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This study aims to understand the influence of COVID-19 on consumers' fears and self-protection motivations. Furthermore, the study seeks to understand the effects of these fears and motivations on consumers' intentions to use omnichannel retailing. A modified theoretical model is proposed by integrating protection motivation theory (PMT) and extending the extended parallel process model (E-EPPM). A total of 398 valid questionnaires are collected and used for further structural equation modeling analysis. The results suggest that the perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, and health anxiety positively impact perceived fears surrounding COVID-19. Furthermore, it is found that perceived fear, self-efficacy, and response efficacy will affect the protection motivation of consumers and ultimately contribute to their behavioral intention to use omnichannel retailing. The findings theoretically enrich the research on COVID-19, PMT, and E-EPPM and empirically provide managerial implications for omnichannel retail service providers.

With serious environmental, cost, and social concerns arising from emerging countries' rapid growth in agricultural food cold chain (AFCC), AFCC firms urgently require a set of comprehensive sustainable strategic solutions. Therefore, this research identified and modeled the critical success factors (CSFs) that support the sustainable development of AFCCs. The study integrated institutional theory, stakeholder theory, and the triple bottom line model; it also surveyed cold chain experts from 16 different organizations in China and applied the adversarial interpretation structure model (AISM). This comprehensive analysis indicates that managing stakeholder pressure is the most motivating CSF of all strategies. This strategy eventually contributes to the sustainability of AFCC in China by driving other CSFs. Additionally, the study determined the degree of interdependence and dominance of different strategies. Thus, this study establishes a theoretical foundation for the sustainable improvement of AFCC organizations' business strategies and environmental policies.

Due to the spike in online-retail demand during the pandemic, couriers confront increased workload and safety concerns, posing significant social-sustainability challenges for courier companies. This study explores the impact of social-sustainability practices on couriers’ job satisfaction in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We designed the research model from the theoretical lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, equity, and psychological-safety theories. We collected the views of 428 couriers from the Chinese market, where there is a developed e-commerce industry. The structural-equation-model analysis results found that social-sustainability practices such as working environment, working conditions, health and safety, education, and training positively affected the job satisfaction of couriers during the pandemic through the mediators (psychological safety and perceived fairness). These findings provide empirical recommendations for improving employees’ job satisfaction in courier companies during COVID-19 and addressing the social-sustainability issues of courier companies.

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