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With the increasing importance of e-commerce to the economy and people's lives, user-generated content, such as electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) represented by online reviews, has exploded. On one hand, it is of great significance for review consumers (readers) to identify high-quality ones from a large number of existing reviews to assist their purchase decision. On the other hand, how to use appropriate strategies to make their published reviews more concerned by others is also important to review generators (reviewers). The purpose of this study is to understand the comprehensive relationship among review characteristics, review helpfulness and receiver attention.

This study uses the online movie reviews obtained from the most popular review platform in China to conduct multiple empirical analyses.

The results show that the review helpfulness plays a mediating role between the emotional characteristics of online reviews and the receiver attention, and such a mediating role is more significant among reviewers with rich review expertise. The reviewer's expertise also moderates the impact of review emotions on review helpfulness.

This work studies eWOM receiver involvement, which can ultimately impact product sales, but seldom be investigated in eWOM domain. Therefore, this research can enrich studies on eWOM and provide valuable practical implications as well.

Despite the growth of social networking websites as hybrid promotional tools, the empirical research that is currently available in explaining the consequences of gastronomy online reviews on ethnic food behavioural intention is limited. The purpose of this paper is to adopt a novel approach to explore Gen-Y tourists’ behavioural intention by proposing “involvement” as a mediator in improvising Wang et al.’s model. In other words, the more tourists enjoy reading gastronomy online reviews and gain benefits like inspiring taste desire, forming taste awareness and facilitating interpersonal interaction, the more they will become actively involved in searching gastronomy online reviews for ethnic food, subsequently manifesting in higher behavioural intention.

To test the research model, a questionnaire was developed and distributed to Gen-Y tourists in Malaysia using the purposive sampling technique. Partial least squares–structural equation modelling was applied to analyse the data collected from a sample of 748 responses.

This study provides empirical findings based on the direct relationship between gastronomy online review dimensions and the behavioural intention towards ethnic food. In addition, the indirect influence of the constructs for behavioural intention through involvement and the moderating effect of variety seeking were found. Indeed, when involvement increases as a result of reading online reviews, behavioural intention is enhanced. In fact, if the individual is a variety seeker, the behavioural intention could likewise be enhanced.

This paper provides suggestions and valuable insight for tourism authorities and ethnic food eateries in using gastronomy online reviews for promoting ethnic food and gastronomy tourism. For example, food eateries can motivate reviewers to include attractive and useful content by facilitating how the gastronomy reviewer retrieves information (e.g. ingredients, price, and food health value and food tradition) concerning the eatery. Additionally, rewards and incentives such as offering vouchers to reviewers in order to gain attractive and interesting reviews could be considered. Finally, the variety-seeking goal of tourists can be attained by relocating ethnic food restaurants or stalls at centralised or designated areas, where a variety of ethnic foods are conveniently accessible to tourists.

This paper systematically discusses how gastronomy online reviews influence the behavioural intention of tourists to taste ethnic food in the context of Malaysia. The inclusion of the mediator (involvement) and moderator (variety seeking) added a significant increment to the total variance explained in behavioural intention.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of interactive and social features on users' online experiences and their purchase intention of virtual goods from a social network site.

A banner with a hyperlink that connected to the author's web survey was posted on the homepage of Facebook. Of the 258 responses returned, 176 were fully completed. Measurement items were adapted from previous literature. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to evaluate the research model and hypotheses testing.

The results of an empirical study supported the use of the stimuli‐organism‐response (S‐O‐R) model in a social networking site and showed how environmental features should be incorporated to enhance users' online experiences and purchase intentions. Specifically, social identity showed the strongest influence on involvement and flow. More specifically, affective involvement showed the greatest influence on purchase intention compared to flow and cognitive involvement.

The relative importance of both interactivity and social identity in platform features in shaping consumers' online experiences should not be ignored. The author suggests online games or apps. Additionally, platform providers should advance social identity features that show a strong positive impact on users' online experiences.

With the proliferation of online social gaming, there is growing evidence for virtual goods consumption; however, relatively few studies have discussed this phenomenon. This paper draws on hypotheses from environmental psychology; specifically, users' intentions to purchase are modeled on user responses to the online stimuli of a Web platform and the online experience that such an environment elicits.

This study aims to examine the effects of internet self-efficacy and internet involvement on privacy concern and the effect of privacy concern on the frequency of online transactions. The study also seeks to examine the direct effect of internet self-efficacy and internet involvement on the frequency of online transactions.

A structural equation model was developed to test the hypotheses. The model was tested using the LISREL 8.8 software and both structural and measurement parameters were estimated.

Findings suggest that internet self-efficacy and internet involvement affect privacy concern negatively; and privacy concern, in turn, affects frequency of online transactions negatively. Findings also indicate that the direct effect of internet self-efficacy and internet involvement on the frequency of online transactions is positive. All parameters are significant and in the hypothesized direction.

Findings highlight the significance of internet self-efficacy and internet involvement in explaining both privacy concern and online transactions. The negative impact of privacy concern shows strategically why businesses should take measures to protect privacy of consumers and assure them that the information they provide is protected and secure.

This research contributes to the debate on privacy concern and adds to the growing body of literature on the impact of privacy concern on online transactions. Both antecedents and consequence of privacy concern are examined in the study.

The purpose of this study is to find the role of online informediaries on the perspective of price comparison and information aggregator. Specifically, the author wants to explain how the level of product involvement moderates the effect of price dispersion and product information quality on attitude toward product in online informediaries.

The data for this study are obtained from a three‐way factorial experimental research design. Data were collected from 258 college students who have an experience with an online informediary. Combining ANCOVA and regression analysis enables the study of attitude formation and yields encouraging results.

The study finds that high‐involvement consumers focus on systematic cues (e.g. product attributes) in evaluating product quality. However, when they feel that their initial search yields insufficient results, causing them to perceive more product performance risk, they search for additional cues (e.g. price dispersion). Low‐involvement consumers are mainly affected by price dispersion, which is a heuristic cue, and they evaluate the product more favorably under a high (vs low) level of price dispersion.

This paper is one of the first to consider and empirically test a heuristic‐systematic model for attitude toward product in online informediaries. It also uniquely tests the level of price dispersion to discern the important motivating factors.

This study aims to examine involvement and perceived usefulness (PU) as the drivers of loyalty for online booking websites, revealing findings of theoretical and practical relevance. The proposed conceptual model is drawn on elaboration likelihood model (ELM) along with the consideration of expectation confirmation model for loyalty development.

A two-stage structural equation modeling was applied to test the reliability and validity of the constructs and the strength of the hypothesized relationships.

Attitudinal loyalty (AL) is found to have a significant role, resulting in behavioral loyalty (BL) toward online booking. The results of this study supported the ELM framework, where involvement and PU resulted in BL through AL. PU and AL also served as mediating mechanisms underlying the impact of consumer involvement on BL.

This study applies the ELM to online ticketing mechanisms and nuances amid AL and BL with their drivers.

This study aims to investigate the impact of a salesperson’s babyface in his/her profile picture on the number of online reviews the salesperson receives. In addition to testing the direct relationship, this study explores the moderating roles of salesperson gender and consumer involvement.

Responding to the call for field-based consumer research, the authors test their theory using an experimental design and a field study. Study 1 employs an experimental design in high and low involvement service settings to test the effect of a babyface on consumers’ intention to write online reviews. Study 2 uses field data, utilising real estate salespeople’s online profile pictures to test the effect of salespeople’s babyface on the number of online reviews they receive. It does so by using an artificial intelligence facial recognition application interface.

A salesperson’s babyface results in fewer online reviews in situations in which consumers are highly involved in the purchase process. By contrast, a salesperson’s babyface engenders more online reviews when consumers purchase low involvement services. The adverse effect of a babyface on the number of online reviews, however, attenuates when a salesperson is female.

Limited information about salespeople, a skewed number of online reviews and blurry online profile pictures from a real-world data set constitute the study’s limitations.

When consumers are highly involved in the purchase process, salespeople should appear mature in their online profile photos to engender more online reviews. However, salespeople providing low involvement services should opt for online profile pictures reflecting babyish facial features to generate more online reviews.

Research has shown that salespeople’s physical appearance plays an important role in consumers’ perceptions of salespeople and their performance. Although abundant research and practice have shown the importance of online reviews, less is known about how online profile pictures affect online reviews. Thus, building on well-studied cases of an overgeneralization effect, this work examines the extent to which salespeople’s babyface features in their online profile picture affects the number of online reviews received in a real-world setting.

This study aims to examine consumer purchase behavior towards E-pharmacy from a consumption value perspective. For this purpose, the influence of consumption values on consumer purchase intention is evaluated. Further, the role of consumer involvement in online purchase setup in the context of E-pharmacy is observed using moderation analysis.

The study used a cross-sectional survey design, wherein the respondents in the Delhi-National Capital Region of India were approached using a purposive sampling method. Responses received through the structured questionnaire were subjected to analysis using Smart PLS Version 4.0.9.6.

Results indicate a significant influence of functional (partial), emotional, social and conditional values on consumers’ purchase intention. Moreover, the moderation effect of consumer online involvement is seen in functional value (partial) and emotional value–purchase intention relationships.

This study reinforces the use of the consumption value perspective to explain consumer purchase behavior toward information system (IS)-based platforms such as E-pharmacy. Some of the results, in this context, that did not establish significant relationships between a given form of consumption values and purchase intention, open up the possibilities of retesting the said relationships in the future. The researchers would realize the benefit of such examinations, as the E-pharmacy sector further evolves and matures in the future. Further, the successful establishment of a significant moderating role of consumer online involvement in certain consumption value-purchase intention relationships such as safety, perceived convenience and comfort value paves the way for future researchers to explore consumer online involvement for a similar role in IS research.

This study provides cues for E-pharmacy marketers to focus on enhancing product safety, usage comfort, users’ social image and awareness toward health consciousness that will help build purchase intention and assist in overcoming the challenges in the long run. It further suggests that marketers should have a strong re-look at forming price value perceptions and they must enhance the interactive features of the company’s mobile apps/websites with the help of the emerging artificial intelligence tools to re-orient the epistemic value and perceived convenience value toward E-pharmacy services. Furthermore, this study recommends following digital marketing practices to increase consumer online involvement, which would help strengthen perceived convenience formation that would otherwise be difficult to attain for E-pharmacy consumers.

This study provides novel insight into consumer purchase intention evaluation through the consumption value perspective in an emerging E-pharmacy market. The consumption value frame of reference helps to understand consumers’ buying rationale that affects their buying behavior beyond the initial adoption. Further, the moderation analysis of consumer online involvement provides an additional dimension to understanding consumer buying behavior concerning E-pharmacy.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the context congruity effects of online product recommendations (PRs) by recommendation agents (RAs) influence consumers’ attention to and memory of recommended products in an online shopping environment.

The study focuses on the context congruity effects of online PRs by examining consumers’ browsing patterns and attention characteristics (fixation counts and fixation duration) using an eye-tracking device and by measuring memory performance with an aided memory test. Three types of PRs (highly congruent, lowly congruent and incongruent PRs) and two degrees of involvement (high and low involvement) are considered.

The results of the gaze data show that context congruity effects can influence consumers’ PR attention, but this effect is not moderated by involvements. The results of the memory data show that PR recognition is influenced not only by context congruity effects but also by involvement. Another significant finding is that attention to a PR does not necessarily guarantee better memory performance.

The study significantly contributes to deepening the understanding of how context congruity can influence consumers’ attention to and memory of PRs. The findings also have important managerial and practical implications, such that selecting and presenting PRs should be based on context congruity effects.

First, introducing context congruity effects to investigate the effectiveness of online PRs by RAs not only provides an important theoretical contribution to research on recommendation effectiveness but also enriches its application. Second, the findings suggest that the relationship between visual attention and memory is not definitely positive. Third, to interpret the complex translation process from attention to memory, the authors propose a methodology that considers stimulus attributes, issue involvement, cognitive capacity and cognitive interference.

This study explores the direct relationship between social media user-generated content (UGC), online search traffic and offline light vehicle sales of different models.

The long-run equilibrium relationship and short-run dynamic effects between the valence and volume of UGC, online search traffic and offline car sales are analyzed by applying the autoregressive distribution lag (ARDL) model.

The study found the following. (1) In the long-run relationship, the valence of online reviews on social media platforms is significantly negatively correlated with the sales of all models. However, in the short-run, the valence of online reviews has a significant positive correlation with all models in different lag periods. (2) The volume of online reviews is significantly positively correlated with the sales of all models in the long run. However, in the short run, the relationship between the volume of online reviews and the sales of lower-sales-volume cars is uncertain. There is a significant positive correlation between the volume of reviews and the sales of higher-sales-volume cars. (3) Online search traffic has a significantly negative correlation with the sales of all models in the long run. However, in the short run, there is no consistent conclusion on the relationship between online search traffic and car sales.

This study provides a reference for managers to use in their efforts to improve offline high-involvement product sales using online information.