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

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.