This study investigates the phenomenon of confirmation bias in information selection in the context of nuclear spent fuel (NSF) storage facilities. An online survey was administered to a sample of 321 residents in South Korea. They were asked to assess their beliefs about the safety/risk of NSF storage facilities before and after their exposure to additional information. Our findings show a positive association between the initial belief and confirmation bias, suggesting that the research participants tend to select articles consistent with their beliefs about the safety/risk of the facility. Trust in government is negatively related to confirmation bias, implying that residents with a greater level of trust in government are more likely to choose information opposing their initial beliefs. Finally, this study finds the self-reinforcing and potentially polarizing nature of individuals' beliefs about the safety/risk of NSF storage facilities as residents’ initial beliefs are reinforced rather than challenged after they reviewed self-selected articles. Implications for public policy and communication strategies related to improving the acceptance of NSF storage facilities are discussed.

The current study challenges the prevailing perspective that failure stigma is uniformly detrimental to entrepreneurs. Drawing on social identity theory and stereotype reactance theory, we develop a model that portrays perceived failure stigma as a source of motivation for entrepreneurs’ restarting endeavors. We predict that perceiving failure stigma may increase restarting entrepreneurs’ desire to defy the negative stigma, which in turn leads to more opportunity recognition activities and improved new venture performance. We further consider entrepreneurs’ external attribution of failure as a boundary condition in the relationship between perceived stigma and desire to defy stigma. We tested our hypotheses by collecting three waves of survey data from 348 Korean entrepreneurs who had entrepreneurial failure experience and restarted new venture after failure. Our findings provide support for the positive effect of perceived stigma on restarting entrepreneurs’ opportunity recognition activities and new venture performance through their desire to defy stigma. We also find that entrepreneurs’ external attribution of failure accentuated the effect of perceived failure stigma on desire to defy stigma. The research and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

This study investigates the phenomenon of confirmation bias in information selection in the context of nuclear spent fuel (NSF) storage facilities. An online survey was administered to a sample of 321 residents in South Korea. They were asked to assess their beliefs about the safety/risk of NSF storage facilities before and after their exposure to additional information. Our findings show a positive association between the initial belief and confirmation bias, suggesting that the research participants tend to select articles consistent with their beliefs about the safety/risk of the facility. Trust in government is negatively related to confirmation bias, implying that residents with a greater level of trust in government are more likely to choose information opposing their initial beliefs. Finally, this study finds the self-reinforcing and potentially polarizing nature of individuals' beliefs about the safety/risk of NSF storage facilities as residents’ initial beliefs are reinforced rather than challenged after they reviewed self-selected articles. Implications for public policy and communication strategies related to improving the acceptance of NSF storage facilities are discussed.

The current study challenges the prevailing perspective that failure stigma is uniformly detrimental to entrepreneurs. Drawing on social identity theory and stereotype reactance theory, we develop a model that portrays perceived failure stigma as a source of motivation for entrepreneurs’ restarting endeavors. We predict that perceiving failure stigma may increase restarting entrepreneurs’ desire to defy the negative stigma, which in turn leads to more opportunity recognition activities and improved new venture performance. We further consider entrepreneurs’ external attribution of failure as a boundary condition in the relationship between perceived stigma and desire to defy stigma. We tested our hypotheses by collecting three waves of survey data from 348 Korean entrepreneurs who had entrepreneurial failure experience and restarted new venture after failure. Our findings provide support for the positive effect of perceived stigma on restarting entrepreneurs’ opportunity recognition activities and new venture performance through their desire to defy stigma. We also find that entrepreneurs’ external attribution of failure accentuated the effect of perceived failure stigma on desire to defy stigma. The research and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Smart speakers become a versatile and convenient device to provide digital contents in our daily life. However, given the challenges of privacy management in smart speakers, it is required to examine how users cope with privacy threats of the devices. In this study, we examine how the privacy-enhancing attributes of smart speakers influence users’ preferences when choosing devices. The preference structure was generated from a conjoint approach, dealing with four privacy-enhancing features (parasite function, data storage method, security notice, and speaker recognition function) and two typical factors affecting consumer decision making (brand and price). Data collected from a survey of 516 consumers identified that, aside from the attribute of price, parasite function was ranked as the most preferred attribute. We also compared the findings across three user clusters. By examining concrete and explicit attributes regarding privacy-enhancing features, the present study provides novel insights into users’ understanding of privacy.

This study examines the stereotypes associated with academic entrepreneurs (AEs) and their business counterparts’ consequential negotiation strategies by presenting findings from two studies – one interview-based and the other experiment-based. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 10 AEs, the first study showed that AEs considered their affiliations’ academic reputation and industrial experience important in influencing their business counterparts’ perceptions toward them, which were characterized by two stereotype dimensions: warmth and competence. The second study developed and tested propositions derived from the qualitative data in an experiment using 192 small and medium-sized enterprise owners and managers as subjects. The results showed that AEs’ academic reputation and industry experience positively predicted their perceived status in the eyes of negotiation counterparts, which further increased warmth and competence perceptions. Furthermore, the negotiation counterparts used a competition strategy when they perceived AEs as warm and a cooperation strategy when they perceived AEs as competent.

Thanks to technological developments produced by scientists and engineers, franchising has grown to become a business model of choice for firm expansion in knowledge-intensive industries. We propose a formal model to explore to what degree franchisors should adapt their business practices or routines to successfully expand their franchises in newly targeted markets. By simultaneously considering the franchise's need to adapt locally in a new market and the level of business routine tacitness at the time of expansion, we integrate previously separate agency cost logics into one model. We offer refinements to the belief that expanding through a franchisee is the best when the business routines need adaptation, but expanding through a company-owned unit is best when these routines can be replicated.