This paper argues that traditional performance measures of artificial intelligence (AI)-based virtual service assistants (VSAs) fall short of capturing the human-like attributes of VSAs, their influences on human partners, and hence a VSA’s true potential. The current study suggests that the effectiveness of VSAs can be measured by examining the variables related to mental health improvements of the consumers or human partners as a direct result of their conversations, companionship and engagement with the VSAs. The paper presents a research agenda, highlighting the role of perceived leadership of the AI-based VSAs, consumer engagement with VSAs and the subsequent social support of the VSAs to their consumers. It suggests that the aforementioned will result in the enhancement of a variety of coping skills such as problem solving, emotional and time-focused coping, and a subsequent overall increase of trust in AI-based VSAs among their consumers.

In this study, we delve into the perceived quality of recommendations provided by AI-based virtual service assistants (VSAs). Specifically, the role of the social presence of VSAs in influencing recommendation perceptions is investigated. We also explore how the social presence of a VSA is formed and how perceived anthropomorphism plays a vital role in shaping social presence and eventually instilling trust in VSAs among consumers. These relationships are examined in the context of online government services. The results indicate that consumer interaction with VSAs - manifesting via perceived anthropomorphism, social presence, dialog length, and attitudes - improves recommendation quality perceptions, which further instills trust in VSA-based recommendations. Perceived anthropomorphism was found to strongly influence the formation of social presence, whereas trust and recommendation quality - the outcomes of social presence - were found to be partially conditional on the dialog length and the degree of positive attitudes toward VSAs. The findings additionally suggest that a VSA can be considered a social actor that possesses the capability to bring a "human touch" to online services, therefore improving the overall online service experience.

There has been a renewed discussion of the role of leadership in current times in several media outlets that span from political and corporate leadership to leadership in the context of activism, consumerism, and public life. Partly, this demonstrates the urge of a huge mass of population wanting to be led by a leader, even if such leadership may land up in an epic failure or may encompass undertakings comprising of huge risks or at times outright against the law. Take, for example, the role of “the professor” in the recent worldwide popular series by Netflix which broke several records regarding its viewership in the entertainment industry (Pearce 2019). The character of the professor and his charismatic leadership in guiding his accomplices through complicated and detailed oriented heists, which despite being unlawful, have drawn tremendous fan following from the audience, thereby displaying an ardent desire of humans to be led and coached by another towards a purposeful goal. Such an idea of leadership has, however, not been studied in the context of Virtual Service Assistants (VSAs) or Artificially Intelligent (AI) chatbots such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, or Google home to name a few. Presently, the VSAs have been looked primarily at providing services to answer consumer questions or helping them with product selections, ordering, and purchases. However, the notion that such AIs and VSAs can grow beyond their traditional role of being assistants is not distant, though unexplored at this point. With the development of the prototype of Alexa prize chatbots (Amazon 2019) that engage consumers in near organic conversations, (without even using the wake word “Alexa” repeatedly) such as jokes, riddle, opinion on a subject, news and movie reviews insinuates the possibility of VSAs to play a more significant role such as that of a friend, a guide, and an impactful leader. The current study explores the role of artificially intelligent leaders, in the context of VSA enabled smart speakers such as Amazon Alexa in instilling a trusting relationship with its consumers and its influence on the consumers’ perception of the quality of their product recommendation. Although the idea of brand anthropomorphism (displaying human-like traits and qualities) in the context of AI has been recently introduced in the field of Marketing, existing scholarship has not looked at the specific leadership influences, such as leading, guiding, that these AIs have on its consumers.

This study examines the moderating role of audience comments in influencer marketing. A YouTube vlog entry by a social media influencer featuring the endorsement of a brand was studied, and an experimental design featuring two conditions related to audience comments was created. The results indicate that a parasocial relationship with the influencer builds the perceived credibility of the influencer, while comments by other audience members moderate the effect. Influencer credibility positively affects brand trust and purchase intention. The findings enhance the understanding of the role of an active audience in influencer marketing.

Every year, the global retail industry loses billions of dollars due to product returns. Despite this, very little of the marketing literature examines customers’ intentions to return and the associated implications. The present study captures, analyses and interprets a managerially relevant variable, namely product return intentions, and helps retail store managers, retail analysts and marketing managers understand the decision journey behind consumer product returns. Specifically, the study looks at the relationship between the consumer’s cognitive dissonance after purchase and product return intentions in the context of both lenient and strict return policies. The study also looks at the ill effects of such return intentions in terms of negative word-of-mouth feedback about the retailer. The results suggest that cognitive dissonance after purchase positively influences product return intentions, which in turn positively influences negative word-of-mouth intentions; however, the relationship remains unaffected in strict and lenient return policy situations. Besides providing crucial insights into the complex consumer sentiments associated with seemingly simple product returns, the research questions the previously held notion of retailers and store managers controlling product returns by imposing strict return policies—a finding of paramount importance to business.

This study examines the effectiveness of brand endorsements in vlogs (video blogs) by assessing the role of audience participation, parasocial relationship, and valence toward vlog endorsements on the perceived credibility of the vlogger and brand attitudes. Four experimental conditions were created on Qualtrics based on a YouTube vlog where the endorser reviewed a few products. The data were collected using Mturk and analyzed with 203 usable responses. The findings indicate that audience participation in the vlog enhances para-social relationship with the vlogger, thus further fostering the vlogger's perceived credibility as an endorser. Additionally, the valence of the audience's attitudes toward vlog endorsements moderates the audience participation–parasocial relationship. The results show that vlogs with high levels of audience participation are more likely to increase the acceptance of the brand's endorsement via enhanced credibility perceptions among viewers. Hence, time should be spent choosing vloggers who are active in the online community. This study contributes to the understanding of the distinct characteristics of vlogs that specifically affect endorsement effectiveness. The focal role of parasocial relationship for message acceptance in the context of vlogs is also highlighted.

(2019). Primed Authenticity: How Priming Impacts Authenticity Perception of Social Media Influencers. International Journal of Strategic Communication: Vol. 13, Social Media Influencers in Strategic Communication, pp. 352-365.

Purpose It is well known that job stress is major cause of salesperson job dissatisfaction and turnover. Salespeople require the resources to cope adequately with a multitude of job stressors, and the purpose of this study is to demonstrate that salesperson wellness promotes the ability of salespeople to use effective coping strategies in the workplace and as a result decrease their intentions of leaving the firm. Design/methodology/approach Data including measures of coping strategies and a wellness lifestyle orientation were collected from a sample of 441 full-time professional salespeople in two metropolitan statistical areas of the USA. Structural equation modeling was used to demonstrate the relationship of a wellness lifestyle to coping strategies and in turn the relationship of coping strategies to job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Findings The study demonstrated the influence of the wellness lifestyle on salespeople's ability to cope effectively with job stress. It extends previous research by demonstrating the direct influence of salesperson wellness on coping behaviors and demonstrates the nomological validity of the wellness lifestyle construct by modeling its relationship with job satisfaction and the intent to leave the organization. Research limitations/implications - The study recommends new research on the synergies that might be produced by simultaneous consideration of the social, physical, and psychological elements of the multicomponent wellness lifestyle. This should be particularly valuable in the context of the Challenger Sale. Practical implications - Wellness programs may be introduced or improved following an assessment of coping resource weaknesses of the sales force. New employees could be screened by examining their wellness profiles. Originality/value - Major firms have promoted wellness lifestyle programs for years, but no studies have examined the influence of such programs on coping with job stress by salespeople. The paper demonstrates the value of the salesperson wellness lifestyle by showing that it promotes the most adjustive form of coping strategy, problem-focused coping.

One highly regarded platform of social media is a video blog or a vlog. A vlog uses video as its communication medium. The content of such vlogs may range from product or service reviews, trending news, entertaining celebrity gossips, travel, unboxing, gaming, how to videos and much more. The paper specifically focusses upon YouTube as a vlogging platform, which is a popular video-sharing website that enables its users to create and upload videos. Companies wishing to get their brand or product brought up in vlogs most commonly offer vloggers products or services for free, gift cards or money (Liljander et al. 2015). In exchange, the vloggers provide positive and interesting content about the products or services on their vlogs (Liljander et al. 2015). However, the effectiveness of such vlogs and the reputation of the vlogger may be seriously undermined or strengthened by viewers who leave a trail of negative or positive comments, respectively, in relation to the posted content. Despite its relevance and importance, scholarship that focusses upon the impact of comments on the effectiveness of endorsements in the context of YouTube vlogs is understudied. The present study investigates the interactive effect of the valence of audience comments and perceived credibility of the vlogger (PCV) on the attitude of the viewer towards the endorsed brand (BA). The study further explores if such comments are by one vs. multiple viewers and if there exists a dyadic interaction between the commentator(s) and the viewer and its role in moderating the PCV–BA relationship. Several propositions are presented along with a proposed methodology.

The US retail industry makes billions of dollars a year by engaging customers to participate in their business (design, production, delivery of goods and services); however, the psychological implications of such participation by customers have recently began gaining scholarly prominence. This paper explores the role of potent upward counterfactual thinking (the process of looking back at events and thinking about how things could have turned out better) in a participatory setup. More specifically, the role of upward counterfactual potency on perceived ownership toward the coproduced good is examined. Additionally, the role of consumer’s self-assessment of participation as an antecedent to upward counterfactual potency and the moderating role of opportunity to return the product on the aforementioned are explored.

In spite of its relevance and importance, scholarship that focusses upon the effectiveness of endorsements in vlogs (blog that uses video as its communication medium) is understudied. This study examines the effectiveness of brand or product endorsements in vlogs with a specific focus upon YouTube as a vlogging platform. Specifically, it assesses how the interactive effect of audience participation and valence influences perceived credibility of the vlogger and consequently results in an effective vlog endorsement. The study explores how perceived credibility of vlogger as a source of brand-related information is constructed and how it affects the effectiveness of the brand- and product-related content published by the vlogger. The study also explores how para-social interaction acts as a mediator to the above relationship.

The current research introduces the concept of perceived point of sale experience (the experience gained at the location in a retail store where the transaction takes place between a customer and the business). It also investigates its role on shopper’s attitude towards a retail store along its hedonic/utilitarian dimensions and its subsequent influence on the shopper’s re-patronage intentions (intentions of a repeat visit to the store). Furthermore, the role of perceived retail crowding (consumer sensitivity to space scarcity in a retail store) and interactional justice as antecedents to perceived point of sale experience is assessed.

The paper discusses the low stability issue of free choice brand-attribute associations where the same sample of respondents during a second interview do not repeat the positive answers they gave during the first interview. The authors recommend a novel two-step approach, using Unrestricted Attribute-Elicitation procedure Mapping (UAM) in conjunction with Longitudinal Generalized Procrustes Analysis (GPA) to resolve the low stability problem. The paper offers a general discussion of the subject along with specific propositions.

Past studies indicate that even though consumers develop ownership feelings towards the product they touch, they often decide to select a “fresh” untouched piece while making the final purchase selection. This study offers insight on the above unexplored issue and suggests that the reason behind such switching behavior is consumers’ low perception of freshness towards the self-touched product. The study introduces a new variable known as “perceived product freshness” and suggests that low product freshness perception attenuates consumers’ ownership feelings towards the self-touched product. Furthermore, the study also suggests that such ownership feelings vary from one consumer to another based on their chronic regulatory focus. Implications and future research are discussed.

The US retail industry loses billions of dollars a year because of product returns, but scholarly articles examining consumers’ return intentions have been somewhat limited. This study explores how cognitive dissonance after purchase affects product return intentions. Using cognitive dissonance theory, it examines return intentions in the context of both lenient and strict return policies. The study proposes that cognitive dissonance after purchase positively influences return intentions in lenient return policy situations, but the relationship weakens in strict policy return situations. The implications and future research are also discussed.

Traditionally, search is viewed as an expense or an effort that an individual may resist to waste. In this paper, the author argues that in product-return situations, where consumers are not compensated for the search effort they initially invested towards product acquisition, higher search effort will lower their product return intentions. However, viewing search as an experience or a pleasure activity may have reverse implications, since it is argued that it weakens the negative search -product return intention relationship. The author introduces product satisfaction as a partial mediator between search and product return intentions. Furthermore, the author develops and tests competing hypotheses regarding the interplay between the variables. Results show that search as an expense influences product return intentions positively. Product satisfaction was found to be a significant partial mediator. Furthermore, results show that search as an expense relates negatively to product satisfaction whereas search as an experience relates positively to product satisfaction.. However, the study did not support search as an experience to be a moderator. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.