The pandemic COVID-19 has severely affected the global economy. The strict lockdown measures have also changed the daily live, including consumer behavior in retail banking. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on consumer behavior in retail banking, with a special focus on the Romanian banking sector. To achieve our goal, we performed a survey among the Romanian consumers in retail banking, using as research method the field survey based on questionnaire. The final sample comprised 738 valid responses from the metropolitan area retail banking consumers. The research brings a fresh insight on retail banking services consumption during the pandemic and validates a conceptual model regarding the internet and mobile banking services acceptance. The research’ results highlighted, among others, that the variable concerning the perception of the COVID-19 pandemic effect on consumers’ lifestyle has a direct and positive influence on the variable regarding the attitude toward internet and mobile banking services, mediated by other variables like safety of internet and mobile banking use and trust in banks. Several social and managerial implications are also discussed, because it is possible that the tendency to use internet and mobile banking services will prevail even after the post pandemic stage, as new consumption behavior models are developing. Banks in Romania should increase their initiatives to offer financial education courses and online tutorials to familiarize customers with the use of digital channels. Banks should also improve communication with clients and design new products and services to increase the attractiveness of saving process. They should demonstrate flexibility in negotiating lending and refinancing conditions as well.
In the context created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the aim of the research in this article is to highlight how the consumer experience is constructed, starting from the consumer’s attitudes—which we consider to be implicitly positive—and from the formation of habits of using mobile applications for food supply. Data were collected from 610 people—users of applications for food delivery in urban areas—in the spring of 2021, using a quantitative type of research in the form of a field survey based on questionnaire completion; for the model validation, we used confirmatory factor analysis. The online questionnaire link was sent out in April 2021, followed by the consumers’ completion of the questionnaire in the same month. The proposed theoretical model highlights the influence of variables that are specific for technology acceptance models on the perceived utility and development of implicit attitudes based on it, as well as the habits of using the application. The results of the research validate the proposed model, showing that attitudes in the form of an implicit-type attitudes developed in time are influencing habits and aid the development of a certain usage behavior depicted by a consumption experience that has specific content. Our paper contributes to a better understanding of the consumer experience development process within the context of technology acceptance in the field of food delivery services, emphasizing the importance of satisfying hedonic motivations as an integral part of the compensatory mechanisms determined by the effects of the pandemic.
E-commerce’s latest trends, highlighted by the global phenomena of the COVID-19 pandemic, explicitly show substantial changes in the online consumers’ behavior as well. More and more specialists are talking about the emergence of a new paradigm in consumption, and of possible evolutions toward sustainable consumption. The purpose of this research is to investigate how the antecedents of e-loyalty have changed their effect on consumer attitudes and perceptions of e-commerce sites. The results, obtained through a structural model of 523 validated questionnaires of Romanian consumers of electronic and household appliances, show the importance of the effect of website accessibility, a factor that, until recently, exerted an influence mediated by other elements grouped either under the umbrella of site quality or site design. The model validated after the analysis shows the direct effect of the accessibility of the websites on e-loyalty, satisfaction and trust of the consumers. Based on the results, the value of this study lies in the fact that it presents arguments on how the boost of e-commerce systems leads to sales processes’ sustainability improvement and, to the same extent, the improvement of the ways for reporting sustainability using IT tools (online databases with customers, software integrated into e-commerce platforms, electronic financial management).
Competitiveness of SMEs (Small or Medium Enterprise) within the tourism field has been of a great interest for many scholars over time. Due to the crisis conditions specific to the present time, the issue of competitiveness becomes a very sensitive one, giving rise to sometimes contradictory points of view. Our research aims to analyze the opinions and perceptions of SME managers in the field of tourism in terms of the concept of competitiveness, how to measure it and sources of competitiveness still viable within the context of the current crisis or specific to it, etc. In order to be able to properly analyze the above, qualitative research was initiated and conducted in the form of an in-depth interview with 42 Romanian SME managers in the tourism field. The results of the study reflect a mature approach of managers in terms of possible new sources of competitiveness—the emphasis on technical solutions capable of managing the socio-medical dimensions of tourism consumer behavior, a prevalence for an organic growth strategy and for additional investments in qualified personnel, as well as online management of most aspects related to services and openness to collaboration within tourism clusters.
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