The global use of smartphone has had tremendous social, environmental, and economic impacts in the last decade, and continues to grow impressively. In order to comprehend customers' purchase behavior, it is crucial to understand the driving force behind their choice of one specific brand among various competitors. A few prior researches have demonstrated that not only the optimal experience of flow, but also identity features (i.e., self-identity, social identity, brand identity) facilitate a customer's purchase intention. Previous studies also indicate that brand-related constructs (e.g., typically brand image but sometimes also brand personality and communication) predict purchase intention. As the first study combining flow, which focuses on investigating the consumer purchase behavior through identity and brand-related constructs, we propose a conceptual model that combines flow theory, brand image, brand communication, brand identity, and brand personality to investigate purchase intention. We have empirically tested the conceptual model based on the data collected from 1377 Chinese smartphone users. Results via the structural equation modeling with AMOS software indicated that flow experience, brand image, brand communication, brand personality, and brand identity all directly or indirectly explain purchase intention. Flow experience serves a critical role in mediating the path from brand communication, brand personality, and brand identity to purchase intention. The research focuses on the strategic implication of the various brand features management and aims to harmonize economic, social, and environmental sustainability.Sustainability 2020, 12, 3391 2 of 22 to maximize immediate economic profit with little care for its long-term sustainability in terms of economic, environmental, and social impacts. This is a common global phenomenon that affects the global world community, irrespective of culture, language, latitudes, geography, religion, policy, etc. Meanwhile, the levels of analyses for such phenomena encompasses all STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and SSH (Social Sciences and Humanities) disciplines. However, one of the keystones of this global contemporary phenomenon is the interface among this technology and its users, which are responsible for its universal adoption. The psychological level of analysis is a key to better understand the behavior of smartphone users. Furthermore, there are other inputs that are important to understand consumers' purchase driving force. For example, the motivations behind individuals' choice and purchase intention of a specific brand among various brands of smartphone needs to be further explored on both the psychological and economic level. Therefore, acquiring deeper knowledge at the psychological level could contribute ideas and insights for developing strategies to better cope with the various negative consequences by finding new ways to harmonize social, environmental, and economic sustainability, and, consequently, to develop strategies...

The present work investigated fundamental mediating mechanisms (i.e., flow experience, organizational identification, and trust), underlining the impact of authentic leadership on employee resilience during the turbulent COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 901 frontline employees working in a construction engineering company in China participated in this study. They were asked to respond to a battery of questionnaires comprising Trust Scale (affective-based, cognitive-based, and competence-based), Flow Proneness Questionnaire (FPQ), Organizational Identification Scale, Authentic Leadership Questionnaire, and Employee Resilience Scale. Results of structural equation modeling indicated that: (1) Authentic leadership positively predicted employee resilience in the COVID-19 pandemic, directly and indirectly. (2) As for the indirect relationship, two parallel mediation effects and one chain mediation were detected: employees’ flow at work and organizational identification respectively and dependently mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and employee resilience; trust and organizational identification played as a chain mediation role within authentic leadership-employee resilience association. The study provides empirical evidence for organizations’ resilience-building and leadership training programs. Findings also contribute to the literature by facilitating flow intervention, promoting organizational identification and trust to enhance the effect of authentic leadership in promoting positive psychological functioning of employee resilience. Limitations with respect to future research directions were also outlined.

The present study investigated a conceptual model by testing flow experience and subjective well-being of university students during Coronavirus Diseas-19 (COVID-19) via considering their underlying mechanisms of academic self-efficacy and self-esteem. A total of 1,109 Chinese university students completed a questionnaire containing scales of subjective well-being, flow, academic self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Results yielded from the structural equation modeling analysis indicated a significant and positive association between flow experience and subjective well-being, and such an association was sequentially mediated by academic self-efficacy and self-esteem. Findings also provided empirical evidence for the proposed model highlighting the significant role of flow experience at the higher educational context in predicting subjective well-being of Chinese university students, and how such a relation can be supported by suggested mediating roles academic self-efficacy and self-esteem played.

Authentic leadership is essential for predicting employee resilience. However, despite fruitful findings, more adapted models of authentic leadership – employee resilience based on empirical findings can serve as a guide to understand the complex mediators and moderators in different industries such as in construction engineering project organizations during the turbulent pandemic. This study, therefore, based on the organizational identification theory and flow theory through the lens of positive organizational psychology, aims to disentangle the authentic leadership—employee resilience association by investigating their underlying mechanism and their boundary condition. To test our hypothetical model, we applied a cross-sectional design with data collected from a large sample of 884 employees from a big enterprise in China. Findings from confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling analysis, and Hayes’s conditional process model indicated that: authentic leadership positively predicted employee resilience through the partial mediation effect of organizational identification, and such a mediation model was moderated by the experience of flow. In other words, flow moderated the relationships between authentic leadership, organizational identification, and employee resilience. Findings provide evidence for cultivating leaders’ authenticity in promoting their subordinates’ resilience; findings also highlight the significance of organizational identification in bridging authentic leadership and employee resilience and the essential role of flow experience in supporting the relationships mentioned above.