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The purpose of this study is to use role expectation theory to identify potential determinants of user voting avoidance on mobile social media.

Data were collected through a survey of 602 WeChat users, and the proposed model was analysed using structural equation modelling.

Results indicate that user voting avoidance was positively influenced by unfair competition, perceived inauthenticity, perceived information insecurity, over-consumption of renqing (a unique Chinese human relation) and organisation placement in the context of mobile social media.

This study illustrates mobile user voting avoidance from the perspective of role expectation theory and clarifies the importance of avoidance in current voting research.

Based on the C-A-C framework, this article examined users' information avoidance intention in social media platforms.

The authors conducted data analysis using a mixed method of the SEM and fsQCA.

The results indicated that information overload, functional overload and social overload influence fatigue and dissatisfaction, both of which further determine users' information avoidance intention. The results of the fsQCA identified two paths that trigger users' information avoidance intention.

Extant studies have examined the information avoidance in the contexts of healthcare, academics and e-commerce, but have seldom explored the mechanism underlying users' information avoidance in social media. To fill this gap, this article will empirically investigate users' information avoidance in social media platforms based on the C-A-C framework.

Grounded on the cognition–affect–conation (C–A–C) framework, this study aims to explore how perceived information overload affects the information avoidance intention of social media users through fatigue, frustration and dissatisfaction.

A quantitative research design is adopted. The data collected from 254 respondents in China are analyzed via structural equation modeling (SEM).

Perceived information overload directly affects fatigue, frustration and dissatisfaction among social media users, thereby affecting their information avoidance intention. In addition, frustration significantly affects social media fatigue and dissatisfaction. Consequently, social media fatigue influences dissatisfaction among users.

The literature review indicates that social media overload and fatigue yield negative behavioral outcomes, including discontinuance. However, rather than completely abstaining or escaping, social media users adopt moderate strategies, including information avoidance, to cope with overload and fatigue owing to their high dependence on social media. Unfortunately, merely few studies are available on the information avoidance behavior of social media users. Focusing on this line of research, the current study develops a model to investigate the antecedents of information avoidance in social media.

The inception of mobile financial services (MFSs) has positively provoked economic growth and productivity, nonetheless, it has pessimistically caused an upward surge in cybersecurity threat. Customers are progressively becoming conscious of some of the threat and several of them now shun away from some suspicious activities over the internet as a form of protection. This study aims to explore the factors that influence users’ to adopt security behaviour.

A synthesis of theories – Self-efficacy and technology threat avoidance theories – was used to examine the security behaviour of users of MFSs. Data was gathered from 530 students in Ghana using convenience sampling technique. Data analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics, inferential statistics and structural equation model.

Outcome of the investigation indicate that both mastery experience and verbal persuasion have substantial effect on the avoidance motivation of MFSs users. It was, however, found that emotional state and vicarious experience of users do not influence their avoidance motivation. Also, it was established that avoidance motivation is a positive prognosticator of avoidance behaviour.

Understanding the security behaviour of MFS users will help the operators to outline strategies to sustain the successes achieved.

Studies on user security behaviour are rare, especially in sub Saharan Africa, thus, this study will contribute to extant literature by adding a new dimension of user security behaviour.

This study integrates the spiral of silence (SoS) theory and theory of planned behavior (TPB) by examining Facebook users' opinion expression avoidance, the reactions to dissenting views without revealing one's true opinion, in the context of political discussions. The present integrative approach provides a more comprehensive framework that expands our understanding of online opinion expression and withdrawal.

A cross-sectional online survey was employed, which rendered 348 valid responses from US college students (61.5% female; average age 19.11) recruited from a northeastern university.

The results categorized two sets of opinion avoidance strategies from six Facebook features. The intention to adopt “proactive avoidance strategies” (filtering out unwanted information) is positively related to descriptive norms and perceived self-efficacy, but negatively related to fear of isolation and perceived control of the urge to debate. Regarding the intention to employ “reactive avoidance strategies” (less obtrusive articulations), fear of isolation and attitudes toward opinion expression avoidance are positive determinants, whereas perceived control of the urge to debate again exerts a negative influence.

This study examines the growing variety of features that users adopt to avoid expressing their true opinion in reacting to dissenting views, updating our understanding of opinion circumvention in social media environment. As one of the few theoretically driven empirical investigations of SoS theory and TPB, the findings not only elucidate the significance of perceived behavioral control as the common ground in association with user adoption intention but also identify distinct qualities of the two sets of strategies that affect the likelihood of adoption. That is, proactive avoidance is more susceptible to normative influences, while reactive avoidance reflects user attitude and belief. This theoretical integration also helps identify diverse levels of intentions to strategically avoid opinion expression influenced by fear of isolation.

Drawing on the Health Belief Model (HBM), this study aims to investigate the roles of health beliefs (i.e. perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, health self-efficacy and cues to action) in promoting college students’ smartphone avoidance intention.

Empirical data were collected through a cross-sectional survey questionnaire administered to 4,670 student smartphone users at a large university located in Central China. Further, a two-step Structural Equation Modeling was conducted using AMOS 22.0 software to test the hypothesized relationships in the research model.

Analytical results indicate that (1) perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits and health self-efficacy positively influence users’ smartphone avoidance intention; (2) perceived barriers negatively influence smartphone avoidance intention, while (3) cues to action reinforce the relationships between perceived susceptibility/perceived benefits and smartphone avoidance intention, but attenuate the relationships between perceived barriers/health self-efficacy and smartphone avoidance intention.

This study demonstrates that HBM is invaluable in explaining and promoting users’ smartphone avoidance intention, thereby extending extant literature on both HBM and smartphone avoidance.

Research on smartphone avoidance is still in a nascent stage. This study contributes to the field by offering a fresh theoretical lens for pursuing this line of inquiry together with robust empirical evidence.

The purpose of this study is to explore the use of shared services by end-users and why this may conflict with the use as intended by the shared service center (SSC) management.

By applying structuration theory, this empirical study draws on qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interviews with managers and end-users of an SSC. This SSC is part of a Dutch subsidiary of a multinational corporation that produces professional electronics for the defense and security market.

We find two main types of shared services usage by end-users which were not intended by the SSC management: avoidance and window-dressing. These forms of unintended usage were the result of contradictions in social structures related to the centralization and decentralization models as appropriated by end-users and management.

Our findings show that the benefits of shared services depends on how well contradictions in managers’ and end-users’ interpretive schemes, resources, and norms associated with centralization and decentralization models are resolved.

A popular argument in existing studies is that the benefit of shared services follows from the design of the SSC’s organizational structure. These studies overlook the fact that shared services are not always used as their designers intended and, therefore, that success depends on how the SSC’s organizational structure is appropriated by end-users. As such, the originality of this study is our focus on the way shared services are used by their end-users in order to explain why SSCs succeed or fail in reaping their promised benefits.

Computer games that teach cybersecurity concepts have been developed to help both individuals and organizations shore up their defence against cybercrimes. Evidence of the effectiveness of these games has been rather weak, however. This paper aims to guide the design and testing of more effective cybersecurity educational games by developing a theoretical framework.

A review of the literature is conducted to explore the dependent variable of this research stream, learning outcomes and its relationship with four independent variables, game characteristics, game context, learning theory and user characteristics.

The dependent variable can be measured by five learning outcomes: information, content, strategic knowledge, eagerness to learn/time spent and behavioral change. Game characteristics refer to features that contribute to a game’s usefulness, interactivity, playfulness or attractiveness. Game context pertains to factors that determine how a game is used, including the target audience, the skill involved and the story. Learning theory explains how learning takes place and can be classified as behaviorism, cognitivism, humanism, social learning or constructivism. User characteristics including gender, age, computer experience, knowledge and perception, are attributes that can impact users’ susceptibility to cybercrimes and hence learning outcomes.

The framework facilitates taking stock of past research and guiding future research. The use of the framework is illustrated in a critique of two research streams. Multiple research directions are discussed for continued research into the design and testing of next-generation cybersecurity computer games.

How does algorithmic information processing affect the thoughts and behavior of artificial intelligence (AI) users? In this study, the authors address this question by focusing on algorithm-based chatbots and examine the influence of culture on algorithms as a form of digital intermediation.

The authors conducted a study comparing the United States (US) and Japan to examine how users in the two countries perceive the features of chatbot services and how the perceived features affect user trust and emotion.

Clear differences emerged after comparing algorithmic information processes involved in using and interacting with chatbots. Major attitudes toward chatbots are similar between the two cultures, although the weights placed on qualities differ. Japanese users put more weight on the functional qualities of chatbots, and US users place greater emphasis on non-functional qualities of algorithms in chatbots. US users appear more likely to anthropomorphize and accept explanations of algorithmic features than Japanese users.

Different patterns of chatbot news adoption reveal that the acceptance of chatbots involves a cultural dimension as the algorithms reflect the values and interests of their constituencies. How users perceive chatbots and how they consume and interact with the chatbots depends on the cultural context in which the experience is situated.

A comparative juxtaposition of cultural-algorithmic interactions offers a useful way to examine how cultural values influence user behaviors and identify factors that influence attitude and user acceptance. Results imply that chatbots can be a cultural artifact, and chatbot journalism (CJ) can be a socially contextualized practice that is driven by the user's input and behavior, which are reflections of cultural values and practices.

Skippable video advertising offers users the option to skip directly to their desired video content after viewing a limited amount of advertising and is becoming a format increasingly preferred by advertisers. This study constructed a mediator model based on advertising attitude to examine the influence of users' perceived control and perceived intrusiveness on brand attitude and advertising avoidance intention in skippable video ads.

The study considered the structural equation model using a self-reporting measure method. The research model was tested using a sample of 302 respondents.

The results showed that perceived control positively affected ad and brand attitude and negatively affected advertising avoidance intention. Perceived intrusiveness negatively affected attitudes toward the advertising and the brand but positively affected advertising avoidance intention. Ad attitude and brand attitude had no significant influence on advertising avoidance intention. The results also confirmed that ad attitude mediates the path from perceived control and intrusiveness to brand attitude.

This study further enriches the theoretical development of skippable video ads and expands the perspective and scope of interactive advertising research.