IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/hig/ecosoc/v14y2013i4p27-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Predictors of Innovative Consumption Practices: Internet Shopping Adoption in Russian Households

Author

Listed:
  • Natalia Firsova

    (Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology, National Research University Higher School of Economics)

Abstract

Consumption has been a research subject both in economics and sociology, but they have dealt with it in a different manner. In economics, consumption is reduced to exchange transactions on the market. In sociology, dominant theories of consumption had a tendency to focus either on symbolic meaning of goods, or on the moral judgments of consumerism. The author of this research would like to take a more balanced look on emerging consumption practices as a part of everyday social life from the perspective of economic sociology drawing on the diffusion of innovations instruments. Theories of practice offered the most suitable framework for this purpose, avoiding extremes of both homo economicus and homo sociologicus. This paper is aimed at answering the question — why some people engage in innovative consumption practices earlier than others, through analysis of Internet shopping predictors. Hypotheses were tested on data from the national representative household survey “Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey” (RLMS-HSE), carried out in 2009. Negative binomial regression modelling allowed the identification of a positive association of the following predictors with Internet shopping adoption: social capital, measured through educational and professional mobility, engagement in practices enhancing cognitive skills, material and non-material resources and institutional context captured through regional dummies. Predictors for the general population and different income groups were not always the same: educational mobility appeared to have a positive association with the adoption of Internet shopping only for the affluent population, and availability of free time, for middle and low income populations, respectively. In conclusion, the author assumes that social and demographic characteristics turn out to be less important than life trajectories and the related individual practices for studying life style.

Suggested Citation

  • Natalia Firsova, 2013. "Predictors of Innovative Consumption Practices: Internet Shopping Adoption in Russian Households," Journal of Economic Sociology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, vol. 14(4), pages 27-57.
  • Handle: RePEc:hig:ecosoc:v:14:y:2013:i:4:p:27-57
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ecsoc.hse.ru/en/2013-14-4.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    life style; consumption; innovative practices; Internet shopping; theories of practice; diffusion of innovations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hig:ecosoc:v:14:y:2013:i:4:p:27-57. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Zoya Kotelnikova or Zoya Kotelnikova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hsecoru.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.