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This study explores the response of consumer confidence in policy uncertainty in the Japanese context. The study also considers the dynamism of stock market behavior and financial stress and its impact on consumer confidence, which has remained unaddressed in the literature. The role of these control variables has important implications for policy discussions, particularly when other countries can learn from Japanese experiences.

The nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model postulated by Shin et al. (2014) was used for studying the asymmetric response of consumer confidence to policy uncertainty. This method has improved estimates compared to traditional linear cointegration methods.

The findings confirm the asymmetric impact of policy uncertainty on the consumer confidence index in Japan. The impact of the rise in policy uncertainty is greater than that of a fall in asymmetry on consumer confidence in Japan. Furthermore, the Wald test confirmed asymmetric behavior.

The contribution of this study is threefold. First, this study contributes to the extant literature by analyzing the asymmetric response of consumer confidence to policy uncertainty, controlling for both the financial stress and stock price indices. Second, to test the robustness of the exercise, the study utilized different frequencies of observations. Third, this study is the first to utilize the concept of Arbatli et al. (2017) to formulate a combined index of uncertainty based on economic policy uncertainty index, along with uncertainty indices such as fiscal, monetary, trade and exchange rate policies to study the overall impact of policy uncertainty.

This research's main objective is to investigate the relationship between consumption expenditure and consumer confidence in the USA and to study their effects on US economic revivalism during and after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) shock.

The authors use Michigan's monthly Consumer Sentiment Index and its five components from January 1978 to April 2020. The study is unique in quantifying the potential variations in US consumer confidence due to COVID-19 under different scenarios, by providing a projection until December 2021. It also estimates the time needed for recovery and offers guidance to policymakers on ways to contain the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the economy by restoring consumer confidence.

All scenarios show a gradual recovery of consumer confidence and consumption expenditure. This study recommends expansionary policies to encourage consumption expenditure to generate additional demand and boost economic growth and job creation.

Though this study is limited to the US consumer confidence index, it offers significant implications for marketers, customers and policymakers of other developed economies. The authors recommend expansionary economic policies to boost consumer confidence, raise economic growth and result in job creation.

The study is unique in quantifying the potential variations in US consumer confidence due to COVID-19 under different scenarios; by providing a projection until December 2021. It also estimates the time needed for recovery and guidance for policymakers on ways to contain the COVID-19 shock negative impacts on the economy by restoring consumer confidence.

The purpose of this study is to examine the propagation of consumer and business confidence in the euro area with a particular focus on the global financial crisis (GFC), the European sovereign debt crisis (ESDC) and the COVID-19-induced Great Lockdown.

The authors apply Diebold and Yilmaz’s connectedness framework and the improved method based on the time-varying parameter vector autoregressive model.

The authors find that although the evolution of business confidence marked the GFC and the ESDC the role of consumer confidence (mainly in those countries with stricter containment and closure measures) increased in the COVID-19-induced crisis.

The findings are related to the different origins of the examined crisis periods, and the analysis of their interrelationship is a very relevant topic for future research.

Cruising is one of the industries most susceptible to the current COVID-19 health crisis, due to the closed environment and the contacts between cruisers and crewmembers. This study aims to understand if the perceived crowding and the health risk perception related to the pandemic situation might threaten passengers’ intentions to cruise. The study also examines corporate reputation and trust, as well as social motivation and self-confidence, as possible predictors of consumers’ intention to cruise.

The study is based on the development of a structured questionnaire submitted online via social media. Overall, 553 individuals’ responses were used for understanding the factors that can affect consumers’ intention to cruise by performing several regression models.

The results show that the perceived crowding related to the pandemic does not seem to influence people’s intention to cruise. On the contrary, trust in the cruise company, corporate reputation, cruisers’ self-confidence and research of social motivation are positive predictors of intention to cruise, thus reducing the perceived risk’s deterring impact. The importance of such factors differs in respect of repeat and not repeat cruisers.

The study presents several managerial implications as it analyses the variables that could help cruise management cope better with COVID-19’s negative impact.

Despite the severity of COVID-19’s impact on the cruise industry, no studies have yet focussed on how the current pandemic situation may influence customers’ intention to cruise in the future.

The study builds on studies in online shopping. Existing studies in online shopping proved that it is an attraction to shoppers. In Nigeria's emerging economy the increasing Internet penetration does not equate with intention to use online shopping because it is not really used by users for online shopping. Consumers are considering it unattractive because of serious concerns that border on product quality of online shops and poor know-how on e-tech. The study sought to explore factors that could mitigate challenges to successful online shopping in Nigeria's emerging economy.

Online survey method was used to sample 246 respondents. Measurement items were adapted from related literature. Confirmatory factor analysis and content validity were used to check the reliability and validity. A set of fit indices were used to check the goodness of fit. Data was analysed using structural equation model.

Results indicate direct effects of consumer attitude, perceived usefulness and social influence on intention to use online shopping with consumer attitude shown to have a greater degree of importance towards intention to use online shopping. Thus, consumers' attitude of browsing online and going offline for purchases is dependent on attitude of like or dislike. Perceived ease of use, social influence and perceived usefulness had an indirect positive effect on consumer attitude to intention to use online shopping. Social influence is indicated to have a direct positive effect on perceived ease of use. Also perceived ease of use had a positive and direct effect on perceived usefulness.

The sample size is not large enough and the use of snowball sampling limits representativeness.

The study indicated vital factors African emerging economies like Nigeria can use to improve consumer confidence towards intention to use online shopping and drive cashless policies. Several studies have missed the indirect effect of referents (social influence) on adoption of technology. The study proved that it can produce indirect effect as well as direct effect on intention to use online shopping.

Several studies have missed the indirect effect of referents (social influence) on adoption of technology. The study proved that it can produce indirect effect as well as direct effect on online shopping.

Several e-payment technologies have diffused in Nigeria yet debit card usage on POS devices have not shown consumer confidence in its usage thereby affecting the cashless policy drive of the nation. The study considered an affective commitment of users as moderating their behaviours. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how user behaviour is moderated by an affective commitment on point of sale terminal.

Following the purpose of the study, the research design is a survey. The questionnaire was adapted from earlier studies and tested for reliability and validity using Cronbach’s alpha and content validity. Andrew F. Hayes process was used to analyse the moderation effect.

The finding revealed that affective commitment significantly moderates users’ ease of use of the device, their perceived usefulness of the device and their social image on their intentions to use the device.

The findings implied that there is a need for the development of policies and strategies which should be directed towards the users of the device. Equally, the general conclusions on collective e-payment channels in a society should be discarded given that each e-payment channel can have different factors influencing it than the others. This is where customer-focused advertising and awareness campaign becomes very important.

This paper declares that the research work is not submitted anywhere for publication or for review. It was conducted by the authors who have given their consent for it to be submitted to Rajagiri management journal

This paper aims to determine what the brand performance consequences of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities would be during times of recession for well-known brands.

Based on signaling theory, this paper investigates if CSR activities serve to signal higher brand value for consumers via perceptions of better quality and greater differentiation, specifically during recessions. This study incorporates a representative longitudinal sample of known US firms for the analyses, which is accomplished through generalized method of moments estimations.

The findings empirically demonstrate that CSR initiatives during recessions are actually associated with increased perceptions of brand value. More specifically, during recessions, CSR initiatives such as charitable contributions provide a signal to customers of higher brand quality.

This study did not control for the costs of doing specific CSR activities that may be less visible to consumers.

While individual firms or managers may not be able to prevent recessions from happening, they can limit the negative impact of recessions on their performance by engaging in CSR activities (or refrain from cutting back) during these times.

Because CSR initiatives during recessions result in more favorable consumer perceptions of the brand, engaging in CSR aligns both social and managerial interests, owing to the economic gains from CSR investments.

During times of recession, some critics indicate that CSR may be an unaffordable luxury. On the contrary, this research shows that managers may want to consider CSR activities as a means of increasing the value of their brands, especially during economic recessions.

This paper examines whether guests contribute sWOM (social word of mouth) on different SNSs (social networking sites) regarding various personal motivations. SNSs have changed the way guests eat and experience their food and dishes. Marketing managers have effectively targeted SNSs as a marketing tool, yet have little research about drivers of guests' sWOM contribution on SNSs has been done. A model including the significant motives: (1) experiences, (2) opinion leadership, (3) reflection of self and (4) need for unique is tested to investigate their positive effects on contribution behavior of social media guests.

The data collected from 411 guests by using the snowball method was used for analysis. The structural equation modeling was applied to examine the relationships among the constructs and test the eight proposed hypotheses.

Results reveal that experiences, opinion leadership, reflection of self and need for unique were positively associated with contributing sWOM of restaurants. Furthermore, those who have positive experiences tend to be opinion leadership and reflection of self. And guests who show reflection of self, they are more likely to have opinion leaders and show need for uniqueness. Our study expands the existing frameworks of sWOM contribution by identifying various motivations and labeling sWOM. Findings provide restaurant managers with managerial implications for online marketing strategies on SNSs to attract sWOM contribution among guests.

It has some limitations while discovering the motivations of positive sWOM contribution. First, we only focused on the motivation of contributing positive sWOM, while negative sWOM received many arguments in changing attitudes toward buying products or services. Second, we collected data in Vietnam only without comparing with different countries. Future research could explore further cross-cultural perspectives to fill the gap. Third, this study explored sWOM contribution in service environment, sWOM contribution from service context may be slightly different from those of product brands.

These findings highlight the motivations of sWOM contribution that restaurant managers must recognize and make use of it. SNSs have given power to consumers to post everything at anytime and anywhere they like, therefore restaurant managers need to deeply understand why their consumers contribute sWOM. In digital era, customers and guests have become the ultimate tools for promoting product or service brands. The marketing managers should create an online platform in order to facilitate their consumers to discuss their brand frequently (Charu et al., 2018). Restaurants should have policies to push positive eWOM maximally and also reduce advertising costs.

This is one of the first studies on sWOM contribution of what motivate guests to contribute their sWOM on SNSs. Theoretically, this study offers deep insights into the links between various motivations and sWOM in foodservice context. Managerially, understanding these motivations allow marketing managers create effective policies that motivate guests to contribute positive word of mouth.

In a modern world increasingly perceived as uncertain, the mere purchase of a household cleaning product, or a seemingly harmless bottle of milk, conveys interrogations about potential hazards, from environmental to health impacts. The main purpose of this paper is to suggest that risk could be considered as one of the major dimensions of choice for a wide range of concerns and markets, alongside aspiration/satisfaction, and tackled efficiently by mobilizing the recent findings of cognitive sciences, neurosciences and evolutionary psychology. It is felt that consumer research could benefit more widely from psychological and evolutionary-grounded risk theories.

In this study, some 50 years of marketing management literature, as well as risk-specialized literature, was examined in an attempt to get a grasp of how risk is handled by consumer sciences and of whether they make some use of the most recent academic works on mental biases, non-mainstream decision-making processes or evolutionary roots of behavior. We then tested and formulated several hypotheses regarding risk profiles and preferences in the sector of insurance, by participating in an Axa Research Fund–Paris School of Economics research project.

It is suggested that consumer profiles could be enriched by risk-taking attitudes, that risk could be part of the “reason why” of brand positioning, and that brand, as well as public policy communication, could benefit from a targeted use of risk perception biases.

This paper proposes to apply evolutionary-based psychological concepts to build perceptual maps describing people and consumers on both aspiration and risk attitude axis, and to design communication tools according to psychological research on message framing and biases. Such an approach mobilizes not only the recent findings of cognitive sciences and neurosciences but also the understanding of the roots of risk attitudes and perception. Those maps and framing could probably be applied to many sectors, markets and public issues, from commodities to personal products and services (food, luxury goods, electronics, financial products, tourism, design or insurance).

This paper aims to consider the role of geopolitical risk in explaining tourism demand in India, a major tourist destination of the Asian region. Furthermore, the study also considers how in addition to geopolitical risk, economic policy uncertainty, economic growth, exchange rate, inflation and trade openness impact tourism demand.

The Bayer and Hanck (2013) method of cointegration is applied to explore the relationship between geopolitical risk and tourism demand. Furthermore, the study has also used the auto distributed lag model to determine whether there is a long-run cointegrating association between tourism demand, geopolitical risk, economic policy uncertainty, economic growth, exchange rate and trade openness. Finally, the vector error correction model confirms the direction of causality across the set of the major variables.

This paper finds that geopolitical risk adversely impacts inbound international travel to India. This study also obtains the consistency of the results across different estimation techniques controlling for important macro variables. The Granger causality test confirms the unidirectional causality from geopolitical risk to tourism and further from economic uncertainty to tourism. The findings from the study confirm that geopolitical risks have long-term repercussions on the tourism sector in India. The results indicate that there is an urgent need to develop a pre-crisis management plan to protect the aura of Indian tourism. The tourism business houses should develop skilful marketing strategies in the post-crisis to boost the confidence of the tourists.

This paper provides valuable practical implications to tourism business houses. The tourism business houses can explore geopolitical risk measure and economic policy uncertainty measure to analyse the demand for international tourism in India. Further, the major stakeholders can establish platforms to help tourists to overcome the fear associated with geopolitical risk.

This study is the first of its kind to explore the geopolitical risks and their long-run consequences in the context of tourism in India. The study puts emphasis on the role of national policy to maintain peace otherwise it would be detrimental to tourism.