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1 – 10 of over 28000Ruoyu Liang, Zi Ye, Jing Zhang and Wenbin Du
Lead users are essential participants in crowdsourcing innovation events; their continuance intention significantly affects the success of the crowdsourcing innovation community…
Abstract
Purpose
Lead users are essential participants in crowdsourcing innovation events; their continuance intention significantly affects the success of the crowdsourcing innovation community (CIC). Although researchers have acknowledged the influences of network externalities on users' sustained participation in general information systems, limited work has been conducted to probe these relationships in the CIC context; particularly, the predictors of lead users' continued usage intention in such context are still unclear. Hence, this paper aims to explore the precursors of lead users' continuance intention from a network externalities perspective in CIC.
Design/methodology/approach
This work ranked users' leading-edge status to recognize lead users in the CIC. And then, the authors proposed a research model based on the network externalities theory, which was examined utilizing the partial least squares (PLS) technique. The research data were collected from an online survey of lead users (n = 229) of a CIC hosted by a China handset manufacturer.
Findings
Results revealed that the number of peers, perceived complementarity and perceived compatibility significantly influence lead users' continuance intention through identification and perceived usefulness.
Originality/value
This work contributes to the crowdsourcing innovation research and provides views regarding how lead users' sustained participation can be developed in the CICs. This work also offers an alternative theoretical framework for further research on users' continued intention in open innovation activities.
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Xi Hu, Zhenjiao Chen, Robert M. Davison and Yaqin Liu
This study aims to investigate the factors influencing consumers' continued social commerce (s-commerce) intention and its underlying mechanism.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the factors influencing consumers' continued social commerce (s-commerce) intention and its underlying mechanism.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors define continued s-commerce intention as consumers' intention to continually participate in s-commerce activities, namely, requesting and sharing commercial information. Grounded in the motivation theory, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment are identified in this study as the motives behind consumers' continued s-commerce intention. Given the indispensable social facet of s-commerce, the authors include social support as another critical social factor motivating continuance intention. Furthermore, users' perceptions are affected by prior s-commerce outcomes, which concern the effectiveness of the commercial information exchange process. Research suggests that in such a context, the result of communication is jointly determined by source credibility and interactive relationships amongst individuals. Whilst source credibility determines the usefulness of the information transmitted, a social interaction supports this process. Therefore, source credibility and social interactions are crucial to the outcomes of s-commerce, which, in turn, affect consumers' perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and social support in s-commerce. Building on these arguments, the authors propose our research model and then test the hypotheses via a survey.
Findings
The authors find that consumers' perceived usefulness and informational social support of s-commerce directly affect their continued s-commerce intention. Moreover, perceived enjoyment leads to continued s-commerce intention via the mediation of perceived usefulness, whilst emotional social support influences continued s-commerce intention through the mediator of informational social support. In addition, source credibility is a significant antecedent of consumers' usefulness, enjoyment and social support perceptions, whilst a social interaction significantly impacts perceived enjoyment and social support.
Originality/value
Various consumer behaviours in s-commerce have been studied; however, the continuance intention to participate in the s-commerce activity remains unknown. This empirical study fills this research gap. Moreover, the authors initially reveal s-commerce participants' utilitarian orientation in the post-adoption stage: perceived usefulness and informational social support affect continuance intention more directly than perceived enjoyment and emotional social support. Further, prior studies on information systems continuance have mainly focused on technical features. By identifying the influence from social factors, i.e. social support, this work extends the literature on information systems continuance.
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Xiaolong Song, Yi-Hung Liu, Jiahua Jin and Jianguo Zhao
Gamification elements have been increasingly used in online weight-loss communities to help users lose weight. The purpose of this paper is to systemically examine whether and how…
Abstract
Purpose
Gamification elements have been increasingly used in online weight-loss communities to help users lose weight. The purpose of this paper is to systemically examine whether and how social interactions influence users’ continued participation in the context of online weight-loss competitions (OWCs).
Design/methodology/approach
This study empirically investigated sustained involvement in OWCs using a Cox proportional hazards model. Additionally, the research utilized a text-mining technique to identify various types of social support and explored their roles in sustaining participation behavior in OWCs.
Findings
Community response both within and outside OWCs positively influence users’ continued participation in OWCs. Moreover, whereas emotional support and companionship received within OWCs have a greater impact on users’ continued participation than informational support received within OWCs, informational support received outside OWCs has a greater impact on users’ continued participation than emotional support and companionship received outside OWCs.
Originality/value
This paper highlights users’ social needs in OWC engagement and provides empirical evidence on how different types and sources of social support influence continued participation behavior in OWCs. The research additionally provides management implications for online health community service providers.
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Dan Ma and Meiyun Zuo
Online health communities (OHCs) can be complementary to healthcare systems to improve the health behaviors of older adults with chronic diseases. This study aims to examine the…
Abstract
Purpose
Online health communities (OHCs) can be complementary to healthcare systems to improve the health behaviors of older adults with chronic diseases. This study aims to examine the impacts of habit and social support receipt on older adults' continued participation in OHCs. Particularly, the authors discussed the influences of social support received in two ways: social support received by initiating threads (direct social support receipt) and social support received by being exposed to the threads initiated by others (indirect social support receipt).
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the dual-process model (i.e. conscious process and unconscious process), the authors developed the research model. Data from one of the biggest online diabetes communities in Europe were collected. Besides, we used the support vector machine algorithm for social support classification and used the Cox proportion hazards model for model validation.
Findings
Older adults' continued participation is influenced by habit and indirect informational support. Habit moderates the relationship between direct informational support receipt and older adults' continued participation. Furthermore, direct and indirect emotional support receipt are both not associated with older adults' continued participation, regardless of their habit strength.
Originality/value
This is the first study investigating older adults' continued participation in OHCs based on the dual-process model. The findings of this study reveal that older adults' continued participation is determined by both the habit and specific conscious evaluation of benefits based on the social support receipt.
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Yixiang Zhang, Yulin Fang, Kwok‐Kee Wei and Zhaohua Wang
Online forums are increasingly deployed as important e‐learning tools for facilitating student learning in classrooms. However, building an online forum does not guarantee…
Abstract
Purpose
Online forums are increasingly deployed as important e‐learning tools for facilitating student learning in classrooms. However, building an online forum does not guarantee participation by students. The purpose of this paper is to advance our knowledge of facilitating student participation in this context by studying the role of communication environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The model was tested using data collected from a survey administered in a university in Hong Kong.
Findings
Results revealed that psychological safety communication climate influenced the intention of students to continue their participation both directly and indirectly through perceived responsiveness and self‐efficacy.
Originality/value
This study builds on social cognitive theory and extends the existing understanding of participation in e‐learning by highlighting the roles of psychological safety communication climate and perceived responsiveness, two communication environment factors critical to student learning but not yet addressed seriously in the e‐learning context.
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Ying Liu and Yongmei Liu
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact mechanism of workers’ perceived justice, trust and job satisfaction (JS) on their continuance participation intention in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact mechanism of workers’ perceived justice, trust and job satisfaction (JS) on their continuance participation intention in the crowdsourcing market.
Design/methodology/approach
An e-questionnaire was posted as an online task on Zhubajie, and data from 304 valid questionnaires were analyzed using SmartPLS 3 software.
Findings
Results show that crowdsourcing workers’ distributive and interpersonal justice have a significant impact on their trust in the task requester, while procedural and informational justice significantly affect their trust in intermediary management. Workers’ trust in the task requester and in intermediary management positively affects JS, which ultimately affects their continuance participation intention in the crowdsourcing market.
Research limitations/implications
Based on the social exchange theory, this study examines the positive impact of workers’ justice perception on their continuance participation intention. It dissects the inherent mechanism of workers’ justice perception about their continuance participation intention using three variables of trust in the task requester, trust in intermediary management and JS.
Practical implications
Given the positive relationship between workers’ justice perception and continuance participation intention, crowdsourcing intermediary website managers should adopt effective measures to enhance workers’ justice perception to strengthen their continuance participation intention.
Originality/value
This study explores factors that influence workers’ continuance participation intention and their inherent mechanism in the crowdsourcing market based on justice and social exchange theories. It is an extension of research on continuous participation behavior in the crowdsourcing field.
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Ping Li, Siew Fan Wong, Shan Wang and Younghoon Chang
This study aims to study the mechanisms and conditions of users' intention to continue to use online health platforms from an information technology (IT) affordance perspective.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to study the mechanisms and conditions of users' intention to continue to use online health platforms from an information technology (IT) affordance perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
b This research proposes that a critical affordance effect on an online health platform, users' intention to continue the use of the platform, is affected by five platform affordances via two actualized affordances (i.e. perceived benefits (PBs) and online engagement (OE)). Perceived health threat moderates the effect generated by affordance actualization. A dataset involving 409 users from the “Ping An Health” platform was collected through an online survey and analyzed to validate the research hypotheses.
Findings
The data analysis results confirm that the proposed online health platform affordances affect users' PBs and OE, which influence users' intentions to continue using the platform. Perceived threats (perceived vulnerability (PVU) and perceived severity (PSE)) moderate the relationship between PBs and continuance intention (CI) and between OE and CI.
Practical implications
The research provides important recommendations for online health platform designers to develop IT affordances that can support users' needs for healthcare services.
Originality/value
Limited studies investigated why users continue participating in online diagnosis and treatment. This study provides a new perspective to expand the affordance framework by combining technology features and user health behavior. The study also emphasizes the importance of perceived threats in IT use.
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Douglas W. Murray and Martin A. O'Neill
The purpose of this paper is to examine the underexplored niche market potential of craft beer, especially as it may relate to independent food and beverage operations, as a means…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the underexplored niche market potential of craft beer, especially as it may relate to independent food and beverage operations, as a means of gaining competitive advantage.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through the distribution of a survey instrument to craft beer and home brewers, designed to assess the demographic profile, purchasing/restaurant selection, and decision behavior of this group and assess the likelihood of their future behavioral intentions toward continued participation in the craft beer segment.
Findings
The paper reveals that craft beer and micro brew pub success has been driven by the home brew movement and continues to gain market share at the expense of broad line food service and macro beer producers. The demographic profile of this group shows age range, income, and educational levels sufficient to drive continued growth. The high satisfaction and likelihood to recommend scores support this assessment.
Research limitations/implications
The sample is limited to members of the Brewers Association, the American Home Brewers Association, and craft beer enthusiasts known to members of the organization. Additionally, the survey was administered electronically limiting participation to people comfortable with this medium.
Practical implications
F&B operators who demonstrate commitment to craft beer through server education, beverage list commitment, and supporting events can achieve market differentiation and dominance within the niche; leading ultimately to competitive advantage.
Originality/value
This research sheds light on underexplored areas of craft beer and the opportunity for independent F&B operators to identify and penetrate an increasingly important niche market, which to date has been viewed primarily from the perspective of microbrew pubs.
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Shiu-Wan Hung, Min-Jhih Cheng and Chia-Jung Lee
The purpose of this article was to explore the influence of individual perception and social climate on consumer-initiated group-buying purchase decisions. An extended cross-level…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article was to explore the influence of individual perception and social climate on consumer-initiated group-buying purchase decisions. An extended cross-level research model was used to explain how a new mechanism for purchasing through personal interactions could work.
Design/methodology/approach
This study utilised a questionnaire survey for data gathering. The subjects of the investigation were group-buying initiators. Hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) was used to experimentally examine the research hypotheses.
Findings
The empirical results of the study indicate that the social influence of critical mass can effectively promote positive attitudes and intentions towards consumer-initiated online group buying. An individuals' perception of an initiator's fairness influences their trust in the initiator. In addition, trust in the initiator can positively and significantly influence buyers' attitudes and intentions to online group buying.
Originality/value
Most previous studies on online group-buying focus on how social media influences group-buying behaviours. This study extends social media research by introducing an extended cross-level model to provide a comprehensive investigation into online-shopping. It is a preliminary attempt to systematically verify relationships at the individual and aggregate levels. The decision to group buying requires a relationship of trust to be formed before any transaction takes place, thereby increasing the intention to make a purchase. As a result, group buying is perceived as positive when interpersonal communication is very efficient, or when social influence is high.
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Cam Tu Nguyen, Kum Fai Yuen, Thai Young Kim and Xueqin Wang
Crowd logistics is a rising phenomenon in last-mile delivery that integrates technological applications and sources a large number of participants to do logistical activities…
Abstract
Purpose
Crowd logistics is a rising phenomenon in last-mile delivery that integrates technological applications and sources a large number of participants to do logistical activities, achieving sustainable shipping in urban environments. However, up until now, there has been limited literature in this field. This research aims to investigate the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that impact the participative behaviour of driver-partners in crowd logistics.
Design/methodology/approach
An integrated model is developed based on motivation theory, incorporating attitude as a contributor to both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. A questionnaire was constructed and distributed to collect data from 303 respondents who are existing or potential driver-partners in Vietnam.
Findings
Our findings confirm (1) the influence of monetary rewards on extrinsic motivation and (2) the power of self-efficacy, trust and sense of belonging on intrinsic motivation. Further, we find that attitude positively impacts extrinsic motivation, whereas there is no effect between attitude and intrinsic motivation. Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are demonstrated to significantly influence driver-partners' participative intentions. Additionally, a positive association is found between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations.
Originality/value
Findings from this study theoretically enrich the literature on crowd logistics, especially on the supply side, and empirically contribute to implications that are valuable to crowd logistics firms on driver-partner recruitment and business strategy development.
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