Priscilla Peña

Marketing is a relational discipline that depends on meaningful communication and trust-building. However, while marketing students are trained in essential areas like segmentation, branding, and analytics, they often encounter emotionally complex challenges in the workplace for which they may be less prepared for. Navigating team dynamics, responding to feedback, and managing internal and external communication requires more than just technical proficiency. Today's modern marketing environment requires emotional intelligence (EI), a skillset that includes self-awareness, empathy, emotional regulation, motivation, and social skills. In this work, the authors present activities marketing instructors can implement in existing courses to help students practice EI skills before entering the workforce. It is imperative that students are not only given the technical skills to succeed, but also the soft skills that differentiate them from their peers and technology.

3D body scanning technology is becoming increasingly popular in the apparel and health industries due to its accessibility, affordability, and precision. 3D images offer biometrically accurate images for estimating body shape and size, which may align mental constructs of the body with an objective body assessment, which would be helpful in illustrating the effects of treatments or interventions for lifestyle‐related diseases and body image disorders by demonstrating physical changes to the body. This five‐phase one‐group exploratory study examined affective responses to obtaining a full‐body 3D scan. In a sample of 45, we used summative content analysis and inductive content analysis to examine two open‐ended questions about the body scan experience, body visualization, and affect. The study found that participants generally reacted positively to the scanning experience, but some reported negative affective responses, such as self‐consciousness. Some participants experienced stress and decreased body satisfaction due to the detailed and realistic nature of the scans highlighting perceived imperfections. The study found few gender differences in responses, with men showing slightly more positive reactions. This aligns with patterns of body surveillance and psychological distress being more pervasive in women. Both men and women are affected by cultural pressures related to body image, leading to self‐objectification and psychological distress, which highlights the need for ethical use of the technology to minimize potential harm.

Purpose-The surge of artificial intelligence (AI) applications and subsequent adoption by consumers and marketers has ignited substantial research exploring the benefits and opportunities of AI. Despite this, little attention has been given to its unintended negative consequences. In this paper, the authors examine both the practitioner and academic sides of ethical AI. In doing so, the authors conduct an extensive review of the AI literature to identify potential issues pertaining to three areas: individual consumers, societal and legal. The authors identify gaps and offer questions to drive future research. Design/methodology/approach-The authors review recent academic literature on AI in marketing journals, and top ethical principles from three top technology developers (Google, IBM and Meta) in conjunction with media reports of negative AI incents. They also identify gaps and opportunities for future research based on this review. Findings-The bibliographic review reveals a small number of academic papers in marketing that focus on ethical considerations for AI adoption. The authors highlight concerns for academic researchers, marketing practitioners and AI developers across three main areas and highlight important issues relating to interactive marketing. Originality/value-This paper highlights the under-researched negative outcomes of AI adoption. Through an extensive literature review, coupled with current responsible AI principles adopted by major technology companies, this research provides a framework for examining the dark side of AI.

Increasing student engagement is a challenge for faculty of all experience levels. This manuscript introduces the Participation Competition as a pathway for faculty to gamify the Marketing classroom and increase student engagement. Through incentivizing group-based in-class participation, faculty can help students practice soft skills, facilitate collaboration, and encourage class attendance and preparation using this semester-long activity. To demonstrate the efficacy of the Participation Competition, data was collected for one academic year at two universities leveraging the Zhoc, Webster, King, Li, and Chungh (2019) Higher Education Student Engagement Scale (HESES) for a total sample size of n = 396. The HESES scale measures student outcomes (i.e. academic learning, cognitive engagement, and peer engagement) and class outcomes (i.e. value-add). General student participation and engagement are also measured for both the control and treatment groups. The results revealed that student and class outcomes were higher when comparing a class in which the participation competition was enacted relative to a class not exposed to the participation competition. Additionally, students reported increased participation within the class and among their peers and higher perceptions of satisfaction and engagement. Evidence suggests that the Participation Competition is an advantageous and pragmatic tool for augmenting the Marketing classroom.

Although data breaches are common, limited knowledge exists regarding consumer sentiments towards them and the personal actions taken following a breach. First, we explore trends using a database chronicling 14 years of breaches. Then, guided by Social Contract Theory, our study analyzes a secondary dataset of survey responses from 890 affected consumers to understand perceptions of breaches, including attitudes towards businesses, expected actions businesses take following a breach, and protective actions. The integration of Social Contract Theory with Privacy Calculus Theory and Protection Motivation Theory in the study of data breaches provides a lens to examine how context-specific attributes impact consumer actions following a breach. Our findings show that data breaches are frequent, vary across industries, and consumer attitudes and actions vary by data type compromised.

[Display omitted] •Emotional factors from data breaches influence firm and consumer focused outcomes.•Perceived social contract violation affects all four consumer coping strategies.•Consumer coping behaviors differ based on non/personally identifiable information.•Levels of stress and social contract violations differ across industry clusters.•Certain firm actions can reduce negative consumer responses directed at the firm. Data breaches and misuse of data are rising, causing compromised consumer privacy. This research explores the impact of stress and perceptions of a social contract violation have on both firm-focused outcomes and consumer protection behaviors following a data breach. Additionally, we investigate the impact that the type of data lost/compromised in the breach– personally identifiable (PII) and non-personally identifiable (NPII)– has on these outcomes. To explore this, we conduct an experimental survey (Study 1) of 230 respondents. Results indicate that stress and perceptions of social contract violation impact our outcome variables. The results differences in terms of how these impact consumer coping behaviors across different data types (PII vs. NPII). In Study 2 we explore how industry clusters differ in their levels of stress and social contract violation, actions businesses can take to them, and whether these actions could help reduce negative consumer responses.