Purpose: Environmental concern is getting increasing importance in consumer shopping decisions. Nevertheless, to date, sustainable packaged foods are not always the first option when consumers go shopping. This paper analyses how environmental concern moderates the role played by external factors – preference towards sustainable retailers and trust in sustainable producers – in determining consumer purchase intentions for sustainable packaged foods. Consumer involvement in eco-friendly labels, increasingly present in food packages, is investigated as indirectly impacting pro-environmental purchase intentions.Design/methodology/approach: An online survey administered to a sample of Italian food shoppers is used for the empirical analysis. A total of 278 structured questionnaires were modelled using a structural equation modelling approach.Findings: Findings show that producers and retailers' policies in favour of sustainability are key in determining consumers' sustainable purchase intentions. Further, coherent uses of labels and logos in light of sustainability can support consumer purchase decisions. Relevant is the influence played by the environmental concern in both supporting pro-environmental purchase intentions and in amplifying the trust in sustainable producers-purchase intentions path.Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature on sustainability showing how producers and retailers may together influence consumers' pro-environmental purchase intentions. Findings extend the retail literature on the impact of producers and retailers' policies on consumers' sustainable purchases. Further, environmental concern is investigated in its moderating role on the impact of external factors on consumers' pro-environmental purchase intentions.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the formative dimensions of organizational resilience – namely dynamic capabilities (DCs) and social capital – displayed by retail entrepreneurs in the face of natural disasters (i.e. the 2012 Emilia earthquake). The paper evaluates social capital and the various types of DCs that support small entrepreneurs’ resilience during three temporal units of analysis: before the earthquake, during the emergency period, and during the recovery process. Design/methodology/approach: The study was performed by applying a qualitative approach based on two focus groups and a double set of semi-structured interviews administered to a sample of eight small retail entrepreneurs hit by the 2012 Emilia earthquake. Content analysis was then applied. Findings: The findings show that DCs and social capital are instrumental to enhancing organizational resilience; moreover the contribution of each category of DCs (reconfiguration, leveraging, sensing and interpreting, learning and knowledge integration) and social capital to entrepreneurs’ resilience changes according to the temporal phase of the natural disaster under analysis. Research limitations/implications: This study will provide small retailer entrepreneurs and public authorities with useful insights on how DCs and social capital can practically support recovery paths at different times in the occurrence of a natural disaster. Originality/value: This study contributes to the scientific debate on organizational resilience in disaster management, studying it through the lens of DCs and social capital, and analyzing the role of different types of DCs in developing entrepreneurs’ resilience during the various periods of a natural disaster. Moreover, it contributes by applying the concepts of resilience and DCs to a poorly investigated entrepreneurial context such as the retail one.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of several intrinsic motivations driving consumers' intention to buy using a mobile app, namely: shopping gamification, focussed attention, shopping enjoyment and socialness, through the mediating role of shopping engagement. The online shopping experience is investigated in its dual role as direct driver of the intention to buy using a mobile app and as moderator of the shopping engagement – intention to buy using a mobile app path.Design/methodology/approach: The empirical analysis was performed in China due to the extensive usage of mobile shopping apps amongst the Chinese population. A structural equation model was estimated on 893 valid and complete structured questionnaires collected amongst a sample of Chinese consumers.Findings: Findings confirm that intrinsic motivations (i.e. shopping gamification, focussed attention, shopping enjoyment and socialness) indirectly influence the intention to buy using a mobile app channelled by shopping engagement. Most remarkably, results show that the online shopping experience positively moderates the shopping engagement – intention to buy using a mobile app path.Originality/value: The novelty of the paper lies in the conceptual and empirical evidence provided on shopping gamification, within the retailing marketing domain. The study investigates other related intrinsic motivations that jointly with shopping gamification directly influence shopping engagement and indirectly impact mobile shopping intention. The paper provides insights into the moderating role of online shopping experience, a key aspect when the challenge concerning gamification is considered.

Purpose: Non-vegan consumers are increasingly shifting their food habits and lifestyles towards vegan food. Thus, in addition to traditional, though poorly studied, ethical motives (i.e. animal, environmental, spiritual, health concerns), other factors may influence the purchase of vegan food. Within this context, the paper investigates the moderating role of conformity in enticing consumers to buy vegan food products, together with the main traditional consumers' concerns influencing their attitude towards vegan food. The study also considers the role of the willingness to pay a premium price as a direct driver of the intention to buy vegan.Design/methodology/approach: An online survey was performed in Italy on a number of major Facebook thematic pages. A dataset based on 250 Italian non-vegans was used to implement a structural equation model.Findings: Findings show that spiritual and animal concerns are direct drivers of non-vegan buyers' attitude towards vegan food. Attitude, then, strongly influences the intention to buy vegan foods. Though less impactful, non-vegans' willingness to pay a premium price is a motive positively influencing their intention to buy vegan food. The positive and significant moderating effect exerted by conformity on the attitude-intention path confirms the amplifying role played by trends and lifestyles on consumers' food buying choices.Originality/value: This study contributes to the food and consumer behaviour literature in being the first exploring the moderating role played by conformity in inducing non-vegan consumers to buy vegan food. Environmental, animal, spiritual and health concerns are investigated from the non-vegan perspective.

This paper demonstrates the crucial role of retail service quality as a key activator in the formation of customer loyalty to the store; the latter is understood in a conative and action sense. Applying a modified version of the RSQS scale, a model is tested by administering a questionnaire to 450 customers in an under-investigated retail setting, i.e. supermarkets, within the Italian context. Structural equation modelling was employed. The results prove that customers consider retail service quality as a second-order dimension and recognize the main contribution of physical aspects and reliability first-order dimensions. Findings corroborate the crucial role played by perceived service quality and the mediating role of customer satisfaction and conative loyalty within the relationship between service quality and action loyalty.

Amphiphilic methacrylate copolymers (Si-co-EF) containing polysiloxane (Si) and mixed poly(oxyethylene)–perfluorohexyl (EF) side chains were synthesized with different compositions and used together with polysiloxane-functionalized nanoparticles as additives of condensation cured nanocomposite poly(siloxane) films. The mechanical properties of the nanocomposite films were consistent with the elastomeric behavior of the poly(siloxane) matrix without significant detriment from either the copolymer or the nanoparticles. Films were found to be markedly hydrophobic and liphophobic, with both properties being maximized at an intermediate content of EF units. The high enrichment in fluorine at the film surface was proven by angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (AR-XPS). Long-term marine antifouling performance was evaluated in field immersion trials of test panels for up to 10 months of immersion. Both nanoparticles and amphiphilic copolymer were found to be highly effective in reducing the colonization of foulants, especially hard macrofoulants, when compared with control panels. Lowest percentage of surface coverage was 20% after 10 months of immersion (films with 4 wt% copolymer and 0.5 wt% nanoparticles), which was further decreased to less than 10% after exposure to a water jet for 10 s. The enhanced antifouling properties of coatings containing both nanoparticles and copolymer were confirmed by laboratory assays against the polychaete Ficopomatus enigmaticus and the diatom Navicula salinicola.