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This study aims to explore the perceptions about Chinese brands from the point of views of young Chinese consumers.

A qualitative method is used including focus groups and in-depth personal interviews with young Chinese consumers who are currently living and working in Australia.

Two key findings emerge from the results, namely, young Chinese consumers attach symbolic values to Chinese brands and Chinese brands are perceived positively by young Chinese consumers.

This study demonstrates that symbolic values (such as pride, lifestyle, feeling of home and being happy) constitute one of the primary motivations for young Chinese consumers’ purchase of domestic brands. The results of this study challenge the traditional view that Chinese brands are perceived negatively in the Chinese market.

This is one of the very few studies investigating how young Chinese consumers perceive brands from their home country rather than foreign brands.

Smartphone apps collect users' personal information, which triggers privacy concerns for app users. Consequently, app users restrict apps from accessing their personal information. This may impact the effectiveness of in-app advertising. However, research has not yet demonstrated what factors impact app users' decisions to use apps with restricted permissions. This study is aimed to bridge this gap.

Using a quantitative research method, the authors collected the data from 384 app users via a structured questionnaire. The data were analysed using AMOS and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The findings suggest privacy concerns and risks have a significant positive effect on app usage with restricted permissions, whilst reputation, trust and perceived benefits have significant negative impact on it. Some app-related factors, such as the number of apps installed and type of apps, also impact app usage with restricted permissions.

Based on the findings, the authors provided several implications for app stores, app developers and app marketers.

This study examines the factors that influence smartphone users' decisions to use apps with restricted permission requests. By doing this, the authors' study contributes to the consumer behaviour literature in the context of smartphone app usage. Also, by explaining the underlying mechanisms through which the principles of communication privacy management theory operate in smartphone app context, the authors' research contributes to the communication privacy management theory.

The purpose of this study is to explore and identify the privacy concerns of smartphone app users pertinent to app usage.

Adopting a qualitative phenomenological approach, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with app users to explore the app users' privacy concerns.

Credibility concerns, unauthorised secondary use and vulnerability concerns are the three major privacy concerns of app users, under which these concerns have sub-concerns, i.e. popularity, privacy policy, stalking, data sharing, hacking and personal harm.

The findings are useful to app marketers, app developers and app stores. App marketers, app developers and app stores can use the findings to understand and properly address app users' privacy concerns, thereby increasing the apps usage.

By exploring the privacy concerns of app users, the authors' study extends the literature and provides a theoretical development of individuals' privacy concerns in the context of a widely used technology, i.e. smartphone applications. Accordingly, this study contributes to the consumer privacy literature.

The purpose of this study is to investigate visual comprehension in memory for 360-degree video advertisements amongst adolescents under single and repeated viewing conditions.

This study explored visual comprehension in memory for 360-degree video advertisements using the theoretical assumptions of the social psychology theory of social information processing by Wyer (2003). The authors conducted two experiments over a timeline of three months. In the first experiment, participants watched the 360-degree video advertisement once, and after one week, the same set of participants watched the same advertisement again. The theoretical assumptions in the comprehension unit were used to design the experiments and to explore visual comprehension in memory for 360-degree video advertisements. The data were collected using surveys and interviews through an experimental research design approach. NVivo software was used to analyse the data.

This study found that while female participants were able to comprehend colours in the visuals better, male participants were better able to comprehend facial expressions presented in the visuals. Further, both female and male participants were able to comprehend locations within the advertisement visuals. It was found that participants understood the plot or the story of the advertisement better after the second viewing than after the first viewing.

The two main contributions from this study are as follows: from a theoretical perspective, the application of a social psychology theory for the advertising sector enables us to gather more insights about the social cognition stages of a human mindset such as information retrieval, judgement, decision making, goal stimulation and short- and long-term memory. In doing so, this study not only explored adolescents' visual comprehension memory of 360-degree video advertisements, but it also contributed to the theory of social information processing by Wyer (2003) by exploring consumer visual comprehension memory. From a practical perspective, the findings of this study provide a solid foundation for future advertising firms or agencies, marketers, and salespeople on how to design effective advertisements using 360-degree video versions in a way that appeals to consumer visual memory.

This paper can be considered as amongst the first studies which combine social psychology with advertising to investigate visual comprehension memory for 360-degree video advertisements amongst adolescents.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between customer participation, co-created value and customer engagement as well as customer motivation involved in this process.

Respondents were randomly exposed to one of the six types of social media scenarios. A total of 181 respondents were drawn from an MTurk opt-in survey panel of individuals who resided in America and were over the age of 18 years.

Overall, the results of this study showed that as the level of customer participation increased, the level of co-created value decreased. The relationship between customer participation and customer engagement was fully mediated by co-created value. Extrinsic motivation was found to moderate the relationship between customer participation and co-created value but did not moderate the relationship between customer participation and customer engagement. Moreover, customer engagement was at its highest when an external reward was not offered, in other words, when customers were intrinsically motivated. Furthermore, when an external reward was offered, a significant effect of privacy concern on customer engagement was observed.

The study extends the current understanding of customer engagement through value co-creation, customer participation and perceptions of privacy in firm-initiated activities in social media.

Recent literature on customer engagement has introduced the concept of “actor engagement,” which serves as the foundation for this study. The study aims to investigate the formation of engagement and engagement's impact on the performance of sharing economy platforms in an international context.

The study analyses unstructured data from 145,434 service providers and 1,703,266 customers on Airbnb across seven countries (USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, China and Singapore). Machine learning techniques are used to measure actor engagement, and the research model is tested using structural equation modelling (SEM).

The findings suggest that actor engagement, encompassing the reciprocal relationship between customer engagement and service provider engagement, has a significant impact on platform performance. The moderator analysis highlights the role of cultural differences in the relationship between customer engagement and service provider engagement and between actor engagement and platform performance. Specifically, the study reveals that actor engagement exhibits a more pronounced impact on platform performance in Western countries (such as the USA, Australia and the UK), compared to Eastern countries (such as China and Singapore).

The analysis of the conceptual model is based on the utilisation of behavioural data obtained from the Airbnb website. Due to the nature of the available data, proxies are employed as measures for variables such as platform performance.

This research is amongst the first to provide empirical evidence for actor engagement formation and the function's role in platform performance in the sharing economy. The global nature of Airbnb as a platform facilitates the investigation of country-level factors, specifically cultural values, across seven diverse countries and highlight differences from business to customer (B2C) business models.

This paper focuses on exploring the relationship between Australian university websites and international student enrolments. Few studies have investigated this relationship and, as such, this research addresses some of the existing knowledge gaps.

A mono-method qualitative methodology was adopted for this study. Primary data collection was through the website content of selected Australian universities. Six Australian universities were selected; three universities with positive international student enrolments and three universities with negative international student enrolments. The website content of the selected six universities was analysed using the dimensions of the ICTRT framework (Li and Wang, 2011) to evaluate website effectiveness. The study results were based on two analysis levels, an overall thematic analysis (level 1) and an ICTRT framework-based analysis (level 2). The thematic analysis, based on the major themes and concepts, was conducted using Leximancer 4.5.

Two major findings emerged. First, the websites of universities with positive international student enrolments tend to be more people focused whereas websites from universities with negative international student enrolments tend to be technology or system focused. Second, websites from universities with positive international student enrolments tend to be more visionary or forward focused whereas websites from universities with negative international student enrolments tend to be more backward focused. Additionally, the study findings indicate some important website marketing strategies for Australian universities with negative international student enrolments.

This study used ICTRT framework to evaluate the websites of Australian universities. Li and Wang (2011) proposed this framework for evaluating websites. Hotel, travel agency and destination marketing organisation websites have been assessed using the ICTRT framework (Li and Wang, 2011; Pai et al., 2014; Sun et al., 2017). This model has not previously been used, however, to evaluate tertiary education websites. This study is among the first to examine the university websites using a theoretical framework employed in destination marketing organisations which is a major theoretical contribution.

The major findings indicate that the website attributes, which are future focused and people oriented, are necessary for university websites with negative international student enrolments. Similar to university websites with positive international student enrolments, university websites with negative international student enrolments should also provide more contact details of staff members, should be more people oriented and should provide information focused on future students rather than past and current students. These practical implications are useful for administrative bodies in Australian universities for increasing international student enrolments.

This study is among the first to examine the university websites using a theoretical framework used in destination marketing organizations which is a major theoretical contribution. For example, this study has provided an illustrative example of how a research model of destination marketing organizations will be used in the universities or higher education context.

The purpose of this paper is to describe experiences of high school graduates attending a significant annual celebratory event (Schoolies) on the Gold Coast, Australia.

An interpretive, qualitative paradigm informed by social construction ideologies was adopted. Data were collected via in-depth semi-structured interviews.

Key findings relate to attendees’ notion of excitement and perception of social identity, which was found to encompass both a rite of passage and event exclusivity. Attendees’ sense of identity developed from the unique nature of the event as well as the anticipation of excitement and the actual experience.

This study makes a novel contribution in that it takes an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together the sociological, social psychological, and marketing disciplines in an event management context.

Issues of diversity and inclusion are at the forefront of public discourse and policy initiatives. Media and product lines have recently faced scrutiny for not being inclusive of difference. We conducted a content analysis of books intended for the tween (ages 8–12) girl. More specifically, these books were from the preeminent tween girl company, American Girl. A company perhaps best known for their line of dolls and historical fiction books, American Girl also publishes advice books with the intention of addressing a range of topics pertinent to the tween girl. Since the company strives to appeal to all girls, the authors analyzed these advice books for images and messages of racial, religious, ability, and sexuality difference in an effort to identify who American Girl’s American girl truly is. The findings of this chapter revealed an overall lack of diversity in the American Girl advice books in not only images but also messages. Images of White girls were more common than those of non-White girls, and any representation of religious, ability, or sexuality difference was minimal. Analysis of the content of the messages also revealed few mentions of difference, and categorization of the books suggested an emphasis on relationships with other people and bodies/appearance as important. It is apparent from this analysis that American Girl’s American girl is White, able-bodied, religiously ambiguous (though presumably Christian), and heterosexual. The need for American Girl to be fully inclusive of diversity across all their product lines is apparent.

This paper aims to adopt a novel approach to the study of individuals’ psychological dispositions that predict Facebook usage/non-usage. Given the historically disappointing results associated with studies that treat personality traits/dispositions as enduring and invariant, contemporary thought accepts that it is the interaction between dispositions and situations that influence behaviour. In this study, the situation (in this case, Facebook) is positioned as the antecedent stimulus for the activation of context-relevant psychological dispositions that, subsequently, facilitate behavioural prediction (i.e. Facebook usage/non-usage). Moreover, Facebook (the stimulus) is examined through its perceived psychological, rather than normative, features to identify context-relevant dispositions.

This two-study project adopts a research framework developed through the integration of communication theories and theoretical frameworks and psychological processing theories. Study 1 adopted a qualitative approach to determine the psychological features of Facebook, as perceived from the individual’s standpoint. Study 2 involved a national online survey, developed from the findings from Study 1, to explore context-relevant psychological dispositions in their prediction of Facebook behaviour.

The findings of Study 1 lead to the identification of the perceived psychological features of Facebook which are categorised under the umbrella terms of interaction, self-image control, usage volition and risk. Using these features (identified in Study 1) to guide in the selection of context-relevant dispositions, rather than arbitrarily selecting dispositions, the hypotheses for Study 2 are developed. As a result, Study 2 involves the discriminant analysis of data gathered from 579 user/non-users of Facebook to determine if context-relevant psychological dispositions accurately predict behaviour of both users and non-users of Facebook.

The findings provide a psychological roadmap for Facebook advertisers, which can be used to develop and test media-specific advertising strategy. Furthermore, a significant contribution of this study resides within the research approach itself which can be used to guide not only media research but also other marketing and business research that is characterized by context specificity.