EXPLORING CONSUMERS’ ATTITUDINAL RESPONSE TO TERROR ATTACKS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY CONDUCTED IN FRANCE AND ISRAEL

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In recent years, terrorism has become one of the major world's concerns. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace (2016), among OECD member countries, deaths from terrorism have dramatically increased in 2015, rising by 650% relative to 2014. France stands as the country with the largest increase of deaths from 2014 to 2015. Recent terrorist attacks in France have triggered widespread awareness of this tragic phenomenon. Comparatively, Israel is a country that has experienced chronic terror attacks since the early 1960s, creating a high level of awareness that has become part of the citizen’s daily life, as attacks can occur in restaurants, bars, buses, and stores, or in the streets (Ben-David & Cohen-Louck, 2010). Due to their different experiences of terror, we chose to focus our study on France and Israel. In line with the terror management theory (Greenberg et al., 1986), which suggests that death reminders influence behaviors, these terror threats may have consequences on feelings of well-being (Maguen et al., 2008). Most studies concerning the effects of terrorism on consumer behaviour have focused on personal characteristics (Cohen-Louck, 2016). However, to the best of our knowledge, studies have yet to characterize customers' behaviors in different service situations in the wake of a terrorist attack and the factors influencing these behaviors. This will be the main contribution of the current study. A qualitative study has been conducted in France and Israel. We focused on both utilitarian (modes of transportation) and hedonic (cinema, restaurants, bars) services (Bradley & LaFleur, 2016). The study highlighted two specific criteria that could affect customer behavior: time from the terrorist attack and its proximity to the respondent. In-depth interviews were conducted with customers from France (22) and Israel (29; total n=51). Participants were interviewed on their behaviors, either immediately following a terror attack or one month after. Customer strategies were found to be similar and long termed in both France and Israel. However, Israeli customer responses are more personal and emotional, more detailed, more proactive in protecting themselves. The passage of time from the attack has less effect on Israelis’ chosen strategies. Among French respondents, the effect of time is evident: attacks have a significant impact on behaviours immediately after their occurrence, compared with a month later. Whereas the avoidance strategy is mainly adopted immediately after the attack, as time passes, there is a kind of resignation of the situation. The perception of internal vs. external control over one's life seems also to be an important variable that may explain behaviour in both groups.