Shopping as Experience and Website as a Social Actor: Web Interface Design and Para-Social Presence

We make a case for treating a Web site as a social actor and propose para-social presence as a central construct to measure the structure of the relationship that evolves between a web site and its visitors. Para- social presence (PSP) captures the underlying psychological cues that measure the level and extent of interaction among participating social entities (in an online shopping context in this study). We also argue that one medium could possess different levels of PSP, depending on how it is configured and used. The first phase of our research conceptualizes and develops an instrument to measure PSP. The second phase investigates the impact of new technologies and associated web interface design decisions on perceived communication characteristics of a medium, PSP and subsequent user evaluations of the web site. Specifically, this research studies the impact of personalization technologies and support for virtual communities

An Investigation into Consumers’ Continued Social Shopping Intentions

Social shopping (s-shopping), a novel online shopping model which connects consumers and leverages collaborative efforts, has achieved initial success. However, the continued usage remains a serious issue. To explore the consumers’ intentions to continually participate in s-shopping activities, we reviewed literature on sustaining IS usage and s-shopping technical designs and built a research model. To test the hypotheses, an online survey of s-shopping users was conducted in a leading Chinese social network site, Sina Weibo. The results confirmed that consumers’ perceptions of the usefulness and enjoyment of using the s-shopping system are critical predictors of their persistent usage. Moreover, informational social support from the virtual group also encourages ongoing participation in the collaborative shopping activities. In addition, personalization, social interaction and social presence support of the s-shopping system are discovered as remarkable antecedents of consumers’ usefulness, enjoyment and social support perceptions of the system. This paper fills in the research gap of s-shopping continuance and enriches s-shopping literature

Business Model Development in IT Startups - The Role of Scarcity and Personalization in Generating User Feedback

Despite the widely recognized importance of continuous business model development for achieving product market fit, very little remains understood about efficient methods that may support this process in the context of nascent IT ventures. Contributions for supporting value proposition development, especially in the popular field of open innovation, have largely focused on well established firms and more traditional approaches such as the lead user method. More recent findings suggest novel ways of virtual user integration, like the collection of user feedback via promotional campaigns, which is particularly prevalent among IT startups. However, these contributions have remained conspicuously theoretical. Therefore, by drawing on an experimental study in the context of the artificially created online fashion startup StyleCrowd, we investigate the role of scarcity and personalization, two classical promotional cues that have become ubiquitous on the web yet have been overlooked by research, in enhancing the virality of nascent ventures’ online promotional campaigns to enhance user feedback. Our analysis reveals that while scarcity cues affect social sharing regardless of whether a campaign is personalized or not, personalization cues are particularly effective when scarcity is absent, yet are cancelled out when scarcity is prevalent. We discuss implications for research and practice

DIGITAL NUDGES FOR USER ONBOARDING: TURNING VISITORS INTO USERS

Two design recommendations (digital nudges) for decreasing user churn in mobile apps are presented. We examine commitment and personalization nudges, both of which are linked to the extant literature, in the context of a randomized online experiment with 150 participants. Our experimental study reveals that commitment and personalization cues distinctly affect consumers\u27 intention to use a mobile app. Moreover, our study demonstrates that personalization amplifies the effect of commitment cues on users\u27 intention to use a mobile app

DECONSTRUCTING E-COMMERCE PRESENCES - A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND RESEARCH AGENDA

This literature review systematically analyses recent studies on the effective design of e-commerce presences in order to provide a state-of-the-art overview on this important topic. To do so, our review focuses on the level of webshop elements (i.e., the building blocks to design webshops), which we cluster in eight categories (e.g., color usage, music usage, rich media usage), derived from previous website quality frameworks (e.g., SITEQUAL, WebQual) and prior reviews. The basis of our comprehensive literature review are 91 articles grouped into the webshop element categories and additionally analyzed along three key study criteria, namely the applied research methods, theories, and key dependent variables. Based on the findings from this bibliographic analysis, we formulate an agenda for future research avenues to guide researchers in further exploring the field of e-commerce presences and to support practitioners in their decision-making on the implementation of webshop elements

Evaluating Personalization: The AB Testing Pitfalls Companies Might Not Be Aware of—A Spotlight on the Automotive Sector Websites

The importance of companies’ website as instrument for relationship marketing activities is well-known both in the academia and in the industry. In the last decades, there has been great interest in studying how technology can be used to influence people’s attitudes and motivate behavior change. With this, web personalization has had increasing research and practitioner interest. However, the evaluation of user interaction with companies’ websites and personalization effects remains an elusive goal for organizations. Online controlled experiments (A/B tests) are one of the most commonly known and used techniques for this online evaluation. And, while there is clearly value in evaluating personalized features by means of online controlled experiments, there are some pitfalls to bear in mind while testing. In this paper we present five experimentation pitfalls, firstly identified in an automotive company’s website and found to be present in other sectors, that are particularly important or likely to appear when evaluating personalization features. In order to obtain the listed pitfalls, different methods have been used, including literature review, direct, and indirect observation within organizations of the automotive sector and a set of interviews to organizations form other sectors. Finally, the list of five resulting pitfalls is presented and some suggestions are made on how to avoid or mitigate each of them.This work was partially supported in part under the Industrial Doctorate Grand DI 052/2016 (Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca, Generalitat de Catalunya).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The Effects of Health Care Chatbot Personas With Different Social Roles on the Client-Chatbot Bond and Usage Intentions: Development of a Design Codebook and Web-Based Study

Background The working alliance refers to an important relationship quality between health professionals and clients that robustly links to treatment success. Recent research shows that clients can develop an affective bond with chatbots. However, few research studies have investigated whether this perceived relationship is affected by the social roles of differing closeness a chatbot can impersonate and by allowing users to choose the social role of a chatbot. Objective This study aimed at understanding how the social role of a chatbot can be expressed using a set of interpersonal closeness cues and examining how these social roles affect clients’ experiences and the development of an affective bond with the chatbot, depending on clients’ characteristics (ie, age and gender) and whether they can freely choose a chatbot’s social role. Methods Informed by the social role theory and the social response theory, we developed a design codebook for chatbots with different social roles along an interpersonal closeness continuum. Based on this codebook, we manipulated a fictitious health care chatbot to impersonate one of four distinct social roles common in health care settings—institution, expert, peer, and dialogical self—and examined effects on perceived affective bond and usage intentions in a web-based lab study. The study included a total of 251 participants, whose mean age was 41.15 (SD 13.87) years; 57.0% (143/251) of the participants were female. Participants were either randomly assigned to one of the chatbot conditions (no choice: n=202, 80.5%) or could freely choose to interact with one of these chatbot personas (free choice: n=49, 19.5%). Separate multivariate analyses of variance were performed to analyze differences (1) between the chatbot personas within the no-choice group and (2) between the no-choice and the free-choice groups. Results While the main effect of the chatbot persona on affective bond and usage intentions was insignificant (P=.87), we found differences based on participants’ demographic profiles: main effects for gender (P=.04, ηp2=0.115) and age (P<.001, ηp2=0.192) and a significant interaction effect of persona and age (P=.01, ηp2=0.102). Participants younger than 40 years reported higher scores for affective bond and usage intentions for the interpersonally more distant expert and institution chatbots; participants 40 years or older reported higher outcomes for the closer peer and dialogical-self chatbots. The option to freely choose a persona significantly benefited perceptions of the peer chatbot further (eg, free-choice group affective bond: mean 5.28, SD 0.89; no-choice group affective bond: mean 4.54, SD 1.10; P=.003, ηp2=0.117). Conclusions Manipulating a chatbot’s social role is a possible avenue for health care chatbot designers to tailor clients’ chatbot experiences using user-specific demographic factors and to improve clients’ perceptions and behavioral intentions toward the chatbot. Our results also emphasize the benefits of letting clients freely choose between chatbots

One Good Tweet Deserves Another: Essays on Firm Response to Positive Word of Mouth through Social Media

abstract: In two thematically related chapters, I explore the benefits incurred as companies actively respond to consumers who share positive word of mouth in digital environments (eWOM). This research takes a multi-method approach by first addressing the psychological impact of company response on the sharing consumer, followed by an examination of real behavioral consequences in a social media setting. Across six studies in Chapter 1, I find support for a conceptual model indicating that consumers who receive a company response to their positive eWOM experience greater satisfaction compared to no response, leading to increased intentions to engage in future positive eWOM on behalf of the company, both through social media and online review websites. Furthermore, I find that consumer perceptions of response personalization lead to judgments of company effort and that these two elements mediate the effect of response on consumer satisfaction. In Chapter 2, using a dataset of firm responses to positive consumer feedback on Twitter (tweets) from 79 apparel retailers, I find that company responses to positive consumer tweets can generate consumer engagement behavior in the form of continued interaction. Company responses that use consumer-oriented language increase the likelihood of consumer interactivity. However, this effectiveness depends on whether the consumer's audience is the company or their broader network of followers. I also show that, in some conditions, companies achieve higher consumer engagement by personalizing responses with the consumer's name. Together, the findings from these two chapters point to the need for companies to strategically practice positive eWOM management, both to promote consumer engagement behaviors and to avoid the negative outcomes associated with unresponsiveness.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Business Administration 201