image, which leads to a high degree of motivational conflict and results in the lowest willingness to spread word-of-mouth. (3) The level of responsibility taken by merchants moderates the effect of interpersonal closeness on word-of-mouth intention. When merchants take low responsibility, the effect of interpersonal closeness on word-of-mouth intention is U-shaped. However, when merchants take high responsibility, consumers' motivation to protect their self-image decreases in the presence of individuals with medium interpersonal closeness, causing the motivation to protect others' interests to become dominant and leading to low levels of
motivational conflict. This results in an increase in word-of-mouth intention as interpersonal closeness increases, yielding an approximately linear effect of interpersonal closeness on word-of-mouth intention.This study contributes to the important fields of word-of-mouth communication,
social relationships, and word-of-mouth intention, and provides valuable insights for marketing professionals involved in market research, word-of-mouth management, social media operations, and marketing.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology Subjects: Management Science >> Enterprise Management submitted time 2022-09-04
Abstract： A high level of justice perception not only promotes employees’ task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and creativity, but also reduces their potential organizational retaliation and deviance behavior. To enhance employees’ justice perceptions, first and foremost is ensuring that leaders adhere to justice rules. However, a frustrating reality is that leaders often fail to do so, even when they recognize the importance of justice rule adherence. Thus, in recent years scholars have increasingly focused on explaining the above phenomenon. Scholars adopting an “actor-centric” perspective have found that leaders’ low levels of justice-related traits and justice motives are among the key factors that lead them to violate justice rules. However, a growing number of studies reveal that leaders with both high levels of justice-related traits and justice motives will sometimes violate justice rules. Therefore, scholars have called for moving beyond the “actor-centric” perspective to a “situation-centric” perspective by investigating the role of contextual factors in affecting leaders’ justice behavior. Sherf et al. (2019) were among the first to do so by investigating how leaders’ work overload influences their justice rule adherence. However, there is little research on how political environment may influence leaders’ justice behavior. An organization is not only a workplace for assigning and completing tasks, but also a political site infused with political behavior. Understanding how and when an organization’s political environment may impact leaders’ justice rule adherence has important theoretical implications. To fill the above gaps, in this paper we investigate how political environments affect leaders’ justice rule adherence. Based on the strength model of self-control, we argue that, at the within-person level, leaders’ perceptions of organizational politics (POP) will be positively related to their ego-depletion, and their tenure will weaken this positive relationship between POP and ego-depletion. Nevertheless, the relationship between leaders’ ego-depletion and justice rule adherence (and thus the relationship between leaders’ POP and justice rule adherence via the mediation of ego-depletion) depends on their leader identity. To test our theory, we conducted a survey in a large commercial bank in an eastern province of China, using a time-lagged interval-based experience sampling method. Our final sample included 570 observations from 73 branch managers. We analyzed data using MSEM and found that, at the within-person level, leader POP was positively related to self-depletion, and the relationship was moderated by leader position tenure so that it was significant only under low position tenure. Additionally, leader identity moderated the relationship between self-depletion and justice rule adherence so that the relationship was positive under high leader identity and negative under low leader identity. Furthermore, POP had a positive indirect effect on justice rule adherence via self-depletion when tenure was low and leader identity was high, and the indirect effect was negative when both tenure and leader identity were low. We make important theoretical contributions to the "situation-centric" perspective research on justice rule adherence, POPs, and the strength models of self-control. First, instead of highlighting the task assignment environment before, we explore the consequence of leaders' embedded political environment on their justice rule adherence. At the same time, different from the previous discussion of the conscious cognitive mechanism, the unconscious self-control mechanism of ego-depletion is taken as the mechanism to explain the influence of situational factors on justice rule adherence. Second, this paper is the first, to the best of our knowledge, to verify within-person changes of POP and link it to proactive justice research. Finally, we extend the boundary conditions for understanding how ego-depletion affects leader behavior. In addition, this research offers crucial practical implications for how to shape the organizational political environment and direct it to increase leaders' justice behavior.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
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