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Several industries including banking are booming because of COVID-19. However, it is still unknown whether this growth is momentary or permanent in nature. Hence, this study aims to identify the role of health-related concerns and trust as stimuli on M-payment loyalty.

Data were collected through Google Forms from 431 participants. Subjects were M-payment users. The hypothesized model was tested using structural equational modeling.

Results of the study indicate that perceived severity and trust act as stimuli for M-payment loyalty. Further, trust not only influences loyalty directly but also through intimacy. Additionally, no linear relationship was found between perceived usefulness and M-payment loyalty.

This work is an early attempt to consider health-related concerns and trust as stimuli to predict M-payment loyalty. Further, this study focused on three new constructs, namely perceived severity, perceived susceptibility and intimacy, that are underexplored in digital banking literature.

From the last few decades, environmental issues have become a global concern. Consumption activities are given much attention in the marketing literature, whenever the question about protecting the environment arises. The responsibility of the consumer toward the environment is a major concern and the purpose of this study is to prioritize factors responsible for determining environmental responsibility among young consumers. This research will provide valuable insights to the marketers in targeting those particular areas which according to young consumers are highly ranked/prioritized for being environmentally responsible.

In this study, data were collected from 400 young consumers from Punjab and Chandigarh. Fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (F-AHP) was applied to prioritize or rank the factors on the basis of significance for being environmentally responsible. The primary factors considered for further analysis were knowledge and awareness, attitude, green consumer value, emotional affinity toward nature, willingness to act and environment-related past behavior.

Results of the study depicted knowledge and awareness as the highest-ranked and prioritized factor for young consumers to become environmentally responsible, while environment-related past behavior emerged as the least important factor for consumers' environmental responsibility.

Data were collected from the young consumers of Punjab and Chandigarh only and only a few factors of consumers' environmental responsibility were considered for further analysis which depicts the limitation of the study.

The research study is highly useful for the government and the business firms to target the highly prioritized factors of environmental responsibility which will promote green consumption practices and behavior among young consumers.

Previous researches have explored the factors of environmental responsibility and modeled their relationships. However, the present study has employed the multi-criteria decision-making technique to provide valuable insights for marketers, academicians and practitioners about the drivers of consumers' environmental responsibility which adds value to the existing knowledge base.

This paper aims to cognizance consumers' intention to participate in collaborative consumption (CC). Also, the gender difference regarding the above is examined.

To quantify the consumers’ intention to participate in CC cross-sectional survey method has been used. In total, 333 potential consumers selected through convenience sampling participated in the survey. The study used the capabilities of the structured equation modelling technique to validate the proposed research model.

Except for hedonic motives, all other drivers such as reputation, economic benefits, sustainable motives and trust have a significant influence on the intention to participate in CC. The effect of gender was found on the relationship between Trust and Intentions only.

This study can be used as a guiding path in the domain of CC for practitioners, marketers, startups and policymakers as the opinion of potential users has been reported. The results of the study highlight that the consumers’ interest in CC participation and social reputation are the most influential drivers of intention to participate in CC. Marketers should design their strategies in such a way that the individual should feel like a social hero rather than just a responsible consumer while participating in CC.

The present study contributes to the literature by examining the intention to participate in CC through the lens of self-determination theory (SDT), specifically in the Indian context. The authors have also extended the SDT by adding a trust factor that is best to their knowledge not integrated till now. The present study integrated cognitive, economic, psychological and relational aspects to understand CC behavior.

This study aims to understand the relationship among the anthropomorphic features, perceived authenticity on customer engagement and electronic word of mouth using the integration of realism and trust theory in the context of virtual influencers (VI). This research also investigates the moderation of brand familiarity on both focal aspects of trust (cognitive and affective), anthropomorphic cues and perceived authenticity.

A mall-intercept survey approach was used to collect the responses using a structured survey from 377 respondents from India. The proposed model was tested using structural equation modelling.

The findings indicate that physical and cognitive anthropomorphic features and perceived authenticity influence cognitive trust. However, affective trust is only influenced by perceived authenticity. Apart from this, higher levels of trust in VI contribute towards higher customer engagement and lead to sharing electronic word of mouth. Finally, brand familiarity moderates the relationship between emotional cues and affective trust.

The popularity of VI is driving companies to redesign their marketing strategies. Due to the limitations of human influencers, companies are allocating budgets for VI-based marketing strategies. However, it is still unclear how consumers perceive VI as a brand endorser and what would be its implications. This study suggests that consumers are looking for anthropomorphic cues such as physical, cognitive and emotional cues of humanness in the VI, along with authentic content shared through them to instil their trust. Once the trust is built, consumers will be engaged and say positive things about VI.

This study fills the gap by examining how anthropomorphic features and perceived authenticity contributed to both dimensions of trust (cognitive and affective), further enhancing customer engagement and electronic word of mouth. This research also examined the moderation of brand familiarity on the relationship between trust and its antecedents.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the factors leading to shopping cart abandonment and construct a model depicting interrelationship among them using interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and Matriced Impact Croises Multiplication Appliquee an un Classement (MICMAC).

Initially, 20 factors leading to shopping cart abandonment were extracted through a systematic literature review and expert opinions. Fifteen factors were finalized using the importance index and CIMTC method, for which consistency has been checked in SPSS software through a statistical reliability test. Finally, ISM and MICMAC approach is used to develop a model depicting the contextual relationship among finalized factors of shopping cart abandonment.

The ISM model depicts a technical glitch (SC8), cash on delivery not available (SC4), bad checkout interface (SC9), just browsing (SC11), and lack of physical examination (SC12) are drivers or independent factors. Additionally, four quadrants have been formulated in MICMAC analysis based on their dependency and driving power. This facilitates technical managers of e-commerce companies to focus more on factors leading to shopping cart abandonment according to their dependency and driving power.

Taking an expert’s opinion as a base may affect the results of the study due to biases based on subjectivity.

This study’s outcomes would accommodate practitioners, researchers, and multinational or national companies to indulge in e-commerce to anticipate factors restricting the general public from online shopping.

For the successful running of an e-commerce business and to retain the confidence of e-shoppers, every e-commerce company must make a strategy for controlling factors leading to shopping cart abandonment at the initial stage. So, this paper attempts to highlight the main factors leading to shopping cart abandonment and interrelate them using ISM and MICMAC approaches. It provides a clear path to technical heads, researchers, and consultants for handling these shopping cart abandonment factors.

Spiritual tourism is becoming a significant growth area of the Indian travel market, with more Indians opting to go on pilgrimage to popular religious cities. There are many spiritual destinations where some of this life's essences can be sought to enjoy harmony and peace. The study aims to prioritize motivators driving the intentions of the tourists to visit the spiritual destination.

The current study applied the analytical hierarchical process, a multi-criteria decision-making technique, on the sample of visitors from all the six spiritual destinations to rank the motivational factors that drive the intentions of the tourist to visit a spiritual destination.

The study's results postulated that spiritual fulfillment motives and destination atmosphere are the top prioritized motivations, while destination attributes and secular motives emerged as the least prioritized.

The research study provides valuable insights to the spiritual tourism industry stakeholders to target the tourists' highly prioritized motivations to augment the visits to a particular spiritual destination.

Previous research has explored the motivations and modeled their relationships with tourists' satisfaction and intentions. But, the present study has applied a multi-criteria decision-making technique to add value to the existing knowledge base.

In recent years, significant research has focused on the question of whether severe market periods are accompanied by herding behavior. As herding behavior is a considerable cause of the speculative bubble and leads to stock market deviations from their basic values it is necessary to examine the motivators which led to herding behavior among investors. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this study, the authors performed a two-phase analysis to address the research questions of the study. In the first phase, for text analysis NVivo software was used to identify the factors driving herding behavior among Indian stock investors. The analysis of a text was performed using word frequency analysis. While in the second phase, the Fuzzy-AHP analysis techniques were employed to examine the relative importance of all the factors determined and assign priorities to the factors extracted.

Results of the study depicted Investor Cognitive Psychology (ICP), Market Information (MI), Stock Characteristics (SC) as the top-ranked factors driving herding behavior, while Socio-Economic Factors (SEF) emerged as the least important factor driving herding behavior.

The current study was undertaken among stock investors from North India only. Moreover, numerous factors are not part of the study but might significantly influence the investors' herding behaviors.

Comprehending the influences of the different factors discussed in the study would enable stock investors to be more aware of their investment choices and not resort to herd behavior. This research enables decision-makers to understand the reasons for herd activity and helps them act accordingly to improve the stock market's performance.

The current study will provide an inclusive overview of herding behavior motivators among Indian stock investors. This study's results can be extremely useful for both academics and policymakers to gain some insight into the functioning of the Indian stock market.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are among the most recent e-learning initiatives to gain widespread acceptance among universities. However, despite MOOCs' “much-documented” benefits, many questions are being raised late regarding the long-term sustainability of the open online teaching e-learning model. With high dropout rates in MOOCs courses, recent research has focused on the challenges limiting MOOCs’ growth. But most of the research is directed toward students’ perspectives, leaving the instructors’ perspective. One of the most important aspects of instructors’ perspective is the motivation for MOOCs' development and delivery.

The present study collected the data from 25 MOOC developers of Indian origin. To prioritize or rank the motivational factor behind developing a MOOC, a fuzzy-analytical hierarchical process (F-AHP) technique was applied to the data set. The primary motivational factors considered for the study were professional development, altruism, personal development, institutional development, intrigue, monetary benefits and peer influence.

The results showed that professional development and personal development are two prime motives that drive MOOCs development. Monetary benefits and peer influence were the least important factors among all the factors considered for the study.

Previous studies have identified and modeled the motivational factors that contribute toward developing MOOCs. However, there was little knowledge about the hierarchy among the motivating factors. The present study fills this gap by establishing the ranking of motivational factors responsible for MOOCs development.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-04-2021-0205.

Technology has come a long way in the financial industry since the days of hard share certificates. The industry has been evolving at a very fast pace and today almost everything is online. Back in 2010, Nithin Kamath decided to set up an online brokerage platform that was capable of meeting the needs of the retail customers in the most efficient way. Efficiency for him meant both execution efficiency and cost efficiency. He was able to introduce zero commission trading to consumers and yet generate revenues through a business model never considered by the leading brokers during that time. The firm has ever since been growing based on the principle of Technology first by bringing valuable services to the customers. Interestingly, the firm has spent little on marketing and the growth has been riding on the back of customer satisfaction.

The transparency and consistency of Zerodha provided them mileage and the business model certainly disrupted the Indian brokerage industry. The zero-commission model was successful in attracting consumers and provided tough competition to other brokers. However, competitive advantage coming solely from low pricing may not always be sustainable in the long run. This case explores the sustainability of the business model and looks at alternatives that are important for a long term scale-up of Zerodha.