The understanding of the consumer behaviour in digital environment has gained extraordinary attention from both academicians and practitioners due to the still growing share of making purchases online. According to Ecommerce Europe Report 2017 the growth rate of e-commerce turnover is 14% from 2016 to 2017, while worldwide it is 23,2%. Despite the relative long evolution of selling and shopping online during last more than 20 years and intensive research of this evolving phenomenon and due to the innovative character of digital technologies and their involvement in business-to-consumer activities, current knowledge shows significant gaps in knowledge of numerous and manifold linkages between online consumer behaviour and management of online environment for selling and buying activities. The proposed research project aims to explore several underexplored areas of consumer behaviour in the digital environment, specifically the roles and possibilities of neuroscience techniques and conscious work with Word-of-Mouth in understanding and managing consumer behaviour in different digital marketing settings. The research will have exploratory character with some mix of descriptive features. Qualitative research will combine eye-tracking technique and potentially also other neuroscience methods with in-depth interviews and surveys. The ultimate goal is to uncover the behavioural patterns in different research settings to contribute to the theory of online consumer behaviour, especially in the context of the neuroscience application for the response hierarchy models for the online environment including e-WOM as the responsive reaction. The project follows up and broadens two dissertation theses being in progress as well as research project funded by the Grant Agency of Masaryk University and realized in the year 2016: MUNI/A/1021/2015 “Behaviorálně ekonomické experimenty v marketingu a managementu”. One of the dissertation is devoted to the neuroscience application in online consumer attention, awareness and behavior; while the other one is dedicated to the deeper understanding of the electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) and its influence on consumer behaviour. Preliminary analysis of existing literature show that the application of neuroscience in e-WOM research is very scarce and there is a need to apply sophisticated methods in consumer research.

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