How to Empower Consumers in Omnichannel Retailing

Purpose – This research aims to investigate the underlying mechanism of consumer psychological empowerment on consumers‘ co-creation behaviors in an omnichannel retailing environment. We adopt the psychological empowerment theory to explore the influence of consumer psychological empowerment in the omnichannel context. We use channel integration quality and consumer engagement marketing as the antecedents, while customer participation and citizenship behaviors of customer co-creation as the consequences. The core self-evaluation is also examined as the moderator in this research. Design/methodology/approach – We collected data by conducting an online survey. A total of 319 questionnaires from consumers with omnichannel experience were used in the analysis. We used SmartPLS to test the research model. Findings – The results support the mediating effect of consumer psychological empowerment. The results also show that high positive core self-evaluation consumers experience stronger consumer psychological empowerment when stimulated by consumer engagement marketing; whereas high negative core self-evaluation consumers exhibit lower consumer psychological empowerment when stimulated by channel integration quality. Research limitations/implications – To generalize the results, this research can be replicated using other age groups, extending to different cultures, investigating other factors that influence the effect of consumer psychological empowerment. Practical implications/Social implications – To achieve greater customer management in omnichannel retailing, managers can improve consumer psychological empowerment and achieve it through the high level of channel integration quality and consumer engagement marketing strategies. In addition, managers can stimulate consumers‘ positive core self-evaluation levels to improve consumer psychological empowerment. Originality/value – This research extends from prior literature and investigates the antecedents of consumer psychological empowerment in an omnichannel context. We also explore the moderating effects of core self-evaluation and provide insights into improving consumer psychological empowerment and value co-creation for consumers with different levels of core slef-evaluaion.