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Drawing on social network and information diffusion theories, the authors study the impact of the structural characteristics of a seller’s local social network on her promotion effectiveness in social commerce.

The authors define a local social network as one formed by a focal seller, her directly connected users and all links among these users. Using data from a large social commerce website in China, the authors build econometric models to investigate how the density, grouping and centralization of local social networks affect the number of likes received by products posted by sellers.

Local social networks with low density, grouping and centralization are associated with more likes on sellers’ posted products. The negative effects of grouping and centralization are reduced when density is high.

The paper deepens the understanding of the determinants of social commerce success from a network structure perspective. In particular, it draws attention to the role of sellers’ local social networks, forming a foundation for future research on social commerce.

Disinformation on social media is a serious issue. This study examines the effects of disinformation on COVID-19 vaccination decision-making to understand how social media users make healthcare decisions when disinformation is presented in their social media feeds. It examines trust in post owners as a moderator on the relationship between information types (i.e. disinformation and factual information) and vaccination decision-making.

This study conducts a scenario-based web survey experiment to collect extensive survey data from social media users.

This study reveals that information types differently affect social media users' COVID-19 vaccination decision-making and finds a moderating effect of trust in post owners on the relationship between information types and vaccination decision-making. For those who have a high degree of trust in post owners, the effect of information types on vaccination decision-making becomes large. In contrast, information types do not affect the decision-making of those who have a very low degree of trust in post owners. Besides, identification and compliance are found to affect trust in post owners.

This study contributes to the literature on online disinformation and individual healthcare decision-making by demonstrating the effect of disinformation on vaccination decision-making and providing empirical evidence on how trust in post owners impacts the effects of information types on vaccination decision-making. This study focuses on trust in post owners, unlike prior studies that focus on trust in information or social media platforms.

The PICCH research project contributes to opening a dialogue between cultural heritage archives and users. Hence, the users are identified and their information needs, the search strategies they apply and the search challenges they experience are uncovered.

A combination of questionnaires and interviews is used for collection of data. Questionnaire data were collected from users of three different audiovisual archives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two user groups: (1) scholars searching information for research projects and (2) archivists who perform their own scholarly work and search information on behalf of others.

The questionnaire results show that the archive users mainly have an academic background. Hence, scholars and archivists constitute the target group for in-depth interviews. The interviews reveal that their information needs are multi-faceted and match the information need typology by Ingwersen. The scholars mainly apply collection-specific search strategies but have in common primarily doing keyword searching, which they typically plan in advance. The archivists do less planning owing to their knowledge of the collections. All interviewees demonstrate domain knowledge, archival intelligence and artefactual literacy in their use and mastering of the archives. The search challenges they experience can be characterised as search system complexity challenges, material challenges and metadata challenges.

The paper provides a rare insight into the complexity of the search situation of cultural heritage archives, and the users’ multi-facetted information needs and hence contributes to the dialogue between the archives and the users.

With the increasing use of Internet and mobile handsets, mobile-based electronic payment apps (MEPAs) are becoming very popular around the world due to having various advantages. The intention of this exploratory study is to investigate the role/impact of selected factors in adopting three MEPAs of China: Wechat, Alipay and UnionPay based on the extended technology acceptance model (ETAM). After conducting a thorough and careful literature review, this study identified and divided seven such factors into three broad categories: (1) technological factors: perceived ease of use (PEU) and perceived usefulness (PU); (2) personal factors: perceived trust (PT), perceived privacy (PP) and perceived risk (PR); and (3) social factors: social influence (SI) and peer influence (PI) that were assumed to affect the intention to adopt MEPAs (IAMEPAs).

1,597 Chinese individuals were selected through purposive sampling technique who regularly used MEPAs at the time of collecting data. For collecting primary data from the selected respondents, a cross-sectional survey instrument was used. The study utilized IBM SPSS 25 for descriptive statistics and a second generation covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) technique through AMOS 25 for testing the hypothesized relationships.

From statistical analysis, it was identified that five factors: PEU, PU, PT, SI and PI have significant positive impact on the dependent variable, IAMEPAs while PR and PP have insignificant influence on IAMEPAs.

This is one of the studies ever conducted to discover the factors that can have impact on the adoption of MEPAs using ETAM. It is strongly expected that this exploratory study can motivate the scholars to commence additional investigations regarding this increasingly popular financial technology (Fin-Tech). In addition, it can be anticipated that the MEPA service providers can widen their service effectiveness according to the users’ opinion reflected in this study. Furthermore, policymakers involved with Fin-Tech can also formulate and implement effective policies and guidelines based on the empirical outcomes.

With the increasing number of mobile applications, efficiently recommending mobile applications to users has become a challenging problem. Although existing mobile application recommendation approaches based on user attributes and behaviors have achieved notable effectiveness, they overlook the diffusion patterns and interdependencies of topic-specific mobile applications among user groups. mobile applications among user groups. This paper aims to capture the diffusion patterns and interdependencies of mobile applications among user groups. To achieve this, a topic-aware neural network-based mobile application recommendation method, referred to as TN-MR, is proposed.

In this method, first, the user representations are enhanced by introducing a topic-aware attention layer, which captures both the topic context and the diffusion history context. Second, it exploits a time-decay mechanism to simulate changes in user interest. Multitopic user representations are aggregated by the time decay module to output the user representations of cascading representations under multiple topics. Finally, user scores that are likely to download the mobile application are predicted and ranked.

Experimental comparisons and analyses were conducted on the actual 360App data set, and the results demonstrate that the effectiveness of mobile application recommendations can be significantly improved by using TN-MR.

In this paper, the authors propose a mobile application recommendation method based on topic-aware attention networks. By capturing the diffusion patterns and dependencies of mobile applications, it effectively assists users in selecting their applications of interest from thousands of options, significantly improving the accuracy of mobile application recommendations.

This study explores the key platform affordances that online social platform providers need to offer digital creators to strengthen the creator ecosystem, one of the leading accelerators for platform growth. Specifically, it aims to investigate how these affordances make the dynamic combinations for high platform quality across diverse platform types and demographic characteristics of digital creators.

This study adopts a multi-method approach. Drawing upon the affordance theory, Study 1 aims to identify the key affordances of online social platforms based on relevant literature and the qualitative interview data collected from 22 digital creators, thereby constructing a conceptual framework of key platform affordances for digital creators. Building on the findings of Study 1, Study 2 explores the dynamic combinations of these platform affordances that contribute to platform quality using a configurational approach. Data from online surveys of 185 digital creators were analyzed using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The results of Study 1 identified key online social platform affordances for digital creators, including Storytelling, Socialization, Design, Development, Promotion, and Protection affordance. Study 2 showed that the combinations of these platform affordances for digital creators are diverse according to the types of platforms, creators’ gender, and their professionality.

Like many studies, this research also has several limitations. One limitation of the research is the potential constraint of the extent of how well the data samples represent the group of creators who are actively producing digital content. Despite the addition of screening questions and meticulous data filtering, it is possible that we did not secure sufficient data from creators who are actively engaged in creative activities. In future research, it is worth contemplating the acquisition of data from actual groups of creators, such as creator communities. Future researchers anticipate obtaining more in-depth and accurate data by directly involving and collaborating with creators.

This study highlights the need for online social platforms to enhance features for storytelling, socializing, design, development, promotion, and protection, fostering a robust digital creator ecosystem. It emphasizes clear communication of these affordances, ensuring creators can effectively utilize them. Importantly, platforms should adapt these features to accommodate diverse creator profiles, considering differences in gender and expertise levels, especially in emerging spaces like the Metaverse. This approach ensures an equitable and enriching experience for all users and creators, underlining the importance of dynamic interaction and inclusivity in platform development and creator support strategies.

This study underscores the social implications of evolving digital creator ecosystems on online platforms. Identifying six key affordances essential for digital creators highlights the need for platforms to enhance storytelling, socializing, design, development, promotion, and product protection. Crucially, it emphasizes inclusivity, urging platforms to consider diverse creator profiles, including gender and expertise differences, particularly in transitioning from traditional social media to the Metaverse. This approach nurtures a more robust creator ecosystem and fosters an equitable and enriching experience for all users. It signals a shift towards more dynamic, adaptive online environments catering to diverse creators and audiences.

For academics, this study builds the conceptual framework of online social platform affordances for digital creators. Using the configurational approach, this study identified various interdependent relationships among the affordances, which are nuanced by specific contexts, and suggested novel insights for future studies. For practices, the findings specified by creators and platform types are expected to guide platform providers in developing strategies to support digital creators and contribute to platform growth.

Spatial olfactory design in the library appears to be a practical approach to enhance the coordination between architectural spaces and user behaviors, shape immersive activity experiences and shape immersive activity experiences. Therefore, this study aims to explore the association between the olfactory elements of library space and users’ olfactory perception, providing a foundation for the practical design of olfactory space in libraries.

Using the olfactory perception semantic differential experiment method, this study collected feedback on the emotional experience of olfactory stimuli from 56 participants in an academic library. From the perspective of environmental psychology, the dimensions of pleasure, control and arousal of users’ olfactory perception in the academic library environment were semantically and emotionally described. In addition, the impact of fatigue state on users’ olfactory perception was analyzed through statistical methods to explore the impact path of individual physical differences on olfactory perception.

It was found that users’ olfactory perception in the academic library environment is likely semantically described from the dimensions of pleasure, arousal and control. These dimensions mutually influence users’ satisfaction with olfactory elements. Moreover, there is a close correlation between pleasure and satisfaction. In addition, fatigue states may impact users’ olfactory perception. Furthermore, users in a high-fatigue state may be more sensitive to the arousal of olfactory perception.

This article is an empirical exploration of users’ perception of the environmental odors in libraries. The experimental results of this paper may have practical implications for the construction of olfactory space in academic libraries.

Adequate means for easily viewing, browsing and searching knowledge graphs (KGs) are a crucial, still limiting factor. Therefore, this paper aims to present virtual properties as valuable user interface (UI) concept for ontologies and KGs able to improve these issues. Virtual properties provide shortcuts on a KG that can enrich the scope of a class with other information beyond its direct neighborhood.

Virtual properties can be defined as enhancements of shapes constraint language (SHACL) property shapes. Their values are computed on demand via protocol and RDF query language (SPARQL) queries. An approach is demonstrated that can help to identify suitable virtual property candidates. Virtual properties can be realized as integral functionality of generic, frame-based UIs, which can automatically provide views and masks for viewing and searching a KG.

The virtual property approach has been implemented at Bosch and is usable by more than 100,000 Bosch employees in a productive deployment, which proves the maturity and relevance of the approach for Bosch. It has successfully been demonstrated that virtual properties can significantly improve KG UIs by enriching the scope of a class with information beyond its direct neighborhood.

SHACL-defined virtual properties and their automatic identification are a novel concept. To the best of the author’s knowledge, no such approach has been established nor standardized so far.

The purpose of this study is to test the impact of time and price sensitivity on consumer satisfaction and purchase intention on online-to-offline (O2O) takeout platforms and explore the moderating effect of purchase preference on time sensitivity and satisfaction, as well as price sensitivity and satisfaction, in order to guide market pricing.

A structural equation model (SEM) of customer purchase intention was constructed, and the relationships between the variables (time sensitivity, price sensitivity, satisfaction and purchase intention) were examined. The completed questionnaires of 349 respondents were collected from the Questionnaire Star platform in China. The research model and hypotheses were then tested. Analytic hierarchy procedure was used to determine the moderating effect of purchase preference. Finally, the study proposes a pricing strategy for customer-active selective services.

Satisfaction positively influences purchase intention, and price sensitivity significantly increases satisfaction and further increases purchase intention; however, time sensitivity negatively affects satisfaction. Specifically, purchase preference has strongly moderated the relationship between time, price sensitivity and satisfaction. In addition, the findings show that when purchase preference is high, the effect of price sensitivity on satisfaction is stronger, suggesting the importance of purchase preference in strengthening purchase intentions. The research work recommends a pricing strategy involving value-added pricing primarily for time-sensitive customers, which can help build a high-end brand image and reduce price competition. Reduced pricing is mainly for price-sensitive customers, which is conducive to stimulating consumption within a specific time. This pricing strategy is important for adjusting market sensitivity and flexibility.

This research provides new ideas for related disciplines and guidance for the differentiated pricing and promotion of takeout platforms, as well as a theoretical basis for the diversified development of takeout platforms, improvement of personalized service quality and enhancement of customer stickiness. This study fills gaps in the existing literature on the moderating effect of purchase preference on time sensitivity and satisfaction and price sensitivity and satisfaction.

This paper proposes an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) platform to increase the sustainability and resilience of smallholders to face supply chain disruptions in the event of COVID-like crises. The platform facilitates interactions between smallholders and buyers, workers and freight transport companies in agri-food ecosystems. Furthermore, this research work presents the implementation of the freight transport companies’ platform module.

The research work begins with a literature review aiming at analyzing current available ICT solutions supporting smallholders and other actors in the agri-food supply chain. This analysis identifies the research gaps which have to be filled by the platform. Then, the authors proceed with the analysis of the operational scenarios of each platform actor by interacting with experts and operators working in the agri-food sector. The results of such analysis resulted in a comprehensive, unambiguous and consistent set of specification being used to define the platform structure and modules architecture. The platform modules have been developed by using the web-application framework Laravel.

Preliminary tests show that the proposed platform is usable and promises to improve the resilience and economic, social and environmental sustainability of agri-food supply chains, with a focus on smallholders.

The research work allows players in the agri-food supply chain and in particular small local producers to react and mitigate the impact of COVID-like crises through development of a platform in which smallholders, citizens (buyers and workers) and freight transport companies are simultaneously present.