Platform governance literature has primarily focused on the platform owner’s perspective, overlooking how complementors can effectively influence governance changes. Our research highlights complementors’ activities, examining how a social justice narrative helps them gain support for change efforts. Across three studies, we (a) identify a novel mechanism, the Robin Hood perception, and explain why this narrative is effective in generating support; (b) show that hypocrisy accusations harm the narrative, in turn reducing support; and (c) find that peer firm mobilization shields complementors from this adverse effect. These findings enhance our understanding of how complementors can garner support for governance changes. They pave the way for further research on how actors beyond platform owners can shape the rules and direction of digital platforms.

The growing gender polarization in consumers’ pro-environmental engagement—with women more engaged than men— suggests that organizations should consider gender a key criterion when targeting their cause-related marketing and social advocacy campaigns for environmental causes. However, multilevel analyses of 11 behavioral interventions across 63 countries (N = 56,582) reveal that relying on gender alone is insufficient and can even backfire, uncovering a surprising paradox: The gender gap in pro-environmental engagement widens among liberal consumers, in societies with higher gender equality, and cultures emphasizing care over competition. These gender paradoxes emerge when identities and societal contexts intersect, revealing why interventions ignoring such complexities can fail. Results show that a collective action framing is effective across several identity combinations, while a negative emotional appeal can backfire, par¬ticularly among conservative men in gender-equal countries. A web-based tool helps marketers and policymakers select effective environmental interventions across intersecting individual and country-level factors, enabling targeted advocacy and cause-related marketing.

Despite evidence that people believe that the unhealthier the food, the tastier it is, some studies also suggest the opposing belief—the healthier the food, the tastier it is. A framework is proposed to reconcile this contradiction, and four studies demonstrate that the discrete categorization of foods as healthful versus unhealthful determines which intuition consumers use. When stereotypically unhealthy foods (e.g., candies, ice cream, hot dogs) are encountered, they are automatically categorized as unhealthful and the properties associated with that category (e.g., sweetness, saltiness, fat content) become accessible. Inferences about taste are then based on these properties and the unhealthier the encountered products are (i.e., the higher the sugar and fat content they have), the tastier they are perceived to be (unhealthy = tasty belief). Conversely, when stereotypically healthful foods (e.g., fruits) are encountered, other properties (e.g., freshness, vitamins) become salient, and tastiness is mainly inferred based on these properties, leading to the inference that the healthier these foods are (i.e., the more freshness and vitamins they have), the tastier they are perceived to be (healthy = tasty belief). Marketers and policymakers can leverage these findings to understand better when emphasizing healthiness benefits or hurts taste perceptions.

Although company narratives frequently emphasize impressive sales numbers and market lead-ership, such an organizational “top dog” narrative can backfire when companies are accused of engaging in unethical conduct. This research demonstrates, through a series of nine (N = 3872) experimental studies, that an organizational top dog (vs. underdog) narrative increases the in-tended punishment of company moral transgressions but not non-moral transgressions. Such differences in intended punishment emerge because observers infer that organizations with a top dog narrative use predominantly dominance-based strategies to achieve their status, whereas companies with an underdog narrative are less likely perceived as employing such strategies. We provide preliminary evidence that a debiasing intervention decreases the harsher punish-ment of organizations with a top dog narrative but does not affect the punishment of organiza-tions with an underdog narrative.