Local Impact of Global Crises, Institutional Trust, and Consumer Well-Being: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic

The mechanisms that make social media effective in building citizens’ trust on local government

Purpose

Focusing on municipalities, this study aims to examine whether citizens’ engagement with local public administration activities on Facebook can have a positive effect on citizens’ trust.

Design/methodology/approach

Using data from 333 citizens and resorting to structural equation modelling, a conceptual model is tested.

Findings

The results show that communicating directly with citizens through social media can enhance the citizens’ involvement in social issues and their identification with their city council. The effect of citizen engagement on trust propensity is mediated by citizens’ identification with the city council and by citizens’ involvement in social issues.

Practical implications

The study provides a conceptual model that can be used by practitioners to improve practices that enhance citizen engagement and build trust in the local government. City councils should promote activities on social media that encourage identification and citizens’ involvement. Furthermore, the findings suggest that municipalities can increase trust by involving citizens in social issues.

Originality/value

This study contributes to a better understanding of the government social media phenomenon, highlighting and empirically testing the effect of citizen engagement on institutional trust. In doing so, a process to build citizens’ trust in their city council through social media is unpacked. The findings show that communicating directly with citizens through social media can enhance the citizens’ involvement in social issues and their identification with the city council. The important role of identification to build institutional trust is emphasized.

The Roles of Legacy Versus Social Media Information Seeking in American and Chinese Consumers’ Hoarding During COVID-19

Through two studies conducted with cross-cultural samples (the United States and China), this research examines the psychological mechanism of consumer hoarding during COVID-19. Findings from Study 1 suggest that consumer hoarding is differently affected by legacy and social media information seeking, perceived scarcity, and scarcity attributions in the United States versus China. For China, while social media information seeking has a negative downstream relationship to hoarding, legacy media information seeking has a positive relationship with hoarding. In the United States, only social media information seeking has a positive relationship with hoarding. Further, these effects are significant when consumers attribute the scarcity responsibility to insufficient supply but not high demand. Study 2 shows that when the cause of scarcity is stated directly, perceived scarcity increases hoarding intention for Chinese consumers when the scarcity cause is due to supply but not demand, whereas U.S. consumers’ hoarding intention does not vary with the scarcity cause. The findings underscore cross-cultural differences in how legacy and social media information seeking influence consumer hoarding and highlight implications for situations in which hoarding is likely.