The COVID-19 pandemic is far more than a health crisis: it has unpredictably changed our whole way of life. As suggested by the analysis of economic data on sales, this dramatic scenario has also heavily impacted individuals' spending levels. To better understand these changes, the present study focused on consumer behavior and its psychological antecedents. Previous studies found that crises differently affect people's willingness to buy necessities products (i.e., utilitarian shopping) and non-necessities products (i.e., hedonic shopping). Therefore, in examining whether changes in spending levels were associated with changes in consumer behavior, we adopted a fine-grained approach disentangling between necessities and non-necessities. We administered an online survey to 3833 participants (age range 18-64) during the first peak period of the contagion in Italy. Consumer behavior toward necessities was predicted by anxiety and COVID-related fear, whereas consumer behavior toward non-necessities was predicted by depression. Furthermore, consumer behavior toward necessities and non-necessities was predicted by personality traits, perceived economic stability, and self-justifications for purchasing. The present study extended our understanding of consumer behavior changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results could be helpful to develop marketing strategies that consider psychological factors to meet actual consumers' needs and feelings.

/pdf/psychological-factors-and-consumer-behavior-during-the-covid-3va44b0a4x.pdf

Psychological factors and consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The modern supply chain is characterised by an ill-defined and porous perimeter, allowing entry points for potential adversaries to intercept sensitive information and disrupt operations. Such supp...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00207543.2021.1884311

The zero trust supply chain: Managing supply chain risk in the absence of trust

Covid-19 attacks the body of purchasing and supply management: A medical check of the immune system

Drawing upon a social media perspective, this study explores the phenomenon of opportunistic behaviour in supply chain finance (SCF) Based on research into the factors that drive opportunistic beh

Opportunistic behaviour in supply chain finance: a social media perspective on the ‘Noah event’

Covid-19 has posed difficult and challenging situations to the supply chains and companies are in fix how to choose the vendors under the uncertainty and complexity in recent years. Therefore, this research aims to incorporate structural transformation of the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) that is most appropriate for the uncertainty and disruption caused by Covid-19 like situation for ensuring supplies from vendors. The conventional approaches for vendor selection and evaluation use numerous multi-criteria decision-making tools that may not ensure reliability in a dynamic situation caused due to Covid-19. In this research, Fleiss’ Kappa method ensures the reliability of responses from eight respondents by using pairwise comparisons and assigning weights as envisaged in FAHP. In addition to determine the reliability of responses, a step under FAHP has been altered. This alteration is demonstrated in the vendor selection case in the Covid-19 scenario. The research suggests a plausible system required to address the uncertainties associated with Covid-19 to select and evaluate vendors by modifying a FAHP. The proposed altered mechanism can be incorporated in a similar type of other decision-making circumstances such as Covid-19, where the decision-makers are more than one, and the situation is very dynamic. The study is likely to facilitate information management, algorithmic development in decision making, or machine-driven decisions in uncertain conditions. The study offers managerial implications to purchase managers to accommodate and combine multiple factors and responses concerning the vendor performances for their evaluation, thus making a process more reliable. 

/pdf/structural-transformation-of-fuzzy-analytical-hierarchy-2wzxfy3u.pdf

Structural transformation of fuzzy analytical hierarchy process: a relevant case for Covid-19

Buyer opportunism in strategic supplier relationships: Triggers, manifestations and consequences

This study aims to get a deeper understanding of one of the antecedents of opportunistic behavior in strategic supplier relationships at the individual level of analysis. The authors specifically focus on self-justification, which could be seen as a mechanism that relaxes the moral scruples of purchasing professionals and, hence, facilitates actual opportunistic behavior.,The critical incident technique was deployed to interview purchasing professionals in the Netherlands about their personal opportunistic behavior in strategic supplier relationships. This resulted in rich autobiographical accounts of 29 critical incidents of opportunistic behavior. The data were analyzed through the lens of the self-justification theory.,The study identified a set of self-justification strategies underlying opportunistic purchasing behavior in strategic supplier relationships. Opportunistic professionals tended to deploy six strategies: acknowledgement, denial, rationalization, attributional egotism, sense of entitlement and ego aggrandizement.,This study is limited to Dutch industrial purchasers and was exploratory by nature. Future research could extend the perspective to other sectors, cultures and professional roles.,The study draws attention to radically new interventions at the individual level of analysis. To understand and minimize opportunistic behavior in strategic supplier relationships, organizations should acknowledge and address the important issue of self-justifications of purchasing professionals.,In contrast to the existing literature at the firm level of analysis, this study sheds new light on the antecedents of buyer opportunism from an alternative theoretical perspective at the individual level of analysis. The authors do not draw on the narrow perspective of personality psychology, but rather focus on the role of self-justification as an antecedent of buyer opportunism in strategic supplier relationships.

Mark Verhappen

Papers

Buyer opportunism in strategic supplier relationships: Triggers, manifestations and consequences

Self-justification for opportunistic purchasing behavior in strategic supplier relationships