Organizational image, identity, and identification are powerful concepts in terms of understanding members’ behaviors and beliefs. In particular, the term “image” has frequently been used to describe the overall impression of the organization, but most scholars have only focused on organizational image as it is perceived by external audiences. However, organizational image as perceived by members within an organization is critical for determining its impact on individual employees’ motivation, work behaviors, and further performance at work. This article explores the roles of organizational image and identification in explaining organizational behaviors—extra‐role behavior and absenteeism—in public and nonprofit organizations. A series of seemingly unrelated regressions were used to analyze survey data from 1,220 respondents. Results show that organizational image is positively related to employee identification, and identification has a significant influence on promoting extra‐role behavior and lowering employee absenteeism. Organizational image as perceived by members of an organization is an aggregate of individual employees’ perceptions of the organization based on their own experiences and judgments (perceived organizational identity) and outsiders’ judgments about the organization (construed external image). Both perceived organizational identity and construed external image influence the extent to which employees are likely to identify themselves as part of their organization. The higher an employee's level of identification, the more he or she is likely to engage in extra‐role behavior. Managing organizational image and identification in a positive way can significantly reduce costly voluntary employee absences, which are reasonably avoidable absences.

Purpose This paper aims to examine, building upon affect balance theory, whether the two modes of luxury consumption, conspicuous consumption (CC) and style consumption (SC), trigger consumers’ mixed emotions of pleasure and guilt and whether the mixed emotions interactively as well as independently influence consumer loyalty to repurchase luxury. Design/methodology/approach Using an online survey and seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) analysis, the authors test the hypotheses and assess the parallel (double) mediation effects of pleasure and guilt on the relationships between luxury consumption and repurchase intention. Findings The authors confirm the relationships between CC and pleasure (+), between SC and pleasure (+), between CC and guilt (+) and between SC and guilt (−); the independent effects of pleasure (+) and guilt (−) on repurchase intention (RI); and the interaction effect of pleasure and guilt on RI (+). The authors further demonstrate that both pleasure and guilt mediate the relationship between CC and RI, whereas only pleasure mediates the relationship between SC and RI. Research limitations/implications Future researchers may consider possible mixed emotions other than pleasure and guilt and further explore the dynamics between mixed consumer emotions and consumer loyalty in diverse consumption contexts. Practical implications The authors suggest luxury marketers to reduce consumer guilt by promoting SC and by maximizing consumer pleasure, which will lead to greater repurchase intention. Originality/value Prior research focused on either the positive or negative side of consumer emotion. The authors fill in the research void by examining whether mixed emotions coexist in luxury consumption and how they interplay and influence consumer loyalty.

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For many countries attempting to control the fast-rising number of coronavirus cases and deaths, the race is on to “flatten the curve,” since the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has taken on pandemic proportions. In the absence of significant control interventions, the curve could be steep, with the number of COVID-19 cases growing exponentially. In fact, this level of proliferation may already be happening, since the number of patients infected in Italy closely follows an exponential trend. Thus, we propose a test. When the numbers are taken from an exponential distribution, it has been demonstrated that they automatically follow Benford’s Law (BL). As a result, if the current control interventions are successful and we flatten the curve (i.e., we slow the rate below an exponential growth rate), then the number of infections or deaths will not obey BL. For this reason, BL may be useful for assessing the effects of the current control interventions and may be able to answer the question, “How flat is flat enough?” In this study, we used an epidemic growth model in the presence of interventions to describe the potential for a flattened curve, and then investigated whether the epidemic growth model followed BL for ten selected countries with a relatively high mortality rate. Among these countries, South Korea showed a particularly high degree of control intervention. Although all of the countries have aggressively fought the epidemic, our analysis shows that all countries except for Japan satisfied BL, indicating the growth rates of COVID-19 were close to an exponential trend. Based on the simulation table in this study, BL test shows that the data from Japan is incorrect.

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