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Online reviews derived from peer communications have been increasingly viewed as an important approach for consumers to gather pre-purchase information. This study aims to examine factors affecting online reviews adoption in social network communities and then indicates the underlying mechanism of this process based on an extended information adoption model (IAM).

Using the data collected from 242 users of a social network community via an online survey, the proposed model is empirically assessed by partial least squares-based structural equation model (PLS-SEM).

The results show that both perceived diagnosticity and perceived serendipity are drivers of online reviews adoption in social network communities. Meanwhile, community identification is not only an antecedent of diagnosticity and serendipity perceived by community members, but also motivates source credibility which, in turn, positively influences argument quality. Finally, the importance of argument quality and source credibility in reviews adoption process is also presented.

This study extends the IAM and enriches the literature regarding online reviews adoption. It deepens the understanding of serendipitous experiences and community identification in social networking context by addressing their important roles in the authors' extended IAM.

This study aims to investigate the influence of the reviewed establishment’s price level and the user’s social network size and reputation status on consumers’ tendency to post more visual imagery content. Furthermore, it explores the moderating effects of user experiences and geographic distance on these dynamics.

This study adopts a multi-method approach to explore both the determinants behind the sharing of user-generated photos in online reviews and their internal mechanisms. Using a comprehensive secondary data set from Yelp.com, the authors focused on restaurant reviews from a prominent tourist destination to construct econometric models incorporating time-fixed effects. To enhance the robustness of the authors’ findings, the authors complemented the big data analysis with a series of controlled experiments.

The reviewed establishments price level and the users reputation status and social network size incite corresponding motivations conspicuous display “reputation seeking” and social approval motivating users to incorporate more images in reviews. “User experiences can amplify the influence of these factors on image sharing.” An increase in the users geographical distance lessens the impact of the price level on image sharing, but it heightens the influence of the users reputation and social network size on the number of shared images.

As a result of this study, high-end establishments can increase their online visibility by leveraging user-generated visual content. A structured rewards program could significantly boost engagement by incentivizing photo sharing, particularly among users with elite status and extensive social networks. Additionally, online review platforms can enhance users’ experiences and foster more dynamic interactions by developing personalized features that encourage visual content production.

This research, anchored in trait activation theory, offers an innovative examination of the determinants of photo-posting behavior in online reviews by enriching the understanding of how the intricate interplay between users’ characteristics and situational cues can shape online review practices.

Social media marketing has become a powerful strategic tool for many brands, but scholarly research in this domain is still in its infancy. This study aims to examine the effects of social media marketing activities on consumer online impulse buying intentions via brand resonance and emotional responses by incorporating the direct and moderating effects of social network proneness toward fashion retail brands.

By using snowball sampling, this study recruited 441 netizens (who were using fashion retail brands) and obtained their responses through an online survey. Structural equation modeling was applied to 394 responses for analysis.

The findings discovered that social media marketing activities significantly influenced brand resonance, consumer emotional responses and online impulse buying intentions. Likewise, brand resonance and emotional responses were positively associated with online impulse buying intentions and acted as decisive mediators. Social network proneness’s direct and moderating effects significantly increased consumer online impulse-buying intentions toward fashion retail brands.

This study provides recommendations to retail managers for creating and executing brand positioning, segmenting and targeting strategies to enhance consumers’ intentions for engaging in online impulsive purchases for fashion brands.

This original research contributes to the branding literature and stimulus–organism–response theory by focusing on social media marketing activities, brand resonance, emotional responses, social network proneness and consumer online impulse buying intentions toward fashion retail brands.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of online identity orientation and online friendship homophily on online socializing, online information search and ethnic guests’ hospitality experiences.

The study uses structural equation modeling to test a conceptual model developed after reviewing hospitality literature. Data is collected from a sample of 514 Turkish-Dutch ethnic guests living in the Netherlands using a self-administered questionnaire.

The results show that online identity orientations aligned with minority and majority cultures impact online friendship homophily and online socializing, which subsequently impact online information search and hospitality experiences of ethnic guests.

On the whole, ethnic communities have considerable spending power. The findings point to heritage and mainstream cultural socialization accounting for travel and hospitality experiences within an ethnic minority group. The findings supply relevant information for hospitality sectors on services to endorse or promote to guests from ethnic communities.

The study examines the simultaneous effects of online identity orientations and online friendship homophily on online socialization and hospitality experiences of ethnic guests. It highlights the role of culture in explaining the use of social networking sites and its potential impact on hospitality-related behaviors and experiences of ethnic guest consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the practices that owners of public profiles in social networking sites can leverage to actively build online reputation and to evaluate the impact of the adoption of such practices on the initial formation of trust toward these individuals when they are presented as new virtual work partners.

A theoretical model was developed and an experiment with 233 participants was utilized to assess the model using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that individuals can build their online reputations in public profiles of social networking sites via a series of practices of self-disclosure of information and that the adoption of these practices has significant effects on the initial formation of trust toward the profile owner in virtual work contexts. Categorization mechanisms such as stereotyping, unit grouping and reputation categorization have been found to contribute to the initial formation of trust, both from an affect and cognition-based perspectives.

Little is known about the information disclosure practices in public profiles of social networking sites that new work partners can adopt to facilitate the formation of trust between them before they start working together. This study has contributed to the existing body of literature by clarifying these practices and the relative importance of online reputation to the initial formation of trust during the outset of a new virtual work relationship.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between being members of social media business networks and SME performance by comparing business performance between family-owned SMEs that are members and non-members of social media business networks.

The analysis empirically draws on cross-sectional data of 9,292 English and Welsh family-owned SMEs from the UK's Government Small Business Survey 2015. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) is applied to control for selection bias and differences in firm characteristics before comparing business performance, measured in terms of annual turnover, sales-growth intention and innovation between family-owned SMEs that are members and non-members of social media business networks.

The findings show that family-owned SMEs that are members of social media business networks are more likely to have higher prior turnover and to grow their sales than non-members. Also, they are more likely to report being innovative in products and processes than non-members. The empirical results acknowledge the importance of online business networks and digital social capital on enhanced family-owned business performance.

This paper is the first to explore the comparative analysis of business performance between family-owned SMEs that are members and non-members of social media business networks. This paper is important for the development of family business research by providing a comprehensive evidence-based analysis regarding the importance of online business networks to improve family-owned business performance, given the significant contribution of digital business activities to the UK economy.

This study argues that online user comments on social media platforms provide feedback and evaluation functions. These functions can provide services for the relevant departments of organizations or institutions to formulate corresponding public opinion response strategies.

This study considers Chinese universities’ public opinion events on the Weibo platform as the research object. It collects online comments on Chinese universities’ network public opinion governance strategy texts on Weibo, constructs the sentiment index based on sentiment analysis and evaluates the effectiveness of the network public opinion governance strategy adopted by university officials.

This study found the following: First, a complete information release process can effectively improve the effect of public opinion governance strategies. Second, the effect of network public opinion governance strategies was significantly influenced by the type of public opinion event. Finally, the effect of public opinion governance strategies is closely related to the severity of punishment for the subjects involved.

The theoretical contribution of this study lies in the application of image repair theory and strategies in the field of network public opinion governance, which further broadens the scope of the application of image repair theory and strategies.

This study expands online user comment research to network public opinion governance and provides a quantitative method for evaluating the effect of governance strategies.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-05-2022-0269

Online social networks can bridge the gap between distant individuals by simulating online experiences that closely resemble physical interactions. While people have positive experiences, such as joy, in a physical relationship and would like to enjoy those experiences online, they also have negative experiences, such as being subject to a lie. An online social network may allow users to lie to simulate a real-world social group better. However, lying must be prevented on social networks as unethical behavior. Thus, this study aims to investigate an ethical dilemma raised due to the two abovementioned perspectives.

This paper examines different aspects of lying in social networks, using a comprehensive descriptive literature review approach and a classification scheme.

Contrary to their initial intent, social networks are disrupting the traditional notion of human interaction, either by disregarding the presence of dishonesty or by attempting to regulate relationships. In this research, the authors examine the challenges of these two perspectives by identifying enablers, consequences and control measures of lying on social networks at the individual, social and technological levels. The authors also develop a framework to facilitate investigating this dilemma.

This paper examines a controversial topic. Although lying is unethical, allowing users to lie may be considered an appealing feature of social network platforms. This paper offers a framework to propose several research directions for future studies. This study’s examination focuses on the challenges associated with deception on social networks, prompting the formulation of three crucial questions regarding the potential impact of technology on such behavior.

Online open innovation platforms provide opportunities for product users to participate in the innovation process and contribute their ideas to the platform. Nonetheless, they also present a significant challenge for platform managers, who select high-quality innovations from a massive collection of information with diverse quality.

In this study, the authors employed a machine learning method to automatically collect a real dataset of 2,276 innovations and 30,004 detailed comments from the online platform of IdeaExchange and then conducted empirical experiments to verify the study hypothesis.

Results show that extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience positively and directly influenced the quality of their innovation. Furthermore, an individual's social network position mediated among extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness and openness to experience and the quality of an innovation.

Results showed that extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience positively and directly influenced the quality of their innovation. Furthermore, an individual's social network position mediated among extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness to experience and the quality of innovations.

This study combined the Big Five personality traits theory and social network theory to examine the association between user intrinsic personality traits, social network position and the quality of their innovative ideas in the context of online innovation platforms. Additionally, the findings provide new insights for platform managers on how to select high-quality innovation information by considering user personality traits and their social network position.

In this study, we drew on the theories of social exchange and social learning and hypothesized that the online social capital (SC) and offline SC of social networking affect the online self-disclosure (OSD) of individuals through social self-efficacy (SSE).

After retrieving 514 valid questionnaires, we used structural equation modeling to analyze the data.

The results indicated that the users’ SSE affected their OSD, and that both online and offline bridging and bonding SC increased their SSE. However, online bonding SC directly affected their OSD, whereas online bridging SC did not considerably affect their OSD. Given these findings, we presented both theoretical and practical implications to elucidate SSE and OSD behavior from the perspective of online and offline bridging and bonding SC.

In this study, we drew on theories of social exchange and social learning to examine the effects of online and offline bridging and bonding SC on users’ SSE and OSD on SNSs. Given the importance of SC and SSE in social relationships and the effects of OSD on SNSs, our goal was to provide SNS marketers with a thorough understanding of how to facilitate SSE and OSD from the perspective of online and offline bridging and bonding SC.