Sany Sanuri Mohd Mokhtar

The objective of the study is to investigate the moderating role of affective sentiments of brand psychological ownership of an employee in the relationship among the cognitive sentiments of employee brand understanding and employee brand equity of conventional and Islamic banks. Survey method was adopted to collect data from respondents from conventional and Islamic banks. Data were collected from 279 employees from the banking sector using two-stage probability sampling. Disproportionate stratified random sampling and simple random sampling were employed to collect responses. To analyze the data, multi-group analysis was applied using PLS-SEM technique through SmartPLS 3.0. Results demonstrated that congruence between brand image and individuals has a moderating effect on the relationship between brand confidence and employee brand equity in conventional banking. Responsibility to maintain brand image has a moderating effect on the relationship between brand knowledge and employee brand equity in conventional banking. In case of Islamic banking, only congruence between brand image and individuals exhibited a moderating role on the relationship between brand knowledge and employee brand equity. The importance of brand understanding of employees and psychological ownership of a brand has been widely discussed in branding literature. However, only a few studies investigated the relationship between dimensions of employee brand understanding and the employee brand psychological ownership with employee brand equity. The cognitive and affective sentiments of both exogenous latent constructs, their relationships, and the interaction effect of cognitive and affective sentiments were seldom discussed in branding literature. This study covers the in-depth view and investigation of brand understanding of employ¬ees and the affective and cognitive sentiments of brand psychological ownership with em¬ployee behavior toward a brand. This study also uncovers the moderating role of affective sentiments of brand psychological ownership on the relationship between cognitive senti¬ments of employee brand understanding and employee brand equity. This study will help researchers analyze the in-depth role of affective and cognitive sentiments on brand sup¬portive related behavior of employees.

The rapid growth of live streaming e-commerce is hindered by its high rate of product returns, which poses a challenge to its long-term sustainability. Specifically, clothes shoppers account for 30% of all sales made during live broadcasts. This study aims to evaluate the impact of live streaming e-commerce on repurchase intention in the sports brand industry in China. The paper used quantitative research methods with 398 data collected from consumers of sports brands who were willing to provide information regarding their shopping experience on the live streaming platform. 224 respondents were females (56.3%), and 174 were males (43.7%). The study adopted a questionnaire to collect the data. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling was used to test the correlation between the variables. The results revealed direct and positive effect of consumer trust (β = 0.397, p = 0.000) and perceived value (β = 0.215, p = 0.001) on repurchase intention in live streaming e-commerce. The findings also indicated that both consumer trust and perceived value play a mediating role. In addition, the results supported the assumption that the characteristics of live streamers (β = 0.389, p = 0.000) have a positive impact on consumer trust, and customer-to-customer interaction (β = 0.678, p = 0.000) has a significant impact on perceived value. Finally, sports brands are advised to optimize live streaming platforms to better meet consumers’ needs.

Acknowledgment
The authors acknowledge Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) that supported this study.