The role of spatial presence in establishing customer engagement in the mobile retail applications a contingency perspective.

The role of spatial presence in establishing customer engagement in the mobile retail applications a contingency perspective.The role of spatial presence in establishing customer engagement in the mobile retail applications a contingency perspective.The role of spatial presence in establishing customer engagement in the mobile retail applications a contingency perspective.The role of spatial presence in establishing customer engagement in the mobile retail applications a contingency perspective.The role of spatial presence in establishing customer engagement in the mobile retail applications a contingency perspective.The role of spatial presence in establishing customer engagement in the mobile retail applications a contingency perspective.The role of spatial presence in establishing customer engagement in the mobile retail applications a contingency perspective.The role of spatial presence in establishing customer engagement in the mobile retail applications a contingency perspective.The role of spatial presence in establishing customer engagement in the mobile retail applications a contingency perspective.The role of spatial presence in establishing customer engagement in the mobile retail applications a contingency perspective.

INTRODUCTION

Overview

This chapter provides a general overview of this thesis The chapter begins with the reasons for choosing the research topic Next, a breakdown of the research questions is critically identified The general research objectives and corresponding specific research objectives of the study are presented in the next section The overview of key concepts is then postulated, as are the key theoretical underpinnings Also, research methods, design, scope, and delimitations are then described Next, the theoretical, methodological, and managerial significance of the study is addressed Finally, the thesis outline is also introduced.

Reasons for choosing the topic

Advanced technologies can generate a radically new specific experience, e.g., spatial presence experience, immersive experience, or flow experience, to consumers during their shopping journey (Hilken et al., 2017, Petit et al., 2019; Grewal et al., 2020; Wedel et al., 2020), thus providing marketing managers a set of business solutions that can blur the lines between the real and virtual world (Grewal et al., 2020; Kopalle et al., 2020; Nussipova et al., 2020), placing consumers into the context of situated online services (Hilken et al., 2017; de Ruyter et al., 2020), and then enhancing the value of their offerings (Hamilton et al., 2016; Grewal et al., 2020; Shankar et al., 2021) Since spatial presence, which is defined as the feeling of being there or realism (Lee, 2004), in computer-mediated environments are new property in the digital era (Hilken et al., 2017, 2018; de Ruyter et al., 2020; Heller et al., 2021), understanding the nature of spatial presence experience and how to create spatial presence experience by using emerging digital technologies such as retail mobile apps, are critically important for both marketing managers and researchers.

Shopping on mobile apps has grown exponentially because of the proliferation of smart mobile devices that is symbiotic with the increasing tendency of on-the-go consumers requesting for “anytime, anywhere, and anything” services(Fang, 2017;

McLean et al., 2018, 2020; Yang et al., 2021) In addition to providing information, search, and communication services, retail mobile apps have been becoming the major distribution channel, enabling retailers to provide consumers with a variety of products and services than before (McLean et al., 2018) Retail mobile apps can provide users with not only functional value but also emotional value, such as entertainment, pleasure, and even satisfaction, leading to consumer brand engagement (Hur et al., 2018) Experience within such a virtual retail environment in general and a retail mobile app, in particular, may lead to acquiring, engaging, and retaining customers (van Heerde et al., 2019) According to Hilken et al.

(2017), in order to engage customers successfully, the experience within a virtual service channel (i.e., retail mobile app) should simulate “real” shopping (eMarketer,

2018) Spatial presence experience, therefore, should be an important factor that can explain consumers’ active engagement with retailers through mobile apps When a customer senses a spatial presence experience, he or she neglects the technology- mediated nature of the experience (Wirth et al., 2007), and his or her online shopping experience becomes as “authentic” and “real” as it is in physical stores (Hilken et al., 2017) Although previous studies have demonstrated the significant role of customer experience in both physical and online environments (Grewal et al., 2017a, b; Mohd- Ramly and Omar, 2017; Carlson et al., 2019), the literature has not specifically identified the essence of spatial presence experience in retail mobile apps, nor has it empirically examined how this experience enhances customer engagement.

Recently, virtual shopping environments have become increasingly augmented by a number of emergent/smart technologies with immersive capabilities (Hollebeek et al., 2020; Arghashi and Yuksel, 2022); and, thus, a new mode of experience has spawned/emerged where consumers believe that they are spatially present within virtual environments (Yim et al., 2017; Pleyers and Poncin,

2020) However, the existing literature examining the mechanisms which formulate such experiences in virtual retailing contexts remains sparse (Hilken et al., 2017,

2018) A review of the literature on general online shopping environments suggests that two major media attributes, namely interactivity and vividness, determine customer evaluation and experience with those environments (Coyle and Thorson, 2001; Jiang and Benbasat, 2007; Yim et al., 2017) Drawing upon the theory of situated cognition (Robbins and Aydede, 2009), interactivity and vividness can be argued as representatives for the respective embodied and embedded cognition of consumers within their online information processing (Carassa et al., 2005; Hilken et al.,

2018) When consumers are embodied through the simulation of physical interaction (e.g., touching screens, rotating 360-degree products) and embedded in a sensory-rich environment (e.g., graphic images, background music) (Kim et al., 2013b; Yim et al., 2017), they become immersed in virtual shopping environments, experiencing something akin “real” physical stores Despite the noted driving roles of interactivity and vividness, to the best of our knowledge, research on the specific experience of the feeling of “being there” in the context of retail mobile apps with varying levels of these two attributes is still underexplored.

As mentioned above, retail mobile apps clearly help retailers nurture enduring relationships with their customers, potentially reducing decision-making uncertainty and enhancing experience benefits, favorable attitude toward a brand, and customer engagement (Thakur, 2016; Kim and Baek, 2018) In a retailing context, a large proportion of marketing budgets has been allocated to mobile apps as a strategic way to enhance the customer experience and to enable retailers to remain competitive (Dacko, 2017; van Heerde et al., 2019); as such, retail mobile apps are becoming a powerful, ubiquitous, and timely service delivery channel (Iyer et al., 2018; McLean et al., 2020) However, given the easily installed/uninstalled nature of mobile apps, the extensive competitiveness in retailing markets and the limited phone internal storage that consumers are typically facing (Arora et al., 2017; Grewal et al., 2017a; McLean et al., 2018), getting customer stickiness to particular mobile apps that facilitate their engagement is regarded as the biggest challenge for contemporary retailers (Tarute et al., 2017; Molinillo et al., 2020). According to Perro (2018), nearly 71% of mobile-app users abandon/uninstall using a new app within 90 days and 25% of installed mobile-app are never used Thus, an understanding of how retail mobile apps could enhance the online shopping experience of customers and then nurture customer engagement is of prime importance for such retailers.

Customer engagement at the heart of this study refers to the level of customer value contributions to a firm/retailer (Kumar et al., 2019a) In this regard, the direct contributions are manifested as customers making purchases from the retailer, whereas non-purchase behaviors such as customer referrals, customer influences, and customer feedbacks/suggestions reflect indirect contributions from customers to the retailer (Kumar and Reinartz, 2016; Harmeling et al., 2017; Harman and Porter, 2021) As of late, the rapid advancement of mobile technologies such as smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices has enabled retailers to develop interactive and inclusive mobile apps that substantively enrich the online experience of customers (Wang et al., 2015; Dacko, 2017; Kim and Baek, 2018; Heller et al., 2019; Molinillo et al., 2020) For instance, retailer’s mobile apps allow customers to leave reviews, star ratings, recommendations, or add photos/videos, and even interact and post follow-up questions directly to retailers and other customers throughout the pre- purchase, purchase, and post-purchase (Grewal et al., 2017a; Inman and Nikolova, 2017) Moreover, retailers have already applied scan- and-go technologies to set customers’ new expectations and enhance their online service experiences (Grewal et al., 2017b) It is the most important process retailers need to deliver online to achieve competitive advantages (Pansari and Kumar,

2017) With the increasing competition between retail mobile apps and other types of virtual retail environments, enhancing customer engagement seems to be more effective and efficient (Iyer et al., 2018; McLean et al., 2018) In other words,nurturing and fostering customer engagement in retail mobile apps also is a significant topic to discover (McLean and Wilson, 2019; van Heerde et al., 2019).However, relatively little research has been devoted to examining consumer engagement in virtual retail environments, especially mobile apps.

In line with Zhu et al (2019), it is arguable that the mechanism through which retail mobile-app cognitions—i.e., interactivity and vividness—are translated into a feeling of spatial presence leading to customer engagement is equivalent to the hierarchy of three sequential stages (i.e., cognition, affect, and conation); thus, the hierarchy-of-e ects (HOE) model (Lavidge and Steiner, 1961) can serve as theff theoretical foundation for the phenomenon at the heart of the current study The HOE model has been frequently applied to systematically explain consumers’ sequentially hierarchical responses in several contexts such as e-commerce platforms (Zhu et al., 2019), website aesthetics (Wang et al., 2011), and social media advertising (Johnston et al., 2018) Moreover, several contingent factors such as consumers’ individual tendencies (e.g., personalities/personal traits, Laroche et al., 2003) and motivational orientations (e.g., platform involvement, Zhu et al.,

2019) have been heralded as impacting such hierarchical response processes. Additionally, according to van Heerde et al (2019), customer heterogeneity is an important boundary condition that can explain why the same environment or domain (i.e., retail mobile apps) may generate different cognitions/perceptions, affective experiences, and behavioral reactions This research, therefore, suggests that an individual’s intrinsic tendencies (e.g., need for cognition) (Cacioppo et al., 1996; Priluck and Till, 2004) and issue- specific motivations (e.g., domain-specific interest) (Liu and Shrum, 2009; Hofer et al., 2012) modulate customers’ cognitions as well as affective evaluations that are then followed by their actions Therefore, the contingency roles of these individual orientation variables on the linkage from mobile-app cognitions to spatial presence experience and then to customer engagement, which was not investigated in the previous research, will be explored.

Against this backdrop, the present research primarily contributes to the emerging stream of research on retail marketing in serveral important ways This is the one of the first to empirically demonstrate a theory-driven dynamic and contingent model of customer engagement in the context of retail mobile apps, to the best of our knowledge Thereby, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of the construct of spatial presence and customer engagement as well as responds to the call for further research on the concept of spatial presence (Hilken et al., 2017; de Ruyter et al., 2020; Heller et al., 2021) and the concept of customer engagement (Kumar and Pansari, 2016; Pansari and Kumar, 2017) in a virtual environment such as retail mobile apps Moreover, drawing upon the hierarchy-of-e ects model, thisff study extends the literature by offering novel insights into the sequential effects of mobile app cognitions on spatial presence experience, which in turn leads to customer engagement and the extent to which these effects vary customer’s intrinsic tendencies (e.g., need for cognition) and issue-specific motivations (e.g., domain- specific interest) We also offer novel insights into how the two categories of embodied and embedded cognitions explain crucially spatial presence experience and advance the knowledge pertaining to enablers that generate a specific experience, that feeling of “being there”, in virtual environments by complementing the situated cognition theory with the hierarchy-of-e ects model With this, theff current study adds to the development of foundation theories in the realms of spatial presence experience and engagement behaviours in virtual retailing environments.For managerial practice, the study’s findings indicate that retailers should facilitate the feeling of a “real” shopping experience if they want to encourage customers to actively engage and effectively contribute to participating retailers through retail mobile apps In adition, our results also suggest that managers should design mobile apps that foster consumers’ interactive cognitions via customers’ touching,zooming, and rotating and incorporate vividness features that are multisensory and congruent through the senses (e.g., visual, tactile, and auditory sensory) to increase the situated online experience of their customers Finally, we also explore two important boundary conditions associated with consumers’ intrinsic tendencies and issue-specific motivations These are important for managers to take into account when deciding to develop retail mobile application.

Research questions

The vast majority of prior studies on customer experience with mobile apps have focused on several cognitive and affective aspects of customer experience, such as customer satisfaction, and positive emotions (Iyer et al., 2018; McLean et al., 2018; Manthiou et al., 2020), and the frequently studied antecedents are app- design features (Fang et al., 2017; Tarute et al., 2017), app-performance attributes (Fang et al., 2017; McLean et al., 2018; Shaikh et al., 2020), and perceived values (Iyer et al., 2018) However, nascent academic literature on digital marketing and virtual retailing lacks studies of the specific experience of spatial presence in emerging technologies (Heller et al., 2021) In-depth research about this specific experience is therefore required Moreover, in a retail mobile apps context, customers’ spatial presence experience may be different from that in the other advanced technologies, and therefore the research results may be more meaningful to firms/retailers or service providers in the context of online retailing service As such, this research provides a better understanding of the spatial presence experience in retail mobile apps.

Previous studies suggest that attitudes and behaviors toward the virtual(mediated) environment can be driven by interactivity and vividness (Coyle andThorson, 2001; Liu and Shrum, 2009; Kim et al., 2013b; Yim et al., 2017).According to Fang (2017) and Kim and Baek (2018), interactivity is a significant characteristic of branded apps, which can be actively controlled and synchronized to some extent with communication by users to enhance brand engagement Moreover,Kim et al (2013b) also indicated that vividness is also an important attribute of branded apps, presented through animation, graphic images, background sound, or human voice to engage customers Interactivity and vividness are multi-faceted phenomena (Liu and Shrum, 2009; Yim et al., 2017), depending on the simulation and technological advancement (Yim et al., 2017) Perceived interactivity and vividness are able to achieve when customers use and browse retail websites (Coyle and Thorson, 2001; Lee, 2018), social media platforms (Algharabat et al., 2018;Wang et al., 2019), or mobile apps (Fang, 2017; Kim et al., 2013b) Despite the enthusiasm of retailers and the increasing scholarly attention (e.g., Fang, 2017), interactivity and vividness in the context of retailers’ mobile apps and their effects on experience benefits and customer responses are relatively less understood.

Additionally, the situated cognition theory (Robbins and Aydede, 2009; Semin and Smith, 2013) posits that an individual’s information processing is based on their situated cognition which covers embodied and embedded cognition As noted earlier, interactivity and vividness can be argued to the representative of the respective embodied and embedded cognition of consumers during their online information processing (Carassa et al., 2005; Hilken et al., 2018) Therefore, based on the situated cognition theory and literature on the spatial presence (Wirth et al.,

2007, 2012; Hilken et al., 2017), this research further explores how spatial presence experience is related to two functional mechanisms, i.e., interactivity and vividness, in the situated online services settings Thus, our theoretical proposed framework in the current research addresses the following research questions:

1 How, why, and to what extent do interactivity and vividness affect spatial presence experience in the context of retail mobile apps?

As mentioned above, customer engagement has an important role in establishing positive consequences for the firm/retailer Both direct and indirect contributions of customers can have tangible benefits (i.e., higher profits, revenue, or market share) and intangible benefits (i.e., permission marketing, privacy sharing, or ability to opt into the retailers’ marketing program) to the retailer(Pansari and Kumar, 2017) It is, therefore, necessary and important for retailers to understand the underlying drivers for customer engagement to enable retailers to improve their strategies by focusing on the complete process of engaging customers According to a number of prior research (Kumar and Pansari, 2016;Prentice et al., 2019; Kuppelwieser and Klaus, 2021a), customers will make proactive contributions to a retailer as a kind of reciprocity if they receive a compelling experience In addition, empirical evidences have been found on the effects of particular aspects of customer experience such as customer satisfaction and/or customer emotions (Pansari and

Kumar, 2017; McLean et al., 2018; Manthiou et al., 2020) on customer engagement. However, the literature has not specifically identified how spatial presence experience in mobile apps can enhance customer engagement Therefore, this study aims to investigate whether a greater sense of “real being” in the context of retail mobile apps will transfer to a strong customer engagement by establishing a theoretical linkage between two constructs and testing this relationship in a quantitative study Accordingly, this study has an overriding research question, as follows:

2 To what extent does spatial presence experience affect customer engagement in the context of retail mobile apps?

The hierarchy-of-e ectsff model (Lavidge and Steiner, 1961) is used to explain the determinants of interactivity and vividness on customer engagement through the mediating role of spatial presence Moreover, situated cognition theory (Robbins and Aydede, 2009; Semin and Smith, 2013) also helps to explain consumers’ feelings of “authentic” or “real” online shopping that is captured in the concept of spatial presence experience (Carassa et al., 2005; Hilken et at., 2017; Krishna and Schwarz, 2014), and Pansari and Kumar’s (2017) perspective regarding customer engagement supports to explain customers’ direct and indirect contributions, being holistic in nature which involving customer purchases, customer referrals, customer influence, and customer feedback/suggestions (Kumar et al., 2010, 2019; Kumar and Pansari, 2016; Prentice et al., 2019) with the inputs within customers’ compelling experiences Therefore, this research advances the application of these theories to explain the underlying reasons for customer engagement during the situated online service experience Moreover, the integration of the theories in the same conceptual framework provides a comprehensive understanding of the mediating role of spatial presence experience on the linkages between two functional mechanisms and customer engagement Specifically, the following research question is addressed:

3 How do the two functional mechanisms of retail mobile apps, i.e., interactivity and vividness, affect customer engagement through the mediating role of spatial presence?

Going beyond the direct effects in the research framework that are rooted in the hierarchy-of-e ectsff model and situated cognition theory, and in response to a call for contributions to the emerging theory of customer engagement (Pansari and Kumar, 2017; Meire et al., 2019), contingency variables of personal consumer characteristics such as the need for cognition and domain-specific interest are also hypothesized Thus, the conceptual framework is proposed to address the following research questions:

4 How are the relationships between both functional mechanisms of retail mobile apps, spatial presence, and customer engagement moderated by individuals’ intrinsic and issue-specific motivations, i.e., need for cognition and domain-specific interests?

Research objectives

In the line with the research background and the research questions identified above, the overall objective of this research project is to comprehensively understand the nature and drivers of spatial presence experience in the world of virtual retailing, as well as the dynamic and contingency mechanism forming this specific experience and subsequently result in customer engagement under the theoretical lens of the hierarchy-of-effects model and the situated cognition theory.

To achieve the general research objective, a number of specific research objectives are proposed and listed below:

1 To explore how the specific experience of spatial presence is related to two functional mechanisms, i.e., interactivity and vividness, in the online services settings.

2 To examine whether a greater sense of “real” being in the context of retail mobile apps will transfer to a strong customer engagement.

3 To investigate the mediating role of spatial presence experience on the relationships between two functional mechanisms, i.e., interactivity and vividness, and customer engagement.

4 a) To explore the moderating role of individual intrinsic tendency (i.e., need for cognition) on relationships between two functional mechanisms, namely, interactivity and vividness, and spatial presence experience.

4 b) To explore the moderating role of issue-specific tendency (i.e., domain- specific interest) on relationships between spatial presence experience and customer engagement.

Overview of key concepts

- Spatial presence is defined as the feeling of being there or realism (Lee., 2004; Hilken et al., 2017) In the current thesis, we define spatial presence experience—a specific type of customer experience in virtual environments—as feelings of “being there” in the virtual retail mobile app As such, when a customer specifically experiences a sense of spatial presence, he or she neglects the technology- mediated nature of the experience, and his or her online shopping experience becomes as authentic and real as those in physical stores.

- Customer engagement is defined as “the mechanics of a customer’s value additions to the firm, either through direct contributions (i.e., customer purchases) and/or indirect contributions (i.e., customer referrals, online influences, and feedbacks)” (Pansari and Kumar, 2017, p 295) Within our theoretical framework, we view customer engagement as the level of customer value contributions to a firm/retailer In detail, customers directly contribute to the retailer value when they make purchases products/services from the retailer, whereas they indirectly contribute to the retailer value when they provide incentivized referrals, share their conservations about the retailer on social media, and provide their feedback/suggestions to improve the retailer’s products/services.

- Interactivity is defined as “an outcome resulting from properties of the technology employed or from the technology’s ability to enable users to more easily interact with and be involved with content” (Yim et al., 2017, p 91) In the current work, we define interactivity as the degree to which users can interact with virtual contents or/and objects and can modify the format or content of the mediated environment (Liu and Shrum, 2009; Fang, 2017).

- Vividness refers to the ability of technologies to produce a sensory-rich mediated environment (Coyle and Thorson, 2001; Yim et al., 2017) and represents the richness/realness of the manner in which information is presented and delivered to media users (Klein, 2003; Zhang at al., 2018) In the context of reatail mobile- apps, vividness is stimulus-driven by enriching breadth, which refers to the number of sensory dimensions (e.g., visual, tactile, and auditory sensory) a retailer’s mobile-app can provide to consumers/users; and sensory depth, which refers to the quality of the represented graphic images, visual content, and background sound as perceived by consumers/users (Klein, 2003; Kim et al., 2017; McLean and Wilson, 2019).

- Need for cognition (NFC) reflects the personal tendency that an individual engages in and enjoys thinking (Cacioppo and Petty, 1982).

- Domain-specific interest (DSI) is a trait factor reflecting an individual’s voluntary allocation of his/her attention towards a specific domain (i.e., retailing mobile apps) (Wirth et al., 2007; Hartmann et al., 2016).

Overview of key theories

In the current research, there are two key theories, including the hierarchy- of- effects (HOE) model (Lavidge and Steiner, 1961) and situated cognition theory (Robbins and Aydede, 2009; Semin and Smith, 2013), that serve as the overarching theoretical backgrounds for the proposed conceptual framework This section will explain these in brief below, with further elaboration provided in the Theoretical framework chapter.

1.6.1 Core theory 1 – The hierarchy of effects (HOE) model

The HOE model (Lavidge and Steiner, 1961) elucidates how customers’ cognition (thinking) contributes to the development of their affect (feeling) and then leads to their conation (acting) (Zhu et al., 2019) Since the mechanism through which retail mobile-app cognitions—i.e., interactivity and vividness—are translated into a feeling of spatial presence leading to customer engagement is equivalent to the hierarchy of three sequential stages (i.e., cognition, affect, and conation); therefore, this study, drawing upon the hierarchy-of-effects model, integrates and scrutinizes how the linkages of interactivity/vividness–spatial presence experience–customer engagement vary across contingency variables of personal characteristics such as NFC and DSI in the context of retail mobile apps.

1.6.2 Core theory 2 – Situated cognition theory

Situated cognition theory highlights that an individual’s information processing is based on their situated cognition which covers embodied and embedded cognition (Robbins and Aydede, 2009) Embodied cognition reflects how individuals process information about an object (i.e., a product or service in mobile apps) using their embodiment which is manifested through his or her dynamic interactions (i.e., click, zoom, rotate) with the object Meanwhile, embedded cognition psychology considers how individuals improve their cognitive abilities through the deployment of sensory-enriched features (e.g., vivid graphics,background sounds) of their environment (e.g., mobile apps) (Robbins and Aydede,2009; Semin and Smith, 2013) These two situated cognitive principles enable us to present two angles of the conceptual landscape of mobile app attributes, namely interactivity and vividness, to explain consumers’ information processing during their experience with mobile apps.

Defining the scope of research

The global retail trade, especially in emerging markets (Gupta andRamachandran, 2021), has changed rapidly over the past decades due to the development of e-commerce channels (Verhoef et al., 2015) Retailers have been adopting “smart retailing” technologies as one of the best ways to add value to themselves and their customers (Boyd et al., 2019; Shankar et al., 2021) Mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, have significantly changed the user experience in electronic commerce (Wang et al., 2015; Liu and Sese, 2021) The rapid advancement of mobile technologies and innovation of mobile applications on the technology platforms has been helping consumers to use product/service delivery channels by accessing anytime and anywhere (i.e., omnipresence) (Shankar et al.,

2016, 2021) This has led to mobile commerce as an extension of electronic commerce, where business operations are conducted in a wireless environment using mobile devices (Ashraf et al., 2017, 2021) Not only accounts for 72.9 percent of global electronic commerce transactions in 2021 (Statista, 2020a), but mobile commerce also plays an important role in bringing the retail industry from selling on multichannel retailing, which is inherently very trending in the past decade, to a new and more effective form, namely omnichannel retailing, multi-point marketing and centralized management (Verhoef et al., 2015; Gauri et al., 2021).

Retail mobile apps emerged as one of the powerful, ubiquitous, convenient, and timeliness product and service delivery channels (Grewal et al., 2017a; McLean et al., 2018) E-retailers are allocating most of their marketing budgets to enhance the value of customer experience through mobile apps (McLean et al., 2018; Japutra et al., 2021) This study explores the specific experience of spatial presence and customer engagement in a retail mobile apps context, meaning that the customer is the person who uses and experiences the retail mobile apps The retail mobile apps context was chosen because mobile apps are one of the most influential/powerful mobile shopping platforms around the globe (eMarketer, 2018) According to Tang

(2019, p 100885), mobile apps in e-commerce “have changed consumer behavior by offering them platforms for entertainment, sharing opinions, obtaining information and making purchasing decisions.” Moreover, different retail mobile- app elements (e.g., interactivity and vividness) can provide consumers with a more customized experience (McLean et al., 2020) as well as a distinctive experience such as the sensorial experiential state (Japutra et al., 2021), which result in proactive contributions to a retailer as a kind of reciprocity Therefore, the context of retail mobile apps is a suitable setting for the current study to explore how and why spatial presence experience is evoked as well as the consequences of this specific experience.

The field study was conducted in Vietnam According to Statista (2020b),about 97% of the adult population have a smartphone, and Vietnamese are among the most avid mobile shoppers globally More than four-fifths (85%) of internet users aged between 15 to 49 regularly browse the Internet and/or conduct online purchases through their smartphones (eMarketer, 2016) Additionally, Vietnam enjoys a high e- commerce growth rate (30% in 2018) (VECOM, 2019) and the majority (e.g., 53% in 2018) of online transactions are conducted through smartphones (Appota, 2018) Within Vietnam, three major cities (i.e., Hanoi,Danang, and Ho-Chi-Minh) possess leading positions in the Vietnamese eBusiness index (VECOM, 2019), thus were deemed suitable for the investigation of the phenomenon of customer engagement with retail mobile apps.

Research methods and design

This research is mainly quantitative in which a survey research method is used In that sense, we firstly conducted a comprehensive literature review about retail mobile apps, spatial presence experience, and customer engagement Based on the comprehensive literature review, the research gaps and the research objectives were identified Then, the research constructs, the theoretical model, and hypothesized statements were proposed Having proposed the previously described model that includes four uni- and two multi-dimensional (second-ordered) constructs, plus five control variable constructs, we then adapted the measurement scales from prior validated research All items to measure the constructs in our study were available as a part of prior research.

Additionally, in-depth discussions with three marketing professors who have profound knowledge regarding mobile commerce were conducted These marketing scholars gave us suggestions on the research as well as the theoretical framework.

As these scholars typically deal with survey instrument design, we also consulted with them to ensure the way the scale items were phrased was appropriate for eliciting proper responses for the measured constructs A back-translation technique then was used to ensure that all the Vietnamese version scale items accurately conveyed their corresponding meanings in English A pretest and pilot-test were employed to ensure the clarity and understating of measurement items as well as content validity and reliability of the measurement scales Based on the pretest and pilot-test results, the final questionnaire was refined and used for data collection in the main survey.

The main survey was undertaken by using self-administered interviews in three cities dominating positions in the Vietnamese eBusiness index, namely, Hanoi, Danang and Ho-Chi-Minh A quota sampling technique was used to determine a sample in proportion to certain traits within the population. Specifically, residential status and age quota were used to assure the adequate representation of the population characteristics in accordance with Appota’s (2018) Vietnam Mobile App Market Report figure A total of 580 questionnaires were distributed After the data cleaning process and removing those questionnaires that were not fully completed or obtained missing values, a final sample of 558 questionnaires was identified as useable.

Partial least squares (PLS), in particular the software package of SmartPLS(Ringle et al., 2015), was employed to test both the measurement and structural models Following Hair et al (2020), we firstly conducted data analysis to evaluate the reliability as well as the convergent and discriminant validity of the measurement models As the measurement models included the reflective-reflective and reflective- formative types of second-order constructs, a disjointed two-stage approach (Sarstedt et al., 2019) was deployed Then, the procedure to assess the structural model, as proposed by Hair et al (2020), was followed to check the collinearity issues and evaluate the quality of the structural model Finally, the hypothesis testings comprised of direct effects, mediating effects, and moderating effects were conducted.

Significance of the study

The investigation of the linkage between spatial presence experience and customer engagement is of major significance to the literature As the comprehensive review of empirical research related to retail mobile apps and both of the key constructs will highlight the conceptual richness, interest in these issues is only now becoming more widespread; thereby, the issues are not fully understood very well yet Having a study to look at both of these important concepts simultaneously may build diverse and new areas of research The current study aims at contributing to the extant literature on spatial presence experience by examining the mechanism through which retail mobile app attributes, i.e., interactivity and vividness, are translated into customer engagement Specifically, drawing on the hierarchy-of-e ects model, this thesis deepens the theoretical understanding of theff sequential effects of mobile app cognitions on spatial presence experience, which in turn leads to customer engagement under the conditional impacts of need for cognition and domain-specific interest The situated cognition theory complements the hierarchy-of-e ects model by disentangling the two categories of embodied andff embedded cognitions (i.e., interactivity and vividness, respectively) to explain spatial presence experience As such, the current study findings advance the knowledge pertaining to enablers that generate a specific experience, that feeling of

“being there”, in virtual environments In general terms, the thesis adds to the development of foundation theories in the realms of spatial presence experience and engagement behaviours in virtual retailing environments.

The significant methodological contribution of this study is that we introduce a comprehensive procedure to simultaneously examine the reflective-reflective and reflective-formative types of second-ordered constructs and uni-dimensional constructs in the measurement models and structural model by applying PLS-SEM analyses Moreover, this study makes a significant methodological contribution by offering a showcase of how to analyze multiple mediation relationships and moderating impacts in the context of PLS-SEM The study also finds support for robustness checks in PLS-SEM, such as common method variance and unobserved heterogeneity analysis, which responds to the call for further research by Sarstedt et al (2020).

In addition, by empirically validating the proposed dynamic model, this work not only supports the applicability of the two theories in the context of the specific study but also offers practical knowledge for retailers to design mobile apps that foster consumers’ interactive and vividness cognitions, facilitate the feeling of a

“real” shopping experience and ultimately encourage customers to actively engage and effectively contribute to participating retailers Specifically, this thesis supplies evidence to stimulate customer engagement activities through the provision of the experience of spatial presence during their shopping journey on retail mobile apps.The study provides evidence of customers’ feelings of “really being there” and the important role of interactivity and vividness in shaping spatial presence experience.Therefore, it provides suggestions for the retailers that need to focus on designing their mobile apps with interactivity and vivid features Moreover, based on the moderating results, the study provides evidence to guide decision-making processes when developing different types of apps in the same retailer brand tailored to different types of needs or customers as well as to guide persuading processes in various segments of consumer retail app interest to maximize the overall benefit from customer engagement.

Thesis outline

This thesis was organized into six chapters detailed as follows:

Chapter 1 – Introduction This chapter provides a general overview of the study, including the research background, research objectives, and research questions It also outlines the scope of the study as well as the definitions, theories, and hypotheses of the research The research approach and theoretical, methodological, and managerial significance are also established.

Chapter 2 – Literature review A comprehensive review of related previous studies in the context of mobile commerce and retail mobile apps to highlight the potential benefits and the research streams in mobile retailing services was conducted A literature review of conceptualization, dimensions, antecedents, and outcomes of spatial presence that informed and guided this research is also presented Additionally, literature on customer engagement, including its conceptualization, dimensionality, antecedents, and consequences that scholarly devotion has been made to provide the background of the research The literature relevant to other concepts in the proposed framework is also presented in this chapter This chapter ends by revealing the research gaps within the present literature.

Chapter 3 – Theoretical framework Drawing on the hierarchy-of-e ectsff (HOE) model (Lavidge and Steiner, 1961) and situated cognition theory (Robbins and Aydede, 2009) the theoretical framework and hypotheses for the study were proposed.

Chapter 4 – Research methodology This chapter describes and justifies the research approach that was undertaken to encompass the research objectives First,the research paradigm is discussed to specify the research philosophy of this thesis.Second, scale operationalization and questionnaire design were described in detail.Third, the rounds of pretests to modify and refine the instrument were executed in this chapter Based on the pretest results, a pilot test was conducted, and the refinement of a measurement instrument for the research is justified Last, the research process in a phase of the main study is described in detail, including the environmental setting, the research sample, data collection, data collection, and the examination and analysis of data.

Chapter 5 – Results and discussion This chapter presents the results from the analyses that were estimated to evaluate the reliability and validity of the measurement models, assess the structural model, and then test the robustness checks This chapter ends by providing a general discussion of findings to advance the existing literature in the digital marketing area and potentially make a new avenue for future research.

Chapter 6 – Conclusion and implications This chapter condenses the conclusions drawn from the research results and answers to the research questions and objectives, based on the specific objectives mentioned in Chapter 1 This chapter also presents the contributions of the study and research limitations that guide directions for future research.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Overview

This chapter provides the literature review on spatial presence, customer engagement, two retail mobile app attributes (i.e., interactivity and vividness), and both individuals’ intrinsic tendencies (i.e., need for cognition) and issue-specific motivations (i.e., domain-specific interest) in the context of retail mobile apps This chapter is structured as follows Firstly, the overview of previous studies on mobile apps is reviewed Secondly, the previous studies related to the specific m-commerce apps of retailers are then discussed Thirdly, an explanation of spatial presence experience and studies related to antecedents, consequences, boundary conditions,and process variables related to consumers’ sense of presence/telepresence/spatial presence in virtual environments are postulated Fourthly, customer engagement conceptualization/operationalization and studies related to antecedents,consequences, and contingency variables are reviewed Fifthly, functional mechanisms of retail mobile apps (i.e., interactivity and vividness) are presented.Sixthly, the literature on individuals’ intrinsic tendencies and issue-specific motivations is provided Finally, the chapter concludes with a summary of the research gaps.

Retail mobile applications

With the growing significance of mobile technologies such as smartphones and tablets, there is a raising need for developing new applications that harness the use of advanced technologies while meeting the needs of various industries, particularly in the marketing and retailing domains (Grewal et al., 2017a; McLean et al., 2018, 2020) Technological innovations continue to impact digital marketing and retailing, and the most intriguing tools to enter the landscape in the last few years are mobile apps.

According to Bellman et al (2011, p.191), mobile apps are defined as

“software that is downloadable to a mobile device, which prominently displays a brand identity, often via the name of the app and the appearance of a brand logo or icon, throughout the customer experience.” Mobile apps are initially offered to meet functional needs, such as email, calendars, and weather information (McLean et al.,

2020) Then, due to increasing user demand and additional advancements in mobile technologies, more utilitarian as well as hedonic functions for consumers are established, for example, mobile banking (e.g., Thusi and Maduku, 2020), mobile wallet (Kumar et al., 2019), mobile health (e.g., Alam et al., 2020), and mobile retailing (e.g., Ashraf et al., 2021) Therefore, mobile applications emerge as one of the powerful, ubiquitous, convenient, and timeliness product and service delivery channels (Grewal et al., 2017a; McLean et al., 2018, 2020) Part of what makes a mobile device an integral part of an individual’s day-to-day life is the capability of using mobile apps on-the-go (Wang et al., 2015; McLean et al., 2020) These have allowed marketers to harness the power of mobile apps to meet consumer needs over geographic constraints (Gupta and Ramachandran, 2021).

Global retailers have used mobile apps to offer multiple adequate touchpoints that lead to consumers’ perceptions and responses (Wagner et al.,

2020) Marketers allocate most of their marketing budgets to enhance the value of customer experience through mobile apps (McLean et al., 2018) Mobile apps are considered a relatively new field of information technology because they have both characteristics based on mobile devices and web-based devices (Hur et al., 2018). Mobile apps, therefore, provide convenience, media vividness, rich interactive functions, and personalized messages/content, thereby enhancing customer experience and positive emotions, which in turn lead to customer brand engagement (Liu and Sese, 2021) Furthermore, mobile apps not only provide experience benefits such as cognitive, affective, and social experiences but also reduce decision-making uncertainty, leading to brand exposure and image enhancements (Hur et al., 2018).

Although marketers and retailers have improved mobile app technologies to enhance customers’ values, the installation and shopping through mobile app platforms are less enthusiastic than expected (Kim and Baek, 2017) Moreover, mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, with their smaller screen size, send challenges to customers need to a high cognitive and physical load (Liu and Sese,

2021), which may restrict their cognitive ability during exploring, searching for the necessary information as well as evaluating virtual products One interesting question, underexplored by previous studies, is whether consumers experience in sensory ways within mobile apps and whether the specific experience leads to the purchase of products, references to others, or suggestions to the firms/retailers.

Recent studies have provided some preliminary guidance (selected studies into retail mobile apps presents in Table 2.1) about customer experience and mobile app engagement Scholarship has focused on determinant drivers of the adoption of mobile applications (e.g., Chopdar et al., 2018; Thusi and Maduku, 2020), attitude towards mobile apps (e.g., McLean et al., 2020), perceived value (e.g., Fang, 2019; Japutra et al., 2021; Tran et al., 2021), mobile apps engagement/involvement (e.g., Tarute et al., 2017; Kim and Baek, 2018), and experience of positive emotions and satisfaction (McLean et al., 2018) Likewise, scholars have also demonstrated a number of design functions such as functionality, design solution, interaction, information quality, or customization (Tarute et al., 2017), and useful features such as perceived ubiquity, contextual offering, visual attractiveness, app incentives (Chopdar and Balakrishnan, 2020; Japutra et al., 2021) as well as types of apps, for example, the entertainment and information mobile apps (van Noort and van Reijmersdal, 2019) that enhance user experience with those apps However, a comprehensive literature review indicated that there is very little academic research in recent years investigating the specific experience of spatial presence and customer engagement in the context of retailers’ mobile e-commerce apps.

Table 2-1 Selected studies on branded and retail mobile applications

Research Research background Sample size and research methods

Foundation theory Antecedents Mediators Moderators Outcome Key findings

Japutra, et Study on 717 users in N/A Customer Value in use N/A Satisfaction The results indicate the al (2021) customer Indonesia; experience: and loyalty positive influences of application data was sensorial toward retailer customer experiences (i.e., experience and surveyed by experiential application, sensorial experiential state, value in use on market state, affective loyalty toward affective experiential state, loyalty research experiential retailer interactivity, and relative toward retailers company; state, advantage) on value-in-use.

PLS-SEM interactivity, Value-in-use mediates the and relative effects of customer advantage experience on satisfaction and loyalty toward retailer application In turn, these two constructs increase loyalty toward the retailer.

Banerjee et Study on 116 major N/A Location-based N/A Delivery tactic App-based The results indicate that the al (2021) location-based mobile marketing (inbound vs revenues positive relationship marketing retailers from outbound), between location-based affect mobile around the interface mobility marketing and app-based retail revenues globe; the (Low: Tablet vs revenues was moderated by hierarchical High: Phone), and delivery tactic, interface regression user privacy needs mobility and user privacy analysis (Privacy-seeking needs.

Research Research background Sample size and research methods

Foundation theory Antecedents Mediators Moderators Outcome Key findings

Study on consumers response towards mobile commerce applications

420 regular mobile shoppers in India; cross- sectional design; SEM

Perceived ubiquity, contextual offering, visual attractiveness, app incentives

Impulsiveness, perceived value Age Satisfying experience, repurchase intention

Perceived ubiquity and app incentives are the two strongest predictors of impulsiveness and perceived value, respectively Impulsiveness negatively affects consumers repurchase intention but positively enhances the satisfying experience, whereas perceived value favourably affects both variables. McLean et al (2020) Study on attitudes towards retailers’ m- commerce apps at initial adoption and during continuous use

474 consumers in the UK; longitudinal survey Design; CB- SEM

N/A Ease of use, usefulness, enjoyment, subjective norms, customisation

Screen size Attitude towards the brand, purchase frequency, loyalty towards the brand

The findings reveal significant differences between perceived value affecting consumer attitudes towards the m- commerce app, turn positively affect on purchase frequency, positive attitudes and loyalty towards the brand at the initial adoption phase compared to the usage phase The findings also demonstrate the moderating role of smartphone screen size on consumer attitudes and behaviours.

Research Research background Sample size and research methods

Foundation theory Antecedents Mediators Moderators Outcome Key findings

Study on South African millennials’ acceptance and use of retail mobile banking apps

352 users in five South African retail banks; paper- based survey;

UTAUT2 Performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, price value, habit perceived risk, institution- based trust

Millennials’ intention to adopt mobile banking apps

N/A Millennials’ mobile banking app behaviour

Performance expectancy, facilitating conditions, habit, perceived risk, and institution-based trust are significantly associated with millennials’ intention to adopt mobile banking apps, and that facilitating conditions, perceived risk, and behavioural intention have a significant direct influence on millennials’ mobile banking app behaviour. van Heerde et al (2019) Study on the value of a retailer mobile app to engage the unengaged customer

629 customers over 77 weeks from a well- known US apparel retailer;

N/A Mobile app assess N//A Distant customer, offline-only customer

Customer purchase Customers who live far away from physical store locations and customers who have been offline-only shoppers are the most influenced segments by a retailer’s branded mobile app.

(2018) Study on the effects of mobile app additions on retailers’ shareholder wealth announcements 115 relating to mobile app additions U.S retail firms

N/A Search-related mobile app additions, purchase-related mobile app additions

N/A Firm size, product category, customer segment

Retailer value The findings indicate that stock market responses to search-related and purchase-related app additions are moderated by firm size, product category,and target customer age.

Research Research background Sample size and research methods

Foundation theory Antecedents Mediators Moderators Outcome Key findings

Chopdar et al (2018) Study on the adoption of a user’s mobile shopping application, examining the impact of two manifestations of consumer perceived risk: privacy risk and security risk

221 users in India and 145 users in the U.S; Online survey; PLS- SEM

UTAUT2 Performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, price value, habit, privacy risk, security risk

Behavioral intention The culture that was represented by the Computer- based Media Support Index (CMSI)

Use behavior Findings indicate that the baseline UTAUT 2 constructs predict the behavioral intention to use mobile shopping apps which in turn lead to use behavior.

Manifestations of cognitive risk are significant only for a country with a high Computer-based Media Support Index (CMSI) such as India Culture plays an important role in the adoption of mobile commerce.

Baek (2018) Study of antecedents and outcomes of mobile applications engagement

503 smartphone users in the U.S; CB-SEM

Characteristics of perceived improvement: time convenience, interactivity, compatibility, effort expectancy

Mobile apps engagement Informational and experiential mobile apps

Relationship commitment, self-brand connections

Time convenience, interactivity, and compatibility impact mobile app engagement, thereby influencing relationship-building commitment and self- brand connections At the same time, informational and experiential mobile apps play important roles in regulating the relationship between time convenience, interactivity, compatibility, and customer engagement.

Research Research background Sample size and research methods

Foundation theory Antecedents Mediators Moderators Outcome Key findings

McLean et al (2018) Study on customer experience while using retailers’ mobile apps

1,024 consumers in the UK; online survey;

The technology acceptance model (TAM), flow theory, expectancy confirmation theory

Ease of use, convenience, customisation

Customer experience (positive emotions and satisfaction)

Frequency of use The study developed a

Mobile Applications Customer Experience Model (MACE) - Implications for retailers.

Newman et al (2018) Study on consumer usage of retail mobile apps

212 users; online survey through mTurk, CB- SEM, PROCESS

N/A App ease of use App connection App usage frequency Recommend app, purchase with app, purchase in- store

Perceived ease of use as a critical app attribute fosters consumers’ personal connections to app, which in turn influences their purchase channel preferences and recommends it to others.

(2017a) Study on user experience while shopping on mobile devices through apps

776 smartphone users; data was surveyed by TNS Korea

N/A Digital experiences (online and mobile experience), Mobile browsing (non- shopping apps and shopping apps)

Both online and mobile experiences positively influence mobile app possession and purchasing decisions Browser types of mobile applications also influence app possession and mobile purchase.

Research Research background Sample size and research methods

Foundation theory Antecedents Mediators Moderators Outcome Key findings

Kang et al Study on the 853 mobile N/A Time Affective and Experience Downloading Perceived interactivity and

Overview of studies in Vietnam about the topic

While mobile app platforms have attracted many researchers’ attention in numerous developed countries; studies on that topic in developing countries like Vietnam are rare and limited Some empirical studies have been implemented in Vietnam to examine the link between technology traits and customer satisfaction in several contexts such as online hotel ratings (Tran et al., 2019) and online reviews (Tran, 2020) Additionally, few empirical studies have also been conducted in Vietnam to study the intention to adopt mobile commerce (Khoi et al., 2018; Phong et al., 2018), the nexuses between shopping value, trust, and intention to repurchase online shopping (Nghia et al., 2020), or cognitive and affective associations between shopping values and impulse buying tendencies which in turn lead to consumer shopping well-being (Nghia et al., 2022) Also, Tran (2021) proposes a systematic framework to investigate the effectiveness of e-commerce platforms based on consumers’ perceived economic benefits in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic Customer engagement, however, has been underexplored in the context of the Vietnamese service business (Do et al., 2019), especially in the retail mobile apps setting Despite the importance of the spatial presence experience in a meaningful relationship with emotions, perceived values, and behavioral responses as well as with individual self-traits and device traits, there is still an absence of empirical investigation of the conceptualized framework and its implication forVietnamese e- commerce retailers Given the increasing importance of the applications of advanced technologies, spatial presence, and their antecedents and effects on customer engagement in marketing and retailing sectors, and so far there exist no conceptual and empirical studies on this topic in Vietnam, the current research framework (Figure 3.1) promise to bring fruitful contributions for both scholars and practitioners.

Spatial presence

2.4.1 Defining and measuring spatial presence in the emerging technologies

Early on, Minsky (1980) coined the concept of telepresence to describe the phenomenon in which operators believe they have been transported to a remote location and experienced the sense of being there during the use of teleoperating systems Furthering this path, scholars during the early 2000s have attempted to explicate the concept of presence (Schubert, 2009; Cummings and Bailenson, 2016) and used many different terms to refer to the phenomenon of having the feeling of really being in a virtual environment, such as presence (IJsselsteijn et al 2001; Li et al., 2002), telepresence (Steuer, 1992; Klein, 2003), spatial presence (Lombard and Ditton, 1997; Lessiter et al., 2001; Schubert et al., 2001) and physical presence (Lee, 2004).

Although many researchers have taken these terms similarly, many others have argued for a distinction that is based on the types of environment (e.g., virtual environment or remote real environment), or nature of this phenomenon (e.g., psychological state or cognitive process), or components of presence (e.g., attention and spatial-cognition) (Lee, 2004; Schubert, 2009; Cummings and Bailenson; 2016;) For instance, Steuer (1992) undertaken a holistic viewpoint toward presence that refers to the natural perception of a virtual environment Thereby, presence is defined as the psychological state where a user is feeling “being there” in virtual (mediated) environments, the degree to which he or she feels physically “present” in a virtual environment (Slater and Steed, 2000; Schubert et al., 2001) While Lee

(2004) defined presence as a psychological state in which the rituality (artificiality) of an experience is unnoticed, which refers to “psychological similarities between virtual and actual objects when people experience- perceive, manipulate, or interact with- virtual objects” (p.38) Moreover, Lee (2004) has also summarized three explications of presence, namely physical presence, social presence, and self- presence Similarly, Schubert et al (2001) proposed presence as a second-order construct with three dimensions: spatial presence, involvement, and realness.

Following an extensive review of literature, Wirth et al (2007) argued that the term of spatial presence is closest to Minsky’s (1980) original formulation of presence Wirth and his colleagues (2007, 2012) conceptualized and measured spatial presence as the feeling of being located in mediated (virtual) environments (self- location) and perceived action possibilities (possible action) This notion of spatial presence was substantively explained by Schubert (2009) Following Wirth et al.’s

(2007) work, Tussyadiah et al (2018) defined and measured the experienced level of presence with self-reported mental states during the virtual tourism experience.

In their study, Hilken et al (2017) described spatial presence as a distinct psychological state in which an individual neglects the role of technology in an experience and feels as being present in a virtual environment Similarly, de Ruyter et al (2020) conceptualized feelings of spatial presence as a specific experience, that is, “a realistic blending of digital content with a customer’s view of a physical setting” (Heller et al., 2020, p 85).

As a result, this study conceptualizes following Hilken et al.’s (2017) and Schubert’s (2009) conception of spatial presence that through retailers’ m- commerce mobile apps, customers experience a feeling of “being there”/“authentic” as well as taking possible action We describe spatial presence as a psychological state in which an individual feels a physical location in a retailer’s mobile application, where he or she feels and interacts with virtual objects as if they were real, resulting in mental capacities being bound by the virtual retail environment instead of reality Particularly, the specific experience of spatial presence is defined as the feeling of being there or realism When a customer senses a spatial presence, he or she neglects the technology-mediated nature of the experience and his or her online shopping experience becomes as authentic and real as those in physical stores.

2.4.2 Overview study on spatial presence in virtual environments

As presented in Table 2.2, previous studies on the sense of presence in advertising, marketing, retailing, or the virtual environment generally fall into four research streams The first stream concentrates on the sense of presence in the website experience (e.g., Mollen and Wilson, 2010; Lee and Park, 2014; Lee, 2018).Most of these studies focused on telepresence and/or social presence, such as general websites (Mollen and Wilson, 2010), hotel websites (Lee, 2018), and retail websites (Lee and Park, 2014; Gao et al., 2018) These studies indicated that customers experience a sense of presence due to the basis of two types of cues: perceived interactivity and content/information quality The second stream examines the sense of presence in virtual community experiences such as Taobao (Ou et al., 2014), Facebook (Algharabat et al., 2018), general social network services (Wang et al., 2019), or peer- to-peer accommodation platforms (Ye et al., 2020) Sense of presence is believed to be a determinant driver of customer behavioral engagement in the virtual communities because it is characterized by the feelings of “being there”, the presence of other human beings, and perceiving immersion in the mediated environment (Algharabat et al., 2018) The third stream focuses on the sense of presence in VR- enabled technologies Most studies in this domain were conducted in the context of VR tourism (e.g., Tussyadiah et al., 2018; Bogicevic et al., 2019).Sense of presence is related to individual traits and technology features, such as mental imagery (Bogicevic et al., 2019) and functional quality and experiential quality (Wei et al., 2019) The last stream investigates the spatial presence in the context of AR-based service experience Most studies in this stream yield valuable insights on spatial presence experience and have attempted to quantify the impact of this situated online service experience on perceived values and decision-making evaluation (Hilken et al., 2017, 2018; Heller et al., 2021) Overall, the literature supports the notion that the specific experience of spatial presence plays a significant role in marketing and retailing in the recently advanced technology age.Additionally, the literature has also shown that little is understood about what influences customer experience of spatial presence in retailers’ m-commerce mobile applications, which have quickly become one of the hottest trends in consumer marketing and retailing Thus, this study will fill these gaps by identifying the essence of spatial presence experience in retail mobile apps and its role in enhancing customer engagement.

Table 2-2 Selected research on consumers’ sense of presence/telepresence/spatial presence in virtual environments

Study Context Research design Sample Theory base Antecedences Presence Boundary conditions Process variables Outcomes Key findings Theme 1: Presence in website experience

Website Conceptual paper - - Interactivity Telepresence - Active sustained cognitive processing, instrumental value, experiential value

Optimal consumer attitudes and behaviors

Propose a conceptual framework about the consumer experiential response to website and environmental stimuli as a dynamic, tiered perceptual spectrum which includes interactivity, telepresence and engagement.

Park (2014) E-tail website Online experiment n@7

- Cue multiplicity in text-based e- tail content

- Website trust, e- shopping enjoyment, social approval

Decision affirmation Explores the influence of text-based e-tail content on virtual presence, which in turn impacts on decision affirmation

(China) Presence theory, social identity theory

Information quality, service quality, system quality

- Website identification Purchase intention Sellers’ website quality influences buyers’ perceived presence, which in turn affects website identification and purchase intention

Sensory attributes, emotional attributes, cognitive attributes

Telepresence - Customers’ attitudes toward the hotel website, brand attribute

Behavioral intentions Sensory and emotional attributes influence on customers’ sense of telepresence while cognitive attributes were not.

Study Context Research design Sample Theory base Antecedences Presence Boundary conditions Process variables Outcomes Key findings Theme 2: Presence in virtual community experience

(2014) TaoBao Longitudinal data; PLS Graph n38

Effective use of instant messenger, message box, feedback system

Guanxi, trust Repurchase intentions and actual repurchases

The customers’ effective use of instant messenger, message box, and feedback system enable Guanxi and trust through their perceptions of presence and interaction.

(Jordan) Social exchange theory, telepresence theory and service- dominant logic perspectives

- Telepresence, social presence, consumer involvement

Word of mouth, willingness to donate

Telepresence, social presence, and consumer involvement positively predict customer brand engagement, which in turn affects eWOM and willingness to donate.

(2019) Like behavior in social network service

(China) The symbolic interactionism theory

- Sense of presence - Cognitive value, hedonic value, social value

Like intention Sense of presence positively predicts Like intention both directly and indirectly via the three value perception (cognitive value, hedonic value, social value)

(2020) Features of peer-to-peer

Online survey, CB- SEM n= 571 (China) The presence theory - Social presence, telepresence

Purchase intention Three types of social presence and telepresence indirectly effect on purchase intention through there mediating mechanisms.

Study Context Research design Sample Theory base Antecedences Presence Boundary conditions Process variables Outcomes Key findings Theme 3: Presence in VR experience

Online virtual tours Online survey, PROCESS

Study 1: n= 92 (Canada); study 2: n0 (US); study 3: n8 (Qualtrics)

- Interactivity Telepresence Cognitive load - Attitude towards the advertising

Online interactivity positively predicts telepresence, which in turn influences consumer perceptions and behavior.

202 (Hong Kong); study 2: nr4 (UK)

- - Spatial presence (Self- location, possible actions)

Visitation intention The feeling of being in the virtual environment increases enjoyment and stronger liking and preference in the destination, which leads to visitation intention. Wei et al.

(2019) VR for theme park visitors’ experience

Online experiment and survey; regression and Hayes’

Sense of presence Individual familiarity with VR technology, personal innovativeness

- Overall satisfaction, intend to revisit, intent to recommend

Functional quality and experiential quality of

VR experience before visiting the park positively affects sense of presence, and thus greatly affects satisfaction, intend to revisit and recommend after a real experience. Bogicevic et al

VR presence in tourism experience

(student) - Elaboration of mental imagery, quality of mental imagery

Sense of presence Level of interactivity (360° tour, images, VR)

VR induces higher elaboration of mental imagery about the experience and a stronger sense of presence compared to both the 360° tour and images, thereby translating into enhanced brand experience.

Study Context Research design Sample Theory base Antecedences Presence Boundary conditions Process variables Outcomes Key findings Theme 4: Presence in AR experience

Liao (2015) AR for online clothing retail Online experiment;

Harman’s single-factor test and PLS-SEM n"0 (Taiwan) Technology acceptance model (TAM)

Sense of physical space, engagement, ecological validity, negative effect

Cognitive innovativeness Ease of use, usefulness, aesthetics, service excellence, playfulness

Presence predicts technology acceptance and experiential value variables The effects on behavioral intentions vary across levels of individual cognitive innovativeness.

Hilken et al (2017) AR for online service experiences

Simulated physical control, environmental embedding

Spatial presence Style of- processing, awareness of privacy practices

Utilitarian and hedonic value perceptions, decision comfort

Simulated physical control and environmental embedding positively affect customer value perceptions of the online service experience. Spatial presence functions as a mediator and also predicts decision comfort. Customer value perceptions and decision comfort translate into positive behavioral intentions Moderating effects also indentified.

Hilken et al (2018) AR-based omnichannel Conceptual paper - Situated cognition theory

Privacy concern, style of-processing, trade-off between value and price, using of AR

Hedonic value, utilitarian value, learning, satisfaction

Decision making, behavioral intentions, brand perceptions

Building a framework about AR-enabled omnichannel experiences.

Study Context Research design Sample Theory base Antecedences Presence Boundary conditions Process variables Outcomes Key findings de Ruyter et al

AR advertising Conceptual paper - Situated cognition theory, affordance theory

Spatial presence Privacy protection - Adverting outcome metrics

Theory-based building blocks for Context mapping, content matching, customer experience and advertising effectiveness. Heller et al.

(2021) AR service automation Conceptual paper - Technology- enabled engagement process

Visual appeal, information fit-to-task

Spatial presence - Cognitive engagement, affective engagement, value-in-use

Service reuse likelihood and WOM

Proposes a technology- enabled engagement process

This study Retail mobile- apps Survey;

(Vietnam) The hierarchy-of- effects model and situated cognition theory

Interactivity and vividness Spatial presence Need for cognition, domain- specific interests

- Customer engagement (customer purchases, customer feedback, customer referrals, customer influence)

Retail mobile-apps characteristics (interactivity and vividness) enhance the spatial presence experience, which in turn affects the direct contributions (i.e., customer purchases) and the indirect contributions (i.e., customer feedback/suggestions, customer referrals, and customer influence) for the retailers/firms.Spatial presence functions as a mediator and types of individuals’ motivations are relevant boundary conditions.

Customer engagement

The term “engagement” originates in academic disciplines, including psychology (e.g., Huo et al., 2009), organizational behavior (Kahn, 1990), and educational psychology (Bryson and Hand, 2007) and has been increasingly used in the broader academic marketing literature in the last decade with the term as

“customer engagement” (Kumar et al., 2010; van Doorn et al., 2010; Brodie et al., 2011; Vivek et al., 2012; Pansari and Kumar, 2017; Kumar et al., 2019a) Customer engagement has been viewed as either a behavioral response (van Doorn et al., 2010; Brodie et al., 2011) or a psychological state (Vivek et al., 2012), though a general consensus among the marketing academicians posits that it is any customer behavioral responses toward the firm, going beyond purchase behavior (Harmeling et al., 2017).

As we detail in Table 2.3, marketing theorists in recent years have pulled together various operationalization and definitions of the customer engagement concept and adopted varying views of its nature (de Oliveira Santini et al., 2020). However, definitions and perspectives of customer engagement have some similarities among researchers, especially in recognizing the importance of the behavioral aspects of the concept (Harmeling et al., 2017) In the current research, we first contemplate the merits of the unique viewpoints on customer engagement. Kumar et al (2010) take a value-based viewpoint and identify customer engagement as customers’ brand- or firm- related interactions van Doorn et al.

(2010, p 254) hold the behavioral perspective and explicitly define customer engagement as customers’ behavioral manifestations, which result from psychological motivations embedded in customer-brand or -firm connections, beyond what is necessary for the core economic transaction (i.e., purchase behavior), encompassing WOM activity, blogging, online reviews, recommendations and so forth In their study on customer engagement, Brodie et al.

(2011, p 260) conceptualize customer engagement as a psychological state evoked by customers’ brand- or firm-related experiences and interactions in focal service relationships Vivek et al (2012, p 127) describe customer engagement as “the intensity of an individual’s participation in and connection with an organization’s offerings and/ or organizational activities, which either the customer or the organization initiate” – in essence, the raw data contained in all cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social components that then come together as an overall engagement Similarly, under the macro-foundational theory of service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2008), Hollebeek et al (2019) extend Brodie et al.’s (2011) work and identify the relevance of adopting an S-D logic-informed perspective of customer engagement, ideas that help us to understand more clearly about customer engagement as the nature of interactive and co-creative experiences that entail customers’ volitional investment of focal operant (e.g., cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social knowledge and skills) and operand (e.g., equipment) resources in the specific brand- or firm-related interactions.

Customer engagement measurement and management can be viewed from two perspectives: (1) customer experience and psychological state from the firm’s customer engagement initiatives and (2) customers’ contributions (both direct and indirect contributions) to the focal firm or brand By implementing customer engagement programs and initiatives, the firm designs, crafts, and reinforces positive experiences, mainly focusing on customer acquisition and retention (van Doorn et al., 2010; Verhoef et al., 2010; Brodie et al., 2011) However, in the literature on customer engagement, Pansari and Kumar’s (2017) definition and conceptualization differ from previous studies that encompass the different activities/contributions of the customer to a firm’s performance Based on this perspective, our key outcome of interest is customer engagement, defined as the mechanics of a customer’s value addition to the retailer through mobile apps, either through direct or/and indirect contribution (Pansari and Kumar, 2017) In the context of retail mobile apps, customer purchase behaviors such as repeat purchases or additional purchases via mobile apps can directly contribute to the retailer’s value(Kumar et al., 2010; Kim et al., 2017; Pansari and Kumar, 2017; Iyer et al., 2018).With respect to indirect contributions, customer referrals refer to the willingness and the extent to which current customers advise potential customers to do transactions with the retailer through mobile apps Customer online influence is described as spreading positive word of mouth and sharing satisfactory experiences about mobile apps in online/social media environments Feedback denotes consumers’ suggestions or sharing knowledge to the retailer through mobile apps (c.f., Kumar et al., 2010, 2019; Kumar and Pansari, 2016) Therefore, understanding how retail mobile apps could nurture customer purchases, customer referrals, customer influence, and consumer suggestions that have direct and indirect benefits to the firms/retailers is of prime importance.

Our comprehensive literature review reveals that customer experience has been heralded as an important factor urging customers to make proactive contributions to firms/retailers as a kind of reciprocity (Pansari and Kumar, 2017; Kuppelwieser and Klaus, 2020a; Manthiou et al., 2020; Harman and Porter, 2021). Several affective and cognitive aspects of customer experience in service settings have been studied, such as the mixture of both negative and positive emotions which occur during a customer experience (e.g., Manthiou et al., 2020), affective and cognitive experiences while using retailers’ mobile apps (e.g., Molinillo et al.,

2020), positive emotions and level of satisfaction among consumers within the retailers’ m- commerce apps experience (e.g., Iyer et al., 2018; McLean et al.,

2018), as well as entertaining and informative experiences with branded apps (e.g., van Noort and van Reijmersdal, 2019; Qing and Haiying, 2021) However, the literature has not specifically identified how a specific type of customer experience in virtual environments—spatial presence experience—can enhance customer engagement in the context of retail mobile apps App-design features (Fang et al.,2017; Tarute et al., 2017; Hsieh et al., 2021), app-performance attributes (Fang et al., 2017; McLean et al., 2018; Shaikh et al., 2020), and perceived values (Iyer et al., 2018) are the frequently studied antecedents of customer experience To date,limited efforts have been devoted to the effects of interactivity and vividness on the specific experience of spatial presence when shopping on retail mobile apps.

Table 2-3 Customer engagement conceptualization/operationalization

Customer engagement conceptualization/operationalization Outcomes of customer engagement Contingency variables

 One overall customer engagement (e.g., Mohd- Ramly and Omar, 2017;

 Focus on one facet of specific customer engagement such as behaviour (e.g., Jaakkola and Alexander, 2014)

 Customers’ direct/indirect contributions (e.g., Harmeling et al., 2017; Pansari and Kumar, 2017; Kumar et al., 2019a; Prentice et al., 2019)

 Customers’ psychological engagement (e.g., Brodie et al., 2011; Malthouse et al., 2016; So et al., 2016; Thakur,

2016, 2018; Carlson et al., 2019a, 2019b; Heller et al., 2020)

 Customers’ cognitive and effective commitment (e.g., Mollen and Wilson, 2010)

 Conscious attention, enthused participation, and social connection (Vivek et al., 2014a, 2014b)

 Customers’ cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement (Hollebeek, 2011;

 Firm’s performance: tangible and intangible outcomes (e.g., Kumar and Pansari, 2016;

Harmeling et al., 2017; Pansari and Kumar, 2017; Kumar et al., 2019a)

 Firm’s value (e.g., Verhoef et al., 2010)

 Customer satisfaction (e.g., Brodie et al., 2011; Hollebeek.

 Self-brand connection (e.g., Brodie et al., 2011; Hollebeek et al., 2014)

 Brand loyalty (Dessart et al., 2015)

 Brand usage intent (Hollebeek et al., 2014;

 Level of involvement (Pansari and Kumar, 2017; Kumar et al., 2019)

 Firms’ types (Kumar et al., 2017; Pansari and Kumar, 2017)

 Customer-owned resources (e.g., Harmeling et al., 2017)

Customer engagement conceptualization/operationalization Outcomes of customer engagement Contingency variables Unidimensional Multidimensional

 User-generated content (Malthouse et al., 2016; Meire et al., 2019; Yang et al., 2019)

 Virtual environment attributes (Mollen and Wilson, 2010;

Lee et al., 2019; Luo et al., 2019)

 Employee engagement (Kumar and Pansari, 2016;

 Customers’ behavioural manifestations (e.g., van Doorn et al., 2010; Jaakkola and Alexander, 2014;

Carlson et al., 2018; Carlson et al., 2019a, 2019b)

 Buying decisions (Malthouse et al., 2016; Naidoo and Hollebeek, 2016; Schivinski et al., 2016)

 Sharing intentions on social media (Carlson et al., 2019a;

Indeed, there remains a severe lack of studies that cohesively incorporate and thoroughly investigate the mechanisms of interactivity/vividness–SPE–customer engagement; therefore, this research will address such literature gaps Furthermore, in order to provide greater insight into the process of keeping customers engaged with retail mobile apps in a beneficial manner so as to harvest their lifetime value, key contingency factors of individuals’ intrinsic tendencies (e.g., need for cognition) (Cacioppo et al., 1996; Priluck and Till, 2004) and issue-specific motivations (e.g., domain-specific interest) (Liu and Shrum, 2009; Hofer et al.,

2012) are integrated into our proposed research model.

Functional mechanisms of retail mobile apps

Interactivity is one of the key technological features that is widely investigated in online communication and marketing (Steuer, 1992; Song and Zinkhan, 2008; Yim et al., 2017) It is defined as the extent to which users can interact with virtual objects or contents and participate in modifying the form or content of the mediated environment (Steuer, 1992) For example, in the context of online shopping, consumers can interact with or match virtual products (e.g., a piece of clothing, glasses or rings, etc.) by touching the phone screens or rotating 360- degree virtual products in the same way as actual products (Brasel and Gips, 2014; Yim et al., 2017; Hilken et al., 2018) It is also considered as the degree to which the user was enabled to interact or communicate in real-time (Song and Zinkhan, 2008; Mollen and Wilson, 2010) Scholars have identified interactivity perceptions include three components, namely, active control, two-way communication, and synchronicity (Liu, 2003; Song and Zinkhan, 2008; Ou et al., 2014) Active control is defined as the degree of users’ perceived control over the content and the information in the virtual world and their navigation that reflects where they are and where they are going (Song and Zinkhan, 2008; Ou et al., 2014) Two-way communication is considered as the extent to which users bilaterally respond to others’ actions (i.e., reciprocal communication for the exchange of information) in a virtual environment

(Song and Zinkhan, 2008; Yang and Lee, 2017) Synchronicity refers to how the speed of communication in the virtual world can be manipulated (Steuer, 1992; Yang and Lee, 2017).

In the current research context, high interactivity implies that when consumers use retail mobile apps, although their body is in a physical environment, their mind is in a ‘virtual space’ and the apps provide them the ability to actively control (e.g., touching, zooming, rotating) the virtual products in a similar way as for actual products (Liu, 2003; Brasel and Gips, 2014; Yim et al., 2017; Hilken et al., 2018) Besides, the interactivity features of mobile apps enable two-way communication in real-time, and the communication is synchronized between consumers and retailers (Liu, 2003; Song and Zinkhan, 2008; Yang and Lee, 2017).

These key features of interactivity complement each other and create a technologically effective delivery process that facilitates customers’ embodied information processing (Petit et al., 2019) In an interactive technology, consumers perceive the virtual world in terms of functional relevance and possibilities for action (Sun et al., 2019; Ng and Yee, 2020), which is called “affordances” The technological affordances in the high interactivity mobile apps tell consumers what practical activities and interactions can be performed with the virtual environment as well as the virtual products (Lei et al., 2019) The presence of design features,such as layouts, styles, icons, and buttons (Kim et al., 2013; Tarute et al., 2017),allows consumers to navigate the retail mobile apps through a touch smartphone screen These design features stimulate consumers’ senses, imaginations, and perceptions in the exploration of the virtual retailing world (Petit et al., 2019).Consumers, for example, can imagine walking in a virtual retail space in the same way that “a blind man stretches out a white cane to explore the space while in motion” (Biocca, 1997, p.13) Moreover, by rotating, zooming, or pinching the virtual products as well, the imagination can be evoked or even intensified during product inspection Besides, once consumers/users sign in to a retail mobile app to browse or search for information, its design functions help them to receive an immediate response (i.e., synchronicity) when they click on something (e.g., “Home,” “Back,” or “Next” button; van Noort et al., 2012) Also, the presence of design functions motivates and allows them to communicate with located-service providers and other consumers, via

“chat box” or online reviews, in terms of reciprocity (i.e., two-way communication).

In general, the technological affordances in the apps provide a reference frame for consumers’ situated embodied cognition in the virtual environment in which consumers/users perceive the self to be located and possible actions The presence of interactivity in retail mobile apps offers the sense of “real” being there and “para- authentic” virtual world and virtual product experiences (Lee, 2004; Yang and Lee, 2017; Yim et al., 2017), which facilitates consumers’ processing of products and relevant information more deeply and the links between perception and action (Hilken et al., 2017, 2018).

With respect to vividness, as defined by Steuer (1992), refers to the technology’s ability to produce a sensory-rich mediated environment It represents the richness/realness of the way in which information is presented and is conveyed to media users (Steuer, 1992; Zhang et al., 2018) In the context of the retailer’s mobile apps, vividness is conceptualized as the aesthetic appeal and the representational quality of products and information that are produced by the technological capabilities (Jiang and Benbasat, 2007; Yim et al., 2017) Drawing upon the technological affordances (Sun et al., 2019; Ng and Yee, 2020), vividness is stimulus- driven by enriching breadth, which refers to the number of sensory dimensions (e.g., visual, tactile, and auditory sensory) in a retailer’s mobile-app can provide to consumers/users, and sensory depth, which refers to the quality of the represented graphic images, visual content, and background sound as perceived by consumers/users (Li et al., 2002; Klein, 2003; McLean and Wilson, 2019).

These two distinct aspects of vividness facilitate embedded cognition processes, which help to improve consumers’ cognitive abilities (Orús et al., 2016).The display of products with a more vivid portrayal will be more likely to reduce consumers’ mental burden and enhance their information cognitive elaboration processes (Yim et al., 2017; McLean and Wilson, 2019) The retailers’ mobile apps manipulate the more clearly and detailed information, and the more visually vivid product images that evoke the sensory (actual) and nonsensory (imaginary), the experience would be expected to create a clear image of the virtual products in the consumer’s mind (Lee, 2004; Kim et al., 2017) In other words, vividness increasingly facilitates and allows consumers to integrate virtually present (contents and products) into an individual’s real-world environment visually (Hilkent et al.,

2017, 2018) For example, visually vivid product presentations stimulate consumers’ imagination on how kitchen utensils/furniture fit with their kitchen/home or how clothing/cosmetics match them personally Like interactivity, a retailer’s mobile app delivering stimuli with a higher level of vividness would stimulate embedded cognitive processes, which in turn elicit the higher feeling of being located and possible actions for a person Despite the noted driving roles of interactivity and vividness, to the best of our knowledge, research on the specific experience of “feeling of being there” in the context of retail mobile apps with varying levels of these two attributes is still underexplored.

Users’ motivations

Need for cognition reflects an individual tendency to engage in and enjoy thinking (Cacioppo and Petty, 1982) Need for cognition is generally divided into high and low, and within the literature is sometimes conceptualized as reflecting a stable intrinsic motivation (Haugtvedt et al., 1992; Priluck and Till, 2004; Putrevu,2008; Sicilia and Ruiz, 2010; Richard and Chebat, 2016; Sheng et al., 2020) In the context of apparel e-retailing, NFC has been found to strengthen the impact of product presentation (i.e., visual and verbal stimuli) on information processing(Kim, 2019) In their study of the effect of motivation and visual saliency on attention to privacy policy text and icons, Sheng et al (2020) found that these relationships differed between individuals with high vs low in NFC, as such high-NFC individuals are more attentive and show more elaborative efforts in both top-down and bottom- up processes than low NFC individuals Applying similar logic to the current research context, we take a step further to expect that the effects of interactivity and vividness on spatial presence will be contingent upon NFC.

Domain-specific interest is a trait factor reflecting an individual’s voluntary allocation of his/her attention towards an object or a specific domain (Wirth et al., 2007; Hartmann et al., 2016) Domain-specific interest is also divided into high and low and is associated with an individual’s perceived relevance of an object to their personal interests, which are derived from their needs, excitement, values, and appeals and being captured in the concept of customer involvement (Zaichkowsky,

1985) In the current study context, when consumers find a retail mobile app interesting, they tend to be deeply involved in the content and/or activities provided by the app (Kim et al., 2015); thus DSI is expected to moderate the linkage betweenSPE and customer engagement.

Research gaps

To clearly identify the research gaps of this study, in addition to the key literature mentioned above, we also synthesize the extant literature (see Table 2.4) that shows the explored relationships related to customer experience, customer engagement, mediator, and moderator in the mobile application context.

Gap 1 - Our comprehensive literature review reveals that customers will make proactive contributions to a retailer as a kind of reciprocity if they receive a compelling experience The majority of prior literature on customer experience in service settings (see Kuppelwieser and Klaus, 2020a, 2020b), specifically with mobile apps, has focused on several affective and cognitive aspects of customer experience (see Table 2.2 and Table 2.4), such as positive emotions and customer satisfaction (e.g., Iyer et al., 2018; McLean et al., 2018, 2020; Chopdar andBalakrishnan, 2020) and entertaining and information experiences (e.g., van Noort and van Reijmersdal, 2019; Qing and Haiying, 2021) Recently, several studies have examined how customer experience can increase customer engagement with the firm/retailer via branded/retail mobile apps (e.g., Newman et al., 2018; Chopdar and Balakrishnan, 2020; Lim et al., 2021) However, the literature has not specifically identified the essence of spatial presence experience in retail mobile apps.

Furthermore, the literature indicates different perspectives of customer engagement such as psychological (Brodie et al., 2011), behavioral (van Doorn et al., 2010), and S-D logic-informed perspectives (Hollebeek et al., 2016) through which customer engagement is articulated as either a state of mind or an activity existing beyond transactions (Kumar and Pansari, 2016) Defining customer engagement underlying these perspectives is embodied as either a state of mind or activity beyond transactions (Kumar and Pansari, 2016) These various definitions of customer engagement in the literature could fit the context of retail mobile apps, but they do not necessarily imply that psychological and/or behavioral engagement beyond purchases adds value to the firm/retailer (de Oliveira Santini et al., 2019). Additionally, as shown in Table 2.3 and Table 2.4, previous research has also been discussing a few other measures of customer-centric marketing, such as customer purchases (e.g., van Heerde et al., 2019; McLean et al., 2020), word of mouth (e.g., Bitrián et al., 2021), customer recommendations (e.g., Fang et al., 2017; Newman et al., 2018), customer feedback/suggestions (e.g., Wang, 2020; Bitrián et al., 2021), and customer cross-platform digital interactions (e.g., Wang, 2020) to describe customer engagement with the firm’s marketing activities However, in light of inconsistent evidence regarding customer engagement, academicians and practitioners have agreed that there are various ways a customer contributes to the firm/retailer Therefore, adopting a holistic viewpoint regarding customer engagement of Kumar and his colleagues (Kumar and Pansari, 2016; Kumar and Reinartz, 2016; Kumar et al., 2019) that advocates that all customer activities toward a firm/retailer are encompassed in the elaboration of the conceptualization of customer engagement may highlight the importance of this holistic viewpoint for the future In this sense, we will add to the growing number of studies that explore how the specific experience of spatial presence in the virtual environment enhances customer engagement across the holistic viewpoint.

Gap 2 - The most frequently studied antecedents of customer experience are app-design features (Fang et al., 2017; Tarute et al., 2017), app-performance attributes (Fang et al., 2017; McLean et al., 2018; Shaikh et al., 2020), and perceived values (Iyer et al., 2018) To date, a limited effort has been devoted to the effects of interactivity and vividness on the specific experience of spatial presence when shopping on retail mobile apps Moreover, there remains a severe lack of studies that cohesively incorporate and thoroughly investigate the mechanisms of interactivity/vividness–SPE–customer engagement; thus, this research will address such literature gaps.

Gap 3 - Furthermore, in order to provide greater insight into the process of keeping customers engaged with retail mobile apps in a profitable manner so as to harvest the lifetime value of these customers, key contingency factors of individuals’ intrinsic tendencies (e.g., need for cognition) (Cacioppo et al., 1996;Priluck and Till, 2004) and issue-specific motivations (e.g., domain-specific interest) (Liu and Shrum, 2009; Hofer et al., 2012), which are still underexplored in the previous studies, are integrated into our proposed research model.

Papers Study setting Research design Sample size Theoretical background Customer experience operationalization Customer engagement operationalization and alias Studied relationships

(2017) Branded mobile apps Empirical web-based survey design; PLS- SEM

A sample of 637 consumers in Taiwan

- Consumer–brand engagement (cognitive processing, affection, activation)

Localization → Perceived usefulness (+) Ubiquity → Perceived usefulness (+) Perceived usefulness → Mobile continuance intention (+) Perceived usefulness → Brand repurchase intention (+) Interactivity → Consumer–brand engagement (+) Social presence → Consumer–brand engagement (+) Consumer– brand engagement → Mobile continuance intention (+) Consumer–brand engagement → Brand repurchase intention (+)

Localization * Independent self-construal (high vs low) → Perceived usefulness (+)

Ubiquity * Independent self-construal (high vs low) → Perceived usefulness (+)

Perceived usefulness * Independent self-construal (high vs low)

→ Continuance intention (+) Perceived usefulness * Independent self-construal (high vs low)

→ Repurchase intention (+) Interactivity * Interdependent self-construal (high vs low) → Consumer–brand engagement (+)

Social presence * Independent self-construal (high vs low) → Consumer–brand engagement (+)

Consumer–brand engagement * Independent self-construal (high vs low) → Continuance intention (+) Consumer–brand engagement * Independent self-construal (high vs low) → Repurchase intention (-)

Fang et al (2017) Mobile travel apps Empirical web-based survey design; CB- SEM

A sample of 804 tourists in China

The S-O-R model; Uses and gratifications theory

User interface attractiveness → Psychological engagement (+) Privacy and security→ Psychological engagement (+) Portability→ Psychological engagement (+)

Compatibility→ Psychological engagement (+) Ease of use→ Psychological engagement (+) Relative advantage→ Psychological engagement (+) Psychological engagement → Utilitarian benefit (+) Psychological engagement → Hedonic benefit (+) Psychological engagement → Social benefit (+) Utilitarian benefit → Behavioral engagement intention (+) Hedonic benefit → Behavioral engagement intention (+) Social benefit → Behavioral engagement intention (+) Psychological engagement → Behavioral engagement intention (+)

Psychological engagement → Utilitarian benefit → Behavioral engagement intention (+)

Psychological engagement → Hedonic benefit → Behavioral engagement intention (+)

Psychological engagement → Social benefit → Behavioral engagement intention (+)

Empirical web-based survey design; CB- SEM

A sample of 1,024 consumers in the U.K.

The technology acceptance model (TAM);

The expectancy confirmation theory with information technology

Consumer experience (satisfaction with the experience and positive emotion)

Frequency of use Direct effects:

Utilitarian factors of technology → Timeliness (-) Timeliness → Customer experience (-)

Utilitarian factors of technology → Enjoyment (+) Enjoyment → Customer experience (+)

Utilitarian factors of technology → Customer experience (+) Customer experience → Frequency of use (+)

Utilitarian factors of technology * Gender (female vs male) → Enjoyment (-)

Utilitarian factors of technology * Gender (female vs male) → Timeliness (+)

Utilitarian factors of technology * Gender (female vs male) → Customer experience (-)

Enjoyment * Gender (female vs male) → Customer experience (+) Utilitarian factors of technology * Screen-size (large vs small) →Customer experience (+)

Retailer’s mobile apps Empirical multi-study design; CB- SEM

- Actual app usage experiences (i.e., app ease of use)

Intentions to purchase with app; Intentions to recommend app; Intentions to purchase in-store

App ease of use → Intentions to purchase with app (+) App ease of use → Intentions to recommend app (+) App ease of use → App connection (+)

App ease of use → App connection → Intentions to purchase with app (+)

App ease of use → App connection → Intentions to recommend app (+)

App ease of use → App connection → Intentions to make purchase at the physical store (-)

App ease of use * Usage frequency → App connection (+) App ease of use * Usage frequency → App connection → Intentions to purchase with app (+) van Heerde et al (2019)

Retailer’s mobile apps Econometric analyses design

A sample of 629 customers in the U.S.

Customer distance from the physical store (distant vs near customers) * Wear-out → mobile app access (-) Customer distance from the physical store (distant vs near customers) * State dependence → mobile app access (+) Customer distance from the physical store (distant vs near customers) * Mobile app access → Purchase (+) Customer channel usage (offline-only vs online customers) * Wear-out → mobile app access (-)

Customer channel usage (offline-only vs online customers) * State dependence → mobile app access (+)

Customer channel usage (offline-only vs online customers) * Mobile app access → Purchase (+) van Noort and van

Branded mobile apps A 2 x 1 experimental design;

Elaboration Brand attitude; Relationship with the brand; Brand memory; Brand beliefs

An entertainment (vs information) branded app → Enjoyment (+)

→ Affective brand responses (i.e., brand attitude and brand relationship) (+)

An information (vs entertainment) branded app → Elaboration (+) → Cognitive brand responses (i.e., brand memory and brand beliefs) (+)

Empirical cross- sectional design; CB- SEM

A sample of 420 consumers in India

The S-O-R framework Satisfying experience Repurchase intention Direct effects:

Perceived ubiquity → Impulsiveness (+) Perceived ubiquity → Perceived value (+) Contextual offering → Impulsiveness (+) Contextual offering → Perceived value (+) Visual attractiveness → Impulsiveness (+) Visual attractiveness → Perceived value (+) App incentives → Impulsiveness (+) App incentives → Perceived value (+) Impulsiveness → Satisfying experience (+) Impulsiveness → Repurchase intention (+) Perceived value → Satisfying experience (+) Perceived value → Repurchase intention (+) Satisfying experience → Repurchase intention (+)

Impulsiveness * Age → Satisfying experience (-) Impulsiveness * Age → Repurchase intention (-) Perceived value * Age → Satisfying experience (-) Perceived value * Age → Repurchase intention (-) Wang

(2020) Branded mobile apps Econometric analyses design; The seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) model

A sample of 15,000 customers in Canada

- Customer cross-platform digital interactions;

Customer responses to email promotions

The adoption of and interactions with a complementary branded mobile app → Cross-platform digital interactions (+) The adoption of and interactions with a complementary branded mobile app → Spending (+)

The adoption of and interactions with a complementary branded mobile app → Responses to email promotions (+)

The adoption of and interactions with a complementary branded mobile app * Customer segment (low-tier customers [i.e.,

“barnacles”] vs high-tier customers [i.e., “butterflies”]) → Cross-platform digital interactions (-)

The adoption of and interactions with a complementary branded mobile app * Customer segment (low-tier customers [i.e.,

“barnacles”] vs high-tier customers [i.e., “butterflies”]) → Spending (+)

The adoption of and interactions with a complementary branded mobile app * Customer segment (low-tier customers [i.e.,

“barnacles”] vs high-tier customers [i.e., “butterflies”]) → Responses to email promotions (+)

Empirical longitudinal survey design; CB- SEM

A sample of 474 consumers in the U.K.

(at both the adoption phase and usage phase)

The technology acceptance model (TAM)

Perceived ease of use → Attitude towards the app (+) Perceived usefulness → Attitude towards the app (+) Perceived enjoyment → Attitude towards the app (+) Subjective norm → Attitude towards the app (+) Customisation → Attitude towards the app (+) Attitude towards the app → Attitude towards the brand (+) Attitude towards the app → Loyalty towards the brand (+) Attitude towards the app → Purchase frequency (+) Attitude towards the brand → Purchase frequency (+) Loyalty towards the brand → Purchase frequency (+)

Perceived ease of use * Screen-size (large vs small) → Attitude towards the app (-)

Perceived usefulness * Screen-size (large vs small) → Attitude towards the app (-)

Perceived enjoyment * Screen-size (large vs small) → Attitude towards the app (-)

Subjective norm * Screen-size (large vs small) → Attitude towards the app (-)

Customisation * Screen-size (large vs small) → Attitude towards the app (-)

Attitude towards the app * Screen-size (large vs small) → Attitude towards the brand (-)

Attitude towards the app * Screen-size (large vs small) → Loyalty towards the brand (-)

Attitude towards the app * Screen-size (large vs small) →Purchase frequency (-)

Bitrián et al (2021) Service mobile apps Empirical cross- sectional and online survey design; PLS- SEM

A sample of 276 users in the U.S.

The self- system model of motivational development

Feelings of competence; Feelings of autonomy; Feelings of relatedness

User psychological engagement (aesthetic appeal, reward, focused attention, and perceived usability); Continued use intention; WOM intention;

Achievement/progression elements → Competence (+) Achievement/progression elements → Autonomy (+) Achievement/progression elements → Relatedness (+) Social-oriented elements → Competence (+)

Social-oriented elements → Autonomy (+) Social-oriented elements → Relatedness (+) Immersion-oriented elements→ Competence (+) Immersion-oriented elements → Autonomy (+) Immersion-oriented elements → Relatedness (+) Competence → Psychological engagement (+) Autonomy → Psychological engagement (+) Relatedness → Psychological engagement (+) Psychological engagement → Continued use intention (+) Psychological engagement → WOM intention (+) Psychological engagement → App rating (+) Lim et al.

(2021) Branded mobile apps Empirical cross- sectional and self- administered survey design; PLS- SEM

A sample of 715 millennial consumers in Malaysia

The S–O–R model; Gender schema theory

Telepresence; Social presence Customer engagement

(conscious attention, enthused participation, and social connection)

Telepresence → Customer engagement (+) Telepresence → Value co-creation (+) Social presence → Customer engagement (+) Social presence → Value co-creation (+) Customer engagement → Value co-creation (+) Customer engagement → Continuous use intention (+) Continuous use intention → Continuous use intention (+)

Telepresence * Gender (men vs women) → Customer engagement Telepresence * Gender (men vs women) → Value co-creation (-) (-) Social presence * Gender (men vs women) → Customer engagement (+)

Social presence * Gender (men vs women) → Value co-creation (+) Customer engagement * Gender (men vs women) → Value co- creation (+)

Customer engagement * Gender (men vs women) → Continuous use intention (+)

Continuous use intention * Gender (men vs women) → Continuous use intention (+)

Branded mobile apps Empirical cross- sectional and online survey design; CB- SEM

A sample of 509 consumers in China

Cognitive processing → Continuance intention (+) Affection → Continuance intention (+)

Activation → Continuance intention (+) Cognitive processing → Activation (+) Affection → Activation (+)

Cognitive processing → Affection (+) Rich information experience → Cognitive processing (+) Rich information experience → Affection (+)

Affluent entertaining experience→ Cognitive processing (+) Affluent entertaining experience→ Affection (+)

Social presence → Cognitive processing (+) Social presence → Affection (+)

Social presence → Rich information experience (+) Social presence → Affluent entertaining experience (+)

Cognitive processing → Affection → Continuance intention (+) Cognitive processing → Activation → Continuance intention (+) Social presence → Entertaining experience → Affection (+) Social presence → Information experience → Affection (+) Social presence → Cognitive processing → Affection (+)

Retailers’ mobile apps Empirical cross- sectional survey design; PLS- SEM

A sample of 558 consumers in Vietnam

The HOE model and situated cognition theory

Spatial presence experience Customer engagement

(customer purchases, customer feedback/suggestions, customer referrals, and customer influences)

Interactivity → Spatial presence experience (+) Vividness → Spatial presence experience (+) Spatial presence experience → Customer engagement (+)

Interactivity → Spatial presence experience → Customer engagement (+)

Vividness → Spatial presence experience → Customer engagement

Moderating effects: (+)Interactivity * Need for cognition → Spatial presence experience (+)Vividness * Need for cognition → Spatial presence experience (-)Spatial presence experience * Domain-specific interest → Customer engagement (+)

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS