Does Emotional Intelligence of Online Shoppers Affect Their Shopping Behavior? From a Cognitive-Affective-Conative Framework Perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although many e-commerce researchers have studied consumers’ shopping behaviors with different perspectives, there is little evidence on whether psychological capital characteristics, such as emotional intelligence, affect online consumers’ shopping behaviors. To develop an effective marketing strategy of e-commerce companies, it is crucial to understand the impact of consumers’ psychological capital characteristics on their shopping behaviors. Using a cognition-affection-conation framework as an overarching theoretical foundation, this study explores the effect of emotional intelligence (EI) as one of the consumer’s psychological capital characteristics on online consumers’ value perceptions/shopping behaviors including shopping satisfaction, their continual intention to use the shopping site, and e-loyalty toward the site. Our empirical analysis results show consumers’ EI influences online consumers’ value perceptions (i.e., utilitarian and hedonic values of e-commerce) and shopping behaviors (i.e., satisfaction, continuous intention, and e-loyalty). We will discuss theoretical and practical contributions of the study.