•A research model based on S-O-R framework is proposed to examine the factors that influence health information avoidance intention during the COVID-19 pandemic.•Information avoidance in the COVID-19 ...pandemic is determined by consumers’ negative affect: sadness, anxiety, and cognitive dissonance.•Information avoidance intention influences consumers’ subsequent intentions of taking preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.•Consumer's negative affect is influenced by perceived threat and perceived information overload during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This study investigated consumers’ information-avoidance behavior in the context of a public health emergency—the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Guided by the stimulus-organism-response paradigm, it proposes a model for exploring the effects of external stimuli (perceived threat and perceived information overload) related to COVID-19 on consumers’ internal states (sadness, anxiety, and cognitive dissonance) and their subsequent behavioral intentions to avoid health information and engage in preventive behaviors. With a survey sample (N = 721), we empirically examined the proposed model and tested the hypotheses. The results indicate that sadness, anxiety, and cognitive dissonance, which were a result of perceived threat and perceived information overload, had heterogeneous effects on information avoidance. Anxiety and cognitive dissonance increased information avoidance intention, while sadness decreased information avoidance intention. Moreover, information avoidance predicted a reluctance on the part of consumers to engage in preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings not only contribute to the information behavior literature and extend the concept of information avoidance to a public health emergency context, but also yield practical insights for global pandemic control.
PurposeAlthough leveraging social media to access healthcare information is nothing new, a boom in short video apps offers new potential for disseminating health-related information. However, it is ...still unclear how short video apps might facilitate and benefit users’ consumption of health information. Furthermore, the technology features of short video apps complicate attempts to conduct research about them; as a consequence, they have been understudied. For addressing these concerns, this study adopts an affordance perspective to investigate the relationship between affordances and user experience and to examine factors that contribute to users’ intention to continue using short video apps to obtain health information.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon affordance theory, we constructed a research model that integrates four types of affordances (livestreaming, searching, meta-voicing and recommending), three types of user experience (immersion, social presence and credibility perception), and user’s intention to continue use. We employed an online survey and obtained a sample of 372 valid responses from TikTok (DouYin) users in China. The partial least squares (PLS) method was used to analyze the data.FindingsThe study found that the user experience, in terms of social presence, immersion and credibility perception, can significantly predict users’ intention to continue using short video apps to obtain health information. Furthermore, the user experience was positively associated with the different affordances provided by the short video apps.Originality/valueThe findings of this study have several implications. First, the study contributes to the health information behavior literature by incorporating the aspect of user experience. Moreover, the study extends the application of affordance theory to users’ health information acquisition, and it carries some practical implications on how to leverage the great potential of short video apps to serve public health communication better.
Livestream shopping, a novel business model, has demonstrated great potential in social media marketing. Unlike traditional live broadcasting, livestream shopping enables real-time interactions ...between online streamers and customers and creates an immersive and inspiring space for transactions. This study investigates how livestream shopping cultivates customer inspiration and enhances customer engagement. Our results show that states of inspiration positively influenced customers' intention to engage in livestream shopping. Customer inspiration consisted of two interrelated stages – “inspired by” and “inspired to.” The state “inspired by” was triggered by external stimuli, while the state “inspired to” exerted influence on consumers’ motivational intentions. Our results suggest that, during streamer-viewer interactions in livestream shopping, content-related characteristics (i.e., content diagnosticity, vicarious expression, and source credibility) and scene-related characteristics (i.e., social presence and telepresence) significantly facilitated customer inspiration. This study enriches our understanding of the role of inspiration in livestream shopping and social media marketing, and offers practical insights for the streamers and marketers of livestream shopping platforms.
Freemium open-world games have become one of the most profitable game genres through the sale of in-game items. However, despite the apparent commercial success of the freemium approach to open-world ...games, the antecedents of players' in-game purchase intention have been understudied. In this study, we built a theoretical framework based on cognitive absorption (CA) theory to understand the mechanism underlying players' in-game purchase intention in open-world games. Several hypotheses were proposed regarding how CA was formed and how CA's influence on in-game purchase intention might be moderated by motivational affordances (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness). These hypotheses were tested by partial least-squares structural equation modeling, using a sample of 490 valid responses among open-world game players. The results suggest that CA significantly increased players' in-game purchase intention, which is strengthened by two motivational affordances (i.e., autonomy and competence). In addition, personal innovativeness, playfulness, and perceived affective quality are verified as important determinants of CA in open-world games. We discuss the related theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
•The order of entry has a U-shaped influence on firm performance in online IT service markets.•This nonlinear entry timing effect holds with different performance metrics.•Market growth moderates ...this nonlinear entry timing effect, but market concentration does not.
Market entry timing, which is also known as entry order, has been proven to significantly influence firm performance under different circumstances. The inherent nature of the online context and IT services complicates the relationship between entry timing and firm performance. This study empirically examined entry timing effects in the online IT service market and the moderating effects of market characteristics. With a unique dataset collected from an online IT service platform, we discovered that entry timing has a U-shaped effect on firm performance: both early and late entry resulted in superior performance to that of intermediate entry. We also revealed that market growth moderates these curvilinear entry timing effects, with both early and late entrants benefiting more in high-growth markets than they did in low-growth markets. The results of this research enrich the relevant entry timing theories by examining entry timing effects in emerging marketplaces and the contingencies of markets.
PurposeWhile anonymous online interactions could be helpful and less risky, they are usually not enough for LGBTQ+ people to satisfy the need of expressing their marginalized identity to networks of ...known ties (i.e. on identified social media like Facebook, WeChat, and TikTok). However, identified social media bring LGBTQ+ people both sources and challenges like “context collapse” that flattens diverse networks or audiences that are originally separated. Previous studies focus on LGBTQ+ people's disclosure and responses to context collapse, few studies investigate how their perceptions of context collapse are shaped and their privacy management beyond regulating disclosure on social media. Drawing on identity theory and communication privacy management (CPM), this study aims to investigate how the need of LGBTQ+ people for self-identity affects their perceived context collapse and results in privacy management on identified social media.Design/methodology/approachGiven the target population is LGBTQ+ people, The authors recruited participants through active LGBTQ+ online communities, influential LGBTQ+ activists, and the snowballing sampling. The authors empirically examined the proposed model using the PLS-SEM technique with a valid sample of 232 respondents concerning their identity practices and privacy management on WeChat, a typical and popular identified social media in China.FindingsThe results suggested that the need for expressing the self and the need for maintaining continuity of self-identity have significant influences on perceived context collapse, but vary in directions. The perceived context collapse will motivate LGBTQ+ individuals to engage in privacy management to readjust rules on ownership, access, and extension. However, only ownership management helps them regain the perceived privacy control on social media.Originality/valueThis study incorporated and highlighted the influence of LGBTQ+ identity in shaping context collapse and online privacy management. This study contributes to the literature on privacy and information communication and yields practical implications, especially on improving privacy-related interactive design for identified social media services.
Value co‐creation as a research topic has been a critical proposition of interest to a wide range of disciplines. In recent years, the field of cultural heritage has also developed a range of ...information practices to promote different forms of value co‐creation. While the body of literature has begun to accumulate, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of conceptual foundations and how value co‐creation is implemented in cultural heritage information practices. This paper conducted a hermeneutic literature review to understand and conceptualize the core aspects of value co‐creation in various cultural heritage information works. In particular, this paper provides a research mapping of the genres of co‐creation in cultural heritage information practices, the actors, and the roles played by the stakeholders. Further, this review provides an overview of the dominant value co‐creation models in the cultural heritage field. It distills the drivers of value co‐creation and the core value consequences that arise from a process perspective. Finally, this paper puts forward a thematic, theoretical, and methodological agenda for future work based on these findings. The review contributes to the literature by proposing an integrated conceptual framework that summarizes the core elements of value co‐creation in cultural heritage information practices. The framework also serves as a call for action, providing a general understanding of the conceptual foundation for future research.
PurposeHedonic social applications have been increasingly popular among health information consumers. However, it remains unclear what motivates consumers to adopt health information in hedonic ...applications when they have alternative choices of more formal health information sources. Building on the self-determination theory and the affordances lens, this study aims to investigate how different affordances on hedonic social applications affect consumers' basic psychological needs and further influence their intention to adopt health information on such applications.Design/methodology/approachAs TikTok demonstrated great potential in disseminating health information, we developed a model that we analyze using the PLS-SEM technique with data collected from a valid research sample of 384 respondents with health information seeking or encountering experience in TikTok.FindingsThe results suggested that health information adoption in hedonic social applications is significantly predicted by the satisfaction of consumers' basic psychological needs, namely autonomy, relatedness and competence. Moreover, the satisfaction of basic psychological needs is positively affected by affordances provided by the hedonic social applications. The hedonic affordances positively influence autonomy satisfaction, while the connective affordances positively affect relatedness satisfaction, and the utilitarian affordances positively support competence satisfaction.Originality/valueThe study indicates that hedonic social applications such as TikTok could be an important channel for consumers to access and adopt health information. The study contributes to the literature by proposing a theoretical model that explains consumers' health information adoption and yields practical implications for designers and service providers of hedonic social applications.
•Online sampling could increase sales of physical products by 41.6% than those without sampling.•Popular brands enjoyed greater advantages in terms of increase in both immediate and lagged sales.•The ...dominant effect of online product sampling may not lie in offering a direct trial experience to induce purchase; rather, an advertising effect may be equally, if not more, important for this strategy.
Recently, firms start to offer samples of physical products online to reach wider audience. However, literature has mostly examined offline product sampling or online sampling of digital products that differ from physical products. To address the gaps, we build on the theoretical logic of uncertainty reduction and signaling perspective to consider physical product characteristics in developing our hypotheses, and employed a unique dataset from an e-commerce platform for hypothesis testing. Our analysis reveals that online sampling could increase the physical product sales, while popular brands enjoyed greater advantages in terms of increase in both immediate and lagged sales.
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