Online consumer shopping behaviour: A review and research agenda

Over the last two decades, motivated by the continuous evolution of the technology-driven retail environment, researchers have studied various aspects of online consumer behaviour. This article attempts to take stock of this environment to critically assess the research gaps in the domain and provide future research directions. Applying a well-grounded systematic methodology following the TCCM (theory, context, characteristics and methodology) framework, 197 online consumer shopping behaviour articles were reviewed. The findings reveal that the application of theories remains limited in the current pool of literature that focuses more on developed nations. While studies have primarily considered categories such as apparel and grocery, in terms of methodology experimental and survey-based studies were most common. Additionally, the article suggests some future research directions. The use of combined theories to better understand technology acceptance by consumers of online-shopping is recommended. Similarly, studies across other categories like online experiential luxury, luxury services, or second-hand products that then link to novel constructs reflecting issues with payment methods, online service quality, and online store atmosphere are portrayed as meaningful avenues that will advance research in the domain.     

Embedded autonomy,political institutions,and access orders

We construct a model of “embedded autonomy,” the idea that the closeness of bureaucrats and business people may lead to growth-promoting policies by the government, though at the risk of leading to crony capitalism. We analyze how the level of monitoring to control corruption and the weight given to the future affect the nature of the possible outcomes. We explore possible tradeoffs between growth and inclusiveness and discuss how our model relates to more general concepts of inclusiveness of institutions, as framed by Acemoglu and Robinson, or the nature of “access orders,” as introduced by North, Wallis, and Weingast.     

Modelling the antecedents of consumers' willingness to pay for eco-labelled food products

The purpose of this paper is to model the antecedents of consumers' willingness to pay for eco-labelled food products. This research utilizes the Theory of Planned Behaviour to model the impact of consumers' awareness of eco-labels, environmental concerns, beliefs in the environmental ability of eco-labels, and presence of children on their willingness to pay for eco-labelled food products. This study uses structural equational modelling and PROCESS macros, to test the moderated mediation model on a sample of 333 online responses. Findings suggest the impact of consumers' environmental concerns and eco-label awareness on their willingness to pay for eco-labelled food products is partially mediated by consumers' belief in the environmental ability of these eco-labels. The relationship is further moderated by the presence of children living in the household. This study establishes the value of consumers' beliefs in the environmental ability of eco-labels and implies that communication strategies need to be carefully refined to provide consumers with more information about eco-labels and to emphasize the environmental ability of eco-labels utilized within the food industry as this can have an impact on their willingness to pay for these products, especially for consumers, who have children in the same household.     

Consumers' willingness to pay for corporate social responsibility: Theory and evidence

In an era when consumers believe that businesses should engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR), it is vital to understand how it affects consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for the goods and services offered by such businesses. There is a need for an in-depth study into the relationship between CSR and WTP, and to identify the mediators and the moderators affecting this relationship. To investigate this, we conducted a systematic literature review based on a preliminary search result of 116 unique articles indexed on this topic in four bibliographic databases—Scopus, Google Scholar, Dimensions and Web of Science—published over the previous seven decades. The findings confirm the overall positive effect of CSR on WTP. This study also reveals the indirect effect between CSR and WTP, mediated by variables like Brand Trust, Brand Loyalty, Brand Love, Customer Satisfaction, Brand Attitude, Purchase Intention and Brand Equity. The relationship is impacted by moderators, including demographics, cause-based aspects, company characteristics, personal aspects and types of products. The theory explaining the evidence of each of these aspects provides a deeper understanding of the relationship between CSR and WTP, and the intervening variables. Based on these, a conceptual framework of this relationship involving all the variables is developed. The Theory, Context and Method (TCM) framework is employed to identify gaps and systematically make recommendations for future research. The findings of this study will aid marketers in developing pricing strategies based on a thorough understanding of consumer behaviour in terms of CSR perceptions. Scholars can use this study's conceptual framework to examine previously unexplored relationships. As the literature on CSR and its influence on consumers' purchase behaviour grows, this comprehensive systematic literature review on the effects of CSR on WTP fills an important gap.     

(Farmer) Producer Companies in India as new generation cooperatives: Case studies of performance and impact from West Bengal,India

One of the innovative alternatives to the traditional cooperative structure has been the new generation cooperatives or cooperative companies, known as producer companies (PCs) in India since the early 2000s. This paper examines the impact of PCs on the member farmer livelihoods, which is not well studied, with the help of member and non-member farmer interview survey in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is found that though the PCs were inclusive of small farmers in their membership, the PC interface with members for farm inputs was not very strong and the output linkage was poor, reaching only a small proportion of member farmers. The Sufal Bangla public supermarket franchise by some PCs was found to make a large difference to the PC performance and its impact on member farmers. The small size of membership in most case study PCs hindered the equity size, leading to working capital and market interface constraints. Therefore, it is important to encourage members to contribute more equity and to reward their output linkage.     

Voting decision-making of low-income consumers: Literature review and research agenda

This review article examines why and how low-income voters decide to vote for a political candidate. A total of 163 articles in the last 80 years (1944–2023) have been identified through a systematic literature review. Thereafter, the fragmented literature has been organized using a fusion of 3W1H and TCCM (Theory, context, characteristics, and method) frameworks to obtain a comprehensive overview of the low-income voters' behaviour. Accordingly, the study has explained the voting contexts of poor consumers. Besides, the fundamental theories and methods employed in this research domain have been identified. This study revealed three characteristics of ‘voting choice’ of low-income consumers (group identity, communication characteristics, and political environment characteristics) that have been further classified under several sub-themes. This review article pioneers to provide an integrated and organized analysis of the literature on the voting behaviour of low-income consumers, highlighting critical research gaps in theories, contexts, methods, and antecedents that future researchers can examine to extend the discourse in this realm.     

Emotions and consumer behaviour: A review and research agenda

Consumers' emotions play a salient role in consumers' buying process, their consumption behaviours, and their engagement with product/service offerings, owing to which, it has gained much attention in recent years as an area of inquiry. However, literature in this field/subject is theoretically fragmented. Therefore, to enhance the conceptual understanding, this study synthesizes extant literature, using a hybrid review approach. Herein, we attempt to integrate bibliometric analysis, along with the theories, contexts, characteristics, and methodology framework, while consolidating and classifying the domain knowledge, trends, and progress/citation analysis using the bibliometric approach. In the process, we reviewed 384 conceptual and empirical articles, published during the period 1967–2021. The idea was to identify key theories, constructs, research contexts, and methods, based on which, we propose a few potential research areas. Based on our thorough analysis, these areas include (1) consumer co-creation, (2) consumer engagement, (3) service employee interactions, (4) consumer decision making, and (5) consumption experience.     

Examining the Time Varying Spillover Dynamics of Indian Financial Indictors from Global and Local Economic Uncertainty

Journal of Quantitative Economics - The research aims to excavate the role of global (Fed Rate, Crude, Real Dollar Index) and endogenous economic variables (GDP and Consumer Price Index) in shaping...     

The role of investor attention in idiosyncratic volatility puzzle and new results

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We find that stocks with low investor attention show a more substantial return-idiosyncratic volatility puzzle than stocks with high investor...     

Emergence of subprime lending in minority neighborhoods

Subprime lending is concentrated in minority neighborhoods. However, the literature provides little evidence for what led to this concentration. We use the endorsement of credit scores in mortgage underwriting by the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) in 1995 to answer this question. We show that prime lenders were substituted by subprime lenders in minority neighborhoods. As a result, the share of subprime lending increased by 5 percentage points in minority neighborhoods, relative to nonminority neighborhoods. Prime lenders with a stronger relationship with the GSEs reduced their lending in minority neighborhoods more, and the level of securitization by the GSEs in minority neighborhoods also decreased.