HOW SOCIAL CUES WORK IN THE CONTEXT OF LIVESTREAMING E-COMMERCE?

Livestreaming e-commerce as an emerging social-technological phenomenon has been gaining attention from IS researchers. While past literature has accumulated extensive knowledge on explanatory variables that might lead to the viewers’ purchasing behaviours, most of such empirical work focuses on prediction rather than explaining the causal mechanism. In this in-progress study, we draw on the psychology literature and hypothesise informational conformity and social facilitation as two key pathways leading to the purchasing behaviour in the emerging context. This conceptual framework would also be empirically verified using the field data. We propose using a structural equation modelling approach to test the conceptual model. Potential theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Quantifying the Effect of Social Presence on Online Social Conformity

Social conformity occurs when individuals in group settings change their personal opinion to be in agreement with the majority's position. While recent literature frequently reports on conformity in online group settings, the causes for online conformity are yet to be fully understood. This study aims to understand how social presencei.e., the sense of being connected to others via mediated communication, influences conformity among individuals placed in online groups while answering subjective and objective questions. Acknowledging its multifaceted nature, we investigate three aspects of online social presence: user representation (generic vs.user-specific avatars), interactivity (discussion vs.no discussion ), and response visibility (public vs.private ). Our results show an overall conformity rate of 30% and main effects from task objectivity, group size difference between the majority and the minority, and self-confidence on personal answer. Furthermore, we observe an interaction effect between interactivity and response visibility, such that conformity is highest in the presence of peer discussion and public responses, and lowest when these two elements are absent. We conclude with a discussion on the implications of our findings in designing online group settings, accounting for the effects of social presence on conformity