Consumer Behaviour and Digital Transformation
... The questionnaire design incorporated established scales and theoretical frameworks to measure conspicuous consumption, value orientation, and ethical behaviors. The conspicuous consumption scale was adapted from Veblen's [1] seminal work, which has been extensively validated in contemporary research [24,47]. The value orientation scale drew on Hofstede et al. [39] cultural dimensions theory, specifically focusing on collectivism and individualism, which are critical in understanding ethical behaviors in the Chinese context [43]. ...
Young college students are the pillars of the development of the state and society, and their growth concerns the future of the state. However, with the further development of the Chinese economy, college students' consumption awareness has shifted from initial need-based consumption to sociative and conspicuous consumption, which could possibly result in non-ethical consumption behaviors. Therefore, studying the relationship between conspicuous consumption and ethical behaviors, as well as the factors that influence this relationship, is of great significance for the healthy growth of college students. 84 This study examined the relationship between conspicuous consumption and ethical behaviors of college students and included collectivism and individualism, which are key factors affecting personal value orientation in Chinese society, as moderating variables in the research model. Collectivism refers to a cultural orientation where individuals prioritize the group's interests over personal gains, while individualism emphasizes personal goals and independence. It was found that conspicuous consumption was negatively correlated with college students' ethical behaviors. Collectivist values can weaken this relationship, while individualist values strengthen it. Finally, possible factors contributing to this relationship were proposed in the conclusion, along with suggestions on how to reduce non-ethical behaviors among college students.
Consumers are influenced by a myriad of factors in their choices of brands which can be categorised differently. The impact of psychological and personal influences which comprise of factors like perception, motivation, learning and memory, and attitudes on brand consumption is considerable. This chapter features a meticulous discussion of these issues and their implications on brand consumption and branding strategies. These are underpinned by themes such as brand positioning/repositioning, the extended realities, webrooming, and showrooming and how they explain consumer day-to-day brand decisions. The understanding of consumer learning and memory are usually linked to brand awareness, brand association, brand recognition, brand recall, brand relearning and brand associative networks. These are carefully examined in this chapter. Moreover, the issues around the underpinning factors that motivate consumer brand choices, their attitude formation and change for brands are also examined with a robust discussion of their implication for strategic brand management.
Notably brands and branding distinguish and position businesses’ market offerings in relation to competitors’. They constitute parts of the core elements of the marketing system that contribute to how businesses satisfy their customers. Hence, branding is inextricably linked to the marketing philosophy of creating and delivering value to the customers. In fact, it plays key roles in the notion of value co-creation between businesses and their customers. Although they have characteristics that distinguish them from physical products, service offerings also benefit significantly from the use of banding. Besides, as the marketplace consumption behaviour keep changing, the areas of application of branding have also evolved into many more areas than it used to be such as branding in the not-for-profit activities, branding of political ideologies, personal branding, branding in the religious context, branding in a digital age, and branding in the metaverse among others. This chapter explores these issues critically to open the discourse of the brands, branding, and consumerism in this book.
Given the symbolic significance of places such as nations, regions, cities, and gated communities, the ideas of brands and branding are being applied to them in recent times. For example, nation branding is becoming common especially as countries compete among themselves for resources and opportunities like investment inflows and skilled professionals. Similarly, consumers make inferences about goods and services offered in the marketplace based on the extent of the attractiveness of the countries where they originated from. This is commonly tagged country-of-origin (COO) effect. As there are several stakeholders associated with places such as tourists, residents, and governments, it becomes imperative for place marketers to consider inclusivity in the formulation of brand strategies. This chapter explores these issues and how they are being influenced by the digital transformation which permeates virtually all elements of the marketing systems. Apart from unpacking these salient issues with references to some pertinent cases, the chapter also features a discussion of the future of place branding consumer behaviour as well as the wide-ranging implications of the ideas.
With the acceleration of digital transformation, consumer purchasing behavior has undergone profound changes. This change presents new challenges to traditional marketing strategies, while also bringing enormous opportunities. This study explores the changing trends of consumer behavior in the digital marketing environment through a systematic literature review and empirical analysis, and analyzes how companies can better adapt to these changes by adjusting and optimizing their marketing strategies. The research results show that the widespread application of digital tools has made consumers' purchasing paths more complex and diversified, while also prompting companies to pay more attention to personalized and data-driven decision-making in marketing strategies. These research findings will provide theoretical and practical guidance for enterprises to adjust their marketing strategies in the context of digitalization.
The article aims to show the role (benefits and challenges) of AI-powered digital marketing tools for marketers in the age of digital transformation. The considerations were related to the Polish market and a case study of LPP, a Polish clothing retailer. The starting point for this study was the analysis of the literature on the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) with reference to digital marketing. In the next steps, the results of the research on the Polish market conducted by the Digital Poland Foundation and presented in the report entitled “State of Polish AI 2021” were reviewed, and an application case study of the largest Polish clothing company – LPP – was conducted. The study is of an introductory and exploratory nature. It recognises the significant role of AI in digital transformation in the context of digital marketing in the Polish market. The implementation of solutions based on artificial intelligence algorithms, such as the Google Cloud, analytical platform and data repository, e-commerce infrastructure, chatbot, Genesys PureCloud, Google Dialogflow and the AI-based function in the PSIwms Warehouse Management System in LPP's distribution centre significantly improves the efficiency of online order processing without compromising the quality of products and order fulfilment time. By applying a case study analysis, the importance of AI-based tools in the digital transformation process, including digital marketing, in the Polish market was demonstrated. Marketers, including CMOs, were shown the benefits of applying AI-related technological solutions in the field of e-commerce optimisation and customer service.
Social media live streaming, in the form of live video and user stories, is widely used by influencers, organisations and individuals to connect with their audiences. Its popularity is well-established in a range of theoretical and managerial contexts. However, there is a lack of scholarship on the role of this phenomenon on consumer decision-making. Filling this gap in the research is essential due to the importance of consumer decision-making in marketing and brand strategy development in organisations. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore and outline the nature of the influence of live stream on the consumer decision-making. The study was part of a 12-month Netnography consisting of participant observation and social media monitoring of brand pages and branded hashtags on social media platforms, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. A thematic analysis revealed five main themes and a conceptual model is proposed which outlines the social media live stream’s influence on consumer decision-making at each stage.
This study synthesizes the artificial intelligence literature into a Meta‐analytic framework based on the theory of reasoned action and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2, and examines concrete relationships between the constructs of this framework. This meta‐review also performed a moderation analysis to investigate the possible reasons for inconsistent findings across studies. The findings suggest that three methodological moderators (sample type, gender dominance, and publication type), and one contextual moderator (level of country's technology advancement) lead to inconsistencies in the relationships between study constructs. Academically, this review synthesizes the artificial intelligence literature and resolves inconsistencies in the literature and also adds constructs to both theory of reasoned action and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2. Practically, this meta‐analysis offers multiple implications for businesses interested in enhancing customer adoption of artificial intelligence. Especially, companies can increase customers' adoption of artificial intelligence by making it more user‐friendly, and advantageous and by adding pleasing features to it.
Neuromarketing has become a new and important topic in the field of marketing in recent years. Consumer behavior research has received increasing attention. In the past decade, the importance of marketing has also been recognized in many fields such as consumer behavior, advertising, information systems, and e-commerce. Neuromarketing uses neurological methods to determine the driving forces behind consumers’ choices. Various neuroscience tools, such as eye movements, have been adopted to help reveal how consumers react to particular advertisements or objects. This information can be used as the basis for new advertising campaigns and brand promotions. To effectively explore the research trends in this field, we must understand the current situation of neuromarketing. A systematic bibliometric analysis can solve this problem by providing publishing trends and information on various topics. In this study, journals that focused on neuromarketing in the field of marketing between 2010 and 2021 were analyzed. These journals were core journals rated by the Association of Business Schools with three or more stars. According to the data analysis results, neuromarketing has 15 main journals with relevant papers. Based on the data collected by the Web of Science (WOS), this study mainly collected 119 references and analyzed the most productive countries, universities, authors, journals, and prolific publications in the field of neuromarketing via Citespace. Through the analysis of knowledge maps, this study explored the mapping of co-citation, bibliographic coupling (BC), and co-occurrence (CC). Moreover, the strongest citation bursts were used to study popular research at different time stages and analyze the research trends of neuromarketing research methods and tools. This study provides an overview of the trends and paths in neuromarketing, which can help researchers understand global trends and future research directions.
This study aimed to investigate the effects of customers’ motivations (specifically young consumers) on online purchase intentions as mediated by commitment toward online fashion retailers. The survey method was used to collect data from Chinese respondents using a questionnaire. The convenience sampling technique was used to collect data from 275 respondents. Collected data were analyzed on smart-PLS using the structural equation modeling technique. Results of the study show a significant and positive impact of social empowerment and remuneration motivations on consumer commitment online purchase intention. Further results show that consumer commitment partially mediates the relationship between social empowerment, remuneration, and online purchase intention. This study contributes to the literature in the domain of consumer commitment by focusing on the underlying needs and motivations of consumers. The researchers have demonstrated a strong need to understand the dynamics of commitment due to its importance in affecting purchase intention. This study also has several implications that guide online retailers how to motivate consumers with social, remuneration and empowerment incentives to develop their intention to purchase online. Fashion retailers are suggested to gratify certain consumer motives to increase commitment. Specifically, among the three motives, empowerment motivation emerged as the strongest predictor of consumer commitment in social media environment. This study will help to the online brands to attract more customers by providing the motivation such financial, empowerment and socialization.
Purpose: Given that managers play a crucial role in developing and deploying AI for marketing financial services, this study was aimed at better understanding their awareness regarding AI and the challenges they are facing in providing the attendant technologies, as well as highlighting key stakeholders and their collaborative efforts in providing financial services.
Design/methodology/approach: Exploratory, inductive research design. The data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with 47 bank managers in both developed and developing countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Nigeria and Vietnam.
Findings: Managers are aware of the prospects of AI and are making efforts to address AI as a business need but find that there often exist certain challenges in accelerating AI adoption. The study also presents a conceptual framework of AI in relation to financial service marketing, which captures and highlights the interactions among the customers, banks, and external stakeholders, as well as the regulators.
Research limitations/implications: Banks must understand their business objectives, the available resources, and the needs of their customers. Managers should keep the ethical implications of their working relationships in mind when selecting a team or collaborating with partners. In addition, managers should be trained and assisted in comprehending AI in relation to financial services, while the regulators must be involved in the development of AI for financial service marketing. Finally, it is critical to communicate the prospects for AI to consumers.
Originality/value: This study provides empirical insight into the opportunities, prospects and challenges pertaining to the use of AI in the area of financial service marketing. It also specifically calls into question certain preconceptions regarding AI and its role in financial services, the chatbots adopted for financial service delivery, and the role of marketing managers in developing AI.
Neuromarketing (NM) is an application of neuroimaging and physiological tools to record the neural correlates of consumers’ behaviour (e.g., decision-making, emotion, attention, and memory) toward marketing stimuli such as brands and advertisements. This study aims to present the current tools employed in the empirical research in the last five years. In this article, we have followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) framework and a bibliometric analysis to select empirical and review papers that used NM tools in the last five years. We have extracted and analysed twenty-four documents from the Scopus database to answer our study questions. We found that electroencephalography (EEG) is the most popular neuroimaging tool in neuromarketing research, wherein has been used almost thirteen times. Followed by eye-tracking (ET) and galvanic skin response (GSR) as the most physiological tools, wherein have been applied almost four times for each tool. We hope that this study provides valuable insights into the common NM tools used in marketing research.
Brands are perceived to possess a personality that consumers choose to self-express and thus create their self-identities. Despite the extensive research that suggests that the self-expression can be a key driver for brand choice and preference, little research has been conducted to understand the role brands play in constructing consumers self-identity. This study attempts to address this gap by examining the relationship between brand personality and consumer self-identity. Further, the study adopts an international perspective by establishing how consumer cultural orientations can moderate such relationship amongst Chinese and British consumers. The study adopts a quantitative research design and uses an online survey to assess the effect of brand personality on consumer identity. In total, 139 participants took part, with 85 from the UK and 54 from China. A number of statistical tests were conducted, including an analysis of variance, t-test, Cronbach's Alpha and means were computed. The showed that the effect of brand personality was insignificant. However, the results found that the differences between the UK and China were evident. The study offers some managerial advice to brand managers and marketers operating in global markets.
As augmented reality (AR) technology advances, marketers are eager to adopt the technology for communication to persuade consumers to develop favorable attitudes and behaviors toward their products and services. This study aims to investigate the effect of product information (utilitarian vs. hedonic attributes) and presence on consumers’ product evaluation in AR. Through a quasi experiment, this study demonstrates how product attribute information and presence in AR affect product evaluation by mediating imagery, information fulfillment, and psychological ownership. At the same time, this study identifies the moderating role of consumers’ technological innovativeness in the effect of presence on consumers’ imagery. This research offers new insights into the role of product information in AR, which previous studies lack, to explore and highlight the predictors of positive product experiences in AR. Innovative marketers are likely to benefit from this study in developing product presentation tactics with AR technology.
Intergenerational research on sustainable consumption remains scarce, particularly in relation to which factors may affect the level of intergenerational similarity and the direction of intergenerational transmission. The present study addresses these gaps and adds to the growing body of literature in environmental consumer socialization by examining intergenerational influence on sustainable consumer attitudes and behaviors in a sample of 146 dyads comprised of mothers and college-age daughters. In the domain of intergenerational influence, we study two potential moderating factors suggested in past consumer research: communication effectiveness and peer conformity. Using the co-orientational model and nominal dyad method, we reveal the existence of intergenera-tional similarity in dyads' sustainable consumer attitudes and behaviors-after accounting for nominal effects-and show that stronger parent-child communication between mother-daughter pairs leads to greater intergenerational similarity, whereas stronger peer influence on daughters reduces intergenerational agreement. Our analysis further suggests the presence of reverse environmental socialization, in which intergenerational influence predominantly occurs from daughter to mother. Dyads' subjective knowledge regarding sustainable consumption provides empirical insights for this co-orientational model finding on reverse intergenerational transfer. Overall, outcomes of this study encourage marketing managers to leverage young-adult offspring in the process of communicating sustainable marketing strategies. K E Y W O R D S consumer socialization, family communication, intergenerational influence, peer influence, subjective knowledge, sustainable consumer attitudes, sustainable consumer behaviors
This article aims at characterizing the digital culture of prospective Moroccan primary school teachers during their training. The study was conducted as a survey on a sample of prospective primary school teachers from Morocco. A descriptive frequency analysis was performed using SPSS. The results show that this digital culture is rooted more considerably in their personal use of different technological tools or resources. The article analyzes the resources of digital culture through the objectives of digital practices of prospective teachers and the motivations underlying their choice of a specific digital tool and practice. The digital practices of prospective teachers are marked by frequent use of social networks and a low tendency to make use of institutional platforms and their trainers’ blogs. The analysis highlights the nature of the environments, services, and digital resources manipulated by prospective teachers during their training. It also sheds light on the role of this digital culture in the content preparation activities of these potential teachers, as well as the resources produced by them and by their trainers. The preparation of pedagogical content often makes use of social network tools, while educational tools are in average use. Finally, the results show that these exchanges are dominated by WhatsApp, Google Drive, and e-mail; however, the use of the WhatsApp application is more prevalent when interacting with trainers.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is (re)shaping strategy, activities, interactions, and relationships in business and specifically in marketing. The drawback of the substantial opportunities AI systems and applications (will) provide in marketing are ethical controversies. Building on the literature on AI ethics, the authors systematically scrutinize the ethical challenges of deploying AI in marketing from a multi-stakeholder perspective. By revealing interdependencies and tensions between ethical principles , the authors shed light on the applicability of a purely principled, deontological approach to AI ethics in marketing. To reconcile some of these tensions and account for the AI-for-social-good perspective, the authors make suggestions of how AI in marketing can be leveraged to promote societal and environmental well-being.
This article provides an overview of extant literature addressing consumer interaction with cutting-edge technologies. Six focal cutting-edge technologies are identified: artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, wearable technology, robotics and big data analytics. Our analysis shows research on consumer interaction with cutting-edge technologies is at a nascent stage, and there are several gaps requiring attention. To further advance knowledge, our article offers avenues for future interdisciplinary research addressing implications of consumer interaction with cutting-edge technologies. More specifically, we propose six main areas for future research namely: rethinking consumer behaviour models, identifying behavioural differences among different generations of consumers, understanding how consumers interact with automated services, ethics, privacy and the blackbox, consumer security concerns and consumer interaction with new-age technologies during and after a major global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research on international shopping has the potential of elucidating collective issues such as the eminence of protectionist discourse. Concomitantly, the authors propose a Theory of Social Class Divide (SCD) that explains how the judgments of a consumer segment diverge from classical predictions. The theory received support in an international shopping context, showing that the behavior of lower‐class shoppers diverges from the prediction of consumer ethnocentrism theory. In the two studies, which comprised different methods (cross‐sectional and experimental), measures of social class (objective and subjective), and samples (US and Canadian), lower‐class consumers were notably less affected by their ethnocentrism than upper‐class consumers. Lower‐class consumers generally showed, regardless of their ethnocentrism, low attitudes, and shopping intentions toward foreign retailers. The results underline the ramifications of a widening divide in social class on international marketing, and have potential implications in germane fields such as political science.
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to propose and validate a theoretical framework explaining web-rooming and showrooming as a multi-stage decision-making process. The authors have used consumer purchase decision-making theories to propose a model that identifies showrooming and webrooming as a combination of two decisions, channel choice during information search and channel choice during actual purchase. Further, the authors explored how various antecedents of showrooming and webrooming have differential effects on various stages of a purchase decision-making process and how product type moderates the relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have conducted empirical research, whereby 243 responses were obtained from a cross-sectional survey. The authors have used structural equation modeling and multiple regression analysis to validate our theoretical model.
Findings
Webrooming or showrooming is a multi-stage decision-making process for the consumers. First, consumers decide whether to search online or offline and then whether to buy online and offline. Different individual, purchase context-related and channel related factors impact these decisions. Product type governs which variables will be more important than others.
Originality/value
The research looks to enhance the understanding of the consumer's decision-making process during showrooming and webrooming while also helping retailers design and implement appropriate strategies that could affect consumers during information search and actual purchase.
This paper examines the direct effect of thinking style and situational ambiguity on the panic behavior model as well as the moderating effect of information overload. A total of 255 responses were collected from QUALTRICS, but only 139 were found to be useable for further analysis. A Smart-PLS software was used for data analysis. Based on the results, it was found that situational ambiguity and the judicative thinking style increase perceived risk. In turn, perceived risk and situational ambiguity were found to be responsible for generating panic buying. In contrast, executive and legislative thinking styles were found to have no significant effect on perceived risk. Finally, information overload was found to moderate the relationship between situational ambiguity and panic buying, but not the relationship between perceived risk and panic buying. This study proposes and tests a model of panic buying and contributes to the theoretical knowledge as well as offering clear avenues for future research and suggesting managerial best practices.
Endorsers such as social media influencers who aim to match consumers’ personality to strengthen their credibility must consider that actual self‐congruence and ideal self‐congruence have different effects on the main dimensions of credibility: perceived trustworthiness and perceived competence. In our study, we conceptually argue that actual self‐congruence is associated more strongly with a closer psychological distance and, in turn, with trustworthy information, and we empirically show that perceived trustworthiness solely mediates the effect of actual self‐congruence on consumer behavior. Subsequently, we conceptually argue that ideal self‐congruence is more strongly related to ideal skills and therefore should be more strongly related to perceived competence, and we empirically demonstrate that perceived competence solely mediates the effect of ideal self‐congruence on consumer behavior. Our findings explain the mechanism behind the effects of actual and ideal self‐congruence and demonstrate important differences in authentic and aspirational marketing strategies with regard to creating the perception of trustworthiness and competence via social media influencers.
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) offers exciting opportunities for marketing practice and academic research. In this study, through the application of natural language processing, machine learning, and statistical algorithms, we examine the dominant topics, diversity, time slicing, and dynamics of the extant literature and map the current knowledge base in this area. We identify and analyze ten salient research themes: (1) understanding consumer sentiments, (2) industrial opportunities of AI, (3) analyzing customer satisfaction, (4) electronic word-of-mouth-based insights, (5) improving market performance, (6) using AI for brand management, (7) measuring and enhancing customer loyalty and trust, (8) AI and novel services, (9) using AI to improve customer relationships, and (10) AI and strategic marketing. Our scientometric analyses reveal the key concepts, keyword co-occurrence, authorship networks, top research themes, landmark publications, and the evolution of the research field over time. Finally, we propose an agenda for future research.
Purpose- While the usage of social media reviews has become increasingly popular in recent years, few studies in this context of Bangladesh have investigated its impact on restaurant visit intention. Therefore, this study aims to explain the role of attitude toward social media reviews in customers' restaurant visit intention from the perspective of Bangladesh. In doing so, predictors of attitude toward social media reviews were also ascertained and their indirect effects on restaurant visit intention were investigated.
Design/methodology/approach - A survey questionnaire was administered to 300 university students. A six-factor based measurement model was proposed, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used in testing the hypotheses represented by the model. Furthermore, a focus group discussion with 12 respondents was also held to assess how negative reviews on social media affect the customers' restaurant visit intention.
Findings - This study reveals that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, trustworthiness and information quality of social media reviews are positively related to attitude toward using positive social media reviews for choosing a restaurant. Furthermore, attitude toward positive social media reviews directly contributes to the intention to visit restaurants. Besides, attitude toward social media reviews fully mediates the relationship of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and trustworthiness with restaurant visit intention, whereas it partially mediates the relationship between information quality and restaurant visit intention. Besides, results from focus group discussion revealed that customers typically trust negative reviews which reduce their intent to visit restaurants.
Research limitations/implications - The samples chosen for this study belong only to a particular stratum of the population (students from a specific institution/university). Hence, the outcomes should be generalized with caution.
Practical implications - This study provides practical guidelines for the restaurant marketers to formulate improved strategic decisions by tracking the restaurant customers' attitudes, behavioral intentions, sentiments and share of voice on social media platforms. The results of this study will encourage the restaurant marketers to build sustainable relationships with influential food bloggers to spawn positive electronic word of mouth (e-WOM).
Originality/value - This is one of the first studies in Bangladesh that have covered up a timely and untouched research area, providing empirical evidence regarding the effects of attitude toward social media reviews on restaurant visit intent in the context of a South Asian country like Bangladesh.
There is an inadequate understanding of how social media can shape fear and consumer responses in the manner of consumer panic buying while Covid-19 is spreading across the world. Through taking a social constructionism position this research focused on what people think and feel at an individual and collective level on the role of social media to create panic behaviour. Data have been collected from thirty-four consumers who have minimum one active social media account. These participants are contacted through telephonic interview due to maintaining the social distancing. Findings reveal that uncertainties and insecurities proof, buying as persuasion, product unavailability proof, authorities' communication, global logic, and expert opinion are some of the causes on social media platforms that developed the situation of consumer panic buying during Covid-19 crises. Furthermore, the unprecedented level of real-time information on Covid-19 at users' fingertips can give them the tools they need to make smart decisions, but also make them more anxious about what is to come; experts say that may lead to panic buying or stockpiling of products. The study has tried to develop an understanding about how social media generates social proof and offers a window into people's collective response to the coronavirus outbreak and shapes panic buying reaction. The study has provided a consumer panic buying theory based on the results of this study and on existing theories, such as global capitalism/information society risk society, social influence, and social proof. These theories help to understand how global logic is built due to the use of social media and how different social proofs are generated which developed the behaviour of consumer panic buying due to Covid-19 pandemic.
The COVID 19 pandemic, by forcing the need to establish and develop relationships via the network, has significantly accelerated the process of digital transformation. For most enterprises, this means the need to change their business model. The basis for each model is subjectively defined customer value. This value is both the input and output of the whole process of building sustainable and profitable relationships with customers. It is believed that in the environment dominated by modern technologies based on the use of the network potential, the value of these relationships reflected in the dually estimated customer value is linked to the awareness of the network potential and the ability to use it. On the basis of the analysis of the purchasing process in the e-commerce industry in Poland and the research, among others, carried out by banks and other scientific centers or institutions dealing with cybersecurity, it is demonstrated that the awareness of the network potential ought to be assessed not only through the prism of benefits that connect both parties with establishing and developing the relationship, but also threats arising from the need to use online mediated relationships. It is believed that the use of the potential of virtual space, in which the customer moves, is determined by the awareness of the network potential, the integral component of which is the awareness of security of establishing, maintaining, and developing relationships. This factor, being directly linked to the risk of the relationship, does and will have a significant impact on the process of creating customer relations in the future and thus the company's value.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT), especially internet-use and technological innovation are argued to have brought significant structural changes that drive economic growth. The current study verifies this argument using data for 16 emerging economies from 2000 to 2018. In this analysis, we have investigated the effects of ICT, innovation, electricity-consumption and renewable power generation, on the economic growth of the emerging economies. Using Instrumental-Variable GMM and fixed-effects regression with Driscoll-Kraay standard-errors, it is found that, ICT not only increases economic growth monotonically, but also increases the effectiveness of financial development on growth. However, ICT is also found to accentuate the negative effects of trade on economic growth. In order to account for the heterogeneities among these economies, both
conditional and unconditional panel quantile estimators have been used for an income-level analysis. This shows that internet-use increases growth significantly in the lower and middle-income quantiles; innovation is found to have significant negative effects on growth, except for the highest income-quantile, while the positive growth effects of electricity-consumption are confirmed across all quantiles. These findings suggest that the emerging
economies should increase internet-connectivity to induce network-effect and to improve their capital markets, while also augmenting renewable electricity generation for environmentally-sustainable economic growth.
The hazardous impact of the fashion industry has prompted institutions, manufacturers, and brands to provide more sustainable conditions. However, many consumers have little of knowledge about sustainable fashion products and procedures. This study provides findings on fashion consumers’ informational needs on sustainability, and strategies for communicating sustainable fashion product information. The data comes from six focus group meetings and two conference workshops. The findings indicate that consumers generally think of sustainability in fashion as related to five criteria: material and procedure, environmental impact, animal welfare, human welfare, and product care. Furthermore, the findings underscore four related but distinct consumer personas (named by the researchers: romantic optimists, egocentrics, confused Alecs, and gloomies) based on their informational needs, motivation to increase sustainability literacy, and sustainability-related behaviour in fashion. These personas and criteria can be utilised to segment consumers and tailor communication and marketing strategies to enhance fashion consumers’ sustainable behaviour.
Purpose
The paper investigates shoppers' justification behind the showrooming behaviour and proposes an integrated SOR-MOA framework and a SAP-LAP model for a better understanding of the showrooming phenomenon.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a qualitative approach. A narrative-based examination followed by an inductive thematic analysis was employed to discover consumers' reasoning behind showrooming.
Findings
The results of the study affirmed the distinction between situational and intentional showrooming conduct. Situational factors have been classified across two categories: store-related (mismanagement at the store, assortment issues) and sales-personal related factors (disrespectful, rude, poor response and dishonest behaviour of the sales staff). However, factors corresponding to intentional showrooming conduct have been characterized as motivational (perceived value, past experience and perceived relative advantage), opportunity (retailer's support and services, channel availability and consumer empowerment) and ability (consumer skills)-related factors in aggregation with the stimulus organism response ideology. In addition, the study also highlights the consequences associated with the showrooming conduct of the shoppers.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of the study need further exploration and examination through the adoption of a quantitative approach on a large sample size.
Practical implications
The findings of the study can be utilized by offline retailers for devising strategies to counter showrooming customers and retain them as buyers.
Originality/value
The study emerges as the first piece of research to account for the ability and opportunity perspectives for better understanding of showrooming.
Drawing on theoretical streams of compensatory control theory, regulatory focus theory, and cognitive load theory, this study proposes and validates a model to illustrate the underlying mechanism of panic buying behavior in an online context during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on the scholarly research on compensatory control theory, regulatory focus theory, and cognitive load theory, this study is one of the preliminary attempts to investigate the relationship between consumer’s perceived resilience and vulnerability with COVID-19 threat perceptions and panic buying. This paper also provides a novel empirical inquiry into the moderating role of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. Using an online survey, a total of 395 usable responses were collected. The data were collected during the lockdown imposed in May-June 2021 in Pakistan after the country was hit with the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall findings signaled that resilient consumers perceived a lesser threat of COVID-19 as compared to vulnerable consumers, and consequently, panic buying disposition was more prevalent among the vulnerable consumers. COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs exhibited significant interaction effects. The implications for the e-commerce sector in general and online retailers, mainly, are discussed regarding panic buying and personality type of consumers.
Recent studies indicate that Mixed reality (MR) environment showed some advantages in cog- nitive rehabilitation training of children with ASD, but the role of the MR needs to be further explored in the clinical setting. Based on an MR aquarium, we performed two empirical studies to explore the effect of MR in training outcomes of children with ASD in this paper. Study 1 was a one-month longitudinal study, and results showed that the MR aquarium effectively improved the cognitive ability and positive response of children with ASD during training. Interviews with parents and therapists revealed that the MR training environment can effectively attract and maintain the attention of children with ASD, bring better ease of use, multi-sensory feedback, and then assist the rehabilitation training. Study 2 performed a longitudinal comparative study to test the effect of the real part (of MR aquarium) on training performance. Results demonstrated the role of the real part of the MR training environment is a double-edged sword. It can help enhance the interest and performance of children with ASD in the training curriculum, but the positive effect only works in the early period of training.
Overview: Previous research has shown that market-oriented firms outperform their peers. Why are some firms such outstanding performers in market orientation (MO)? This study identifies three categories of new technology tools that have emerged in the past few years—big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and social media marketing research—and assesses how each category enhances MO. The empirical evidence from 442 firms indicates that all three categories have significant impacts on MO, with AI being the most effective, followed by big data analytics and social media marketing research, respectively. We outline how very successful firms adopt these new technology tools and offer managerial implications that can guide senior executives looking to increase MO.
Today, reaching consumers through interactive methods has become one of the primary goals of the brands. As a result of this, smartphones have turned into tools brands can use to start an interaction with consumers. Due to augmented reality (AR)-supported mobile applications, brands can both provide consumers with detailed information about products and services, and also affect consumers' perceptions. The main purpose of this research is to determine the effect of augmented reality use in mobile applications on consumers’ behavioral intentions towards the use of the mobile application and perceptions underlying this effect. In this study, by employing the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the effect of augmented reality on behavioral intentions for mobile application use was examined through a structural equation modeling (SEM). Additionally, the effects of the technology anxiety (TA) and consumer novelty seeking (CNS) on perceived augmented reality were also examined. An augmented reality-supported mobile application which makes trying cosmetic products virtually on possible, was used by female consumers (n = 278). The data was collected through a questionnaire. The results indicated that the CNS had a positive and direct effect on perceived augmented reality (PAR); PAR had a positive and direct effect on perceived enjoyment (PE), perceived usefulness (PU), perceived informativeness (PI), and perceived ease of use (PEU). It was also determined that the PE, PU, PI had positive and direct effects on the behavioral intentions to use the application (BIUA).
Both healthcare industry marketers and physicians have been paying more attention to the growth and potential competition in the healthcare market. This research developed a theoretical model for physician brand personality (PBP), which is intended to present applicable traits that professional physicians could consider for increasing their brand personality associations. This scale was developed through the use of some listing and item reduction techniques in combination with the explanatory and confirmatory factor analysis procedures. The findings extend previous research on human brand and brand personalities of physicians and suggest that patients view physician as a human brand with a unique brand personality.
Purpose
To investigate how consumer demographics and motivations may influence their mobile shopping intensity.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey was developed to collect data using SurveyMonkey's online shopper panel. The final sample consisted of 937 mobile shoppers. Linear regression analysis was performed to test the hypotheses.
Findings
Consumers' education and income levels significantly increase their number of mobile purchases, their frequency of purchases, and the amount of money spent on mobile purchases. Males have been found to spend more on mobile shopping than females, while younger people made more mobile purchases than older people. This study also identifies six types of motivations that drive consumers’ mobile shopping intensity, including convenience seeking, bargain hunting, enjoyment seeking, perceived usefulness, ease of use, and innovativeness.
Research limitations/implications
Future research may examine additional motivational measures and situational factors and conduct cross-cultural studies.
Practical implications
Findings from this study can help businesses develop their mobile shopping strategies.
Originality/value
This is the first study to investigate how consumer demographics and motivations may influence their mobile shopping intensity.
Purpose
This paper evaluates how the intention to develop webrooming or showrooming behaviour is affected by both the perceived usefulness and the perceived ease-of-use, as well as by the consumer's personal predisposition to exploratory information seeking and acquisition.
Design/methodology/approach
The fashion retailing environment is more omni-channel than ever before. The two predominant omni-channel behaviours are webrooming and showrooming. Taking as its basis the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the concept of exploratory consumer behaviour.
Findings
The results obtained from a sample of 847 apparel shoppers (462 webroomers and 385 showroomers) show that the higher perception of the usefulness and ease-of-use of omni-channel buying processes, the higher the intention to develop both webrooming and showrooming behaviours. Additionally, the perceived ease-of-use exerts an additional indirect effect on the intention of developing these omni-channel behaviours through perceived usefulness. Finally, exploratory information seeking and acquisition have a relevant influence on webrooming intentions, but not on showrooming.
Originality/value
The authors’ research contributes to the literature on consumer behaviour in the fashion sector by testing a model to explain the intentions of individuals to adopt webrooming and showrooming, incorporating different psychographic variables linked to the use of ICT and the development of an exploratory consumer behaviour.
Collaborative consumption is broadly defined as sharing, obtaining, and giving access to products and services through peer networks online. As it is expected to resolve the societal and environmental problems, quite a few studies investigated consumers’ motivations that lead to positive attitudes and intention for collaborative consumption. This paper aims to study the determinants that motivate participants to perceive a positive attitude towards collaborative consumption focusing on three salient traits of social capital (shared goal, social interaction tie, and norms of reciprocity). The study found that social capital exerts a more substantial influence on intrinsic motivation (enjoyment and sustainability) than extrinsic motivation (economic benefit). The study also found that different social capital traits display different effects on motivation. In particular, the shared goal was a key determinant of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. And all three motivations positively affect collaborative consumption attitudes.
Whether free returns create economic value for online retailers is a question of increasing importance. Using order‐level data from an online fashion retailer in Sweden, we investigate the introduction of free returns for customers in Denmark starting November 1, 2017, but not for customers in Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Germany, and the rest of Europe (the control group). Using difference‐in‐differences, with and without sample matching, the introduction of free returns increased the order bill by 54.95 Swedish Krona (SEK) (9.15%), product variety per order by 0.057 (8.74%), gross margin per order by 29.90 SEK (9.71%), and returns by 0.195 items per order (7.86%). This likelihood of increased returns was generally similar across different product categories. The findings are robust to parallel trends, event studies, placebo effects, alternative control groups (with Scandinavian countries, Sweden and Norway), country‐time trends, and correlations between outcome variables. Based on back‐of‐the‐envelope calculations, the cost of offering free returns is greater than the increase in gross profit driven by free returns. Though our results show that free returns may not be of short‐term benefit, retailers must also consider the long‐term strategic implications of free returns.
An increasing amount of research on Intelligent Systems/Artificial Intelligence (AI) in marketing has shown that AI is capable of mimicking humans and performing activities in an ‘intelligent’ manner. Considering the growing interest in AI among marketing researchers and practitioners, this review seeks to provide an overview of the trajectory of marketing and AI research fields. Building upon the review of 164 articles published in Web of Science and Scopus indexed journals, this article develops a context-specific research agenda. Our study of selected articles by means of Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) procedure outlines several research avenues related to the adoption, use, and acceptance of AI technology in marketing, the role of data protection and ethics, the role of institutional support for marketing AI, as well as the revolution of the labor market and marketers’ competencies.
50 days' free access - no sign-up, registration, or fees are required – available at the following link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296321000643?dgcid=author
In this chapter, we discuss how individual consumption patterns are influenced by social groups. In particular, the chapter focusses on religion as a special type of social group and how the latter can shape consumer decision-making at a personal level. The pervasiveness of religion in consumer decision-making makes it a worthwhile topic for study for marketers; since all consumers, even atheists, belong to one religion or another. It, therefore, follows that all consumers are in fact religious beings. While this is true in most societies, religion, in developing countries constitutes an inextricable part of life - socially and economically. For this reason, the chapter pays special attention to developing countries, as consumption activities in these societies are often flavoured with religious expressions and rituals.
Digital gaps have the potential to exacerbate the inequalities that exist in society. The main objective of this paper is to study the gaps that occur in the use of internet services by households in Spain during the period 2007–2019 and to become useful in the design of policies addressed to narrow specific digital divides. The data is a panel obtained from the ICT-H Survey on Households of the National Statistics Institute. This paper defines the gaps as the differences in the use of internet services across individual consumers. A selected group of twelve digital services are considered: e-commerce, e-selling, e-tourism, e-learning, e-health, e-banking, e-government, VoIP, chat, email, cloud services, and social networks. The second level digital gaps are analyzed in each service according to six relevant socio-demographic characteristics: gender, age, education, digital skills, population size, and income. A set of graphs show the evolution of the gaps. Gaps are narrowing in most dimensions and specific characteristics, but not in others such as age, education, and digital skills. The gaps reveal the evolution of digitization and in some cases of digital exclusion for specific groups. Specific knowledge about digital gaps is useful for policymakers, since closing the digital divide is an explicit policy goal in this country, as well as in other parts of Europe. Then, a dynamic panel data model was proposed and estimated using Arellano and Bond techniques. A dynamic/network effect was found, as well as other socio-demographic determinants. Finally, the paper contains conclusions, policy recommendations and an agenda for future research. The policy recommendations consist of digital education programs targeted at the most exposed groups such as the elderly, the less well-educated and people with lower digital skills.
In the digital transformation era, mobile technology development has brought not only the benefits but the costs for the customer in the transaction via mobile devices. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between personal data disclosure's tradeoff, trust, and attitude loyalty in mobile banking services. The analysis result of Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling confirmed the positive and negative impact of the perceived benefits and perceived costs on perceived value; and the positive relationship between perceived value, trust, and attitude loyalty in the mobile banking services context. Finally, some managerial implications were proposed.
This research investigates the extent to which Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) apps can influence user attitudes and shopping behavior. It empirically explores user experience and examines its effects on consumer perceptions of hedonic and utilitarian gratification, informativeness, and ease of use. Findings indicate perceptions of gratification and informativeness significantly associate with MAR app use. When consumers perceived the MAR app as enjoyable, useful, and contributing to the information acquisition, they were inclined toward a more positive affective response. Practically it provides insights into MAR use, which benefits both consumers and MAR app designers, and influences company marketing strategy.
The aim of this study to investigate factors affecting luxury consumers’ webrooming intention using a moderated mediation framework. The study also investigates the mediating effects of perceived hedonic value and perceived utilitarian value and how these mediating effects are moderated by online risk perceptions. Data were collected using offline survey from 374 luxury consumers in India, using systematic sampling. The results indicated that perceived usefulness of online search, need for touch and socialization have significant impact on webrooming intention. Perceived hedonic value and perceived utilitarian value mediate the effect of variables on webrooming intention and mediation effect of perceived utilitarian value varied between high and low levels of online risk perceptions. Findings of this study will help luxury retailers in managing consumer channel switching behaviour. The study enriches luxury marketing literature by examining emerging webrooming, channel switching phenomenon.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying economic downturn have dramatically impacted the lives of consumers around the world. From a conceptual perspective, such health and economic threats can severely disrupt consumers’ sense of ontological security and elicit adaptive responses by both consumers and marketers. Given the opportune timing, this issue of the Journal of Consumer Research is focused on articles that address questions of consumers’ responses
to external threats. The purpose of this introduction is to provide an organizing “conceptual tapestry” to connect the articles appearing in the issue. This framework is provided as a tool to help researchers structure their particular projects within the broader landscape of consumer threat response and to present some potential directions for future research. In conjunction with these articles, we hope that this conceptual framework will provide a point of departure for researchers seeking to enhance the understanding of how consumers and markets collectively respond over the short term and long term to threats that disrupt consumers’ routines, lives, or even the fabric of society.
Keywords: threat, pandemic, COVID-19, economic, health, consumer insecurity, disruption, consumer response