WHY THEY SELF-DISCLOSE？EXAMINING FACTORS INFLUENCING PEOPLE\u27S PERSONAL INFORMATION DISCLOSURE IN ONLINE HEALTHCARE COMMUNITIES RESEARCH-IN-PROGRESS

Online healthcare communities (OHCs) encourage people to disclose their personal information with others to seek support and to accelerate research and help create better treatments. However, disclosing personal information might cause privacy disclosure and some risks. This paper aims to explore what factors and how those factors affect people’s personal information disclosure intention in OHCs. Based on “risk-motivation” perspective, we identify perceived usefulness as extrinsic motivation and social support as intrinsic motivation, and distinguish four kinds of risks to test those motivation and risk factors’ effects on people’s personal information disclose intention in OHCs. As two constructs describing the characteristics of OHCs, expected disease severe extent and common identity are supposed having moderating effects’ on motivation and risk factors’ effects. The theoretical contribution of this paper is offering a model to explain people’s personal information disclose intention in OHCs and integrate constructs to describe the characteristic of OHCs; the practical implications is providing insight on OHC managers’ operation for communities’ viability and people’s privacy protection. Finally, limitations and future works also are presented

How does technological system design affect value creation? A systematic literature review of digital co-production

The existing studies on co-production display two research gaps. First, most studies focus on non-digital/offline co-production and value creation; little attention has been paid to value creation of digital/online co-production cases. Second, traditional co-production studies examine political, organizational, administrative, and personal factors that influence co-production. However, few studies investigate how technological factors will affect co-production in terms of value creation. To bridge the gaps, this article conducts a systematic literature review of 52 articles. The review results distill seven technological factors and five value categories from digital co-production cases. It further examines how these technological factors affect the creation of various value categories. Based on the review results, this article proposes a future research agenda on digital co-production

Gender Differences in Virtual Community Knowledge Sharing

Over the years, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 have promoted and prospered user-generated content, ease of use, interoperability, and virtual communities. Indeed, a growing number of online platforms and virtual communities contribute to our society and economy by maximally sharing knowledge among numerous participants. Hence, it is necessary to understand the participation-motivation of knowledge sharing in various virtual communities. Using a sample of American virtual communities of interest, this study examines a model of knowledge sharing based on social capital theory and social cognitive theory. This research echoes prior studies with similar and even stronger evidence. Also, the results suggest a significant moderating effect of gender difference on knowledge sharing in virtual communities – when participants share a common language and vision

Applications and applicability of Social Cognitive Theory in Information Science research

Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) is a theory that derives from Psychology, yet has been adopted in other interdisciplinary subject areas, including Information Science. The origins and key concepts of SCT are presented, and the value of SCT’s contributions to Information Science research analysed, with particular reference to research into information seeking behaviour and use and knowledge sharing. Prior applications of SCT in Information Science research are related to a study of employee-led workplace learning and innovative work behaviour that has been designed to create new insight on (i) workplace information literacy; (ii) knowledge management; and (iii) the relationship between information behaviours and innovation processes. It is anticipated that this research will also extend understandings of SCT as a valuable tool for theory development across a range of domains that focus on learning processes

The impact of ambient awareness on customers’ purchase intentions

Recent developments in the field of e-commerce have led to a renewed interest in utilizing novel techniques to impact customers' decision-making processes that lead to revenue growth. One approach that has been noted in the literature is to focus on customer awareness as a mean of raising profitability (Wang & Zhang, 2011). This dissertation posits that customer awareness that impacts decision making is likely to include not only technological aspects it also includes information with a considerable amount of content related to business, products, or services which are socially available (Curty & Zhang, 2011). In fact, this dissertation investigates informational-perspective effects via defining and studying the emergence of exclusive customer awareness through its surrounding environment, called ambient awareness, and its role in customers' decision making. The idea of ambient awareness refers to the awareness that individuals obtain from ambient communications occurring around them (Leonardi & Meyer, 2015). Indeed, this dissertation examines whether incidental exposure to cues can activate different goals and, in turn, influence subsequent intentions on undesired primarily choice of product in an ambient environment. In IS literature, only a few studies discussed the ambient awareness concept. In most of these studies, ambient awareness is primarily defined as awareness of "who knows what" and "who knows whom" in an enterprise social media that facilitate the knowledge transfer between coworkers (Leonardi, 2015). Similarly, others identified the concept of ambient awareness as the awareness that an individual obtains from the communications occurring around them, again from the perspective of knowledge transfer between individuals (Leonardi & Meyer, 2015; Thompson, 2008). The current dissertation investigated the process by which ambient awareness is developed and its gradual impacts on different aspects of customers' mindsets. Although few prior kinds of research have acknowledged the importance of cognitive processes (e.g., Hinds & Pfeffer, 2003; Olivera et al., 2008), most of them have emphasized on motivational explanations. This dissertation conceptualizes ambient awareness development as the intersection of cognition and motivation theories to better understand customers purchasing decisions. Then, it presents a conceptual model of ambient awareness development and studies its impacts through the lens of two complementary cognitive and motivational theories. Two powerful theories are integrated (i.e., SCT and ELM) to explain the paths that customers take to develop ambient awareness that impact their purchasing decisions. The dissertation then presents the results of a controlled experimental study to empirically test the impact of the ambient awareness development on decision making. The results show that ambient awareness development in the experiment phases positively contributed to shifting customers' attitudes toward purchasing (i.e., purchase intention). Finally, this dissertation provided evidence that ambient awareness impacted customers' decisions, and eventually altered customers' purchase intentions

Knowledge Sharing in Multicultural Organizations

Knowledge management is critical to achieving competitive advantage in the marketplace. The prominence of multicultural organizations also requires an understanding of knowledge-sharing behavior in multicultural teams. In spite of the need to accommodate these new conditions, a gap exists in the research on knowledge sharing in multicultural organizations. The purpose of this study was to examine factors that affect knowledge sharing in a multicultural context. In the research questions I examined the role that culture, monetary rewards, social units, and diversity play in knowledge sharing in a multicultural environment. This study used Hofstede\u27s cultural dimension theory, Sveiby\u27s knowledge-based theory, and agency theory as the theoretical foundation. A cross-sectional survey design was used for data collection. Data were collected from line managers in multicultural organizations in the United Arab Emirates (n=79). Sampling consisted of a nonprobability sample using convenience sampling. Multiple regression and path analyses were used to analyze the data. Results of this study indicated a positive relationship between the combined effect of rewards, social units, and cultural diversity on knowledge sharing in a multicultural context. There was also a positive relationship between rewards and knowledge sharing. However, no statistically significant relationship between social units or cultural diversity and knowledge sharing was found. This study may promote positive social change by improving understanding of how knowledge is shared in multicultural teams and by contributing to better cross-cultural communication. This study may be useful to managers of multicultural teams who want to improve knowledge sharing in their teams

Exploring the development of innovative work behaviour of employees in multiple workplace contexts

The research reported in this thesis explored the factors that influence the development of innovative work behaviour (i.e. recognition of the need to innovate, idea creation, idea championing and, idea implementation). The study is underpinned by Social Cognitive Theory to encapsulate the multiple relationships that exist between cognitive factors, environmental factors and behavioural factors that enhance innovative work behaviour. A multi methods case study approach was used to gather data and highlight contextual differences that emerged from qualitative and quantitative data collection. This included the use of interviews, focus groups and a questionnaire across three case studies: a Scottish University, a Finnish University and, an English National Health Service Trust. The findings show that there are three main types of factors that influence innovative work behaviour: (1) information and knowledge related factors (e.g. information literacy, information behaviours, knowledge management and Communities of Practice); (2) contextual factors such as organisational strategy, culture, leadership, training and, access to resources and; (3) the skills and abilities of employees. Information literacy is an initiator of innovative work behaviour and is used to help employees to set context to help them recognise the need to innovate. Information behaviours are specific to each stage and the need to use information. Knowledge sharing enhances innovative work behaviour but requires skills and abilities from employees in terms of social interactions skills to facilitate the knowledge sharing. Organisational culture and leadership interact to help employees at all stages of innovative work behaviour. A key contribution of this work is that it provides a framework to explain the factors that influence the stages of innovative work behaviour development, which has not been done in prior studies. In addition, it extends the application of the whole of Social Cognitive Theory to information science research on workplace learning and innovative work behaviour. The practical contributions of this work are the recommendations to practitioners. These recommendations include the need to recognise the importance of information literacy in a digital age, the use of interactive information sources, the need to stimulate communication in the workplace and to assess available resources