No abstract

Purpose This paper aims to explore whether products branded with handwritten scripts suffer more from the effects of product-harm crises than other brands. Most studies on handwritten scripts focus on their positive effects, such as humanizing a product or creating an emotional tie with consumers. However, seldom have researchers investigated the negative effects of handwritten scripts. This paper goes some way to filling this gap. Design/methodology/approach Five experimental studies were conducted to test three hypotheses. These experiments provide evidence of the negative effects of handwritten scripts. In addition, they reveal the mechanisms that lead to these outcomes and outline the boundary conditions of the negative effects. Findings Framed by attribution theory, three conclusions can be drawn from the experiments: when a product-harm crisis occurs, consumers react with greater negativity toward the brand using handwritten scripts than to those using machine typefaces. The negative effect is explained by a serial mediation process that follows the pattern: typeface → perceived humanization → brand responsibility → brand attitude. The negative effect decreases when the crisis is perceived to be an accident. Originality/value This paper enriches the theory of marketing in terms of both handwritten scripts and product-harm crises, providing valuable guidance for enterprises that use handwritten scripts in their marketing activities.

Waste recycling significantly impacts the sustainable development of society and the ecological environment, contributing to a vital role within the waste management hierarchy. This paper presents a research model that investigates the influence mechanism of consumers’ frugality on their recycling intentions. This study collected 420 valid samples to test the model with regression analysis. The empirical results show that consumers’ frugality exerts a direct and positive effect on their recycling intention. Except for the positive direct effect, perceived value mediates the relationship between frugality and recycling intention. Besides, environmental concern strengthens the positive relationship between frugality and recycling intention. The findings of this study can better explain the recycling intention, thereby providing a basis for the government and enterprises to formulate policies and measures to promote recycling behavior.

The rise of social media provides convenient mechanisms for audiences to participate in secondary science communication (SSC). The present study employs the theory of consumption values and theory of planned behavior to predict audiences’ SSC intentions. The results indicate that emotional value, social value, altruistic value, attitude, internal perceived behavioral control and subjective norm are significant predictors of audiences’ intentions to share or to repost science content on their social media. These results suggest that the theory of consumption values, together with the theory of planned behavior, is a useful framework for understanding SSC behaviors.