Scale for Measuring Effectiveness of Online Review Websites

This work aims to develop a standard scale for measuring the effectiveness of the websites hosting reviews and in the process develop an understanding of the attributes that contribute significantly

EXPLORING TECHNOLOGY TRUST IN BITCOIN: THE BLOCKCHAIN EXEMPLAR

The acceptance of Bitcoin as an electronic currency is steadily on the rise. This implies there is a surge in the diffusion and adoption of the blockchain technology introduced by Bitcoin as well. Moreover, the potential of this novel disruptive technology has been acknowledged by academic researchers and practitioners alike. IS research has shown that trust is a significant antecedent enabling the adoption of a novel technology and attenuating the apprehensions of risk and uncertainty among consumers. Trust in a technology is formed by the trusting beliefs of a trustor regarding the trustworthiness of the IT artifact. The blockchain technology, the trustee, has features like cryptography, decentralization, hash functions, digital signature, consensus mechanism, which embody trust in the technology. We present an extensive description of Bitcoin as an instantiation of the blockchain technology, while offering a detailed account of the literature on trust in a technology. We conceptually present, through the use of knowledge mapping, how blockchain ensures trust in the technology. We propose future research directions for trust research in the blockchain context and urge IS academics to explore trust in this novel context

What We Know and What We Need to Know about Peer Platforms - Airbnb and Uber

Peer-to-peer collaborative consumption platforms posit a new way of organizing economic activity that has disrupted the traditional business models predominantly in the hospitality and travel spaces. In this study, we synthesize the mainstream academic research conducted in the domain of accommodation and ride sharing services by conducting a systematic literature review. We identified six themes- trust, reputation, optimization, participation, design and social aspects and we present the significant works in each theme. The relevant studies identified were also mapped based on the type of the shared service and the targeted stakeholders, namely providers, consumers and IS artifact, addressed in each study. The review and mapping provides a significant understanding of the focal areas investigated so far and uncovers potential research areas

Barriers to Adoption of Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology, the underpinning of Bitcoin, has been widely acknowledged as the technical innovation of the 21st century. But even after a decade since its inception, Bitcoin is still the only widely known and somewhat mainstream application of the technology. In this study, we conduct an inductive content analysis of archival data to identify 16 barriers inhibiting the mainstream adoption of the blockchain technology. The barriers to the adoption of a technology are not simply the opposites of the enablers. Thus, we advocate that an understanding of the barriers will aid in the recognition of the limitations of the current state of blockchain technology. The barriers identified can guide future work by academics and practitioners and help attain technical maturity

Towards An Understanding of Signaling, Network Embeddedness and Online Crowdfunding Success

Online platforms are becoming increasingly popular and a mainstream business model for several industries. Crowdfunding is an online platform enabled financial service that has become very popular over the last decade and fundamentally changed the mechanism of fund raising. Crowdfunding platforms enable fund seekers to raise funds for various causes from a crowd of funders via an open call. But despite the popularity of the phenomenon, a substantial number of projects fail to raise the desired amount of funding, thus success rate overall is very low. Crowdfunding platforms are characterized by information asymmetry, that is information is unevenly distributed between the two sides of a crowdfunding market. Therefore, fund seekers partake signaling to convey information cues in order to meet the informational needs of the funders and ease their decision making. But the increasing popularity of the phenomenon has made the signaling environment rather complex in which numerous fund seekers are undertaking signaling to attract support for their projects. Moreover, platform governance mechanisms are distinctive elements of crowdfunding platforms that dictates the funding dynamics and ultimately the outcome of the crowdfunding projects. This dissertation develops a refined understanding of the signaling process in a crowdfunding environment and the implications of a particular type of governance mechanism called boundary resources for crowdfunding performance. The findings indicate that signaling is rather complex in crowdfunding environments because signals moderateeach other’s effectiveness. On the other hand, structurally and junctionally embedded online communities are valuable resources for crowdfunding projects because they affect crowdfunding performance. The dissertation contributes to the literature on crowdfunding, signaling theory, network embeddedness and boundary resources and offers several implications for crowdfunding practitioners

Impact of Regulations on Sharing Economy

Sharing economy platforms like Uber and Airbnb are being subjected to regulations by governing bodies to safeguard the interests of their local communities. While existing research suggests that such regulations are detrimental for the sharing phenomenon, platforms like Uber and Airbnb have continued to grow and thrive. Theorizing on the basis of signaling theory and uncertainty reduction theory we argue that regulations can be beneficial for sharing services. Treating the case of the city of New Orleans that implemented regulations for licensing Airbnb listings in April of 2017 as a natural experiment, we conducted a difference-in-differences analysis at a micro level using balanced panel data sets and a suitable control group. Our findings show regulations had a positive effect and it led to an increase in the performance of the service providers by 23%. Our study provides empirical evidence in support of regulations for the sharing economy