Personality and travel intentions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic: An artificial neural network (ANN) approach

Omnichannel Retailing in Light of Psychological Factors: A Mediated Model

Purpose

Retail businesses have been seeing dramatic changes in the last decades. It has evolved from single-channel retailing to omnichannel retailing, providing a seamless shopping experience to customers. Customers armed with modern technology are creating challenges for retailers and forcing them to create an omnichannel environment. So, implementing an omnichannel retailing strategy is a big challenge for retail managers in the age of modern technologies. Retailers could evaluate consumers' usage intention of omnichannel retailing based on technological and psychological factors. However, research based on psychological factors is limited in the prevailing literature on omnichannel retailing. Based on the Motivational Model (MM) and Big-Five Factors (BFF) of personality traits, the study tried to fill the gap regarding the influence of psychological factors on omnichannel usage intention.

Methods

A sample of 724 respondents through a structured questionnaire from a developing economy. The target population of the current study was internet users, as they might be prospective Omni shoppers in the near future. Relationships were tested through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with AMOS 23.

Results

Results revealed that personality traits directly correlate with omnichannel usage intention, while motivations (intrinsic and extrinsic) partially mediate these relationships. Moreover, the results of the current study also revealed that the personality traits extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are vital antecedents of behavioral intention. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations positively impact consumers' usage intention, while extrinsic motivation partially mediates intrinsic motivation and consumers' usage intention. Additionally, full mediation prevails in the association of consumers' usage intention and personality traits (emotional stability and Openness to experiences).

Originality

The domino effects provide a solid theoretical milestone in understanding the phenomenon of omnichannel retailing strategy and facilitates marketing managers to design channel strategies for emerging economics.

The interplay of personality traits and motivation in leisure travel decision-making during the pandemic

COVID-19 has negatively affected the travel and tourism industry and may continue to do so in the future. Therefore, hospitality businesses need to pay attention to consumer reactions, concerns, and motives for travelling in this era. This study leverages the stimulus-organism-behaviour-consequence (SOBC) model to examine psychological factors that influence Japanese travellers' intention to travel and willingness to pay premiums for safe travel by analysing data from 790 respondents. The findings of the study reveal that extraversion positively associates with introjected motivation and negatively with amotivation. Neuroticism personality type positively associates with amotivation and negatively associates with introjected motivation. Introjected motivation positively associates with perception of safe travel during COVID-19, whereas amotivation has a non-significant association with perception of safe travel during COVID-19. Perception of safe travel positively associates with intention to travel and willingness to pay premiums for safe travel. Finally, intention to travel has no effect on willingness to pay premiums for safe travel. These findings provide valuable theoretical and managerial implications.

Are you a spontaneous traveler? Effect of sensation seeking on tourist planfulness in the mobile era

Drawn upon optimum stimulation level theory, and in view of the impact of mobile terminal usage on tourist decision-making, the present study aims to investigate how personality (i.e., sensation seeking) influences tourist trip planning behavior (i.e., tourist planfulness) in the mobile era. A sample of 344 respondents in China completed measures of sensation seeking, travel risk perception, smartphone usage, as well as tourist planfulness. Results indicated that sensation seeking was negatively associated with tourist planfulness and travel risk perception partially mediated this association. Besides, both the direct effect of sensation seeking on tourist planfulness and the indirect effect of travel risk perception were moderated by smartphone usage, in that these effects were stronger for tourists with a high-level of smartphone usage than those with low-level smartphone usage. This study can significantly advance existing research on tourist behavior from the perspective of personality and reconfiguring our traditional understanding on tourist decision-making in the mobile era. Our study may also provide indicative support for theoretical perspective that information technology is changing customer behavior.

Digital Students' Satisfaction With and Intention to Use Online Teaching Modes, Role of Big Five Personality Traits

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online teaching modes were found vital to continue students' learning process, but sustainable implementation of online teaching models is an area of concern for policymakers. Psychiatrists are also eager to know students' behavior toward learning and modes of teaching during COVID-19. We have drawn a model based on the big five personality traits to study students' satisfaction with online teaching modes and their adoption intentions toward online teaching modes. We have collected data from 718 bachelor's and master's level students from four different universities. We have applied the SEM-ANN dual-stage approach to test personality traits' influence and ranked them based on their normalized importance. The results revealed that agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness positively influence students' satisfaction with online teaching models, but that extraversion negatively influences their satisfaction. Agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism positively impact, but openness negatively influences. Conscientiousness does not affect adoption intention. Furthermore, agreeableness is the most significant, and conscientiousness is the least important factor for students to adopt online teaching modes. The findings of the study have useful perceptiveness for educational policymakers, academics, and psychiatrists.

Dynamic capabilities in tourism businesses: antecedents and outcomes

This paper examines dynamic capabilities as a second-order construct and the antecedents and outcomes of dynamic capabilities. Analyzing data collected from 242 tourism firms in Vietnam, this paper finds a positive influence of firms’ human capital, organizational learning, environmental dynamism, and digital marketing on the dynamic capabilities. Dynamic capabilities have a significant and positive impact on these firms’ competitive advantage. The paper contributes to ongoing efforts to measure dynamic capabilities and explore the micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities.

Explore the mechanism for seafarers to reconnect with work after post-pandemic psychological distress (PAPIST19): The moderating role of health-supporting climate

Covid-19 has disrupted the lives of employees all over the world. After experiencing a prolonged yet ongoing destructive event (i.e. Covid-19), finding an effective and non-invasive way to get employees back and engage in work is a huge challenge for scholars. Few studies have focused on returning to work after a traumatic event (limited time), but the post-pandemic psychological stress caused by the Covid-19 (PAPIST₁₉) has not received much attention. Current research addresses this gap and uses a comprehensive model drawn from the transactional model of stress and the Kahn psychological framework to advance the work of predicting PAPIST₁₉. Specifically, the current research investigates how PAPIST₁₉ is related to job engagement, and emotional exhaustion and how job reattachment mediates the relationship. In addition, we use health support climate (HSC) as a boundary condition in our model, which can weaken the impact of PAPIST₁₉ and enhance the effectiveness of job reattachment in reducing emotional exhaustion and increasing job engagement. To test our model, we collected data in multiple waves from Chinese seaports, where seafarers came to work after the restrictions were lifted in China. The current research is one of the earliest scholarly contributions. It paved the way for the research to solve the problem of workers returning to work after large-scale destructive events, and discussed important implications.

Do self-esteem and ethical leadership dampens Machiavellianism–effectiveness relationship: a parallel mediation approach

Purpose

The present paper intends to study the relationship between Machiavellianism and effectiveness. It investigates the parallel mediating effects of self-esteem and ethical leadership on Machiavellianism and leader effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was administered to 260 managers from the banking sector. Statistical tools, like descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation, reliability analysis, validity analysis and parallel-mediated regression analysis, were used to analyze the data. Drawing from the conservation of resource (COR) theory, a parallel mediation model was empirically tested.

Findings

The study found a negative association between Machiavellianism and leader effectiveness, and the parallel mediating impact of self-esteem and ethical leadership reduced the impact of Machiavellianism on leader effectiveness.

Practical implications

The work suggests that the banking sector leaders can adapt ethical behaviors to create positive leader–member relations contributing to increased organizational efficiency and productivity.

Originality/value

The unique contribution of the study includes determining the mediating roles of self-esteem and ethical leadership, especially in the Indian context. Despite the availability of past studies on the constructs, the studies on the parallel mediating relationship between Machiavellianism and effectiveness was limited.

Developing a mental health index using a machine learning approach: Assessing the impact of mobility and lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic

Governments worldwide have implemented stringent restrictions to curtail the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although beneficial to physical health, these preventive measures could have a profound detrimental effect on the mental health of the population. This study focuses on the impact of lockdowns and mobility restrictions on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. We first develop a novel mental health index based on the analysis of data from over three million global tweets using the Microsoft Azure machine learning approach. The computed mental health index scores are then regressed with the lockdown strictness index and Google mobility index using fixed-effects ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The results reveal that the reduction in workplace mobility, reduction in retail and recreational mobility, and increase in residential mobility (confinement to the residence) have harmed mental health. However, restrictions on mobility to parks, grocery stores, and pharmacy outlets were found to have no significant impact. The proposed mental health index provides a path for theoretical and empirical mental health studies using social media.