How shoppers' configurations of demographics, sustainability assessments, and place-attractiveness assessments impact who shops in culturally traditional mega-markets

Abstract

This study proposes and empirically examines a case-outcome configurational theory for explaining shoppers' demographic configurations and sustainability and place attractiveness assessments impact their behaviors toward culturally traditional mega-markets (CTMM). The empirical study here supports the case-outcome theory that recipes of (separate) customer screens (i.e., a few unique complex configurations of shopper conditions) identify shoppers who will (not) shop frequently at the mall and commit high (low) shopping expenditures. The study constructs models from a foundation of complexity theory tenets to propose alternative (separate) configurations (i.e., shopper recipes or screens) that accurately indicate outcomes of frequent (infrequent) shoppers with high (low) expenditures. Configuration theory of shoppers represents a major paradigm shift beyond the currently dominant logic of variable-directional relationship theory and testing. The findings support the general conclusions that CTMM place sustainability and place attractiveness case-outcome configurational models indicate shoppers having high (low) rates of visiting and high (low) expenditures accurately.