Junyun Liao

• PhD in Marketing, Wuhan University
• Professor (Associate) at Jinan University

Marketing managers increasingly monitor their company's online reputation and respond to online consumer reviews on various digital platforms. The current literature provides valuable insights into effectively initiating management response (MR) to negative reviews. However, research on how companies should respond to positive reviews is limited, d...

Purpose This study explores whether and how four main factors of short-branded video content (content matching, information relevance, storytelling and emotionality) facilitate consumer engagement (likes, comments and shares), as well as the moderating effect of the release time (morning, afternoon and evening) in such relationships. Design/method...

Consumers usually endorse tourism products differently when sharing positive electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). This research examines the relative persuasiveness of two endorsement styles, that is, explicit endorsement (e.g., “I recommend it”) and implicit endorsement (e.g., “I love it”). Drawing on the persuasion knowledge model, we propose that ex...

Many users criticize brands by posting negative comments on their social media pages when a brand crisis occurs. Brands often choose to delete negative comments when coping with brand crises. While deleting comments often goes unnoticed, complaints about comment deletion from users whose comments are deleted (e.g., “Why did you delete my comment?”)...

Brands’ negative word of mouth (NWOM) generated by their unsatisfied consumers is increasingly transmitted by fans of competing brands. Although extant research has examined the generation of NWOM because of consumers’ negative consumption experience, little is known about the role of fans of rival brands in spreading NWOM of a focal brand and how...

Purpose In influencer advertising, followers engage in more frequent and timely interactions compared to nonfollowers, making them the primary audience for these advertisements. Building on this premise, this study aims to examine the impact of different influencer types, categorized by follower count, on the advertised brands. Design/methodology/...

The current research investigates whether, when, and why power states, a prevalent experience in everyday life, influence negative WOM (NWOM). The authors find that low‐power consumers tend to engage more in NWOM, and this effect is driven by less image‐impairment concerns and heightened motives to protect others induced by low‐power states. We fur...

Purpose This study aims to examine how virtual influencers (VIs) affect purchase intentions in tourism and hospitality e-commerce live streaming (THCLS) by focusing on the roles of VIs’ source credibility, trust in products, trust in VIs, emotional engagement, parasocial relationships and influencer–product congruence. Design/methodology/approach...

Purpose Oppositional brand loyalty (OBL) has become widespread and has thus received growing scholarly attention in recent years. Although opposition behaviors have distinct manifestations, their differential antecedents remain underexplored. Drawing from the identity-based motivation model, this article aims to examine the impact of brand identifi...

Live streaming has offered new opportunities for retailers to increase their sales, hence its reception of continuous scholarly attention. However, understanding the antecedents of viewer watching and purchasing behaviors in live streaming remains largely insufficient. This study thus constructs a framework from a stream-streamer-viewer perspective...

Introduction Consumers’ adoption behavior is critical to the success of new products, but the effects of brand communities on new product adoption have rarely been investigated. In this study, we draw on network theory to examine how consumer participation in brand communities (in terms of participation intensity and social networking behaviors) af...

Introduction Participating in multiple competing brand communities simultaneously is common for consumers, which brings challenges for companies to manage brand communities and build strong brand-consumer relationships. Although previous studies have widely examined the drivers and outcomes of consumers’ engagement in an individual community, littl...

Purpose Global product-harm crises increased in recent years. After such crises, firms' product-recall policies varied across countries, which might cause consumers in some countries to feel unfairly treated. Drawing on the relative deprivation theory, this study aims to examine how perceived unfairness of local consumers alters their attitudes tow...

Purpose Companies are increasingly designing pro-environmental games to motivate users to implement pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs). However, how different types of virtual interactions affect PEBs in pro-environmental games is not clear. Thus, the authors propose that two types of virtual interaction, interactions with game objects and interact...

Since the first paper on brand communities published in 2001, academic research on the area has accumulated substantially. To gain insight into the status and dynamics of this field, this study draws data from the Scopus database and uses bibliometrics and systematic review to analyse this body of knowledge and assess its stage of development. The...

It is becoming increasingly common for consumers to express oppositional loyalty, but the question that does this behavior further influences brand identification remains unexplored. This study constructed a research model to explore how oppositional loyalty affected brand identification. This study presents an empirical study using the data collec...

Live streaming is continuously becoming an important tool for destination marketing nowadays. Despite that many destinations use live streaming to attract prospective tourists, little is known about how destination live streaming influences the audience’s travel intention. Against this backdrop, this study constructs a framework of the influence of...

Purpose Recent years have witnessed the popularity of social free sampling (SFS). That is, firms on social commerce platforms (e.g. Amazon Vine and Pconline Try) offer free sample products for consumers' applications, and the selected applicants are required to write a product trial report on the sites as a return. The main advantage of SFS is to l...

Purpose This paper aims to explore whether or not and how brand community supportive climates (information- versus emotion-supportive climates) have an impact on consumer-to-consumer helping behavior. Design/methodology/approach A survey of users of cell phone brand communities was conducted, and data from 413 participants were used to validate th...

Live streaming commerce as a popular marketing method has attracted wide attention, but little is known about why consumers continue to watch live streaming. To fill this research gap, this study draws on social presence theory to examine the impact of sense of community, emotional support, and interactivity on viewers’ social presence, which, in t...

Purpose Live streaming commerce has grown rapidly in recent years. Although the way streamers communicate with viewers is the key to influencing users' purchase behaviors, little is known about the influence of streamers' communication style on purchase intention. Drawing on parasocial interaction theory and flow theory, this study examines the inf...

In recent years, the frequent occurrence of corporate scandals in Chinese companies, organizations have increased their efforts to curb unethical employee behavior. However, little is known about whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) inhibits unethical pro-organizational behavior. Drawing on social identity theory, this study investigates t...

Purpose Users' knowledge sharing provides valuable resources for brand community participants and is, therefore, critical for the viability of virtual brand communities. Drawing from both self-determination theory (SDT) and psychological ownership theory, the paper aims to investigate the impact of fulfillment of three basic psychological needs on...

Purpose This study aims to examine the increasingly widespread phenomenon of brand community-swinging, which refers to a user's routine use of multiple brand communities of a brand across different social media. Drawing from channel complementarity theory, this study examines whether the complementarity of gratifications in four values (i.e. inform...

In recent decades, firms have increasingly utilized online innovation communities to facilitate product development and improvement by encouraging users' product idea submission. An emerging research stream examines the driver of users' idea contributions. The present study explores the impact of peer feedback on the basis of creative self-efficacy...

Purpose Despite past studies revealed the positive effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on consumer advocacy behavior, little research has paid attention to employee advocacy behavior. This research aims to examine the relationship between CSR and employee advocacy behavior, the mediating role of meaningful work as well as the moderating...

Purpose Recent years have witnessed the increasingly fierce competition amongst smartphone brands. Hence, smartphone firms urge to prevent current consumers from switching to maintain market position. Based on the push–pull–mooring (PPM) framework, this study aims to explore the drivers of users' intentions to switch from their current smartphone b...

Purpose Oppositional loyalty toward rival brands is prevalent. Although its antecedents have increasingly received scholarly attention, the literature is rather disparate. Based on identity theory, this study aims to propose that oppositional loyalty is a brand identity-driven outcome and provides a unified framework for understanding the formation...

This article is dedicated to examine the impact of social exclusion (i.e., being rejected, isolated, excluded or ignored by other individuals or groups in society) on consumers’ intention of green consumption. Based on Costly Signaling Theory, three experiments have been conducted to explore one main effect and the corresponding mechanism together...

Purpose Although online brand communities (OBCs) are extensively demonstrated to be an important social media tool in building brand equity, they may have backfire effects under certain conditions. Drawing from the self–brand connection theory, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of group heterogeneity on brand commitment. The me...

Purpose In an online brand community (OBC), consumers as a group occupy a dominant position, and their horizontal interactions are pivotal for the consumer–brand relationship. However, little is known about the effect of group characteristics on brands. To partially fill this gap, this study examines how group characteristics influence brand loyalt...

Virtual brand communities (VBCs), whether hosted by firms or consumers, rely largely on consumers’ knowledge contribution to survive and thrive. Despite the importance of knowledge contribution, limited is known about its antecedents and especially how it varies across VBCs of two hosting types, i.e. firm- vs. consumer-hosted VBCs. Drawing from the...

Numerous firms operate online brand communities (OBCs) in order to build a close consumer–brand relationship. To succeed in realizing this aim, firms must first sustain members’ brand community engagement. While prior studies have examined a series of drivers of brand community engagement, most of them focused on psychological and social motivation...

Purpose Despite the increasingly common view that online brand community (OBC) members are heterogeneous, knowledge concerning the impact of group heterogeneity on community and brand level outcomes is lacking. In response and drawing from organization research, this paper aims to study the consequences of two types of group heterogeneity (i.e. vis...

Purpose Firms are now investing heavily in sponsorship, yet much of this sponsorship fails to deliver the expected positive outcomes to firms. This paper aims to address this problem by taking into consideration the nature of corporate sponsorship and the fit between brand image developed by corporate sponsorship and established brand concept. De...