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This paper aims to investigate the impact of financial anxiety and convenience on the relation between cashier-less versus traditional checkouts and purchase intentions among Saudi Arabian consumers.

In an online experiment, 329 Saudi participants were randomly assigned to one of two checkout conditions (traditional vs. AI-enabled) in a between-subjects design and indicated their financial anxiety. Through moderation-of-process design, the authors examine and showcase that the effect of convenience leads to higher purchase intent for AI-enabled checkouts. Moreover, the authors examine financial anxiety as an underlying mechanism and show that for high-convenience consumers, this enacts higher purchase intent.

The effect of AI-enabled checkouts depends on consumers' convenience perception. High-convenience consumers prefer AI-enabled checkouts over traditional ones, whereas low-convenience consumers are indifferent. Based on the Roy adaptation model theoretical framework, this occurs because high-convenience consumers experience greater financial anxiety when using AI-enabled checkouts, which in turn leads to higher purchase intent.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the reactions of Saudi Arabian consumers toward cashier-less stores versus traditional stores. Interestingly, their intent to purchase increases, due to the financial anxiety they experience while encountering AI-enabled transactions. Due to the limited research of retailers going cashier less, little is known about consumer reactions and how they may differ culturally.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled checkouts on consumers’ purchase intent and evaluations of the retailing atmosphere. It also offers novel findings pertaining to the mediating role of arousal and moderation by innovativeness importance on consumers’ responses toward AI-enabled checkouts.

Three pilot studies, two field studies and one online experiment featuring 1,567 respondents were conducted by manipulating checkout methods.

AI-enabled checkouts lead to a higher level of arousal, which, in turn, yields more favorable store atmosphere evaluations and higher purchase intent. Furthermore, the positive effect of AI-enabled checkouts is moderated by consumers’ innovativeness importance.

This research contributes to the emerging body of AI research and demonstrates a novel perspective by illuminating that under certain circumstances, AI-enabled checkouts lead to more positive outcomes relating to store atmosphere evaluations and purchase intent, as well as the unintended effect of heightened arousal.

This study shows how marketers and practitioners can promote consumers’ evaluations and patronage likelihood effectively by harnessing AI-enabled checkouts for those who consider innovativeness as important.

This research documents the novel findings of how and when AI-enabled checkouts garner more favorable consumer responses.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the macro-social marketing approach by detailing a framework to better understand the driving forces of wicked problems.

This is a conceptual paper that uses the financial crisis in Iceland as a demonstrative example to show how social mechanism theory can help social marketers and policy makers overcome complexity and strive for the social transformation they seek.

This paper suggests the utility of social mechanism theory for understanding wicked problems, how they came to be and how social marketing practices can be applied to resolve market complexities.

Social marketers need to identify what is driving what, to plan and implement interventions that will lead to the social change desired. This paper presents a framework that guides the analyst through this social change process.

This work provides social marketers with the means to understand the “moving parts” of a wicked problem to identify where an intervention is required to achieve the social change sought.

The purpose of this research is to examine a downstream social marketing program that slows the typical decline in functional fitness and independence of adults over 55 with particular attention to the ROI and the efficiency of the program.

Within subjects quasi-experimental design.

The ExerStart program is cost-efficient and effective delivering an ROI of 33 per cent. The participants of the ExerStart social marketing program significantly improved functional fitness. Further, this program demonstrates that this result may be achieved with just four exercises rather than six.

A successful, cost-effective, high-retention social marketing program is outlined for social marketers who aim to increase the functional fitness and independence of adults over 55 years.

Two societal benefits, the first is that it provides direction about how to efficiently prolong the independence of adults over 55 years, and the second is that it decreases pressure and costs on the healthcare system. This may be useful for policy makers and social marketers alike.

The authors contribute to the literature in two important ways. First, this paper details a cost-effective intervention that improves the physical fitness of a significant and growing portion of the community and suggests additional considerations for future ROI calculations. Second, this paper contributes methodologically by introducing the senior fitness test (a new criterion-referenced clinically relevant physical fitness standard specifically developed for seniors).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of corporate hypocrisy and consumer skepticism on perceived corporate reputation. In addition, the effect of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) in mediating the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and consumer skepticism toward perceived corporate reputation.

An experimental design was employed to test the effects of corporate hypocrisy and consumer skepticism on consumers’ perception of a firm’s corporate reputation, as well as the role of perceived CSR as a causal mechanism. Analysis involved structural equation modeling (AMOS) to test hypotheses. A convenience sample (n=837) was recruited from the USA and Australia to allow for any national biases or brand familiarity effects and to ensure the results were robust and generalizable.

Corporate hypocrisy and consumers’ skepticism significantly influences perceived CSR and corporate reputation. Furthermore, a consumer’s level of perceived CSR acts as a causal mechanism, mediating the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and skepticism on perceived corporate reputation.

The importance of being transparent and honest toward consumers. When companies are inconsistent in their CSR activities, it increases consumers’ skepticism toward the brand. Nonetheless, CSR has a positive influence on the consumers’ perception of corporate reputation and this, in turn, will positively influences consumers’ support for the firm.

The first empirical evidence that companies producing vices (such as beer) generate lower expectations in the minds of the consumers, meaning there is less impact on brand reputation when consumers feel the CSR does not fit with the brand image.

In this study, we focus on consumer perceptions of cryptocurrencies. We hypothesize that knowledge of cryptocurrencies, trust in government, and the speed of transactions are the main factors contributing to consumers' trust in cryptocurrencies.

451 MTurk workers, a convenient sample incentivized with a small monetary payment, participated in a cross-sectional online study with cryptocurrencies serving as the focal product category.

We obtained support for our hypothesized notion that knowledge of cryptocurrencies, trust in government, and the speed of transactions are the main factors contributing to consumers' trust in cryptocurrencies. Our research makes several important theoretical contributions. First, we demonstrate that consumers who understand and know how cryptocurrencies work are more likely to trust and invest in the currency. Next, we demonstrate that consumers are more likely to trust cryptocurrencies and their peer-to-peer transactions if, preferably, they take place via a central issuer and are regulated by their respective governments.

This study is the first known paper to focus on cryptocurrencies from the consumers' perspective. Next, we identify key antecedents of trust towards cryptocurrencies. Second, we reveal the role of government concerning cryptocurrencies. Finally, FinTech firms and banks (should they choose to enter the cryptocurrency market) need not spend time and money on marketing, advertising, and promotions in order to try to allay consumers' anxiety when it comes to their uptake in the different digital currencies. Rather, this would allow the FinTech firms and banks to allocate resources to focus their attention on marketing, advertising and promoting the factors (i.e. knowledge, trust in government, and speed of transaction) that drive intent to invest in cryptocurrencies.

The recent pandemic disrupted the way in which businesses transact with each other. In response to maintaining cleanliness in business-to-business (B2B) settings, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled robots have been adopted as substitutes for cleaning personnel, yet their implications remain largely underexamined. This study aims to examine B2B buyer responses to cleaning information notices (human vs AI-enabled agent) placed at either the entry to the premises or the sales counter, thereby adding to the nascent literature in this line of inquiry.

Three field experiments were conducted across diverse B2B businesses (wholesalers in Studies 1–2 and a commercial business in Study 3). To achieve greater empirical rigor and generalizability, this research used diverse stimuli across different B2B settings. In addition, the results ruled out alternate explanations and shed light upon political ideology as a boundary condition. Finally, a single-paper meta-analysis confirmed H1, consolidating the established effect.

Featuring over 1,000 B2B buyers, the results show that politically liberal B2B buyers express greater preference for human over AI-performed cleaning while labor-orientated buyers are indifferent. Importantly, this effect is driven by greater relaxation associated with humans, which in turn, increases their future patronage and referral intent.

The results enrich the collective knowledge of the adoption of AI-enabled robots, reinforcing for marketing practitioners and businesses that the reliance on human-based outcomes remains a preferred touchpoint in B2B settings, particularly for liberals.

Reports show that 6.77m people published blogs on blogging websites and more than 12m people write blogs using their social network. However, few studies have explored consumer attitudes toward bloggers and their advertising. Therefore, an effort to discover how paid blog advertisements influence consumer attitudes toward bloggers and the products they advertise will help marketers gain an understanding of how to use bloggers as paid sponsors to influence consumer purchase intent. Using online survey approach, a study recruited participants (n=210) through an online survey platform (MTurk). The results indicated that the similarity between the consumer and the ad creator is an important psychological reason why consumers are more likely to perceive advertisements as more authentic, more affective, less deceptive and more credible, and they are thus more likely to trust the blogger. On the other hand, the importance of ad attribute (authenticity) does not significantly influence consumers’ intention to purchase products advertised by a blogger. As consumers are becoming more skeptical of advertisements, blogs need to be entertaining and a pleasure to view. Not only does the content need to be interesting, the design, flow and clarity of the blogs must also be considered important factors. In addition, advertising needs to be believable, credible and honest. In the online world, trust and credibility are still paramount in attracting consumers’ engagement; hence, promoting companies’ products and services through blogs can be an effective strategy to lower consumer skepticism barriers. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Participants answered questions about their attitudes toward bloggers and their advertising when purchasing products in an online retail environment. Furthermore, participants also answered questions about their perceived trust in the bloggers themselves as well as the authenticity and credibility of the brand-related communication received from bloggers. Moreover, they reported on their attitudes toward how deceptive they considered bloggers and their advertising to be. Finally, participants reported how paid blog advertisements influence their purchase intent.

Similarity toward the ad creator is an important psychological reason behind consumers’ attitude toward blogs. Consumers who follow a blog often have the same interests and are thus more likely to support bloggers. This idea can be used as a segmentation strategy to reach particular consumers. Consumers who perceive similarity with the ad creator are more likely to recognize the ads as more authentic, affective, credible and trustworthy as well as less deceptive, regarding the blogger. Blogs need to be entertaining and a pleasure to view. Not only does the content need to be interesting but the design, flow and clarity of the blog are also important factors. Blog advertising needs to be believable, credible and honest. In the online world, trust and credibility are still paramount in attracting consumers’ engagement with the website, bloggers or social media.

Trust in the blogger did not influence consumers’ purchase intent; however, it did influence their attitude toward how similar they are with the blogger. In an online shopping environment, the human touch and personal contact between consumers and retailers has been lost. Consumers often leave the online transaction due to a lack of trust. Therefore, bloggers can be replacements for the missing “salesperson” in online interactions. Companies can use bloggers as the mediating person to reach their intended audiences, bridging the gap between the company and consumers.

Purpose: To analyse the acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI) operations and robotic process automation (RPA) by comparing its market size and revenue worldwide during the pandemic and, measuring the impact of AI investment levels on jobs human resource functions, and analysing the role of AI in future work.

Design/Methodology: The archival data analysis technique is used to fetch data from sources like the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Statista, Deloitte, Mc Kinsey, Strata, Tractica, and IDC. Descriptive analysis with supporting literature has been contextually used for each objective which further establishes practical and theoretical implications of AI, intelligent process automation (IPA), and RPA in different industries during Covid-19 pandemic. This study analysed active scholarly articles from the Scopus database and presented results and findings.

Findings: The findings of the study state that emerging technologies such as AI, IPA, and RPA have a strong potential impact on market size, revenue, number of jobs, and investments levels during the pandemic. The global investment in AI is projected to witness an upsurge from 2018 to 2027, which significantly impacts the human workforce in various industries. The results of the study state that AI/RPA seems to be a crucial technological intervention, especially in times of the pandemic.

Originality/Value: This study contributes to the body of knowledge by constructing a base for understanding the pace of AI/RPA/IPA intervention and its significant impact on organisation process, structure, and people in different sectors. The timeline and forecast of this study intend to make industry consultants future to prepare to align themselves in an era of digital disruption.