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The integration of social media and e-commerce has resulted in a rising phenomenon among individual content providers (ICPs), who used to offer free content, to provide consumers with paid content, such as online courses, Q&As or consultations. Despite the prevalence of ICPs’ content monetization, empirical research has rarely studied its underlying mechanism. This paper examines how the characteristics of free content contributed by ICPs on social media platforms influence their paid content sales, focusing on the perspective of human brand.

The empirical setting is an online knowledge exchange platform, where users are allowed to provide free content (e.g. answers) on the social media platform and launch paid content (e.g. lectures) on the e-commerce platform. A machine learning technique is employed to construct measures for the characteristics of free content, and fixed-effects estimation is presented to confirm which factors have a significant influence on the sales of paid content.

The empirical results show that the quality, diversity and expertness of free content have a significant positive impact on the sales of the ICP-paid content, with the brand popularity of ICP playing a mediating role.

This study is the first attempt to demystify the relationship between content contribution and ICPs’ content monetization from the perspective of human brand. The findings validate the effectiveness of the “Selling by Contribution” strategy and provide valuable insights for ICPs and social media platforms.

This research delves into the dynamic realm of app design by examining the impact of app icon familiarity and authority on image fit, influencing users' app usage intention. Focusing on the distinctive circumstances of Chinese and Korean customers, the study aims to provide insightful information about how application user behavior changes.

Utilizing structural equation modeling, the study employs data from 293 Korean and Chinese consumers. The research design incorporates a thoughtful approach, including parallel translation methods, focus group interviews, and pre-experimental testing to ensure survey accuracy and validity. The study strategically selects stimuli from the Apple App Store rankings, emphasizing icon features and type considerations.

The results provide important new information about the connections between usage intention, image fit, authority, and familiarity with app icons. Notably, app icon familiarity and authority positively influence image fit. Furthermore, app icon image fit emerges as a positive predictor of usage intention, mediating the complex interplay between familiarity, authority, and intention. The study also identifies moderating effects, shedding light on the nuanced role of app icon features and types.

Originating from a comprehensive exploration of icons, this study significantly contributes to the field by exploring icon differences and uncovering the intricate mechanisms guiding users' decisions. The findings offer valuable insights for app designers, marketers, and researchers seeking a deeper understanding of user behavior in diverse cultural contexts, thereby enhancing the theoretical and practical foundations in app usability and consumer behavior.

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.

Previous studies on social influence and virtual product adoption have mainly taken users’ purchase behavior as a dichotomous variable (i.e. purchasing or not). Given the prevalence of competing versions (basic vs upgraded) of a virtual product in online communities, this paper investigated the differences in the effect of social influence on users’ adoption of basic and upgraded choices of a virtual product. It also examined how the effect varies with users’ social status and user-level network density.

A natural experiment was conducted in an online game community. Two competing versions (basic vs upgraded) of a virtual product were provided for in-game purchase while a random set of users selected from 897,765 players received the notification of their friends’ adoption information. A competing-risk model was used to test the hypotheses.

Social influence exerts a stronger positive effect on users’ adoption of the upgraded virtual product than of the basic virtual product. Middle-status users have the greatest (least) susceptibility to social influence in adopting the upgraded (basic) virtual product than low- and high-status users. User’s network density enhances the effect of social influence on adoption of both virtual products, even more for the upgraded one.

This research contributes to the social influence and product adoption literature by disentangling the different effects of social influence on basic and upgraded versions of a virtual product. It also identifies the boundary conditions that social influence works for each version of the virtual product.

This study is based on the regulatory focus theory and conservation of resources theory to examine how information confusion leads to users’ discontinuous usage intention of social networking sites (SNSs), with the mediating mechanisms of users’ motivation and affectivity.

Data were obtained from 270 users in different SNSs in Vietnam. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the sample data and test the hypotheses.

Results show that information confusion has a positive influence on discontinuous usage intention, and prevention focus positively mediates this relationship. Furthermore, the negative affectivity positively mediates the link between information confusion and discontinuous usage intention and that between prevention focus and discontinuous usage intention. In addition, prevention focus and negative affectivity together play a serial mediating effect in the link between information confusion and discontinuous usage intention.

This study extends the regulatory focus theory and conservation of resources theory to validate a model that explains the transitional process of users’ motivation and affectivity in the link between information confusion and discontinuous usage intention of SNSs. The findings of this study provide implications for academic researchers and business managers of SNSs to understand and make better decisions to retain their users.

Explore how the degree of humanization affects user misconduct, and provide effective misconduct prevention measures for the wide application of artificial intelligence in the future.

Based on the “Uncanny Valley theory”, three experiments were conducted to explore the relationship between the degree of humanization of service machines and user misbehavior, and to analyze the mediating role of cognitive resistance and the moderating role of social class.

There is a U-shaped relationship between the degree of humanization of service machines and user misbehavior; Social class not only regulates the main effect of anthropomorphism on misbehavior, but also regulates the intermediary effect of anthropomorphism on cognitive resistance, thus affecting misbehavior.

The design of the service robot can be from the user’s point of view, combined with the user’s social class, match different user types, and provide the same preferences as the user’s humanoid service robot.

This study is an important reference value for enterprises and governments to provide intelligent services in public places. It can prevent the robot from being vandalized and also provide users with a comfortable human-computer interaction experience, expanding the positive effects of providing smart services by government and enterprises.

This study avoids and reduces users' misbehavior towards intelligent service robots, improves users' satisfaction in using service robots, and avoids service robots being damaged, resulting in waste of government, enterprise and social resources.

From the perspective of product factors to identify the inducing factors of improper behavior, from the perspective of social class of users to analyze the moderating effect of humanization degree and user improper behavior.

As the competition to retain current and attract new mobile payment app users intensifies, meeting users’ needs has become fundamental for mobile payment app service providers to stay competitive. This study aims to investigate the relationship between users’ needs, users’ attitude towards mobile payment apps and users’ continuance intention to use mobile payment apps.

Following an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design, this study first conducted three focus groups in the qualitative phase to investigate issues or concerns faced by current users of mobile payment apps. The study then conducted an online questionnaire survey in the quantitative phase to collect responses from users of mobile payment apps. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse 110 valid responses.

Findings show that usefulness (modelled as a second-order reflective construct consisting of three first-order reflective constructs, i.e. ease of use, acceptability and responsiveness), traceability and security had a statistically significant relationship with attitude towards mobile payment apps (which in turn had a statistically significant relationship with continuance intention to use mobile payment apps). It was also found that attitude towards mobile payment mediated the relationships between usefulness, traceability and security; and continuance intention to use mobile payment apps.

The findings of this study can help mobile payment app service providers and developers design apps that offer the functions and features that their users need.

Although some recent studies have investigated the adoption of mobile payments in the Malaysian context, few of these studies examined current users’ continuance intention to use mobile payment apps.

Health misinformation on social media threatens public health. A critical question that sheds light on the propagation of health misinformation across social media platforms revolves around identifying the specific types of social media users susceptible to this issue. This study provides an initial insight into this matter by examining the underlying psychological mechanism that renders users susceptible to health misinformation.

In this study, we developed an integrated model of susceptibility to health misinformation, drawing on the motivation-opportunity-ability theory and the elaboration likelihood model. We collected the data from a sample of 342 social media users in China. Furthermore, the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis was adopted to examine the proposed model and uncover the causal recipes associated with susceptibility to health misinformation.

The results indicated that there are three configural types of users that are susceptible to health misinformation: the health-consciousness core-driven type, the popularity-driven core type and the dual-driven type characterized by both high health consciousness and information popularity. Among these, high health-consciousness and the reliance on information popularity-based pathways emerge as pivotal factors influencing susceptibility to health misinformation.

This study contributes to the social media literature by identifying various psychological traits that lead to social media users’ susceptibility to health misinformation. Additionally, the study provides comprehensive guidance on how to mitigate the spread of health misinformation.

Based on the social interaction theory and trust theory, this study investigates the switching of users on social question and answer (Q&A) platforms from knowledge seekers to knowledge contributors.

We used Python to gather data from Zhihu, performed hypothesis testing on the models using Poisson regression and finally conducted a mediation effect analysis.

The findings reveal that knowledge seeking impacts users' motivation for information interaction, emotional interaction and trust. Notably, information interaction and trust exhibit a chained mediation effect that subsequently influences knowledge contribution.

Current studies on user knowledge behavior typically examine individual actions, rarely connecting knowledge seeking and knowledge contribution. However, the balance of knowledge inflow and outflow is crucial for social Q&A platforms. To cover this gap, this paper empirically investigates the switching between knowledge seeking and knowledge contribution based on the social interaction theory and trust theory.

Culture is considered a critical aspect of social media usage. The purpose of this paper is to explore how cultures and languages influence multilingual users' cross-cultural information sharing patterns.

This study used a crowdsourcing survey with Amazon Mechanical Turk to collect qualitative and quantitative data from 355 multilingual users who utilize two or more languages daily. A mixed-method approach combined statistical, and cluster analysis with thematic analysis was employed to analyze information sharing patterns among multilingual users in the Chinese cultural context.

It was found that most multilingual users surveyed preferred to share in their first and second language mainly because that is what others around them speak or use. Multilingual users have more diverse sharing characteristics and are more actively engaged in social media. The results also provide insights into what incentives make multilingual users engage in social media to share information related to Chinese culture with the MOA model. Finally, the ten motivation factors include learning, entertainment, empathy, personal gain, social engagement, altruism, self-expression, information, trust and sharing culture. One opportunity factor is identified, which is convenience. Three ability factors are recognized consist of self-efficacy, habit and personality.

The findings are conducive to promoting the active participation of multilingual users in online communities, increasing global resource sharing and information flow and promoting the consumption of digital cultural content.