Publikationen

This study examines the predictive validity of implicit evaluative brand association measures in real market outcomes and the boundary conditions of their effectiveness. Drawing on dual-process theories, we focus on the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a tool for capturing subconscious brand associations. The research questions ask whether IAT-based brand image scores can predict actual market share and how this relationship might vary with key product category characteristics, specifically, consumers’ consideration set size and purchase frequency. We conducted a large-scale survey of toothpaste brands measuring implicit brand associations via the IAT and linked these scores to each brand’s market share data. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that implicit brand image significantly predicts market share in the product category. Moreover, the IAT’s predictive validity was stronger when the consumer’s consideration set was small, consistent with intuitive decision-making playing a greater role under low choice complexity. However, the expected moderation by purchase frequency was not supported, frequent, habitual purchasing did not further amplify the IAT–share link. Overall, the findings demonstrate that implicit measures can enrich brand equity assessment by capturing hidden drivers of brand preference that translate into market performance, especially in low-complexity choice contexts.

This study examines how artificial intelligence shapes disclosure among male survivors of child sexual abuse in China. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 44 adult survivors, it identifies three dynamics. First, AI can provide a de-stigmatised space that reduces interpersonal judgement and temporarily suspends masculine expectations of control and invulnerability. Second, AI actively guides disclosure by helping survivors narrate, organise and potentially share their experiences. Third, this process remains fragile, as generic therapeutic responses and policy-based interruptions may generate rejection, rupture and renewed self-censorship. The article develops the AI-Conditioned Disclosure Model, conceptualising disclosure as conditionally recognised rather than simply enabled. It argues that AI transforms disclosure into a mediated process shaped by gender norms, therapeutic discourse, platform governance and systemic refusal. The study extends CSA disclosure research beyond interpersonal and institutional settings while contributing to debates on human–AI interaction, trauma communication and technological mediation.PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENT This study highlights the potential of conversational AI to serve as a relatively private and less socially exposing space for trauma disclosure. However, it also finds that generic responses, gendered assumptions, and abrupt interruptions may undermine the recognition and safety that such interactions initially provide. The findings encourage AI developers to give consideration to the sensitivities and vulnerabilities of trauma survivors, thereby supporting the development of safer, more responsive, and trauma-informed systems.

Organizational improvisation will enable organizations to respond flexibly and resiliently to unexpected environmental changes, while in contrast, Organizational improvisation enables organizations to react flexibly and resiliently to unexpected environmental changes, with its impact on venture performance dependent on supporting factors such as entrepreneurial competencies and a proactive sales orientation. Accordingly, this study seeks to determine the impact of organizational improvisation on new venture performance with entrepreneurial competencies and proactive sales orientation as moderators. The data were collected from 750 ethnic entrepreneurs operating in Malaysian retail small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through a quota sampling approach and analyzed using modeling techniques. The findings show organizational improvisation plays a critical role in performance of new ventures among Chinese, Malay and Indian owned retail SMEs in Malaysia. Moreover, a significant moderating role of entrepreneurial competencies was found for the organizational improvisation and new venture performance relationship among all samples of ethnic retail SMEs. However, to be a key moderator for only Chinese and Malay retail SMEs, but not for Indian retail SMEs. This implies that the level of resources (i.e., entrepreneurial competencies and proactive sales orientation) available to the organization also impacts new venture performance. Organizations with more resources at their disposal may be able to improvise more effectively and perform better than those with fewer resources. Therefore, entrepreneurs and managers need to consider these contingencies when developing strategies for new venture performance and organizational improvisation.

Cultural heritage institutions today are experiencing a digital transformation. Virtual Reality (VR), with the promise of immersive and interactive features, has drawn the attention of artists and curators. Some prior museology research has attempted to investigate digital innovations like virtual museums and VR-based exhibits to present the best of museum experiences; however, existing systematic research on the topic of interactive narrative experience with immersive VR technologies is rare. This paper reports on an original research project to understand the emergent issues concerning immersion, interactive and narrative in museum experience design. This research used multiple case studies, Claude Monet: The Water Lily Obsession; We live in the Ocean of Air; Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass; Curious Alice. In total, 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted with VR experts and museum curators to understand the motivation of the designers and developers. This research hopes to contribute to the digital revolution of museums, providing a foundation for curators and artists who are interested in using VR technologies in exhibitions.

This study examines the predictive validity of implicit evaluative brand association measures in real market outcomes and the boundary conditions of their effectiveness. Drawing on dual-process theories, we focus on the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a tool for capturing subconscious brand associations. The research questions ask whether IAT-based brand image scores can predict actual market share and how this relationship might vary with key product category characteristics, specifically, consumers’ consideration set size and purchase frequency. We conducted a large-scale survey of toothpaste brands measuring implicit brand associations via the IAT and linked these scores to each brand’s market share data. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that implicit brand image significantly predicts market share in the product category. Moreover, the IAT’s predictive validity was stronger when the consumer’s consideration set was small, consistent with intuitive decision-making playing a greater role under low choice complexity. However, the expected moderation by purchase frequency was not supported, frequent, habitual purchasing did not further amplify the IAT–share link. Overall, the findings demonstrate that implicit measures can enrich brand equity assessment by capturing hidden drivers of brand preference that translate into market performance, especially in low-complexity choice contexts.

In June 2025, the hashtag #NoChineseCanLeaveTheBritishMuseumSmiling circulated widely on the Chinese platform RedNote, sparking public debate over the British Museum's Chinese collections. This article examines how displaced Chinese artefacts are framed differently in the Museum's Chinese galleries and on digital platforms. Data were collected between October 2023 and August 2025 through two rounds of exhibition fieldwork and through a stratified sample of 622 RedNote posts drawn from 2,310 items. In addition, 18 semi-structured interviews were conducted with museum professionals globally. Drawing on Heidegger's concept of care, we argue that curatorial practices enact spatio-narrative hegemony by embedding artefacts in universalist narratives, while digital publics exercise narrative sovereignty – renegotiating authority, memory and belonging across physical and digital contexts. Theoretically, the article advances a phenomenologically grounded framework for analysing contested heritage in hybrid environments. Practically, it suggests that museums adopt more participatory curatorial strategies when addressing displaced collections in the digital age.

This article explores how digital media shape the cultural politics of sexual consent and harassment in contemporary China. It examines two high-profile cases, the 2023 Datong engagement-rape judgment and the 2023–2025 Wuhan University sexual harassment lawsuit, to show how cultural expectations surrounding intimacy and marriage, evidentiary disputes and platform logics reshape popular understandings of justice and the authority of courts. Drawing on a mixed-methods content analysis of commentary on Zhihu and Xiaohongshu, the study traces how cultural expectations around intimacy were reframed as entitlement to sex, how judicial caution was translated into accusations of zero-cost claims and how complex forensic disputes were compressed into viral binaries of innocence or guilt. Remarkably, both Zhihu and Xiaohongshu, platforms often characterised as having different gendered user cultures, displayed strikingly similar discursive patterns, suggesting misogynistic narratives circulated across platform boundaries despite differences in user culture. The analysis highlights how media infrastructures displace punitive authority from legal institutions to digital publics, where practices of doxxing, blacklisting and reputational shaming operate as digital vigilantism. Overall, the article situates Chinese sex-crime debates within wider discussions of crime, media and culture, demonstrating how platformised justice reinforces misogynistic narratives while also enabling feminist legal consciousness.

This study investigates the integration of transmedia storytelling (TMS) within immersive extended reality (XR)-enhanced museum experiences, focusing on its potential to transform cultural engagement. Employing Heidegger's fourfold model as a theoretical foundation, along with the authors' conceptual framework illustrating the synergy of fourfold elements in XR-enhanced museums, the research explores how interactive narratives align with the dimensions of Earth, sky, mortals and gods to create richer, more participatory museum experiences. Drawing on interviews with 27 experts from Asia, Europe, Canada and the United States, the study examines the challenges and opportunities of integrating TMS into museum practices. The research highlights the transformative potential of storytelling and interactive narratives to shift museum experiences from passive observation to active participation. This phenomenological orientation towards dynamic storytelling offers implications for designing richer, more engaging cultural heritage experiences and invites further inquiry into the role of TMS in the digital age.

This paper examines the “Fat Cat Incident” (2024), where a young Chinese gamer’s suicide after an online relationship breakdown sparked intense online discourse. Through inductive thematic analysis and qualitative sentiment analysis of 1,200 user comments from the female-oriented Xiaohongshu and male-dominated Zhihu platforms, we demonstrate how Chinese social media facilitate the social construction of polarized gender realities. Xiaohongshu users predominantly framed Fat Cat as an emotionally impulsive “hopeless romantic” while defending his ex-girlfriend’s right to financial compensation, whereas Zhihu users portrayed Fat Cat as a manipulated victim while characterizing his ex-girlfriend as a calculated “gold-digger” employing PUA tactics. The incident reveals three key processes: (1) gender norm construction via polarized discourse, (2) tragedy commodification into “liuliang” (traffic) and memes, and (3) transactional relationship normalization and digital gender segregation. This demonstrates how platforms shape social realities by reinforcing gender divides, monetizing emotion, and commodifying personal loss, offering critical insight into gender politics in China’s digital public sphere.

This study introduces and validates a novel quantitative survey-based technique (select-and-rank, SAR) designed to measure brand preference as an outcome of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE). The SAR method combines simplicity with predictive accuracy by leveraging a ranking-based approach leaning on a Zipf distribution—a model demonstrated to effectively represent market shares. Its development addresses the need for a practical and reliable tool in large-scale brand studies, distinguishing itself from traditional methods by offering improved measurement capabilities and reduced cognitive load. Using data from a market representative sample, this initial study demonstrates SAR’s ability to accurately capture brand preference dynamics while comparing its performance against widely used existing measurement techniques. The findings reveal SAR’s enhanced accuracy, robustness, and scalability, making it a valuable addition to the CBBE research toolkit. The study also highlights managerial implications, offering brand managers a technique to capture consumer preferences to assist in optimizing brand positioning and strategy in competitive markets. Finally, recommendations for future research are provided to extend SAR’s application to additional dimensions of CBBE.

This study examines Black Myth: Wukong, China’s first AAA (Triple-A) game, as a transformative medium that bridges traditional Chinese mythology and modern digital storytelling. Drawing from Journey to the West, a cornerstone of Chinese literary heritage, the game integrates advanced gaming technologies with immersive narratives, offering an organic reinterpretation of classical mythology for a global audience. Employing Walter Benjamin’s theory of storytelling and Carly Kocurek’s insights on interactive media, this research highlights how the game revitalises cultural narratives, fostering cross-cultural connections while maintaining authenticity. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study integrates content analysis of narrative and visual elements, sentiment analysis of audience reception, and a dual deductive-inductive thematic analysis to uncover key trends and insights. This study also addresses controversies surrounding inclusivity and ethical storytelling, emphasising the challenges and opportunities in adapting traditional narratives to contemporary global contexts. By analysing the reception and cultural implications of Wukong, we underscore the potential of interactive media to serve as both a cultural bridge and an educational tool.

Manufacturing and digital technologies are increasingly integrated to enhance productivity. While prior studies have investigated the effect of digitalization on productivity, limited attention has been paid to the moderating role of dynamic capabilities in this effect. This study bridges this gap by employing a panel fixed-effects model to test how dynamic capabilities moderate the effect of digitalization on total factor productivity (TFP) in Chinese listed manufacturing firms from 2007 to 2020. The results show that digitalization significantly improves firms’ TFP. Moreover, digitalization’s effects on TFP are moderated positively by absorptive, innovative, and adaptive capabilities. Among these, adaptive capability has the strongest moderating effect, followed by innovative capability, while absorptive capability has the weakest. The strength of these moderating effects is closely related to the industry competition and the degree of government intervention in the market where the companies operate. This study introduces a dynamic capabilities perspective to offer a novel interpretation for uncovering the pathways through which digitalization enhances TFP. It also provides insights for managers on how to better leverage digital technologies and for policymakers on how to design supportive policies.

In Vorbereitung.

English monograph on brands, myth, and cultural philosophy.

This article examines how elderly audiences engage with internet celebrities on Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese equivalent) through the lens of the Frankfurt school – with Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse, and Habermas’s critical theories towards the cultural industry. According to them, the culture industry’s mass-produced cultural goods promote conformity, suppress critical thought, and encourage passive consumption to benefit capitalism. This study focuses on the digital presence of Chinese internet celebrities Xiucai and Yixiaoqingcheng, demonstrating how Chinese digital platforms continue the culture industry’s trends of commodification, standardisation, and passive consumption. It uncovers a paradox: digital media seemingly provides the elderly with a sense of participatory culture and community, yet it traps them in a commodifying system that exploits for profit. Furthermore, the interactions between younger users and these celebrities, through parody, highlight a generational dialogue that perpetuates the culture industry’s cycle of replacing genuine cultural and creative values with exchange values, thus sidelining critical social issues like the financial exploitation of the elderly. This research underscores the ongoing significance of the Frankfurt school and its critique of technology in understanding the current digital media landscape in China and calls for a deeper cultural engagement beyond the superficial participatory culture promoted by digital platforms.

This study explores the Yu-C (language cosplay) community, a female-dominated digital subculture within the Chinese internet landscape. Yu-C, a text-based role-playing platform, enables participants to construct and perform diverse identities—including cross-gender, non-human, and fictional personas—cultivating a unique site for storytelling, social interaction, and feminist expression. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 36 female participants, supplemented by online ethnographic observations, this research examines how Yu-C facilitates identity exploration, challenges patriarchal norms, and serves as a microcosm for feminist resistance and subcultural innovation. Utilising theoretical frameworks of cyberfeminism, queer theory, and intersectionality, the study analyzes the dynamics of inclusion, exclusion, and subcultural capital within the community. Findings reveal that Yu-C offers women a space for self-expression, emotional connection, and the reimagining of traditional gender roles. At the same time, it highlights the complexities of balancing exclusivity and inclusivity. This study contributes to feminist literature by demonstrating the transformative potential of digital spaces for identity reconstruction and collective empowerment, emphasising Yu-C’s role in challenging and reconfiguring societal narratives around gender and power.

Macro theoretical approaches in Design Research often face obstacles. They rely on borrowed theories. This paper provides some considerations on how to borrow macro theories. By borrowing some concepts from second-order cybernetics, Niklas Luhmann’s Theory of Social Systems and George Spencer Brown's Laws of Form, the paper discusses possible foundations for a macro perspectival approach in design research.

Collective layoffs can occur for many reasons, often related to a firm’s pursuit of greater efficiency and cost reduction, and they tend to trigger negative reactions among the public. Anecdotal evidence suggests that offshoring, one of the most controversial and politicized aspects of globalization, evokes particularly negative reactions. We propose a social contract account of consumer reactions to collective layoffs and demonstrate differential consumer responses to collective layoffs due to offshoring versus other reasons, such as automation. Layoffs due to offshoring are perceived as an especially egregious violation of the normative expectation that firms should support members of their society. Data from nine experimental studies (N = 5,568; seven reported in the main paper and two in the General Discussion section), public consumer responses to layoffs in a large online community (N = 29,045), and layoff announcements in the European Union (N = 1,261) show that consumers react more negatively to collective layoffs due to offshoring compared to other reasons. Supporting our social contract account, the negative effect of offshoring is stronger when offshoring affects workers in the consumers’ home (vs. foreign) country, when the firm is domestic (vs. foreign), and when most customers are domestic (vs. foreign).

Design Thinking lässt sich auf zwei Weisen (vgl. Jonas 2012) lesen, nur eine hat jedoch in den letzten Jahren auch außerhalb des eigentlichen Designs Karriere gemacht. Nämlich Design Thinking als eine anderen agilen Formen der Ideenfindung und Produktentwicklung nahestehende Methode, mit der sich einigermaßen zuverlässig Innovationsansätze finden lassen, die außerhalb inkrementeller Verbesserungen angesiedelt sind. Diese Leistung erfüllt die (Kontroll-)Bedürfnisse der Ökonomie einer digitalisierten Gesellschaft, in der sich die Erfolgsbedingungen für Produkte, Services und Anwendungen schnell verändern und Lebensrealitäten ebenso komplex wie singulär sind. Design Thinking als Methode macht in diesem Umfeld einen Unterschied, denn das Versprechen lautet, durch iteratives Vorgehen und Stakeholderintegration den wirklichen Bedürfnissen von Nutzer/innen nicht nur auf die Spur zu kommen, sondern diese auch in Lösungen zu überführen und dabei zu einem höheren Zusammenhalt unter den Mitarbeiter/innen und Zufriedenheit beitragen zu können (vgl. Brown 2016).

This article presents a comprehensive account of the development of Gala, an interactive virtual reality film. This accessible approach involves a single designer working within the constraints of a limited budget while utilising the game engine Unity, the Zoom video conferencing platform, an iPhone, and the software Reallusion. The significance of Gala lies in its capacity to serve as an exemplar of accessible technologies, underlining its pragmatic use of 3D assets, avatars, and real-world data, all of which collectively emphasise innovation, making it not only accessible but also a relevant example of contemporary technological advancements driving new forms of expression. The article examines how these techniques might be used to create new forms of interactive and immersive storytelling and to create a new cinematic language within VR filmmaking. There is evidence that virtual film production is expanding as digital production equipment becomes more widely available, accelerating the development of virtual production tools and workflows. This study is significant for the traditional film production industry as it transitions to digital production technology.

This study presents a philosophical reconceptualisation of museums using phenomenological frameworks. It explores the role extended reality (XR) “things” play in the museum experience and studies how their function differs from traditional objects. Existing studies highlight the technological tools, solutions and various visitor experience modalities in the museum sector. However, only a few papers focus on the theoretical aspects of using XR in museums. This empirical study adopts a qualitative research methodology, and 22 semi-structured interviews with specialists in XR design and development, museum culture, curation and museum exhibitions are conducted. The findings suggest that XR enhances museum curation and exhibition practices by providing new dimensions for interacting with museum objects. This aligns with Heidegger’s “the thing” and “fourfold” concepts—the integration of mortals (i.e., museum visitors), earth (i.e., the activities participated in by the visitors), sky (i.e., the potentialities and ideas stimulated by the artefacts) and divinities (i.e., the visitors’ emotions while interacting with the exhibits). Therefore, these new interactions, enabled by XR, can accentuate the narratives attached to and the meaning of the artefacts within the digital museum space, facilitating new understandings and relationships with history due to the digitisation of objects. Furthermore, this can potentially impact XR’s use in developing multi-channel curation and multi-sensory visitor experiences in museums and cultural heritage institutions.

Kulturphilosophische Betrachtung der mythischen Dimension von Marken.

Dieses essential gibt einen fundierten Überblick über das Thema Brand Purpose und beschreibt den Wandel des Markenbegriffs von statischen Konstrukten zu dynamischen, partizipativen Ökosystemen. Im Zentrum stehen dabei der Brand Purpose sowie die Relevanz und Positionierung der Marke für eine langfristige, tiefere Bindung an den Konsumenten. Anhand von Fallstudien zeigen die Autorinnen, wie Unternehmen Ideale und Werte mit der eigenen Marken verbinden und stellen abschließend das Business Canvas Model vor, mit dem Gründer und Marketers Schritt für Schritt den eigenen Brand Purpose entwickeln und umsetzen können.

This article examines 隐入尘烟 Yinru Chenyan ‘Return to Dust’ (2022) (henchforth Dust), directed by Li Ruijun, as a powerful critique of rural marginalization and socio-economic inequities in contemporary China. The film illustrates the hardships faced by Ma Youtie and Cao Guiying, representing rural individuals marginalized by prevailing urban narratives and enduring institutional neglect and exploitation. Using narrative analysis and building on the surrounding paratextual film reviews of Dust, this study engages the notion of subalternity to reveal how the film amplifies the voices of rural communities through narrating about three disparate subaltern subjects: the peasants; the marginalized in the rural society; the rural women. Then, through examining the film reviews from state-sponsored media and social media, this paper explores how the subaltern narrative engenders an ideological confrontation between the state-sponsored media discourse and the grassroots discourse from the rural communities. Although the subaltern narrative may be misrepresented as a series of positive messages by state-sponsored media, it concurrently possesses the capacity to provoke public critique of both films and state-sponsored media on social media platforms, advocating for more just representations of social responsibility.

Purpose The current study aims to ascertain how green entrepreneurial orientation (GEO) affects green innovation performance (GIP) through the mediating mechanism of the knowledge creation process (KCP) and whether or not these associations can be strengthened or hampered by the moderating impacts of resources orchestration capabilities (ROC). Design/methodology/approach The research used data from managers at various levels in 154 manufacturing enterprises in Pakistan to evaluate the relationships among the constructs using hierarchical regression analysis and moderated mediation approach. Findings The study indicates that GEO substantially impacts firms' GIP. GEO and GIP's relationship is partially mediated by two KCP dimensions: knowledge integration (KI) and knowledge exchange (KE). Furthermore, ROC amplifies not only the effects of GEO on KE but also the effects of KE on GIP. The moderated mediation results demonstrate that KE has a greater mediating influence on GEO and GIP when ROC is higher. Research limitations/implications To better understand GEO's advantages and significance, future studies should look into the possible moderating mechanisms of environmental, organizational culture/green capability in the association between GEO, KCP and GIP. Practical implications The research helps expand the field of green entrepreneurship and GIP literature by providing a deeper knowledge of GEO and offering insight into how to boost GI in manufacturing firms. Originality/value This research helps fill in knowledge gaps in the field by delving further into the mechanisms by which GEO promotes GIP, both directly and indirectly, via the mediating role of KCP and the moderating impacts of ROC.

Purpose Given the critical role of green innovation (GI) in the manufacturing sector, this study builds a moderated mediation model to evaluate the influence of leadership and management support on GI, the mediating function of green knowledge acquisition, and the moderating role of green absorptive ability. Design/methodology/approach The study employed a quantitative research approach with hierarchical regression analysis to assess the proposed relationships among the constructs on a sample of 371 executives from 117 large-sized manufacturing firms in Pakistan. Findings The research findings demonstrate that leadership and management support significantly affects both radical and incremental GI, with incremental green innovation being more positively affected than radical green innovation. Green knowledge acquisition partially mediates between leadership and management support, radical and incremental green innovation. Green knowledge acquisition moderates the association between leadership and management support and green knowledge acquisition and the link between leadership and management support and incremental GI. The findings also demonstrate that green knowledge acquisition's mediating effect on leadership and management support, and GI is more pronounced when green absorptive capacity is high. Research limitations/implications This research is based on cross-sectional data gathered from manufacturing companies. Future studies should consider this differentiation between the enterprises since there are various sectors within the general manufacturing sector whose environmental effect is more or less polluting. This research focused exclusively on two aspects of GI (radical and incremental GI). It is feasible that additional GI constituents (i.e., product, process, and management GI) can significantly boost businesses' competitive advantage. This study recommends additional study into the potential moderating impacts of technological and market turbulence to better understand the relationship between these concepts since it is evident that internal and external factors influence GI. Practical implications The study provides useful insights and an innovative way for manufacturing firms and authorities to prevent environmental deterioration and achieve sustainable green innovation through leadership and management support and green intangible resources. Originality/value This research concentrating on green environmental concerns and using RBV theory attempts to fill research gaps and sheds light on how leadership and management support promote both radical and incremental green innovation via the mediating and moderating roles of green knowledge acquisition and green absorptive capacity.

This study examines the short-term and long-term effects of various important determinants such as financial inclusion (FI), information and communication technology (ICT), renewable energy (RE), globalization (GOB), and economic growth (EG) on CO2 emissions in the top 10 emitter countries in the OBOR region based on the collected data for the years 2004 to 2019. This study employed the CS-ARDL technique. Findings demonstrate a strong relationship between FI, ICT, and CO2 emissions in both the long-term and short-term. Renewable sources of energy have been found to have a CO2 emission reduction effect, both in the long and short term. In the long run, there is a negative connection between globalization and CO2 emissions; however, in the short run, this connection is inconsequential, while economic growth (EG) has a positive association with CO2 emission. The development of ICT infrastructure carries the potential to directly mitigate the detrimental effects of CO2 emissions while also playing an important role in raising people’s environmental consciousness. OBOR countries should welcome and encourage clean and green foreign investment that provides technical skills, environmental technology development, and carbon-free processes.

Abstract Significant advances in virtual reality (VR) technology have called into question the traditional methods of cinema storytelling and dissemination. New VR devices, such as the Meta (Oculus) Quest, have expanded the possibilities for viewing movies. The purpose of this study is to compare the emotional and cognitive impacts of VR and traditional 2D movies. In this study, sixty volunteers were divided into two groups and presented a movie (Gala) in 2D or VR format. We employed a multimodal method to assess the cognitive and emotional effects of the film both during and after watching. Our technique combined self-reports, interviews, questionnaires, and objective heart rate and EEG brain activity data. After quantitative and qualitative evaluation, it was discovered, that regardless of media, there was a substantial influence of the movie on the emotional state of the participant’s mood. Moreover, compared to the traditional 2D-movie, the VR movie led to more consistent and robust positive effect on all aspects of self-rated affect. The difference in self-reported mood was corroborated by reduced EEG amplitudes in the beta frequency band, indicating higher levels of positive affectivity, which was only observed for the VR movie. Lastly, the VR movie also leads to overall higher self-rated immersion and engagement than the 2D version. Our results highlight the potential of VR movies to engage and emotionally affect audiences beyond traditional cinema. Moreover, our study highlights the value of using a multidisciplinary method for analysing audience impacts.

Filmmakers now have access to new cinematic pipelines that combine Virtual Reality (VR), allowing them to develop new immersive media for narrative and audience interaction. Traditional filmmaking approaches are limited when it comes to investigating the embodiment of VR and the underlying interaction between the user and the story in Embodied Virtual Reality (EVR) films. This study analyses four award-winning EVR films (Bonfire, The Line, The Key, and Wolves in the Walls) as case studies and proposes a set of heuristics to guide the production of new EVR films. The findings will be especially useful for independent filmmakers transitioning into EVR production, as well as the larger VR cinema community, in comprehending emergent VR storytelling.

Eating meat can have detrimental effects on the environment, animal welfare, and a person’s health. However, consumers are often reluctant to reduce their meat consumption and public information-based awareness campaigns show little effect. As an alternative, some vegan activists and pressure groups employ emotion-based campaigns using meat-shaming techniques in the hope to change people’s meat consumption behavior. By publicly and often drastically criticizing consumers, they try to make them experience negative emotions and ultimately change their behavior. In three experimental studies, we explore whether a confrontational approach of putting meat-shaming messages on products is likely to affect consumer behavior. Specifically, we find that meat-shaming messages trigger shame but also other negative emotions that translate into reduced purchase intentions. The content of the message largely determines the different emotions that are evoked. The messages can activate both restore and protect motivations, either stimulating or hindering behavioral change. Interestingly, it does not seem to matter whether the meat-shaming message stems from a governmental organization, activist group, or private person and whether it is framed with a personal or informational appeal. If the source looks credible, the message influences consumer experience and behavioral intentions.

Hysteria, a mysterious disease known since antiquity, is said to have ceased to exist. Challenging this commonly held view, this is the first cross-disciplinary study to examine the current functional neuroimaging research into hysteria and compare it to the nineteenth-century image-based research into the same disorder. Paula Muhr's central argument is that, both in the nineteenth-century and the current neurobiological research on hysteria, images have enabled researchers to generate new medical insights. Through detailed case studies, Muhr traces how different images, from photography to functional brain scans, have reshaped the historically situated medical understanding of this disorder that defies the mind-body dualism.

In today's competitive business market, firms that collaborate on a coopetition basis face obstacles in the form of decision-making, dependency, and trust in their competitor partners. This current study is the only one that has examined the relationship between coopetition and firm performance; yet, this relationship appears to be unclear due to the impact of trust and dependency on coopetition. This study investigates the impact of coopetition on firm performance by examining the mediating effects of decision-making and open innovation on firm performance. There are 230 sets of data that were collected from the employees of Chinese small- and medium-sized enterprises through the survey method, and the data were analyzed using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling. The findings of this study indicated that open innovation has a significant mediation effect between coopetition and firm performance, and that decision-making is also an important mediating effect in bridging the relationship between coopetition and firm performance. By considering these mediators, the findings revealed that the coopetition has a significant impact on firm performance through decision-making and has a significant effect on firm performance through increasing open innovation. The findings also revealed that decision-making played a significant role in mediating the relationship between coopetition and firm performance, which in turn specified a statistically significant positive relationship with decision-making that mediated a positive relation. According to the findings of this research, modern business firms should recognize the relevance of coopetition-based open innovation in their business processes to increase their overall performance. This study is significant because it provides a game-changing strategy for the management of businesses.

This paper proposes the role of an emerging job role within the virtual reality (VR) film production crew. This role we call the Embodiment Director, involves assisting the VR Film Director in the accomplishment of true immersive film experiences through the use of game engines and VR peripherals. The Embodiment Director will manage the inception of haptics and stimuli technologies that allow for the embodiment of humans within a virtual environment, and they must guarantee precise synchronicity between physical and virtual counterparts, while overseeing the safety use of software and hardware during the entire production process of the VR film experiences. This paper offers a contemporary review of the key creative roles within traditional and virtual film production, in order to generate a concise and valid argument for the role of the Embodiment Director supported by autoethnography.

Green construction procurement is a part of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) that influence economic growth on a strategic level. Adopting green technologies and practices has no longer been an option but a well-worth route for gaining a competitive advantage in the construction sector. The emergent concepts of green procurement and sustainability have raised the need to measure the financial performances in supply chain practices. Green procurement is now gaining importance in the construction industry and supply chain practices for a safer tomorrow. The study aimed to investigate the impact of construction procurement on green logistic services, innovation practices, and their subsequent role in gaining sustainable economic development goals. The population frame for this study was the project teams (engineers and project managers) of construction companies in China. The sampling design followed was convenient random sampling. The study was conducted using self-administered questionnaire surveys to avoid any respondent biases and/or errors. The study's findings show that construction procurement is partially associated with green logistic services management, which thoroughly determines the sustainable economic development goals. Furthermore, construction procurement is found to have a significant impact on green innovation practices that partially predict the SDGs, and the mediation of green logistic services and innovation practices are partially mediated to the construction procurement and sustainable goals. In the future, the study results will help the construction practitioners, contractors, bidders, and engineering community to shape their relationships in a greener way up or down the stream of their supply chains. Additionally, the implication of green procurement and logistic services offers many challenges in the long run for attaining SDGs; however, in the short run, it gives operational efficiency and less hazardous environmental emissions.

The link between infrastructure and green logistics performance in the services sector has been studied in this study. The mediating function of business performance and service quality are also discussed in this study as this is a deductive and cross-sectional study, the hypothesis was first formulated based on the literature gap and then tested. The unit of analysis is management personnel, entry-level economists, and financial analysts. The structural equation modeling-partial least-squares analysis (PLS-SEM) approach was employed in this investigation. The authors validated the reliability and validity of constructs and indicators used to measure constructs by assessing measurement models. The measurement methodology has then utilized to confirm the study hypothesis. The study results demonstrate that infrastructure and green logistics performance have a beneficial influence on services trade and environment; besides that, service quality and company performance are also important factors in improving services trade in China. Furthermore, firm performance and service quality have been identified as strong positive mediators between Green logistic performance, infrastructure, and services trade & environment. This study has a theoretical contribution by introducing, verifying, and proposing a new measurement for three variables: infrastructure, green logistic performance, and services trade & environment. This study has numerous relevant and helpful implications for government agencies and departments. It will provide a pathway for the upcoming industry practitioners in terms of green logistic performance and service trade & environment.

During the Covid-19 era, this research will explore and analyze the link between e-government and corporate social responsibility. In addition, mandatory corporate social responsibility, institutional quality, information and communication technology, and corruption as mediators will also be explored in this study. This research seeks to answer the issue of how e-government affects corporate social responsibility and how other mediating variables might influence this connection. Furthermore, this study developed a total of 13 hypotheses based on these questions, 4 of which have mediating effects. The theoretical underpinning for the proposed study paradigm is provided by stakeholder theory, which has been established based on prior literature. The general philosophy is positivism, and the research has a deductive nature. The information was gathered from 305 managers across four industries: information technology, online services, online education, and logistics and supply chain. Data was collected using a random convenience sampling approach. The Partial Least Square Sequential Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) research analysis approach was applied in this study for the analysis. The measurement step demonstrated that all constructs and indicators are valid and trustworthy enough to be utilized in the future. The results of the structural model evaluation revealed that e-government had a negative influence on corporate social responsibility, with three of the four mediating roles proving to be completely mediated. As a result, the government and relevant stakeholders should take these results into account when formulating e-government policies.

Design ist ein omnipräsentes Phänomen der modernen Gesellschaft. Designentscheidungen bestimmen die Erscheinungsweisen materieller und immaterieller Artefakte und beeinflussen die unsichtbaren Beziehungsmuster zwischen heterogenen Entitäten des Alltags. In theoretischen Auseinandersetzungen wird oft übersehen, dass die durch Design gestalteten Mensch-Objekt-Relationen in tiefere systemische Kontexte eingelassen sind und dass Design als Disziplin eine spezifische Reaktion auf die Kontingenzprobleme der modernen Gesellschaft darstellt. Sandra Groll nimmt diese Kontexte aus system- und formtheoretischer Perspektive in den Blick.

The study has been investigated on conceptualizing the state of the art of cooperate social responsibility (CSR) in green construction and its nexus to sustainable development. The research objective is to find out the significant relationship between CSR and green construction and further link green construction with sustainable development. The data has been collected from the 319 respondents working on different projects in the construction industry of China. The study is quantitative by nature. SEM analysis with the help of Smart-PLS has been applied to test the hypothesis relationship and mediations between components of CSR, green construction, and sustainable development. Results define that green procurement as a component of green construction strongly mediates between corporate social responsibility and sustainable development, and green design and CO 2 emission moderately mediates between corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. This research would add values, benefits, and knowledge toward reducing environmental temperature with the help of green construction occupying the effects of CSR on it. It would be helpful to change the trends in the construction industry to make environmental health protective and to boost the sustainable development.

This study focuses on the perception of Chinese students about the image of the company and their purchase intention if the organization has a business cynical impression in the minds of its targeted customers. The study proposed three different types of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to cope up with the organizational cynical impression. These types are Economic and Legal CSR, Philanthropic CSR, and Ethical CSR. The main objective of this study is to determine which CSR type is better to reduce the corporate cynical impression on corporate image and the purchase intentions of consumers. In the study design, the bootstrap approach and AMOS 24 were employed to deal with mediation. The researchers recruited 500 individuals from different educational institutions in China using a simple random selection process. The outcomes of this study indicated that all three types of CSR are successful in mitigating the detrimental effects of corporate cynicism on the image of a firm and the purchase intentions of consumers. A more effective technique of boosting the corporate image of a company and purchase intention of a consumer is via charitable CSR, which may help restore the image of a company and the purchase intention of a consumer that has been affected by corporate cynicism among its target customers.

Distinguishing between consumers’ positive and negative affect is a popular approach in both marketing research and practice, but such valence-based approaches sacrifice specificity and explanatory power. As emotions of the same valence can greatly differ with regard to their underlying appraisal patterns, they also differently affect consumer judgment and behavior. Our meta-analysis of 1035 effect sizes (N = 40,777) across 10 discrete emotions shows that analyzing discrete emotions clearly outperforms models of core affect (valence and arousal) when studying firm–customer encounters. Specifically, we find that the greatest impact stems from the medium-arousal emotion of gratitude and that positive emotions show consistently stronger effect sizes than do negative emotions. We also examine how effects are moderated by situational characteristics of the experience triggering the emotion. Based on our findings, we develop recommendations that help marketers identify and manage consumers’ emotions more effectively.

Dieses Buch beschreibt, wie sich die Interaktion zwischen Menschen und Maschinen in den nächsten Jahren dramatisch verändern wird und wie Unternehmen sowie Institutionen den größtmöglichen Nutzen aus dieser Entwicklung ziehen können.
Conversational User Interfaces (CUI) sind die nächste Evolutionsstufe der Schnittstelle zwischen Menschen und den Inhalten oder Diensten des Internets. Wenn Nutzer in natürlicher Sprache mit ihnen reden, können intelligente Assistants, Voice-Systeme und Bots wertvolle Antworten geben und Handlungen auslösen: Sie buchen eine Fahrkarte, verlängern einen Vertrag oder starten eine Überweisung. So entsteht ein neues Ökosystem, das viele Prozesse in Unternehmen und im Alltag revolutionieren wird. Alle Marktteilnehmer müssen sich neu positionieren und verorten.
Dieses Buch hilft dabei, die Funktionsweisen und Konsequenzen beim Einsatz von CUIs grundlegend zu verstehen und beantwortet unter anderem folgende Fragen: Woraus setzen sich CUIs und intelligente Assistenten zusammen? Wie funktioniert Natural Language Generation? Welche technischen Herausforderungen entstehen für Unternehmen? Welche Rolle spielt Werbung in dem neuen Ökosystem? Wie funktioniert
der berührungslose Konsum? Eine inspirierende Lektüre, die Sie dabei unterstützt, sich in den nächsten Jahren unter den Leadern zu positionieren. Extra: eine Anleitung zum Gestalten Ihres eigenen Test-Bots – dem Friesenbot. 
Kostenlos für Leser: Testen Sie Ihr Wissen mit Fragen und Antworten zum Buch in der Springer-Nature-Flashcards-App.

Firms struggle to manage touchpoints in their customer journey that consumers perceive as dissatisfying. Based on attribution theory and associative learning we examine branded outsourcing as a strategic means to reduce such touchpoints’ negative impact on brand evaluations. We find in the field and in a series of experimental studies that brands can reduce the detrimental impact of dissatisfying touchpoints. This effect is reversed for satisfying touchpoints. Importantly, we find that the explanation for the effect of branded outsourcing goes beyond consumers’ responsibility attributions. Rather, we find evidence that branded outsourcing reduces the extent to which consumers mentally associate the focal brand with the outsourced touchpoint, which results in a shift in brand evaluations. In an additional study we show that a strong third-party brand is not always more beneficial than a weak third-party brand, which further enhances the managerial relevance of our findings.

Background: Increasing numbers of patients consult Web-based rating platforms before making health care decisions. These platforms often provide ratings from other patients, reflecting their subjective experience. However, patients often lack the knowledge to be able to judge the objective quality of health services. To account for this potential bias, many rating platforms complement patient ratings with more objective expert ratings, which can lead to conflicting signals as these different types of evaluations are not always aligned.

Objective: This study aimed to fill the gap on how consumers combine information from 2 different sources—patients or experts—to form opinions and make purchase decisions in a health care context. More specifically, we assessed prospective patients’ decision making when considering both types of ratings simultaneously on a Web-based rating platform. In addition, we examined how the influence of patient and expert ratings is conditional upon rating volume (ie, the number of patient opinions).

Methods: In a field study, we analyzed a dataset from a Web-based physician rating platform containing clickstream data for more than 5000 US doctors. We complemented this with an experimental lab study consisting of a sample of 112 students from a Dutch university. The average age was 23.1 years, and 60.7% (68/112) of the respondents were female.

Results: The field data illustrated the moderating effect of rating volume. If the patient advice was based on small numbers, prospective patients tended to base their selection of a physician on expert rather than patient advice (profile clicks beta=.14, P<.001; call clicks beta=.28, P=.03). However, when the group of patients substantially grew in size, prospective patients started to rely on patients rather than the expert (profile clicks beta=.23, SE=0.07, P=.004; call clicks beta=.43, SE=0.32, P=.10). The experimental study replicated and validated these findings for conflicting patient versus expert advice in a controlled setting. When patient ratings were aggregated from a high number of opinions, prospective patients’ evaluations were affected more strongly by patient than expert advice (meanpatient positive/expert negative=3.06, SD=0.94; meanexpert positive/patient negative=2.55, SD=0.89; F1,108=4.93, P=.03). Conversely, when patient ratings were aggregated from a low volume, participants were affected more strongly by expert compared with patient advice (meanpatient positive/expert negative=2.36, SD=0.76; meanexpert positive/patient negative=3.01, SD=0.81; F1,108=8.42, P=.004). This effect occurred despite the fact that they considered the patients to be less knowledgeable than experts.

Conclusions: When confronted with information from both sources simultaneously, prospective patients are influenced more strongly by other patients. This effect reverses when the patient rating has been aggregated from a (very) small number of individual opinions. This has important implications for how to present health care provider ratings to prospective patients to aid their decision-making process.

Over the last three decades, customer experience (CE) has developed from a burgeoning concept to a widely recognized phenomenon in terms of both research and practice. To account for the complexity of consumption decisions, the CE literature encompasses both the rational information processing approach to consumer decision-making and the experiential approach, which includes emotions, feelings and sub-consciousness. The authors classify and examine CE research on two levels. Studies on static CE analyze experiences during touchpoints at one point in time, while studies on dynamic CE assess how experiences evolve over time. Furthermore, both static and dynamic CE research take place from two distinct theoretical perspectives: the organization and the consumer. As both theoretical perspectives essentially deal with the same phenomenon – the organizational perspective with the creation of CEs and the consumer perspective with the perception of customer experiences – there is potential for a productive symbiosis between them. The authors propose that connecting insights from both perspectives can contribute to a better understanding of what constitutes a CE for consumers and how firms can effectively manage it. First, the authors discuss the development of CE and argue that it has evolved into a broad and fragmented ‘umbrella construct’. Second, after distinguishing and defining static and dynamic CE, they systematically evaluate the state of knowledge in both the organizational and consumer perspectives. Finally, they develop an agenda for future research that integrates the consumer perspective into organizational CE research.

In: Campbell, C. L. (Hrsg.): The Customer is NOT Always Right? Marketing Orientationsin a Dynamic Business World. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Cham: Springer.

Mitherausgeber.

From author design to industrial design, graphic design and interface design, to name but a few distinctions, the fields of design seem to be becoming more and more differentiated.1 In your opinion, is there still a general definition that covers "contemporary German design"?KK: I don't feel comfortable associating a definition of design with a specific nationality.To me, design is a basic human ability to construct or improve on the construction of our world with responsibility to those affected, directly or indirectly.Of course, there are cultural differences to be honored, but the process of proposing responsible innovations is not explained by national boundaries.SM: German design would be like German physics (this actually existed under the Third Reich!).In "rational behavior," a specification like "German design" is meaningless in scientific activity.As a consequence, any distinction should rather be project-specific and task-focusedfor example, the medical sphere, living space, the world of work, etc.-not national and not discipline-based, as in ergonomic design, ecological design, and so on. RS:No. It's a cliché.First of all, design has always been an international phenomenon because industrialization is an international process, and design is a substantial part of industrialization.Second, any national label would reduce design to its superficial aspects, to the style features of formal aesthetics.But in that case we would no longer be talking about a multi-layered process, but rather about cosmetic changes. GB:You are asking about identity.I will limit myself to what determined the image of "German design" until the 1970s and what still shows aftereffects in certain areas, even today."German design" can be characterized by its 1 Author design (German Autorendesign) is a term used in Germanophone countries.On the one hand, it describes designs for which the name and personality of the designer play a central role.On the other hand, it can also mean individual objects and small series of objects created exclusively for (design) galleries.

Dissertation über Arnold Gehlens philosophische Anthropologie.