Do stronger relationships with customers (customer-company relationships [CCR]) help firms better weather economic crises? To answer this question, we examine firm performance during the stock market crashes associated with the two most severe economic crises of the last 15 years-the protracted Great Recession crisis (2008-2009) and the shorter but extreme COVID-19 pandemic crisis (2020). Juxtaposing the predominant expected utility theory perspective with observed deviations in investor behavior during crises, we find that both pre-crash firm-level customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are positively associated with abnormal stock returns and lower idiosyncratic risk during a market crash, while pre-crash firm-level customer complaint rate negatively affects abnormal stock returns and increases idiosyncratic risk. On average, we find that one standard deviation higher CCR is associated with between $0.9 billion and $2.4 billion in market capitalization on an annualized basis. Importantly, we find that these effects are weaker for firms with higher market share during the COVID-19 crash, but not during the Great Recession crash. These results are found to be robust to a variety of alternate model specifications, time periods, sub-samples, accounting for firm strategies during the crises, and endogeneity corrections. When compared to relevant non-crash periods, we also find that such effects are equally strong during the Great Recession crash and even stronger during the COVID-19 pandemic crash. Contributing to both the marketing-finance interface literature and the nascent literature on marketing during economic crises, implications from these findings are provided for researchers, marketing theory, and managers.

Despite the popularity of access-based platforms, the understanding of customer journeys remains anchored in traditional market contexts that overlook prosumers' extended value-chain roles, interconnected experiences, and instrumental sociality in access-based consumption. Using a qualitative study on the access-based platform Rent the Runway, the authors discuss the nature of customer journeys in access-based platforms and showcase how customers perform these journeys. The study reveals two key elements: (1) systemic dynamics, which encompass just-in-time circularity and tightly coupled customer interdependencies, and (2) job crafting, which involves customer work practices that allow pain point avoidance, circulation flow adjustments, and journey stickiness increases. Job crafting can create unpredictable disruptions in other customer journeys and affect systemic flows. This investigation expands research on customer experience management and journey design by developing an access-based platform journey model differentiated from ownership- and service-based platform models, showcasing its systemic instability dynamics, and elaborating how to manage these customer journeys.

Extant research remains equivocal with respect to whether scarcity increases or decreases charitable behaviors. This research suggests a reconciliation by considering a donor's , and their (PTO), a novel personality variable that determines whether individuals are naturally attuned towards people versus things in their environment. Person-orientation predisposes preferences towards donating time, while thing-orientation predisposes preferences towards donating money. Time scarcity leads person-oriented individuals to prefer donating money, but does not affect thing-oriented individuals. Financial scarcity leads thing-oriented individuals to prefer donating time, but does not affect person-oriented individuals. Person-oriented individuals' attention towards and thing-oriented individuals' focus on form the basis for the observed relative donation preferences. Finally, PTO can also be situationally induced. Using donation intentions and real click-through behavior for diverse charitable organizations, we show in five studies that the combined effect of consumers' perceived resource-specific scarcity and PTO determines the relative preference for donating time vs. donating money. Our results have important implications for charities soliciting specific kinds of resources, as well as real-world government and social welfare initiatives critically dependent on volunteerism. Theoretically, we examine scarcity from an individual-difference perspective that has not been well understood.

The sharing economy represents an emerging technology-enabled socioeconomic system. Given its disruptive nature, the sharing economy not only challenges traditional marketing theories but also alters consumer norms and beliefs related to consumption concepts. Whether, when, and how the sharing economy transforms consumption remain important questions for managers to investigate. This study examines how sharing experiences influence consumers' critical self-reflection and shape their intentions to re-engage in sharing practices. With data collected from two surveys and four experiments (including three pretests and one main study), we show that consumers' perceived economic utility, social value, and sustainability potential in the sharing economy influence their intentions to re-engage in sharing practices, thus forming a loyal customer base. In addition, consumer reflexivity mediates this effect. We also show that past experience with business-to-consumer sharing practices moderates the proposed mediating effect. Overall, we demonstrate the disruptive impact of the sharing economy on individual consumers with meaningful managerial implications and contributions to marketing theories.

An important managerial challenge is understanding consumers' reactions to stockouts of a desired product-will they stay brand loyal or switch to competing brands? We posit that consumers are more likely to prefer substitutes from the same brand when a stockout is unexpected (vs. expected). This tendency arises as consumers feel greater negative affect upon encountering an unexpected stockout, which leads them to choose alternatives that provide greater affective value to ameliorate their negative feelings. Since the brand is a relatively affect-rich attribute compared to common non-brand attributes (e.g., price and quantity), consumers facing an unexpected stockout are more likely to choose a same-brand substitute. Five studies illustrate the effect and support the process by demonstrating that unexpected stockouts do not result in brand loyalty when non-brand attributes offer greater affective value than the brand. We further show that managers systematically mispredict how consumers' expectations of stockouts relate to brand loyalty.

As part of their customer engagement (CE) marketing, firms use different platforms to interact with customers, in ways that go beyond purchases. Task-based CE strategies call for customers' participation in structured, often incentivized tasks; experiential CE initiatives instead aim to stimulate pleasurable experiences for customers. But the optimal uses of these two strategies, in terms of improving customer engagement to produce more positive marketing outcomes, are unclear. With a meta-analysis and data from 395 samples, pertaining to 434,233 customers, the present study develops and tests a unifying framework of how to optimize investments in both two engagement strategies across different engagement platforms. On average, task-based initiatives are more effective in driving customer engagement, but the effects depend on the platform. If platforms support continuous or lean interactions, task-based initiatives are more effective; on platforms that encourage spot interactions, experiential initiatives are preferable. Three customer engagement dimensions (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral) in turn lead to positive marketing outcomes, though in ways that depend on the platforms' interaction characteristics (intensity, richness, initiation) and differ across digital versus physical platforms. These results provide clear guidance for managers regarding how to plan their CE marketing activities to benefit both their firms and their customers.

Our research uniquely shows that scarcity cues, when effectively managed by the service firms, can lead to favorable purchase decisions. We investigate how service firms that are scarce on time resource (busy) vs. money resource (poor) are perceived differentially on the two basic dimensions of social perceptions: warmth and competence. Across four studies, we provide the first empirical evidence that busy service firms are perceived higher on competence and poor service firms are perceived higher on warmth. We also find that service firms that are both busy and poor have the highest purchase preference compared to either busy or poor service firms. In addition, purchase preferences are moderated by the consumption contexts (exchange vs. communal relationship domain). Managerially, our findings that scarcity cues influence purchase preferences can benefit the design and execution of marketing strategies.

Despite the proliferation of coproduction concepts in various B2C contexts, knowledge on how coproduction shapes customer relationships is still surprisingly limited, as prior studies find mixed results and are bound to a short-term perspective. The present study addresses these limitations by providing first insights into the underlying psychological processes that explain differences in the short- and long-term relationship consequences of positive and negative coproduction perceptions. Drawing from the multiple inference model, this research shows how customers' ambivalent attributions of a firm's coproduction motives (i.e., firm-serving and customer-serving) affect customer satisfaction, willingness to pay, and spending behavior over time. The results of a latent growth analysis based on a longitudinal field study (n = 12,662; six waves) show that coproduction can harm customer relationships in the long-run, as the detrimental effects of firm-serving motive attributions are temporally more persistent than the favorable but ephemeral effects of customer-serving motive attributions. An additional experiment (n = 931) and field study (n = 360) confirm the generalizability of the key findings and provide new managerial insights into how firm-specific characteristics of a coproduction concept (i.e., coproduction intensity, design freedom, monetary savings) influence customer attributions different coproduction motives and thereby shape customer relationships over time.

Many retailers invest in artificial intelligence (AI) to improve operational efficiency or enhance customer experience. However, AI often disrupts employees' ways of working causing them to resist change, thus threatening the successful embedding and sustained usage of the technology. Using a longitudinal, multi-site ethnographic approach combining 74 stakeholder interviews and 14 on-site retail observations over a 5-year period, this article examines how employees' practices change when retailers invest in AI. is identified as the process that undergirds successful AI integration and enables retail employees' sustained usage of AI. Unlike product or practice diffusion, which may be organic or fortuitous, practice co-evolution is an orchestrated, collaborative process in which a practice is co-envisioned, co-adapted, and co-(re)aligned. To be sustained, practice co-evolution must be recursive and enabled via intentional knowledge transfers. This empirically-derived recursive phasic model provides a roadmap for successful retail AI embedding, and fruitful future research avenues.

Resource scarcity, manifested through limited time, money or space, is a prevalent aspect of family life. Drawing on depth interviews with 30 families from diverse demographic backgrounds, this study develops a framework to demonstrate how families respond to resource scarcity. Our research examines how multi-dimensional, concurrent and/or consecutive life events, such as job changes, house moves, or childbirth, create a mismatch between available and required resources to trigger situational resource scarcity. We identify different patterns of adjustments in consumption and resource investment over time, based on families' chronic resources and reliance on support networks. Notably, the greater flexibility afforded by multiple family members is constrained by collective goals, domains of control, tensions and negotiations.

The present article examines how disease anthropomorphism affects compliance with recommendations for preventing the disease. We find that consumers are more likely to comply with health recommendations when the disease is described in anthropomorphic (vs. non-anthropomorphic) terms because anthropomorphism increases psychological closeness to the disease, which increases perceived vulnerability. We demonstrate the effect of disease anthropomorphism on health compliance in seven studies with several diseases (COVID-19, breast cancer), manipulations of anthropomorphism (first person and third person; with and without an image), and participant populations (the US and China). We test the proposed pathway through psychological closeness and perceived vulnerability with sequential mediation analyses and moderation-of-process approaches, and we rule out alternative accounts based on known consequences of anthropomorphism and antecedents of health compliance. This research contributes to the theory and practice of health communication and to the growing literature on how the anthropomorphism of negative entities affects consumers' judgments and behaviors.

Non-face (NF) emojis are increasingly used to complement or substitute words in digital marketing messages, yet the effects, mechanisms, and contingencies of this communication strategy remain underexplored. In a large-scale longitudinal study of Airbnb listings, we show that NF emojis (vs. simple text) lead to an increase in eWOM volume, an effect we replicate experimentally. This effect is qualified by important boundary conditions whose underlying mechanisms are investigated in two additional experimental studies. At the message level, using multiple substitutive (vs. complementary) NF emojis reduces message evaluations and eWOM volume due to reduced processing fluency. At the source level, seller quality further moderates the interaction between emoji function and emoji number: for premium sellers, using multiple NF emojis reduces message evaluations and eWOM volume irrespective of their function due to reduced perceptions of competence. We distill these findings into detailed managerial guidelines for using NF emojis in digital marketing.

Using a panel data set (n = 49,626), this research tests opposing hypotheses about the influence of brand personality dimensions (BPDs) on customer-based brand equity (CBBE) and the evolution of this influence over an 18-year period. The results show that, on average, the BPDs of excitement, competence, and sincerity have more positive effects on CBBE than sophistication and ruggedness. Furthermore, the effects of sincerity, sophistication, and ruggedness on CBBE have declined over time while the effects of excitement and competence have grown more positive: A 1% change in excitement is associated with a .45% change in CBBE in 2001 and a .71% change in 2018 (a 58% increase), while a 1% change in competence is associated with a .42% change in CBBE in 2001 and a .60% change in 2018 (a 43% increase). How these effects vary between countries, industry sectors, and brand types is also explored.

Though the customer journey (CJ) is gaining traction, its limited focus overlooks the dynamics characterizing stakeholders' (e.g., employees'/suppliers') journeys, thus calling for an extension to the (SJ). Addressing this gap, we advance the SJ, which covers stakeholder's journey with the firm. We argue that firms' consideration of the SJ, defined as , , enhances their stakeholder relationship management and performance outcomes. We also view the SJ in a network of intersecting journeys that are characterized by interdependence theory's structural tenets of stakeholder control, covariation of interest, mutuality of dependence, information availability, and temporal journey structure, which we view to impact stakeholders' journey-based engagement and experience, as formalized in a set of Propositions. We conclude with theoretical (e.g., further research) and practical (e.g., SJ design/management) implications.

We identify value narratives as stories that promote certain product or service attributes as benefits within the marketplace. We show how value narratives reflect benefit attributes that align with alternative versus mainstream market settings. Our empirical focus is local food value narratives within a common local food system with alternative settings being farmers' markets and mainstream settings being supermarkets. Farmers' market and supermarket purveyors choose which benefit characteristics to emphasize throughout narrative curation, enabling us to witness strategic narrative use, or what we term narrative stewardship. We find that multiple value narratives express an array of 'local food' benefits in ways that create a contested marketplace. Narrative deployment at farmers' markets is guided by an amalgam of institutional perspectives, while narrative use at supermarkets is dominated by a market institutional perspective. We identify a continuum of value narrative stewardship (promotion-neglect) within farmers' markets that leaves the meaning and value of 'local food' vulnerable to mainstream market appropriation via narrative voidance, dilution, and replacement. We propose strategies for better value narrative stewardship.

A basic step in scientific inquiry entails ordering, classifying, or grouping the phenomena under investigation-that is, developing a taxonomy. Yet no method-transparent taxonomy of has been established, creating significant confusion among both managers and theoreticians. Many marketers, inspired by educators, assume that marketing organizations control all marketing-related decisions, yet skeptics counter with assertions that instead, marketing organizations simply put a positive spin on the meaningful value created by others in the company. The method-transparent taxonomic study presented in this article addresses this debate and reveals three marketing organization types: , which reflect a textbook view, representing about 17% of the sample firms; , consistent with the skeptics' view, equivalent to about 43% of the sample firms; and , a third marketing organization type in which marketers are primarily responsible for brands and communications, representing about 40% of the sample firms. Establishing these different marketing organization types can help address conflicting views about marketing organizations. The conceptual typology underlying the empirical taxonomy also clarifies why the different marketing organization types exist and suggests hypotheses, specific to each marketing organization type, that might address previously unresolved research questions.

Augmented reality (AR) technology has generated enormous industry investment and buzz, with the food and beverage sector quickly embracing this technology in an effort to enhance the customer experience. However, academic research has only just begun to empirically explore how and why this technology might influence consumer judgements and behaviors in such contexts. Across two field studies involving consequential behavior and two controlled laboratory studies, we find that AR's unique ability to visually superimpose objects onto a real-time environment increases consumers' ability to mentally simulate consuming a pictured food, which in turn increases their desire and purchase likelihood of the food item. Further, we find the increased mental simulation produced by AR is itself preceded and driven by an increased sense of personal relevance of the food items.

Building on the health belief model (HBM), this research tests, over six months, how the exposure to COVID-related information in the media affects fear, which in turn conditions beliefs about the severity of the virus, susceptibility of getting the virus, and benefits of safety measures. These health beliefs ultimately lead to social distancing and panic buying. As a first contribution, we find that fear is not directly triggered by the objective severity of a crisis, but rather formed over time by the way individuals are exposed to media. Second, we show that fear affects behaviors through the components of the HBM which relate to the risks/benefits of a situation. Last, we find that critical thinking about media content amplifies the "adaptive" responses of our model (e.g., health beliefs, social distancing) and reduces its "maladaptive" responses (e.g., panic buying). Interestingly, we note that the beneficial effect of critical thinking about media content disappears as the level of fear increases over time. The implications of these findings for policymakers, media companies, and theory are further discussed.

Drawing on agency theory and transaction cost analysis, this study investigates the impact of refranchising and buybacks of downstream retail units by franchising firms on shareholder value (i.e., stock returns). It further evaluates the contingency role of firm and industry factors in shaping this impact. An event study analysis over the years 2001-2020 confirms that both refranchising and buybacks positively affect stock returns. However, notable impact differences emerge between the two types of strategic decisions. For refranchising, firms with lower royalty rates, smaller returns-on-assets (ROA), and higher trade credit provided generate higher stock returns. Whereas, for buybacks, firms with higher royalty rates derive more value in stock markets. Analysis further shows that investors judge refranchising (buybacks) less (more) favorably in munificent industries, but industry dynamism has no effect on the stock returns generated from these moves. Together, the study offers important implications for franchising theory and retail practice in marketing.