Social media influencers play a significant role in marketing by introducing products to their followers. We investigate how Instagram influencers impact consumer parasocial interaction (PSI) in the relationship between value perception and purchase intention. Whereas customers influence the attractiveness (social and physical) PSI of social media influencers, studies of the effects of luxury purchasing PSI in Thailand are limited. We examine the relationship between PSI and followers of luxury fashion’s value (social, personal, and conspicuous) on social media. We use structural equation modeling to evaluate hypotheses by conducting an online survey with 400 Thai millennial respondents who had experience following influencers on Instagram. The findings indicate that Thai millennials accept Instagram influencers’ PSIs in terms of value perception and motivation to purchase luxury fashion. The attractiveness of influencers initiates the formation of PSI; followers receive value perception and react to purchasing intention from influencers. The concepts were investigated to prove that influencers’ power can encourage followers to mitigate negative consequences by delivering value perceptions on PSI. These findings provided managerial implications for comprehending consumers in the field of digitalization.

Purpose: Circular economy (CE) has evolved as a result of the growing environmental awareness, environmental legislation and the need for social responsibility. However, awareness levels of CE are not as high as expected and practices are further behind than they should be, with a significant lack of research around the subject in the literature. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of awareness levels and the practices around CE in manufacturing firms. Moreover, the study aims to empirically validate one of the earlier proposed CE models.Design/methodology/approach: The study adopts a quantitative survey questionnaire based approach. More than 500 people from various manufacturing organisations were contacted directly over a 40-day long sampling process through the FAME database, personal contacts and LinkedIn. The survey resulted in 103 completed responses. Given the exploratory nature of the study, the data were mainly analysed using descriptive statistics. To validate the CE model, a correlation analysis was also conducted.Findings: The research findings show that with the growing emphasis on CE across the globe by governing bodies, firms are becoming more aware of CE practices. The analysis also shows some useful insights on the state of each of the pillars (economic benefits, environmental impact and resource scarcity) of CE. The findings also indicate that the environmental impact pillar of CE is at a more developed state than the other two pillars which are, mostly, in a research state.Research limitations/implications: The study provides manufacturing firms with a thorough understanding of the state of CE practices and importance of its successful implementation. The findings of the study advocates consideration of all three pillars of CE by managers as a guide to plan for an efficient strategy around CE implementation. Moreover, our study adds to existing efforts by the academic community to raise the awareness towards CE practice among all relevant stakeholders. The findings of this study are based on the responses from a limited 103 survey responses from manufacturing firms.Originality/value: This study adds to the very limited empirical literature on CE awareness and practices in manufacturing firms. This is also one of the first studies attempting to empirically validate an existing CE model.

The purpose of this study is to employ the existing theory on crisis management and corporate branding in a service context to explore how tourism businesses in Thailand can recover from the crisis caused by the impact of COVID-19. To manage the impact of COVID-19, the concepts of crisis management from different scholars are integrated, and crisis management is divided into three phases: the Pre-Crisis, Crisis, and Post-Crisis phases. This exploratory research employs stakeholder interviews to discover the impacts of COVID-19 on tourism businesses and attempts to develop guidelines for recovering tourism businesses within the service context. Our findings indicate that a strong brand and its proper management can help firms to survive during the crisis period. Moreover, our findings highlight the importance of communication for engaging with all staff during the recovery period. This paper sheds light on how a brand is employed as a proactive strategy to mitigate the impacts of the crisis. Most brands have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and only strong brands are able to survive. Our study also adds to the limited empirical evidence on tourism business recovery during COVID-19 in the context of a developing country. From practitioners’ perspectives, trust, solid relationships, and honest communication with their business partners play an important role in survival after the crisis. Additionally, in this paper, corporate branding is conceived as a strategic tool that affects how staff and stakeholders can collaborate and unite in response to the crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has hastened the expansion of omnichannel purchasing globally including in Thailand. This quantitative study employs the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework to investigate the impact of channel integration on increasing customer satisfaction or reducing perceived risk, which leads to increased purchase intention for fashion products. Using an online questionnaire, data were collected from 400 Thai Millennials (aged 22–40 years) interested in buying luxury fashion products. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The results showed that integrated product and price, integrated promotion, and integrated information access influenced customer-perceived risk reduction, and integrated product and price, integrated promotion, integrated transaction information, integrated information access, and integrated customer service influenced customer satisfaction. In addition, perceived risk is related to customer satisfaction and purchase intention. These findings provide both theoretical and managerial implications for omnichannel retailers in developing their marketing strategies.

Purpose: This research aims to demonstrate how the circular economy is employed to drive the sustainability of the tourism industry in Krabi, Thailand, through the concept of mindful consumption and service-dominant logic (hereafter S-D logic).Design/methodology/approach: A seven-year longitudinal study (2013–2020) was conducted through four studies from different perspectives, including macro, meso and micro levels of development in Krabi province.Findings: Krabi tourism stakeholders have collaborated to co-create green culture and behavior whereby the value network among stakeholders plays an important role in driving the circular economy in practice.Research limitations/implications: This study provides an understanding of how the circular economy society has been co-created. However, further research should be conducted in other tourism cities by focusing on the key success factors that drive the circular economy.Originality/value: The longitudinal study with multi-perspective micro, macro and meso levels of development in this study has shed the light on how the circular economy (CE) policy can be turned into practice.

Creating job satisfaction for employees can help organizations maintain their employees and save more on costs from searching for new ones. Therefore, a primary goal of this research was to investigate how work–family conflict, workload, and job stress influenced university lecturers’ work satisfaction. To accomplish the current aim, researchers invited 450 respondents who were holding positions as lecturers at any university in Thailand. Next, a structural equation model was employed to analyze 387 valid data points. In gender statistics, 45.2% were male respondents while 54.8% were female respondents. Moreover, gender obtained mean scores (1.54) with standard deviation scores (0.49). Based on age statistics, most of the respondents who joined this research were between 20 and 30 years old (41.3%) followed by 31–41 years (24.5%), 41–50 years (19.9%), and above 50 years (14.2%). Meanwhile, mean scores were 2.07 with standard deviation 1.09. According to results of this research, increasing work–family conflict and workload caused lecturers to receive more stress from their work. Moreover, the lecturers found themselves happy once certain degrees of stress and work–family conflict, except workload, diminished. Meanwhile, stress among university lecturers significantly mediated their workloads and work satisfaction. This result highlights a side effect of a certain amount of workload influencing lecturers’ stress levels, which in turn increased the significant role of job stress in further influencing lecturers’ work satisfaction.