An empirical study of information contribution to online feedback systems: A motivation perspective

Online feedback systems (OFSs) are increasingly available on online shopping websites; they allow consumers to post their ratings and consumption reviews for products. We employed motivation theory and a goal attainment perspective to model a set of motivating and inhibiting factors that could influence a consumer's intention to contribute to an OFS. Our experiment, which involved 168 university students, showed that a consumer's intention to contribute product reviews is influenced by perceived satisfaction gained in helping other consumers, perceived satisfaction gained in influencing the merchant, perceived probability of enhancing self-image, and perceived executional costs. In addition, the presence of an economic rewarding mechanism was found to promote a contribution when a consumer's perceived probability of enhancing self-image was relatively high or when perceived cognitive cost was relatively low. Implications of our findings are discussed.     

Cross-cultural analysis in online community research: A literature review

Cross-cultural online community research can support theoretical generalizability, increase methodological robustness and give insights into user online behavior. The objective of this paper is to review the existing literature on comparative cross-cultural online community research in order to investigate the current state of the literature, extract conceptual patterns and identify methodological and emergent issues. This will inform the development of the field, map out research delimiters, and set out guidelines for future research. The findings from the literature review demonstrated five key areas of methodological difficulty in cross-cultural online community comparative analysis; sampling form, country selection, number of cultures compared, participant type and interpretation of data. Key themes that emerged from the literature included the use of the nation state as a unit of culture, a lack of definition of the concept of online community, and the impact of current theory on cross-cultural online community analyses. Recommendations in the areas of methodology, definition and theory are provided. These findings should be of interest to both specific online community researchers, and those in other multidisciplinary fields where online communities are being used as a research environment.     

A concept-level approach to the analysis of online review helpfulness

Helpfulness of online reviews serves multiple needs of different Web users. Several types of factors can drive reviews' helpfulness. This study focuses on uninvestigated factors by looking at not just the quantitative factors (such as the number of concepts), but also qualitative aspects of reviewers (including review types such as the regular, comparative and suggestive reviews and reviewer helpfulness) and builds a conceptual model for helpfulness prediction. The set of 1500 reviews were randomly collected from TripAdvisor.com across multiple hotels for analysis. A set of four hypotheses were used to test the proposed model. Our results suggest that the number of concepts contained in a review, the average number of concepts per sentence, and the review type contribute to the perceived helpfulness of online reviews. The regular reviews were not statistically significant predictors of helpfulness. As a result, review types and concepts have a varying degree of impact on review helpfulness. The findings of this study can provide new insights to e-commerce retailers in understanding the importance of helpfulness of reviews.     

Mining customer requirements from online reviews: A product improvement perspective

Big data commerce has become an e-commerce trend. Learning how to extract valuable and real time insights from big data to drive smarter and more profitable business decisions is a main task of big data commerce. Using online reviews as an example, manufacturers have come to value how to select helpful online reviews and what can be learned from online reviews for new product development. In this research, we first proposed an automatic filtering model to predict the helpfulness of online reviews from the perspective of the product designer. The KANO method, which is based on the classical conjoint analysis model, is then innovatively applied to analyze online reviews to develop appropriate product improvement strategies. Moreover, an empirical case study using the new method is conducted with the data we acquired from JD.com, one of the largest electronic marketplaces in China. The case study indicates the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed approach. Our research suggests that the combination of big data and classical management models can bring success for big data commerce.     

A systematic review on cross-cultural information systems research: Evidence from the last decade

Based on a review of 40 articles published in the information systems journals of the senior basket since 2006, this article presents refreshing and updated patterns of cross-cultural information systems (CCIS) research and suggests a roadmap for future research in CCIS. This 10-year systematic review contributes to the information systems community by unveiling three streams of transitions in CCIS research: (1) from national level to individual level with espoused and contextual cultural values, (2) from corporate users to end users, and (3) from West to East with the emergence of Chinese culture. The limitations and future research directions are presented.     

Search product and experience product online reviews: An eye-tracking study on consumers' review search behavior

This study uses eye-tracking method to investigate consumers' online review search behavior by suggesting that it needs to consider the type of product reviewed. A review-product congruity proposition was testified through a self-report survey and an eye-tracking experiment. The proposition states that consumers of search products expect to seek attribute based reviews, while consumers shopping for experience products tend to seek experience based reviews. Two experiments were conducted in the human factors & ergonomics laboratory of Beihang University, China and all subjects are college students. The results of our first empirical experiment support our hypotheses by showing consumers' more active and positive responses to attribute based reviews when shopping for search products and to experience based reviews when purchasing experience products. The second experiment was conducted with eye tracking method to gain further insights. We found that consumers of search products are attracted and engaged more deeply by attribute based reviews. However, when they browse experience products, the difference of their fixations on experience based reviews and attribute based reviews is not significant, and thus the proposition is partially supported. This study extends our current understanding of consumers' online review search behavior by subsuming product type, which is necessary and helpful, and provides references on the classification and presentation of reviews to facilitate consumers' product judgement and decision making. Moreover, comparison of traditional empirical method and eye-tracking method can help deepen our understanding of complex consumer online shopping behavior.     

Shirking behavior and socially desirable responding in online surveys: A cross-cultural study comparing Chinese and American samples

Respondents of online surveys may exhibit some answering behaviors, which lead to inconsistent survey results between online surveys and traditional paper surveys. Extant research has not yet devoted sufficient effort to the mechanisms of different answering behaviors on the inconsistent results, especially in cross-cultural survey contexts. For this reason, this study examines how shirking behavior (i.e., a form of disengaged behavior that the respondents expend insufficient mental effort on the questionnaire) and socially desirable responding result in incomparable responses between online surveys and paper surveys. We especially investigate how the cultural constructs of individualism and collectivism relate to shirking and social desirability. Our results reveal two different pathways leading to inconsistent results across different survey modes. Respondents from collectivistic cultures are more likely to shirking in online surveys. Consequently, they are more likely to provide varying responses than respondents from individualistic cultures. Collectivists are more likely to engage in impression management in paper surveys than in online surveys, while individualists have a greater tendency to provide inflated assessments of their skills and abilities in both survey modes.     

Investigations about replication of empirical studies in software engineering: A systematic mapping study

ContextTwo recent mapping studies which were intended to verify the current state of replication of empirical studies in Software Engineering (SE) identified two sets of studies: empirical studies actually reporting replications (published between 1994 and 2012) and a second group of studies that are concerned with definitions, classifications, processes, guidelines, and other research topics or themes about replication work in empirical software engineering research (published between 1996 and 2012).ObjectiveIn this current article, our goal is to analyze and discuss the contents of the second set of studies about replications to increase our understanding of the current state of the work on replication in empirical software engineering research.MethodWe applied the systematic literature review method to build a systematic mapping study, in which the primary studies were collected by two previous mapping studies covering the period 1996–2012 complemented by manual and automatic search procedures that collected articles published in 2013.ResultsWe analyzed 37 papers reporting studies about replication published in the last 17 years. These papers explore different topics related to concepts and classifications, presented guidelines, and discuss theoretical issues that are relevant for our understanding of replication in our field. We also investigated how these 37 papers have been cited in the 135 replication papers published between 1994 and 2012.ConclusionsReplication in SE still lacks a set of standardized concepts and terminology, which has a negative impact on the replication work in our field. To improve this situation, it is important that the SE research community engage on an effort to create and evaluate taxonomy, frameworks, guidelines, and methodologies to fully support the development of replications.     

Intention to purchase on social commerce websites across cultures: A cross-regional study

This study investigates the moderating effect of culture and the mediating effect of trust in a social network community on the relationship between social interactions and purchase intention. Trust transference theory, social interactions, and Hofstede's cultural dimensions are considered. The findings from the research support the moderating effect of culture and the mediating role of trust in a social network community on the relationship between social interactions (in terms of closeness and familiarity) and intention to purchase in social commerce environments. In addition, the mediating effect of trust in a social network community is conditional on culture. The findings also suggest that trust in a social network community may be attributed to the closeness and familiarity developed among its members resulting from social interactions. The results presented herein are in line with the trust transference theory. The empirical study results also suggest that social commerce market penetration in East Asia may have relatively fewer barriers to overcome and be more likely to succeed than in the Latin America region.     

Synchronous online conference-based instruction: A study of whiteboard interactions and student writing

This paper describes a small-scale, empirical study of synchronous conference-based online writing instruction (OWI) using an electronic whiteboard in a professional tutorial setting. Linguistic analysis of participant talk indicated that the interactions were both idea-development focused and task oriented as opposed to socially oriented. The interactions often consisted of detailed dialogue wherein participants used primarily declarative language to give each other information about the writing under development and its processes. However, nearly half of the talk was oriented toward achieving interpersonal connections, facilitating the interaction, and communicating about the whiteboard's workspace. Textual analysis of the drafted student writing subsequent to the instructional interactions indicated that nearly two thirds of the interactions could be connected through iterability or presupposition with the writing and revisions. Most of the traceable writing and revision changes were meaning-preserving in nature and of insignificant to moderate rhetorical force. Such writing and revision changes were generated by students or online instructors or through shared interaction, demonstrating a highly collaborative process. Based on these findings, implications emerge for online instructor training, for student preparation to use whiteboard platforms, and for future research into synchronous conference-based OWI.     

Knowledge hoarding and user acceptance of online discussion board systems in eLearning: A case study

This paper aims to reveal the determinants of the effectiveness of online discussion board systems (ODBSs) in eLearning environments to foster the interactions among the learners and/or instructors. A case in which an ODBS failed to foster the interactions among learners/instructors for knowledge sharing is introduced and hypotheses to explain the failure are developed based on thorough literature review in technology acceptance model (TAM) and knowledge hoarding. The hypotheses are tested via statistical analysis on the data collected from a questionnaire survey against the students who actually involved in the case study. The result shows that the low perceived usefulness of the ODBS by the students played major role in the failure of the system. Also it is hinted that network externalities as an intrinsic motivator is more effective than extrinsic motivators to increase the students’ activities on the ODBS. Finally the paper provides the designers of eLearning systems with advice for successful operation of ODBS in eLearning.     

Doing their bidding: An empirical examination of factors that affect a buyer’s utility in Internet auctions

What factors make individual bidders pay more or less for the same item in online auctions? We use data on over 55,000 bids over a three-year period collected by a customized Internet software agent. These data are used to perform a within-bidders quasi-experiment, testing bidders who bid on the exact same item at different times during a 30-day period in online auctions. With theories from information systems and consumer behavior as our theoretical lens, we then examine factors that make individuals pay more for the exact same item in online auctions. We find that the same individual will tend to pay more for items sold on a weekend, for items with a picture, and for items sold by experienced sellers. We also find that the same individual is willing to pay more for the same item if others express an interest in that item, exhibiting a type of herd effect. Our results are generalizable to other auctions, and shed light on electronic commerce sales in general, where firms try to sell products for the highest possible price.     

A replicated and refined empirical study of the use of friends in C++ software

The friend mechanism is widely used in C++ software even though the potential benefits of its use are disputed and little is known about when, where and why it is employed in practice. Furthermore, there is limited empirical analysis of its impact in object-oriented software, with only one study (Counsell and Newson, 2000) reported at journal level.This paper aims to add to the empirical evidence of friendship’s impact by replicating Counsell and Newson (2000)’s original study. The study’s design is refined to improve the construct validity of the evaluation and a larger cohort of systems is used to improve the generalisability of the results. The findings suggest that classes involved in friendship are coupling hotspots and that there is no link between inheritance and friendship, contrary to the findings presented in Counsell and Newson (2000). The findings also suggest that the use of friends in a class is independent of the number of hidden members in a class.     

Real-time detection of shill bidding in online auctions: A literature review

Online auctions have become an increasingly popular and convenient way for conducting ecommerce transactions on the Web. However, the rapid surge of users participating in online auctions has led to auction fraud. Among the types of auction fraud, the most prominent is Shill bidding. Shill bidding is intentionally fake bidding by a seller on his/her own auction to inflate the final price. This can be accomplished either by the seller himself/herself or by someone colluding with the seller to place fake bids on his/her behalf. Therefore, it is difficult to manually investigate the large amount of auctions and bidders for shill bidding activities. Detecting shill bidding in real-time is the most effective way to reduce the loss result of the auction fraud. Researchers have proposed multiple approaches and experimented to control the losses incurred due to shill bidding. This paper investigates the real-time detection techniques of shill bidding. It also provides a brief overview of major work that has been conducted in shill bidding detection including both offline and real-time approaches. Furthermore, this paper identifies research gaps in the detection and prevention of shill bidding behaviours. It also provides future research issues and challenges to detect shill bidding in real-time.     

What are participants doing while filling in an online questionnaire: A paradata collection tool and an empirical study

The use of online questionnaires is rapidly increasing. Contrary to manifold advantages, not much is known about user behavior that can be measured outside the boundaries set by standard web technologies like HTML form elements. To show how the lack of knowledge about the user setting in web studies can be accounted for, we present a tool called UserActionTracer, with which it is possible to collect more behavior information than with any other paradata gathering tool, in order to (1) gather additional data unobtrusively from the process of answering questions and (2) to visualize individual user behavior on web pages. In an empirical study on a large web sample (N = 1046) we observed and analysed online behaviors (e.g., clicking through). We found that only 10.5% of participants showed more than five single behaviors with highly negative influence on data quality in the whole online questionnaire (out of 132 possible single behavior judgments). Furthermore, results were validated by comparison with data from online address books. With the UserActionTracer it is possible to gain further insight into the process of answering online questionnaires.     

Design-to-lure in the e-shopping environment: A landscape preference approach

With the increasing popularity of online shopping, e-shoppers have been provided with a new medium for making purchases and this has attracted increasing attention from researchers and practitioners. Researchers are challenged to understand what constitutes a theoretical model for website design research. In exploratory work, we employ Kaplan and Kaplan's landscape preference model involving coherence, legibility and complexity, and investigate their relationship to trust and satisfaction and their impact on e-shoppers’ willingness to buy. Data from a survey of 300 shoppers were used to validate the model. A multi-group analysis with gender was further used to cross-validate it. The results show that trust and satisfaction are great influences of willingness to buy. Coherence and complexity have great influences on trust and satisfaction, but legibility only has adequate influences on these two variables. The structural weights are invariant across different gender subgroups. Implications for researchers and practitioners are also discussed.     

A methodology for estimating the value of privacy in information disclosure systems

In many types of information systems, users face an implicit tradeoff between disclosing personal information and receiving benefits, such as discounts by an electronic commerce service that requires users to divulge some personal information. While these benefits are relatively measurable, the value of privacy involved in disclosing the information is much less tangible, making it hard to design and evaluate information systems that manage personal information. Meanwhile, existing methods to assess and measure the value of privacy, such as self-reported questionnaires, are notoriously unrelated of real–world behavior. To overcome this obstacle, we propose a methodology called VOPE (Value of Privacy Estimator), which relies on behavioral economics' Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) and valuates people's privacy preferences in information disclosure scenarios. VOPE is based on an iterative and responsive methodology in which users take or leave a transaction that includes a component of information disclosure. To evaluate the method, we conduct an empirical experiment (n = 195), estimating people's privacy valuations in electronic commerce transactions. We report on the convergence of estimations and validate our results by comparing the values to theoretical projections of existing results (Tsai, Egelman, Cranor, & Acquisti, 2011), and to another independent experiment that required participants to rank the sensitivity of information disclosure transactions. Finally, we discuss how information systems designers and regulators can use VOPE to create and to oversee systems that balance privacy and utility.     

Unpacking the systems development process: an empirical application of the CSF concept in a research context

This paper unpacks the black box of the IS development process and, thereby, helps business and IT managers understand better its complexity. The Critical Success Factors (CSF) concept was employed for this purpose in an in-depth study of four diverse systems development projects in a large telecommunications company. Unlike previous applications of the CSF method, the approach adopted in this study facilitated the identification of both ‘generic’ and ‘collective’ CSFs in order to map the network of interrelationships between them. Thus the findings shed new light on the process by which information systems are developed by illustrating empirically its complex multidimensional nature and by providing fresh insights into the challenges facing both developers and users in their task of developing organisational IS.     

Exploring the boundaries and processes of digital platforms for knowledge work: A review of information systems research

Digital platforms for knowledge work (DPKW), such as Upwork, Freelancer, and Fiverr, connect clients with millions of workers for a range of knowledge work services, including app development, graphic design, and data analytics. Research on this emergent phenomenon has recently gained traction in terms of publication volume and research diversity. Focusing on the contributions of information systems research, we conducted a literature review to distinguish papers on DPKW from related types of digital platforms, to synthesize what we know about knowledge work on DPKW, and to guide future research. Based on a comprehensive literature search, we derived five boundary conditions, which constitute our definition of DPKW: digitality, value network paradigm, centralized governance, contractual work, and knowledge work. We further developed a conceptual process framework of the constituent processes of DPKW. With this framework, we elaborate on an established process model to distinguish the three macro­level processes of matching, contracting, and executing. We further examined micro­level processes suggested in extant research based on a process linking approach in order to understand how they synchronically instantiate each macro­level process. Emphasizing the significance of the micro­ and macro­level processes and the emergent stage of the literature on DPKW, we offer an agenda for future research and outline implications for practice.     

Applying social learning analytics to message boards in online distance learning: A case study

Social learning analytics introduces tools and methods that help improving the learning process by providing useful information about the actors and their activity in the learning system. This study examines the relation between SNA parameters and student outcomes, between network parameters and global course performance, and it shows how visualizations of social learning analytics can help observing the visible and invisible interactions occurring in online distance education.The findings from our empirical study show that future research should further investigate whether there are conditions under which social network parameters are reliable predictors of academic performance, but also advises against relying exclusively in social network parameters for predictive purposes. The findings also show that data visualization is a useful tool for social learning analytics, and how it may provide additional information about actors and their behaviors for decision making in online distance learning.