The role of self-construal in consumers’ electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in social networking sites: A social cognitive approach

The current study reconceptualized self-construal as a social cognitive indicator of self-observation that individuals employ for developing and maintaining social relationship with others. From the social cognitive perspective, this study investigated how consumers’ self-construal can affect consumers’ electronic word of mouth (eWOM) behavior through two cognitive factors (online community engagement self-efficacy and social outcome expectations) in the context of a social networking site. This study conducted an online experiment that directed 160 participants to visit a newly created online community. The results demonstrated that consumers’ relational view became salient when the consumers’ self-construal was primed to be interdependent rather than independent. Further, the results showed that such interdependent self-construal positively influenced consumers’ eWOM behavioral intentions through their community engagement self-efficacy and their social outcome expectations.     

A study on factors that affect users’ behavioral intention to transfer usage from the offline to the online channel

Increasingly more service providers offer both offline and online services simultaneously, but consumers still seem to prefer using offline services rather than online ones. Our research focuses on factors that influence users’ intention to transfer their usage from the offline to the online channel that offer similar services. Drawing on the valence framework and prior research related to habit, innovativeness, and Internet experience, we propose a research model that incorporates motivators and inhibitors of usage transfer from both the offline and online channels. Using banking services in China as the research context, our study reveals that innovativeness in new technology and relative benefit have positive effects on users’ intention to transfer usage. Conversely, habits that consumers form in the offline channel have a negative effect on the intention to transfer usage. Moreover, our findings indicate that Internet experience moderates the relationship between relative benefit and consumers’ intention to transfer usage from offline to online services. These results provide a better understanding of consumers’ usage-transfer behavior and offer suggestions to providers in boosting their consumers’ use of online services.     

Factors influencing information distortion in online deliberations: The effects of informational characteristics and regulatory focus

The current study utilized regulatory focus theory to explain how online deliberations are processed differently depending on a participant’s information processing style and the characteristics of a discussion topic. An experiment was conducted to investigate the relationship between informational characteristics (hedonic vs. utilitarian) and attitude change toward information, as well as the moderating effect of regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention). Results from 207 students indicated that promotion-focused participants were more likely to change their attitude toward information than prevention-focused participants during online deliberations. Furthermore, when presented with hedonic information, attitude changes toward information were stronger for promotion-focused participants as compared to prevention-focused participants. However, when presented with utilitarian information, attitude changes were stronger for prevention-focused participants. The present findings enable researchers and practitioners to understand the interactive influence of informational characteristics and regulatory foci of participants during online deliberations, as well as influence participants’ biased information processing.     

An empirical investigation of electronic word-of-mouth: Informational motive and corporate response strategy

The proliferation of the Internet has given birth to a number of complaint web sites where dissatisfied and frustrated consumers can easily articulate their opinions and comments on products, services, or companies. Little attention, however, has been paid to the influence of online complaints on potential consumers’ behaviors. This study attempts to provide the understanding of causal attribution process in the online complaining behaviors. The results showed that informational factors, such as vividness and consensus, facilitated consumers’ attribution to companies’ responsibility for the negative events, and subsequently led to changing their evaluation of the companies. In addition, we found that corporate response strategies to online complaints should be different from the conventional response strategies.     

What makes consumers buy from Internet? A longitudinal study ofonline shopping

The objective of this study is to investigate the factors affecting online shopping. A model explaining the impact of different factors on online shopping intentions and behavior is developed based on the theory of planned behavior. The model is then tested empirically in a longitudinal study with two surveys. Data collected from 705 consumers indicate that subjective norms, attitude, and beliefs concerning the consequences of online shopping have significant effects on consumers' intentions to buy online. Behavioral control and intentions significantly influenced online shopping behavior. The results also provide strong support for the positive effects of personal innovativeness on attitude and intentions to shop online. The implications of the findings for theory and practice are discussed     

Contribution of Internet news use to reducing the influence of selective online exposure on political diversity

Research has recognized both selective and heterogeneous exposures on the Internet through online news and discussion. How online exposures through Internet news and discussion influence political diversity in individuals’ everyday lives needs to be addressed. The current research examines the extent to which Internet news use alters the effect of selective online interaction on political diversity in individuals’ social networks. Results show that while Internet news use has no direct relationship with political diversity in individuals’ social networks, it nevertheless moderates the negative effect of selective online interaction and indirectly contributes to political diversity. The social structural aspect of political diversity in social networks is discussed in comparison to political discussion networks.     

Students’ participation intention in an online discussion forum: Why is computer-mediated interaction attractive?

Anecdotal evidence indicates that an online discussion forum may not be utilized to its full potential in enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of teaching due to a lower than expected student participation rate. This paper seeks to identify the motivational behavioral factors influencing students’ intention to participate in an online discussion forums (ODF). Drawing on the literature on social psychology and applying the theory of reasoned action, we develop a conceptual model of intention to participate in an online discussion forum and empirically test the hypotheses in a cross-sectional quantitative survey. The findings indicate that expectancy on hedonic outcome and utilitarian outcome and peer pressure positively influence the participation intention of students. Also, the perceived importance of learning positively moderates the relationship between utilitarian outcome expectancy and participation intention. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The effect of behavioral tracking practices on consumers’ shopping evaluations and repurchase intention toward trusted online retailers

The study applies the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) model and Social Contract Theory to investigate the effect of behavioral practices scenarios (stimulus) on consumers’ evaluations of their online shopping experiences (internal organism) and repurchase intention toward online retailers (external response). The findings suggest there is a disconnect between online shoppers and their trusted online retailers regarding the information collected from online shoppers since, currently, sharing of information collected from customers within affiliates or even with third-party companies such as networking advertising associations for secondary uses (e.g. targeted advertising) is a fairly common practice in the marketing field. Left unresolved, this disconnect may undermine consumers’ repurchase intention toward the retailers and potentially injure the social contract between retailers and their customers. These findings are significant for the online retailing industry, consumers and public policy makers.     

Even in virtual environments women shop and men build: A social role perspective on Second Life

The present study examined whether traditional gender role expectations (Eagly, 1987) influence behaviors in non-traditional contexts such as online virtual environments. Participants were 352 Second Life users who reported their activities and experiences in Second Life. Results indicated that men and women differed in the types of activities they engaged in a manner predicted by social role theory. Specifically, as compared to women, men were more likely to report building things (e.g. objects), to own and work on their own virtual property, and were less likely to change their avatar’s appearance. Women, as compared to men, were more likely to meet people, shop, regularly change their avatar’s appearance, and buy clothes/objects for their avatar. The present study adds to our understanding of how traditional gender role expectations may carry over to online virtual worlds and influence online behavior.     

The influence of online store beliefs on consumer online impulse buying: A model and empirical application

Our study provides insight into the relationships between online store beliefs and consumer online impulse buying behavior. Drawing upon cognitive emotion theory, we developed a model and showed how beliefs about functional convenience (online store merchandise attractiveness and ease of use) and about representational delight (enjoyment and website communication style) related to online impulse buying. The model was tested using survey data from 532 customers of a Dutch online store. Our results showed significant effects of merchandise attractiveness, enjoyment, and online store communication style, mediated by consumers’ emotions. The study should enhance our understanding of online impulse buying and, by assessing the impact of the online store, of beliefs in non-rational decision-making settings.     

Why provide an online review? An extended theory of planned behavior and the role of Big-Five personality traits

Online review, an important form of reputation systems, has been studied intensively because of its powerful impact on online retailers, intermediaries, and customers. However, to date, very little attention has been paid to factors that influence an individual’s intention to provide an online review. An extended theory of planned behavior and Big-Five personality framework are used in this study. We empirically examine our model by using a cross-sectional survey study, collecting data from a sample of 171 online shoppers. Results show that attitude, perceived pressure, neuroticism, and conscientiousness are significant predictors of an individual’s intention to provide an online review. Findings may help online retailers and/or intermediaries increase the number of online reviews provided, which will lead to more accurate rating information about transactions, products, or services and may serve as a stepping-stone to continuous improvements. Implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.     

Business engagement on Twitter: a path analysis

Social media services, such as Twitter, enable commercial businesses to participate actively in online word-of-mouth communication. In this project, we examined the potential influences of business engagement in online word-of-mouth communication on the level of consumers’ engagement and investigated the trajectories of a business’ online word-of-mouth message diffusion in the Twitter community. We used path analysis to examine 164,478 tweets from 96,725 individual Twitter users with regards to nine brands during a 5-week study period. We operationalized business engagement as the amount of online word-of-mouth messages from brand and the number of consumers the brand follows. We operationalized consumers’ engagement as the number of online word-of-mouth messages from consumers both connecting to the brand and having no connection with the brand as well as the number of consumers following the brand. We concluded that the business engagement on Twitter relates directly to consumers’ engagement with online word-of-mouth communication. In addition, retweeting, as an explicit way to show consumers’ response to business engagement, indicates that the influence only reaches consumers with a second-degree relationship to the brand and that the life cycle of a tweet is generally 1.5 to 4 hours at most. Our research has critical implications in terms of advancing the understanding of the business’s role in the online word-of-mouth communication and bringing insight to the analytics of social networks and online word-of-mouth message diffusion patterns.     

The associations between young adults’ face-to-face prosocial behaviors and their online prosocial behaviors

Drawing on the co-construction theory (Subrahmanyam, Smahel, & Greenfield, 2006), this study investigated the relationship between online and face-to-face prosocial behaviors among 493 (345 women) young adults (ages 18-25 years). Findings indicated that face-to-face prosocial behaviors were positively associated with the engagement in online prosocial behaviors through social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Myspace, Twitter), chat programs (e.g., Google Talk, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger), email, and text messages, after controlling for gender and time spent using each type of technology. These findings extend the application of the co-construction theory to online prosocial behaviors. Furthermore, these findings suggest that the internet is also a place for positive interactions and call for more research investigating online prosocial behaviors.     

To buy or not to buy experience goods online: Perspective of innovation adoption barriers

The purpose of this study attempts to understand why consumers rarely shop online. Innovation resistance theory is employed in this study. Results of the survey utilizing a questionnaire among the members of study case indicated that value and tradition are major barriers toward use intention. Significant differences in usage barrier and image barrier exist between different non-adopted groups. On average, rejecters group have the highest barriers, followed by opponents, and postponers. Finally, there exist significant differences in usage, value, tradition, and image barriers between adopters and non-adopters toward buying experience goods online. These findings provide a better understanding of consumer’s attitude toward buying experience goods online.     

Property-based collaborative filtering for health-aware recommender systems

Recommender systems aim at solving the problem of information overload by selecting items (commercial products, educational assets, TV programs, etc.) that match the consumers’ interests and preferences. Recently, there have been approaches to drive the recommendations by the information stored in electronic health records, for which the traditional strategies applied in online shopping, e-learning, entertainment and other areas have several pitfalls. This paper addresses those problems by introducing a new filtering strategy, centered on the properties that characterize the items and the users. Preliminary experiments with real users have proved that this approach outperforms previous ones in terms of consumers’ satisfaction with the recommended items. The benefits are especially apparent among people with specific health concerns.     

Pedagogical lurking: Student engagement in non-posting discussion behavior

This paper presents the results of a study of student non-posting participation behavior in two online classes. Most often active message is assessed and thus implicitly valued in online class discussion, but the act of writing messages is not the only factor that contributes to student learning. However, it is the most visible and easiest to measure. Students may engage in processes of reading and reflection on the discussion board, not leaving their mark; it is these acts that may be referred to as pedagogical lurking. In this study, students were asked to self-report their non-visible course activities, the reasons behind these activities and their perceived usefulness related to learning. Findings show that about half of the students felt that they learned through the online discussion experience, and that they believe both posting and reading messages contributed to their ability to learn. These students were likely to enter the discussion before posting to obtain a model for participation, and to return at a later time to check for replies and reflect. Students who participated solely to meet course requirements and who focused on posting messages more than reading messages had less positive impressions of the discussion activity’s impact on learning.     

Shiny happy people buying: the role of emotions on personalized e-shopping

Personalized services are diffusing rapidly in online shopping communities. However, the current understanding of the influence of personalization is limited. This study extends personalization literature into the area of emotions related to intention to purchase and into the context of online shopping. Responses from 182 online shoppers were used to examine the impact of personalization on customer emotions and intention to purchase. The results show that there is a direct positive association between personalization and purchase intentions. In addition, provision of personalization features in e-shops may evoke positive emotions to online shoppers but does not evoke nor mitigate negative ones. Finally, our study reports that emotions influence online shopping behavior either positively, through the formulation of positive emotions, or negatively, through negative emotions. These findings indicate that positive emotions mediate the relationship between personalization and purchase intentions. Our study concludes with a critical appraisal of our findings and a discussion of prospective theoretical and managerial implications for e-shop practitioners.     

Understanding online repurchase intention: social exchange theory and shopping habit

Customer retention plays a key role in online shopping success. However, little attention has been paid to how online customers’ shopping habit moderates the relationship between their evaluation of online services and repurchase intention. To fill this gap, this study draws on both social exchange theory and IS use theory to propose a model. The social exchange theory is characterized as emotional evaluation (i.e., satisfaction with outcome quality, satisfaction with process quality) and rational evaluation (i.e., trust, learning). We view online repurchase as post-adoption phenomena of IS use that entail users’ beliefs, perception, and intention. The proposed model and hypotheses are supported by the empirical data from 469 online customers. Our findings show that shopping habit increases the influence of emotional evaluation on continuance, while habit weakens the impact of rational evaluation on continuance intention. The integration of social exchange theory and IS use (continuance) distinguishes our study from others who have primarily considered these theories disparately.     

Comparison of product bundling strategies on different online shopping behaviors

Bundling is a very popular sales-promotion tool, in which a critical issue is to decide what products should be sold together in order to improve sales. Traditionally, this decision is based on the order data collected from the points of sale. However, Internet marketing now allows marketers to efficiently collect not only order data but also browsing and shopping-cart data, which provide marketers with information on the consumers’ decision-making processes, rather than only the final shopping decisions. The present study aimed to determine the value of this newly available information by comparing the performance of decision-making on product bundling based on three types of data on online shopping behaviors. The results from a field experiment reveal that significantly better decisions are made on the bundling of products when browsing and shopping-cart data are integrated than when only order data or browsing data are used.     

How to improve consumer attitudes toward using credit cards online: An experimental study

Most companies involved in e-commerce use trust-promoting messages to persuade consumers that the websites they visit are safe. Although these messages are common, many consumers still hesitate to use a credit card online. To understand why, we applied social judgment theory and Cialdini’s model of persuasion in an experiment exploring the extent to which trust-promoting messages can be used to change consumers’ attitudes toward online credit card use. By manipulating message proximity and message source, we found that authority-plus-contrast-plus-scarcity was the most persuasive combination, and there was no significant difference between international and domestic trustmarks. Consumers with positive credit card attitudes were included as a control condition. The results show that the authority-plus-contrast-plus-scarcity combination was essential for consumers holding the same positive attitude, because there was no significant attitude change in this condition. Our findings help shopping websites analyze their existing trust-promoting messages and improve them by adding persuasive elements.