INTEREST CATEGORY: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
POSTING TYPE: Revisits

Author: Didier Soopramanien

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Call for Papers- Special Issue of Journal of Consumer Behaviour

Consumers’ Transport and Mobility Decisions

Guest Editors

Dr. Lixian Qian, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (Lixian.Qian@xjtlu.edu.cn)

Dr Didier Soopramanien, Loughborough University (D.G.Soopramanien@lboro.ac.uk)

Dr Nina Michaelidou, Loughborough University (N.Michaelidou@lboro.ac.uk)

Deadline for Submission: 31^st December 2021

The decisions that individuals have to make about how to travel to undertake a range of activities, routine or non-routine, alone or with other people, have significant economic, environmental and health consequences. These decisions are influenced by both marketing strategies and government policies and yet, most of the research on transport and mobility decisions is conducted in either transportation science or transport economics (Gijsenberg and Verhoef, 2019). There are obviously some exceptions in the field of marketing and consumer behaviour. For instance, Bardhi and Eckhardt (2017) consider and utilise the context of ‘car sharing’ to inductively elucidate the constructs of access-based consumption versus ownership. Another related study on car sharing by Mohlmann (2015) indicates that, amongst other variables, service quality, trust and familiarity are important antecedents of satisfaction and use of the service. Qian, Soopramanien and Daryanto (2017) argue that the subjective knowledge of consumers about cars influences whether they choose foreign or local brands of cars.

Given the key implications that consumers’ choices about travelling have on the current climate change and obesity crises, we argue that there is a need to put consumer behaviour theories at the heart consumers’ transport and mobility decision making. Relatedly, there is a need to consider decisions relating to mobility; a broader conceptualisation coined and mostly used by researchers in sociology (Buscher, Sheller and Tyfield, 2016). This would imply, at one level, decisions including but beyond, for example, the choice of which brand of cars consumers want to buy, towards focusing more on the choice of modes of transport such as the decisions related to adopting car sharing or ride sharing instead of driving their own cars. To further illustrate, consider the following proposition: The way consumers feel about their preferred mode of transport to commute to work can influence where they choose to reside and, vice versa; this can often entail renting a second home closer to work. Furthermore, in conjunction, the preference for certain modes of transport, in the first place, may be influenced by one’s concern about the environment and their desire to change one’s family lifestyle and self-perceptions (Belk, 1988).

 

It is an opportune time for the discipline of consumer behaviour to explicitly address transport and mobility decisions considering the significant technological, environmental and societal factors that continue to shape consumers’ preferences and decisions: electrification of vehicles, government policies and regulations to tackle climate change, health crises (e.g., obesity and COVID-19), autonomous vehicles and sharing/collaborative and access-based consumption. The aim of the special issue is, therefore, to initiate a scholarly debate on consumers’ transport and mobility decisions in order to enhance understanding of how specific consumer behaviour and psychological factors impact such decisions. The guest editors invite conceptual and empirical submissions that offer new and original insights in this domain. Suggested topics include but are not limited to:

• Consumers’ environmental/green attitudes and mobility decisions
• The role of values (e.g. materialism) and value mapping in understanding mobility decisions
• The roles of information, knowledge and learning in shaping mobility choices and decisions.
• Levels of involvement in consumers’ decision on transport and mobility (e.g. car and motorbike enthusiasts and their propensity to consider alternative modes of transport)
• Functional and symbolic (status seeking) motivational factors and their impact on mobility decisions (e.g. the motivation to seek a certain type of status by owning an electric car instead of a petrol fuelled car-or vice versa)
• Cross cultural differences in mobility preferences
• Lifestyle, personality and psychographic factors and their influence on mobility decisions
• The role of culture in consumers’ transport and mobility decisions
• Habit and habit formation and their influence on consumers propensity to switch to new transport mode alternatives
• Risk perceptions and mobility decisions; e.g. the impact of technological risk on consumers’ propensity to adopt autonomous vehicles (Brell, Philipsen and Ziefle, 2019) or infection risk associated with different travel modes (e.g. the declined usage of public transport/shared mobility and the upsurge of biking and using scooters in COVID-19 pandemic)
• Antecedents of mode of transport dependency (e.g. car dependency attitudes and mobility preferences of consumers)

Submission

All manuscripts submitted must not have been published, accepted for publication, or be currently under consideration elsewhere.

Manuscripts  should  be  submitted  in  accordance  with  the  JCB  author  guidelines  online

All submissions should be made via the ScholarOne online submission system (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cb) and should be made to the special issue which is identified on the submission site.

The deadline for submissions is: 31^st of December 2021

 

About the Guest Editors:

Dr. Lixian Qian is an Associate Professor in Marketing and Innovation at International Business School Suzhou of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China. His research focuses on technology adoption and diffusion, marketing analytics, innovations in urban mobility, and sustainability. His research articles have been published on the renowed international journals such as Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Research, Transportation Research Part A, Transportation Research Part D, and Technological Forecasting and Social Change.

Dr. Didier Soopramanien is a Reader in Marketing at the School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University. His research interest focuses on studying the enabling and restraining factors that can potentially explain the different rates of adoption of innovative offerings and their associated practices amongst different groups of consumers. His research has appeared in academic journals such as the Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Operational Research, Transportation Research D, Applied Economics and Technological Forecasting and Social Change.

Dr. Nina Michaelidou is a Reader in Marketing at the School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University. Her research interests are grounded in the areas of individuals’ perceptions, motivations and personality traits, in multiple contexts including online and social media, ethics and health. Dr. Michaelidou has published papers in high-ranking journals such as Psychology and Marketing, Journal of Business Research, International Marketing Review, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Advertising Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Computers in Human Behavior and the Journal of Travel Research. Dr. Michaelidou serves as Associate Editor for International Marketing Review and the Journal of Consumer Behaviour and she is the chair of the Academy of Marketing SIG on Consumer Psychology and Cross-Cultural Research.

References:

Algesheimer, R., Dholakia, U. M., & Herrmann, A. (2005). The social influence of brand community: Evidence from European car clubs. Journal of Marketing, 69(3), 19-34.

Bardhi, F., & Eckhardt, G. M. (2012). Access-Based Consumption: The Case of Car Sharing. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(4), 881-898.

Belk, R. (1988). Possessions and the Extended Self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2), 139-168.

Brell, T., Philipsen, R., & Ziefle, M. (2019). sCARy! Risk perceptions in autonomous driving: the influence of experience on perceived benefits and barriers. Risk Analysis, 39(2), 342-357.

Buscher, M., Sheller, M., & Tyfield, D. P. (2016). Mobility intersections: social research, social futures. Mobilities, 11(4), 485-497.

Dalpian, P. R. C., Silveira, T. d., & Rossi, C. A. V. (2015). “One Less Car”: The Collective Initiative Toward Sustainability. Journal of Macromarketing, 35(1), 99-110.

Firnkorn, J., & Müller, M. (2012). Selling Mobility instead of Cars: New Business Strategies of Automakers and the Impact on Private Vehicle Holding. Business Strategy and the Environment, 21(4), 264-280

Möhlmann, M. (2015). Collaborative consumption: determinants of satisfaction and the likelihood of using a sharing economy option again. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 14(3), 193-207.

Qian, L., Grisolía, J. M., & Soopramanien, D. (2019). The impact of service and government-policy attributes on consumer preferences for electric vehicles in China. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 122, 70-84.

Qian, L., & Soopramanien, D. (2011). Heterogeneous consumer preferences for alternative fuel cars in China. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 16(8), 607-613.

Qian, L., Soopramanien, D., & Daryanto, A. (2017). First-time buyers’ subjective knowledge and the attribute preferences of Chinese car buyers. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 36, 189-196.

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Yin, J., Qian, L., & Singhapakdi, A. (2018). Sharing Sustainability: How Values and Ethics Matter in Consumers’ Adoption of Public Bicycle-Sharing Scheme. Journal of Business Ethics, 149(2), 313-332.