Along with the growth of Internet and electronic commerce, online consumer reviews have become an... more Along with the growth of Internet and electronic commerce, online consumer reviews have become an important source of information that assists consumers to make purchase decision. However, theoretical development and empirical testing in this area of research are still limited, which greatly hinder us from understanding the influence of online reviews. Drawing upon the heuristic-systematic model from the literature of dual-process theories, we develop a research model to identify factors that are important to consumers' purchase decisionmaking. The model is empirically tested with 191 users of an existing online review site. We find that argument quality of online reviews (systematic factor), which is characterized by perceived informativeness and perceived persuasiveness, has a significant effect on consumers' purchase intention. In addition, we find that source credibility and perceived quantity of reviews (heuristic factors) have direct impacts on purchase intention. The two heuristic factors further demonstrate positive influences on argument strength. This result is consistent with the proposition of bias effect in the heuristic-systematic model, which elucidates the interrelationship between heuristic and systematic factors. Based on the findings, we discuss implications for both researchers and practitioners.
We examine consumer participation and gender differences on companies’ microblogs.We find that pa... more We examine consumer participation and gender differences on companies’ microblogs.We find that participation is predicted by trust and commitment.Self-congruence and partner quality are found to affect trust and commitment.The effects of self-congruence and trust are stronger for male consumers.The effects of partner quality and commitment are stronger for female consumers.This paper presents a research model to explicate that the level of consumers’ participation on companies’ brand microblogs is influenced by their brand attachment process. That is, self-congruence and partner quality affect consumers’ trust and commitment toward companies’ brands, which in turn influence participation on brand microblogs. Further, we propose that gender has important moderating effects in our research model. We empirically test the research hypotheses through an online survey. The findings illustrate that self-congruence and partner quality have positive effects on trust and commitment. Trust affects commitment and participation, while participation is also influenced by commitment. More importantly, the effects of self-congruence on trust and commitment are found to be stronger for male consumers than females. In contrast, the effects of partner quality on trust and commitment are stronger for female consumers than males. Trust posits stronger effects on commitment and participation for males, while commitment has a stronger effect on participation for females. We believe that our findings contribute to the literature on consumer participation behavior and gender differences on brand microblogs. Companies can also apply our findings to strengthen their brand building and participation level of different consumers on their microblogs.
Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2008), 2008
Attracting new bloggers and retaining existing bloggers are crucial to blog service providers. In... more Attracting new bloggers and retaining existing bloggers are crucial to blog service providers. In this study, we investigated several factors that affect bloggers' intention to switch their blog services. Based upon previous research on relationship marketing and the push-pull-mooring framework in migration literature, we interpreted three antecedents in terms of their push, pull, and mooring effects. An online survey was conducted to validate our research model. Findings suggested that satisfaction is the strongest factor toward switching intention, followed by attractive alternatives and switching costs. We believe that the implications of this study will provide valuable and important insights to both researchers and practitioners.
The recent prevalence of wiki applications has demonstrated that wikis have high potential in fac... more The recent prevalence of wiki applications has demonstrated that wikis have high potential in facilitating knowledge creation, sharing, integration, and utilization. As wikis are increasingly adopted in contexts like business, education, research, government, and the public, how to improve user contribution becomes an important concern for researchers and practitioners. In this research, we focus on the quality aspect of user contribution: contribution value. Building upon the critical mass theory and research on editing activities in wikis, this study investigates whether user interests and resources can increase contribution value for different types of users. We develop our research model and empirically test it using survey method and content analysis method in Wikipedia. The results demonstrate that (1) for users who emphasize substantive edits, depth of interests and depth of resources play more influential roles in affecting contribution value; and (2) for users who focus on non-substantive edits, breadth of interests and breadth of resources are more important in increasing contribution value. The findings suggest that contribution value develops in different patterns for two types of users. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.
Blog has become an increasingly popular form of social networking technology in recent years. Man... more Blog has become an increasingly popular form of social networking technology in recent years. Many world famous web sites (e.g., Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google) are providing blog services on the Internet. Bloggers, therefore, can easily establish and maintain their blogs through such services. However, research on blogs' adoption and diffusion is rare. In this study, we attempt to study bloggers' post-adoption behaviors. We examine bloggers' intention to switch their blog services by building upon studies in the marketing and IS literature. Particularly, the role of gender is explored and an online survey is conducted to test the research model. Findings confirm that bloggers' intention to switch their blog services is strongly associated with three factors: satisfaction, sunk costs, and attractive alternatives. Meanwhile, moderating effects are found in gender, but not in sunk costs. Implications for both researchers and practitioners are provided.
2010 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2010
Online shopping is associated with various uncertain issues. In this sense, researchers have foun... more Online shopping is associated with various uncertain issues. In this sense, researchers have found that trust plays an important role in affecting consumers' purchase behavior. As advances of Internet technology, many consumers tend to read online messages about others' shopping experiences before making purchasing decisions. Thus, informational social influence affects in the decision-making process as well. However, few studies have provided in-depth examination of both impacts from trust and informational social influence in online context. In this study, we explore the moderating effect of informational social influence in a trust-based online shopping model. We conduct a laboratory experiment to verify this model, and find that emotional trust mediates relationships between three trusting beliefs (competence, benevolence, and integrity) and purchase intention. Further, information inconsistency, a particular form of informational social influence, is found to strengthen the relationship between emotional trust and purchase intention. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 2014
A number of companies have been creating accounts on microblogging sites to promote products/bran... more A number of companies have been creating accounts on microblogging sites to promote products/brands and communicate with customers. In this study, we attempt to understand the factors that may drive online users to follow companies' microblogs. We develop a research model through the perspective of elaboration likelihood model. Users' following behaviour is explained through three levels of participation: reading messages, forwarding messages and commenting on messages of companies' microblogs. We propose that information quality and source credibility are two key antecedents in the model. In addition, we extend the model by considering the impact of similarity on users' following behaviour. We empirically test our model by collecting data from an existing microblogging site in China. The results show that most of the hypotheses are supported. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.
International Journal of Information Management, 2013
The recent prevalence of wiki applications has demonstrated that wikis have high potential in fac... more The recent prevalence of wiki applications has demonstrated that wikis have high potential in facilitating knowledge creation, sharing, integration, and utilization. As wikis are increasingly adopted in contexts like business, education, research, government, and the public, how to improve user contribution becomes an important concern for researchers and practitioners. In this research, we focus on the quality aspect of user contribution: contribution value. Building upon the critical mass theory and research on editing activities in wikis, this study investigates whether user interests and resources can increase contribution value for different types of users. We develop our research model and empirically test it using survey method and content analysis method in Wikipedia. The results demonstrate that (1) for users who emphasize substantive edits, depth of interests and depth of resources play more influential roles in affecting contribution value; and (2) for users who focus on non-substantive edits, breadth of interests and breadth of resources are more important in increasing contribution value. The findings suggest that contribution value develops in different patterns for two types of users. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.
Blog has become an increasingly popular form of social networking technology in recent years. Man... more Blog has become an increasingly popular form of social networking technology in recent years. Many world famous web sites (e.g., Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google) are providing blog services on the Internet. Bloggers, therefore, can easily establish and maintain their blogs through such services. However, research on blogs' adoption and diffusion is rare. In this study, we attempt to study bloggers' post-adoption behaviors. We examine bloggers' intention to switch their blog services by building upon studies in the marketing and IS literature. Particularly, the role of gender is explored and an online survey is conducted to test the research model. Findings confirm that bloggers' intention to switch their blog services is strongly associated with three factors: satisfaction, sunk costs, and attractive alternatives. Meanwhile, moderating effects are found in gender, but not in sunk costs. Implications for both researchers and practitioners are provided.
International Journal of Information Management, 2014
The prevalence of social media has provided consumers with many opportunities to post online revi... more The prevalence of social media has provided consumers with many opportunities to post online reviews on a wide range of products on the Internet. In this study, we attempt to investigate the moderating effect of inconsistent reviews (i.e., a mix of positive and negative reviews) on consumers' purchase decision. We further examine whether the effect will differ from female to male consumers.
Uploads
Papers by Kem Zhang