Why Do I Rate? - Shedding Light on the Factors Influencing the Participation on Physician Rating Websites

Nowadays it is possible for consumers to exchange consumption experiences with everybody on the internet. For almost every product or service people form communities or visit dedicated rating websites to exchange information. Concerning medical treatment services, physician ratings have emerged as a field of interest for both patients and physicians. However, little is known about why people even spend time and effort to rate their physician. We conducted a study in which we asked patients about their intention to use physician rating websites, building on the social exchange theory. The results suggest that the main motivations to rate are to help other patients finding the right doctor or trying to influence the doctor for better treatment in the future

Bring them aboard: rewarding participation in technology-mediated citizen science projects

Citizen science involves the general public in research activities that are conducted in collaboration with professional scientists. In these projects, citizens voluntarily contribute to the research aims set forward by the scientists through the collection and analysis of large datasets, without a preliminary technical background required. While advancements in information technology have facilitated the involvement of the general public in citizen science through online platforms, several projects still fail due to limited participation. This paper investigates the feasibility of using selected reward mechanisms to positively influence participation and motivations to contribute in a technology-mediated citizen science project. More specifically, we report the results of an empirical study on the effects of monetary and public online acknowledgement rewards. Survey indices and electroencephalographic measurements are synergistically integrated to offer a comprehensive basis for the analysis of citizens' motivations. Our results suggest that both reward mechanisms could crowd-in participants in technology-mediated citizen science projects. With this study, we seek to lay the foundations for a private-collective research model, where the focus is the intensification of participation in technology-mediated citizen science projects

Carrots and Rainbows: Motivation and Social Practice in Open Source Software Development

Open source software (OSS) is a social and economic phenomenon that raises fundamental questions about the motivations of contributors to information systems development. Some developers are unpaid volunteers who seek to solve their own technical problems, while others create OSS as part of their employment contract. For the past 10 years, a substantial amount of academic work has theorized about and empirically examined developer motivations. We review this work and suggest considering motivation in terms of the values of the social practice in which developers participate. Based on the social philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre, we construct a theoretical framework that expands our assumptions about individual motivation to include the idea of a long-term, value-informed quest beyond short-term rewards. This motivation-practice framework depicts how the social practice and its supporting institutions mediate between individual motivation and outcome. The framework contains three theoretical conjectures that seek to explain how collectively elaborated standards of excellence prompt developers to produce high-quality software, change institutions, and sustain OSS development. From the framework, we derive six concrete propositions and suggest a new research agenda on motivation in OSS

Influential Factors In Consumer\u27s Adoption Of Innovative Products

This dissertation addresses the challenges involved with the process of diffusion of innovations in the contexts of innovative educational materials and technological innovations. Chapters 2 and 3 discuss building and using Online Brand Communities (OBCs) to disseminate innovative math educational materials. OBCs are known to be important platforms where consumers can communicate with the brand as well as other consumers. Through the effective use of these platforms, brands could accelerate the process of diffusion of their innovations. However, OBCs will not survive if consumers do not get engaged and participate in these communities. The purpose of this section of the dissertation is to investigate how customer engagement can be increased in social media based Online Brand Communities (OBCs) so that these communities could be effectively used as platforms for disseminating innovations. Different hypotheses are suggested based on the consumer engagement literature and well-known organizational and psychological theories. These hypotheses are then tested in different studies in order to better understand the drivers of customer engagement behavior. Since one of the important factors that can impact the success of OBCs is the size of the communities, chapter 3 discusses Referral Reward Programs (RRPs) as a means for growing the OBC size. In this chapter, different hypotheses are proposed based on well-known psychological theories. These hypotheses are then tested in 3 different research studies to understand the impact of different rewards on customers’ likelihood to participate in the referral programs. The next section of this dissertation which is presented in chapter 5 uses the context of technological innovations, particularly Augmented Reality Smart Glasses (ARSGs). The purpose of this chapter is to understand the factors that would impact consumer’s decision to adopt a particular type of ARSGs: Microsoft HoloLens. The results of the studies in this dissertation have important theoretical and managerial implications in the areas of customer engagement in OBCs, Word-of-Mouth marketing, and consumer’s adoption of innovations

When to Signal? Contingencies for Career-Motivated Contributions in Online Collaboration Communities

Online collaboration communities are increasingly taking on new roles beyond knowledge creation and exchange, especially the role of a skill-signaling channel for career-motivated community members. This paper examines the contingency effects of job-market conditions for career-motivated knowledge contributions in online collaboration communities. From the data of individual-level activities in a computer programming-related online Q&A community (Stack Overflow), merged with job-market data for software developers, we find robust evidence of a positive association between community members’ career motivations and their knowledge contributions. More importantly, we find that this positive relationship is strengthened by job-market conditions: the number of vacancies in the job market, the expected salaries from these jobs, and the transparency in the flow of career-related information between the community and external recruiters. We contribute to the motivation literature in online collaboration communities by identifying and substantiating the role of contextual factors in mobilizing members’ career motivation. Our study thus offers novel insight into how career motivation can be effectively utilized to motivate contributors in these communities. Our findings also point to a possible paradigm change by characterizing online collaboration communities as emerging institutions for career motivation and skill signaling

Financial rewards and intrinsic motivation: a self-determination perspective

The relationship between work motivation and rewards has long been considered in organisational studies, and yet literature examining the impact of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation has remained largely inconclusive, showing evidence for both positive (crowding in) effects and negative (crowding out) effects. The aim of this research is to reconcile these important debates in the literature by considering the influence of several factors that can help explain the divergent findings. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study considers the role of autonomy, competence and relatedness need satisfaction in mediating the relationship between performance-continent rewards and intrinsic motivation. In addition, it further examines the role of two contextual factors (intrinsically-motivating job characteristics and managerial support) and one person-specific factor (individual causality orientations reflecting specific approaches to behaviour regulation) in moderating this relationship. Quantitative survey data was collected from more than 800 participants working across a range of different industries in the UK, and several hypotheses were tested through structural equation modelling (SEM). Results show that performance-contingent pay is negatively related to employees’ satisfaction with each of the three basic needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness, which, in turn, leads to decreased intrinsic motivation. In addition, results show that intrinsically-motivating job characteristics and individual causality orientations significantly moderate this relationship. These findings, therefore, deepen our understanding of the conditions in which intrinsic motivation is supported vs hindered by performance-contingent rewards, and suggest a means of reconciling key debates in the motivation literature. Furthermore, these results provide important implications for organisations relying on reward contingencies to motivate staff, drawing attention to alternative means of compensation that can effectively sustain intrinsic motivation

Examining the Relationship between Employee Race and Reason for Warehouse Resignation

The increased employee turnover in the warehousing industry results from supply chain disruptions that have reduced efficiency and increased costs. This research explored a gap in the literature by examining the relationship between race and warehouse resignations. The problem statement focused on the impact of race on resignation decisions in the warehousing industry. This quantitative study analyzed the connection between race and resignation reasons among warehouse employees. A total of 5,502 warehouse employees participated in the study, with data collected from exit interviews conducted by United Parcel Service (UPS) Northwest District Human Resources (NWDHR) between 2017 and 2020. The sample comprised 24.54% women and 75.46% men with diverse racial backgrounds. Data collection involved analyzing exit interview records, and the Kruskal-Wallis test was utilized to explore the relationship between race and resignation reasons. The findings revealed a significant relationship between race and resignation reasons among warehouse employees (p \u3c 0.05). However, there was no statistically significant difference in the percentage of employees voluntarily resigned based on race (p \u3e 0.05). The social exchange theory suggests that organizational leadership should address racial disparities in resignation decisions by improving employee retention and workplace diversity. In conclusion, this research contributes to understanding race\u27s role in warehouse employee resignation decisions and offers valuable insights for organizations to address high employee turnover. Keywords: employee turnover, race, job dissatisfaction, workplace diversity, Kruskal-Wallis test, social exchange theor