Service innovativeness in retailing: Increasing the relative attractiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 primarily spreads through close contact between humans and has affected retailing industries extremely hard. To manage the situation retailers have turned to service innovation to change their operations to make consumers feel safe while shopping. This research focuses on the role of service innovativeness in retailing firms during the COVID-19 pandemic through an empirical study of almost 6000 consumers of 28 retailing firms. The results suggested that retailers with high service innovativeness performed COVID-19 imposed innovations better to improve their relative attractiveness. For retailers with physical stores, changes to the servicescape and the offering were found to be the key antecedents of service innovativeness. The findings on COVID-19 imposed service innovations demonstrate the importance of service innovativeness in successfully changing retailing services to adjust to the restrictions from governments and safety needs of customers.     

新冠疫情对中国科技发展环境的影响及应对策略

作为全球重大公共卫生危机,新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情的暴发与传播显示了全球化时代的国际流动特征,也加剧了国际公共产品供给的有限性和国际冲突的复杂性。本文回顾了新冠疫情暴发前的全球科技发展趋势,并讨论新冠疫情暴发对中国科技发展环境的影响,提出了在后疫情时代中国积极开展科技创新和科技合作的战略发展建议。     

Qualitative analysis of customer behavior in the retail industry during the COVID-19 pandemic: A word-cloud and sentiment analysis approach

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a paradigm shift in customer behavior within the retail industry. Pandemic-induced restrictions and fear of product scarcity led to a change in purchasing frequency, with customers stockpiling non-perishable products such as basic foods and hygiene items. Media and social networks also played a significant role in fueling panic-buying behavior. Although sales decreased, consumption in all food categories increased due to the closure of restaurants and the need to prepare meals at home. The pandemic had a significant impact on both customers and retailers, resulting in staff reductions and a change in business strategies.To explore how Romanian food retailers’ representatives responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and adjusted to changing consumer behavior, the authors employed a qualitative research approach based on an interview guide. The data collected were analyzed using the statistical software R. In data analysis with R, the choice of functions used depends on various factors, such as the type of data, research questions, and analysis methods. Generally, commonly used functions in R for data analysis include data cleaning and manipulation functions such as subset, merge, and transform, data visualization functions such as ggplot2, and statistical modeling functions such as lm and glm, resulting in world clouds and a sentiment analysis.The results show that to develop effective business strategies, qualitative analysis helps identify the root causes of these changes. Sentiment analysis can reveal how retail chains representatives perceived the safety measures implemented in stores, such as social distancing and mask-wearing mandates, and how these measures affected customers’ shopping behavior. It also sheds light on how customers shopped and whether they planned to continue using these methods post-pandemic. Understanding these insights is crucial for retail companies to adapt their operations and better serve their customers in the post-pandemic world.     

科学共同体在应对COVID-19疫情中的知识共享

新冠肺炎疫情发生以来,我国科技界积极采取多种方式、通过多个渠道分享了中国的疫情防控经验和相关的最新科研进展。本文梳理了中国科技界为全球范围内抗击新冠肺炎疫情所做的大量努力。中国科技界与国际科技同行的知识共享增进了科学界之间的共识与互信,发挥出科学共同体超越地域、文化、制度界限的独特优势。     

Social determinants of panic buying behaviour amidst COVID-19 pandemic: The role of perceived scarcity and anticipated regret

Panic buying behaviour is inherently undesirable due to its detrimental impact on community's resources and disruptions to supply chain systems. The prevailing COVID-19 pandemic has seen a resurgence of this phenomenon across the world, leaving supermarkets in stockout situations. While panic buying is largely reasoned as a psychological reaction to an extreme event, it is also a socially relevant behaviour as our perception of a crisis can be shaped by our observations and interactions within the society. The social determinants of panic buying behaviour, particularly on how these factors heighten one's perception of scarcity, and trigger panic buying behaviour, are studied. A theoretical model is developed to explain panic buying behaviour in a social context by synthesizing various social and behavioural theories, and the inter-relationship among the latent constructs is analysed using the structural equation modelling approach. Accordingly, an online survey was administered and analysis of the data confirmed that non-coercive social influence, social norm and observational learning directly influence one's perception of scarcity. Additionally, perceived scarcity can motivate panic buying behaviour directly or indirectly through feelings of anticipated regret. This study has contributed to the limited literature on panic buying. Understanding the underlying mechanisms of panic buying will aid policymakers and businesses in developing intervention or support strategies to cope with such behaviour.     

Health insurance coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of Medicaid expansion

Using data from the US Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, we analyzed the likelihood of loss of health insurance and enrollment into new health coverage during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Loss of employment was associated with a significant increase in the likelihood of loss of health insurance and, specifically, an increase in the likelihood of employer-sponsored health insurance. However, individuals in Medicaid expansion states experienced a lower likelihood of loss of health insurance compared with individuals in nonexpansion states. At the same time, there was a statistically significant increase in Medicaid enrollment in expansion states, by 3.2 percentage points. Reemployment or acquiring employment was associated with a gain in health insurance coverage. During an economic downturn, eligibility, and coverage gaps leave many without affordable coverage options, and the pandemic will likely bring renewed attention to gaps in Medicaid coverage in nonexpansion states.     

Crisis challenges of small firms in Macao during the COVID-19 pandemic

This research develops a framework that combines crisis stages, stakeholder engagement, and crisis challenges. The framework is applied to small firms in Macao during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic crisis. We conduct a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with the leaders of six small firms in Macao. The findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a “normal” context, which blurs the traditional crisis termination stage. We also find that participating firms engage more with internal stakeholders than external ones. The strategies adopted by small firms include flexible human resource (HR) practices, cost reduction, enhancing customer relations, and using government support schemes. These strategies are effective in the short term; firms need to pay attention to diversity and learning for the long term.     

Brand competitiveness and resilience to exogenous shock: Usage of smartphone apps during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study examines the factors that affect brand competitiveness in an environment of uncertainty caused by exogenous shocks. In particular, this study focuses on smartphone apps and examines differences between “digital” brands that primarily do business online and “phygital” brands that have already established their brands offline. We also distinguished the highly uncertain environment into multiple phases and found non-linear changes in the magnitude of the parameters. We find that phygital brands have different factors affecting their competitiveness compared to digital brands. The results also provide insights into the online channel strategies of retail companies that already have brand value offline.     

Identifying emergence process of group panic buying behavior under the COVID-19 pandemic

The sudden COVID-19 caused frequent incidents of large-scale material panic buying, resulting in imbalance in supply and demand of goods and threatening social stability. It is of great significance to analyze the formation of group panic buying and help alleviate such action. This paper takes the panic buying phenomenon as the research target, quantifies the internal and external factors affecting individual buying behavior, restores the selection process of individual buying behavior, and constructs the emergence model of group panic buying behavior by using the idea of cluster dynamics. Through simulations, we find that: (1) The epidemic information intensity has a significant impact on the emergence of group rush buying behavior. (2) Government intervention plays a significant role in reducing the scale of group rush buying. Besides, the effects of intervention reach the best before people who do not participate in rush buying disappear. In addition, we also discuss the impact, limitations and future research directions.     

Unusual purchasing behavior during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic: The stimulus-organism-response approach

During the COVID-19 pandemic, unusual consumer behavior, such as hoarding toilet paper, was reported globally. We investigated this behavior when fears of consumer market disruptions started circulating, to capture human behavior in this unique situation. Based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, we propose a structural model connecting exposure to online information sources (environmental stimuli) to two behavioral responses: unusual purchases and voluntary self-isolation. To test the proposed model, we collected data from 211 Finnish respondents via an online survey, and carried out analysis using PLS-SEM. We found a strong link between self-intention to self-isolate and intention to make unusual purchases, providing empirical evidence that the reported consumer behavior was directly linked to anticipated time spent in self-isolation. The results further revealed exposure to online information sources led to increased information overload and cyberchondria. Information overload was also a strong predictor of cyberchondria. Perceived severity of the situation and cyberchondria had significant impacts on people's intention to make unusual purchases and voluntarily self-isolate. Future research is needed to confirm the long-term effects of the pandemic on consumer and retail services.     

Changes in consumption patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic: Analyzing the revenge spending motivations of different emotional groups

People tend to alleviate their negative emotions by shopping. Considering the change of shopping behavior during COVID-19 outbreak, negative emotions are the key contributors to this change. In this light, this study aims to investigate how negative emotions caused by COVID-19 affect shopping behaviors. This study classified consumer groups based on their perceived negative emotions (i.e., anxiety, fear, depression, anger, and boredom). By clustering analysis, four groups (i.e., group of anxiety, depression, anger, and indifference) were derived. Then, this study examined how each of the emotional groups differently affect the shopping-related motivations (i.e., mood alleviation, shopping enjoyment, socialization seeking, and self-control seeking) and shopping behaviors (i.e., shopping for high-priced goods and buying of bulk goods). Results revealed all emotional groups affect socialization seeking and influence high-priced shopping intentions. However, depression and indifference are positively associated with socialization seeking and influence bulk shopping intentions. In addition, other emotions except for anxiety affect mood alleviation and influence high-priced shopping intentions. Finally, anger is associated with self-control seeking and affects bulk shopping intentions. This study enables practitioners and researchers to better understand how people control negative emotions by shopping in pandemic situations such as the current COVID-19 crisis.     

Age-related effects on environmentally sustainable purchases at the time of COVID-19: Evidence from Italy

The present research investigates whether the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has modified consumers' spending on environmentally sustainable products by focusing on the role of age. An empirical study conducted in Italy during the first wave of the pandemic finds that consumers' age affected their reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak, and such age-related effects may have led to an increased propensity to spend on sustainable products. Indeed, the results show that consumers' age is inversely related to their negative affective reaction to the rise of contagion, which, in turn, is inversely related to their level of optimism experienced when the contagion slowed down due to public health interventions. Furthermore, this level of optimism is positively related to consumers’ pro-environmental attitude and, thus, to their tendency to increase sustainable purchases.     

A $10 million question and other cybersecurity-related ethical dilemmas amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Cybercrime and cybersecurity are like two sides of the same coin: They are opposites but cannot exist without each other. Their mutual relation generates a myriad of ethical issues, ranging from minor to vital. The rapid development of technology will surely involve even more ethical concerns, like the infamous example of a fitness tracking company allegedly paying $10 million worth of ransom. Every cybersecurity solution, tool, or practice has to be ethical by design if it is to protect people and their rights. To identify the ethical issues that cybersecurity/cybercrime might bring about in the future, we conducted the first broad and comprehensive horizon-scanning study since the COVID-19 pandemic arose. As we began this project, nobody had the slightest idea that the coming months would bring the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the reality we had known was about to change dramatically. As it soon became apparent, the deadly coronavirus brought completely new cybersecurity/cybercrime ethical dilemmas to light, and some of the ones known before were transformed or shifted. This article presents the results of our horizon-scanning study concerning the ethical dilemmas that emerged amid the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Panic buying in the COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-country examination

The global crisis of COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the world economy and healthcare, igniting much fear, panic, and uncertainty among billions of people. As lockdowns being implemented in many places, panic buying has emerged as a reliable feature of the Coronavirus outbreak. Therefore, it is of urgent needs to examine consumers' panic buying behaviors during COVID-19 to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon and to provide managerial insights for policy-makers and marketers alike. In this study, under the theoretical guidelines of the Stimuli-Organism-Response model and the Competitive Arousal model, we investigate how in the panic situation created by the pandemic, external stimuli such as Limited Quantity Scarcity (LQS) and Limited Time Scarcity (LTS) affect the emotional arousal among people, which in turn influences consumers’ impulsive and obsessive buying behaviors. This study is conducted in a multi-country setting including the U.S., China, India, and Pakistan. Online surveys were conducted during the peak time of pandemic. Our findings show that LQS and LTS significantly increase perceived arousal in consumers, which further leads to more impulsive and obsessive buying. In addition, our results also reveal that excessive social media use intensifies the relationship between scarcity messages and perceived arousal whereas the urge to buy impulsively moderates the relationship between perceived arousal and behavioral outcomes in all selected countries except for India. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed in details.     

The contribution of macroprudential policies to banks' resilience: Lessons from the systemic crises and the COVID-19 pandemic shock

This study examines the effectiveness of macroprudential policies in reducing the banks' risk during the COVID-19 pandemic and compares these results with the systemic banking crises years. Based on a sample of 624 banks across 40 countries during the period 2006–2020, we find that loosening capital-aimed macroprudential policies effectively reduced banks' risk during the COVID-19 pandemic, while this behavior led to increased risk during the systemic crises years. In contrast, tightening the remaining macroprudential policies during the systemic crises years and during the pandemic proved effective in reducing banks' risk. Furthermore, we show that the magnitude of the impact of macroprudential policies was stronger during the systemic crisis than that during the pandemic. Finally, we show that the results are driven by the capital requirement prudential policy, both during the systemic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, although the conservation buffer and the leverage limit also contributes to the ineffectiveness of these policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The banks' leverage and loan growth also play an enhancing role of the effects of the macroprudential policies.     

Business continuity in the COVID-19 emergency: A framework of actions undertaken by world-leading companies

The COVID-19 emergency has urged companies to operate in new ways to face supply chain interruptions, shifts in customer demand, and risks to workforce health. The organizational ability to respond to critical contingencies is crucial for business leaders in the perspective of continuing business. In our research, we investigate the actions undertaken by 50 world-leading corporations to respond to the pandemic. Applying content analysis to web pages and social network posts, we extract 77 actions related to 13 sub-areas and integrate these into a five-level framework that encompasses operations, customer, workforce, leadership, and community-related responses. We also describe six illustrative company examples of how the emergency can generate opportunities for creating new value. The study advances the scholarly discussion on the impact of emergencies on business continuity and can help leaders define response strategies and actions in the current challenge.     

Lessons from the COVID19 pandemic: The case of retail and consumer service firms

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted business operations in every industry and sector around the world. Scholars, practitioners and policymakers continue to engage in understanding the effects of lockdowns, social distancing measures and other restrictions on trade; the impact of government stimulus and support measures, and how businesses have adapted their operations. The dynamic nature of the virus, and the changing socio-political and economic landscape, provide the opportunity for empirical scholarly research examining how retail and service firms have responded to the challenges and potential opportunities presented by the pandemic, and how owner/managers have pivoted in an (often) uncertain trading environment. This paper presents the findings of an applied study involving business owners (N = 268) of SME retail and service firms in the island state of Tasmania, in Australia, during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020. Findings show: (1) despite over 65 per cent of respondents reporting a downturn in revenue during 2020, almost 80 per cent indicated they had confidence in business survival heading into 2021; (2) whilst on average, businesses did not rate the level of environmental hostility as being particularly high, there was a significant correlation between perceived environmental hostility and assessment of business performance and with the level of confidence of business survival; (3) Australian federal government support and other stimulus measures were deemed crucial for business survival during 2020 with three quarters of businesses accessing the ‘JobKeeper’ scheme, and (4) businesses adapted their operations during the pandemic in terms of new products and services, increased marketing, pivoting their use of technology and promoting ‘localness’.     

The panic buying behavior of consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining the influences of uncertainty,perceptions of severity,perceptions of scarcity,and anxiety

The lack of a vaccine for COVID-19 and the limited amount of reliable data on the cessation of the disease have made people feel more vulnerable to the disease. As a result, people in many countries have been found to engage in panic purchasing, which has adversely affected the supply system for the retail market. Applying behavioral inhibition system theory, reactance theory, and expectancy theory, this research examines how psychological factors such as uncertainty, perceptions of severity, perceptions of scarcity, and anxiety affected the panic purchasing behavior of consumers. This study was conducted in Malaysia in light of the 2020 outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results from structural equation modeling indicate that uncertainty, and perceptions of scarcity are positively associated with anxiety but not with the panic purchasing behavior of consumers. In addition, anxiety fully mediates the relationship among these variables and the panic purchasing behavior of consumers. Taken together, these findings provide support for doing more empirical research in order to develop a more resilient retail strategy and to improve consumer service.     

Business resilience: Lessons from government responses to the global COVID-19 crisis

This study explores the survival of firms across countries, and what factors contribute to their ability to withstand large-scale exogenous shocks, focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic. Using corporate default risk as a measure of non-resilience, our empirical results from 97 countries reveal that stringent COVID-19 containment measures created a significant resilience test for businesses worldwide. Further tests suggest that cash holdings, knowledge assets, international sales, and access to foreign capital markets are crucial for global businesses to pull through exogenous shocks. Country-level institutional qualities also play an essential role in shaping business resilience during a crisis. Our study is the first to comprehensively analyze the drivers of business resilience across diverse countries using the COVID-19 outbreak as a major global crisis, providing a nuanced understanding of this topic in international business.