5 research outputs found
Will You âDashangâ? Effects of Social Signals in Online Pay-What-You-Want
Dashang, as a new form of the pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing paradigm, has emerged on social media platforms, especially in China. In the settings of Dashang, consumers are free to pay any amount to the authors or broadcasters after they have consumed some information goods. Compared with traditional offline scenes, Dashang has incorporated more social elements and platform engagements. However, it remains unelucidated what are the critical factors that motivate users to pay. In this paper, we investigate whether and how social signals, such as the disclosed information about the volume of paid people, may influence consumersâ willingness to pay under Dashang. An ambivalent framework is proposed, suggesting that such social signals may have both positive and negative effects on voluntary payment. The manuscript is to present the theoretical development of the research, aiming to reveal the benefits and liabilities of the social signal disclosure mechanism
How Digital Nudges Influence Consumers â Experimental Investigation in the Context of Retargeting
Retargeting is an innovative online marketing technique in the modern age. Although this advertising form offers great opportunities of bringing back customers who have left an online store without a complete purchase, retargeting is risky because the necessary data collection leads to strong privacy concerns which, in turn, trigger consumer reactance and decreasing trust. Digital nudges â small design modifications in digital choice environments which guide peoplesâ behaviour â present a promising concept to bypass these negative consequences of retargeting. In order to prove the positive effects of digital nudges, we aim to conduct an online experiment with a subsequent survey by testing the impacts of social nudges and information nudges in retargeting banners. Our expected contribution to theory includes an extension of existing research of nudging in context of retargeting by investigating the effects of different nudges in retargeting banners on consumersâ behaviour. In addition, we aim to provide practical contributions by the provision of design guidelines for practitioners to build more trustworthy IT artefacts and enhance retargeting strategy of marketing practitioners
Keeping Up with the Joneses: Instagram Use and its Influence on Conspicuous Consumption
So far research in the area of social networking sites (SNS) has drawn surprisingly little attention to usersâ conspicuous consumption (CC), even though the constant rise of younger peopleâs debts seems to go hand in hand with the rise of SNS. To fill this research gap, we conducted two studies based on social comparison and normative influence theory. In a preliminary study, we show that Instagram use is positively related to usersâ CC. In the main study, using a sample of 283 German Instagram users, we find possible explanations for this association. While norms on Instagram seem not to account for the link between Instagram use and CC, our results suggest a mediating effect of envy. We contribute to the literature by providing insights on SNS use and CC while offering first explanations for its potentially harmful economic outcomes.
Acknowledgment
This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) under grant no. 16DII116 (âDeutsches Internet-Institutâ)
Customersâ Influence Makes or Breaks Your Brandâs Success Story â Quantifying Positive and Negative Social Influence in Online Customer Networks
The ongoing proliferation of digital technologies is reshaping the customer-firm relationship by providing new possibilities for companies and customers to interact with each other. Companies try to involve customers in firm-sponsored online customer networks to connect them more deeply with the brand. In this context, the impact of positive social influence induced among customers on their value contribution has been acknowledged, however, research often neglects the impact of negative social influence. We propose therefore a novel approach to account for direct and indirect as well as positive and negative social influence between customers in online customer networks to calculate customersâ integrated value contribution. We demonstrate the applicability of our approach using an illustrative online customer network. Our approach allows practitioners to evaluate customersâ âtrueâ value in online customer networks by preventing over- and underestimation of customersâ value contribution
The Impacts of Online Lightweight Interactions as Signals
This study proposes a model to investigate âfriendsâ and âlikesâ on social networking sites (SNSs) as signals of product quality and the moderating effects of product risk and product familiarity. The results indicate that âfriendsâ and âlikesâ influence consumersâ perceptions of product quality, which subsequently affect purchase intentions. Product risk and product familiarity moderate the effect of âfriendsâ on consumersâ perceptions of product quality. Considering high product risk and low product familiarity, recommendations provided by friends are more influential than recommendations provided by friends of friends (derived friends). However, considering low product risk and high product familiarity, recommendations provided by friends or derived friends are similarly influential. In addition, the influences of the total number of âlikesâ on product quality was similar for different levels of product risk or product familiarity