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The online-to-offline (O2O) business is developing rapidly and is highly popular in many countries. Nevertheless, O2O suffers from a large number of customer complaints that result in consumer loss. Focusing on the O2O context, this study integrates expectation disconfirmation theory (EDT) and justice theory to investigate consumers' dissatisfaction toward O2O websites.

A research model was proposed and tested using 329 survey responses.

Results show that the identified website disconfirmation and offline service disconfirmation could lead to consumer dissatisfaction. Importantly, the impacts of disconfirmation factors are contingent upon the justice perception of consumers. When a transaction is perceived as unfair, website disconfirmation arouses a higher level of dissatisfaction, and the negative emotions could transfer from O2O and damage the website's reputation.

This study explores the continuance intentions of customers toward O2O websites from a dissatisfaction perspective, with insights for future service studies and O2O service managers.

Mobile social apps permeate every facet of daily life through the pervasive use of smartphones. Customer retention with mobile social apps has become extremely important for app-related companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore why experienced users in mobile social apps (e.g. WeChat) are likely to continue using the app.

This study proposed a conceptual model to identify key determinants of continuance intention of WeChat users and highlight the effects of individual experience. Data were collected from WeChat users, which is one of the most popular mobile social apps in China. The study employed partial least squares regression to test the research model based on a survey of 295 valid responses.

Results showed that trust, which was driven by user satisfaction and perceived critical mass, played a critical role in influencing the continuance intention of WeChat users. Moreover, tie strength exerted a negative moderating effect on the relationship between trust and continuance intention. Specifically, tie strength and perceived critical mass had strong impacts on the continuance intention of low-experience users. In addition, the effect of frequency was closely associated with the continuance intention of high-experience users.

This study addressed the issue of mobile social app continuance intention by providing an innovative means to explore the key antecedents of user continuance intention from the experience perspective. The findings not only prove that trust plays a central role in influencing the continuance intention of experienced users but also reveal that the determinants of continuance intention vary among users with different experience. The results provide insights into the key antecedents of experienced WeChat user continuance intention and contribute to the literature on mobile social apps and individual differences.

The results provide suggestions for mobile social app practitioners to effectively plan mobile social app retention practices and to set up appropriate incentive mechanisms for retaining users with different experiences.

Although abundant studies have focused on the adoption of media users, few studies have investigated the post-adoption behavior of experienced users in the context of mobile social apps. This study revealed the key determinants of the continuance intention of WeChat users and pinpointed the different impacts of these antecedents on users with different levels of experience. It also provides useful guidelines for practitioners to effectively retain users with different levels of experience.

This article seeks to understand how live-streaming technology (i.e. interactivity and effective use of live-streaming shopping’s information presentation tool) impacts consumers’ credibility perception regarding live streamers.

The authors empirically examined their hypotheses with data (n = 405) collected from a survey of consumers who engage in live-streaming shopping.

The results demonstrate that vicarious learning strategies (both coactive and independent) can shape consumers’ benefit perceptions (i.e. virtual presence and psychological proximity), and further have a positive effect on consumers’ personal value (i.e. perceived live streamer credibility). Furthermore, the consumers’ perception of the live streamers’ credibility positively affects their purchase intention and ultimately influences their purchase behavior.

Building on the vicarious learning theory and means-end chain (MEC) model, this study investigates the mechanism of the IT features of live-streaming shopping in reducing consumers’ uncertainty about live streamers. This study reveals the value of vicarious learning experiences in reducing consumers’ uncertainty and further enhancing their purchase behavior.

The rise and popularity of digitalization have made the addictive use in the virtual world more common, which has aroused wide attention from academia and public. Uncovering the underlying mechanism of addictive use is essential to address this serious issue.

By utilizing the context of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), this study developed virtual-domain perfectionism of seeking excellence and avoiding failure from the dual process model of perfectionism and identified four affordances in MMOGs from the perspective of technology affordance. The authors surveyed 302 valid samples in MMOGs to empirically test the research model.

The results demonstrate that two processes of virtual-domain perfectionism influence addictive use positively in MMOGs. Technology affordances perform as the antecedents of virtual-domain perfectionism and conduct distinct impacts in MMOGs. Specifically, affordances of interaction and identity are positively related to virtual-domain perfectionism, while achievement affordance is unrelated to virtual-domain perfectionism. Immersion affordance is positively related to virtual-domain perfectionism of seeking excellence and negatively associated with virtual-domain perfectionism of avoiding failure.

This study identified virtual-domain perfectionism and specific MMOGs affordances. The research model provides insights into addictive use in MMOGs by leveraging context and combining lenses. Research findings help elucidate the role of virtual-domain perfectionism on the addictive use from MMOGs affordances with the corresponding technical features.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate broaden theoretical perspectives in the investigation of the key antecedents of consumers’ continuous review contribution behavior on restaurant guide online opinion platforms (OOPs). Integrating both rational and relational theoretical perspectives with an extension of the investment model, a research model was proposed to explain what factors influence consumers’ intention to continuously contribute electronic WOM (eWOM) on OOPs.

The research model was empirically tested with an online survey study of 438 eWOM contributors from a leading Chinese restaurant guide OOP, Dianping.com.

The results indicated that satisfaction, affective commitment, and continuance commitment were key determinants of consumers’ continuance intention to contribute eWOM on the platform. Satisfaction was driven by concern for other consumers, social benefits, platform assistance, and venting negative feelings. Quality of alternatives and investment size significantly affected continuance commitment.

The selection of respondents is bound to the China area within a particular OOP, although the chosen OOP is a leading one in China. In addition, this study focuses on the perspective of commitment, but some social factors are neglected.

This paper provides an integrated theoretical framework to explore the factors determining consumers’ continuance intention to contribute restaurant reviews on OOPs. From both rational and relational theoretical perspectives, the proposed model reveals the factors that encourage consumers to continue contributing eWOM on OOPs.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a stylized model to solve the pricing strategy, resource allocation and consumer surplus problems of multichannel healthcare services.

This paper considers a two-stage decision model with different levels of consumers’ knowledge. Faced with physical problems, knowledgeable consumers can solve their problems by seeking online healthcare channels, while unknowledgeable consumers need to make a two-stage decision to try to solve their problems.

The effective diagnosis rate and the proportion of knowledgeable consumers positively impact the optimal pricing in online and offline channels. In addition, a higher proportion of knowledgeable consumers does not result in higher demand in the online and offline channels. Moreover, if service providers lower their prices a small amount, they will lose some profit, but the consumer surplus will be higher, which will encourage more consumers to access healthcare services.

Knowledge levels are simplified into two categories. Also, the authors assume the resources of online and offline healthcare services are comparable.

This paper incorporates the knowledge level and misdiagnosis rate into the model framework to study the most effective pricing strategy for multichannel healthcare services.

This study aims at exploring users' motives to form attachments within the social Q&A community context and identifying the differences between active users and lurkers when building emotional attachments. By utilizing the media system dependency (MSD) theory, this study investigates into the driving factors of dependency relations (understanding, orientation and play) to user attachments (i.e. attachment to the social Q&A community, attachment to content creators).

The research model is empirically validated by an online questionnaire among users of a social Q&A community. Deriving from the actual behavioral data, the authors divide 262 valid responses into 157 active users and 105 lurkers according to whether they post or not. The partial least squares (PLS) method is exploited to analyze the relationships in the model. In addition, the PLS-based multi-group analysis is conducted for comparing active users and lurkers.

The empirical results confirm that dependency relations (understanding, orientation and play) significantly influence user attachments. Multi-group analysis suggests that the effect of understanding dependency relations on attachment to content creators is stronger for active users than for lurkers. However, the effect of orientation dependency relations on user attachment is significant for lurkers but not significant for active users.

This study enriches the knowledge of the MSD theory by extending it to the social Q&A community setting. Based on the MSD theory, the relationships between three sides of dependency relations and two types of user attachments are hypothesized in the research model. Besides, the impact of user heterogeneity in building user emotional attachment still lacks consideration. This study is one of the first in the field of comparison studies to compare active users and lurkers in such context, providing a novel contribution in understanding the motivations and emotional responses of different users.

Existing research has long considered e-loyalty as a key to the success of online shopping. The purpose of this paper is to advance the theoretical understanding of e-loyalty by exploring the roles of coupon proneness and value consciousness in the context of online shopping platforms.

The authors empirically tested the research model using a sample of 537 users of an online shopping platform in a longitudinal setting.

The results provided support to all the hypotheses in the research model; particularly, the authors found that coupon proneness and value consciousness play important roles in explaining e-loyalty. They both exhibited significant moderating effects on the relationship between loyalty intentions and repurchase behaviors. The impact of trust on loyalty intentions was also examined.

The authors believe that this study will shed light for practitioners and enable researchers to deepen their understanding of e-loyalty in online shopping platforms.

The research better explains the gap between two important price-tactics-related variables (including coupon proneness and value consciousness); and further examines their roles in determining customers’ repurchase behaviors in the context of online shopping, which is not well examined in previous studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of user engagement in the context of online brand communities. A research model is proposed to explain how brand loyalty is developed through user engagement.

The research model was empirically tested with an online survey study of 185 current Facebook users.

Results revealed that user engagement influenced brand loyalty both directly and indirectly through online community commitment. Users tend to focus on the benefits (rather than the costs) derived from the usage when they engage in an online brand community.

The selection of respondents is bound to the Hong Kong area, while Facebook members are globally distributed. In addition, this study involved a cross-sectional design instead of investigating the development of brand loyalty from a long-term perspective.

The results inform e-marketers the importance of user engagement behaviors for building brand loyalty through online communities. Strategies that encourage members to engage in online brand communities on social networking sites such as Facebook are also provided.

The concept of user engagement in online brand communities is still poorly understood, underscoring the need for theoretically based research of user engagement. This paper enriches the knowledge in the area of brand engagement by presenting a research model that introduces the concept of user engagement in social media research and empirically examines its role in building brand loyalty in online brand communities.

The purpose of this paper is to close the gap between the theoretical nature of existing contributions in customer engagement value (CEV) and its need to practically empower business decisions. This is done by proposing a framework that consists of three techniques, each of which combines the components of CEV to make it more comprehensive and applicable. The paper also reviews and analyzes the work that has been done so far in the area of CEV whether in business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C) or consumer to consumer (C2C) markets.

CEV is a comprehensive term that measures the total value of the customer through capturing his transactional and non-transactional behaviors. Hence, it is an essential term for measuring the value of the customer in direct marketing. This motivates researchers to compete in developing models to maximize CEV. Meanwhile, most of the existing models are conceptual and the majority of them lack applicability due to many reasons. First, these models relied on a linear version of the CEV model, hence double-counting the value of the customer; also they weighted the components of CEV equally, which is unrealistic. Finally, the effect of the environmental components in determining the engagement level of each customer was almost ignored. In this paper, two main contributions are presented. First, a summary and analysis of the contributions of the literature in the CEV field for different market types whether in B2C, B2B or C2C. Furthermore, three modifications are added to the existing models. The first model introduces a non-linear relationship of the components of CEV. The second model is a weighted linear model of these components. Finally, the third model adds the environmental factors to the CEV components. All the proposed models are theoretical in nature, however, these models are expected to show superiority when being applied to real data sets due to their ability to capture the complexity in the relationship between the firm and its customers in real-life situations. The proposed models are expected to attract the practitioners and other researchers and they both are encouraged to apply the proposed models on real-life data sets, test their performance, compare them against each other, to be able to apply each of them on the best suitable data set and business scenario.

Based on the review and analysis that has been done on about 87 papers, it is found that the majority of the contributions that have been done in the area of CEV are theoretical in nature, in spite of the effectiveness of CEV in empowering business decision. It is also found that few researchers proposed a set of theoretical comprehensive frameworks that combined CEV’s components together. Meanwhile, those frameworks are not practically applicable.

Although the contribution of the proposed models expected to attract both researchers and practitioners, these are not applied to real-life case studies to prove their effectiveness.

The research in this paper has many industrial and managerial implications. First, it helps managers and decision takers to treat the customers as assets and cost-free resources who can work with the firm to achieve what’s both aims to (i.e. increase customer satisfaction and firm’s profitability). Second, it helps the firm to determine the total value of each customer and treat its customers accordingly. Third, it empowers the managers to do target marketing, based on grouping the customers upon their total engagement. This would save time and cost and for sure increase the profitability and customer satisfaction. Forth, the proposed models take into consideration not only the transactional behavior of the customers but also the non-transactional factors that play a significant role in formulating the relationship between the firm and its customers.

This is hereby to certify that the paper is original, neither the paper nor a part of it is under consideration for publication anywhere else. Also, this study has no conflicts of interest to disclose.