Permacrisis - the perpetual state of facing complex and interconnected crises - has been identified as the forces that impact society as a whole. Brand activism (BA) has been emerging as a response whereby companies engage with divisive socio-political crises. However, the BA literature has not adequately addressed the new role that companies should play in mitigating the effects of permacrisis. We conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) of 44 papers published between 2016 and 2024, applying the antecedents, decisions, and outcomes ADO framework. Our SLR inductively builds a framework of brand activism in the permacrisis that integrated themes across micro, meso and macro crises. Additionally, we highlight the interplay between necessity and opportunism in BA within the permacrisis context, offering new insights into its operations and mechanisms.

In an era dominated by AI-generated content, brands face growing challenges in preserving authenticity and sustaining consumer trust amid widespread misinformation and disinformation. This conceptual study explores the fragility of digital trust and introduces a proactive, ethically grounded framework to guide brand strategies in combating AI-driven threats. Drawing on systems thinking and human agency theory, the paper emphasizes that authenticity is a dynamic construct shaped by brand transparency, ethical leadership, and continuous engagement with digitally empowered consumers. Through a multidisciplinary review, the research highlights how trust breaches now extend beyond individual experiences to affect societal perceptions of brands. The findings underscore the need for brands to embed technological vigilance and truth-based storytelling into their core operations, offering strategic insights to navigate the complex interplay between innovation, vulnerability, and ethical responsibility in the age of AI.

Purpose: Extant research indicates that fear of missing out (FoMO) caused by the negative influence of media and word-of-mouth (WOM) leads to panic buying and generates a negative impact on consumer well-being. However, the mechanism that can minimise or abort this impact remains understudied. Therefore, in this study, we examine how consumer self-regulation functions as a brake mechanism to intervene with the negative influences of media and WOM on FoMO.

Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from a representative sample in Australia. Hypotheses were tested by applying generalised structural equation modelling (GSEM), and analysis was conducted using the statistical software Stata 17.

Findings: Self-regulation is negatively influenced by media channels and WOM but is positively influenced by media content. Consumer self-regulation acts as a brake mechanism for FoMO. Panic buying, which is triggered by FoMO, has a significant impact on negative emotional well-being.

Research limitations/implications: The limitations of the study are associated with the survey data collection.

Practical implications: We extend the knowledge of how self-regulation works as a brake mechanism for the complex FoMO construct consisting of a perception of missing out accompanied by irrational behaviours. Self-regulation emerges as a brake mechanism for FoMO. Hence, if self-regulation is practiced at the inception of the media and WOM exposure, it can counteract FoMO and potentially abort its’ impact on panic buying.

Social implications: From a practical perspective, policymakers could help emotionally vulnerable individuals better engage in self-control practices through support programmes and workshops aimed at assisting the public in coping with overwhelming and intense adverse emotions experienced during and following various crises. Vulnerable cohorts, particularly the younger generation who are arguably more susceptible to FoMO, need to be studied more thoroughly in the marketing domain.

Originality/value: The role of self-regulation has been studied thinly in marketing literature, particularly in relation to offsetting irrational consumer behaviours. The originality of our study is that it extends and broadens the understanding of the role of self-regulation in the context of pandemics and addresses the inconclusive evidence of the impact of self-regulation on FoMO.

Purpose - Via the lens of the ego-depletion phenomenon (Baumeister et al., 1998) and Higgins' (1998) regulatory focus theory, this paper seeks to explain why current controlled communications are failing to achieve coherence between people's free will and their actions pursuing sustainable goals in a society. This paper explains how ego-depletion triggered by controlled communications can lead to confusion and decision fatigue in a society, thus potentially sabotaging people's participation in sustainable behaviour. Design/methodology/approach - The authors applied Jaakkola's (2020) theory synthesis approach to integrate concepts from previously unconnected disciplines in order to generate novel insights in the area of controlled communication management. Findings- The authors develop a theoretical framework and present research propositions that can help advance research and the discourse at the intersection of controlled communication and self-regulation theories. Research limitations/implications - This paper possesses the limitations associated with conceptual papers, e.g. the lack of empirical support of the study's conceptual arguments. Practical implications - This paper generates novel insights to assist communication practitioners and policymakers to improve vehicles and mechanisms of controlled communication with the public regarding sustainable goals pursuit. Originality/value - To the best of authors' knowledge, this is one of the first papers that has merged the domains of self-regulation, ego-depletion, and controlled communication in an integrative framework in order to explain the mechanisms of how to enhance the effectiveness of controlled communication associated with sustainable goals pursuit.

With no universal definition for organic or sustainability label claims on food products, it is challenging for shoppers to know which organic produce to trust. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of consumer trust is critical and instrumental in encouraging sustainable buying choices. We operationalize consumer trust in organic food as encompassing cognitive particularized trust and affective anonymous trust. We test how the relationship between consumer values and trust varies in conjunction with previous organic food consumption experience and consumer age on a sample of 1011 Australian consumers. The findings reveal that values related to selfsymbolism and self-transcendence are positively associated with trust, whereas values related to security and openness to change show no relationship with trust. Furthermore, it was found that consumer age strengthens the consumer values-trust link in the case of self-symbolic and security values.

The act of self-regulation, also referred to as self-control, is antithesis to profligacy. Self-regulation is central to human behavior and is the core of a well-functioning society. Although self-regulation as a research topic has been well-researched, systematic literature reviews on this domain are rare. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this article is one of the first to present a systematic literature review on self-regulation and goal -directed behavior. The authors compiled a study pool of 78 papers over a period of 1990-2021. This study complements the Theory, Characteristics, Context, and Methodology (TCCM) framework, and presents the TCCMP framework to provide public policy recommendations. Further, the authors extract seminal models in the self-regulation literature to re-integrate them into contemporary marketing research. Through the insights gained from the literature review, this paper presents suggestions for public policies, and develops a detailed research agenda.

This article uses a global multilevel sample to advance our understanding of the gender gap in youth entrepreneurship by investigating the joint moderating influence of in-group support and national embeddedness values on young women's entrepreneurial activity relative to that of young men. Based on a mixed embeddedness theoretical lens, our moderation analysis demonstrates the importance of in-group support in narrowing the gender gap in youth entrepreneurship. Moreover, in-group support enhances young women's entrepreneurship vis-a-vis that of young men primarily in countries with strong embeddedness values. Our findings contribute to the entrepreneurial gender gap literature as well as to the comparative entrepreneurship literature, by providing evidence of the joint role of micro-level and macro-level cultural layers in reducing the entrepreneurial gender gap. Implications for theory, practice and policy are provided.

Previous research has found mixed evidence of an attitude–behavior gap in organic food consumption. However, the complex mechanisms underlying this gap warrant further investigation. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of word-of-mouth (WOM), trust, and involvement in the relationship between consumer organic food attitudes and conative loyalty. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used as underlying framework for modeling our conceptualized arguments. Design/methodology/approach A moderation and moderated mediation analysis was performed on a cross-sectional sample of 1,011 Australian organic food consumers. Findings The results support the TPB-inspired moderated-mediation model. Specifically, the authors found moderated mediation effects of WOM, trust, and involvement on conative loyalty via attitudes toward organics. Research limitations/implications The cross-sectional research design and the focus solely on Australian consumers constitute limitations of this study. Practical implications The authors' findings imply that an analysis of the attitude–behavior gap should go beyond the testing of contingent consistency hypotheses and instead combine moderation and mediation mechanisms to better model consumer decision-making leading to conative loyalty. Practitioners would face a resource challenge when targeting low-trust, low-involvement, and low-WOM consumers as developing conative loyalty of these segments would require a longer-term approach through building favorable attitudes toward organic foods. Originality/value This study is one of the first to demonstrate the potential of examining the attitude–behavior gap in the organic food context through a moderated mediation lens in explaining the dynamics of conative loyalty.

Panic buying has re-emerged as a ‘new’ normal consumer behavior and has become a coping mechanism for real and perceived dangers associated with COVID-19. Despite the need for a better understanding of the panic buying phenomenon, there has been a lack of scholarly research on this topic. This study seeks to fill this gap. In this article, we systematically review extant studies in panic buying from the last two decades. We analyze and categorize them according to Callahan's 4W (2014) review structure and Paul and Rosado-Serrano's (2019) TCCM framework. We found that the existing publications in panic buying are fragmented across multiple disciplines. Due to the nature of the panic-induced behavior, most of them have been written as a reaction to the pandemic crisis. We contribute to marketing research by providing theoretical, contextual, and methodological insights into the field of panic buying. Furthermore, we develop a research agenda related to retailer and consumer perspectives. Additionally, we identify research issues related to policymaking and governance, as well as broader societal impacts that need to be addressed in the future.

This research fills an important literature gap in relation to the conceptualization of consumer trust in organic food as well as the empirical investigation of its’ antecedents. As for the former, the study identifies particularized, generalized and institutional organic trust as key dimensions of the organic food trust construct. Then examine how (i) how general and outlet-specific organic food consumer experience and (ii) personal values influence trust in organic products. Findings reveal that consumer personal values related to self-enhancement and self-transcendence are positively associated with trust in organic foods, whereas values related to security and openness to change show no relationship with organic food trust. Theoretical and managerial implications of the research findings are discussed.