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Consumers are assumed to engage in external information search only after exhausting their internal information sources. Guided by the accessibility/diagnosticity and ease-of-retrieval frameworks, and the elaboration likelihood model, the current study investigates this phenomenon.

To test the relationships between internal information accessibility/diagnosticity and the importance of external search, and the moderating role of involvement in these relationships, 308 responses were collected on Amazon MTurk. Then, structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data.

The analyses showed that while accessibility and diagnosticity of internal information have an impact on external information search, involvement with the product class has a consequential moderating effect on these relationships. In particular, in the low-involvement group, only the diagnosticity of internal information had a negative effect on external information search. On the contrary, in the high-involvement group, only accessibility of internal information had a negative effect.

These findings highlight the possibility of drawing erroneous conclusions resulting from not incorporating involvement, in conjunction with information accessibility and diagnosticity, in the study of the consumer external information search behavior.

The findings also imply that if practitioners aim to prime consumers to engage in external information search, they need to take into account that the effects of internal information's accessibility and diagnosticity on consumers' external search behavior may be different depending on their levels of involvement.

This study's results showed that without considering the moderating effect of involvement, spurious conclusions may be made about the relationships between accessibility and diagnosticity of internal and external information importance. This finding may explain the discrepancy between the accessibility/diagnosticity and ease-of-retrieval frameworks, thus enriching the literature.

This study aims to find the determinants of internal and external customer satisfaction of Islamic banks of Pakistan through service quality indicators that are assurance, reliance, empathy, tangibility, responsiveness. Compliance has also been added as a determinant of customer satisfaction. In this study, customers are divided into two groups, internal customers are those who are an employee in the Islamic bank and also an account holder. While external customers are account holders only in Islamic banks of Pakistan.

In this study, a quantitative research approach is used for analyzing the behavior of internal and external customers of Islamic banks in Pakistan. The instrument which is used to analyze the study’s data, is a structured five-point Likert-scale questionnaire. The structural model was analyzed with the help of the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach.

This study concluded that internal customers of Islamic banking are well aware and have full information and their level of satisfaction is positive toward the bank’s services. While external customers feel satisfied while using the Islamic banking services in Pakistan. Service quality indicators are positively and significantly related to customer satisfaction in the external customer model. On the other hand, some of the indicators are not showing a significant impact on the internal customer multi-group analysis shows a difference of coefficients are insignificant between internal and external customers.

This study helps policymakers, to understand the behavior of internal and external customers of Islamic banking in Pakistan for creating favorable policies for an interest-free banking service.

This research study provides an analysis of the customer satisfaction of Islamic banks in Pakistan by dividing Islamic bank customers into two groups (internal and external customers). The purpose for dividing Islamic bank customers into two groups is that this study wants to highlight that external customer’s perception is the same as internal customers or not? Before this study, it is difficult to find single research on this topic, whereas only one study is find-out on the factors that affect internet banking adoption among internal and external customers.

COVID-19 and its precautions, including social distancing, have revolutionized traditional retailing- and consumption patterns. In this turbulent environment, the purpose of this study is twofold. First, this paper explores the direct effect of consumers’ internal/external health locus-of-control on their hygiene consciousness, which, in turn, affects their social distancing behavior. Second, this study posits that social distancing, in turn, impacts consumers’ current online grocery shopping behavior and their future online grocery shopping intentions, thus uncovering important insight.

To address these gaps, this paper develops a model that links consumers’ internal/external health locus-of-control to their adoption of e-tailing-based grocery services. Data collected through a web-based survey was analyzed by using partial least squares-based structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that consumers’ health locus-of-control indirectly affects the way they shop for their groceries during the pandemic. In particular, consumers’ internal (external) health locus-of-control drives higher (lower) hygiene consciousness and greater (lower) social distancing behavior. In turn, consumers’ online grocery shopping behavior was found to increase during the pandemic, with their corresponding intent to continue this behavior in the future. Moreover, this study finds the effects of consumers’ social distancing on their current grocery shopping behavior and future intentions to be contingent on consumer age, with stronger effects identified for older consumers.

This study shows how consumers’ internal/external health loci-of-control exert opposing effects on their social distancing behavior, as mediated by hygiene consciousness. Overall, the empirical analyzes corroborate the association of consumers’ social distancing- and online grocery shopping behavior (for consumers of different age profiles), both during and after the pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to understand consumers’ purchase intention toward green apparel products using the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Specifically, this study aimed to compare US and Chinese consumers to understand how green apparel behaviors differ by a country’s green market status and cultural differences.

By employing two antecedents, man-nature orientation and environmental knowledge into the TPB framework, a theoretical model was proposed and tested to explain how and to what extent each variable affected the purchase intention of US and Chinese consumers. To compare the two countries consumers’ purchase intention, moderating effects were proposed. To test this model, a total of 437 valid data sets were collected at universities in the USA and China.

Findings indicated that the subjective norm was found to have the highest direct influence on purchase intention in both countries. Regarding internal perceived behavioral control (PBC) and external PBC, internal PBC was important for purchase intention in the US consumers while external PBC significantly influenced purchase intention among Chinese consumers. For the USA, two indirect antecedents to purchase intention (man-nature orientation and environmental knowledge) positively influenced variables in the TPB. In contrast, for China, the path between man-nature orientation and attitude toward green apparel products was not supported, but all other paths were supported. Only environmental knowledge (indirect antecedent) positively influenced internal PBC. Country moderating effects were not tested because of lack of supported evidence of invariance tests.

This study is an empirical research that focuses on purchase intention of green apparel products rather than on the production of green textiles, a topic that has received considerable attention in previous studies. This research is based on TPB with specified indirect antecedents to purchase intention. By testing the proposed model, the study explains the paths from two indirect antecedents (i.e. man-nature orientation and environmental knowledge) to the intent to purchase green apparel products. Therefore, academically, this study contributes to understanding the interrelationships among the factors that lead to purchase intention of green apparel products.

The current research aims to explore the differential effects of bundling products with guarantees (explicit promises of product performance) or with diagnostic kits (kits that allow the user to measure actual product performance) on pre‐purchase product evaluations. It is proposed that when product performance evaluation relies on external sources of information, the effect of a guarantee exceeds the effect of a self‐diagnostic kit. However, when product performance evaluation relies on internal information or self‐reports, product evaluations are better leveraged by an offer of a diagnostic kit than by a guarantee.

The first study examines the differential effects of guarantees and of diagnostic kits on pre‐purchase evaluations of hypothetical products as a function of the mode of evaluation of product performance (internal versus external information sources). The second study explores these effects on pre‐purchase evaluations of actual products, and further includes a control condition.

The findings confirm the hypothesis that a guarantee (diagnostic kit) leads to higher product evaluations than a diagnostic kit (guarantee) when product performance evaluation relies on external (internal) sources of information.

The relative benefits of bundling guarantees or diagnostic kits to product offers have not been examined to date. The current research not only demonstrates this relative effect and its underlying mechanism, but also identifies the product attributes that contribute to this effect.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of perceived control on product preferences of consumers under self-threat.

By conducting four experiments, this paper manipulated the participants’ self-threat and three sources of perceived control – namely, the controllability of the threat itself, the internal and external locus of control of the individual and priming the existing positive or negative experience of the individuals. After the manipulations, the participants’ product preferences for self-growth goods or hedonic goods were measured.

The findings of this research indicated that when consumers have a higher perceived control of the threats they are facing, they are more likely to adopt problem-focused coping strategies and show a preference for self-growth goods, which can help them resolve their threats. However, when consumers have a lower perceived control on the threats they are facing, they are more likely to adopt emotion-focused coping strategies and show a preference for hedonic goods, which can help them adjust their emotions.

This paper systematically confirms the interactive effect of perceived control and self-threat on consumers’ product preferences, as well as the meditation role of problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. It also provides insights for marketers to know what factors may affect consumers’ preferences for products in self-threat situations, thus contributing to marketing practices.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the push and pull factors associated with the consumption of Chinese Table Tennis Super League (CTTSL) game events by online audiences and on-site attendants.

Conducting a comprehensive review of literature and a test of content validity, a questionnaire was formulated to assess push and pull motives, event consumption, and sociodemographic variables. A total of 433 CTTSL event consumers, including 225 respondents who primarily followed CTTSL game events via television and webcasting and 208 respondents who primarily consumed the events by attending live game events.

Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that for online consumers, two push factors, self-esteem and drama excitement, were found to be positively related to the event consumption factors; whereas, social interaction and sport performance factors were found to be negatively predictive of event consumption factors. For on-site consumers, none of the push and pull factors were found to be related to the consumption factors.

These results indicate that unlike research findings derived in other research settings mainly conducted in Western countries, push and pull factors are more functional for online CTTSL consumers who are of comparatively stronger fandom level, which are likely affected by CTTSL’s contemporary operations.

Enriching the dual process theory through examining its applicability in studying sport consumer behavior, from both perspectives of internal and external motivations; applying theories and research findings of internal and external motivations that have primarily been derived in Western countries into a professional sport setting in China; identifying unique and diverse perspectives of professional table tennis consumers in China between online and on-site consumers; contrary to the findings derived in Western countries, the motivational factors are more functional for online CTTSL consumers who are of comparatively stronger fandom level, which are likely affected by CTTSL’s contemporary operations; and conducting micro-perspective analyses to study Chinese sport consumer behaviors, which has rarely been done in contemporary scholarly inquiries in China.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the influences of consumers’ internal-oriented psychological factors (i.e. self- promotion, need for uniqueness, self-expression and self-monitoring) and external-oriented psychological properties (i.e. social identity and other-directedness) on the perception of customization and the sense of extended-self; further to identify whether the perception of customization and the sense of extended-self lead to purchase intention toward customized apparel products.

Data were collected through an online survey among college students in the USA, generating a valid sample size of 338 participants. Factor analysis and Structural Equation Modeling were utilized to test proposed hypotheses.

The results indicated that need for uniqueness and self-monitoring were significantly related to consumers’ perception of customization and the sense of extended-self, whereas impacts of self-expression and other-directedness were not significant. Furthermore, the results also confirmed that consumers’ perception of customization and the sense of extended-self were positively associated with purchase intention of customized apparel products.

This study investigates consumers’ psychological features that influence consumers’ buying intention of customized apparel products, which is the first attempt. The study results are insightful and beneficial for marketers to construct target consumer segmentation under different cultural and social settings.

This study aims to reveal consumers' internal and external motivations to prefer online food shopping. The paper proposes an integrated model including aspirations, capabilities, subjective norms (divided into online resources and offline resources), perceived value and traditionalism to examine their effects on consumers' intention to do online food shopping.

A cross–sectional design was used to understand which factors affect consumers' intention to do online food shopping. The data were collected from a total of 400 people via an online survey. The conceptual model was tested using structural equational modeling to understand the relationships between the factors.

The results suggest that the conceptual framework can be used to have a better understanding of consumers' internal and external motivations to do online food shopping. The study proves that aspirations have a considerable direct effect on and a mediating role between capabilities, subjective norms from online resources, traditionalism and the effect of COVID-19 pandemics and the intention. Also, traditionalism was found to be an antecedent for consumers to prefer online food shopping.

This study reveals better insights for the sellers, marketers and system providers dealing with supplying food products through online channels. The findings suggest that the stakeholders take into consideration aspirations, capabilities, subjective norms, perceived value and traditionalism to organize their activities in food marketing in the online area.

In this study, aspirations–capabilities framework was adopted and confirmed within consumers' online food shopping domain. Also, it was proved that traditionalism was a driver of individuals' intention to do online shopping for food products.

This study examines the effectiveness of Zero-Contact Marketing that minimizes contact between employees and consumers in marketplaces by adopting an integrated research framework of motivation theory, servicescape model and the theory of reasoned action (TRA).

This study randomly collected 314 respondents through an online survey in May 2020 in South Korea. Structural equation modeling (SEM) assessed the overall hypothetical research model.

Zero-Contact Marketing facilitates the positive impacts of Korean consumers' motivations (intrinsic and extrinsic) and service environment on their word-of-mouth (WOM) intention to spread information about a store offering Zero-Contact Marketing service and the store revisit intention. In addition, consumers' attitude toward Zero-Contact Marketing and shopping pleasure (SPL) has stronger impacts on consumers' WOM intention than they do on the store revisit intention.

The limitation of this study lies in that the survey participants responded only in South Korea, which may lead to biased results. To provide a more generalized insight, this study should be extended by considering consumers in other countries, since many consumers around the world tend to minimize face-to-face interaction and avoid unnecessary interruptions under the current pandemic.

By minimizing the social interaction between employees and consumers, Zero-Contact Marketing may increase consumers' shopping satisfaction with free shopping moments and no disturbance, especially under the COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings provide theoretical contributions by empirically validating the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and service environment on consumers' internal and external responses in a Zero-Contact retail setting.