Understanding envy and users’ responses to envy in the context of social networking sites:A literature review

Envy is an ancient theme of interest and various academic disciplines researched the topic in the last decades. With the advance of technologies and the popularity of social networking sites (SNSs), there is a need to comprehend what is new and unique about envy in the SNS environment. To contribute to an improved understanding of this phenomenon, we investigate academic research on envy in the context of SNSs. Particularly, in this work, we review and clarify the concept of envy in the SNS context and how users respond to envy they experienced in an SNS environment. This allows us to (1) better comprehend the conceptualization and theorization of envy in the SNS context, and to (2) identify particularities of users’ responses to envy. Based on our analysis, we observe that there exists a need to contextualize definition, operationalization and theorization further. Responses to SNS-induced envy mirror findings from the offline context with purchase intentions as an interesting and relevant behavioral response for the SNS context, since most revenues are generated by advertisement on these sites. We provide directions for future investigations on the phenomenon of SNS-induced envy

Massively Multiplayer Online Game Addiction: Instrument Development and Validation

The primary objective of this paper is to develop and validate an instrument for massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) addiction. Three stages of instrument development were undertaken to achieve this objective: item generation, scale development, and instrument testing. The results of a confirmation factor analysis confirmed the existence of seven dimensions of MMOG addiction, namely Salience, Mood Modification, Tolerance, Withdrawal, Conflicts, Relapse, and Loss of Control. The final instrument exhibits adequate levels of reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and nomological validity. The instrument is expected to assist future empirical research on MMOG addiction. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Self-disclosure in social networking sites: The role of perceived cost, perceived benefits and social influence

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative impacts of perceived cost, perceived benefits, and social influence on self-disclosure behaviors in social networking sites under an integrated theoretical framework. Design/methodology/approach – Building upon social exchange theory and privacy calculus theory, an integrated model was developed. The model was tested empirically using a sample of 405 social networking site’s users. Users were required to complete a survey regarding self-disclosure behaviors in Facebook. Findings – The results indicate that social influence is the factor which exhibits the strongest effect on self-disclosure in social networking sites, followed by perceived benefits. Surprisingly, perceived privacy risk does not have any significant impact on self-disclosure. Research limitations/implications – The results inform researchers about the importance to incorporate social influence factors and cultural factors into future online self-disclosure study. Practical implications – The results suggest that users focus on the benefits as well as social influence when they decide to reveal personal information in social networking sites, but pay less attention to the potential privacy risks. Educators are advised to launch educational programs to raise students’ awareness to the potential risks of self-disclosure in social networking sites. Service providers of social networking sites are encouraged to provide intuitive privacy indices showing users the levels of privacy protection. Originality/value – This paper is one of the first to develop and empirically tests an integrated model of self-disclosure in social networking sites

The State of Online Impulse-Buying Research: A Literature Analysis

Online impulse buying has drawn increasing scholarly attention across disciplines. However, little effort has been made to evaluate the status of research and consolidate the findings in the literature. To address this research gap, we conducted a systematic review of studies of online impulse buying, and used the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) framework to identify and classify the factors that affect online impulse buying. We then built a conceptual framework to explain the interrelationships between the three key elements of online impulse buying. Finally, we discussed the future research directions and implications for research

Promoting Sales of Online Games through Customer Engagement

With keen competition in the online game industry, game developers and publishers are finding new ways to induce players’ to spend money on subscriptions and virtual items. As the online game itself provides a highly engaging environment, this study examines online sales from the perspective of customer engagement. We propose a research model that examines why game players actively engage in playing online games, and how such engagement can contribute to sales of online games, empirically testing the model using 377 online game players. The results support our research hypotheses and illustrate the effect of customer psychological engagement on stimulating game players’ spending in online games. In particular, both psychological and behavioral engagement exerted a positive influence on online sales, and the dimensions and antecedents of psychological engagement were also identified. The findings of this study are expected to provide some suggestions for game developers and publishers on promoting the sales of digital items/goods. This study also adds to the current understanding of customer psychological engagement by identifying its antecedents and consequences in the context of online games

Cyberslacking in the Workplace: Antecedents and Effects on Job Performance

Employees’ nonwork use of information technology (IT), or cyberslacking, is of growing concern due to its erosion of job performance and other negative organizational consequences. Research on cyberslacking antecedents has drawn on diverse theoretical perspectives, resulting in a lack of cohesive explanation of cyberslacking. Further, prior studies generally overlooked IT-specific variables. To address the cyberslacking problems in organizations and research gaps in the literature, we used a combination of a literature-based approach and a qualitative inquiry to develop a model of cyberslacking that includes a 2x2 typology of antecedents. The proposed model was tested and supported in a three-wave field study of 395 employees in a Fortune-100 US organization. For research, this work organizes antecedents from diverse research streams and validates their relative impact on cyberslacking, thus providing a cohesive theoretical explanation of cyberslacking. This work also incorporates contextualization (i.e., IT-specific factors) into theory development and enriches IS literature by examining the nonwork aspects of IT use and their negative consequences to organizations. For practice, the results provide practitioners with insights into nonwork use of IT in organizations, particularly on how they can take organizational action to mitigate cyberslacking and maintain employee productivity

Coping with envy on professional social networking sites:24th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems: Information Systems (IS) for the Future, PACIS 2020

With the growing popularity of professional social networking sites (PSNS), many users rely on PSNS, such as LinkedIn, to develop and maintain professional relationships with other individuals and companies. Most users create dedicated personal profiles and share their achievements and professional experiences on PSNS. With the frequent exposure to social information on PSNS, we expect that users who use LinkedIn may experience envy. Surprisingly, there is very little understanding of how PSNS use induces the feeling of envy and how users cope with it. Building on prior envy literature, we propose a research model to explain this phenomenon. We will test our model with data from 500 LinkedIn users. We expect that the findings of this study will contribute to our theoretical understanding of PSNS envy coping mechanisms and offer users some guidance to deal with PSNS envy. © Proceedings of the 24th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems: Information Systems (IS) for the Future, PACIS 2020. All rights reserved

The “Darth” Side of Technology Use: An Inductively Derived Typology of Cyberdeviance

Cyberdeviance, intentional use of information technology (IT) in the workplace that is contrary to the explicit and implicit norms of the organization and that threatens the well-being of the organization and/or its members, is an important research stream that has gained attention in academia and industry. Prior studies have treated different forms of cyberdeviance as different phenomena, resulting in a lack of a collective underlying conceptualization of cyberdeviance. This work inductively and empirically derives a typology of cyberdeviance with 439 respondents across three phases. Our results suggest that cyberdeviance varies along 3 dimensions: cyberdeviant behaviors that are minor versus serious; cyberdeviant behaviors that target individuals versus organizations; and cyberdeviant behaviors that require low versus high technical skill. We thus provide a comprehensive framework that fosters a logical linkage of various research programs related to cyberdeviance to guide future research investigation. The typology will help managers to distinguish different cyberdeviant behaviors and implement suitable interventions depending on the behavior

An Empirical Examination of Continuance Intention of Social Network Sites

Social network sites (SNSs) have drawn extensive attention among scholars and practitioners. In this study, we aim at explaining the continuance of SNSs. Specifically, we propose and empirically test a research model of continuance intention to use SNSs. We also examine the relative impacts of SNS-specific motivation factors and social factors derived from the SNS environment on continuance intention to use SNSs. Building upon expectation disconfirmation theory (EDT), our research model was empirically tested with 204 Facebook users through an online survey. While prior studies focus mostly on the SNS-specific motivations, our results demonstrated that social factors derived from the SNS environment play a dominant role in explaining the continuance intention to use SNSs. In particular, this study suggested that perceived critical mass, social presence, and social norms are influential and major factors that determine continuance intention. We believe that this study provides significant contributions to both researchers and practitioners in the context of SNSs