An Eyetracking Study on Online Hotel Decision Making: The Effects of Images and umber of Options

Proving a satisfactory online hotel booking experience within limited space on web pages demands a thorough understanding of travelers’ online decision-making behavior. This study investigates how images and number of hotel options displayed on a web page can affect consumers’ decision-making process. Results show that when images were present, the participants spent more time evaluating each hotel option and viewed more hotel options. However, the participants spent less time evaluating each hotel option in the presentation mode featuring more options. Images help to reduce cognitive load and thus allow travelers to view more hotel options and in more depth. The set of 20 hotels are overwhelming to the decision makers

Modeling Online Passwords Protection Intention

Using the Protection Motivation Theory, the paper tests a model password protection intention of online users. Hypotheses are proposed concerning the intention to engage in good password practice. Data were collected from 182 college students who use the Internet. The result suggests that fear, response cost and response efficacy are significantly related to online password protection intention. However, perceived severity and vulnerability are not significant predictors. The study suggests that reducing cognitive costs for passwords is imperative

The Role of Consumer Self-Concept

The growing shift to niche strategies has created a need for context specific research to address issues faced by today’s marketing manager and to determine whether longstanding consumer self-concept issues are pertinent in niche markets. Regarding the context of retailing and the ability of retailers to serve the desires of individual self-identities, streams of research regarding consumer self-concept, store image, service quality, loyalty, and share of wallet have been prominent in research. However, to the best of our knowledge, these concepts have not been concurrently empirically examined in a niche market context. This study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between self-concept, store image, service quality, loyalty, and share of wallet in a high-end niche retail market. This research meets the growing need to investigate concepts relevant to meeting the desires of idiosyncratic individual self-identities in niche markets. A high-end outdoor retail store in the Midwestern US that sells a variety of items pertaining to backpacking, camping, mountain climbing allowed the researchers access to 1000 established customers with a history of repeat purchases, contained on their email database. The store is exclusive to the outdoor enthusiast category and does not sell unrelated items. A survey was developed to obtain the data for this research as well as other data requested by the retailer. The hypotheses were tested by examining the structural model. There is a positive relationship between self-concept and store image. Store image is positively related with loyalty. However, we did not find evidence that actual self-concept is significantly related to service quality perceptions. Service quality is positively related with loyalty and loyalty is positively related with share of wallet. Probably the most surprising outcome of this research is the lack of a significant relationship between consumers’ self-concept and service quality. Three explanations may account for the inability of this study to find such an association. First, it is plausible that consumers who frequent high-end specialty stores assume service quality will be higher than other non-niche stores who may offer similar but lower-quality products as disconfirmation may be driven primarily by product quality evaluations in a high-end retail context. This perception may persist as long as high quality products are present and not offset by egregious service failures. Second, the service quality measure used for this study may have been somewhat limited as it was a broad measure of service quality perceptions. An investigation into more specific dimensions of Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings March 2018 2 Copyright of the Author(s) and published under a Creative Commons License Agreement http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ service quality may provide further insight into how self-concept affects service quality judgements. Finally, the actual process of measuring service quality may have primed a more critical mindset, possibly reducing variance when measuring service quality. However, an examination of the data revealed that this is the least likely explanation since a negativity bias was not evident. A more plausible explanation from psychology literature might come from confirmation bias which posits that individuals seek information that confirms their beliefs. It is plausible that respondents evaluated the service quality as consistently high due to the desire to reinforce that shopping at said retailer was a good decision. This study reinforces self-concept relationships in a niche-retail context. It seems reasonable to conclude that loyalty and share of wallet can be enhanced by improving customer service perceptions. However, the magnitude of this relationship was the smallest of all significant relationships. This suggests that other factors may play a more critical role or that boundary conditions may exist in regards to the relationship between service quality and loyalty in a niche retail context. In the context of a high-end niche sporting goods retailer, store image seemed to serve as a more profound driver of loyalty. Consumers’ actual self-concept was shown to hold a clear positive association with store image in the high-end niche category

Information Disclosure on a Chinese Social Media Platform

The nature of social media encourages people to contribute voluntarily to public web and inevitably, leaving a persistent and cumulative repository of personal information. Aware of the privacy risks, about one third of the Internet users in the United States have expressed concerns of their personal privacy. However, users are often cavalier in the protection of their own data profile. There is often a discrepancy between users’ intentions to protect privacy and their actual heavier. This behavior is often terms as “privacy paradox”. The privacy paradox might arise because users balance between risks and benefits of disclosing information on social media. Using the privacy calculus model as the theoretical background, the study examines how perceived risks and benefits affect information disclosure behavior on a Chinese social media site. In addition, the study investigates the antecedents of perceived benefits and risks as well as the effect of gender on information disclosure behavior. 420 valid responses were collected from a Chinese crowdsourcing website. Partial Least Squares (PLS), specifically SmartPLS 2.0, was used to assess the psychometric properties of the measurement model and to test the hypotheses. The study finds that perceived privacy risk is not significantly related to information disclosure (β=-0.01, p\u3e0.10). However, the relationship between perceived benefits and information disclosure is significant (β=0.18,

Investigating Consumer Concept in a Niche Retail Market

This paper examines the relationship between self-concept, store image, service quality, loyalty, and share of wallet in a high-end niche retail market. Data was obtained from a high-end outdoor retail store customer email database. Partial Least Squares (PLS), was used to assess the psychometric properties of the measurement model and to test the hypotheses. A significant positive relationship was found between actual self-concept and store image; store image and loyalty; service quality and loyalty; and loyalty and share of wallet. This research suggests service quality perceptions, and particularly store image will enhance loyalty and increase share of wallet. The concurrent examination of the constructs in a niche retail context provides unique insights into the importance of self-concept, store image, and service quality as drivers of loyalty and share of wallet. Store image was the most substantial driver of loyalty behavior, followed by self-concept and service quality perceptions, respectively

Innovative solutions for language growth: the impact of problem-based learning via DingTalk on Chinese undergraduates’ business vocabulary amid COVID-19

Amidst the COVID-19, which has necessitated the widespread use of distant learning, there has been a notable increase in the recognition and utilization of inventive pedagogical methods and technological tools in the field of language teaching. The primary objective of this research is to assess the effects of DingTalk-based PBL on the business vocabulary growth of Chinese undergraduates during the pandemic, with a particular focus on remote learning environments. This mixed-methods research employed a sample of 58 participants. The study involved both quantitative vocabulary assessments and qualitative interviews. The quantitative assessments aimed to measure the impact on vocabulary scores, while qualitative interviews were conducted to gather insights into participants’ experiences and perceptions regarding DingTalk-based PBL. The quantitative assessment revealed a significant improvement in business vocabulary scores among the participants who underwent DingTalk-based PBL. This result indicates the platform’s potential to enhance language acquisition. The qualitative interviews provided further insights, with participants expressing positive attitudes toward DingTalk-based PBL. They emphasized its capacity to sustain engagement, foster collaboration, and bridge the gap between remote learning and effective language acquisition. These findings underscore the transformative potential of DingTalk-based PBL in language education, especially in the context of challenges posed by the pandemic. While recognizing the constraints of this study, such as its limited duration and restricted contextual applicability, the research encourages further investigation into sustainable vocabulary expansion, the development of multifaceted language abilities, and the integration of these platforms into emerging hybrid educational frameworks. This study makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing discourse regarding novel technology-based methods in language instruction, providing relevant insights applicable to both present and future educational contexts