Background: The present study integrates self-determined needs satisfaction into a relationship between product design (eg, aesthetic, functional, and symbolic design) and consumer behavior (eg, willingness-to-pay [WTP] a premium and negative word-of-mouth [WOM]) and to explore whether gender can differentiate the effects of aesthetic, functional, and symbolic product designs on self-determined needs satisfaction. Methods: To this end, participants from Pakistan and China were recruited, and the hypotheses for this study were tested using structural equation modeling and SPSS-PROCESS. Results: The effects of three product designs on self-determined needs satisfaction were significantly positive across samples. The results further show that self-determined needs satisfaction had the strongest positive effect on WTP a premium and the strongest negative effect on vindictive WOM for Pakistanis. Self-determined needs frustration had the strongest negative effect on the WTP a premium for Chinese participants and an equivalent magnitude effect on vindictive WOM for Pakistani and Chinese participants. The cross-cultural gender-specific findings revealed that Pakistani men are more aesthetic and hedonic than women in Pakistan. Surprisingly, Chinese women resemble Pakistani men in the sense that they prefer aesthetically pleasing products. Chinese men resemble Pakistani women in terms of little interest in symbolic products, whereas Chinese women and Pakistani men respond similarly regarding their decisions to choose symbolic products. Conclusion: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is one of the initial attempts to integrate self-determined needs into the relationship between product design and consumer WTP a premium and WOM, and further explore cross-cultural gender-specific differences across Pakistan and China. The findings of the present study may help international marketers in terms of segmenting, targeting, and positioning their markets.

Purpose: Entrepreneurial passion has important implications for entrepreneurial success and psychological well-being. But their connections are complicated by the fact that three entrepreneurial passions (passion for inventing, passion for founding and passion for developing) can be combined differently according to their level and shape difference. A variable-centered approach cannot explain their relationship very well, by only focusing on the level difference and ignoring the different combination of entrepreneurial passion in subpopulations. The purpose of this study is to explore the function of entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial success and psychological well-being from a person-cantered approach.Design/methodology/approach: In this study, the authors conducted latent profile analyses to identify different configurations of different entrepreneurial passions (passion for inventing, passion for founding, passion for developing) on two samples of Chinese students and entrepreneurs. Then in the sample of Chinese entrepreneurs, the authors utilized the DCON command in Mplus to provide comparisons among the profiles on entrepreneurial success and psychological well-being.Findings: Based on identity theory, the authors found four entrepreneurial passion profiles across two samples—fully passionate, action-driven, interest-driven and dispassionate. Furthermore, the authors found that fully passionate entrepreneurs showed the highest level of entrepreneurial success, followed by action-driven, and then by interest-driven and dispassionate showed the lowest level. Action-driven entrepreneurs experienced the highest level of psychological well-being, followed by fully passionate entrepreneurs, then by interest-driven and dispassionate.Originality/value: The results provide new insights into the nature and influence of entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial success and psychological well-being from a person-centered perspective.

Based on the theory of emotional contagion and goal content, this study explored the positive associations between a leader’s work passion and employees’ work passion. This study investigated 364 employees and their immediate leaders from China, constructed a moderated mediation model, and used SPSS-PROCESS in conjunction with the Johnson-Neyman technique to analyze the data. The results showed that a leader’s work passion was transferred to employees via emotional contagion, and the contagion process was moderated by leader-employee goal content congruence. This study provides a potential way to stimulate employees’ work passion from the perspective of leader-employee interactions. Moreover, the limitations of the study and potential topics for future research are discussed.