Purpose: Service failures usually occur in front of third-party customers. Third-party customers react emotionally and behaviorally to service failure and recovery efforts aimed at focal customers. However, there is a gap in the literature on how third-party customers react to a service failures incident and a recovery over another customer, depending on how socially close or distant they are from. This study investigates the effect of third-party customers' emotions on consumer forgiveness, negative word-of-mouth (WoM) and repatronage intentions in the service recovery process by comparing close and distant third-party customers.Design/methodology/approach: This study utilizes a 2 (social distance to the focal customer: close, distant) × 2 (service recovery: yes, no) between-subjects design. The authors used a scenario-based experiment to test the proposed hypotheses. A total of 576 respondents were involved in the study.Findings: The results from the authors' scenario-based experimental study show that positive and negative emotions felt by distant third-party customers are higher than those of close third-party customers. In addition, the effect of positive emotions on customer forgiveness is more substantial for distant third-party customers. Third, moderated-mediation analysis indicates that social distance has a moderator effect only on the relationship between positive emotions and customer forgiveness.Originality/value: This study contributes to the service literature by comparing socially close and socially distant third-party customers' reactions to service failure and recovery attempts.

Debates around corporate greenwashing increase consumer skepticism toward environmental claims and heighten reputational risks in sustainability communication. Consequently, some corporations strategically limit the visibility of their environmental practices, making it more difficult for stakeholders to interpret sustainability communication. This study develops and validates a multidimensional scale to measure consumer attitudes toward greenhushing. An initial pool of 35 items was refined through evaluation by 12 experts, followed by sequential exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using pilot (n = 94) and main study (n = 401) data. The resulting 16-item, three-dimensional scale comprising greenhushing approval, price-based trust, and greenwashing skepticism was supported by convergent and discriminant validity tests alongside internal consistency measures. Rather than directly measuring sustainability communication performance, the scale offers a stakeholder-level diagnostic indicator of how limited sustainability communication is perceived by consumers, providing a quantitative foundation for empirical research and managerial decision-making.

Günümüzde akıllı telefonlar günlük hayatın vazgeçilmez bir parçası haline gelmiştir. Özellikle dijital yerliler olarak nitelendirilen Z kuşağına mensup bireyler akıllı telefonlarıyla diğer kuşaklara göre çok daha fazla vakit geçirmektedirler. Bu nedenle akıllı telefonlar, işletmelerin Z kuşağı tüketicilere ulaşması ve onlarla etkileşim kurması için cazip bir araç haline gelmiştir. Bu noktada akıllı telefonlarda kullanılabilen mobil uygulamalardan gelen reklam bildirimlerine yönelik tutumların araştırılması ve bu tutumların çevrimiçi anlık satın alma eğilimleri üzerindeki etkisinin ortaya çıkarılması önemlidir. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Z kuşağı tüketicilerinin mobil alışveriş uygulamalarının reklam bildirimlerine yönelik tutumlarının çevrimiçi anlık satın alma eğilimine etkisini incelemektir. Bu çalışma, akıllı telefonlarında en az bir mobil alışveriş uygulaması bulunan tüketicilerden toplanan anket verilerine dayanmaktadır. Bolu ilinde Z kuşağına mensup 269 genç Türk tüketiciden veri elde edilmiştir. Elde edilen bu veriler SPSS programı kullanılarak analiz edilmiştir. Bulgular, mobil uygulama reklam bildirimlerinin bilgilendirici, eğlendirici, güvenilir, teşvik edici ve kişiselleştirilmiş olması durumunda tüketicilerin çevrimiçi anlık satın alma eğilimleri üzerinde olumlu bir etkiye sahip olduğunu göstermektedir. Öte yandan mobil uygulama reklam bildirimleri rahatsız edici olduğunda tüketicilerin çevrimiçi anlık satın alma eğilimlerini de olumsuz yönde etkilemektedir. Araştırmanın bulguları, pazarlamacılara Z kuşağını hedef alan mobil uygulama reklamcılığının önemini anlama konusunda rehberlik sağlamaktadır.

This study examines the effects of gender equality and inequality representations in social media advertising visuals on university students’ responses. Emphasizing the critical role of gender representation in digital marketing, the research investigates its impact on social perceptions and brand-related outcomes. Using an quantitative, experimental, survey-based design, 272 university students from a public university in Türkiye were exposed to fictional food processor advertisements designed to reflect either gender equality or inequality. The findings reveal that the advertisement visual portraying gender inequality significantly decreased attitudes toward the ad and weakened purchase intentions, while increasing negative word-of-mouth (nWoM) intentions compared to the equality-based visual. Moreover, attitude toward the advertisement was found to fully mediate the relationship between advertisement type and both purchase intention and nWoM. These results provide empirical evidence that gender-equal portrayals can generate more favorable consumer responses, while stereotypical representations may pose substantial reputational and commercial risks. The study underscores the importance for marketers of adopting equality-oriented messaging strategies and demonstrates that such approaches can enhance consumer attitudes and key business outcomes within the university student demographic.