Charity donation is an important prosocial behaviour that is often generated/strengthened by emotional stimuli from advertising. A similar strategy is often used to trigger the purchase of cause‐related products. The two activities represent direct and indirect methods of financial support and are important topics for researchers and practitioners. Charity donation and purchase of cause‐related products are typically investigated on the basis of different theoretical backgrounds; therefore, they are almost never directly compared with each other. However, the two share some similarities from the perspectives of the donor/buyer and the donation recipient. This article aims to analyse how direct and indirect donation behaviours are influenced by the same emotional stimulus (existential guilt generated by a visual advertisement). In parallel, this article examines the possible moderation effect of similar past behaviours. The study is performed by surveying 374 respondents in Lithuania. Results confirmed that the same emotion (existential guilt) had a direct positive impact on the intention towards both studied behaviours. However, the moderation effect of experience was observed only in the relationship between existential guilt and the intention to donate to charity, signalling the difference in its influence on the two behaviours. These findings enrich the knowledge of the similarities and differences between direct (donating to charity) and indirect (purchasing cause‐related products) donation behaviours. Additionally, it fills in the knowledge gap regarding the relation between the intentions of prosocial behaviours and existential guilt as an advertising appeal.

Online learning is a powerful option for professional development in various careers, including marketing. However, massive open online courses (MOOCs) tend to face an issue of course dropouts, and this cannot only be attributed to factors like course content or value. Social interactions among students and interest-generating elements of MOOCs are equally important elements of online learning ecosystems. Therefore, this study approaches the problem from the perspective of the social exchange theory with insights into the cognitive evaluation theory to predict the effects of social interactions and gamification rewards on the process of studies. The data from an experiment and a subsequent survey of marketing course participants were used to analyze student satisfaction and dropouts through the lens of the social exchange theory and to see the effects of expected and unexpected gamification rewards. This contributes to the knowledge about factors that influence online course discontinuation, provides managerial and educational insights on dropout reduction, and specifies directions for further studies on the use of gamification elements in MOOCs.

Consumption processes in modern societies are constantly gaining in importance. Noticing the growing significance of consumption, the idea of some consumer responsibility for the currently observed crises gains relevance. Despite the increasing number of publications on the subject of socially responsible consumption, however ethical side of socially responsible consumption is not receiving enough attention, the majority of publications are focused on environmental consumption. In addition, little attention is paid to analyze ethical side of socially responsible consumption from the individual side. Measurement of the relationship between the utilitarian and hedonic consumer behavior and socially responsible consumption may contribute to the knowledge of new characteristics, describing the socially responsible consumer. The paper suggest theoretical model, which helps to measure the relationship between utilitarian and hedonic consumer behavior and ethical side of socially responsible consumption. Utilitarian consumer behavior is measured with the constructs like monetary savings and convenience, as the hedonic behavior is described by using entertainment and exploration constructs. Performed literature analysis suggests, that hedonic consumer behavior has greater impact on socially responsible consumption than utilitarian consumer behavior. The type of the article: Theoretical article.

Cause-related marketing uniquely integrates business objectives with social causes, thus simultaneously satisfying usual consumer needs and moral considerations to support social campaigns. As cause-related marketing (CRM) becomes more prevalent, companies will need to be more effective and efficient in launching cause-related marketing campaigns. Simply having a cause-related marketing campaign was once sufficient to distinguish a company; increasing competitiveness in this arena means that campaigns have to be more distinctive and pertinent to successfully gain a position against competitors. While numerous studies have identified factors that influence consumer intention to purchase cause-related products, just a few of them have examined moderating influences. Therefore, this study sought to identify factors that moderated the influence of personal characteristics on the intention to purchase cause-related products. Data were obtained via online surveys from 393 English speaking Lithuanian students. Linear regression and moderating impact analysis were used in order to test seven hypotheses. Results confirmed that altruism, materialism and individualism have positive direct relationships with the intention to purchase cause-related products; product type and guilt did not have a moderating effect on those relationships, but cause involvement is an important moderator. These findings contribute to the theory of causerelated marketing by identifying moderators as being a specific type of personal characteristic (e.g., cause-involvement) and ruling out others (e.g., guilt), or product type. Furthermore, these findings provide insights to marketing managers for planning and positioning cause-related marketing campaigns by showing what factors amplify the effects of altruism, materialism and individualism in this context.

A growing number of studies have examined the concept of e-loyalty and its antecedents over the last years, and it remains a central topic for both marketing academics and practitioners. This study aims to evaluate the level of different types (integrated, attitudinal, behavioural) of loyalty towards an online store and determine if they are moder-ated by the time, country development, and the impact of the scientific journal. The study was based on a systematic analysis of 10 core databases, which generated more than 3,557 articles published during 2000–2020. Using PRISMA steps, 116 articles, whose total number of respondents were around 56,000, were used for meta-analysis. The results of this study confirmed that moderating variables (time, the impact of the scientific journal) were significant: higher loyalty towards an online store was observed in recently published studies, as well as research published in scientific journals with impact factors. Moreover, a significant impact of behavioural loyalty and its dimensions on online store loyalty was revealed. This study deepens the understanding of online customer loyalty, including its conceptualization, measurement, and identifies potential unexplored research gaps in this area.