Nath Shobod Deba, Jamshed Kazi Md, Shaikh Javed M
Department of International Business University of Dhaka Dhaka Bangladesh.
Faculty of Management Studies Sankalchand Patel University Visnagar India.
J Consum Aff. 2022 Spring;56(1):180-210. doi: 10.1111/joca.12440. Epub 2022 Feb 16.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the overall well-being of consumers is disastrous. However, there is limited understanding of how the COVID-19 situation affects consumer well-being and how subsistence consumers mitigate well-being concerns and unique stresses. Following an exploratory, qualitative approach, 39 in-depth semi-structured interviews with subsistence consumers were conducted in India and Bangladesh. Findings from the thematic analysis reveal that subsistence consumers experienced unique stresses and hardships during COVID-19, which are unforeseen transitory financial stress, psychosocial stress, and marketplace and consumption-related stresses. Drawing on the appraisal theory of stress, our analysis of the data identifies the co-existence of two emotion-focused coping strategies-religiosity and social support-that interplay to overcome their well-being concerns in the emerging countries of India and Bangladesh. Therefore, it may be of particular interest to managers and policymakers who seek to address the severe consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on socio-economically subsistence consumers.
新冠疫情对消费者整体福祉的影响是灾难性的。然而，对于新冠疫情状况如何影响消费者福祉，以及维持生计的消费者如何缓解福祉担忧和独特压力，人们的了解有限。采用探索性的定性研究方法，在印度和孟加拉国对39名维持生计的消费者进行了深入的半结构化访谈。主题分析的结果表明，维持生计的消费者在新冠疫情期间经历了独特的压力和困难，即不可预见的短暂财务压力、心理社会压力以及与市场和消费相关的压力。基于压力评估理论，我们对数据的分析确定了两种以情绪为中心的应对策略——宗教信仰和社会支持——的共存，它们相互作用以克服印度和孟加拉国等新兴国家消费者的福祉担忧。因此，对于那些试图应对新冠疫情对社会经济层面维持生计的消费者造成的严重后果的管理者和政策制定者来说，这可能会特别有意义。
