Security and privacy breaches, online fraud, identity theft, and online scams have amplified the public’s privacy concerns in recent years. While privacy concerns have primarily been studied in the B2C setting, businesses often suffer detrimental consequences if information privacy is poorly managed. Hence this paper examines privacy management with a focus on B2B marketing in the digital era. We conducted a systematic literature review of 47 research papers published between 2010 and 2021 on information privacy in B2B marketing. Our findings suggest that privacy issues evolve with changing technologies in the digital era and that approaches to conceptualizing privacy and information privacy management shape B2B trust, branding and servitisation. We contribute to the existing literature by developing a framework encompassing the drivers, approaches, and outcomes of privacy management in a B2B context. This paper concludes with implications of privacy issues for managers and policymakers and proposes a future research agenda.

The widespread use of self-service technology (SST) has changed the way customers experience service and how they deal with recovery from service failure. A growing number of service providers offer SST-based recovery, allowing customers to fix service failures using SSTs. Yet, gaining customer acceptance for this emerging form of service recovery presents challenges. There is a need to improve current understanding of the factors that influence customer decisions to use SST for failure recovery. Drawing on control theory, we examine the role of customer perceptions of control and risk in determining intention toward SST-based recovery. We provide empirical evidence that perceived control and risk over SST-based recovery significantly influence the intention to use SST-based recovery. Additionally, we find that whilst perceived risk of SST-based recovery mediates the effect of perceived control on usage intention, personal control moderates the relationship between perceived risk and intention to use SST-based recovery.

Increased use of artificial intelligence service agents (AISA) has been associated with improvements in AISA service performance. Whilst there is consensus that unique forms of attachment develop between users and AISA that manifest as parasocial relationships (PSRs), the literature is less clear about the AISA service attributes and how they influence PSR and the users’ subjective well-being. Based on a dataset collected from 408 virtual assistant users from the US, this research develops and tests a model that can explain how AISA-enabled service influences subjective well-being through the mediating effect of PSR. Findings also indicate significant gender and AISA experience differences in the PSR effect on subjective well-being. This study advances current understanding of AISA in service encounters by investigating the mediating role of PSR in AISA’s effect on users’ subjective well-being. We also discuss managerial implications for practitioners who are increasingly using AISA for delivering customer service.

AI applications are radically transforming the manner in which service providers and consumers interact. We explore how the humanness of AI applications affects consumers’ trust in these applications. Qualitative evidence collected with focus groups provides fresh insights into the roles of anthropomorphism and intelligence, as key constructs representing humanness. Our findings reveal the consumers’ perspective on the nuances of these constructs pertaining to services enabled by AI applications. It also extends current understanding of the phenomenon of the “uncanny valley,” by identifying conditions under which consumers experience discomfort and uneasiness as AI humanness increases in service environments.

This article investigates the effect of video loggers (vloggers) popularity on consumer credibility perception and purchase intention. It employs a two (high versus low vlogger popularity) by two (search versus experience product types) between-subject experimental design to uncover the signalling effect of vlogger popularity. While vlogger popularity influences the consumers’ credibility perception and purchase intention for all products, a high popularity vlogger is likely to be more effective in influencing the online consumers for experience products. We confirm the usefulness of the popularity construct in explaining purchase behavior in social media settings. In doing so, we provide an empirical evidence concerning the specific conditions under which credibility is more (or less) effective in influencing behavior. This study is the first to examine vlogger popularity effects in social media. Our findings provide important insights to both academics and practitioners.

Deal popularity indicates the popularity of a product or service within a specific deal duration and is being used by many e-tailers in their websites/apps. While deal popularity is receiving increasing attention by academics and practitioners alike, its effect as an extrinsic cue remains under-researched. Using an experimental design, this study investigates the effect of deal popularity on expected service quality in an e-tailing environment. It is found that deal popularity influences service quality expectations for credence services, but not experience services. High deal popularity positively influences consumers’ intention to purchase and willingness to recommend credence services. E-tailers of services need to pay attention to deal popularity displayed for credence services and leverage on the positive effect it has on consumers.

Broadband offers key advantages as a communication infrastructure, including efficiency and cost savings which can stimulate productivity, innovation, and ultimately economic growth and social well-being. This paper presents a comparative study on the adoption of broadband in urban and regional areas. It proposes a model concerning broadband adoption which we validate with data collected using a computer-aided telephone survey. We find that relative advantage, utility outcomes, and facilitating conditions play a crucial role in explaining the broadband adoption behavior of both urban and regional household users. In a dynamic environment where technologies are changing quickly, our findings about broadband adoption drivers are useful to stakeholders such as internet service providers, regulators, broadband application developers for encouraging further broadband and application adoption and developments in communication space in both regional and urban areas.