Dongmei Cao

Purpose: This study examines how Digital Care Management Technologies (DCMTs) reshape accountability and empathic care practices in UK homecare agencies. Grounded in Agency Theory and Sociotechnical Systems Theory, the study investigates how digital infrastructures interact with relational care practices in digitally mediated homecare settings. Design/methodology/approach: The study draws on semi-structured interviews with managers and owners from twelve UK homecare agencies. Data were analyzed using the Gioia methodology to develop inductively grounded theoretical insights into how digital technologies reconfigure care practices and organizational accountability. Findings: The findings identify two interrelated sociotechnical conditions through which digitalization reshapes homecare work: first, accountability-as-legibility, whereby DCMTs render care activities visible and auditable in real time, strengthening managerial oversight and external assurance; second, information symmetry, where shared digital access reduces informational gaps and enables more transparent coordination among managers, carers, families and regulators. These conditions give rise to an accountability-empathy paradox: while digital visibility enhances coordination and service assurance, excessive monitoring and reporting demands can constrain carers' empathic engagement. The outcomes depend on capacity of empathic care, defined as organizational conditions that preserve carers' attentional and relational resources for empathic work under digital oversight. Originality/value: This study integrates Sociotechnical Systems Theory and Agency Theory to explain how digital accountability infrastructures in homecare simultaneously enable coordination and assurance while risking the crowding out of relational care, introducing capacity of empathic care as an organizationally configured outcome.

Despite extensive research on e‐waste management, the integrative responsibilities of multi‐stakeholders and the dependency on technology remain underexplored. This study aims to develop an integrative multi‐stakeholder responsibility model to advance the net‐zero goal in e‐waste management. Following the PRISMA protocol, we conducted a systematic review of 99 articles. The review revealed three themes of stakeholder responsibility, four performance measure categories, three e‐waste solutions, and four roles of smart technologies. These insights informed the development of a conceptual model to enhance environmental performance in e‐waste. The proposed model emphasises critical attributes of multi‐stakeholder relationships, including partnership, shared responsibility, inclusiveness, and transparency; it offers practical guidance for multi‐stakeholders in prioritising efficient and mature technologies to be adopted and diffused, enabling effective e‐waste management. Our study extends stakeholder theory from an organisation‐centric to a problem‐based perspective, highlighting its practical implications for effective e‐waste management and suggesting future research directions for sustainability.

Social media platforms expose individuals to both peer and marketer influences. While these influences have garnered significant research attention regarding their impact on consumer behaviors, the findings have been a subject of debate. This research examines how peer influence from user‐generated content (UGC) differs from marketer influence from marketer‐generated content (MGC) in its effect on consumers' eco‐friendly product (EFP) purchases and how peer influence takes place. Study 1 uses online field data from an e‐commerce company and suggests that peer influence is associated with more sales, whereas there is no empirical evidence to support a similar effect for marketer influence. Utilizing online survey data collected from social media users, Study 2 further reveals that informational and normative peer influences significantly increase consumers' purchase intention via environmental self‐efficacy and positive moral emotion. Notably, tie strength with the influencing peer plays a crucial role in moderating the relationship between different peer influences, the mediators, and the mediation paths. Our research advances knowledge of peer influence on EFP consumer behaviors, extends the UGC literature through the lens of peer influence and tie strength, and offers practical implications for social media marketers and policymakers promoting eco‐friendly products.

Purpose: While customer perceived augmented reality (AR) values have generally enhanced customer experience, AR value would be appreciated the most by a consumer segment that remains unexplored. Drawing from human value orientation theory and consumption value theory, this research proposes a new model analysing the effects of human value orientation (openness to change, conservation, self-transcendence, and self-enhancement) on perceived AR values (playful, social, visual appeal, usability) and subsequently the effects on customer satisfaction.Design/methodology/approach: :The authors employed a two-step online data collection. The first step was to identify those who had used retailers' AR applications, who were then invited to participate in the full survey in the second step. A sample of 253 AR technology users' data was analysed using partial least square and structural equation modelling.Findings: The results reveal that each human value orientation is associated with its unique perceived AR values and that various perceived AR values influence customer satisfaction differently.Originality/value: This study shows the pivotal role human value orientation plays in influencing customer perceived AR values and their impacts on customer satisfaction. The findings offer key implications for digital marketing segmentation.

Purpose: Scholars have typically examined family business exposure as an aggregate variable. However, it is probable that this trend oversimplifies the complexity of family exposure and its nuanced influence on entrepreneurial behaviour. Thus, to extend the theoretical boundary, this inquiry investigates distinct dimensions of family exposure in Nigeria while drawing on the theory of planned behaviour.Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from five public universities in Nigeria. A sample of 1,314 respondents was analysed using a partial least squares structural equation modelling approach to determine the influence of alternate family business exposures.Findings: The results show that entrepreneurial exposure in the forms of parent, family member and work involvement have salient and distinctive influences on implementation intention to the extent that entrepreneurial self-efficacy, attitudes and subjective norms are uniquely impacted.Originality/value: This study offers novel insights on the predictors of entrepreneurial implementation intention through the distinctive effects of (1) family member exposure, (2) parent exposure and (3) work involvement exposure among students in the family firm context.

Purpose: Social media influencers (SMIs) play an increasingly important role in influencing youth and their shopping behaviours in digital marketing. Research has examined various but fragmented SMIs, which cause inconsistency in empirical results. This research seeks to categorise the most popular SMIs in luxury fashion and examine their distinctive effects on Gen Z consumption in China.Design/methodology/approach: The authors categorise SMIs into four groups based on two dimensions, i.e. network interactivity vs social connectedness. Drawing on the social network theory, the authors develop the research model. A sample of 400 survey data is collected and analysed using the PLS-SEM technique.Findings: The empirical results suggest that among the four popular SMIs groups, the effects of celebrities, opinion leaders and friends and peers on luxury fashion consumption of Gen Z are statistically significant while that of advertisers are insignificant; that friends and peers have the most substantial effect among the others.Originality/value: The study contributes to understanding SMIs and consumer behaviour in digital emerging markets. By categorising SMIs, this study reconciles inconsistencies in the concept. This study contributes to a better understanding of SMIs and their roles in the digital marketing of luxury fashion consumption.