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The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how usability and sociability differ in the way they influence users’ experiences using social TV (STV).

The research model is theoretically proposed and empirically tested through a survey of STV users in South Korea. The model was analysed using structural equation modelling, and the results were input to a neural network model to predict adoption.

Users differ in their emphasis on the identified dimensions when they view STV and socialise through it. Furthermore, the findings show the mediating and moderating roles of perceived sociability on the effect of performance on intention. That is, with sociability, users perceive higher utilitarian value and enjoyable hedonic value and thus are more likely to intend to use STV.

The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of building a theory of sociability and providing practical insights into developing a meaningful sociable TV experiences.

As multidimensional constructs, users’ perceptions of sociability and usability are determined by multiple heterogeneous factors, such as utility and social interaction. This study highlights these two aspects in terms of the rising use of STV.

Social interaction is a vital facet of life for all age‐groups; for older individuals, the exercise of interpersonal exchange, and the expectation of an accompanying sense of well‐being, can assume an even greater importance when other aspects of life no longer provide opportunities for positive reward. Sociability experiences are likely to influence major indicators of both emotion and cognition, such as life and context satisfaction. The demonstration of personal competence, as may be found in the exercise of problem‐solving strategies, is also an important facility for seniors. This study of both domestic and international senior tourists has examined preferences for travel planning as the expression of a measure of personal control that are associated with sociability needs in regard to family and friends, cultural contacts, entertainment and nightlife, and to retail experiences. Also examined was the extent to which various sociability needs and planning control preferences influence measures of destination satisfaction, intention to return and also a willingness to recommend the destination. This study has found that seniors with higher sociability needs for cultural contact and associated with family and friends would more likely perceive the necessity to prepare for their trip, and also would express higher levels of satisfaction; destination satisfaction was also found to be associated with both the expressed intention to return to the destination, and also a willingness to recommend the destination to others; travel planning was not found to be associated with destination evaluative measures. Implications of these findings for destination managers and for researchers in the senior travel domain are considered.

Sociability is considered to be important to the success of educational MMORPGs. The purpose of this study was to access the relative weights of these sociability factors which the authors garnered from the literature on educational MMORPGs.

The authors used fuzzy‐AHP approach to access the relative weights of these sociability factors they garnered from the literature on educational MMORPGs. To do this, a questionnaire using a pair‐wise comparison data input format was administered to 242 school teachers to gather assessments for the factors.

The authors found five most important factors affecting sociability – cooperation, team‐based reward, discussion of strategy, reputation, and social navigation.

Although prior studies have identified various factors that facilitate sociability in educational MMORPGs, the relative importance of these factors has not been determined. The results can not only be used to help educational MMORPG developers focus on the most important sociability factors and propose specific guidelines for designing educational MMORPGs, but can also identify the best design strategy for promoting sociability of educational MMORPGs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what may influence participation in mobile collaborative consumption (CC). In particular, the authors investigate the effects of individual sociability and psychological antecedents including enjoyment, social connection, altruistic motivation, reputation, trust and embarrassment on the participation intention in this emerging phenomenon, as well as their relationships.

Survey approach was employed to validate the research model.

Hedonic factor, i.e. enjoyment, and social-related factors including altruistic motivation, reputation and embarrassment emerge as important antecedents of participation in mobile CC. On top of these factors, individual sociability plays an important role, by acting as a direct antecedent of the dependent variable, while also influencing their perceived greater altruistic motivation and reputation from participating in the CC. Yet, sociability has no significant effect on perceived enjoyment and embarrassment associated with the activity, suggesting that addressing these factors may encourage individuals with low sociability to participate.

This study taps into mobile technology to support CC in daily consumption activities, and highlights the factors that influence people’s participation in such activities. More importantly, the findings suggest that while it is more likely for individuals with high sociability to participate in this emerging form of social activities, for consumers with low sociability, addressing the enjoyment aspect and embarrassment issue of the activities may nonetheless promote their participation.

In the context of asian cities, streets define the diversity and vibrancy of public spaces despite facing a constant threat of losing the spaces to motorized vehicles and large-scale development. The social life of streets is eroded as a result of new developments that are exclusive and privately regulated. This paper discusses the attributes that influence the sociability of shopping streets based on the street users' assessment. A questionnaire survey was conducted involving 332 respondents in four main shopping streets in the Kuala lumpur city centre, Malaysia. Identification of the sociability attributes using analytic network Process (anP) was applied to determine the sociability factors based on the order of priority. The study found that users tended to participate in social activities while visiting the shopping streets. However, their social behaviour indicated that the actual engagement in optional and informal activities was not regular. Perceived safety and spatial accessibility mainly influenced the users' level of engagement with the streets' activities. To retain streets as inclusive social spaces, urban designers could prioritise mixed-land uses, positive pedestrian experience and good accessibility in boosting sociability of urban places.

Previous studies have found that trusting and sociable individuals are more likely to participate in the stock market and hold risky assets. The purpose of this paper is to explore if trust and sociability also are related to individual investors' stock-portfolio returns.

The authors study the questions in the paper by linking survey measures of trust and sociability to investors' actual stock portfolios.

The authors find that trusting investors acquire higher raw and risk-adjusted stock-portfolio returns, but that the returns do not differ depending on how sociable investors are. These results suggest that trust is important for investors' stock-portfolio decisions, and that trusting investors tend to perform better in the stock market than less-trusting investors.

This is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first paper that relates survey measures of trust and sociability to investors' actual stock-portfolio holdings. This is important to increase the understanding for how trust and sociability are related to the financial decisions individuals makes.

Using features of social media, peer-to-peer (P2P) mobile payment enables users to foster social interaction every time transactions are made. Given the increasing popularity of social features in P2P mobile payment applications, it is worth understanding how these components contribute to users’ switching behavior between conventional mobile payment and P2P mobile payment services. By treating sociability of P2P mobile payment as a pull factor, this study aims to extend the push–pull–mooring framework in the context of P2P mobile payment.

A questionnaire survey was conducted to obtain data. Respondents from the USA were exclusively selected due to the emerging number of P2P mobile payment users and the volume of transactions in this country. Based on a sample of 232 Amazon Mechanical Turk mobile payment users, the authors tested the hypotheses using the partial least squares structural equation model technique with SmartPLS software version 3.

The finding reveals that sociability is triggered by social presence, social benefit and social support within the P2P mobile payment platform. Moreover, dissatisfaction with perceived enjoyment of conventional mobile payment (push factor), customer innovativeness (mooring factor) and sociability of P2P mobile payment (pull factor) jointly influence users’ intention to switch to P2P mobile payment services, and subsequently drive their migration behavior.

Unlike past research that mainly focuses on utilitarian-related factors, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to thoroughly examine the sociability features of P2P mobile payment service as a form of a social-centric system.

Social websites have become a major medium for social interaction. From Facebook to MySpace to emergent sites like Twitter, social websites are increasing exponentially in user numbers and unique visits every day. How do these websites encourage sociability? What features or design practices enable users to socialize with other users? The purpose of this paper is to explore sociability on the social web and details how different social websites encourage their users to interact.

Four social websites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter) were examined from a user study perspective. After thoroughly participating on the websites, a series of observations were recorded from each experience. These experiences were then compared to understand the different approaches of each website.

Social websites use a number of different approaches to encourage sociability amongst their users. Facebook promotes privacy and representing “real world” networks in web environment, while MySpace promotes publicity and representing both real world and virtual networks in a web environment. Niche websites like LinkedIn and Twitter focus on more specific aspects of community and technology, respectively.

A comparison of different models of sociability does not yet exist. This study focuses specifically on what makes social websites “social.”

The current study aims to explain the influence of technological interactivity and media sociability on sport consumer value co-creation behavior via collective efficacy and collective intelligence.

Subjects were individuals who have a mobile smart device and experience of accessing sport-related community websites (n = 513). A face-to-face self-administered survey was employed based on the convenience sampling method. A structural equation modeling test was conducted to examine the relationships between the variables.

Technological interactivity and media sociability based on mobile smart devices improve sport consumers' collective efficacy, and media sociability positively affects collective intelligence. Also, perceived collective efficacy and collective intelligence in virtual communities induce consumers to engage in the value co-creation process more actively (i.e. consumer participation behavior and citizenship behavior). One of the key findings includes the significant role of media sociability in the process of value co-creation between consumers and sport organizations. Media sociability is more likely to contribute to improving sport consumers' collective efficacy and the development of intelligence than the properties of technological interactivity.

Research findings contribute to extending the body of knowledge in interactivity studies related to sport consumers' value co-creation behaviors in the virtual environment context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of consumer sociability and service provider perceived expertise on service relationship success.

A sample of 281 consumers in the USA, randomly selected with the assistance of a commercial list service, completed the survey. Structural equations modeling, was used to test the proposed model.

The findings show that customer sociability and service provider expertise are important to relationship success. In addition, the duration of the relationship was found to be a consequence of satisfaction and a driver of social benefits, which strengthens customer commitment.

Personality traits have been previously examined in a low involvement retail setting and not found to be a significant influence on commitment. This study finds that sociability does have a significant impact on service relationship success; thus, providing support for the importance of customer traits in relationship marketing in some contexts.

While provider characteristics are expected to influence customer commitment, this study provides evidence that at least one consumer personality trait (i.e. sociability) appears to impact commitment to a provider in high involvement services. Healthcare providers should be aware that the personality of the patient may be a driver of satisfaction with and commitment to the physician, despite the doctor's perceived level of expertise.

This research fills a gap in the literature on the link between customer traits and service relationships in a healthcare setting. Since consumers are co‐participants in service delivery, it is important to understand how their characteristics impact service relationship success.