The growing presence of social media influencers (SMIs) is increasingly modulating consumer behaviour in the travel industry. Trust is a vitally important topic in influencer and tourism marketing and is responsible for creating and maintaining successful long-term relationships between organizations and consumers. This study uses customer journey theory to explain the impact of SMI trust on customer travel decision-making and focuses on evaluating the role of customer journey constructs (including desire, information search, evaluating alternatives, purchase decisions, satisfaction and experience sharing) in mediating the interrelation between SMI trust and the dimensions of customer journeys. Using Smart PLS to analyze the data collected, the results indicate that consumer trust in SMIs has a positive effect on each phase of travel decision-making. Moreover, each step of the decision-making journey mediates the trust effect on the next step, having a spillover effect on the whole journey, implying continuous SMI input. Tourism marketers are advised to use SMIs to increase and stimulate the desire to travel as clearly, a means by which consumers search for information about their next journey. Besides SMIs as a marketing tool, their trustworthiness serves as a highly important aspect to successfully influence tourists’ destination decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse customer experience (CX) in the fintech sector. Fintech is a dynamic and innovative field that fully benefits from advances in information and communication technology. The concept of customer experience is multidimensional, analysed from various perspectives, and with distinct valences in different industries. Based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) approach, we proposed a model in which customer experience in fintech is the result of customer’s evaluation of the stimuli proposed by fintech companies. Using partial least squares equation modelling (PLS-SEM), we tested a series of hypotheses and validated the proposed model. The results showed that perceived value, customer support, assurance, speed and perceived firm innovativeness are positively related to customer experience in fintech. In turn, customer experience is positively associated with loyalty intentions of the customer. Our paper contributes in identifying the dimensions, the determinants and the outcomes of customer experience in fintech, while from a managerial perspective, we demonstrate how fintech companies must integrate customer experience in their business models.

Research background: This article discusses how artificial intelligence (AI) is affecting workers' personal and professional lives, because of many technological disruptions driven by the recent pandemic that are redefining global labor markets. Purpose of the article: The objective of this paper is to develop a systematic review of the relevant literature to identify the effects of technological change, especially the adoption of AI in organizations, on employees’ skills (professional dimension) and well-being (personal dimension). Methods: To implement the research scope, the authors relied on Khan's five-step methodology, which included a PRISMA flowchart with embedded keywords for selecting the appropriate quantitative data for the study. Firstly, 639 scientific papers published between March 2020 to March 2023 (the end of the COVID-19 pandemic according to the WHO) from Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases were selected. After applying the relevant procedures and techniques, 103 articles were retained, which focused on the professional dimension, while 35 papers were focused on the personal component. Findings & value added: Evidence has been presented highlighting the difficulties associated with the ongoing requirement for upskilling or reskilling as an adaptive reaction to technological changes. The efforts to counterbalance the skill mismatch impacted employees' well-being in the challenging pandemic times. Although the emphasis on digital skills is widely accepted, our investigation shows that the topic is still not properly developed. The paper's most significant contributions are found in a thorough analysis of how AI affects workers' skills and well-being, highlighting the most representative aspects researched by academic literature due to the recent paradigm changes generated by the COVID-19 pandemic and continuous technological disruptions.

To reduce the spread of the virus, authorities have imposed restrictive measures, such as limiting movement of individuals, shutting down non-essential stores, imposing a general or local quarantine, along with physical distancing and isolation of vulnerable people. Remote working has become the ‘new normal’ for many organizations, engendering further challenges for employees, who have started experiencing anxiety, technostress caused by digitalization and lack of social interaction, frustration, occupational burden, counterproductive work behavior, exhaustion, burnout, depersonalization, and increased turnover intention. All these factors, corroborated by prolonged restrictions, have contributed to a decrease in employee satisfaction, diminishing performance and generating a counterproductive behavior. Based on Social Exchange Theory, this research plans to investigate the influence of internal marketing on job satisfaction, task performance, and counterproductive work behavior in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in an emerging market, namely Romania. Based on a quantitative research study among 850 employees, we show that internal marketing strongly and significantly impacts job satisfaction, while insignificantly impacting task performance and counterproductive work behavior. Job satisfaction actuates task performance in a significant and positive manner, contributing to a reduction in counterproductive work behaviors. This paper highlights the effects of internal marketing orientation on job satisfaction, and the effects of job satisfaction on job performance and counterproductive work behaviors.