No / Purpose: Using arguments from the regulatory focus and upper echelons theories, this paper aims to examine the impact of a chief executive officer’s (CEO’s) regulatory foci (i.e. promotion and prevention focus) on small- and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs’) level of innovativeness and how these relationships are jointly moderated by intense competition. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical analysis draws on survey data gathered from 257 SMEs in Ghana. Findings: The study findings indicate that a CEO’s level of promotion focus positively affects the firm’s engagement in innovation, while a CEO’s prevention focus is negatively associated with the firm’s innovativeness. The positive association between a CEO’s promotion focus and a firm’s innovativeness is enhanced under conditions of intense competition. Additionally, the negative relationship between prevention focus and firm-level innovativeness is attenuated under intense competition. Research limitations/implications: This study relied on a single informant and also used subjective measures for the dependent variable. As such, individual respondents might have biased perspectives on firm-level product innovativeness. Future studies may use multiple informants to examine the causal links of the variables. Practical implications: The study’s findings provide managers with a deeper understanding of how to achieve superior firm-level product innovation. The understanding of this issue can promote the development and maintenance of further entrepreneurial ventures in emerging economies. Originality/value: The paper has a strong theoretical value as it pioneers research on the effect of CEOs’ regulatory foci on firm-level innovativeness in competitive environments.

Yes / Purpose The purpose of this article was to examine the joint effects of regulatory focus, entrepreneurial persistence, and institutional support on new venture performance. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a random survey approach to sample 204 new ventures from Ghana. The moderated mediation method was used to analyze the survey data. Findings The findings from this paper show that entrepreneurs’ promotion focus positively relates to persistence whiles prevent focus negatively influences persistence. Besides, persistence mediates the link between regulatory focus (promotion and prevention focus) and new venture performance. These relationships are positively moderated by perceived institutional support. Research limitations/implications Using data from only the manufacturing sector in Ghana limits the generalisability of this paper. Also, persistence was not observed or measured directly in this paper but was only used as a self-reporting variable that captures an individual’s tendency to persist. Originality/value The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, this paper contributes to regulatory focus literature by enhancing our knowledge of how self-regulation could help explain entrepreneurial decision-making. Second, this paper broadens self-regulation literature by adding institutional context as a moderating variable. Third, this paper helps clarify the potential role of persistence in entrepreneurship.

Résoudre une tâche nous met régulièrement au défit d'adopter les stratégies les plus adaptées au contexte et à la nature de celle-ci. En se basant sur la Théorie du Régulatory Focus, la présente étude propose d'utiliser certaines caractéristiques visuelles, formes et couleurs, afin d'amorcer une régulation cognitive susceptible de correspondre à des tâches demandant soit de la précision, soit de la créativité. Ainsi, une première étude identifie certaines formes et couleurs comme ayant la capacité d'activer une cognition soit de type « prevention », soit de type « promotion ». Ces résultats ont servi de base pour concevoir des interfaces graphiques amorçant de manière ciblée l'une ou l'autre de ces orientations cognitives. Il est suggéré que la concordance entre le type d'amorce (e.g., induisant une cognition « prevention »)et le type de tâche (e.g., demandant de la précision) influence positivement performance ainsi que vécu subjectif. Les résultats supportent ces hypothèses : Les participants exécutent plus correctement les tâches lorsque le type de celles-ci concorde avec l'orientation stratégique amorcée par les caractéristiques visuelles de l'interface graphique. De plus, les participants rapportent un vécu plus positif dans ces mêmes conditions. De manière générale, les résultats soulignent les avantages à utiliser le potentiel inhérent des caractéristiques visuelles afin d'optimiser une situation de résolution de tâche. Ces résultats sont considérés comme développant autant la recherche que les domaines plus appliqués. / Task-solving situations are often challenging our ability to approach them in the most adapted state of mind. Building on regulatory focus theory, we propose to use specific color and form characteristics to prime cognitive regulations that are likely to match either creative or accuracy framed tasks. In that line, a first study identified color and form characteristics as being involved in activating either a vigilant prevention cognition or a flexible promotion cognition. These findings were then used to visually design creative or accuracy oriented tasks. It was expected that a fit between the strategic orientations induced by these designs and tasks accuracy or creativity framing, would to positively influence both performance and overall subjective experience. Experimental results supported these predictions: Participants performed better when the visual design was composed of colors and forms inducing a regulatory orientation matching tasks' natures. Regulatory fit had also a global positive impact on subjective variables like fun and satisfaction. Overall, the results point out the advantage of taking benefit from visual characteristics' inherent priming potential. Our research can be related both to research domains (RFT, user experience research, color research) and to concrete applications in actual design processes.

Introduction: Previous research has shown that sport performance can be facilitated in football using regulatory fit. However, little research has investigated effects of regulatory fit on performance and psychological responses within pressure conditions. Objective: To examine whether female football players experiencing promotion fit will perform better during a football passing task under perceived pressure, compared to a neutral (no fit; control) condition. Methods: In a pre–post-test, independent groups study design, 33 (M=18.03, SD=2.52) female football players were assigned into either an experimental group (n:15, i.e., promotion fit) or a control group (n:18, i.e., no fit). Participants completed a passing drill within two conditions, that is pre-test in no pressure and post-test in pressure, wherein the experimental group received promotion fit instructions while the control group received neutral instructions. Participants also completed a series of psychological measures that are relevant in the study of the performance–pressure relationship (i.e., affect, anxiety, self-confidence, and mental effort). Results: Participants in the promotion fit (experimental) group were protected against performance deterioration to a greater extent than participants in the control group. Furthermore, the experimental group showed psychological responses when performing under pressure that can explain why their performance was protected from deterioration: no difference in mental effort, cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, self-confidence and negative affect. Conclusion: Female football players experiencing promotion fit were protected against performance deterioration when performing under pressure. Such promotion fit experience influenced various psychological responses in the direction that are known to be beneficial in sport context when performing under perceived pressure. / Introduktion: Tidigare forskning visar att prestation inom idrott kan underlättas genom användningen av Regulatory fit. Dock, få studier har undersökt effekten av Regulatory fit på prestation och psykologiska reponser under pressade omständigheter. Objektiv: Att undersöka om kvinnliga fotbollsspelare under upplevelsen av promotion fit presterar bättre under upplevd press i en passningsövning, i jämförelse med fotbollsspelare som inte upplever promotion fit (kontrollgrupp) i en passningsövning. Metod: I ett för- och efter-test, oberoende gruppdesign, 33 (M=18.3, SD=2.52) kvinnliga fotbollsspelare tilldelades till antingen en experimentgrupp (n=15, i.e., promotion fit) eller en kontrollgrupp (n=18, i.e., inte fit). Deltagarna genomförde en passningsövning under två förhållanden, vilket innebar, för-test utan press och efter-test med press, där experimentgruppen erhöll instruktioner i promotion fit medan kontrollgruppen erhöll neutrala instruktioner. Deltagarna genomförde även en rad olika psykologiska mätningar som bär relevans inom området rörande press och prestation (i.e., affekt, ångest, självförtroende och mental ansträngning). Resultat: Deltagarna som upplevde promotion fit (experimentgrupp) skyddades mot försämring i prestation i större utsträckning än deltagarna i kontrollgruppen. Fortsättningsvis, experimentgruppen uppvisade psykologiska responser som kan förklara varför prestation under press var skyddat mot försämring: ingen förändring i mental ansträngning, kognitiv oro, somatisk oro, självförtroende och negativ affekt. Konklusion: Resultaten indikerar att kvinnliga fotbollsspelare som upplever promotion fit är skyddade mot försämring i prestation under upplevd press. Upplevelsen av promotion fit influerade diverse psykologiska repsonser i den riktning som anses vara fördelaktig inom idrottssammanhang vid prestation under upplevd press.

This study extends Regulatory Fit Theory (Higgins, 2000) to examine horizontal regulatory fit (Scholer & Higgins, 2010) in the context of performance feedback. Participants completed the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (Higgins et al., 2001) to measure their chronic motivational orientation, then worked on an adapted version of an in-basket task (Holmes & Hauenstein, 2012) across two sessions. Hypotheses predicted that compared to instances of non-fit, conditions of regulatory fit between chronic and situational and motivational orientations (Promotion vs. Prevention) would have a significantly greater impact on the following three outcomes: 1) Variety and Frequency of Feedback Use, 2) Feedback Recall, and 3) Attitudes toward both Feedback and the In-basket Task. Overall results supported this assertion. Participants in condition of regulatory fit engaged in a significantly greater variety of behaviors and did so more frequently than those in non-fit conditions. Additionally, participants in regulatory fit conditions had stronger positive attitudes toward feedback than those in non-fit conditions. Counter to previous research, regulatory fit did not have significant impact on feedback recall in the current study, nor did regulatory fit have a significant impact on the attitudes toward in-basket task. / Master of Science

L'essor de l'informatique affective ouvre aujourd'hui la porte à la création de dispositifs artificiels dotés d'une forme d'intelligence sociale et émotionnelle. L’étude de l'interaction homme-machine dans ce contexte offre de nombreuses pistes de recherche. Parmi celles-ci se trouve la question de la personnalité : comment il est possible de modéliser certaines caractéristiques d’une personnalité artificielle ? Comment ces caractéristiques influencent le déroulement de l'interaction entre l'homme et la machine ? Cette question globale soulève plusieurs questions de recherche : Comment définir la personnalité ? Sur quels modèles et théories issus de la psychologie peut-on s'appuyer pour développer une personnalité artificielle ? Quelle méthodologie adopter pour aborder l’implémentation d'un concept psychologique complexe ? Qu'apporte le développement informatique d'une personnalité à l'interaction homme-machine ? Au domaine de la psychologie de la personnalité ? Comment évaluer expérimentalement ces apports ? Pour aborder ces questions, nos travaux se positionnent dans une optique pluridisciplinaire, au croisement de l’informatique et de la psychologie. Au regard de sa pertinence pour une approche computationnelle, nous avons modélisé la régulation du Soi comme une composante de la personnalité. Ce concept est approché à partir de la théorie du regulatory focus. Sur cette base théorique, un cadre de travail conceptuel et un modèle computationnel sont proposés. Un questionnaire mesurant le regulatory focus a également été développé et validé. Ces propositions théoriques sont mises en œuvre dans deux implémentations data-driven (dimensionnelle vs socio-cognitive) dotant des agents de regulatory focus en utilisant de l’apprentissage automatique. Deux études utilisateurs (interaction unique avec agent artificiel vs sessions répétées avec agent animé), présentées dans un cadre ludique, ont permis d’étudier la perception du regulatory focus chez un agent et son impact sur l'interaction. Nos résultats encouragent l’utilisation du regulatory focus en informatique affective et ouvrent des perspectives sur les liens théoriques et méthodologiques entre informatique et psychologie. / The development of affective computing is leading to the design of artificial devices endowed with a form of social and emotional intelligence. The study of human-computer interaction in this context offers many research tracks. Among them is the question of personality: how to model some characteristics of an artificial personality? How these characteristics will influence the course of interaction with users? This goal rises several research questions: how to define personality? On which models and theories from psychology should we rely to define some artificial personality? Which methodology will help to address the implementation of such a complex psychological concept? What could artificial personality bring to the field of human-computer interaction? And to the psychology of personality? How to experimentally evaluate these contributions? To address these issues, this thesis takes a multidisciplinary approach, at the crossing of computing science and psychology. Given its relevance to a computational approach, we modeled self-regulation as a component of personality. This concept is approached from the regulatory focus theory. On this theoretical basis, a conceptual framework and a computational model are proposed. Our theoretical proposals led to two data-driven implementations (dimensional vs. socio-cognitive) which endowed our artificial agents with regulatory focus by using machine-learning. A French questionnaire measuring regulatory focus was designed and validated. Two user studies (brief interaction with artificial agents vs. repeated sessions with animated agents), where the regulatory focus of agents is conveyed via game strategies, enabled the study of regulatory focus perception and its impact on the interaction. Our results support the use of regulatory focus in affective computing and open perspectives on the theoretical and methodological links between computer science and psychology.

Introduction: The study of self-talk and its influence on sport performance is extensive. Lately, the study of pressure performance within a regulatory fit framework has gained momentum. However, little research has investigated the influence regulatory fit may have on performance and, more precisely, how the use of self-talk with such framework may have on performance under pressure. Objective: To examine whether female football players with self-talk training within a regulatory fit framework produce better performances in a passing football task when under perceived pressure compared to a control group. Methods: In a pre– post-test, independent group study design, 33 female football players (M = 19.52, SD = 2.82 years) completed a passing drill carried out in two separate conditions, that is under no pressure and under pressure. Participants also completed a series of psychological measures that are relevant in the study of the performance–pressure relationship (i.e., affect, anxiety, self-confidence, and mental effort). Results: Performance under pressure was protected from deterioration in the experimental group. The experimental group also showed lower levels of negative emotions and higher self-confidence. Conclusion: Findings suggests that self-talk within a regulatory fit framework improves footballing performance under pressure and could be considered as a self-talk strategy beneficial to performance under pressure. / Introduktion: Studerandet av self-talk och dess inverkan på sportprestationer är omfattande. På senare tid, har studerandet av prestation under press inom ett regulatory fit ramverk tagit fart. Dock har begränsat med forskning undersökt inverkan regulatory fit kan ha på prestation och mer exakt, hur användandet av self-talk med ett sådant ramverk kan ha på prestation under press. Syfte: Att undersöka om kvinnliga fotbollsspelare med self-talk träning inom ett regulatory fit ramverk producerar bättre prestationer i en passningsövning under upplevd press jämfört med en kontrollgrupp. Metod: I en för- och eftertest, oberoende gruppstudiedesign genomförde 33 kvinnliga fotbollsspelare (M = 19.52, SD = 2.82 år) en passningsövning under två separata förhållanden, det vill säga under ingen press och under press. Deltagarna genomförde också en rad psykologiska mätningar som är relevanta i studerandet av relationen prestation-press (d.v.s. affekt, ångest, självförtroende och mental ansträngning). Resultat: Prestation under press skyddades från försämring i experimentgruppen. Experimentgruppen visade också lägre nivåer av negativa känslor och högre självförtroende. Slutsats: Resultaten tyder på att self-talk inom ett regulatory fit ramverk förbättrar fotbollsprestation under press och kan betraktas som en self-talk strategi som är fördelaktig för prestation under press.

The behaviour of consumers on the Internet is increasingly a focus of marketing research. In particular, consumers’ behaviour in online shopping, from adoption motivation to post-usage behaviour, has become a major focus of research in the field of marketing, especially within consumer behaviour. Yet it has been acknowledged that while aspects such as adoption and usage motivation are now better understood, there are many questions that remain unanswered, and this warrants continued research effort. In line with the above, this research addresses an issue in online consumer behaviour that is currently under researched and which relates to the role that the consumer’s regulatory focus trait plays in their manifested behaviour in online shopping. The research argues that it is important to understand the role of regulatory focus in online shopping because this psychological trait has been shown to affect other aspects of human behaviour such as in response to advertising, dieting and sports. Drawing upon research from consumer behaviour and the wider fields of marketing and psychology, this research proposes a number of hypotheses relating the consumer’s regulatory focus to her perception of online shopping, motivation for online shopping, and actual usage behaviour in a structural manner. The resulting structural equation model is then tested using empirical data obtained from 306 Internet shoppers in the United Kingdom. The results of the research confirm that regulatory focus has an influence on consumer behaviour in online shopping by affecting their perception, motivation and usage of online shopping. The research makes a unique contribution by demonstrating that regulatory focus is a valid and robust predictor of online shopping behaviour and behavioural outcomes, a conclusion which is relevant to both marketing research and marketing practice. Finally, the research identifies and recommends areas for future studies.

While past research has revealed diverse forms of relationships between consumers and brands similar to those of interpersonal relationships, this research focuses on the perspective of the brand role in its relationship with consumer in an advertising context. Therefore, the present research examines the interactive effect of brand role (partner vs. servant) and regulatory focus message (promotion vs. prevention) on advertising effectiveness. The results show that interaction between brand role and regulatory focus message significantly influences advertising persuasiveness and consumers' attitudes toward the advertisement, but not consumer's advertising believability, attitudes toward the brand and purchase intention. To be specific, individuals are more persuaded and show more positive attitudes toward advertising when a partner brand is advertised with a promotion-focused message. In contrast, when a servant brand is advertised with a prevention-focused message, individuals are more persuaded and show more positive attitudes toward advertising. / text

<p>Drawing from literature on job performance, moral intensity (Jones, 1991), and job characteristics theory (Grant, Fried, & Juillerat, 2011; Hackman & Oldham, 1976; Oldham & Fried, 2016), I propose a core feature of work that is not currently recognized or studied in extant work design research: the degree of moral imperativeness and aspiration. That is, jobs differ in how much their performance (i.e., task execution) is a moral imperative or aspiration. I first distinguish the moral imperativeness and aspiration of task execution (MITE and MATE) from related concepts such as task significance (Hackman & Oldham, 1975), prosocial characteristics of work (Grant, 2007, 2008a), and moral intensity of a task (Opoku-Dakwa, 2017, 2018). I then develop and validate a scale. In Study 1, I used job incumbents to provide empirical support that moral imperativeness and aspiration of task execution is distinguishable from related constructs, converge with theoretically-relevant constructs, and predict work criteria as experienced by job incumbents. In Study 2, I used naïve raters to judge the moral imperativeness and aspiration of work tasks at the task level to provide further evidence that they tap objective aspects of occupations.</p>