In-store quality (in)congruency as a driver of perceived legitimacy and shopping behavior

•This research investigates how the congruency between the quality of the store environment and the merchandise quality affects retailer legitimacy.•When the store environment is of high quality but the quality of the merchandise is of low quality, this results in a decrease in legitimacy.•The efforts retailers make to enhance the level of quality of their store environment should depend on the quality of their merchandise.

This research builds on the institutional theory literature to investigate the impact of retailer’s in-store quality (in)congruency on consumer shopping behavior. Specifically, considering the consensual view of legitimacy as a variable of main interest to explain organizational survival, this research focuses on legitimacy as the mediating variable explaining the effects of in-store quality (in)congruency on shopping behavior. Results from a scenario-based experiment show that in-store quality (in)congruency affects legitimacy such that when merchandise quality is low, a high store environment quality leads to lower legitimacy. Also, the results show that legitimacy acts as a mediator that induces a decrease in shopping behavior. By highlighting perceived legitimacy as the underlying mechanism explaining the effect of in-store quality incongruency on consumer behavior, this research offer new insights for retailers.