IMPACT OF MALL PERSONALITY ON MALL PATRONAGE INTENTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRY: MEDIATING ROLE OF SHOPPING VALUE

The current study investigates the effect of mall personality on shopping value and mall patronage intention. After covid-19, the retail sector exerts more influence on environmental performance. The unit of analysis in the present study is individuals consisting of customers who use shopping malls. Three hundred questionnaires were distributed through convenience sampling, while 245 questionnaires were filled for further statistical analysis. The present study deploys a regression approach through a structural equation modelling technique using SmartPLS 4.0 version software. The results indicate that mall personality significantly influences mall patronage intention by mediating the impact of shopping value. The current study delivers numerous theoretical and practical contributions by extending the planned behaviour theory. The present study's findings suggested applicable guidelines for practitioners and policymakers in the retail sector to follow the mall patronage intention practices and improve the behaviour of mall customers.


INTRODUCTION
Retail is among the most significant growth industries (Mahmud et al., 2023).There is much uncertainty regarding the future of retailing, mainly due to changing customer demand.Over the past few decades, shopping malls have been the place of choice for shopping (Afaq et al., 2020).Customer preferences today are moving away from traditional retail consumption toward mall consumption (Kashif et al., 2019).In contrast to Asia, where this trend has just recently begun to take off, the Western world witnessed this change twenty years ago.The consumer needs for the luxury of shopping and entertainment in one location have increased consumption.Mall culture has become a significant part of consumers' lifestyles.However, retail channels and formats are constantly changing.Due to the prevalence of standalone stores, town centres, street shops, and, most importantly, internet retailers, the retail environment is becoming increasingly congested.The availability of numerous platforms for consumers to hop on threatens malls' unique experiential appeal (Zanini et al., 2019).
The present study is in Pakistan's developing retail sector, where structured retail is mainly limited to major cities.Malls struggle to control consumers' social lives.Researchers have criticized the lack of response to their calls for research on mall personality (Amin et al., 2021).By creating a connection between mall personality, shopping value, and mall patronage intention, we have attempted to address the research gap left by the limited number of studies that have been done on mall patronage intention in Pakistan.The current study's primary goals are to understand modern Pakistani consumers better and get insights into the shopping habits of Pakistani customers.
Mall patronage assesses consumers' propensity and willingness to purchase at multipurpose malls and their tendency to recommend them to others (Thanasi-Boçe et al., 2021).Moreover, it describes the long-lasting bond between a retail mall and its customers.The exchanges between the participants in this relationship, which include the shopping centre providing its services to visitors and the visitors behaving favourably toward the shopping centre, define the general concept of returning to the retailer (Adeola et al., 2023).The retail literature considers many criteria, such as mall personality and shopping values, to quantify revisiting in addition to behavioural aspects (Dahana et al., 2022).

REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1 Mall Patronage Intention
Patronage intention is an aggregate measure that captures the ability and willingness to purchase and recommend recommendations (Sadachar & Fiore, 2018).The intention is said to extract motivational aspects that influence behavior.The intention is a direct precursor to conduct and is essential in guiding behaviour.A stable intention is a good predictor of consistent behavior (Gill et al., 2021).Patronage intention is the Expectation towards a specialist organization that is equivalent to the number of a customer's assessments of individual help item aspects (Elmashhara & Soares, 2022).
Moreover, customers will gravitate toward an environment that offers a wide range of products and experiences, a positive atmosphere, lots of social interaction, and no security worries.The fundamental recommendation is that sizable indoor shopping malls designate consumers' primary living spaces.The size of the retail spaces and the variety of goods available in one location draw customers to malls.Over time, shopping centres have grown to include service businesses and entertainment options.Ali et al. (2021) assert there is a power that determines customer groups in addition to functional qualities such as store location, price range, and product range and that this power defines the personality or image of the store.Customers are highly motivated to frequent shopping malls due to their qualities and the value of the resulting purchases; the shopping mall environment dramatically influences shoppers' shopping behaviour and experience.Similarly Nghia et al. (2020) suggested that consumers' feelings about product quality and utility value greatly affect their assessment of the complexity of the shopping mall, which is a component of their personality.Prior studies have shown that consumer shopping behaviours can result in hedonistic and utilitarian outcomes.Hedonistic values, compared to practical ones, are aesthetic, sensory, emotional, and pleasure-related.Commonly, utilitarian values refer to the advantages that are useful, instrumental, practical, and task-related.Mentioned above has proposed the following hypothesis: H1.Mall personality has a significant positive influence on shopping value.

Shopping Value and Mall Patronage Intention
The propensity and inclination to shop at multipurpose strip malls and the willingness to recommend them to others are all measured by the vast scale known as mall patronage.Additionally, it defines the longlasting bond between a shopper and a mall (Moharana & Pradhan, 2020).The customer's desire to think about, refer to, or make future purchases from the same retailer is their value, which is defined as "all the factors, qualitative and quantitative, subjective and objective, that make up the full shopping experience" to highlight the subjective nature of the value that is an offer by the complete shopping experience and not just in the purchase of a product (Han & Hyun, 2018).Mentioned above proposed the following hypothesis: H2.Shopping value has a significant positive influence on mall patronage intention.

Mediating Role of Shopping Value
The value of goods and services is just one aspect of the shopping experience that contributes to its worth.The purchase value and the intention to visit a mall were significantly impacted by personality and fashion orientation.In past studies on retail outlets, it was widely said that customers' perceptions of shopping value, encompassing both utilitarian and hedonistic features, had a significant and direct influence on or linkage to their intent to purchase at malls (Vieira et al., 2018).In other words, after having a favourable shopping experience, people are more likely to shop there again and recommend it to others.Mentioned above proposed the following hypothesis: H3.Shopping value mediates the relationship between mall personality and mall patronage intention.

Theoretical Framework
Planned behaviour theory (TPB) is one of the most studied consumer behaviour models (Bosnjak et al., 2020).TPB is a model that helps predict a wide range of behavioural intentions.TPB postulates that behavioural choices are characteristic of subjective norms, behavioural attitudes, and perceived behavioural control.Moreover, as per TPB, behavioural purpose directly precedes actual conduct.The TPB model has an additional construct to explain situations where people may lack total control over their behaviour (Ajzen, 1991).The theory holds that behaviours such as "Mall Patronage Intentions" are perceived by the attitude of the customer and subjective norms, such as "fashion orientation and mall personality traits," by achieving shopping values of "utilitarian" and "hedonic."

METHODOLOGY 3.1 Population and Sampling
A survey method was conducted through a close-ended questionnaire to collect data from mall customers in Punjab, Pakistan.The information was gathered using a quantitative research method based on a structured questionnaire.The survey was developed with carefully selected scales tested in the most recent literature.The cover letter will explain the aim of the study and the data collection procedure.
Furthermore, the participants will also inform that (1) their participation will be voluntary, (2) surveys will be kept confidential, and (3) their responses will be used for academic research purposes only.A convenience sampling method will be applied.Respondents were randomly selected.The G*POWER software will determine the sample size using the parameters of 0.15 for effect size, 0.05 for error Type I, and 80% power.

Operationalization of constructs
The items used to test the study's constructs were taken from earlier works of literature.The entire set of items was evaluated using a 5-point Likert scale (1 "strongly disagree" to 5 "strongly agree").The operationalization table 1 is mentioned below:

Statistical Tool for Data Analysis
The partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique will be used to analyze the data.The SmartPLS 4.0 software will be used to assess the hypotheses statistically.The current study will

Mall Patronage intension
Shopping value apply the bootstrapping procedure to evaluate the developed ideas, as data normalization is not a prerequisite in PLS-SEM.It relies on bootstrapping to check the significance of path coefficients and mediation analysis.

Analysis and Findings 4.1 Response Rate
The data used for this study were collected from consumers in Punjab, Pakistan.Questionnaires were filled out by the respondents using a self-administered survey method.Respondents submitted a total of 300 questionnaires.Where only 245 questionnaires were filled and eligible for further analysis.While respondents partially filled out 55 questionnaires.

.3 Assessment of Measurement Model
The initial step to begin with PLS-SEM analysis is assessing the measurement model, also known as the outer model.The measurement model demonstrates the reliability and validity of items.The Internal consistency, reliability, and composite reliability measure the individual item's reliability.In contrast, convergent validity is based on assessing the average variance taken (AVE).Discriminant reality uses the Fornell-lacker method and the cross-loading method.According to (Ringle et al., 2015) loadings less than 0.40 are not recommended, and loadings above 0.40 are recommended when the AVE value is 0.5 and over.A CR value of 0.70 or higher is needed.In contrast, AVE 0.5 and above is required to ensure good convergence.
Figure 2: Measurement Model

Individual Items Reliability
Internal consistency reliability is what is known as the "extent to which all items on a particular sub-scale are measuring the same concept."Then, the composite reliability cutoff must be at or above 0.70, and AVE must be more significant than (Lowry & Gaskin, 2014).In Table 4.3, every variable included in the current investigation has an AVE and composite reliability higher than 0.50, which suggests the reliability of the measurement model.

Discriminant Validity
Table 4.4 describes that the square roots of the AVE are more extensive than that of the latent variables, which indicates the acceptable validity of discrimination (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).At the beginning of this study, the authors provided the framework's explanation.They outlined the relationships between the variables based on the information discovered in previous research that likely needs to be revised and modified in light of the confirmatory factor analysis conducted during this research.The principal goal of this research is to concentrate on model assessment and the analysis of direct relationships (Sarstedt & Cheah, 2019).The second goal is to investigate the hypothesized connections between variables through the inner model.In the current research, three hypotheses were tested, and all hypotheses were supported.The results show that hypotheses H3 was supported due to a higher T-value than 1.645 and P-Value lower than 0.05.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
This section highlights the insights into the overall study findings in line with the research objectives.Mall patronage intention influences mall personality by mediating the role of shopping value.That provides new insights into existing literature and extends the TPB theory by analyzing the mediating effect of Shopping value between consumers in Pakistan.The current study, therefore, provides a theoretical framework to Examine the determinants of mall patronage intention in the Pakistani retail sector by combining the based on the TPB theory and incorporating the mediating impact of shopping value on the patronage intention of consumers in Pakistan.Data have been collected through a close-ended questionnaire to collect data from consumers in the Punjab district of Sahiwal, Pakistan.A structured questionnaire was used for data collection, and a self-administered survey was done to collect data.Three hypotheses were formulated under the quantitative strand to achieve the study's objectives and tested accordingly.Two were direct hypotheses, and one was a mediating hypothesis.All hypotheses have been supported.
The statistical analysis supported the H1 hypothesis by confirming that mall personality significantly affects shopping value (β= 0.858, T= 54.498, p-value< 0.05).H2 postulated that the shopping value influences the mall patronage intention.The results show a significant impact of the shopping value on the mall patronage intention (β= 0.720, T= 22.544, p-value< 0.05) .
H3 posited that shopping value mediates the relationship between mall personality and mall patronage intention.While the results of the current study also depicted that shopping value significantly mediates the relationship (β= 0.617, T= 18.27, p-value< 0.05).Therefore, H3 has been supported statistically.

Implications of the Study
The present study's findings can help practitioners, marketing managers in retail sectors, and academic researchers in the marketing field.The present study's results suggested practical guidelines for practitioners and policymakers in the retail industry to follow the mall patronage intention practices and improve the behaviour of mall customers.Furthermore, these factors help marketing managers get competitive advantages and maximum profit.The current study employed a quantitative approach to identify and Examine the determinants of mall patronage intention in the Pakistani retail sector by combining the theory of planned behaviour and incorporating the mediating impact of shopping value.Thus, the outcomes of the current study provide several theoretical and practical implications, which are discussed in the following sections:

Theoretical Implications
The present study provides several theoretical contributions by developing a research framework based on Planned behaviour theory (TPB), one of the most studied consumer behaviour models.TPB is a model that helps predict a wide range of behavioural intentions.TPB postulates that behavioural choices are characteristic of subjective norms, behavioural attitudes, and perceived behavioural control.Moreover, as per TPB, behavioural purpose directly precedes actual conduct.
One of the significant theoretical implications of the present study includes the mediating role of Shopping value between mall personality and mall patronage intention of consumers in Pakistan.That provides new insights into existing literature and extends the TPB theory by analyzing the mediating effect of Shopping value between consumers in Pakistan.

Practical Implications
The present study's findings suggested practical guidelines for practitioners and policymakers in the retail sector to follow the mall patronage intention practices and improve the behaviour of mall customers.Several valuable recommendations can be drawn logically from the statistical findings to Examine the determinants of mall patronage intention in the Pakistani retail sector in Pakistan.Context includes perceived relative advantage, top marketing support, and competitive advantage.These factors help marketing managers to get competitive advantages and get maximum profit.This study provides practical implications to highlight the to Examine the determinants of mall patronage intention in the Pakistani retail sector by combining the based on the TPB theory and incorporating the mediating impact of shopping value in Pakistan.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research
The first limitation of the current study is that it only utilized a quantitative analysis.In the future, mixed methods can be employed using a qualitative approach, and interviews can take place with consumers in retail sectors.While another limitation is that the current study only examined the TPB theory to examine the determinants of mall patronage intention in the Pakistani retail industry by combining the based on TPB theory and other theories also can use.Another limitation is that the current study only examined the consumers in Pakistan.In contrast, in the future, cross-country studies can explore the determinants of mall patronage intention retail sector in different countries.

CONCLUSION
After covid-19, the retail sector exerts more influence on environmental performance.The data was acquired using a mall intercept survey using a valid and reliable instrument modified from previous research.The unit of analysis in the present study is individuals consisting of customers who use shopping malls.Three hundred questionnaires were distributed using the connivance sampling technique, while 245 questionnaires were found and called for further statistical analysis.The present study deploys a regression approach through structural equation modelling technique (SEM) using smart (PLS) 4.0 version software.The result indicates that mall personality significantly influences mall patronage intention.By expanding the planned behaviour theory, the current study has various theoretical and practical consequences.The present study's findings suggested applicable guidelines for practitioners and policymakers in the retail sector to follow the mall patronage intention practices and improve the behaviour of mall customers.

Figure
Figure 1: Theoretical Framework