The impact of customer interface quality, satisfaction and switching costs on e-loyalty: Internet experience as a moderator

Customer interface quality has been confirmed to critically influence the success of electronic commerce, and there has been extensive discussion about the effects of customer interface quality on consumer behavior. However, few studies have examined how customer interface quality affects e-loyalty. Furthermore, although satisfaction and switching costs are expected to be antecedents to customer loyalty, few studies have systematically examined how these elements are related to customer interface quality. This study proposes an integrating theoretical framework for testing the relationships among customer interface quality, satisfaction, switching costs, and e-loyalty. Moreover, this study argues that the relationships among these constructs are moderated by Internet experience. Empirical analyses are performed using structural equations modeling analysis. The findings confirm that customer interface quality, including customization, interaction, convenience and character, contributes to generating e-loyalty. Particularly, the results show that convenience directly enhances e-loyalty. Additionally, this study finds that customer interface quality positively influences switching costs for customers with higher Internet experience, a phenomenon that has not previously been explored.     

Exploring mindlessness as an explanation for the media equation: a study of stereotyping in computer tutorials

This study extends previous media equation research by empirically testing the mindlessness explanation of media equation behaviour. The current study explored the potential moderating effect of mood on media equation behaviour. Specifically, the study assessed whether participants’ tendency to stereotype when interacting with a computer varied as a function of mood. Seventy-six undergraduate students were exposed to either a positive or negative mood manipulation and then completed a computer-based tutorial on car engines. The tutorial was presented using either a male or female synthesised voice. Participants’ affective state, attitudes and opinions were assessed via questionnaire. Female participants in a positive mood showed a greater propensity to gender-stereotype computers than female participants in a negative mood, suggesting that media equation behaviour is more likely to result when people are in a mindless state. Male participants, however, did not show the same pattern of behaviour.

Negotiation support systems and team negotiations: The coalition formation perspective

The use of software to support negotiations has captured the attention of academics and practitioners for some three decades and the research stream of negotiation support systems (NSS) has emerged. Over the years, many NSS have been developed and used in training and research but they have been rarely deployed in organizations. Our speculation is that much existing research is confined to dyadic (i.e., one-to-one) settings which may not adequately reflect the real-world situations in which teams, rather than individuals, often engage in negotiations. To address the gap, our current research aspires to conceptualize the NSS in supporting team negotiations and to theoretically examine their impact. Coalition formation has been a prevalent organizational phenomenon that constitutes important dynamics in any negotiating team; it will be conceptualized as the mechanism through which NSS impacts upon team negotiation outcomes in our paper. Globalization has rendered cross-cultural negotiations a commonplace; at the same time, culture serves as a most salient attribute in activating coalitions. In light of the above, cultural diversity is studied as the antecedent to coalition formation and moderates the influence of NSS on the extent of coalition formation. A set of research propositions, derived from a theoretical framework, are raised and their implications discussed.     

The quest for appropriate models of human-likeness: anthropomorphism in media equation research

Nass’ and Reeves’ media equation paradigm within human–computer interaction (HCI) challenges long-held assumptions about how users approach computers. Given a rudimentary set of cues present in the system’s design, users are said to unconsciously treat computers as genuine interactants—extending rules of politeness, biases and human interactive conventions to machines. Since the results have wide-ranging implications for HCI research methods, interface design and user experiences, researchers are hard-pressed to experimentally verify the paradigm. This paper focuses on the methodology of attributing the necessary social cues to the agent, a core aspect of the experimental design of studies dealing with the media equation. A typology of experimental anthropomorphisms is developed, allowing an assessment of how the differing axiomatic assumptions affect the relevance of the results for an evaluation of the paradigm. The paper concludes with a series of arguments in favour of one particular anthropomorphism type for researching the media equation.     

The effects of electronic performance monitoring on stress: Locus of control as a moderator variable

In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in the number of companies using electronic performance monitoring (EPM) systems to evaluate their employees. Data from several case studies suggest that employees who are monitored using EPM experience more stress than employees who are monitored by other means. However, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from this research, because organizations tend to introduce other programs at the same time as EPM systems are installed. Additionally, little existing research examines the role that employee characteristics play in determinigg EPM's impact. The current study represents an attempt to address these issues. Laboratory subjects worked on two relatively simple computerized tasks and were told either that their work would be monitored via a supervisory computer networked to their terminal, or that their work would not be observed. All other work climate variables were held constant. After completing the tasks, subjects' locus of control and perceived stress were measured. Locus of control was found to moderate the relationship between EPM and stress. Internals felt more stress when their work was electronically monitored. In contrast, externals felt more stress when their work was not monitored. These findings are interpreted using a person-environment fit framework.     

Media multitasking and psychological wellbeing in Chinese adolescents: Time management as a moderator

The present study examined the relationships among media multitasking, time management, and psychological wellbeing in Chinese adolescents. A total of 320 adolescents aged 11 to 18 years old were recruited and asked to complete the Media Use Questionnaire, Chinese Adolescent Mental Health Inventory, and Adolescent Time Management Disposition scale. A structural equation model was used to assess possible relationships among media multitasking, time management, and psychological wellbeing. The results showed that the media multitasking index of the sample was 2.5, indicating that adolescents also had access to other 2.5 media tasks when performing the primary media task. Media multitasking was significantly negatively correlated with psychological wellbeing. Time management disposition was negatively correlated with Media multitasking and positively correlated with psychological wellbeing. Our findings indicate that time management disposition can moderate the relationship between Media multitasking and psychological wellbeing. The theoretical and practical implications of adolescent media use are discussed.     

Efficient algorithms for team formation with a leader in social networks

Given a project with a set of required skills, it is an important and challenging problem of find a team of experts that have not only the required skill set but also the minimal communication cost. Furthermore, in view of the benefits of greater leaders, prior work presented the team formation problem with a leader where the leader is responsible for coordinating and managing the project. To find the best leader and the corresponding team, the prior work exhaustively evaluates each candidate and the associated team, incurring substantial computational cost. In this paper, we propose two efficient algorithms, namely the BCPruning algorithm and the SSPruning algorithm, to accelerate the discovery of the best leader and the corresponding team by reducing the search space of team formation for candidates. The BCPruning algorithm aims at selecting better initial leader candidates to obtain lower communication cost, enabling effective candidate pruning. On the other hand, the SSPruning algorithm allows each leader candidate to have a lower bound on the communication cost, leading some candidates to be safely pruned without any computation. Besides, the SSPruning algorithm exploits the exchanged information among experts to aid initial candidate selection as well as team member search. For performance evaluation, we conduct experiments using a real dataset. The experimental results show that the proposed BCPruning and SSPruning algorithms are respectively 1.42–1.68 and 2.64–3.25 times faster than the prior work. Moreover, the results indicate that the proposed algorithms are more scalable than the prior work.     

Social capital and individual motivations on knowledge sharing: Participant involvement as a moderator

The Internet is a communication channel that allows individuals to share information and knowledge. However, it is not obvious why individuals share knowledge with strangers for no apparent benefit. What are the critical factors influencing such behavior? To attempt to understand this paradox, we combined the theories of social capital and individual motivation to investigate the factors influencing knowledge sharing behavior in a virtual community, applying a participant involvement concept to analyze the moderating effects of individual motivation on knowledge sharing behavior. By analyzing the results of a survey using a questionnaire, we found that altruism, identification, reciprocity, and shared language had a significant and positive effect on knowledge sharing. Reputation, social interaction, and trust had positive effects on the quality, but not the quantity, of shared knowledge. Participant involvement had a moderating effect on the relationship of altruism and the quantity of shared knowledge. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Collaborative team formation using brain drain optimization: a practical and effective solution

In the area of professional social networks, collaborative team formation with its NP-hard nature, has attracted the attention of many researchers. The purpose of this study is to find a collaborative team which covers required skills and minimizes the communication cost among team members. To solve this problem, BRADO (BRAin Drain Optimization), a recently-proposed meta-heuristic swarm-based algorithm which simulates the brain drain phenomenon, has been utilized. In order to evaluate BRADO, it has been applied in extensive experiments to the DBLP and IMDb datasets. Results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the BRADO algorithm in comparison with PSO, GA, ICA, RarestFirst and EnhancedSteiner algorithms. Our findings lead us to believe that the BRADO algorithm can be a promising method in the context of team formation problem.     

Gaming the system: The effects of social capital as a resource for virtual team members

Increasingly individuals interact with one another through information and communication technologies in virtual teams. Leveraging the resource-based view of the firm and social capital theory, we examine how a team member’s social capital (a resource) affects the team member’s perception of the quality of knowledge shared within the team (a capability) and the benefits to the individual team member (an outcome). Using the context of massively multiplayer online role-playing games, we find that within virtual teams, relational and cognitive social capital contribute to knowledge quality, which in turn positively benefits the outcomes of individual team members.     

Factored reasoning for monitoring dynamic team and goal formation

We study the problem of monitoring goals, team structure and state of agents, in dynamic systems where teams and goals change over time. The setting for our study is an asymmetric urban warfare environment in which uncoordinated or loosely coordinated units may attempt to attack an important target. The task is to detect a threat such as an ambush, as early as possible. We attempt to provide decision-makers with early warnings, by simultaneously monitoring the positions of units, the teams to which they belong, and the goals of units. The hope is that we can detect situations in which teams of units simultaneously make movements headed towards a target, and we can detect their goal before they get to the target. By reasoning about teams, we may be able to detect threats sooner than if we reasoned about units individually. We develop a model in which the state space is decomposed into individual units’ positions, team assignments and team goals. When a unit belongs to a team it adopts the team’s goal. An individual unit’s movement depends only on its own goal, but different units interact as they form teams and adopt new goals. We present an algorithm that simultaneously tracks the positions of units, the team structure and team goals. Goals are inferred from two sources: individual units’ behavior, which provides information about their goals, and communications by units, which provides evidence about team formation. Our algorithm reasons globally about interactions between units and team formation, and locally about individual units’ behavior. We show that our algorithm performs well at the task, scaling to twenty units. It performs significantly better than several alternative algorithms: standard particle filtering, standard factored particle filtering, and an algorithm that performs all reasoning locally within the units.     

Computing collision-free motions for a team of robots using formation and non-holonomic constraints

This paper focuses on the collision-free motion of a team of robots moving in a 2D environment with formation and non-holonomic constraints. With the proposed approach one can simultaneously control the formation of the team and generate a safe path for each individual robot. The computed paths satisfy the non-holonomic constraints, avoid collisions, and minimize the task-completion time. The proposed approach, which combines techniques from mathematical programming and CAD, consists of two main steps: first, a global team path is computed and, second, individual motions are determined for each unit. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated using several simulation experiments.     

The effectiveness of synchronous computer-mediated communication for solving hidden-profile problems: Further empirical evidence

We experimentally compared the effectiveness of face-to-face (FTF) and synchronous computer-mediated communication when using a chat tool in solving hidden-profile business problems. In such problems, information critical to its solution is dispersed among team members and they must share it to solve the problem. Unlike prior research using hidden-profile tasks, our study used a real-world business-oriented task, established real rather than ad hoc teams, and imposed a time constraint on them. Hypotheses derived from media richness theory were found to be supported, with the results revealing that computer-mediated teams using the chat tool were less successful in exchanging and processing information than FTF teams and were thus less successful at solving the hidden-profile problem. The results also showed that, when operating under a time constraint, FTF was preferred over computer-mediated communication due to the relative immediacy of feedback and multiplicity of cues available in the FTF setting, as media richness theory predicted.     

Virtual organization for open innovation: Semantic web based inter-organizational team formation

Companies and research institutes are always threatened by rapid technological developments and corporate M&A. They are trying to secure a sustainable competitive advantage using outside knowledge and expertise under open innovation to overcome these shortcomings. As a quantitative and systematical method of selecting virtual team members for open innovation, we present a virtual team formation model and a prototype to verify its efficiency. The test scenario shows how to form a virtual team through internal and external human resources when developing a new product.     

Approximations for KdV equation as a Hamiltonian system

KdV equation is one example of infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian systems. In this paper, we consider a Fourier spectral approximation and a collocation approximation for the KdV equation with emphasis on its Hamiltonian nature. In particular, we analyze the relations between the Fourier spectral method and the collocation method and in this manner we naturally show that several conservation laws of the KdV equation can be preserved for the collocation method.     

Giving and receiving emotional support online: Communication competence as a moderator of psychosocial benefits for women with breast cancer

This study examines the moderating role of emotional communication competence in the relationship between Computer-Mediated Social Support (CMSS) group participation, specifically giving and receiving emotional support, and psychological health outcomes. Data were collected as part of randomized clinical trials for women diagnosed with breast cancer within the last two months. Expression and reception of emotional support was assessed by tracking and coding the 18,064 messages that 236 patients posted and read in CMSS groups. The final data used in the analysis was created by merging (a) computer-aided content analysis of discussion posts, (b) action log data analysis of system usage, and (c) baseline and 6-month surveys collected to assess change. Results of this study demonstrate that emotional communication competence moderates the effects of expression and reception of emotional support on psychological quality of life and breast cancer-related concerns in both desired and undesired ways. Giving and receiving emotional support in CMSS groups has positive effects on emotional well-being for breast cancer patients with higher emotional communication, while the same exchanges have detrimental impacts on emotional well-being for those with lower emotional communication competence. The theoretical and practical implications for future research are discussed.     

News sharing in social media: The effect of gratifications and prior experience

Recent events indicate that sharing news in social media has become a phenomenon of increasing social, economic and political importance because individuals can now participate in news production and diffusion in large global virtual communities. Yet, knowledge about factors influencing news sharing in social media remains limited. Drawing from the uses and gratifications (U&G) and social cognitive theories (SCT), this study explored the influences of information seeking, socializing, entertainment, status seeking and prior social media sharing experience on news sharing intention. A survey was designed and administered to 203 students in a large local university. Results from structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis revealed that respondents who were driven by gratifications of information seeking, socializing, and status seeking were more likely to share news in social media platforms. Prior experience with social media was also a significant determinant of news sharing intention. Implications and directions for future work are discussed.     

Task as a moderator for the effects of group support systems on group influence processes

This research studied the interacting effects of group support systems (GSS) and task type on small groups. It focused on group influence processes rather than group outcomes, which has been largely neglected in GSS research literature. The results of this research indicated that GSS significantly affected group influence processes: GSS reduced the dominance significance (i.e., the influence dominance) among group members; and it increased the amount of influence behaviour and resulted in a less even influence distribution in intellective task groups, but not in decision-making task groups. Therefore, the findings suggest that task type may play an important role in moderating the GSS effects. An important implication of the findings is that organizational GSS users should be careful when they adopt and use GSS to support a variety of tasks. They should carefully examine the characteristics of the various tasks to be performed, and then choose suitable GSS structures to support these tasks.     

IT-enabled knowledge ambidexterity and innovation performance in small U.S. firms: The moderator role of social media capability

This study examines the impact of information technology (IT)-enabled knowledge ambidexterity on innovation performance, and the potential moderator role of social media capability on a sample composed of 100 small U.S. firms. The empirical analysis suggests that IT infrastructure enables the firm to explore new knowledge and exploit existing/new knowledge to innovate more and better. We also find that social media capability has a positive moderator role in this equation: IT infrastructure and social media capabilities work together to enable knowledge ambidexterity.     

Active construction of experience through mobile media: a field study with implications for recording and sharing

To fully appreciate the opportunities provided by interactive and ubiquitous multimedia to record and share experiences, we report on an ethnographic investigation on the settings and nature of human memory and experience at a large-scale event. We studied two groups of spectators at a FIA World Rally Championship in Finland, both equipped with multimedia mobile phones. Our analysis of the organization of experience-related activities in the mass event focuses on the active role of technology-mediated memories in constructing experiences. Continuity, reflexivity with regard to the Self and the group, maintaining and re-creating group identity, protagonism and active spectatorship were important social aspects of the experience and were directly reflected in how multimedia was used. Particularly, we witnessed multimedia-mediated forms of expression, such as staging, competition, storytelling, joking, communicating presence, and portraying others; and the motivation for these stemmed from the engaging, processual, and shared nature of experience. Moreover, we observed how temporality and spatiality provided a platform for constructing experiences. The analysis advocates applications that not only store or capture human experience for sharing or later use but also actively participates in the very construction of experience. The approach conveys several valuable design implications.