This paper deals with the impact of FinTech on the sustainability of the financial service sector. The study used SPAR 4 SLR to analyze 129 high-impact articles available from 2016 to 2024. The review identified five key themes: responsible finance in the digital era, global perspectives of FinTech and economic development, sustainable finance for a green future, financial inclusion through FinTech adoption, and innovations for sustainable economy and regulatory implications. The study proposes an organizing framework based on the key antecedents and consequences identified from the analysis. Some of the key antecedents of sustainable FinTech identified were customer trust (personal), social influence (social), regulation (environmental), green bonds (investment), digital literacy, digital financial inclusion and blockchain (technological). The study highlighted significant implications for policymakers and pinpointed key areas for future research. These include developing strategies to encourage the adoption of sustainable financial practices through regulatory frameworks, exploring methods to reduce cash dependency, and investigating the role of incentives and rewards in fostering long-term engagement with FinTech platforms. Additionally, it proposed specific propositions to further advance the field of sustainable FinTech. The findings demonstrate the capacity of FinTech to catalyse positive shifts toward sustainability.

Purpose The remarkable growth of digital services has been marred by widespread failures faced by users and the subsequent fallouts for these firms. Despite the enormous negative impact of these digital service failures on the firms as well as the customers, limited attention has been paid to investigating their consequences. This study addresses this gap. This study aims to examine the impact of these digital service failures faced by B2C and B2B customers - segments with varying consumption goals, on online reviews and ratings posted by them. Importantly, it maps the role of "cognitive" and "affective" customer experience dimensions, in these relationships.Design/methodology/approach The context chosen for the study was mobile payments, where service failures can be critical. The study involved scraping review data from a widely used mobile payment application in an emerging market, India, to obtain data from B2C customers (n = 22,771 observations in the B2C G Pay app) and B2B customers (n = 1,008 observations in the B2B G Pay app). The proposed hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling.Findings Functional, service, system and information failures led to negative ratings and reviews for B2C customers, and these relationships are mediated by negative affect and cognitive experience dimensions, for functional, service and information failures. In contrast, for B2B customers, only service and functional failures significantly predict negative reviews and ratings. However, the mediating mechanism was found only for the relationship between service failure and ratings in the B2B segment.Research limitations/implications As the study relies on data from one application in a single digital service i.e. mobile payment service, future research could extend this work by examining multiple applications across different digital services.Practical implications Managers may monitor all types of failures for B2C customers to avoid negative customer experiences and subsequent firm outcomes. For B2B customers, attention should be paid primarily to functional and service failures.Originality/value Our research adds to the growing literature on digital services by studying the effects of digital service failures on online ratings through the mediating roles of negative affect and cognitive experiences. Uniquely, our work considers both (B2C and B2B) customer segments' responses to digital service failures.

This study aims to extend the current understanding of customer stewardship control (CSC) within the context of service encounters. Specifically, this study examines the downstream effects of frontline service employees' sense of CSC on customers. By collecting data from dyadic pairs of frontline service employees (FLSEs') and their respective customers (n = 230), during service encounters within the organization, this study finds that FLSEs" CSC during service encounters can positively predict customer engagement and customers' tolerance for service failures, with customers' psychological ownership and service experience mediating this mechanism. Moreover, the cluster analysis demonstrates that FLSEs' differ in their levels of CSC, allowing for classification into three groups: Champions, Middle of the roaders, and Laggards. Theoretically, the study contributes to the retailing and service marketing literature by integrating stewardship theory, psychological ownership theory, and social exchange theory, and by mapping the linkages among the underlying constructs. It also proposes a novel classification of FLSEs'. From a managerial perspective, the study provides insights into how organizations can identify, develop, and leverage stewardship-oriented employees to enhance customer experiences and foster long-term relational outcomes.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how consumers search, interpret, and apply information, presenting both opportunities and challenges for engineering management in designing, managing, and using AI-enabled search systems. Despite substantial research, studies on AI-enabled consumer information search remain fragmented, providing limited integration of insights across technological, behavioral, and managerial perspectives. To address this, we conduct a systematic literature review guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol and grounded theory, identifying four thematic areas: Information Search and AI recommendation, AI conversation, AI anthropomorphism, and AI retrieval, which are structured into a search-theme mapping framework to organize themes across the consumer search stages. The findings under each theme are synthesized to reveal research gaps, derive future research propositions, and highlight managerial implications. This synthesis shows how engineering managers can apply AI recommendation strategies, message framing, anthropomorphic design, modality, cognitive load, and generative AI timing to optimize consumer search, decision-making, and engagement. Overall, the study synthesizes fragmented knowledge, advances theoretical understanding, and provides a structured foundation for guiding future research and managerial practice in engineering management.

Purpose This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of existing literature on consumer savings. Design/methodology/approach A bibliometric analysis was conducted on 1,078 journal articles, followed by a cluster analysis and an in-depth review of 250 key articles. Findings The study identified 5 major thematic clusters: financial literacy, savings pattern, drivers of savings, personality traits and Fintech and policy. It also highlighted key antecedents, moderators and theories discussed in the literature. Research limitations/implications This review provides a structured agenda for future research. Originality/value Despite extensive research on consumer savings, there is no review paper in this domain.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a systematic literature review on reducing impulse buying (IB). Design/methodology/approach For the review, this paper adopted the SPAR-4-SLR (Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews) approach, searched for papers in the Scopus and Web of Science databases (1970–2023), and identified 114 papers in total. The papers were sourced from English-language journals with impact factors >1. Findings The paper identifies four broad types of strategies to reduce IB: consumer-based IB reduction strategies, personality-based IB reduction strategies, situation-based IB reduction strategies and policymaker-related IB reduction strategies. Research limitations/implications Based on extant research, it suggests other strategies to reduce IB and offers propositions to reduce IB in the areas of vicarious observation of self-control, construal effects and volitional participation in IB reduction programs. Social implications IB, if left unchecked, leads to negative consequences such as overspending, indebtedness and compulsiveness. Therefore, policymakers need to act on reducing IB. This paper offers ways of doing this. Originality/value This is the first paper, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to offer a review on reducing IB; it benefits society and enhances consumer welfare.

This study deals with airlines' handling of customer complaints pre- and post-Covid 19. Authors extracted airlines' responses regarding redress, timeliness, apology, credibility, facilitation, and attentiveness and analyzed them pre- and post-pandemic. The results indicate the differential impacts of organizational responses on recovery satisfaction pre- and post-pandemic. Attentiveness (timeliness) had a significant role only pre- (post-) pandemic. Redress, credibility and facilitation remained crucial in both scenarios. Further, pre-pandemic results showed that the impact of organizational responses (credibility, timeliness, and facilitation) on recovery satisfaction was greater for failures associated with core rather than augmented elements of airline service. In the post-pandemic scenario, the impact of organizational responses on consumers' recovery satisfaction was the same for both categories of service failures. Thus, post-pandemic, airlines may emphasize redress, credibility, timeliness, and facilitation responses in their social media posts for both service failure types.

Purpose This paper aims to develop a conceptual model to understand how different gamification designs (hedonic and utilitarian) evoke different emotions and impact subsequent patronage intentions for online consumers in different mindsets. Design/methodology/approach The authors first conducted a content analysis study and then tested the model with two online experiments [both 2 × 2 factorial designs – gamification (hedonic/utilitarian) and mindset (implemental/deliberative), with different utilitarian and hedonic products]. Findings Gamification with hedonic benefits influences website patronage intentions by evoking promotion emotions, while gamification with utilitarian benefits does so by evoking prevention emotions. Gamification with hedonic benefits has a stronger impact on consumers shopping with deliberative mindsets, while gamification with utilitarian benefits works better for those with implemental mindsets. Research limitations/implications Future research may extend the present work by considering other types of gamification. Practical implications Managerially, e-tailers may use gamification with hedonic aspects for consumers in deliberative mindsets and utilitarian aspects for those in implemental mindsets. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to draw a link between mindsets and gamification. This research is also the first to operationalize gamification as hedonic and utilitarian based on their design characteristics and to establish emotional consequences as an important link between gamification and user behaviors.

Purpose The main purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of promotional inputs presented to salespeople, such as continuing medical education (CME) sponsorship and drug samples, on adaptive selling and sales performance. Design/methodology/approach This study used a mixed-methods approach. First, depth interviews were done and this was followed by a survey on 247 pharmaceutical executives in India. Data analysis was done using AMOS, Process Macro and floodlight analysis. Findings Results showed that CME sponsorship and drug samples drove adaptive selling and sales performance positively. Additionally, results reveal that CME program sponsorship negatively moderated the adaptive selling–sales performance relationship; free drug samples too negatively moderated this relationship. Practical implications Firms may hire salespersons with high customer orientation and adaptive selling and train them hone these further. The present research also crucially suggests that pharma firms may allocate CME sponsorship and drug samples to salespeople low on adaptive selling. Originality/value This could be the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, that uses promotional inputs (such as CME sponsorship and drug samples) as an antecedent to adaptive selling and sales performance. Moreover, this is the only research that has tested CME sponsorships and drug samples as moderators to customer orientation–adaptive selling and adaptive selling–sales performance.

This article presents a systematic review of the nostalgia literature (205 articles) using PRISMA protocols. It dwells on three questions: What do we know about nostalgia? What do we need to know about nostalgia? and Where should we be heading? The article examines the evolution of nostalgia, analyzes the definitions of nostalgia (past-memory-yearning-ambivalent emotion), and extends the nostalgia typology of Havlena and Holak (1996). The article also delineates the nostalgic advertising literature; identifies antecedents, moderators, and consequences of nostalgic advertising; and highlights research gaps. Finally, this work offers propositions on nostalgic ad appeals (those that emphasize the attractiveness of and yearning for the past in a bittersweet way) based on four themes: self-restoration, continuity, social relationships, and culture. Specifically, the propositions offer new moderators, such as ads' emotional flow, gender identity, purchase and consumption situation, perceived interactivity, and culture type, that could make some types of nostalgic appeals more effective than others. Our work contributes by being more comprehensive and broad based, extending the typology framework and delineating propositions that lay out a research roadmap for nostalgic advertising.

This paper presents a literature review of public service announcements (PSAs). Using the SPAR-4-SLR protocol, we uncover 119 articles on PSAs in the domains of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the environment, health, finance, safety, and security. The literature review reveals that PSA makers may elicit empathy during their appeal and also juxtapose PSAs with narratives. Further, they may consider using fear, humour, and nurturance appeals. We cull the key takeaways from each domain and identify commonalities and differences across the domains. In addition, we offer strategies to make PSAs effective. PSA makers may run more PSAs, use targeted appeals, and use fewer celebrity appeals. The paper also identifies gaps in the literature and outlines future research directions.

This research tests a nomological model predicting organic food attitudes and purchase intentions in USA and India. Data were collected from India (n = 687) and USA (n = 632) using Amazon M Turk and were analyzed using structural equation modelling and multi-group moderation technique. Results revealed that over and above attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control, response efficacy and self-expressive benefits significantly affect consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions of organic food among American and Indian consumers. Findings reveal that response efficacy and attitude matter more in the USA while subjective norms and self-expressive benefits exert a greater influence in India. Therefore, marketers may reinforce belief related elements while selling organic food products in the USA and societal related elements while selling in India. Theoretically, this work adds to the Theory of Planned Behavior by adding self-expressive benefits and develops a common model on organic food across samples in USA and India.

Purpose This paper aims to introduce the Schmid–Leiman solution (SLS) as a useful tool to interpret the results of higher-order factor analyses in marketing research irrespective of the type of higher-order factor structure used (formative or reflective). Design/methodology/approach Two studies, one with retail shoppers in India and another with undergraduate students in Hong Kong, are used to compare different types of higher-order factor structures to test the utility of SLS. Findings The authors show that whether a reflective or a formative model is used to operationalize a higher-order construct, using SLS as an additional analysis gives useful insights into the factor structure at different levels and helps isolate their unique contributions to the explained variance. Research limitations/implications The authors test higher-order models for store environment and consumer impulsiveness with data from retail shoppers and undergraduate students in two Asian countries, which may restrict the generalizability of the study findings. Future research may try to replicate our findings with other higher-order constructs and consumers in other countries. Practical implications The authors offer a checklist that can be used by future researchers to evaluate alternate higher-order factor structures and choose the appropriate one for their research context. Originality/value The authors show that using SLS is especially useful when there is a lack of clarity on the nature of relationships between the factors at different levels or about the independent contribution of the factors at different levels, in a higher-order factor structure.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the varying impact of advertising appeals on customers’ impulse buying (IB) for vice and virtue products. Design/methodology/approach This research used two experiments varying humor/scarcity (high/low) and product category (vice versus virtue). Findings Humor (scarcity) enhances IB of vice (virtue) products through anticipation of enjoyment (perception of uniqueness). Research limitations/implications This research identifies a new antecedent of IB, advertising and additionally, a new moderator, product type (vice/virtue) in the ad appeal–IB relationship. Practical implications Practitioners managing vice (virtue) brands may use humor (scarcity) appeals to promote impulse buying. Originality/value This paper demonstrates that humor (scarcity) appeals enhance impulse buying of vice (virtue) products and shows the underlying mechanisms behind these effects.

Extant research in the Impulse Buying domain has predominantly focused on how it can be enhanced and has mostly benefitted marketers. This study, however, shifts the focus to consumers and how they can mitigate or reduce impulse buying. Drawing on Action Regulation Theory, we posit that planning prompts mitigates impulse buying; and that this mitigating effect is stronger for individuals with high (vis-a-vis low) decisional procrastination as also for vice (vis-a-vis virtue) products. Hypotheses were tested using two studies conducted in India. Study 1 (n = 200) was conducted using a vignette-based experiment in a hypothetical scenario while Study 2 (n = 200) was a field experiment conducted on consumers in a mall setting. Our research advances knowledge with regard to mitigating avoidable impulse buying and adds to extant research on planning prompts. We also document key theoretical and managerial implications of our findings.

Drawing on support from social exchange theory and appraisal theory of emotions, this paper empirically investigates the link between cognitive appraisal, emotional labor and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among hotel employees in India. This study uses a field survey conducted on 380 employees from 14 hotels in India. The moderated mediation model was tested using structural equation modelling. Positive (negative) cognitive appraisal of interactions result in deep (surface) acting. The moderated mediation analysis show employees who fake emotions (surface act) can still exhibit high OCB if they receive high perceived organizational support (POS). Findings suggest that hotel managers may repeatedly train their employees to deep act while discouraging surface acting. This study is unique and original in that it finds cognitive appraisal as a predictor of emotional labor. It is also the first to extend Lazarus' theory of emotions to the context of emotional labor. Finally, it shows that cognitive appraisal influences emotional labor and OCB among hotel employees.

Inhibitors to technology play a crucial role in predicting eventual technology adoption. In the inhibitor space, studies have so far been limited to understanding affective inhibitors only. The central proposition of this paper is to identify two new cognitive inhibitor constructs. This study augments the existing body of knowledge in the area of technology acceptance behaviour by positing 'dissatisfiers' and 'risk' as two cognitive inhibitor constructs to technology adoption. The methodology used for validating the proposed model is content analysis (CA). The target technology chosen for validation is internet of things (IoT). The results obtained provide strong support for the proposed hypotheses thereby establishing dissatisfiers and risk as two new cognitive inhibitor constructs.

This research deals with antecedents and outcomes of relationship quality in e-tail. SMART-PLS analysis of survey data from India (n = 644) showed that perceived value, e-service quality, interaction, discounts and transaction related factors were found to have a positive effect on relationship quality (RQ). RQ mediates the relationship between these antecedents and self-brand connect and loyalty. Support for serial mediation was found with RQ and self-brand connect preceding loyalty formation. Relationship duration positively moderated the effect of RQ on self-brand connect. RQ was conceptualized as a formative second order factor. E-tailers may invest in antecedents of RQ and they may devise strategies to increase the duration of relationships.