Purpose: This article explores how anthropomorphized service robots shape consumer risk perceptions and risk behavior via uncanniness as a function of individual differences in banking.

Methodology: An online between-subjects experiment (N = 293), set in a fictitious bank, featuring four levels of service robot anthropomorphism (low, medium, high, human), measured risk perceptions (psychological, functional, privacy, time), and risk behavior as DVs, uncanniness as mediator, technology readiness, and behavioral inhibition as moderators.

Findings: Risk perceptions are the lowest for medium (vs. high) anthropomorphism and are mediated by uncanniness. Risk behavior remains unaffected by the manipulation. Technology readiness overall attenuates the main effect on time risk perception but amplifies it for high anthropomorphism, whereas high behavioral inhibition increases risk behavior under the exposure of low anthropomorphism.

Implication: Banks who plan to place robots in service functions should be mostly concerned about experiential rather than behavioral consequences and are advised to use medium anthropomorphism robots since they appear to qualify as viable substitutes for human bank tellers.

Value: We contribute to the service robot and anthropomorphism literature by (1) distinguishing between dimensions of risk perceptions, (2) measuring actual risk behavior, and (3) setting our study in a business and marketing relevant context: banking.

Purpose: Managers of healthcare organizations must be much more dynamic and agile to survive in a competitive environment. Administrators, managers, and leaders in healthcare organizations must meet both patients’ and staff’s needs, expectations, and requests at the maximum level in order to create organizational agility. What counts among these responsibilities is the use of operational competitive capabilities at the highest level and being organizationally agile? In this context, this study determines the relationship between the operational competitive capabilities of healthcare organizations and organizational agility and examines the mediating role of organizational agility between operational competitive capabilities and organizational performance in healthcare organizations in Turkey.

Methodology: The data was collected from the 220 managers of health organizations in Turkey through questionnaires, which were analyzed with the SPSS 26 and AMOS 26 programs.

Results: The findings revealed a positive relationship between operational competitive capabilities of managers and between organizational agility and organizational agility, which have a full mediating role between operational competitive capabilities and organizational performance in healthcare organizations
.
Conclusion: Today’s healthcare organizations’ managers face such important problems and unexpected developments as adapting to a rapidly changing environment and struggles to avoid uncertainty. Therefore, the managers must use their operational competitive capabilities at the highest level and be organizationally agile to maximize their organizations’ performance and survive in this highly competitive environment.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the antecedents of consumers’ purchase intention toward local dairy products. In doing so, this article delves into the relationships between perceived quality, perceived price, customer satisfaction, brand image, and customer purchase intention in the context of developing countries.

Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework, the research model was tested using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique with a questionnaire applied to 731 respondents from Saudi Arabia.

Findings: The results showed that perceived quality, consumer satisfaction, and brand image have a positive impact on purchase intention, whereas perceived price could not explain purchase intention. Moreover, consumer satisfaction and brand image appeared to significantly mediate the relationships in the research model.

Research limitations/implications: This article studies a specific country and local dairy consumption. One should be careful when generalizing the results to other food and country contexts.

Originality/value: This study investigates consumer purchase intention specifically toward local dairy products, which was a matter underexplored in the literature as opposed to studies on a variety of other local products. Moreover, the article contributes to an extension of the SOR framework onto the body of literature regarding local products.

Purpose: Drawing on social exchange theory (SET), this study explores the mediating role of quiescent silence as a link between organizational stressors and turnover intentions among Russian frontline employees (FLEs). Furthermore, we aim to investigate whether coworker support moderates the relationship between quiescent silence and turnover intentions.

Research Methods: The study is a cross-sectional survey administered among a sample of 235 FLEs employed in Russian healthcare organizations. We analyzed the data with SmartPLS version 3.0.

Findings: The results reveal that ethical conflict and abusive supervision are significantly related to quiescent silence. Quiescent silence mediates the relationship between abusive supervision, ethical conflict, and employee turnover intentions.

Managerial Implications: There is a need to provide employees with opportunities to voice their opinions. However, what is crucial is the assurance of employee privacy while motivating them to voice opinions. Managers should be more proactive in diagnosing silence.

Originality: This is the first study to explore the mediating role of quiescent silence on the relationship between organizational stressors and employee turnover intentions in a unique Russian healthcare context. The moderating role of coworker support to buffer the relationship between quiescent silence and turnover intentions is unique to this study.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate whether controversial TV content impacts the effects of non – standard advertising such as sponsorship vignette among female viewers.

Methodology: The present study used two field experiments (n = 222; n = 219) conducted as a Computer-Assisted Web Interview (CAWI) questionnaire, during which video material was presented. The study manipulated controversial and non-controversial and the variable of congruence and incongruence – through the argument of video material in the form of TV programs and advertising spots.

Results: The empirical investigation revealed that controversial and incongruent content does not necessarily alter the effect of a sponsorship vignette. Loyal viewers who consistently follow programs were found to have higher purchase intent than less loyal ones.

Implications: The results suggest that advertisers should consider placing their messages in the context of controversial TV programming, which does not have to be congruent with the ads displayed.

Limitations: The stimuli applied in the studies were arbitrary, to a certain extent. The study did not investigate program’s about sex that fit the definition of controversiality.

Originality/value: The study contributes to the existing literature on ad–content congruence by investigating consumer responses to innovative ad format: the sponsorship vignette. We investigated how specific content watched in longer periods of time (i.e. a series) may impact the advertising effectiveness of embedded sponsorship vignettes. This approach allowed us to demonstrate the importance of viewers’ loyalty towards a TV program, resulting in a change of the level of purchase intent of advertised product.

Purpose: The main purpose of the paper is to identify the importance of social media in e-WoM (electronic word of mouth) in relation to the two stages of consumer behavior, pre-purchase and post-consumption, in groups of different gender and countries. The article answers three research questions. Whether the frequency of using the most popular social media influences the range of using them in e-WoM among individual users? Which stage of consumer behavior process is more dependent on social media, pre-purchase or post-consumption? Do any differences exist between men and women in the scope under consideration?

Methodology: The analysis bases on literature studies and empirical data collected among 1246 respondents from four countries: China, Poland, the United States of America, and Turkey. Findings: General conclusions show differences between these countries in relation to the use of social media for e-WoM. Moreover, results confirmed the findings of literature analysis wherever consumers used social media at the stage of looking for information and advice about products (pre-purchase). Gender appeared as a significant differentiating factor that influences e-WoM behavior.

Research limitations: The design of the research (samples’ size and sampling method) could place some limits on the capacity of the study to generalize the results to other national contexts. Research implications: The results offer information for marketers who use social media communication to build brands’ loyalty in the international marketplace and individuals who rely on experiences shared through social media.

Originality: The content of the paper is important, timely, original, and focusses on the subject infrequently studied in the literature. The information from the paper applies to numerous groups of stakeholders.