Examining the antecedents of shopping excitement and affiliation intentions in shopping malls

In response to our limited understanding of the role of servicescape and socialscape in influencing customer-to-customer interactions (Nicholls, 2010), this paper examines the effect of servicescape, socialscape, personal aspects (i.e. involvement) and other mall-related factors (i.e. tenant variety) on shopping excitement and affiliation intentions. A total of 403 valid responses were collected by the means of a survey, using a systematic sample from four regional shopping malls to avoid the single-site limitation in the extant literature. The data was analysed by the means of PLS-SEM. The findings showed that shopping involvement, tenant variety and ambient, rather than design and social, aspects were found associated with shopping excitement. Interestingly, pleasantness of music, design and social aspects were found to encourage affiliation intentions, while perceptions of other ambient factors (e.g. lighting, scent) were found to discourage these intentions. Shopping excitement was found to be the dominant driver of affiliation intentions.