Effects of atmospherics on emotions and intention with respect to involvement under different shopping environments

Abstract

The present study deals with the S–O–R framework. The past five decades of research have successful validate the S–O–R model in offline and online contexts. However, there is still room for improvements. In particular, hedonic aspects have been proposed as distinctive aspects to differentiate companies. Previous researchers have (i) been somewhat reluctant to investigate dominance and other emotional responses; and (ii) produced mixed results regarding the impact of atmospherics and emotional responses on behavior. Building on this tradition of research, this study investigates the S-O-R model by incorporating delight as an attitudinal emotional response and tests the moderating effects of consumers’ involvement and shopping environment (three-way interactional effects) in connection with the links among atmospherics, emotions and intentions. The current findings demonstrate that the model fit better for low involvement consumers than for high involvement consumers. This was true for both offline and online environments .The theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the conclusions.