Mobile shoppers' response to Covid-19 phobia, pessimism and smartphone addiction: Does social influence matter?

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a variety of changes identified in customers' shopping behaviours, and development of new practices as a response to the crisis. The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of Covid-19 phobia, and news exposure on individuals' psychological states, and their resulting mobile shopping behaviour. Relying upon the Activate, Belief and Consequences (ABC) model of the Cognitive-Behaviour Theory, this research applies the partial least square structural modelling (PLS-SEM) methodology for analysing the data from 302 mobile shoppers from India. The results confirm that Covid-19 phobia and Covid-19 news exposure are substantial determinants of consumers' smartphone addictive use and pessimism, which in turn affect mobile shopping frequency. Additionally, social influence is found to play a vital role in moderating mobile shopping frequency for individuals, who experience smartphone addiction. The current study is a pioneering effort to examine the influence of Covid-19-induced phobia on consumers' psychological states and their subsequent impact on their mobile shopping frequency. The study provides several contributions to theory and practice within the areas of technology use and mobile shopping in particular.

Is job performance conditioned by work-from-home demands and resources?

Substantial research has been dedicated to describing remote work, yet the understanding of working from home since the Covid-19 pandemic remains rather limited. While recognising the necessity for exploring employees' perceptions and interaction with technology as the ultimate requirement for a functional work-from-home, this study observes the factors that would determine job performance. Thus, adhering to the Job Demands-Resources theory, we argue that employees' ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) anxiety and smartphone addiction can inhibit their work progress by provoking interruptions in the course and reducing the efficacy, further affecting performance. PLS-SEM (Partial Least Squares - Structural Equation Modelling) was employed to analyse the data collected by 363 employees working from home due to Covid-19 restrictive measures. The results reveal that employees' reluctance and apprehensiveness related to the use of ICT and their dependency on smartphone usage act as distractions that impact the efficient achievement of work goals. The ensued findings valuably contribute to the relevant body of knowledge, while the implications offer helpful strategies for improving work-from-home. Finally, companies must simplify the transition to the home office, providing employees with job management and tools to ensure uninterrupted and productive working processes.

Publisher Correction: Building an international consortium for tracking coronavirus health status.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.