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The objective of this paper is to further explore relationships among social influence, blog platform qualities and usage intention for improving the understanding of the effect that social influence exerts on bloggers' usage intention.

Based on the IS success model, the authors propose a conceptual framework incorporating information quality, system quality, blog function quality and social influence as key determinants of bloggers' usage intention. Empirical data from 613 participants were collected via a web survey.

The results show that information quality, system quality and blog function quality, i.e. the technical factors, positively influence bloggers' usage intention. Among these qualities, system quality is the most prominent. For social factors, social influence significantly affects bloggers' usage intention directly and indirectly through blog platform qualities. A multi‐group analysis revealed the differences between blog readers and writers in the perceptions of blog platform qualities and the intensity of path coefficients among factors in the conceptual model.

Results from this study can be used as guidance for blogging service providers to enhance and develop blog platform functions. Moreover, the differences between blog readers and writers revealed in the findings can help service providers to develop campaigns to strengthen their usage intention accordingly.

This paper advances the understanding of the effects of social influence on users' perception of information system qualities as well as usage intention. Social influence exhibits strong effects on users' perception of blog platform qualities. Specifically social influence not only directly affects bloggers' usage intention but also has an indirect effect on intention through the mediation of blog platform qualities.

There has been an explosive growth of blog usage recently. However, little research has explored the forces motivating people to engage in blog activities. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the driving forces to engage in blog participation not only includes utilitarian motivation (i.e. perceived usefulness) and hedonic motivation (i.e. perceived playfulness) but also habitual behaviour and social identity (blog identification). The quality of the blog is included as an antecedent to perceived usefulness and perceived playfulness.

In total, 225 valid questionnaires were collected from blog users. Structural equation modelling was used to test the research hypothesis.

The results show that blog users' intentions to participate in blogs are determined by all four key drivers: habit, perceived playfulness, blog identification, and perceived usefulness. Blog quality has an effect on perceived usefulness and perceived playfulness.

Previous studies emphasise the importance of perceived usefulness as the key determinant for user acceptance of technology. However, in the blog context this study finds habit, perceived playfulness, and blog identification have more significant effects on users' intention than perceived usefulness.

Blog hosts should encourage habitual blog usage (habit), pay more attention to the hedonic nature of the blog (perceived playfulness) and establish a stronger sense of blog identification among participants, in order to retain active users.

This study articulates and empirically validates a motivational research model of blog usage, helping researchers to better understand such behaviour.

The aim of this paper is to address and discuss usage and implications of a weblog in a corporate communication context from an employees' perspective.

The paper is a case study of a government agency's corporate blogging activity, traced through focus group interviews with the organizational bloggers and analyzed using situational analysis and thematic network analysis.

The study problematizes the predominant focus on the promises of interactivity and dialogue as a repeated positive motivation for corporate bloggers by shedding a light on blogging as experienced from inside an organization. The study shows that employee bloggers use the blog platform in a varied way and do not agree internally on the appropriate corporate blog usage. Four main positions that encapsulate the variation in blog usage – the official, the debater, the engineer and the passionate blogger – are identified, and the implications (opportunities and barriers) of blogging for the blogging employees' behavior and motivation are unfolded and discussed.

The findings are useful for managers to get insight into the challenges, barriers and opportunities, which employees experience when acting as bloggers on behalf of an organization, as well as when acting on other transparent Web 2.0 mediated communications platforms for corporate purposes. The findings also indicate and give recommendations to the internal resources required to support the employees when letting them out into the blogosphere.

The paper provides a documented, nuanced and deep insight and understanding into blog usage in a corporate context from the perspective of the employee bloggers. This insight is as critical to our understanding of blogging and social media in a corporate context, as it is to our understanding of transparent and participatory organizational culture.

Weblogs, or blogs, have been a significant new development in recent years. Many businesses have begun using blogs to stimulate discussions, garner ideas, and provide further visibility. Thus, blog usage as well as individual motives behind continued usage is an important area of research. This research aims to examine behavioral motivations underlying individual intention to keep using blogs.

Based on social cognitive theory and related technology adoption literature, this study considered knowledge self‐efficacy, subjective norms, feedback, and personal outcome expectations as the determinants of continuing to share information on blogs. The proposed model was empirically evaluated using randomized survey data collected from 155 users of a popular web site in Taiwan (WRETCH blog).

The results revealed that although both self‐efficacy and personal outcome expectations affected directly the intention of sharing information on blogs, personal outcome expectations had stronger impacts on behavioral intention. In addition, social persuasion has no direct but indirect impact via self‐efficacy and personal outcome expectations on the intention of sharing information.

This study contributes to a theoretical understanding of the factors that promote the usage of weblogs. For web log service providers, the results help them better develop tools to enhance people's intention to share information.

The paper verifies the effect of knowledge self‐efficacy, personal outcome expectations, and social persuasion on the behavior of blog users. Furthermore, verifies the determinants of knowledge self‐efficacy.

This paper aims to understand how users' perceptions of the different functions of blogs vary in educational use and personal use, and further to explore whether experience with blogs has an influence on differences in perceptions of blog functions.

To empirically determine whether the blog functions were suitable for educational and personal use, a blog system with numerous functions was constructed for users to evaluate. In total, 48 college students were recruited to participate in the study. The participants navigated this system and then filled in a questionnaire to give their opinions on the functions of both educational blogs and personal blogs.

The findings of this study indicate that of the 26 blog functions, perceptions of 20 of the functions differed significantly between educational and personal use. Moreover, the results showed that only two blog functions, backup and traffic source, were influenced by both blog experience and blog usage.

This study distinguishes itself from the previous studies on blogging systems in its specific focus on functionality with detailed evaluation under different purposes of contexts. Practical suggestions are accordingly made for practitioners to choose when and which functions to use under different circumstances to enhance the interaction and information exchange between users in the field practice of educational blogging.

The purpose of this study is to identify corporate blog design characteristics that positively influence the view of actual and potential corporate blog users. Moreover, based on the technology acceptance model (TAM), the paper examines the specific mechanism through which corporate blog design characteristics influence the acceptance of corporate blogs and assess the cross-country applicability of the developed framework.

Based on primary data of 992 individuals in three countries (Germany, Russia, and the USA), the paper tests the identified design characteristics and the proposed framework using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling.

The results show the applicability of the TAM in the context of corporate blogs. Blog management and usability were found to be key determinants of perceived ease of use. Entertainment value as well as content value and interaction positively affect perceived enjoyment. Content value as well as blog management and usability are the key determinants of perceived usefulness of corporate blogs. Mediation tests revealed a partial mediation of the distal corporate blog design characteristics on attitude and usage intention by the proximal TAM elements.

The sample was self-selected from internet users and a limited number of countries. Associations with and understanding of the term “corporate blog” might vary between internet users as well as between the three focus countries.

Based on the research, companies are better able to adapt corporate blogs to target group characteristics and thus can better reach communication goals. The research can be used both for the establishment of new corporate blogs as well as for the adaptation of existing corporate blogs.

This study contributes to the existing literature by identifying and examining design characteristics that affect individuals' perceptions of corporate blogs. Furthermore, this is the first large-scale cross-country study in this research context that identifies the mechanism through which firms can actively influence the perceived usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment of corporate blogs, which is important to better understand individuals' acceptance of corporate blogs in different national contexts.

While many studies have focussed on web site stickiness, little is known about the antecedents of blog stickiness such as visit duration and user retention. How demographic differences affect the antecedents of blog stickiness is another research question. Based on social cognitive theory, the IS success model and individual differences theory, this study aims to explore blog quality, the need for cognition, and social influence as the antecedents of blog stickiness.

The subjects of this study were users who had blog reading experience. The structural equation modelling (SEM) approach was used to evaluate the research model.

After surveying 231 blog users, the results demonstrate that content is still king in the blog environment. Social influence affects the duration of visits to a blog, but not the retention to the blog. Female readers are mainly interested in content, while males are more interested in system quality and social influence. While blog veterans or heavy users care about content and social influence, blog “newbies” care about context and system quality. Students and non‐students also have different antecedents of blog stickiness.

This study increases understanding of blog stickiness and suggests avenues for future research.

This paper aims to improve understanding of what motivates individual blog owners to post information frequently on weblogs, and whether gender affects those motivations.

The authors propose a model incorporating three key determinants of the intention to update weblogs: self‐expression; subjective norms; and personal outcome expectations. These were based on Social Cognitive Theory. An empirical study involving 525 subjects was conducted to test this model.

The results indicate that subjective norms have a stronger effect on the intention than personal outcome expectations or self‐expression. Additionally, women's intention was strongly influenced by self‐expression while men's intention was strongly influenced by personal outcome expectations of using weblogs.

The authors verified the effects of subjective norms, personal outcome expectations and self‐expression on the intentions of weblog owners. The research found that these factors are important determinants of the intention to update weblogs. Moreover, it was found that gender moderates the relationships between factors and the intention in the research model.

For weblog service providers, the results can be used to develop tools to enhance people's intentions to publish according to gender.

The paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the factors that promote the use of weblogs.

Based on previous information systems/educational technology success models, the purpose of this paper is to establish a comprehensive, multidimensional model for assessing blog-based learning systems success.

Data collected from 240 blog-based learning systems users in the context of higher education were tested against the model using the structural equation modelling approach.

The results indicate the interrelationships between six system success variables: system quality, content quality, context and linkage quality, user satisfaction, system use, and learning performance. In particular, this study confirms that quality attributes positively affect user satisfaction, which in turn positively influences learning performance directly or indirectly through the mediation of system use.

This study is a pioneering effort to develop and validate a blog-based learning systems success model.

The sources and platforms utilized for environmental communication have been significantly expanded by the emergence of social media. The validity, form, and content of environmental communication processes are particularly radical departures from conventional media, making personal green blogs important of study as areas of everyday culture politics where people make understanding of environmental challenges. There is currently a lack of research on how social media might encourage green behaviours. This research reveals the impact of social media use and green blogging on green purchasing behaviour, which is supported by the social learning theory. Present study shows that social media use and green blogging have a substantial positive connection, drawing on a sample of 580 respondents from Pakistan examined using structural equation modelling. Both notions have a considerable impact on consumers' intentions to make green purchases, and social media trust plays a moderating role in this relationship. Furthermore, social media trust considerably modifies the connections between green blogging and social media use that is related to green behaviour. The current study is novel and offers important information to understand how social media might promote eco-friendly habits and behaviour.