What facilitates and constrains value co-creation in online communities: A sociomateriality perspective

Continuous adoption of online healthcare platforms: an extension to the expectation confirmation model and network externalities

BACKGROUND

Online healthcare platforms (OHPs) promote the accessibility of health services while integrating online and offline service delivery. Continuous adoption of these platforms can reduce the information asymmetry between patients and healthcare providers. However, existing study has rarely focused on how the network externalities of these platforms influence patients' continuous adoption. Expectation Confirmation Model (ECM) explains the continuous behavior after initial adoption and reveal the factors influencing satisfaction and continuous adoption intention. Few studies have integrated network externalities with the ECM to understand patients' continuous adoption of OHPs.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to explore what factors affect the continuous adoption of OHPs based on an extension to the ECM and network externalities. We propose a comprehensive model for the continuous adoption of OHPs by patients with chronic diseases. We extend the conceptual framework by incorporating constructs related to perceived value, habits, and switching costs.

METHODS

This study utilized a web-based survey to collect data from participants in China. We selected a sample of individuals who had experience with OHPs using a random sampling method. This method ensured that participants was randomly chosen from a pool of patients without any regional bias. A total of 568 questionnaires were collected and 518 valid questionnaires were obtained. Structural equation modeling was applied to assess the relationships among the constructs. Hierarchical regression analysis was utilized to examine the moderating effects, while the mediating effects were investigated using the bootstrapping approach.

RESULTS

Direct network externality had significant positive impacts on the confirmation (β = 0.232, p < 0.001) and perceived value (β = 0.167, p < 0.010). Cross network externality had significant positive impacts on confirmation (β = 0.307, p < 0.001) and perceived value (β = 0.120, p < 0.05). Indirect network externality had significant positive impacts on confirmation (β = 0.169, p < 0.010) and perceived value (β = 0.270, p < 0.001). Confirmation had a significant positive impact on perceived value (β = 0.205, p < 0.001) and satisfaction (β = 0.508, p < 0.001). In addition, satisfaction had a significant positive impact on continuous adoption intention (β = 0.579, p < 0.001). Continuous adoption intention had a significant positive impact on continuous adoption behavior (β = 0.547, p < 0.001). Confirmation and perceived value significantly mediate the relationship between network externalities and satisfaction. Moreover, both confirmation and perceived value enhance continuous adoption intention by positively influencing satisfaction, which serves as a mediator. Additionally, confirmation directly influences satisfaction through the mediating role of perceived value. Habits and switching costs positively moderate the relationship between continuous adoption intention and behavior.

CONCLUSIONS

This study contributes by expanding the incorporation of network externalities into the ECM. Results enrich the existing literature on the continuous adoption of professional online platforms.

Patient Engagement as Contributors in Online Health Communities: The Mediation of Peer Involvement and Moderation of Community Status

This study focuses on patient engagement in online health communities (OHCs) and investigates the mechanism related to the impact of social support provided by patients on their personal engagement. Based on social support theory, we put forward a research model and conduct empirical analysis using datasets of 4797 patients with 160,484 posts and 1,647,569 replies from an online health community in China. The mediation of peer involvement and moderation of community status are also examined. The results indicate that the subdimensions of social support positively influence patient engagement with informational support exerting the greatest impact. Peer patient involvement imposes significant partial and positive mediating effects on the relationships, especially on informational support. Community status negatively moderates the impacts of social interactions and informational support on patient engagement in that the influence of social interactions and informational support are more profound for patients with low community status. The findings can bring an understanding of patient engagement in OCHs, and provide theoretical and practical implications to facilitate the development of an online healthcare service.

Effects of Professional Virtual Community Attributes and Flow Experience on Information Sharing Among Chinese Young Netizens: A Fuzzy-Set QCA

Purpose

As an important channel to search and share information, professional virtual community (PVC) has become one of the main channels for Chinese young netizens to search information and socialize. However, despite many researches on PVC have been conducted in various fields, there is still a lack of researches on young netizens in China, who are in the stage of online social networking booming with countless PVCs but many of them are non-effective. Moreover, there are few studies to explore explicit paths to obtain the effective information sharing or sustainable development of PVC. Therefore, based on this research gap and social cognitive theory, this study explored PVC information sharing among Chinese young netizens combining the external factors and the individual factors, and attempted to obtain the paths to the effective PVC information sharing.

Methods

An online survey was conducted through snowball sampling in China, and 407 samples from 15 different PVCs were confirmed. By using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) with software fs/QCA 3.0, this study attempted to explore the casual configurations that achieve high and non-high effectiveness of PVC information sharing among Chinese young netizens.

Results

Three types of equivalent configurations that can achieve high effectiveness of PVC information sharing are obtained; Four types of equivalent configurations that can achieve non-high effectiveness of PVC information sharing are obtained. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the expertise of PVC and challenge-skill balance of members are the primary factors in PVC information sharing.

Conclusion

The findings of this study provide that the paths to high and non-high effectiveness of PVC information sharing, which is beneficial to the management and development of PVC. Furthermore, it is helpful for netizens to find and enjoy the PVCs with high quality when they need them. The management of public opinion and how to design web pages to improve the user experience can also be carried out from this perspective.

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.

Orchestrating value co-creation in online communities as fluid organisations: firm roles and value creation mechanisms

Purpose

The lack of authority of the sponsoring firm in online communities raises questions about how to orchestrate members of an online community in value co-creation. Hence, this study aims to examine how online communities co-create value with community members. The authors draw upon service-dominant logic (SDL) to study two comparable, and yet different, Indonesian firm-sponsored online communities.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors build on an earlier systematic literature review and triangulate it with semi-structured interviews of 28 community members and content analysis of over 35,000 online comments. The data collection was conducted from February to October 2018.

Findings

The findings revealed that (1) value co-creation in online communities is orchestrated through the fluidity of the online community, which is represented by three mechanisms: consensus-making, consensus settlement and changing boundaries, and (2) the mechanisms can be conditioned by switching firm roles (as a co-creator and facilitator).

Research limitations/implications

The study has enriched the body of knowledge in fluid organisations by explicating three mechanisms, consensus-making, consensus settlement and changing boundaries, that explain the coordination efforts between individuals who have options to participate or not and changing boundaries, that reveals actors' responses in online communities. The mechanisms demonstrate the dynamics of a service ecosystem.

Originality/value

This study offers valuable insights into how sponsoring firms orchestrate value creation in online communities where they do not have full control of participants' reactions. The authors hereby contribute to enriching the understanding of co-creating value with customers in a fluid organisation, such as online communities.