The Effects of Social Influence on User Acceptance of Online Social Networks

With the proliferation of online social networks, understanding how and why individuals adopt and use these networks can help managers and marketers to design better methods and approaches toward engaging their users. The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of user acceptance of online social networks, with particular attention given to the effects of social influence. A research model was developed by incorporating two variables of social influence, subjective norm and critical mass, into an enhanced version of the Technology Acceptance Model, specifically to address issues related to online social networks. The model was empirically evaluated using survey data collected from 269 subjects about their perceptions of online social networks. The results reveal that both subjective norm and critical mass significantly affect perceived usefulness, which further affects users' usage intention, and perceived ease of use affects the usage intention indirectly through perceived usefulness. The implications of this study on theory and practice are discussed.     

Four kinds of design thinking: From ideating to making,engaging, and criticizing

Design thinking is spreading extremely rapidly among organizations in terms of interest and practices. Far from being linked to the “form” of products, design thinking is accepted as a formal creative problem‐solving method with the intent to foster innovation. However, the spread of design thinking in practice has not been coupled with a similarly rapid and robust diffusion of its theoretical underpinnings. This paper aims to clarify the theoretical contribution of design thinking by identifying the practices that connote different interpretations of the paradigm. Moreover, we investigate the innovation challenges that the adoption of the design thinking paradigm aims to address. From an empirical perspective, through 47 case studies of consulting organizations that provide advisory services based on the design thinking paradigm in Italy, we identify four different interpretations of the paradigm characterized by different practices: creative problem solving, sprint execution, creative confidence, and innovation of meaning.     

Knowledge sharing and ERP system usage in post-implementation stage

Many organizations have adopted enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in recent years to integrate information and information-based processes within and across functional areas. Because of the under-utilization of ERP systems, most of these organizations are disappointed in reaching the anticipated business goals. It is imperative to explore how to facilitate the usage of ERP systems for organizations. This study aims to develop an understanding of the effect of knowledge sharing on ERP system usage and the factors affecting employees’ knowledge sharing after the initial implementation of an ERP system. Selected social oriented theories were employed to develop our conceptual model. By means of a survey of 804 ERP users from 53 Taiwan companies, we confirmed our research model to some extent and found that social capital, intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy all have significant impacts on knowledge sharing. However, contrary to common belief, we found a negative, though insignificant, effect of extrinsic motivation on knowledge sharing. The implications for research, practice, and future research directions are discussed herein.     

Theory,Practice and Policy: An Inquiry into the Uptake of HCI Practices in the Software Industry of a Developing Country

With almost four decades of existence as a community, human–computer interaction (HCI) practice has yet to diffuse into a large range of software industries globally. A review of existing literature suggests that the diffusion of HCI practices in software organizations lacks theoretical guidance. Although many studies have tried to facilitate HCI uptake by the software industry, there are scarce studies that consider HCI practices as innovations that software organizations could or should adopt. Furthermore, there appears to be a lack of structure in the facilitation of HCI methodological development within the specialized emerging regions field such as Sub-Saharan Africa. In order to address this gap, an exploratory investigation regarding the state of uptake of HCI practices in Nigeria is conducted. The aim of this article is to improve our understanding regarding the state of HCI uptake in developing countries and the challenges prevailing. The findings show that HCI practice still remains within its infancy stage in most software companies. Universities are also lacking the required knowledge transfer of HCI to the students, and in effect themselves contributing to the lack of HCI skills in industry. Furthermore, government policies are in need of refinement and end-users’ involvement in software development is not prioritized.     

Why men and women continue to use social networking sites: The role of gender differences

Organizations increasingly use social media and especially social networking sites (SNS) to support their marketing agenda, enhance collaboration, and develop new capabilities. However, the success of SNS initiatives is largely dependent on sustainable user participation. In this study, we argue that the continuance intentions of users may be gender-sensitive. To theorize and investigate gender differences in the determinants of continuance intentions, this study draws on the expectation-confirmation model, the uses and gratification theory, as well as the self-construal theory and its extensions. Our survey of 488 users shows that while both men and women are motivated by the ability to self-enhance, there are some gender differences. Specifically, while women are mainly driven by relational uses, such as maintaining close ties and getting access to social information on close and distant networks, men base their continuance intentions on their ability to gain information of a general nature. Our research makes several contributions to the discourse in strategic information systems literature concerning the use of social media by individuals and organizations. Theoretically, it expands the understanding of the phenomenon of continuance intentions and specifically the role of the gender differences in its determinants. On a practical level, it delivers insights for SNS providers and marketers into how satisfaction and continuance intentions of male and female SNS users can be differentially promoted. Furthermore, as organizations increasingly rely on corporate social networks to foster collaboration and innovation, our insights deliver initial recommendations on how organizational social media initiatives can be supported with regard to gender-based differences.     

Persuasive social features that promote knowledge sharing among tertiary students on social networking sites: An empirical study

Persuasive system features have been widely adopted to encourage attitude and behaviour change. Recently, most social networking sites (SNS) adopt some form of persuasive system features that leverage social influence to deliberately induce prescribed behaviours in their users. However, studies on how these features can be used to promote knowledge sharing are inadequate; particularly, regarding how SNS that have been developed solely for academic purposes can adopt these features to promote knowledge sharing. To address this knowledge gap, this study integrates constructs from the social capital theory and persuasive systems design model to investigate the impact of persuasive social features on knowledge sharing among students of tertiary institutions on academic social networking sites. Data are quantitatively gathered from 218 respondents from tertiary institutions and statistically analyzed. The results suggest that perceived dialogue support and perceived social support have strong influences on knowledge sharing behaviour.     

Design thinking impact on value creation and value capture on innovation projects

Design thinking has proven to be an effective approach to driving innovation in diverse contexts and has attracted increasing interest from scholars and practitioners. However, the plurality of points of view about design thinking can bring diffuse understandings and hinder a cohesive perspective on the construct. This work continues the research stream to provide greater specificity about design thinking practice. The paper focuses on new solution development projects, investigating how design thinking contributes to advance from value creation to value capture—which are two fundamental achievements of successful innovations. Based on three in-depth case studies of new product development conducted in healthcare innovation projects, this work indicates that design thinking is more prone to promoting value creation rather than value capture. Design thinking principles work as a compass that guides the development team, getting clues from users to direct the value creation. In addition, the study shows the importance of complementing design thinking with specialist knowledge to build solutions that can create value. Finally, the study shows that value capture is not an immediate outcome of design thinking. Therefore, this work indicates the need to complement design thinking with business-oriented approaches to provide market-related results.     

Online Social Network Adoption: A Cross-Cultural Study

This research explores the extent to which users across cultures adopt the technology of online social networks (OSNs) in order to promote or support a social cause. By surveying graduate-level university students at institutions in the United States, China and India, this research builds on prior work in technology acceptance to model and explain how three elements of the task domain – the cultural aspects of the user, the social nature of the technology, and the social nature of the task – combine to influence the constructs and relationships within a modified Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) framework as well as the behavior that flows from it. This study contributes to our understanding of technology adoption by showing how OSNs are adopted by users across cultures in promoting and supporting social causes.     

Understanding civic engagement behaviour on Facebook from a social capital theory perspective

This paper applies the social capital theory to construct a model for investigating the factors that influence online civic engagement behaviour on Facebook. While there is promising evidence that people are making concerted efforts to adopt Facebook to address social issues, research on their civic behaviour from a social capital viewpoint in the social media context remains limited. This study introduces new insights into how Facebook is shaping the landscape of civic engagement by examining three dimensions of social capital – social interaction ties (structural), trust (relational), and shared languages and vision (cognitive). The study contends that these dimensions will influence individuals’ online civic engagement behaviour on Facebook. We also argue that social interaction ties can engender trust, and shared languages and vision among its members, and that shared languages and vision can increase trust among Facebook members. Empirical data collected from 1233 Facebook users provide support for the proposed model. The results help in identifying the motivation underlying the online civic engagement behaviour of individuals in a public virtual community. The implications for theory and practice and future research directions are discussed.     

Information systems and uncertainty: a conspiracy of misplaced confidence

Abstract. Information technology is becoming an increasingly important factor in contemporary management. Information systems are being set up in business explicitly to accommodate the new opportunities of this technology, and these are having a lasting effect on managerial practice. The full implications of this technology-driven development have not been appreciated by organizations, which in absorbing technological systems, are tolerating a great drain on their resources.
The efficacy of computers is predicated on the acceptance of some very specific perspectives. A growing discontent and disappointment with their limited achievements is our reason for advocating a different point of view. We will discuss how a shift in perspective, particularly in respect to the perception of uncertainty, will affect thinking and practice in the field of management support systems. We will render our view of the application of computerized decision support systems (DSS), and especially, we will focus on the beliefs and assumptions that have shaped this technology thus far. To this end we will discuss the concept of uncertainty, by juxtaposing current thinking and practice with our understanding of the context of its application. Finally, we will place our understanding of uncertainty in a managerial context and explain the implications this would have for strategists.     

The HumBox: Changing educational practice around a learning resource repository

The HumBox is a learning resource repository for the Humanities educational community in the UK. Over the last three years the challenge for HumBox has been to act as not only a shared library for its community, but also to change the working practices of individuals in that community by encouraging them to work in a more open way and to actively share their materials and ideas with others. Getting users to engage with and adopt innovative systems is a well-known problem; with the HumBox our approach was to focus on user-experience (UX) design through agile development and ongoing participatory and co-design activities. In this paper we present a mixed-methods evaluation of the success of this engagement over the past three years, focusing especially on the way that users have appropriated the system and its services in order to solve real problems. Our evaluation reveals that for many HumBox users we have been successful in creating a technology that is invisible (meaning beneath the level of notice and concern) and that the result of this is less micro-appropriation (users adopting and using specific features in new ways) and more macro-appropriation (users adopting and adapting the site as a whole). We conclude that in the case of HumBox invisible technology coupled with the social framework of co-design and user engagement activities, has allowed a diffusion of ownership, and created a safe social and technical environment where the community can debate high-level issues, and that this has led to changes in both professional and pedagogical practice.     

Assessing flow experience in social networking site based brand communities

The sustenance of the Social Networking Site (SNS)-based brand communities relies on user retention and their active participation. Therefore, understanding the intrinsic aspects of user behavior in such communities is important for devising strategies to ensure user retention and active participation. Especially, information about the elements that induce flow experiences—the intrinsically enjoyable and immersive experiences—of users in SNS has become important for organizations that host online communities. In our empirical study, we chose to focus especially on SNS-based brand communities, as they are increasingly interesting from an organization-community interaction perspective, but they lack the instruments needed for measuring user experience. The present study addresses this gap by developing an instrument aimed at measuring the user’s flow experience on SNS-based brand communities. A cross-sectional survey with 577 Facebook brand community users was carried out. The findings show that enjoyment, concentration, and social interaction are the components that constitute a user’s flow experience. In addition to providing a valuable tool for business practitioners, the developed instrument offers several theoretical and practical implications for improving user experience of social media.     

An e-patient’s End-user community (EUCY): The value added of social network applications

Decreasing revenues and increasing expenses has led many healthcare organizations to adopt newer technological applications in order to address the informational needs of their patients. One such adoption technique is to develop a more robust e-patient environment. Health care organizations may increase their effectiveness in meeting the needs of a growing e-patient population through the implementation of high-quality social networking applications such as Twitter. These applications may help to support and maintain a valuable and informed community. A literature review identifies three characteristics that have an impact on information exchange inherent to social networks: number of members, contact frequency, and type of knowledge. Data from a case study of a juvenile diabetic using Twitter helps to demonstrate these aforementioned characteristics. A framework is developed that may be used by health care organizations to better align social network objectives with expectations of an End user community (EUCY). Managerial implications of this study are discussed that can help information technology professionals as well as health administrators when implementing social networks.     

Long Chains or Stable Communities? The Role of Emotional Stability in Twitter Conversations

In this article, we address the issue of how emotional stability affects social relationships in Twitter. In particular, we focus our study on users’ communicative interactions, identified by the symbol “@.” We collected a corpus of about 200,000 Twitter posts, and we annotated it with our personality recognition system. This system exploits linguistic features, such as punctuation and emoticons, and statistical features, such as follower count and retweeted posts. We tested the system on a data set annotated with personality models produced by human subjects and against a software for the analysis of Twitter data. Social network analysis shows that, whereas secure users have more mutual connections, neurotic users post more than secure ones and have the tendency to build longer chains of interacting users. Clustering coefficient analysis reveals that, whereas secure users tend to build stronger networks, neurotic users have difficulty in belonging to a stable community; hence, they seek for new contacts in online social networks.     

Robo-advisors and investment intention: A perspective of value-based adoption

Financial robo-advisors have been widely used to assist individuals in their investment decisions, making it important to reduce uncertainties in the assistance process. Existing empirical studies rarely explore uncertainty reduction strategies and their implications on users’ investment intentions in the context of financial robo-advisors; our study attempts to address this gap. We construct a model to explain how uncertainty reduction strategies affect users’ investment intention in using financial robo-advisors. By collecting and analyzing a sample of 307 financial robo-advisor users, we find that algorithmic interpretability, structural assurance, and interactivity as uncertainty reduction strategies are positively related to users’ investment intention through the value-based adoption mechanism. Our research extends the value-based adoption model and uncertainty reduction theory in the financial robo-advisor context. We provide insights to financial robo-advisor service providers about focusing on improving algorithmic transparency, third-party assurance, and interactivity of financial robo-advisors to enhance perceived value and investment intention.     

How to unite the power of the masses? Exploring collective stickiness intention in social network sites from the perspective of knowledge sharing

This study aims to investigate users’ knowledge-sharing intention and collective stickiness intention towards social network sites (SNS). SNS offer an opportunity for users to interact and form relationships, while knowledge is accrued by integrating users’ information, experience, and practice. However, there have been few systematic studies that question why people use SNS to share knowledge. We adopt social capital theory, social identity theory, as well as use and gratification theory, to explore the determinants of members’ knowledge-sharing intention in using SNS. The survey was conducted on two education virtual communities (VCs) on Facebook, of which most members were teachers and educators. Data analysis was executed to validate our research model, and SmartPLS was used to analyse users’ collective stickiness intention. The results show that social capital and social identity have an impact on teachers’ knowledge-sharing intention, which, in turn, influences collective stickiness intention towards SNS. Our findings can not only help researchers interpret why members share their knowledge in VCs, but can assist practitioners in developing better SNS strategies as well.     

Your posts betray you: Detecting influencer-generated sponsored posts by finding the right clues

With the prevalence of sponsorship practice using social media posts, the detection of sponsored content becomes crucial for platforms to regulate the generated content and prevent users from being misinformed. However, there is a paucity of investigations on the detection of sponsored content in existing research. To fill this research gap, we first identify several task-related clues by referring to relevant psychological theories and practical observations. Based on the clues, we conceptualize four types of sponsored content features and propose a unified deep learning detection framework, which also learns the relative importance of each feature. Experiments conducted on 26,823 social media posts demonstrate the performance of our proposed model compared with competitive alternatives and the value of each feature. The learned feature importance also enables deeper phenomena understanding. The research findings provide actionable insights into the narrative strategies influencers adopt and how to distinguish online sponsored content.     

The Role of Instructional Design in Persuasion: A Comics Approach for Improving Cybersecurity

Abstract

Although computer security technologies are the first line of defense to secure users, their success is dependent on individuals’ behavior. It is therefore necessary to persuade users to practice good computer security. This interview analysis of users’ conceptualization of security password guessing attacks, antivirus protection, and mobile online privacy shows that poor understanding of security threats influences users’ motivation and ability to practice safe behaviors. An online interactive comic series called Secure Comics was designed and developed based on instructional design principles to address this problem. An eye-tracking experiment suggests that the graphical and interactive components of the comics direct users’ attention and facilitate comprehension of the information. In the evaluations of Secure Comics, results from several user studies show that the comics improve understanding and motivate positive changes in security management behavior. The implication of the findings to better understand the role of instructional design and persuasion in education technology are discussed.