Stockpiling During COVID-19: The Solicitation of the Stimulus– Organism–Response Model

Abstract

Stockpiling emerged as a common feature during the second wave of COVID-19 as people rushed to markets to stock up everything from packaged foods such as biscuits, noodles, packaged rice and edible oils, to hygiene and sanitizing products, to medicines and oxygen cylinders, the list is endless. Accordingly, it becomes imperative to investigate this stockpiling behaviour to get better insights into the phenomenon and to provide implications for both marketers as well as the government. Based on the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) model, this study aims to investigate how in the stress and tension resulted in the second stage of COVID-19, stimuli like perceived risk, perceived scarcity and social influence affect the judgement of consumers for perceived benefits of stockpiling, which in turn motivate them to stockpile. Additionally, the study examines the mediating effect of perceived benefits. The proposed model is tested and validated using structural equation modelling and bootstrapping based on 309 responses collected from Indian consumers who were involved in stockpiling during the second stage of COVID-19.

Undergraduates e-shopping inhibitors in a developing market context: stimulus-organism-response approach

“…A number of previous attitude-behaviour studies have used SOR theory to guide conceptualisation of research framework in different industry and context (Goi et al, 2014;Peng and Kim, 2014;Jeong et al, 2020). The SOR model consists of three dimensions -the stimulus as an independent variable, organism as mediator, and response as dependents variable (Anubha and Jain, 2022;Goi et al, 2014). In Kim et al (2020), the SOR theory comprise inputs (stimulus), processes (organism) and outputs (response).…”

“…In Kim et al (2020), the SOR theory comprise inputs (stimulus), processes (organism) and outputs (response). The SOR model, which was originally proposed by Mehrabian and Russell (as cited in Anubha and Jain, 2022) posits that "different characteristics of the environment act as stimuli (S) which influence the internal psychological state of individuals and work as organisms (O) and drive them to respond (R) behaviourally" [Anubha and Jain, (2022), p.2]. Providing further insight to the S-O-R framework, Dhiman et al (2022) postulate that the stimulus component makes the impact that evokes the person (e.g., consumers) and the cognitive and affective interim state of the consumers is the organism component.…”