Who will attract you? Similarity effect among users on online purchase intention of movie tickets in the social shopping context

Research on the Purchase Intention of Social Commerce Consumers in Video Streams: Dual Pathways of Affection and Rationality

Social commerce blurs the boundary between online social interaction and online shopping. The emergence of video streams introduces novel marketing modalities to social commerce. However, there is a paucity of comprehensive studies investigating the impact of emerging marketing techniques such as short videos and live streaming on consumer purchase intention. This study employs Bourdieu's conceptual framework to construct a Field Theory-based model, investigating the impact of atmospheric and capital characteristics of social commerce platforms on consumer purchase intention through affective and rational pathways, respectively. A survey involving 515 Chinese social commerce consumers demonstrates that atmospheric characteristics (emotion and social presence) and capital characteristics (information quality and quantity) in video streams enhance similarity and power. Both similarity and power are associated with an increase in consumer purchase intention. This study validates the dual-path influence of social commerce characteristics and discusses theoretical and managerial implications.

Exploring consumer responses to official endorsement: roles of credibility and attractiveness attributes in live streaming

Introduction

Official endorsement, distinct from celebrity, expertise, and peer endorsement, introduces a new paradigm where local government officials use online platforms, particularly live streaming, to promote local products and brands.

Methods

This study examines the influence of official endorsement on consumer responses using the source credibility and source attractiveness models. We developed a framework that considers official credibility and attractiveness attributes as antecedents, and consumer perceived security and enjoyment as mediators, affecting purchase intention and local brand awareness. The study also incorporates variables such as consumer region and power distance belief.

Results

Data from 594 responses obtained through an online survey were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that official credibility attributes (expertise, trustworthiness, government credibility) enhances consumer perceived security, while official attractiveness attributes (physical attractiveness, interaction friendliness, and similarity with consumers) increases consumer enjoyment. Both perceived security and enjoyment positively influence purchase intention and local brand awareness. These relationships are partially moderated by consumer region and power distance belief.

Discussion

This research pioneers the study of official endorsements, expanding the endorsement literature. It also provides practical insights for marketing professionals and government officials on leveraging official endorsements to enhance the value of local products and brands..

Promote identification or prevent expansion? The effect of uploader-viewer similarity on viewer inspiration in the context of short video community

Introduction

Short video communities have proliferated recently, opening up a new channel for the promotion of online businesses. The main challenge in marketing with short videos is how to inspire consumers.

Methods

This study employs viewer social identification and self-expansion as its entrance point to to explain how uploader-viewer similarity affects viewers’ short video inspiration. We use empirical investigation method based on the data of 310 short video viewers to test our conceptual model.

Results

We found that there is a double-edged relationship between uploader-viewer similarity and short video inspiration. Particularly, uploader-viewer similarity enhances perceived social identification while reducing perceived self-expansion. The association between Uploader-viewer similarity and short video inspiration is moderated by viewers’ cognitive demands.

Discussion

These results provide a new perspective for enterprises to manage the relationship between viewers and media.

Effects of interactivity affordance on user stickiness in livestream shopping：identification and gratification as mediators

In this day and age, livestream shopping is developing by leaps and bounds in China. It has been proved that livestream shopping is efficient in attracting customers and boosting the sales of products. However, very little research has been carried out on user stickiness, which plays a valuable role in business success. In light of the stimulus-organism-response framework (S-O-R), a multiple-mediation model (identification and gratification as mediators) was established to examine the effect of interactivity affordance (S) on the user stickiness (R) of a sample of 489 Chinese livestream viewers. Structural equation modeling with bootstrapping estimation was performed to examine the mediating roles of identification (O-cognitive) and gratification (O-affective). The modeling results revealed that the relationship between interactivity affordance and user stickiness was partially mediated by identification combined with utilitarian gratification and fully mediated by identification combined with hedonic gratification. The findings stress the importance of categorizing gratifications. In addition, these findings offer new perspectives for understanding the effects of IT affordance on user stickiness.

Why time flies? The role of immersion in short video usage behavior

Background

Short videos are becoming increasingly popular globally, and users are devoting more time to viewing them. However, few studies have examined the characteristics of short video content and the technical features that are related to media use. The present study developed a model to explore the influence of technological affordances on short video usage and considered innovation in terms of format, setting, and content.

Method

A total of 496 viewers of short videos from China were surveyed. The participants completed 31 Likert-scale items. The study used maximum likelihood estimation modeling.

Results

The results revealed that perceived novelty and content value (entertainment and irritation) affected immersion positively, consequently influencing intentions for reuse and recommendation. The ease of navigating an application, narrative structure, and information value had no significant effect on immersion.

Conclusion

These findings have confirmed that perceived situation affordance and the affective affordance of short videos in digital environments that are managed by intelligent algorithms. It is necessary to analyze the potential impact of different affordances specifically.

The effect of self-disclosure on mass trust through TikTok: An empirical study of short video streaming application users

In the short video application scenario, self-disclosure helps to establish and maintain relationships with others, and is important for the formation of mass trust. To this end, this study investigates the impact of self-disclosure on mass trust in the context of short video applications based on social exchange theory, and introduces perceived similarity to explain the specific impact mechanism while focusing on the boundary conditions of trust disposition in it. This study takes TikTok as the research object and analyzes the data obtained from the questionnaire survey. The empirical test results show that self-disclosure not only affects mass trust directly, but also indirectly through perceived similarity. In addition, a moderating effect of trust disposition on perceived similarity was found to affect mass trust. The findings of this paper contribute to an in-depth understanding of the potential intermediate mechanisms and boundary conditions of self-disclosure on mass trust, reveal the theoretical relationship between self-disclosure and mass trust, bridge the gap between previous mechanisms of mass trust influence from the perspective of empirical research, and effectively guide the management practice of short video applications.

Attitudes toward Fashion Influencers as a Mediator of Purchase Intention

Fashion influencers are a new phenomenon and profession to which many young individuals may currently aspire; such is its impact in the digital and online world. Hence, the article serves an upcoming group of fashion-influencers-to-be, as well as firms that seek the help of such professionals. This study aimed to test the mediating role of the attitude toward influencers in the relation between, on the one hand, perceived credibility, trustworthiness, perceived expertise, likeability, similarity, familiarity, and attractiveness, and, on the other hand, purchase intention. Path analysis was used to test a conceptual model in which attitude toward influencers mediates the relation between perceived credibility, trustworthiness, perceived expertise, likeability, similarity, familiarity, attractiveness, and purchase intention. Among the seven components, the association between perceived credibility, trustworthiness, perceived expertise, similarity, and familiarity, on the one hand, and purchase intention, on the other, was completely and significantly mediated through attitudes toward influencers. It was found that the attitude toward the influencer determines the purchase intent; this attitude is, in turn, conditioned by the competence, the resemblance, and the proximity that the consumer perceives in the influencer. Thus, to lead the consumer to buy a certain product, influencers must pay attention to perceived credibility, trustworthiness, perceived expertise, similarity, and familiarity with the product (or service).

The role of senses on purchase intention in social commerce

Purpose

This paper aims to examine how situational factors with social support affecting purchase intention in social commerce (SC). In Taiwan’s SC, the relationship between trust belief and purchase intention has always been a key issue.

Design/methodology/approach

This study presents a research model that comprises five hypothesis with five constructs, including situational factors, social support, senses, trust belief and purchase intention. The model is tested on data collected from 532 valid samples in Taiwan, using structural equation modeling. The results show that, in order of importance, control senses and raise mediation trust belief reach the better purchase intention.

Findings

The findings of the study provide practical insights in understanding how seller should notice consumer’s trust belief, in order to enhance purchase intention for the SC as a whole.

Originality/value

Much existing consumer behavior research is focused on decision making rather than the trust belief themselves. Accordingly, analyzing how senses influence trust belief and purchase intention is an important issue in SC.

Trust and Consumers’ Purchase Intention in a Social Commerce Platform: A Meta-Analytic Approach

E-commerce and social media integration are becoming increasingly popular throughout the world, particularly with the emergence of Web 2.0 technology. In a social commerce (SC) environment, trust also plays a vital role in consumers’ purchase intentions. This research aims to achieve consistent findings regarding the concise effect of trust on consumers’ purchase intention and the moderating effect of SC constructs in social commerce platforms. A meta-analysis, including 20 effect sizes from 19 studies, investigated the association between trust and consumers’ purchase intention. The outcomes demonstrate that trust positively influences consumers’ purchase intentions. Meanwhile, moderation analysis points out that trust in sellers has a larger significant effect than other trust objects. Meanwhile, consumers in forums and communities can gain more trust, affecting their purchase intentions. In terms of website types, trust has a similar influence on purchase intention.

Exploring the Relationship Between Social Commerce Features and Consumers' Repurchase Intentions: The Mediating Role of Perceived Value

The popularity of social media, such as WeChat and Weibo in China, has provided an opportunity to develop social commerce. Although shopping through social commerce platforms is widely favored by consumers, the factors affecting consumers' decision-making behavior in the social commerce environment remain unclear. Therefore, from the perspective of the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory, we construct a consumer repurchase decision model in the social commerce environment and analyze the influencing mechanism of social commerce features (interactivity, recommendations, and feedback) on perceived value (utilitarian value and hedonic value) and consumers' repurchase intention. The empirical results found that social commerce features are positively related to the generation of perceived value, which in turn drives consumers to form repurchase intentions. We also found some mediating effects of perceived value. The study's conclusions clarify the intrinsic influence mechanism of social commerce features on consumers' perceived value and repurchase intentions. In addition, it can provide some theoretical guidance for future research and business.

PERVAINCONSA Scale to Measure the Consumer Behavior of Online Stores of MSMEs Engaged in the Sale of Clothing

The objective of the research was to validate an instrument designed to measure the variables value perception, purchase intention, trust, and satisfaction of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) dedicated to selling clothing. The PERVAINCONSA Scale (acrostic formed with the initial letters of the Spanish words “Percepción de Valor”, “Intención de Compra”, “Confianza” and “Satisfacción”) was constructed. A total of 238 questionnaires were collected from users of online clothing stores in Peru, Mexico, and Colombia (38.7% men and 61.3% women) with an average age of 24.29 years (SD = 8.04). The KMO and Barlett’s test was 0.958. Confirmatory factor analysis provided an excellent model (χ2 = 372.76, gl = 164; χ2/df = 2.27; CFI = 0.956; RMSEA = 0.073, SRMR = 0.035; and Pclose = 0.00). The model showed good scale reliability given that the composite reliability index (CFI), and all values exceeded the minimum threshold of 0.6. The results suggest that this first version of the PERVAINCONSA presents adequate psychometric evidence to measure value perception, purchase intention, trust and satisfaction in consumers of online stores in Peru, Mexico and Colombia. Thus, it seeks to contribute to the advancement of the scientific study of these important variables in the study of consumer behavior in Latin America.

Effect of Product Presentation Videos on Consumers' Purchase Intention: The Role of Perceived Diagnosticity, Mental Imagery, and Product Rating

The product presentation videos on E-commerce platforms have a significant influence on consumers' purchase decisions, and enterprises have focused on choosing the type of product presentation videos. Based on the resource matching theory, mental imagery theory and cue utilization theory, this study investigated the influence of product presentation videos type (product appearance video vs. product usage video) on consumers' purchase intention and the moderating effect of product rating (low vs. high). Through three pre-experiments and two formal experiments, the results showed that the product usage video has a stronger effect on consumers' purchase intention more than the product appearance video, which is mediated by perceived diagnosticity and mental imagery. In addition, product rating moderated the influence of product presentation videos type on consumers' purchase intention. The product usage video would improve consumers' purchase intention more than the product appearance video when the product rating is high; however, there is no significant difference in the impact of two types of videos on consumers' purchase intention when the product rating is low. This study supplements the research on product presentation videos and provides a reference for online retailers to select effective product presentation videos.

Exploring Trust Formation and Antecedents in Social Commerce

With the rapid increase in social media users and netizens globally, the proclivity for online shopping using social commerce (SC) platforms cannot be ignored. Trust has been recognised as a constant challenge in the context of social commerce due to the lack of face-to-face interaction. Therefore, there is a dire need to enhance the trust of consumers in social commerce platforms. However, the research in the formation of trust in social commerce and antecedents remains limited. In addition, the existing SC research failed to include its multidimensional view to investigate user behaviour. This study fills this gap and extends existing knowledge by developing a model exploring the antecedents of trust in social commerce. Drawing upon the social-technical theory and trust lens, this study attempts to identify the role of (i) structural assurance (SA) and SC platforms as an institution-based trust, (ii) trust in sellers and trust in SC community as trusting beliefs, and (iii) trust in online payment as a cognitive trust on trust and intention of the social commerce. This research employs a dataset (n = 406) collected using an online survey; the research subjects were recruited from Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. This study uses the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach to analyse the data and to confirm the hypothesis proposed in the research model. The empirical findings show that trust in social commerce influences behavioural intention. In addition, trust in the SC platform, the SC community, and online payment influence the trust in SC. Likewise, SA and trust in the SC platform have a significant relationship with trust in sellers, the SC community, and online payment. Finally, this study discusses the theoretical contributions and practical insights to several limitations and suggests directions for future research.

Analysing the impact of smart city service quality on citizen engagement in a public emergency

The outbreak of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has brought great challenges to the improvement of global smart city services. To date, few studies have been conducted on the effects of service quality on citizen engagement in smart cities in a public emergency. Based on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model and uncertain management theory, this study analyses the impact of the service quality of smart city system on citizen engagement in a public emergency. Data were collected in Chinese smart cities. Three valuable and novel results are identified. First, high-quality information content, highly reliable systems and highly responsive systems have a significant positive effect on citizens' continuous experiences, but not on citizens' immediate experiences. Second, both the immediate and continuous experiences of citizens have a significant positive effect on citizen engagement. Third, continuous experiences impose a full mediation effect between information content and citizen engagement, between reliability and citizen engagement and between responsiveness and citizen engagement. As its main contribution, this study focuses on the construction of a theoretical model. Based on this model, smart city managers can understand citizens' reactions in public emergencies from stimulation to experience and their behaviours in relation to smart city services.

The role of social influencers for effective public health communication

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to explore the suitability of social media influencers (SMIs) for communicating public health messages via social media platforms. The study identifies key persuasive communication components that influence individuals' attitudes and, subsequently, intentions to follow health-related information shared by SMIs.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative interviews with healthcare workers and interactions with 332 active social media users via structured online questionnaires were used for data collection. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse responses.

Findings

Results indicate that SMIs' credibility, SMI–individual homophily and quality of information shared by the SMI are the significant factors determining individuals' attitudes towards the information received. Furthermore, the individual's attitude significantly impacts their intention to follow information shared by the SMI. The study thus verifies the mediating role of attitude in persuasive communication.

Research limitations/implications

The current study can serve as a foundation for future work to examine the suitability of SMIs for tasks other than marketing.

Practical implications

The study provides insights for planning and implementing SMI-sourced communication in the public health context. The study enhances the understanding of the tested relationships and thereby increases scholars' and practitioners' ability to leverage SMIs for health-related communication.

Originality/value

Whilst SMIs are attracting increasing attention in consumer markets, the study suggests that they can be used in public health communication. Considering the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation, the empirical study provides insights into SMIs' role in persuasive public health communication amid a health crisis.

Peer review

The peer review history for the article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2021-0012

Similarity Effect and Purchase Behavior of Organic Food Under the Mediating Role of Perceived Values in the Context of COVID-19

Due to the influence of COVID-19, people pay more attention to the balance between human and nature and pursue more healthy, environmental and nutritional sustainable products (such as organic food). However, the mainstream consumption of organic food is far less, especially in developing countries like China. Therefore, it is urgent to take effective measures to promote the development of China's organic food market. This current study investigated the relationships between consumers' similarity (i.e., information anxiety, uncertainty, and sustainable consumption attitude), perceived values (i.e., functional value, health value, and environmental value) and organic purchasing behavior based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theoretical model and information similarity effect. And considering gender differences in consumers' similarity, perceived values and organic purchasing behavior. Meanwhile, the mediating effects of perceived values on the relationship between consumers' similarity and purchasing behavior were also discussed, considering the background of COVID-19. Data were collected using structured questionnaire survey in first-tier cities in China. A total of 344 consumers of organic foods participated in the study. Structural equation modeling was employed for data analysis. The results indicated the significant association of information anxiety, uncertainty and sustainable consumption attitude with perceived values. And perceived values and sustainable consumption attitude had a positively significant influence on purchase behavior. In addition, environmental value played mediating effects in the relationships between organic purchasing behavior and information anxiety, uncertainty and sustainable consumption attitude. And the impact of sustainable consumption attitude and environmental value on organic purchasing behavior differed in gender. The research not only provides novel insights for understanding organic consumption, but also provides reference for organic sellers to develop sales strategies and policy makers to formulate policies to guide organic consumption, which are conducive to promoting China's organic food industry.

Social Distancing, Health Concerns, and Digitally Empowered Consumption Behavior Under COVID-19: A Study on Livestream Shopping Technology

During the COVID-19 pandemic, livestream shopping has provided consumers with a way to maintain social distancing while offering an alternative to offline shopping. This study aims to understand the impact of COVID-19 and other public health crises on the behavioral intentions of consumers using livestream shopping technology. A theoretical model was designed that combines the health belief model, trust theory, and the theory of planned behavior. Empirical data were collected from 358 residents in China and then analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, and perceived obstacles had a significant impact on consumer trust. Consumer trust in turn had a direct impact on behavioral intention and an indirect impact on behavioral intention via attitude. These research results have practical implications for livestream shopping merchants, platform decision-makers, and service designers.

Does Product Semantics Matter in Stimulating Impulse Buying Behavior for Internet Products?

Design-driven innovation has become the source of the third-dimensional innovation driving force behind technology and outside the market, aiming to explore breakthrough innovation in product semantics for Internet products. This research tries to define the concept of product semantics and construct a consumer purchase decision model for Internet products with product semantic perception as the antecedent variable. In addition, how product semantics could stimulate consumers' expected regret and impulse purchase for Internet products is explained. The research finds that product semantic perception significantly affects consumers' expected inaction regret, which promotes their impulse purchase intention for Internet products; and expected inaction regret partially mediates between product semantic perception and impulse purchase intention. Self-control ability of consumers negatively moderates the relationship between their expected inaction regret and impulsive purchase intention for Internet products. Thus, the "non-use function" design of product semantics can effectively meet and lead the spiritual and cultural needs in hedonistic Internet shopping for consumers.

How social presence influences impulse buying behavior in live streaming commerce? The role of S-O-R theory

Purpose

This paper aims to examine how presence (the social presence of live streaming platforms, of viewers, of live streamers and telepresence) affects consumer trust and flow state, thus inducing impulsive buying behaviors, personal sense of power as moderator.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework, the conceptual model covers social presence, telepresence, consumer trust, flow state, personal sense of power and impulsive buying behavior. An online survey was conducted from 405 consumers with the experience of live streaming shopping in China; structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for data analysis.

Findings

Results find that three dimensions of social presence (the social presence of live streaming platforms, of viewers, of live streamers) and telepresence have a positive and significant influence on consumer trust and flow state, thus triggering consumers’ impulsive buying behavior. Furthermore, consumers’ sense of power moderates the process from consumer trust, flow state to impulsive buying behavior.

Practical implications

This study will help live streamers and e-retailers to have a further understand on how to stimulate consumers’ buying behavior. Furthermore, it also provides reference for the development of live streaming commerce in other countries.

Originality/value

This research examines the effect of social presence and telepresence on impulsive buying behavior in live streaming commerce, which is inadequately examined in extant literature.

Exploring the Continuous Usage Intention of Online Learning Platforms from the Perspective of Social Capital

This research explores the factors that influence students’ continuous usage intention regarding online learning platforms from the perspectives of social capital, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use. The questionnaire survey method was used in the research to analyze the relationship between the research variables and verify the hypothesis based on data from 248 collected valid questionnaire responses. The following results were obtained: (1) “Social interaction ties” positively affect students’ continuous usage intention. (2) “Shared language” negatively affects students’ continuous usage intention. (3) “Shared vision” positively affects students’ continuous usage intention. (4) “Perceived usefulness” positively affects students’ continuous usage intention. (5) “Perceived ease of use” positively affects students’ continuous usage intention. According to the results, students believe in useful teaching that promotes knowledge and skills. The ease of use of learning tools is key to whether they can learn successfully. Paying attention to the interaction and communication between students, so that students have a shared goal and participate in teamwork, is something that teachers must pay attention to in the course of operation. The professional vocabulary of the teaching content and the way of announcing information should avoid using difficult terminology, which is also a point to which teachers need to pay attention.

An empirical investigation of the utilitarian, social benefits in LBS information disclosure-The moderating effect of the gender based social role theory

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Locatability, personalization and social benefit affect information disclosure intention.

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Locatability shows the greatest impact on information disclosure intention in LBS.

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Locatability and personalization are more important for female users in predicting information disclosure intention.

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Social benefit has a more salient effect on information disclosure intention for male users than female users.

The prior studies on information disclosure in location-based services (LBS) suggested that the perceived benefits of information disclosure in LBS were manifested by three benefits, namely, locatability, personalization, and social benefits. The three benefits might affect information disclosure intention differently. As an extension, individual factors, such as gender, may affect the relationship. However, according to literature, little research has investigated on the combined influence of the three benefits on the information disclosure intention in LBS with the gender as a moderator. Based upon the self-determination and social role theories, this study intends to bridge the gap empirically. The hypotheses are largely supported by 215 respondents. Unexpectedly, the research findings show that for females, locatability and personalization are more important in predicting their information disclosure intention, whereas for males, the social benefit has more of an impact on information disclosure intention, which is opposite to the hypotheses and convention. Furthermore, the research findings indicate that the behaviors of males and females may conform to the roles distributed within a society of this information age rather than to the personalities of the individuals. Finally, the implications are presented.

A new recommendation system using map-reduce-based tournament empowered Whale optimization algorithm

In the era of Web 2.0, the data are growing immensely and is assisting E-commerce websites for better decision-making. Collaborative filtering, one of the prominent recommendation approaches, performs recommendation by finding similarity. However, this approach fails in managing large-scale datasets. To mitigate the same, an efficient map-reduce-based clustering recommendation system is presented. The proposed method uses a novel variant of the whale optimization algorithm, tournament selection empowered whale optimization algorithm, to attain the optimal clusters. The clustering efficiency of the proposed method is measured on four large-scale datasets in terms of F-measure and computation time. The experimental results are compared with state-of-the-art map-reduce-based clustering methods, namely map-reduce-based K-means, map-reduce-based bat algorithm, map-reduce-based Kmeans particle swarm optimization, map-reduce-based artificial bee colony, and map-reduce-based whale optimization algorithm. Furthermore, the proposed method is tested as a recommendation system on the publicly available movie-lens dataset. The performance validation is measured in terms of mean absolute error, precision and recall, over a different number of clusters. The experimental results assert that the proposed method is a permissive approach for the recommendation over large-scale datasets.

Examining the Effect of Overload on the MHealth Application Resistance Behavior of Elderly Users: An SOR Perspective

Aging has increased the burden of social medical care. Mobile health (mHealth) services provide an effective way to alleviate this pressure. However, the actual usage of mHealth services for elderly users is still very low. The extant studies mainly focused on elderly users’ mHealth adoption behavior, but resistance behavior has not been sufficiently explored by previous research. A present study tried to remedy this research gap by examining the effect of overload factors on the mHealth application resistance behavior based on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework. The results indicated that information overload and system feature overload of an mHealth application increased the fatigue and technostress of the elderly user, which further increased their resistance behavior. Meanwhile, we integrated the intergeneration support with the SOR model to identify the buffer factor of the elderly user’s resistance behavior. The results showed that intergenerational support not only directly decrease the elderly user’s mHealth application resistance behavior, but also moderates (weaken) the effects of fatigue and technostress on resistance behavior. The present study also provided several valuable theoretical and practical implications.

The effect of information privacy concern on users' social shopping intention

Purpose

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of information privacy concern on users' social shopping intention.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the 340 valid responses collected from a survey, structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to examine the research model.

Findings

The results indicated that while disposition to privacy positively affects privacy concern, both reputation and laws negatively affect privacy concern, which in turn decreases social shopping intention. In addition, trust partially mediates the effect of privacy concern on social shopping intention.

Research limitations/implications

The results imply that social commerce companies need to mitigate users' privacy concern in order to facilitate their shopping behavior.

Originality/value

This research disclosed that privacy concern receives a tripartite influence from users (disposition to privacy), platforms (reputation) and governments (laws). The results help us gain a complete understanding of information privacy concern mitigation in social shopping.

Examining User's Initial Trust Building in Mobile Online Health Community Adopting

Due to the high perceived risk, it is critical to foster users’ initial trust in the promotion of mobile online health community (MOHC) adoption. The present study focused on the role of two different trust elements and examined the initial trust building process based on elaboration likelihood model and trust transfer theory. The results indicated that initial trust in MOHC context was composed of two interrelated components: health service provider (doctor) and underlying technology (MOHC platform). Especially, the initial trust in MOHC platform exerted greater effects on adopting intention. Both performance-based cue (doctors’ information quality and interaction quality) and transfer-based cue (trust in the offline doctors’ health service) positively shaped the initial trust in doctor. Meanwhile, only the performance-based cue (MOHC platform’s information quality and service quality) has significant positive association with initial trust in MOHC platform. However, interpersonal recommend is insignificantly related to the initial trust in doctor. Trust in the mobile internet service is insignificantly related to the initial trust in MOHC platform.

How online reviews affect purchase intention: a new model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework

Purpose

The relationship between online reviews and purchase intention has been studied in previous research. However, there was little knowledge about the effect of information quality and the social presence of online reviews on purchase intention based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework. The purpose of this study is to explore the intrinsic relationship between the stimulus (perceived information quality and social presence) generated from online reviews and the response (purchase intention).

Design/methodology/approach

This study developed a research model by applying the S-O-R framework to test the proposed hypotheses. A combination of a web-based experiment and an online survey was employed to collect data. Hypotheses were empirically tested using Smart PLS.

Findings

The PLS analysis shows that both perceived information quality and the social presence of online reviews positively affect trust. Moreover, satisfaction with online reviews affects purchase intention, whereas trust has a positive impact on satisfaction, playing a mediating role between two stimuli and satisfaction. Besides, perceived information quality of positive online reviews is found to have a more significant impact on trust, satisfaction and purchase intention.

Originality/value

The results of this study are of great value for expanding both theoretical research and practical applications of online reviews in relation to purchase intention. This study with a new research model reveals the understanding of how the purchase intention will be motivated by online reviews. Meanwhile, the moderating effects and the mediating effects are also discussed.

Consumers' Decision-Making Process on Social Commerce Platforms: Online Trust, Perceived Risk, and Purchase Intentions

This study enhances the existing literature on the role of trust and online perceived risk in shaping consumer purchase decision-making in social commerce. The aim of this article is to investigate consumers' purchase decision-making process, the determinant components of social commerce purchase intentions and attitudes, the effect of perceived risk on intention to go shopping in online settings, and consumer trust and buying behavior on online retailing platforms. The insights obtained from our research extend current knowledge as regards determinants of consumer attitudes and intentions toward online purchases, consumers' perceived shopping risk and repurchase behavior when buying products online, and perceived consumer online trust and purchase decisions. Limited research has considered consumers' decision-making processes on social commerce platforms by investigating how their perceptual attitudes, behavioral intentions, and immediate gratifications affect the purchase of products and services online. Our study addresses this gap and extends prior research by focusing on the relationship between online consumer purchase intention, social commerce adoption behavior, and consumers' trust together with risk factors affecting online buying decisions, in light of the characteristics of source credibility. Our findings point toward important avenues of research on psychological determinants of consumer engagement in social media, decision mechanisms lying behind evaluation of prices, the types of perceived risk incurred, and online repurchasing behavior and intention on social commerce platforms. Subsequent directions should clarify whether adoption of mobile payment services may shape online consumers' impulsive buying behavior and decision-making, especially under the influence of online product reviews.

Sustainability of Government Microblog in China: Exploring Social Factors on Mobile Government Microblog Continuance

The sustainable development of mobile government social media depends citizens’ continued use. Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework and social response theory, the present study investigated the impacts of perceived similarity and anthropomorphic cues on citizens’ mobile government microblog continuance. A research model of mobile government microblog continuance was developed and empirical tested by using dataset collected from 428 mobile government microblog citizens in China. The results of structural equation modeling demonstrated that perceived similarity (including external similarity and internal similarity), and anthropomorphic cues (including social interaction value, visual appearance, and identity attractiveness), have positive influences on both cognitive and affective involvement, which further determinate mobile government microblog continuance. Considering the path coefficient and significant levels, the impact from affective involvement on mobile government microblog continuance is stronger that from cognitive involvement.