The effect of institutional investors’ distraction on firms’ corporate social responsibility engagement: evidence from China

To investigate the impact of institutional investors on firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement while controlling for possible endogeneity concerns, we study how Chinese listed firms adjust their CSR decisions when their institutional investors are distracted by exogenous attention-grabbing events and thus are inattentive. With a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2017, we find a significant and robust negative relationship between institutional investor inattention and firms’ CSR engagement. This negative relationship is more pronounced for firms with more principal–agent problems and/or weaker corporate governances and is more attributable to the inattention of institutional investors with more monitoring incentives. These findings suggest that managers are less motivated to engage in CSR when they are less monitored by institutional investors, indicating that CSR is beneficial to shareholders of Chinese listed firms. Our findings also indicate that the positive impact of institutional investors on CSR may be constrained by their limited attention

The effect of different types of virtual influencers on consumers’ emotional attachment

A virtual influencer (VI) is a computer-generated, imagery-based digital character. It has become one of the hottest marketing trends, motivating researchers to investigate how consumers perceive VIs. However, consumers’ emotional attachment and benefit seeking behaviour to different types of VIs has remained under-investigated. Therefore, considering the level of perceived humanness and appearance realism, this research examines how consumers’ emotional attachment and benefit seeking differs across the three types of VI (i.e., mimic-human VI, animated-human VI, and non-human VI). We further propose that VIs may influence consumer emotional attachment and different benefit seeking behaviour through social presence because, specifically, when a VI shows a higher level of social presence, a higher level of emotional attachment and stronger benefit seeking behaviour will result. The experimental studies lend support to our theorization. This research provides insights into the different types of VIs in marketing literature and extends the context of social presence theory

What Drives Creative Crowdsourcing? An Exploratory Study on the Persuasion of Digital Storytelling

Crowdsourcing enterprises increasingly seek to attract and persuade makers to contribute their creativity and wisdom through digital storytelling, however, what are the effective components of digital storytelling and the persuasive effect of digital storytelling on creative crowdsourcing intention are still unclear. To fill this gap, this study explores how digital storytelling persuades makers to generate creative crowdsourcing behavioural intention by utilising Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Results reveal that the persuasion activity of digital storytelling has a positive effect on creative crowdsourcing intention. The effective components of digital storytelling are mainly composed of aesthetic perception, narrative structure and self-reference. UTAUT and its four core concepts (performance expectation, effort expectation, social influence and facilitating condition) mediate the impact of digital storytelling on the creative crowdsourcing intention, which reveals the persuasive source of digital storytelling. We highlight the theoretical implications as well as the practical applications in creative crowdsourcing

How Does Information Sharing of a Supervisor Influence Proactive Change Behavior of an Employee? The Chain Mediating Role of Family-Like Employee–Organization Relationship and Relationship Energy

The proactive change behavior of an employee is the key to promoting organizational innovation. However, the proactive change has a certain risk, and many employees are unwilling to implement initiatively. How to promote the occurrence of a proactive change behavior of an employee has become a hot issue in the theoretical and practical areas. Based on the self-disclosure theory, this study uses the questionnaire survey method, containing a total of 32 items, and uses the 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree), with the Mplus and SPSS statistical software to analyze the impact mechanism of work-related information sharing of supervisors on the proactive change behavior of employees through the structural equation model. The regulatory effect of non-work information sharing of leaders is analyzed using the latent regulatory structural equation method. The conclusions are as follows: work-related information sharing positively of supervisors influences the family-like employee–organization relationship of employees; the family-like employee–organization relationship and relationship energy play serial mediating roles in the relationship between work-related information sharing of supervisors and the proactive change behavior of employees; non-work information sharing of supervisors moderates the serial mediating path by enhancing the positive influence of work-related information sharing of supervisors on the family-like employee–organization relationship. Theoretically, this study has complemented and enriched the research on the influence mechanism between the information sharing of supervisors and the proactive change behavior of employees. Practically, this study has important implications for supervisors to promote the proactive change behavior of employees by sharing work-related information and non-work information with employees

Vehicle Routing Problem in Cold Chain Logistics: a Joint Distribution Model with Carbon Trading Mechanisms

Fierce competition and the mandate for green development have driven cold chain logistics companies to minimize total distribution costs and carbon emissions to gain a competitive advantage and achieve sustainable development. However, the cold chain logistics literature considers carbon trading mechanisms in sharing economy, namely the joint distribution, is limited. Our research builds a Joint Distribution-Green Vehicle Routing Problem (JD-GVRP) model, in which cold chain logistics companies collaborate among each other to deliver cold chain commodities by considering carbon tax policy. Based on the real business data from four cold chain companies and 28 customers, a simulated annealing (SA) algorithm is applied to optimize the model. The results indicate that joint distribution is an effective way to reduce total costs and carbon emissions when compared with the single distribution. The total cost is positively correlated with the carbon price, while the carbon emissions vary differently when the carbon price increases. In addition, carbon quotas have no effect on the delivery path. This research expands cold chain logistics literature by linking it with joint distribution and carbon trading mechanisms. Moreover, this research suggests that cold chain logistics companies could enhance delivery efficiency, reduce the business cost, and improve competitiveness by reinforcing the collaboration at the industry level. Furthermore, the government should advocate the mode of joint distribution and formulate an effective carbon trading policy to better utilize social and industrial resources to achieve the balanced economic and environmental benefits