Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak and its declaration as a pandemic by the WHO on March 11, 2020 resulted in consumer panic buying across the globe. Extant research into panic buying is scant, and its cultural context practically unexplored. This article uses mobility change data provided by Google and draws on reactance theory to establish how perceived scarcity limits freedoms, and ultimately drives individuals to panic buying. It hypothesizes and analyzes the influence of cultural factors; the findings show that individualism and uncertainty avoidance both exert a positive effect on the extent of panic buying, whereas power distance has a negative effect.

摘要

2020 年 3 月 11 日，COVID-19 的爆发及其被世界卫生组织宣布为大流行病导致了全球消费者的恐慌性购买。对恐慌性购买的现有研究很少，其文化背景几乎没有被探索过。本文使用谷歌提供的流动性变化数据，并利用电抗理论来确定感知稀缺性如何限制自由，并最终驱使个人恐慌性购买。假设和分析文化因素的影响；研究结果表明，个人主义和不确定性规避对恐慌性购买的程度都有正向影响，而权力距离则有负向影响。