Cultivating a healthier and more fulfilling lifestyle extends beyond dietary choices. It encompasses a holistic approach to wellbeing wherein the desire for better health and overall wellbeing acts as a strong driver in the food market. The purpose of the study is to examine the role of consumer self-advocacy, perceived health benefits, and perceived ease of access on organic food consumption, which in turn influences the emotional, social, and physical wellbeing of a consumer. Additionally, the mediating role of organic food consumption was investigated. Utilising a purposive sample approach, a questionnaire survey was used to gather information from 500 Indian organic consumers. Consumer self-advocacy, perceived ease of access, and perceived health benefits were found to have a significant impact on organic food consumption. Also, social, mental and physical wellbeing improved with the consumption of organic food. Moreover, the association between consumer self-advocacy, perceived ease of access, perceived health benefits, and the holistic dimensions of physical, emotional, and social wellbeing is mediated by organic food consumption. The paper contributes to the existing literature on health and wellbeing by providing valuable implications for public health initiatives and marketing strategies aimed at promoting healthier lifestyle.

Purpose – This study examines the influence of consumers' brand image identification, credibility towards organic food brands and ambiguity tolerance on the attitude-intention link, grounded in the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework. It also explores the mediating role of consumers' attitude and the moderating role of gender. Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained from 390 Indian consumers through purposive sampling method. Hypotheses testing was performed using structural equation modelling (SEM). To capture gender-based differences, permutation-based multigroup analysis (MGA) was conducted. Additionally, fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was employed to validate the SEM results and provide configurational insights. Findings – The results demonstrate that brand image identification, credibility identification and ambiguity tolerance significantly and positively influence consumer attitudes and purchase intention. Attitude mediates the relationship between these antecedents and purchase intention, underscoring its critical role in shaping purchasing behaviour. Further, MGA results reveal notable gender differences across several paths in the model. The fsQCA findings confirm and enrich the SEM outcomes by identifying alternative pathways leading to purchase intention. Practical implications – The findings offer actionable insights for marketers, managers and policymakers in the organic food sector to design communication strategies, develop consumer-centric branding and tailor marketing initiatives that enhance favourable attitudes and purchase intentions across gender groups. Originality/value – This study pioneers the integration of brand image identification, credibility identification and ambiguity tolerance into the S-O-R framework within the Indian organic food context, offering methodological rigour and a comprehensive understanding of consumer decision-making.

Addressing environmental crises requires a shift in consumer behaviour towards more ecologically friendly options. Practicing organic conduct may improve psychological health. However, the desire to purchase health-conscious and ecologically friendly foods is struggling to gain traction. The study investigates the determinants shaping Millennial and Gen Z consumers intention to purchase organic food and segment them into categories based on their consumption motivation. Data from 340 Indian consumers were gathered via a structured questionnaire using a purposive sampling technique. To analyze the conceptual model and validate the hypotheses, structured equation modelling was employed. Green attitude, subjective knowledge, health consciousness and environmental concern have significant positive influence on purchase intention. Moreover, the impact of environmental concern and health consciousness on purchase intention were significantly mediated by green attitude and subjective knowledge. This study is pioneering in examining the influence of health consciousness and environmental concern on subjective knowledge towards organic food and also in examining the mediating effect of subjective knowledge in the relationship between environmental concern, health consciousness and the purchase intention of Millennials and Gen Z consumers within the Indian milieu. Further, millennials and Gen Z consumers are segmented into preventive and therapeutic consumers.

Purpose: Community health centres (CHCs) play a vital role in healthcare service delivery in rural India and act as a crucial link between the primary and tertiary healthcare systems. The rural population in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir primarily depends on CHCs for healthcare services due to the scarcity of private healthcare infrastructure and the lack of access to tertiary hospitals. The purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of management capability, staff competence, waiting time and patient satisfaction on revisit intention among patients visiting CHCs for care needs. It further examines the mediational role of patient satisfaction between antecedents of patient satisfaction and revisit intention. Design/methodology/approach: A survey by questionnaire was used to collect data from 318 inpatients and outpatients visiting CHCs. Partial least square-structural equation modelling was performed with the help of SmartPLS 3 software to evaluate the causal relationships between variables. Findings: The findings of the study ascertain that staff competence and waiting time are strong predictors of patient satisfaction while management capability was reported as an insignificant factor. Patient satisfaction significantly affects revisit intention and successfully mediates the impact of management capability, staff competence and waiting time on revisit intention. Originality/value: CHCs play a significant role in bridging the gap between primary healthcare and tertiary healthcare and in delivering healthcare services to the vast rural population in India. This study necessitates the active participation of management to ensure the smooth functioning of CHCs. There is a need to provide adequate staff and necessary infrastructural facilities to reduce the treatment waiting time.

Purpose: This research aims to examine how health consciousness, social identity, self-identity, trust and willingness to pay premium impact individuals’ intention to make green purchases, which in turn influences organic purchasing behavior. Additionally, the study tried to examine the moderating effect of willingness to pay premium. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing a purposive sampling approach, a questionnaire survey was used to gather information from 452 customers in India. The conceptual model was assessed, and the research hypotheses were examined using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings: The results of this study showed that the intention to make green purchases is strongly influenced by consumers health consciousness, social identity and trust. However, self-identity did not influence consumers green purchase intention. Furthermore, the moderating effect of willingness to pay premium was significant, except for self-identity, in the relationship of health consciousness, willingness to pay premium social identity and trust with green purchase intention. Practical implications: The research will help producers and marketers refine food and marketing tactics to promote a favorable perception of organic food products. Originality/value: This study is pioneering in (1) investigating the moderating impact of willingness to pay premium (WLPP) in the relationship of health consciousness, social identity, self-identity and trust with green purchase intention and (2) investigating the influence of consumer identities on green purchase intention in the Indian context.

The study aims to evaluate consumers’ attitudes toward the biometric technology and to investigate how these authentication technologies influence the intention to use such technologies in the future. A survey using a questionnaire was conducted to collect data from 610 bank customers. The data, gathered offline, were analyzed using statistical techniques such as descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. The findings indicate that attitude toward biometric authentication significantly influence perceived ease of use and security. In turn, perceived ease of use and security significantly impact perceived usefulness, which affects the intention to use biometric authentication technology for banking services. The study suggests that banking service providers should leverage the positive beliefs of users by integrating biometric technologies (face recognition, fingerprinting, and iris scans) for transactions in banking applications. This research contributes to the literature by specifically examining the impact of biometric authentication techniques on the technology acceptance model (TAM) determinants and the intention to use these technologies. The findings offer fresh insights for various stakeholders, facilitating the effective and successful implementation of these technological advancements in emerging economies.

In the original version of this article, the author’s name Mansoor Farooq Khan was incorrectly written as Mansoor Farooq Mir.

Purpose: The study is aimed to identify the determinants of online buying behavior and their associations with the consequences of online buying behavior. The study adopted an e-loyalty framework and investigated causal links among functionality, usability, trust, commitment and loyalty. In addition, the study also attempted to investigate the mediating role of trust and commitment between online buying determinants and online purchasing outcomes. The demographic variables of age, gender and income are used as control variables. Design/methodology/approach: An online questionnaire survey was conducted on Internet users by adopting purposive sampling technique. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed for measurement development, SEM was used for testing causal links, and percentile bootstrap with 95% confidence interval was used for mediation analysis. Findings: Significant positive relationships were found among functionality, usability, trust, commitment and loyalty. Trust was found to fully mediate the effect of functionality and usability on loyalty. It was also found that commitment fully mediates the effect of functionality on loyalty. Research limitations/implications: However, caution is advised while generalizing results of this study. The study was conducted on online retailing only. The authors recommend future studies to extend the research in other e-commerce sectors and also to perform a comparative study between online and offline retailing. Practical implications: This study provides some practical implications to website developers in designing a web page that caters the functionality and usability aspects in understanding e-loyalty formation process so that appropriate marketing strategies and tactics can be established to accommodate customized loyalty of each customer. Originality/value: The study demonstrates the customer loyalty formation process in online retailing. Scanty literature has witnessed mediating role of trust and commitment in the relationships among functionality, usability and loyalty along with age, gender and monthly family income as controls in Indian sub-continent.

Sustainability in the e-commerce business has created an overwhelming interest among practitioners and researchers. The different business models adopted by the e-retailers in India lack sustainable aspects, hindering them from generating sustainable revenues. To accomplish such goals, e-retailers need to focus on sustainable factors such as trust, innovation, timely delivery of goods, usability, internet speed and customer support service. In view of this, the article is aimed to create an instrument that captures sustainable online retailing by developing, measuring and empirically validating a scale. The validity of the scale was established by adopting a proper psychometric scale development procedure. The study found that after applying various judgmental and statistical criteria to the initial scale of 26 items, 17 items were retained with the removal of nine items sequentially at different steps. The dropped items could not meet the set thresholds of different criterion. Results of the study suggested that trust and internet speed in the present context are key determinants of sustainable e-retailing. The study focused on the online retail sector only. Methodological developments in other areas might lead to different results if the chosen criteria were to be repeated there. Both judgmental and statistical procedures need to be used with proper consensus. The practical implications of the study involve five constructs that e-marketers and practitioners could adopt to provide better customer experience resulting in higher customer satisfaction. The authors demonstrated a detailed procedure for scale purification. This procedure will help researchers in this area and in adjacent disciplines build greater consistency regarding applying methodological steps in scale purification. It will also assist reviewers and editors with tools to identify methodological errors while making review decisions. Such a scale will help in bringing standardization of the research carried out in sustainable online retailing.

Private-label brands (PLBs) are spreading their operations in all product categories and have marked their presence in almost all types of retail formats. They are posing stringent competition to national brands (NBs), be it offline (organized and unorganized) retail or online retail. Besides being favourites of value-conscious Indian consumers, PLBs are becoming a key focus of channel partners as well. In this context, the present research article is aimed at providing insights about how PLBs are able to garner the profit-centric interests of channel partners and how they are affecting the distribution of NBs in the unorganized retail sector. The study is based on information collected through semi-structured interviews with distributors and retailers from Haryana and Punjab. A thematic analysis was performed to draw meaningful inferences from the responses collected through the semi-structured interviews. The results reveal that channel partners’ interest in the high margins of private labels and their interest in maintaining long-term relationships with the latter make NBs vulnerable on parameters such as sales effort investment, in-store visibility, ordering quantity and frequency and numeric distribution. This study provides bases for understanding private label operations in the unorganized retail sector in India.

The paradigm shift in the interest of large pharmaceutical business houses toward marketing of phytomedicines has boosted its trade across globe. The rationale behind this is growing acceptance of herbal medicines among people owing to their traditional belief and cleverly thought marketing campaigns. It is obvious that efficacy and safety are the most trusted attributes that influence consumer’s intention to adopt herbal treatment over allopathic treatment. Moreover, people through their generic attitude believe that phytomedicines are safer than allopathic medicines and do not exhibit any side effects. However, sufficient information is not available to assure that herbal medicines are effective and absolutely free from all side effects. The belief of safety and efficacy among people has transferred through generations and is strengthened by experience. Consequently, it has aided herbal pharmaceutical companies in securing conviction of people on herbal healthcare through misleading and persuasive marketing efforts, besides being merely informational. This has rendered low awareness about phytomedicines among masses. The propositions like “free from side effects, " “efficacy, " and “treatment of difficult-to-treat diseases” need to be verified through scientific studies.