Psychological elements explaining the consumer's adoption and use of a website recommendation system: A theoretical framework proposal

The purpose of this paper is to understand, with an emphasis on the psychological perspective of the research problem, the consumer's adoption and use of a certain web site recommendation system as well as the main psychological outcomes involved. The approach takes the form of theoretical modelling. Findings: A conceptual model is proposed and discussed. A total of 20 research propositions are theoretically analyzed and justified. Research limitations/implications: The theoretical discussion developed here is not empirically validated. This represents an opportunity for future research. Practical implications: The ideas extracted from the discussion of the conceptual model should be a help for recommendation systems designers and web site managers, so that they may be more aware, when working with such systems, of the psychological process consumers undergo when interacting with them. In this regard, numerous practical reflections and suggestions are presented

Supporting user interaction and social relationship formation in a collaborative online shopping context

The combination of online shopping and social media allow people with similar shopping interests and experiences to share, comment, and discuss about shopping from anywhere and at any time, which also leads to the emergence of online shopping communities. Today, more people turn to online platforms to share their opinions about products, solicit various opinions from their friends, family members, and other customers, and have fun through interactions with others with similar interests. This dissertation explores how collaborative online shopping presents itself as a context and platform for users\u27 interpersonal interactions and social relationship formation through a series of studies. First, a qualitative interview study shows that online shoppers believe that shopping-related interactions have a positive impact on their social bonds. However, there is uncertainty around the appropriateness of discussing shopping in online marketplaces, forums, and social networking sites between strangers and friends. These uncertainties act as strong deterrents that limit further interactions between users with shared shopping interests. Next, a mix of lab experiments and focus groups demonstrate how informational support and social support affect user participation and relationships, the impact of social structure on interpersonal relationship formation between community members, and the development of desire to be socially connected with others through real-time text conversations on shopping topics. Moreover, a combination of interviews, focus groups, and online survey identify four types of personas to help illustrate the complex nature of user participation and behaviors in online shopping communities: Opportunists, Contributors, Explorers, and Followers. Finally, an online experiment study with 50 participants implements problem-solving tasks to examine users’ relationship building in computer-mediated online shopping groups and the effects of interpersonal relationships on user behaviors in collaborative online shopping contexts. The results suggest that users may develop desire to be socially connected after working on implemented collaborative problem-solving tasks within the group, and the perceived social connectedness may encourage user engagement and contribution behaviors in online shopping groups and communities. The results also show that such help-giving, collaborative tasks lead to developing social capital and facilitating social support that have more significant impacts on user behaviors over the long term

Understanding User Participation and Interaction in Online Shopping Communities from the Social and Relational Perspectives

The combination of online shopping and social media has contributed to the increase of social shopping activities. Technological advancements allow people with similar interests and experience to share, comment, and discuss about shopping from anywhere and at any time, leading to the emergence of online shopping communities (OSCs). This study reports on lab experiments and focus groups with 24 participants who actively engage in OSCs. We identify how informational support and social support affect user participation and relationships, the impact of social structure on interpersonal relationship formation between community members, and the development of desire to be socially connected with others through real-time conversations. Based on the findings, we discuss a series of design recommendations to facilitate users\u27 emotional exchange and contribution behavior in OSCs, such as enhanced conversational interaction, and collaborative mini-tasks in a social shopping context

Different Views and Evaluations of IT Artifacts

The introduction and adoption of a multitude of new and interactive information technology (IT) artifacts has impacted adoption research. Rather than solely functioning as productivity tools, new IT artifacts assume the roles of interaction mediators and social actors. This paper describes these varying roles, and discusses the type of perceptions users form when using them. Further, the paper proposes and distinguishes between four foci of how the different types of artifacts are evaluated across cognitive, relational, social, and emotional beliefs. A theoretical model is developed that maps the different views of IT artifacts to the four distinct types of evaluations, and a number of propositions are presented

Multiformat Communication Strategies: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Investigation of Video Formats

Essay One was conducted to build a more complete view of bilateral, multiformat customer–firm communication. A review of communication theory builds a foundation for effective multiformat strategies across different exchange contexts (e.g., message complexity) and timing factors (e.g., relationship duration), while accounting for both positive and negative aspects of communication richness. Four perspectives on multiformat communication during exchange events suggest pertinent propositions and produce three parsimonious tenets. First, the authors propose a communication theory foundation for relationship marketing; second, they compile and synthesize extant research. Third, they identify six fundamental communication characteristics associated with different formats. Finally, they integrate insights from the previous perspectives into a single conceptual model to provide a more comprehensive view of multiformat communication. This conceptual framework can serve as a platform that academics and managers can use to develop effective communication strategies and thereby optimize customer experiences while simultaneously reducing firm costs and enhancing customer profitability and relationships. Essays Two and Three apply the characteristic-level insights derived in Essay One to a unilateral communication context, investigating whether, when and how the video format impacts performance, with four experimental studies. Consumers are increasingly watching online product videos without sound (no audio narration). Yet, managers have few insights into developing effective video marketing strategies, in the presence of this trend. In Essay Two, the authors first identify two distinct advantages of a video watched with sound, richness (greater message understanding) and vividness (greater message visualization), both of which have a positive impact on performance (Study 1). Next, the authors uncover that the vividness effect is important for consumers with hedonic shopping goals but not for those with utilitarian shopping goals (Studies 2a and 2b). In Essay Three, the authors find the richness effect is important for consumers with utilitarian shopping goals when they are visually distracted (Study 3). Finally, the authors find that adding text captions to the video, a frequently employed strategy, can backfire (Study 4). Adding text captions to a product video lowers message understanding and purchase intentions, when the video is still watched with sound. These findings have important theoretical and managerial implications

PROVIDER- VS. USER-GENERATED RECOMMENDATIONS ON E-COMMERCE WEBSITES – COMPARING COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE AND RELATIONAL EFFECTS

With the proliferation of recommendation functions (RF) on e-Commerce websites, there is growing confusion about how various RF types affect consumers’ beliefs and behavior. Despite the importance of understanding the differential effects of RF types, research focusing on the comparison between provider-generated recommendations (PGRs) and user-generated recommendations (UGRs) has received little attention. This paper reports on two empirical studies that examine the differential effects of PGRs and UGRs on cognitive, affective and relational aspects of consumer beliefs and show how these perceptions influence RF usage intentions. The findings from a field survey (N=366) and a laboratory experiment (N=161) indicate that UGRs (such as consumer reviews) have stronger impact on users’ trusting beliefs and perceived affective quality (i.e. on relational and affective perceptions respectively) than PGRs. Conversely, PGRs (such as collaborative filtering-based RFs) are superior to UGRs in affecting perceived usefulness (i.e. cognitive perceptions). Further, trusting beliefs and perceived affective quality were found to be stronger predictors of usage intentions than perceived usefulness in UGR rather than PGR contexts. By showing which RF types influence different consumer perceptions, the study provides practitioners with clear guidelines on how to design sales efficient e-Commerce websites while enhancing online-consumers’ overall shopping experience

Think Local-Act Local: Is It Time to Slow Down the Accelerated Move to Global Marketing?

In view of the accelerated move of great corporations towards global marketing, the strategic changes of such companies raise interesting questions. Is marketing globalization reaching its limits after years of implementation? Is it time for companies to rethink their strategies and move back, like Coca-Cola, to a multi-domestic marketing approach?Global Marketing, Multi-Domestic Marketing Approach, Brand Equity, Drawbacks of Marketing Globalization, Coca-Cola

Innovation in Marketing Channels

In more recent years, the context of globalization in which market channel structures and strategies are developing is bringing to a more complex concept of marketing channels, with disintermediation or reintermediation, multichanneling and new roles/specializations that are emerging as new issues.In this context, innovation in marketing channels becomes a complex, multiorganizational, multidisciplinary activity that requires collaboration and interactions across various entities within the supply chain network. In recent years, the innovation processes in marketing channels have occurred with high intensity and speed, especially following the changes spurred by technology that allowed the adoption of more efficient organizational solutions.Retail; Channel Structure; Innovation in Marketing Channels; Retail Technological Innovation; Global Markets

The Influences Of Atmospheric Cues On Consumer Behavioral Intentions: An Affordance Perspective

Online social shopping emerges from the idea of using social networking features to benefit traditional e-commerce activities. Technology-driven shopping environments not only support shopping task completion and self-entertainment, more importantly, these new shopping environments become alternate outlets for consumers to interact with others. This dissertation aims to understand the effects of atmospheric cues on consumers\u27 behavioral intentions in online social shopping environments. This dissertation study proposes and validates a research model that predicts consumers\u27 diverse behavioral intentions (approach and avoidance) toward using online shopping environments due to website atmospheric cues. This research model is constructed based on theoretical perspectives including stimulus-organism-response framework, the technology acceptance model, the theory of affordances, and activity theory. The empirical study used a three-factorial between-subject field experiment approach to validate the research model and hypotheses. A total of 360 valid responses were collected from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Each of the subjects was randomly assigned to one of the eight experimental conditions. Data was analyzed using three-way MANOVA and PLS-SEM techniques. Analysis results largely supported the research model. Three path coefficients surprisingly had different signs from their correlation coefficients, and further mediation analysis indicated that: perceived usefulness fully mediated the effects of perceived utilitarian affordances, perceived sociability of use fully mediated the effects of perceived social affordances, and that perceived usefulness and perceived fun fully mediated the effects of perceived sociability of use on behavioral intentions. This dissertation theoretically contributes to online social shopping research by building a well-grounded research model that integrates several theories from different disciplines. The instrument for measuring perceived affordances provides an operationalized solution to understand interaction mechanism between technology-driven environments and users. Practically, investigating the effects of atmospheric cues and decomposing process-based and outcome-based evaluations suggest different aspects that online merchants can work on to improve consumer experiences

Online customer experience in an emerging e-retail market

Although customer experience has attracted significant attention in marketing theorizing for over three decades, research has barely progressed beyond the traditional conceptualizations of the concept. Specifically, research on multichannel retailing experience is scarce and fragmented despite previous calls to investigate how customer experience can be optimized at different channels. Additionally, although eWOM is fast supplanting traditional WOM as a determinant of consumer behavior whilst Internet platforms have been declared the future fronts for successful customer relationship management, previous studies rarely examined how consumers process and integrate multiple online reviews especially dissatisfied eWOM. Extrapolating from the foregoing, the following research question is posed: “How can online retailers exploit the link between previous shopping experiences and perceived credibility of negative experience reviews (PCoNERs) to enhance consumer-firm relationship quality?”To answer the above research question, an experience-perception-attitude model was built on the foundations of two social cognitive psychology theories (i.e. the schema theory and the elaboration likelihood model (ELM)) and consequently tested through four scenario-based experiments mapped out into one pilot study and two main studies. The pilot study and study 1 utilized a 2 × 2 between-subject factorial design while study 2 employed 2 × 2 × 2 between-subject factorial design. Data was generated from undergraduate and postgraduate students recruited from two universities located in southern Nigeria. Exploratory factor analysis, partial least squares structural equation modelling procedure, independent sample t-test, Chi-square, one-way analysis of variance, and multivariate analysis of variance were the analytical techniques utilized.Five major contributions are made. First, the thesis developed and tested a unique experience-perception-attitude model from the perspective of two social cognitive psychology theories. The experience-perception-attitude model not only portrayed the multi-channel character of online customer experience but also advanced Verhoef et al.’s (2009) holistic and dynamic model of customer experience by demonstrating how consumer-firm relationship quality can be enhanced through a simultaneous consideration of shopping experiences emanating from both company website and social media site. Second, the thesis extends the context-specific nature of customer experience by demonstrating that emotional experience is the most important driver of PCoNERs in a recession-ridden emerging e-retailing market. Third, the study advances the eWOM literature and ELM by drawing on the ELM to demonstrate that PCoNERs have negative effect on consumer-firm relationship quality; while also demonstrating that the effects of the two thresholds of elaboration (i.e. review source credibility and review frequency) become infinitesimal if consumers are exposed to reviews with consistent valence. Fourth, the thesis adds to the experimental design technique utilized by channel integration researchers and previous panel data-based studies by drawing on the netnographic research approach to utilize naturalistic narratives as experimental scenarios. Finally, the findings offer an evidence-based guide on how e-retailers can practically engage in the systematic management of customer clues. The findings will also assist all categories of e-retailers determine the strategic position to pursue based on their resources and capabilities