While many retailers have turned to omnichannel retailing to remain competitive, engaging customers across channels has become one of the biggest challenges they face. Drawing on social exchange ...theory, we proposed and tested a research model of customer engagement in the context of omnichannel retailing. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the research model with customers of two emerging omnichannel retailers, Apple (n = 269) and Kroger (n = 221). The results showed that channel integration quality dimensions (including breadth of channel-service choice, transparency of channel-service configuration, content consistency, and process consistency) positively influenced customer engagement which in turn led to positive word-of-mouth and repurchase intention. The research model was examined using both high-involvement products (e.g., Apple) and low-involvement products (e.g., Kroger) despite the varying effects of channel integration quality on customer engagement. This study adds to the growing body of knowledge on customer engagement vis-à-vis omnichannel retailing and provides retailers with actionable insights into engaging customers across channels.
•Examined the effects of channel integration quality on customer engagement.•Examined the effects of customer engagement on repurchase intention and positive word-of-mouth.•Tested the research model with customers of Apple and Kroger.•Demonstrated the crucial role of channel integration quality in shaping customer engagement.
Employees’ nonwork use of information technology (IT), or cyberslacking, is of growing concern due to its erosion of job performance and other negative organizational consequences. Research on ...cyberslacking antecedents has drawn on diverse theoretical perspectives, resulting in the lack of a cohesive explanation of cyberslacking. Further, prior studies have generally overlooked IT-specific variables. To address cyberslacking problems in organizations, as well as research gaps in the literature, we used a combination of a literature-based approach and a qualitative inquiry to develop a model of cyberslacking that includes a 2×2 typology of antecedents. The proposed model was tested and supported in a three-wave field study of 395 employees in a U.S. Fortune-100 organization. This study organizes antecedents from diverse research streams and validates their relative impact on cyberslacking, thus providing a cohesive theoretical explanation of cyberslacking. This study also incorporates contextualization (i.e., IT-specific factors) into theory development and enriches the IS literature by examining the nonwork aspects of IT use and their negative consequences to organizations. In addition, the results provide practitioners with insights into the nonwork use of IT in organizations, particularly regarding how they can take organizational action to mitigate cyberslacking and maintain employee productivity.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of inhibiting, motivating, and technological factors on users’ intention to participate in the sharing economy.
Design/methodology/approach
...A self-reported online survey was conducted among Uber users in Hong Kong. A total of 295 valid responses were collected. The research model was empirically tested using the structural equation modeling technique.
Findings
The results suggested that perceived risks, perceived benefits, trust in the platform, and perceived platform qualities were significant predictors of users’ intention to participate in Uber.
Research limitations/implications
This study bridged the research gaps in the sharing economy literature by examining the effects of perceived risks, perceived benefits, and trust in the platform on users’ intention to participate in the sharing economy. Moreover, this study enriched the extended valence framework by incorporating perceived platform qualities into the research model, responding to the calls for the inclusion of technological variables in information systems research.
Practical implications
The findings provided practitioners with insights into enhancing users’ intention to participate in the sharing economy.
Originality/value
This study presented one of the first attempts to systematically examine the effects of inhibiting, motivating, and technological factors on users’ intention to participate in the sharing economy.
•Blockchain improves the security of transactions and data exchanges.•Blockchain enhances the efficiency and the quality of communication.•Blockchain facilitates the expression of ...benevolence.•Blockchain increases the predictability of trading partners.•Hyperledger technologies offer configurational flexibility to businesses.
Blockchain technology has been advocated as a possible solution to enduring trust issues among trading partners in trade finance. We conducted in-depth interviews with industry experts to examine how blockchain technology influences the trust relationships among trading partners. Our results show that the technology enhances trust relationships by (1) improving the security of transactions and data exchanges, (2) facilitating the expression of benevolence, (3) enhancing the efficiency and the quality of communication, and (4) increasing the predictability of trading partners. The paper concludes with implications for both research and practice.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative impacts of perceived cost, perceived benefits, and social influence on self-disclosure behaviors in social networking sites under an ...integrated theoretical framework.
Design/methodology/approach
– Building upon social exchange theory and privacy calculus theory, an integrated model was developed. The model was tested empirically using a sample of 405 social networking site’s users. Users were required to complete a survey regarding self-disclosure behaviors in Facebook.
Findings
– The results indicate that social influence is the factor which exhibits the strongest effect on self-disclosure in social networking sites, followed by perceived benefits. Surprisingly, perceived privacy risk does not have any significant impact on self-disclosure.
Research limitations/implications
– The results inform researchers about the importance to incorporate social influence factors and cultural factors into future online self-disclosure study.
Practical implications
– The results suggest that users focus on the benefits as well as social influence when they decide to reveal personal information in social networking sites, but pay less attention to the potential privacy risks. Educators are advised to launch educational programs to raise students’ awareness to the potential risks of self-disclosure in social networking sites. Service providers of social networking sites are encouraged to provide intuitive privacy indices showing users the levels of privacy protection.
Originality/value
– This paper is one of the first to develop and empirically tests an integrated model of self-disclosure in social networking sites.
Massively multiplayer online role‐playing game (MMORPG) addiction presents a serious issue worldwide and has attracted increasing attention from academic and other public communities. This article ...addresses this critical issue and fills research gaps by proposing and testing a research model of MMORPG addiction. Building on the conceptual foundation of the hedonic management model of addiction and the technology affordance perspective, we develop a research model explaining how MMORPG affordances (ie, achievement, social and immersion affordances) are associated with the duality of hedonic effects (ie, perceived positive mood enhancement and perceived negative mood reduction) and the extent of MMORPG addiction. Using structural equation modelling, we empirically test our research model with 406 MMORPG players. The results show that both perceived positive mood enhancement and perceived negative mood reduction positively correlate with the extent of MMORPG addiction. Furthermore, achievement and immersion affordances are positively associated with the duality of hedonic effects, whereas social affordance is not. Our study contributes to the growing body of technology addiction literature by revealing the relationships between the two hedonic effects and the extent of MMORPG addiction, and by offering a contextualised explanation of the role of MMORPG affordances in these relationships. We offer an alternative perspective on the far‐reaching, unintended relationships between technological affordances and addictive technology use. Our study provides game developers and policymakers with insights into preventing MMORPG addiction to create an entertaining, healthy virtual playground.
Information Technology in Organisations and Societies: Multidisciplinary Perspectives from AI to Technostressconsolidates studies on key issues and phenomena concerning the positive and negative ...aspects of IT use as well as prescribing future research avenues in related research.
Bystanders Join in Cyberbullying on Social Networking Sites: The Deindividuation and Moral Disengagement Perspectives
Cyberbullying on social networking sites escalates when bystanders join in the ...bullying. Bystanders’ joining-in behaviors reinforce the abuse, expose victims to a larger audience, and encourage further abuse by signaling their approval of the aggressive behavior. This study developed an integrative model that explains bystanders’ joining-in cyberbullying behaviors on SNSs to offer actionable insights into reducing such harmful behaviors. We tested the model using 1,179 responses using a scenario survey study. Our findings suggest that IT artifacts (including digital profile, search and privacy, relational ties, and network transparency) activated two key mechanisms that lead to cyberbullying joining-in behaviors: (i) the deindividuation experiences that attenuate self-identity and put salience on group/social identity, and (ii) the moral disengagement practices that permit the exercise of cognitive maneuvers to justify group-interested choices that do not align with social standard. The findings explain why people who do not know each other gang up to bully a target on social media. Platform owners who wish to discourage bystanders from joining in undesirable activities may consider regulating how users could share and access digital resources in a social network and should acknowledge the influence of social identity in igniting, driving, and prolonging harmful online group behaviors.
Cyberbullying on social networking sites (SNSs) escalates when bystanders join in the bullying. Although researchers have recognized the harmful consequences of joining in cyberbullying behaviors, little is known about the role of information technology (IT) and its underlying mechanisms in fueling such negative group behavior on SNSs. To address this research gap, we develop and test an integrative model that explains
bystanders’ joining-in cyberbullying behaviors on SNSs
. Based on the theoretical premises of the social identity model of deindividuation effects (the SIDE model), we derive two deindividuation experiences enabled by SNSs, namely
experienced anonymity
and
experienced social identity
. We further use the social network research framework to gain insights into how IT features (i.e., digital profile, search and privacy, relational ties, and network transparency) enable these two deindividuation experiences. Considering the socially undesirable nature of joining-in behaviors, we integrate the SIDE model with moral disengagement theory to explain how deindividuation experiences allow bystanders to bypass their psychological discomfort when engaging in such behaviors through the practice of
moral disengagement
mechanisms. Our research model is tested using a scenario survey, with two samples recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and Facebook. Our results support the influences of IT-enabled deindividuation experiences on bystanders joining in cyberbullying and demonstrate the mediating effects of moral disengagement mechanisms in bridging the effects of deindividuation experiences on joining-in behaviors. For researchers, the integrative view offers a conceptual bridge connecting IT features, deindividuation, moral disengagement, and negative online group behaviors on SNSs. For practitioners, our findings provide platform owners and governmental agencies with directions on how to mitigate cyberbullying on SNSs and other forms of deviant and undesirable online group behaviors.
History:
Yulin Fang, Senior Editor; J.J. Po-An Hsieh, Associate Editor.
Funding:
This work was substantially supported by a Senior Research Fellow Scheme Award, Research Grant Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China Grant HKBU SRFS2021-2H03; and partially supported by grants from the General Research Fund, Research Grant Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China Grants HKBU12511016 and HKBU12500020.
Supplemental Material:
The online appendices are available at
https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1161
.
Cyberdeviance, intentional use of information technology (IT) in the workplace that is contrary to the explicit and implicit norms of the organization and that threatens the well-being of the ...organization and/or its members, is an important research stream that has gained attention in academia and industry. Prior studies have treated different forms of cyberdeviance as different phenomena, resulting in a lack of a collective underlying conceptualization of cyberdeviance. This work inductively and empirically derives a typology of cyberdeviance with 439 respondents across three phases. Our results suggest that cyberdeviance varies along 3 dimensions: cyberdeviant behaviors that are minor versus serious; cyberdeviant behaviors that target individuals versus organizations; and cyberdeviant behaviors that require low versus high technical skill. We thus provide a comprehensive framework that fosters a logical linkage of various research programs related to cyberdeviance to guide future research investigation. The typology will help managers to distinguish different cyberdeviant behaviors and implement suitable interventions depending on the behavior.
Social media firestorms pose a significant challenge for firms in the digital age. Tackling firestorms is difficult because the judgments and responses from social media users are influenced by not ...only the nature of the transgressions but also by the reactions and opinions of other social media users. Drawing on the heuristic-systematic information processing model, we propose a research model to explain the effects of social impact (the heuristic mode) and argument quality and moral intensity (the systematic mode) on perceptions of firm wrongness (the judgment outcome) as well as the effects of perceptions of firm wrongness on vindictive complaining and patronage reduction. We adopted a mixed methods approach in our investigation, including a survey, an experiment, and a focus group study. Our findings show that the heuristic and systematic modes of information processing exert both direct and interaction effects on individuals’ judgment. Specifically, the heuristic mode of information processing dominates overall and also biases the systematic mode. Our study advances the literature by offering an alternative explanation for the emergence of social media firestorms and identifying a novel context in which the heuristic mode dominates in dual information processing. It also sheds light on the formulation of response strategies to mitigate the adverse impacts resulting from social media firestorms. We conclude our paper with limitations and future research directions.
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