Suchergebnisse

The rise of platforms has reshaped fan participation. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, this study examined celebrity fandom in China, where the Internet-powered entertainment industry and fan economy have flourished. We propose an operationality perspective as a wider-angle lens to conceptualize the multitude of fan practices emerging in platform-mediated environments. Moving beyond the text-centered approach, the operationality perspective sees fans' platform practices (e.g. cross-platform engagement, curation of fan texts, data work) as a new logic of participation in digital fandom that could generate distinct identities and lifestyles. Operationality can be understood as a set of strategies fans employ in response to the growing influence of platformization. Operationality not only enables fans to align their practices with platform interests, but also affords them opportunities to negotiate their identities and adjust their degree of involvement in fandom.

This study introduces the organization justice theory as a framework to conceptualize accommodative crisis communication strategies (CCSs). In this regard, it is proposed that three sub-strategies of accommodative CCSs—apology, showing regard, compensation, and corrective action—can enable organizations transform the negative responses of publics by restoring procedural, interactional, and distributive justice. Using an online experiment ( N = 800), this study investigates the effectiveness of each substrategy in different conditions of cause attribution and examines how combinations of accommodative CCSs affect postcrisis public responses. The results indicate that substantive accommodative CCSs (compensation and corrective action) are more effective than symbolic ones (apology and showing regard) in restoring the perceptions and behavioral intentions of publics regarding the organization. Specifically, substantive accommodative CCSs perform better at restoring reputation and purchase intentions when the cause of a crisis is externally attributed. Furthermore, employing a single symbolic accommodative CCS is found to result in greater account acceptance than using a combination.

Firms are engaging in the adoption and implementation of electronic communication tools to facilitate exchange between partners. Although extant studies have argued that market orientation is one of the key forces in driving a firm's adoption of innovation, the current study based on the responses of senior managers in four industries suggests otherwise in the context of e-communication adoption. In particular, we examine a firm's adoption of e-communication based on two forces: (1) internal push factors, namely customer orientation and competitor orientation, and (2) external pull factors, namely customer pressure and normative pressure. Structural equation modeling is used to test the model. Our findings indicate that external factors, particularly customer pressure and normative pressure, are far more critical in driving the intensity of e-communication adoption than internal factors. The results suggest a reactive nature of organizations' behavior towards the adoption of e-communication.

AbstractVarious policies have been implemented to encourage the development of family farms and cooperatives in the past decade in China. New technology adoption is a crucial part in promoting the performance of family farms. However, empirical evidence on whether and how cooperatives would facilitate family farms to adopt new technologies remains unclear. To address the gap, this paper examines the impact of family farms' cooperative membership on new technology adoption (i.e., new varieties, new machinery, new fertilizers, new pesticides, new pest control techniques, new production methods and new management methods). Using novel survey data from 848 family farms in China, and employing both propensity score matching approach and endogenous switching probit model, we find that for family farms, cooperative membership has positive and significant impacts on new technology adoption. When looking into different types of technology, we find that the impacts are larger on the adoption of new methods than new techniques. Moreover, the impacts are larger for family farms with lower operation income and smaller size. The findings provide important insights for policymakers tasked with promoting agricultural technology adoption.

We conducted 2 studies (N = 86 and 248) to examine people's tendency to overestimate their personal budget. The findings support 3 hypotheses. First, about 35% of participants in our first study tended to overestimate their budget when dealing with an uncertainty goal. Second,
we found that focalism played a mediating role in this relationship. Third, in our second study we found that temporal distance positively moderated this relationship: The distant future strengthened the effect of dealing with an uncertainty goal on budget overestimation, whereas the near
future attenuated it. These findings shed light on the cause and internal mechanism of consumer budget overestimation. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

Purpose
This study aims to examine the theoretical links among three important variables by empirically testing the cases of two international brands.


Design/methodology/approach
By using a comparative case study design, this study conducts a content analysis of a total of 490 Facebook comments regarding online confrontational crises: Dolce & Gabbana's photo fiasco and Laneige's discriminative sales incident.


Findings
The findings suggest that when evaluating whether or not a company has shouldered responsibility in online confrontational crises, social media users tend to be more influenced by how timely, active and consistent the organization's reaction is than by the organization's mere use of concession crisis communication strategies (CCSs). The individual-level perception (perceived degree of organizational crisis responsibility-taking) is a stronger predictor of social media users' reaction than organization strategies. The earlier that social media user has a perceived improvement in the organization, the more effective is the organization's strategy to minimize the effects of social media as crisis mobilizer.


Originality/value
This study confirms theories formulated in a Western context with actual cases from Eastern cultures. Theoretically, this study sheds light on the importance of the individual-level perception for effective use of organization strategy in crisis. This study also suggests the relative significance of positive forms of crisis response, concessions CCSs and their relationship with the perceived degree of crisis responsibility-taking.