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PurposeThe market for luxury is growing rapidly. While there is a significant body of literature on luxury goods, academic research has largely ignored luxury services. The purpose of this article is to open luxury services as a new field of investigation by developing the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings to build the luxury services literature and show how luxury services differ from both luxury goods and from ordinary (i.e. non-luxury) services.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a conceptual approach drawing upon and synthesizing the luxury goods and services marketing literature.FindingsThis article makes three contributions. First, it shows that services are largely missing from the luxury literature, just as the field of luxury is mostly missing from the service literature. Second, it contrasts the key characteristics of services and related consumer behaviors with luxury goods. The service characteristics examined are non-ownership, IHIP (i.e. intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, and perishability), the three additional Ps of services marketing (i.e. people, processes, and physical facilities) and the three-stage service consumption model. This article derives implications these characteristics have on luxury. For example, non-ownership increases the importance of psychological ownership, reduces the importance of conspicuous consumption and the risk of counterfeiting. Third, this article defines luxury services as extraordinary hedonic experiences that are exclusive whereby exclusivity can be monetary, social and hedonic in nature, and luxuriousness is jointly determined by objective service features and subjective customer perceptions. Together, these characteristics place a service on a continuum ranging from everyday luxury to elite luxury.Practical implicationsThis article provides suggestions on how firms can enhance psychological ownership of luxury services, manage conspicuous consumption, and use more effectively luxury services' additional types of exclusivity (i.e. social and hedonic exclusivity).Originality/valueThis is the first paper to define luxury services and their characteristics, to apply and link frameworks from the service literature to luxury, and to derive consumer insights from these for research and practice.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the knowledge infrastructure of methodological research on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) from a network point of view. The analysis involves the structures of authors, institutions, countries and co-citation networks, and discloses trending developments in the field.Design/methodology/approachBased on bibliometric data downloaded from the Web of Science, the authors apply various social network analysis (SNA) and visualization tools to examine the structure of knowledge networks of the PLS-SEM domain. Specifically, the authors investigate the PLS-SEM knowledge network by analyzing 84 methodological studies published in 39 journals by 145 authors from 106 institutions.FindingsThe analysis reveals that specific authors dominate the network, whereas most authors work in isolated groups, loosely connected to the network’s focal authors. Besides presenting the results of a country level analysis, the research also identifies journals that play a key role in disseminating knowledge in the network. Finally, a burst detection analysis indicates that method comparisons and extensions, for example, to estimate common factor model data or to leverage PLS-SEM’s predictive capabilities, feature prominently in recent research.Originality/valueAddressing the limitations of prior systematic literature reviews on the PLS-SEM method, this is the first study to apply SNA to reveal the interrelated structures and properties of PLS-SEM’s research domain.

A significant body of research has examined the importance of material possession attachment and its influence on consumer behavior. Critical questions, however, remain with regard to the extent to which, and if at all, consumers form instantaneous possession attachment in electronic commerce. In this research, we conducted one quasi-experimental field study and one scenario-based online experiment to examine the endowment effect (EE) for digital services. The current findings demonstrate that consumers become instantaneously attached to and are reluctant to give up digital services once they have obtained them. Two main explanations of the EE in electronic commerce are investigated. Critically, the results show that the psychological processes underlying the effect differ between utilitarian and hedonic digital services. Proprietary feelings towards utilitarian digital services occur due to loss aversion, whereas proprietary feelings towards hedonic digital services reflect the consumer’s conscious self-relatedness to the digital service.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the knowledge infrastructure of methodological research on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) from a network point of view. The analysis involves the structures of authors, institutions, countries and co-citation networks, and discloses trending developments in the field. Design/methodology/approach Based on bibliometric data downloaded from the Web of Science, the authors apply various social network analysis (SNA) and visualization tools to examine the structure of knowledge networks of the PLS-SEM domain. Specifically, the authors investigate the PLS-SEM knowledge network by analyzing 84 methodological studies published in 39 journals by 145 authors from 106 institutions. Findings The analysis reveals that specific authors dominate the network, whereas most authors work in isolated groups, loosely connected to the network’s focal authors. Besides presenting the results of a country level analysis, the research also identifies journals that play a key role in disseminating knowledge in the network. Finally, a burst detection analysis indicates that method comparisons and extensions, for example, to estimate common factor model data or to leverage PLS-SEM’s predictive capabilities, feature prominently in recent research. Originality/value Addressing the limitations of prior systematic literature reviews on the PLS-SEM method, this is the first study to apply SNA to reveal the interrelated structures and properties of PLS-SEM’s research domain.

The use of wood ash in forestry has been questioned because the cadmium (Cd) concentration of ash, which varies between 1 and 20 mg kg −1 ash, exceeds the level allowed for fertilizers (3 mg kg −1) used in agriculture. To investigate the combined and separated effects of Cd and ash on the forest humus microflora, pumice or wood ash, spiked with a water-soluble (CdCl 2) or -insoluble (CdO) form of Cd at three levels (0, 400 and 1000 mg kg −1), were applied at a fertilization level of 5000 kg ha −1 in a laboratory microcosm study. The trial consisted of 60 microcosms (five replications per treatment), which were incubated in darkness at +20°C and a constant relative air humidity of 60%. After two months the humus in the microcosms was sampled. Analyses of CO 2 evolution to measure the overall microbial activity and of phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) pattern to measure microbial community structure were performed. The substrate-use patterns of Biolog EcoPlates were analyzed as a measure of bacterial functionality. Finally the bacterial 3H-thymidine incorporation in the presence of different concentrations of Cd and the number of colony forming units (cfu) of bacteria on nutrient agar in the presence of 0, 5 and 20 mg Cd l −1 agar were applied to measure Cd tolerance. The use of pumice (pH of humus under the pumice 4.0) did not induce any changes in the above variables compared to two untreated microcosms (humus pH 3.9). Pumice was therefore used to distribute the Cd evenly over the humus surface in order to estimate the possible effect of Cd without ash (pH of humus under the ash 7.0). The application of ash increased the microbial activity, changed the PLFA and substrate-use patterns and increased cfu compared to the humus under pumice. The form and level of Cd in the ash had no further effect on this result. In the humus under pumice the level, but not the form of Cd decreased the microbial activity and changed the PLFA pattern compared to the unspiked pumice. None of the treatments induced bacterial tolerance to Cd. Ash thus protected the humus microflora from the harmful effects of Cd.

Abstract The use of wood ash in forestry has been questioned because the cadmium (Cd) concentration of ash, which varies between 1 and 20 mg kg−1 ash, exceeds the level allowed for fertilizers (3 mg kg−1) used in agriculture. To investigate the combined and separated effects of Cd and ash on the forest humus microflora, pumice or wood ash, spiked with a water-soluble (CdCl2) or -insoluble (CdO) form of Cd at three levels (0, 400 and 1000 mg kg−1), were applied at a fertilization level of 5000 kg ha−1 in a laboratory microcosm study. The trial consisted of 60 microcosms (five replications per treatment), which were incubated in darkness at +20°C and a constant relative air humidity of 60%. After two months the humus in the microcosms was sampled. Analyses of CO2 evolution to measure the overall microbial activity and of phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) pattern to measure microbial community structure were performed. The substrate-use patterns of Biolog EcoPlates were analyzed as a measure of bacterial functionality. Finally the bacterial 3H-thymidine incorporation in the presence of different concentrations of Cd and the number of colony forming units (cfu) of bacteria on nutrient agar in the presence of 0, 5 and 20 mg Cd l−1 agar were applied to measure Cd tolerance. The use of pumice (pH of humus under the pumice 4.0) did not induce any changes in the above variables compared to two untreated microcosms (humus pH 3.9). Pumice was therefore used to distribute the Cd evenly over the humus surface in order to estimate the possible effect of Cd without ash (pH of humus under the ash 7.0). The application of ash increased the microbial activity, changed the PLFA and substrate-use patterns and increased cfu compared to the humus under pumice. The form and level of Cd in the ash had no further effect on this result. In the humus under pumice the level, but not the form of Cd decreased the microbial activity and changed the PLFA pattern compared to the unspiked pumice. None of the treatments induced bacterial tolerance to Cd. Ash thus protected the humus microflora from the harmful effects of Cd.

We present deep optical B, V, R images of a sample of 10 interacting systems which were selected for their resemblance to disturbed galaxies at high redshift. Photometry is performed on knots in the tidal features of the galaxies. We calculate a grid of evolutionary synthesis models with two metallicities and various burst strengths for systems consisting of some fraction of the stellar population of a progenitor spiral plus starburst. By comparison with two-color diagrams we interpret the photometric data, select from a total of about 100 condensations 36 star-forming objects that are located in the tidal features and predict their further evolution. Being more luminous by 4 mag than normal HII regions we argue that these objects could be tidal dwarf galaxies or their progenitors, although they differ in number and mean luminosity from the already known tidal dwarf galaxies typically located at the end of tidal tails in nearby giant interacting systems. From comparison with our models we note that all objects show young burst ages. The young stellar component formed in these tidal dwarf candidates contributes up to 18% to the total stellar mass at the end of the starburst and dominates the optical luminosity. This may result in fading by up to 2.5 mag in B during the next 200 Myrs after the burst.