Origin labels are increasingly enlisted as sustainability arguments, on the assumption that a country's environmental reputation transfers to products made there. We test that assumption at the level of the advertising firm and report an informative null. In a two-condition, three-country advertising experiment (Italy, Germany, United States; N = 1362), an uncertified “Made in Italy” origin label left perceived environmental and social sustainability of the advertising firm unchanged on average. Equivalence tests reject composite effects of ±0.20 standard deviations or larger, pooled and among Italian respondents, although at ±0.10 only the pooled environmental dimension is bounded. Bayes factors favour the null, but the evidence is moderate rather than strong under a prior matched to our own smallest effect of interest. The same label raised perceived quality among Italian consumers, which argues against measurement failure. Tested directly, the asymmetry between the two outcomes is decisive only in Italy. Country sustainability reputations differ clearly and are strongly home-biased, but they did not transfer to the perceived sustainability of an unfamiliar firm in an apparel advertisement.
Customer segmentations estimated from accumulated transactions are often reused for longitudinal monitoring, although cross-sectional quality does not establish their suitability for repeated comparison. This study evaluates the scope and limits of a fixed segmentation reference using 2021–2024 Danish supermarket e-receipts: 20,994,240 retained item lines, 2,484,736 receipts and 2,999 households. A six-feature K-means reference was projected onto active household-month observations. Temporal agreement was assessed through a 2021-2023-only reconstruction frozen before projection to 2024, alongside analyses of assignment geometry, temporal aggregation, clustering resolution, discount-feature representation and recording conditions. For K = 3, training/full-period adjusted Rand indices were 0.682 for households and 0.786 for 2024 monthly assignments. K = 4 achieved higher agreement but lower recurrence and separated large-basket from high-discount prevalence changes. At a matched three-month lag, recurrence increased from 65.08
China’s café sector has moved from excellent coffees to address experience, ambiance, exposure, and brand exclusivity. Stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory furthers the social, emotional, and behavioural endeavours on customer loyalty in this evolutionary industry. This study investigated the influences of service innovation, store environment, staff behaviour, identity cues, and self-congruence cues including lifestyle congruence, brand identification, and ideal self-congruence on brand loyalty by internalizing satisfaction, brand trust, and brand love. Social media marketing activities (SMMA) was further examined on the internalized factors and brand loyalty. Using AMOS and SPSS, obtained findings from 351 café consumers in China clarified the collective influences of operational excellence and identity alignment on satisfaction. The insignificant influence of ideal self-congruence specifies matching brand identity through actual self-congruence. Satisfaction then influences brand loyalty through brand trust and brand love, with SMMA moderates the relationship between satisfaction and brand loyalty. This study highlighted the importance of external and self-congruence stimuli on satisfaction, brand trust, and brand love. To improve brand loyalty, meaningful social media engagement is strategically needed by café practitioners for higher satisfaction.
This study advances an access-based view of channel strategy by examining how relationship-specific investments influence market performance through market access equity and how AI-enabled market access intelligence shapes this process. Drawing on relationship marketing and market-based asset perspectives, we argue that partner-specific investments create value primarily by enhancing a firm’s ability to gain, maintain, and leverage access to strategically important markets. We introduce market access equity as a relational asset that reflects a firm’s legitimacy, participation, and influence within channel networks. Using survey data from senior managers across multiple industries, we test the framework in two studies. Study 1 shows that market access equity fully mediates the relationship between relationship-specific investments and market performance, helping explain inconsistent findings in prior research. Study 2 replicates these results and demonstrates that AI-enabled market access intelligence strengthens the positive effect of market access equity on market performance. The findings contribute to relationship marketing theory by identifying market access equity as a key mechanism through which relational investments create value and by highlighting AI-enabled intelligence as an important capability for converting channel relationships into superior market outcomes. Implications for channel strategy, relationship management, and AI-enabled market development are discussed.
Life satisfaction is shaped by financial circumstances and consumption-related dispositions, yet dimensionally differentiated consumer minimalism remains underexamined. Drawing on self-control and consumer self-regulation perspectives, this study examines the relationships among spending self-control, mindfulness, three dimensions of consumer minimalism, financial well-being (FWB), and life satisfaction within an integrated model. Data from 521 respondents in Türkiye were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Spending self-control is positively associated with mindfulness and all three minimalism dimensions. FWB and mindfulness are positively associated with life satisfaction, with FWB showing the stronger association. The minimalism dimensions diverge in their relationships with FWB: the association is positive for mindfully curated consumption, negative for reduced ownership, and nonsignificant for sparse aesthetics. These dimension-specific findings suggest that consumer minimalism should not be treated as a uniform construct when examining its relationship with FWB. The study also responds to the call for research on the antecedents of consumer minimalism by identifying spending self-control as a relevant correlate of its three dimensions. Furthermore, by integrating consumption-related and psychological pathways, the study shows that the link between spending self-control and life satisfaction is more multifaceted than previously modeled.
