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This study attempts to encapsulate the idea of influencer marketing in the food sector and the vital role played by food influencers in shaping the dietary preferences, tastes and decisions of their social media followers and turning them into brand advocates.

An online survey of 383 social media users, utilizing a self-administered questionnaire, was undertaken to validate the proposed research design. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) methodology was used to analyze the data and test the relationships between the constructs.

The results confirm the validity and reliability of the research model. The research revealed the positive influence of influencer–follower demographics and attitude congruence on followers’ food choices, which in turn leads to followers’ delight and significantly impacts their brand advocacy. It also depicts how followers’ perceived trust in an influencer mediates the relationship between their similarity with the influencers, their food choices and brand advocacy.

The study proposes a new theoretical framework and empirically tests the effectiveness of influencer marketing in influencing social media users’ food choice behavior and brand advocacy through the medium of followers’ congruence with social media influencers. The findings offer noteworthy theoretical and managerial implications for academicians as well as marketing practitioners.

Leaders are role models and through social influence processes, they shape the behaviour of their followers. We build on social learning, social identity and person-environment (P-E) fit theories of leadership to explore the association between leaders’ and followers’ resilient behaviours.

In a three-wave, multisource study amongst 269 Dutch leaders and their followers, we investigate the mediating role of coaching in the relationship between leaders’ resilient behaviour and followers’ resilient behaviour and the moderating role of regulatory focus in this mediation path.

Our results show that coaching is a key relational vehicle through which leaders’ resilient behaviours shape employees’ resilient behaviours, and this indirect association is stronger for employees scoring low on promotion focus. In addition, our results show that resilient employees attract more coaching from their leaders, which further strengthens their resilient behaviours.

Existing studies have shown the occurrence of trickle-down effects of various leader behaviours, moods and work states on those of their followers. However, it remained obscure whether leaders’ resilient behaviour could trickle down to followers’ as well. Our study shows that such a link indeed exists and that coaching is a relational vehicle that embodies two key mechanisms to (1) foster social learning through behavioural entrainment and contagion and (2) facilitate support provision through which leaders promote resilient behaviour in their followers.

Using a multilevel model, this study examined how paternalistic leadership behaviors, including authoritarianism, morality and benevolence, influence followers' performance.

A sample of 556 leader–follower dyads from 66 groups in a manufacturing firm in China was collected for analysis. Descriptive statistics and multi-level regression analyses were used to analyze the data.

The results indicated that group efficacy mediates the relationship between authoritarian leadership and followers' performance and that self-efficacy mediates the relationship between benevolent leadership and followers' performance. In addition, the positive relationship between self-efficacy and followers' performance is weaker when followers exhibit higher levels of group efficacy.

The data were collected in a manufacturing firm in China, it is difficult to generalize the results to other settings.

Managers should use their abilities and skills to interpret which paternalistic leadership styles their followers prefer, so as to improve their performance.

This study developed a multilevel model to examine the mediating processes of group efficacy and self-efficacy in the effect of PL behaviors, including authoritarianism, benevolence and morality, on followers' performance.

This chapter offers a comprehensive review the literature on authentic leadership (AL). The authors employ a bibliometric approach to identify, classify, visualise and synthesise relevant scholarly publications and the work of a core group of interdisciplinary scholars who are key contributors to the research on AL. They review 264 journal articles, adopting a clustering technique to assess the central themes of AL scholarship. They identify five distinct thematic clusters: authenticity in the context of leadership; structure of AL; social perspectives on AL; dynamism of AL; and value perceptions of AL. Velt and Sinkovics assert that these clusters will help scholars of AL to understand the dominant streams in the literature and provide a foundation for future research.

Drawing upon social learning theory (SLT), the study examines the consequences of ethical leadership on followers' voice behavior facets (promotive and prohibitive). The study tests hypotheses about the processing mechanism (moral identity) and the boundary condition (proactive personality) to understand these relationships.

The study collected time-lagged survey data through an online structured questionnaire from 182 respondents. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to ensure the validity and reliability of the data. Moreover, structural equation modeling was run to test the hypotheses using AMOS.

Ethical leadership positively affects followers' promotive and prohibitive voice behavior via the psychological mechanism of moral identity. Proactive personality moderates the moral identity – promotive and moral identity – prohibitive voice relationships, such that these relations are stronger when the individuals are high on proactive personality.

Robust evidence of a genuine cause-and-effect relationship may not be yielded owing to cross-sectional and self-reported data at the follower level of analysis. Future researchers can use dyadic, longitudinal and experimental designs to overcome these limitations. Organizations targeting to increase voice behavior can benefit from maintaining ethical leaders and proactive followers at the workplace.

The study significantly contributes to the ethical leadership and voice behavior literature. Ethical leadership enhances followers' promotive/prohibitive voice behaviors through their moral identity enhancement. The paper also confirmed that a proactive personality is a critical boundary condition in these relationships. Empirical evidence from the Eastern context has been added, and research directions have also been provided.

The purpose of this study is to identify the process of virtual influencer stickiness in the age of influencer marketing, which has received little attention in the literature. This is essential because the research creates a theoretical model of follower loyalty/stickiness to virtual influencer techniques from the standpoint of influencer marketing, which has a substantial effect on the evolution of the global marketing world.

In 2022, 302 people who currently follow an Instafamous virtual influencer took part in an Instagram self-administered online survey.

The findings show that both expertise and trustworthiness have a positive and significant influence on parasocial interaction, which in turn has a significant influence on virtual engagement and stickiness.

This research will specifically assist international readers in understanding how to harness and increase the efficiency and efficacy of interactive marketing strategies and methods to engage and retain followers of Instafamous virtual influencer. Moreover, the findings will be beneficial to opinion leaders, brand managers, company investors, entrepreneurs and service designers.

1. The study pioneers a holistic virtual follower stickiness mechanism that comprises the role of source credibility, parasocial interaction, informational influence and virtual follower’s engagement and their interrelationship to each other.

2. This study is based on parasocial interaction theory and source credibility theory to understand the relationship between virtual followers and influencers stickiness process at social media platforms.

3. In addition, the study examined the subsequent effects of sources of credibility components on parasocial interaction; as well as, on virtual follower engagement and stickiness.

4. This study also categorized and examined the moderating effects exerted by the genres of informative influence of virtual influencer.

The study pioneers a holistic virtual follower stickiness mechanism that comprises the role of source credibility, parasocial interaction, informational influence and virtual follower’s engagement and their interrelationship to each other.

This study is based on parasocial interaction theory and source credibility theory to understand the relationship between virtual followers and influencers stickiness process at social media platforms.

In addition, the study examined the subsequent effects of sources of credibility components on parasocial interaction; as well as, on virtual follower engagement and stickiness.

This study also categorized and examined the moderating effects exerted by the genres of informative influence of virtual influencer.

Social media marketers are keen to understand how viewers perceive their brands on a platform and how the learning experiences from content can impact their attitudes toward a brand. This study aims to focus on examining the effect of firm-generated content (FGC) on X (formerly known as Twitter), using Kolb’s experiential learning theory to analyze the viewers’ learning process. In addition, the study investigates how the length of time a viewer follows a brand and the type of brand can influence their attitudes toward it.

This study involved three qualitative studies on X to investigate how content learning affects consumer attitudes toward two brands, namely, Nike and Subway. The study also examined the impact of the duration of following the brands, with participants following the brands for 4, 8 and 12 weeks, respectively, to assess changes in their attitudes.

The results demonstrate that content learning significantly impacts consumer attitudes. By following brands and engaging with their FGC over time, viewers can transition from being occasional or intermittent followers to becoming devoted brand enthusiasts. Through the four-stage experiential learning process, followers undergo cognitive, emotional and behavioral transformations that collectively shape their brand attitudes. The impact of content learning varies according to the brand type, and the duration of following has a positive effect on brand attitudes.

The study’s findings have significant marketing implications for social media marketers, suggesting that they should restructure their social media platforms as learning platforms to effectively engage followers. Companies should adjust their content marketing strategies from a learner’s perspective, providing followers with content that resonates with them, enhances their learning outcomes and helps shift their beliefs and brand attitudes, ultimately converting them into loyal consumers.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this qualitative research is the first of its kind to apply experiential learning theories to investigate how users learn from FGC by following brands on social media and how this learning ultimately changes their brand attitude. The study provides a unique perspective on social media marketing, enriching the understanding of content marketing and consumer experiences on social media platforms.

The study aims to closely look at the phenomenon of transformational leadership and the psychological capital of followers by using affective process theory (APT). It has empirically tested the mediation of the perceived emotional labor (EL) of a leader and susceptible emotional contagion (EC) of followers when studying the effect of transformational leadership on the psychological capital (PsyCap) of followers.

The method adopted was mixed methodology. The data were collected from the 120 respondents and their perception regarding the construct as identified by previous literature was captured through a structured questionnaire. The relationships and hypotheses were tested by the structural equation modeling (SEM) model using SMART PLS. Further 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted using a qualitative approach.

The current research has empirically shown how specific aspects of transformational leadership, i.e. individual consideration perceived by followers also show high use of perceived deep acting strategy. Deep acting EL strategy is impacting positive EC and positive EC is leading to higher PsyCap of followers generating more work efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience. Mediation of positive EC between Deep acting EL and PsyCap was also observed. In qualitative studies done with the participants, major themes that emerged were transformational leadership, EL strategies, EC and PsyCap.

In times of uncertainty and stress after the post-COVID scenario, employees are facing emotional burnout due to increased work pressure and workload. Transformational leadership has become very critical to manage the PsyCap of followers by using correct EL strategies. Leaders can focus on the optimism and resilience aspect of PsyCap.

The current research has taken affective process theory (APT) as a foundation to understand the connection between transformational leadership and the PsyCap of followers. The study has specifically picked up the fourth mechanism of affective linkage as suggested by Elfenbein (2014) called emotional recognition and seen how emotions are transferred from source (leaders) to recipient (followers). The research has contributed by empirically testing the mediation of the perceived EL of leaders and the susceptible EC of followers and how they affect the PsyCap of followers.

Prior studies have consistently shown that leader psychological capital is beneficial for leader–member exchange (LMX) and followers’ outcomes. In this study, the authors challenge this consensus; they propose that a leader with high-level psychological capital may decrease LMX and promote followers’ turnover intention when encountering a follower with low-level psychological capital. Only congruent psychological capital in leader–follower dyads increases LMX and decreases turnover intention.

A two-wave survey was designed to collect data from a sample of 207 leader–follower dyads in the service industries of China. Polynomial regression combined with the response surface analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

(1) LMX increased when the levels of psychological capital between leaders and followers were congruent, but LMX suffered when they were not congruent (e.g. leaders’ psychological capital was higher than followers’ or otherwise); (2) in the conditions of psychological capital congruence, LMX was higher when a leader’s and a follower’s psychological capital were both high than low; (3) LMX mediated the relationship between psychological capital congruence and followers’ turnover intention.

These findings provide a novel perspective on understanding of the function of psychological capital and its implications for turnover management.