Title: A positive self-congruence theoretic view of shopping mall consumers' perceived risk in mobile commerce intentions

Authors: Kathryn De Luca; Sigi Goode; Dennis Hart

Addresses: College of Business and Economics, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia ' College of Business and Economics, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia ' College of Business and Economics, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Abstract: Shopping malls and mobile commerce both give consumers access to a large range of retailers. However, recent disruption, including COVID, has seen a rise in mobile commerce use for online shopping. This study examines how shopping mall consumers perceive m-commerce. Most prior explanations of m-commerce risk and attitude have adopted a usefulness approach. Despite the highly personal nature of smartphones and mobile devices, the role of the consumer's sense of self has not been tested. The paper tests a model of m-commerce use intention based on usefulness, risk and self-congruence theory. The study uses a face-to-face intercept survey 127 shopping mall consumers to understand mall consumers' perceptions. The results show that self-congruence can have a stronger effect than usefulness factors, affecting both perceived risk (β = -0.20, p < 0.001) and attitude (β = 0.33, p < 0.05), and indirectly affects intention to use m-commerce (β = 0.16, p < 0.001). Perceived self-congruence is a useful addition to attitudinal models in consumer research, because our results show that self-congruence has a dominant effect on m-commerce risk attitudes.

Keywords: shopping mall consumers; mobile commerce; risk; intention; self-congruence.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEMR.2025.149553

International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, 2025 Vol.16 No.6, pp.646 - 671

Received: 04 Aug 2022
Accepted: 05 Feb 2023
Published online: 07 Nov 2025 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article