Social Robots in Retail: Emotional Experiences a Critical Driver of Purchase Intention

The purpose of the current study is to explore whether emotional experiences prompted due to human-social robot interaction in retail environments significantly influence consumers' purchase intentions. This present study focuses primarily on emotional experience, comprising factors, namely, enjoyment, arousal, and emotional involvement. The study tests the conceptual model on a sample of 229 respondents using the PLS-SEM (Partial Least Squares – Structural Equation Modeling) approach. The results reveal that emotional experiences significantly impact consumers’ purchase intentions in retail settings. All three emotional experiences, including enjoyment, emotional involvement, and arousal were significant in shaping consumers' purchase intentions. The study findings offer unique insights for manufacturers developing social robots for the retail sector. The present research extends the current body of work exploring hedonic predictors of consumers' purchase intentions in novel socio-technical contexts, such as social robotics

Antecedent and Consequences of Blockchain-as-a-Service for E-Voting: The Mediating Role of Perceived Trust

Electronic voting refers to internet voting (e-voting), a system for electronically casting and counting votes. The current voting service provided by the government includes balloting paper and e-voting. However, these services cannot be relied on due to several issues such as electoral fraud (e.g., counting, rigging, and election manipulation), circuitry failure (e.g., tampering with the motherboard), and, more importantly, such services do not provide the facility to track back the casted vote. Considering the problems in earlier voting services, the blockchain-as-a-service for e-voting has been introduced to make the voting process more secure, immutable, transparent, and reliable. Within the blockchain-as-a-service for e-voting, we have reviewed the available literature and witnessed that the majority of the studies have given much emphasis on the technical side but lack its focus on the adoption behavior of blockchain-as-a-service for evoting during the election period. Therefore, the foci of this study to explore the antecedent (i.e., digital literacy) and consequences (i.e., consumer wellbeing, users’ referral) of users’ adoption behavior of blockchain-as-a-service for e-voting under the mediating mechanism of users’ perceived trust between digital literacy and adoption behavior. This study collected data from a 315 US sample using the Mturk. Partial least squares – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analyses were used to analyze the study data. The PLS-SEM analysis revealed that the measurement model of the study, including digital literacy as a higher-order reflective-formative construct and other reflective models (e.g., adoption behavior, consumer wellbeing, etc.), have adequate reliability and validity. Upon estimating the study’s structural model, we found that digital literacy of blockchain e-voting positively impacts on perceived trust and adoption behavior of blockchain e-voting technology. Perceived trust in blockchain e-voting also revealed to have a positive impact on users’ adoption behavior of blockchain-as-a-service for evoting. Furthermore, the results of the study indicated that blockchain adoption behavior is a significant predictor of consumer well-being and citizen referral behavior. We also tested the mediating effect of perceived trust between digital literacy and adoption behavior of blockchain-as-a-service for e-voting and found that digital literacy successfully predicts the adoption behavior of blockchain e-voting through perceived trust, signifying the pivotal role of trust. This study theoretically extends the domain of blockchain-as-a-service for evoting via investigating its potential antecedent (i.e., digital literacy) and consequences (i.e., citizen referral behavior and consumer well-being) of users’ adoption behavior of blockchain-as-a-service for evoting. Besides, we also expands the literature of perceived trust via studying it as a mediating mechanism between digital literacy and users’ adoption behavior of blockchain-as-a-service for evoting. It also helps design, prepare, and implement new technologies while considering consumers\u27 digital literacy and trust. Government officials and regulators should promote ways to improve the level of digital literacy to implement the blockchain e-voting service fully. Policymakers should collaborate with industry practitioners to create a well-thought-out plan that targets and improves public digital literacy while also increasing trust in blockchain e-voting to increase people\u27s adoption and usage of this technology

Persuasive Technology in Games: A Brief Review and Reappraisal

Persuasive technology is a new field of research that has attracted considerable attention from game designers since there is a growing interest in games promoting positive behavioral changes. Persuasive games have been exploited to tremendous effect with applications ranging from mobile healthcare, which persuade users to exercise more often and adopt a healthy lifestyle, to government programs encouraging civic engagement. Therefore, persuasive technologies have become an indispensable part of the modern game designer’s toolkit, and their importance is only set to grow with time. In this paper, we begin by reviewing the existing body of work in this field while also explaining the pros and cons of emerging design models and theoretical frameworks. We then uncover major pitfalls in the current work and suggest directions for future research. Hopefully, this article will prove instructive to game designers and leave them with a better understanding of the central concepts in the field of persuasive technology

Engagement and consumption behavior of eSports gamers

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to present a conceptual model where consumer electronic sports (eSports) engagement (CeSE) acts a predictor for gamers’ online engagement in eSports-related products/firm either through direct contribution (purchase intention) or indirect contribution (co-production, community engagement, word-of-mouth and recruitment). Design/methodology/approach – Data from 262 eSports consumers aged 18–24 years were collected and analyzed through WarpPLS 8.0. Findings – The findings of this study confirm that CeSE significantly influences all dimensions of the consumption behaviors (purchase intention, co-production, community engagement, word-of-mouth and recruitment). Originality/value – This study provides empirical support for a conceptual framework developed through the social exchange theory and engagement theory. Besides, hierarchical component model approach is applied to estimate the composite model of CeSE

Exploring tourism-generated social media communication, brand equity, satisfaction, and loyalty: A PLS-SEM-based multi-sequential approach

Although social media-based brand equity has become a vital area of interest for brand managers, insights into its destination-based dynamics and applications remain scarce, specifically in the destination brand context. To address this gap, we develop and test a theoretical model to investigate the role of destination marketing organization-generated and tourist-generated social media communication to determine the brand awareness and brand image of the Gilgit-Baltistan region, which in turn influence customer-based brand equity (CBBE) (i.e. perceived quality), satisfaction, and loyalty. Data come from well-known tourist sites in Gilgit-Baltistan. Using the multi-sequential approach in WarpPLS 7.0, findings shows that the social media communication dimensions show differential impacts on brand awareness as a metric of CBBE. Second, destination awareness demonstrates a differential impact on perceived destination image dimensions. Third, the destination image dimensions exert different effects on the perceived quality of the destination. Fourth, perceived quality positively influences satisfaction, which in turn enhances loyalty. We offer important implications that emerged from the analyzes and also suggest directions for future research

Building e-trust and e-retention in online shopping: the role of website design, reliability and perceived ease of use

Purpose – This study aims to examine the impact of website design, reliability and perceived ease of use as an engagement motivational factors on customer e-trust and e-retention in online shopping. Design/methodology/approach – By using deductive approach, quantitative methods and purposive sampling technique, this study has collected the data from 295 young online customers to enhance an understanding of website design, reliability and perceived ease of use in an online shopping context. Findings – The findings revealed interesting insights where reliability is the most significant predictor of customer e-trust in online shopping, followed by perceived ease of use and website design. In addition, a significant mediating effect of e-trust is found between customer e-retention, website design, reliability and perceived ease of use. Research limitations/implications – Future research is recommended to predict the antecedents of online engagement motivational factors with value co-creation and co-creation experience in online shopping context. Originality/value – This study offers fresh insights about driving elements and impediments of online customer retention. Customer engagement comprising of website design, reliability and perceived ease of use appear to influence the online customer retention through direct and indirect effect

Engagement in Games: Developing an Instrument to Measure Consumer Videogame Engagement and Its Validation

The aim of the study is to develop a new instrument to measure engagement in videogame play termed as consumer videogame engagement. The study followed the scale development procedure to develop an instrument to measure the construct of consumer videogame engagement. In this study, we collected the data in two different phases comprising study 1 (n=136) and study 2 (n=270). We employed SPSS 22.0 for exploratory factor analysis using study 1 respondents to explore the factors for consumer videogame engagement and reliability analysis. Results of EFA resulted with six-factor solution. We further used SmartPLS 3.0 software on study 2 respondents to further confirm the six-factor solution as reflective measurement model on the first-order level, and three second-order formative constructs on the second-order or higher-order level as formative measurement model. Results of the reflective measurement model and formative measurement model evidenced that consumer videogame engagement has strong psychometric properties and is a valid instrument to measure engagement in videogame play. Results also confirmed that consumer videogame engagement is a multidimensional construct as well as a reflective-formative construct. The study is unique in its investigation as it develops an instrument to measure engagement in videogame play which comprises the cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions